Whatever happened to Hero of Allacrost?

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Jastiv
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Whatever happened to Hero of Allacrost?

Post by Jastiv »

I've noticed the site is down, taken offline for some reason it looks like. I've also noticed the project on sourceforge seems very inactive for some reason. (As in no development work going on) Did everyone just up and abandon it?
http://wogralddev.blogspot.com/

Wograld - our graphics requirements are less demanding.
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zookeeper
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Re: Whatever happened to Hero of Allacrost?

Post by zookeeper »

Jastiv wrote:Did everyone just up and abandon it?
As far as I know: for all intents and purposes, yes.
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Jetrel
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Re: Whatever happened to Hero of Allacrost?

Post by Jetrel »

Yeah.

For myself (their primary terrain artist) the art requirements were impossibly steep (4x the cost of FF6, plus the cost of street fighter, all in one game), and I found a better home working on Frogatto.

Allacrost's lead coder unfortunately had some severe motivational problems; he was quite dedicated to the project (probably still is), but couldn't reliably turn this into actual work. Typically, he'd be gung ho about stuff for about a month or two, and then would disappear, cutting off internet communication for a few months. His second fatal flaw was that he would too easily "silo" himself into non-vital specialized work on some engine feature, when crucial, central features of gameplay were left unfinished. Related to this - on a project he was writing the story and characters for, he failed to move forward with story and content development. He stalled forever on coming up with ability sets for the main characters, map development for the first chapters of the story, and any continuation of the story past the third chapter.

I treat allacrost as a textbook example of an open-source project lead failing to provide leadership by example. If you do an open-source project, you, the main guy, need to charge forward and finish off any necessary aspects people aren't filling in. If it means level design, you do it. If it means making sound effects, you do it. If it means boring scripting, you do it. If it means doing programmer art, you do it. If it means upgrading crappy programmer art to something that's not embarrassing, you either learn art, or pay some pro to do it, out of your own pocket. Simply speaking, if your subordinates aren't doing something, you must dive in and accomplish it yourself. With aplomb.

I don't have any hard feelings towards Roots - I still think he's a stand-up guy, and I'd buy him a beer; I just can't dedicate my life to working on a project which he's (mis)managing, because I think I can do a better job, and life is short.
Play Frogatto & Friends - a finished, open-source adventure game!
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Jetrel
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Re: Whatever happened to Hero of Allacrost?

Post by Jetrel »

Interestingly, there is someone working on a fork.

https://github.com/Bertram25/ValyriaTear/
Play Frogatto & Friends - a finished, open-source adventure game!
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