Evolution (Project Cancelled)

[Vascant]

Which is a sad, sad statement, given that the whole core of ENWorld's existance is as a digital community.

Nothing to be sad about really, it is just ENWorld and clearly not the entire or even a majority of the industry. So I tried something new, the ENnies, and lost. Nothing ventured nothing gained.

 

[Vocenoctum]

Which is a sad, sad statement, given that the whole core of ENWorld's existance is as a digital community.

ALso amusing considering the excessive love PDF's get here, that actual software gets kicked to the basement.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Maybe this is a crazy statement...but maybe, just maybe, the judges felt that there were other, better products out there?

Hell, I've tried NPC Designed and I love it, and obviously many others have, too. But that doesn't mean there's not going to be better things out there.

And I'm sorry that you didn't get the nomination you hoped for, but cancelling THIS project because you didn't get nominated looks petty and makes it seem like you're only doing these things for the recognition of the ENnies.

 

[Anurien]

We have a commercial RPG accessory in development and I shudder to think what a ten minute view would do for it.

This sounds intriguing....what does this accessory do?

 

[talmar]

Vas...All I can say is I'm sorry you didn't get nominated. As soon as I found out about all the Ennies crap I went out bought NPCD to show my support for you and your outstanding program.

I use more than a handful of electronic aides and for anybody to say they aren't gaming accessories or aides simply is blind to gaming in modern millenium.

I hope to see Evolution one day as I'm sure it'll be as revolutionary as NPCD is.

 

[Vascant]

Maybe this is a crazy statement...but maybe, just maybe, the judges felt that there were other, better products out there?

Hell, I've tried NPC Designed and I love it, and obviously many others have, too. But that doesn't mean there's not going to be better things out there.

And I'm sorry that you didn't get the nomination you hoped for, but cancelling THIS project because you didn't get nominated looks petty and makes it seem like you're only doing these things for the recognition of the ENnies.

I guess you are not understanding what some of us see as the issue, it is not just NPC Designer but in fact no software was even given a nod. While I will agree the mini of the horse and ride, wow. What I looked were all the nominations compared to what the different software developers offered, what can I say.,.. 5 people have an opinion which seems to be rather strange. ENnies for me no longer stand for Excellence in gaming but rather, 5 opinions on free products. Then again, thats my opinion We all have one of them.

Evolution itself is not cancelled just the time I put to other sites and keeping things updated. Alpha testers are still getting there update today and we are still talking on a daily basis about features and functionalities. The last 2 days have really been great, in fact some of the better coding days I have had in a good few months. From this point forward I am not going to worry about selling or press releases, just keep myself concerned with the people who seem to appreciate the software I develop. There is a good chance on August 1st (The 1 year mark for selling NPC Designer) I just may get out of the selling business completely. I have a great group of people already involved in the Alpha testing and another list of NPC Designer users for the beta testing. The person above who questioned why I do this is right, why do I do this? I just love to code and want better software for my game. I started with that idea but some where along the line got a little lost, I am not so lost anymore. Am I doing this because of the ENnies or Enworld, nope.. doing it because I really want to do what I love.

On the wizard's digital forum a group of us software developers and some customers had an excellent discussion about what competition brings to this industry from a software stand point. It does a lot of good, just as does recognition for hard work. No matter what I am going to wake up every day for the rest of my life and code or create software, it is the only thing that relaxes me and keeps me at balance at a personal level. I need that challange and drive to succeed. Is that bad? Don't know and don't care, but it is me and who I am. This is why most NPC Designer customers have nothing to worry about, I can stop selling it today and next week there will be an update for it. Why, because I use it because even if I no longer sell it I still feel I owe it to my current customers to make it better whenever I can. I have wanted to get out from selling since about the 4th month, I hate it but everytime I get to the point of doing it, someone manages to convince me to hold on a little longer. As my wife said last night, I am getting old and retired.. time to take it easy.

 

[Vascant]

I hope to see Evolution one day as I'm sure it'll be as revolutionary as NPCD is.

The Alpha is going smooth, currently have about 200+ monsters in the system and now working on fine tuning things and reworking some of the code generators to provide data changes where needed. I also ran the FRCS dataset thru the converter last night and really pleased with what I have seen thus far. If we keep pushing at the current rate, I see no reason why in August we don't move to beta.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

I guess you are not understanding what some of us see as the issue, it is not just NPC Designer but in fact no software was even given a nod. While I will agree the mini of the horse and ride, wow. What I looked were all the nominations compared to what the different software developers offered, what can I say.,.. 5 people have an opinion which seems to be rather strange. ENnies for me no longer stand for Excellence in gaming but rather, 5 opinions on free products. Then again, thats my opinion We all have one of them.

Obviously can't argue an opinion.

However, the best way to fix the problem(beyond getting a software only catagory put in...which I agree should be done for next year), is to vote for new judges. If the judges opinions don't mesh with yours...well, vote for new ones. There's always a very diverse group that run to be a judge, and even though repeat judges are fairly common...I expect it wouldn't be too difficult to find judges that see the industry like you, and many others, do.

I AM glad to hear you aren't just stopping on Evolution. Even if it doesn't end up for the public, it looks like another amazing program.

 

[Vascant]

However, the best way to fix the problem(beyond getting a software only catagory put in...which I agree should be done for next year), is to vote for new judges. If the judges opinions don't mesh with yours...well, vote for new ones. There's always a very diverse group that run to be a judge, and even though repeat judges are fairly common...I expect it wouldn't be too difficult to find judges that see the industry like you, and many others, do.

Actually the change has to go deeper then just, new judges. Needs to be run like a firing squad in some ways. Though aimed at awards and not a victim.
Each catagory should have a list of areas that are graded on a scale of 1 to 10, I would suggest each catagory having 5-10 different areas/criteria/elements to be judged.

Now we need 10 judges, when a product is judged by all 10 of the judges we initially toss the highest and lowest ones giving us 8 remaining. From that 8 randomly select 5 and add up the score and that becomes the product's score. We take of the 5 highest scoring products for each catagory and those are your nominations.

Yes I know I am very biased about NPC Designer but I think I have good reason, you can search everywhere and the idea of an Intelligent Generation System does not exist and in most cases it just a fantasy. This is why I am taking Evolution away from view by the public because it is freaking scary based on what it can already accomplish, I have a current customer base who understands what I am doing.. What else do I need?

Nope, if I want my ENnie I can go to Monte Cook's site and read his review, after all he probably knows more about this industry then 5 judges who's only credit is a combined 100k in posts.

 

[Steel_Wind]

This sounds intriguing....what does this accessory do?

Sorry, NDA and all that. When we are ready to talk about it (and it will be quite a while before that happens) we'll make a lot of noise then and I'm sure you'll hear about it.