The Pulse: Community Catch Up | 2WC 13 Nov

[Lifesence]

I didn't want to make a post like this but considering it's been a year since FL's closure with little to no acknowledge I thought it was time.

I thought it was a good idea to bring FL down for a while to get people to get that itch to play FL again, rather than it be constantly up and dead, but a year is a stupid amount of time. It has gone too far now, to the point that people have finally survived the withdrawal they may have had for FL, and are now ready to move on from FL as a whole. I always thought splitting it between 3 people was stupid in terms of ownership. I get the impression that none of you ever want to sell and that FL will die with you, but why? You want to own the server, only for it to close or die on your terms? If you really cared about the server you would give it to someone who would actively look after it at this point.

I genuinely don't care who owns it now, I'd rather have someone I dislike own it, than have it dead in the ground. If you kept the server up regardless of its failure, I wouldn't be saying what I am now - even if you weren't making updates for it and leaving it up. Unfortunately, it's gotten to a laughable point now. I like you all independently outside of FL, but please just give it up at this point, or give us something more than a 'pulse thread', which uses terminology the majority of us don't understand or won't even bother to read - As long as it's upfront with the player base.

It's the worst kept secret that nothing substantial has been done to resurrect the server over a long period of time for the last year. The constant need to be in a position of power for a GMod server is addictive and I understand, but just do what I did and let it go. I know I can't preach, as I wasn't the best owner ever, but it's sad to see FL in the state its currently in. Not everything I've said is aimed at each 'Manager' as a whole, there are bits that are aimed independently here and there and I can only imagine the aggravating it is to share a community. When I was in talks with Conn about transferring ownership it was suggested that I stay and it be split, but that was something I could not handle nor see as a good idea.

I can get behind this. I was eager to come back for a while, but now it feels like it's been too long. It's easy to say now, but it should at least be a server to be on while changes were applied gradually. Take any multiplayer game offline for a year and see how many comes back without it being an entirerly new game.

[De CodeerHeer]

Looking back on this, the approach they've taken to "fixing" the gamemode with a year-long downtime is quite satisfying. Additionally, there is still no set deadline or playable server available.

As a former developer for Fearless, the current state of the gamemode is a complete mess. It's no surprise considering the multitude of people with varying intentions, mindsets, and beliefs who have contributed to it, myself included.

My main point is that with this extensive downtime, I'd expect either a complete rewrite or to move it to the legacy stack, instead of trying to revive something that should have been retired years ago. The current practices overseen by the supposed "owners" appear to be a terrible joke, leaving the community feeling greatly let down.

Even before this period began, I had already accepted that the enjoyable times I had playing Fearless wouldn't be replicated in this new environment, which can now be unofficially deemed dead. It seems they haven't realized this yet. It's time to stop futile efforts. Stop pulling that dead horse. Let it die in peace.

[Nacreas]

Despite the downtime and knowing that there is little to no activity, I still find myself checking the forums every day. Old habits perhaps, one thing is for certain and that's I am not alone there.

Quite frankly I don't actually believe anyone wants to see FL die, though some will argue it already has. I'm not going to preach that there's a lot of hope here for some sort of mass revival, but is there really anything to lose by just turning the server back on at this point? Might be a laugh for a weekend, or people might revert to old habits. Who knows what would happen, but I would be interested in jumping-on and I would be curious to see who might follow.

[Emish]

We got GTA 6 trailer before FL 2

[Lewwings]

Been lurking on this thread a few days, and I have some general opinions on what I've gathered so far.

So a little over a year ago, when the server was shut down, I wished the developers "good luck" in trying to redevelop Fearless from the ground up after what can only be described as a year of woeful stagnation and utter failure (despite the efforts of some good souls). I was still on the team at that time, and had a good deal of careful optimism about what could be done to "fix" Fearless and how that could be done.

I had no idea that more than a year later, the situation would be so... extinct.

A year on, the situation is actually worse than it was when the servers were taken offline. Things weren't great then either, but there was still a community of sorts back then... now it feels more like a bunch of vultures circling the discord and forums, especially this past week after this thread was initially put up.

The whole Conn-Fultz-Management ownership situation back in January was an interesting experience, I can't help but feel the wrong decision was made and the last serious hope of reviving Fearless (however controversial and radical it was) was lost. Since then, it's been kind of bland, and despite these 'pulses' being initially a great way to communicate with the goings on of development, a full year on more substantial progress and types of announcement were anticipated.

Banning vocal community members during such a low point as this, even if they are noisily against the team, was honestly such a stupid idea. Jan and Mist, decade-long community members kicked out because those they were mad at couldn't handle the heat from the fire they started was really something special. It really did have a negative effect on any community discourse since by that point (in May?): any activity was good activity.

At its core, Fearless is a voluntary effort, and the above is not to diminish the fact that contributing and developing for a project such as this is based on the free time and availability of its team members, who have real life commitments and a life to live. That being said, beyond development ideas, it doesn't really look or feel much like there is a plan of any kind for concluding this endless development cycle and moving closer towards relaunch.

Is there a point where our Three Wise Men of ownership level honestly with those who remain here?


Also Shoutout to Divey for raising some seriously percipient points.

[Haarek]

I know I can't preach, as I wasn't the best owner ever, but it's sad to see FL in the state its currently in.

When SoulRipper transferred ownership to you this is not what he envisioned.

Ultimately it was your responsibility. And I find it sad how you haven't realised your incredible lacklustre management of FL until now. Because you let people dramatically influence you and FL ended up in the wrong hands when you inevitably lost interest. Honestly, I think you owe all the people who put faith in you as an owner an apology before you make any attempt to critique the management that ultimately is a result of you. I have my respects for you, because I know you ultimately want well for FL, but you let FL slip through your fingers and fall into unpredictable hands - which is exactly what you were not supposed to do.

What made Soul the perfect owner is that he was consistent. You could put your faith in him. When he said he would never let FL die and fund it from his own money if necessary it was honest words from a person who truly cared. Now we have a management team covertly dictated by Pollux under the masquerade of a collective ownership. Great.

[Divey]

I'm going to try and cover the points that have been raised since my post.

First of all, I think in regards to if there is anything to take over, I don't think there is. However, I do know that there are people actively wanting to acquire FL still which gives me hope, although I feel it is wasted at best.

In terms of this 'year of development time' that the developers have been promising (and what I've seen hopeful people speak about), the truth is anyone who is actively friends with anybody on the team right now knows that there has been a large amount of infighting within the team (what's new? And you can be pretty sure that the quickly deleted resignation threads over the last few months have been part of that) and there has been next to no development on the game mode in the last year, maybe a few weeks worth at best? 

Nothing I've said has been to discredit the work that HAS been put in, as I know some Developers have personally told me about the work they have done. However in terms of the GRAND scheme of things the MAJOR stuff that people are waiting on hasn't been done and is constantly getting delayed in favor of management spending their own time on enjoying life. I'm not going to say this is a bad thing, life always comes first - but why would you purchase FL with your own money, if you're just going to shut it down for a year and not make it your priority? It's your responsibility to be upfront with the community that you are now the caretaker for. The 'recent' purchase of FL in my mind was simply serving as a self-serving ego-boost, if nothing else.

I'm not going to name names on the statements I've made so far, everyone can come to their own educated guesses - but I know people have actively wanted to work on FL and been shut down because it's not deemed 'FL' enough. While I think that may have been a fair judgement when FL was thriving, now I think ANY update from a developer who clearly cares about FLs well-being is a need right now (other than what we currently have, which is nothing but utter stagnation).

I'm surprised we haven't seen more resignations, but I can only admire those that actually want to stay and help (whether it's in vain or not and shout out to Noda for somehow avoiding demotion for what probably is 7+ years now).

In response to Haarek (as I feel it's the most direct reply out of the ones I've seen so far). In terms of what Soul envisioned, you don't know the private conversations we've had, so I think putting out a blank statement like that isn't necessarily fair.

However, I won't disagree with you in terms of other people's influences. Running a server was NOT easy, which is something Conn and I spoke about briefly after his takeover. Unfortunately, I made some decisions now that I didn't necessary want to make. Unfortunately, due to a mix of my lack of technical insight and those that I trusted being inactive, I had to promote people that I didn't necessarily get on with nor agree with, for the sake of anything actually being done at the time. 

I criticize myself for a lot of my decisions as owner, I should have trusted my own vision for what I wanted FL to be. However, I was trying to keep people happy so that we didn't have our only developers step down and have FL be left with nothing. I didn't truly feel like I had the power to do what I wanted, which sounds stupid now - but at the time was a real issue.

It's easy to say now what I would have wanted to do, whether it be revert weapons, have a clear focus on aggressive-rp with the introduction of bank heists, etc - as well as being more lenient on forum moderation. But, when nobody wants to make those updates, what then? And to be clear, that's with money involved - and it doesn't help that our gamemode is awful for any external developer, nor was anyone necessarily trusting with our game mode to even entertain that idea. Even when external development was suggested, team members would argue that we should prioritize the actual team, even if they wouldn't want to work on any of the proposed updates themselves. There are a million things I could have done better in terms of communication, but it panned out the way it did and now all I can do is voice my own experience of the situation.

If I could go back, I would have sold it to either Forgee or Fultz - I went with Conn because he's someone people liked and I think he did a good job, but life got in the way and if we're looking at it from a realistic standpoint, I know Forgee was probably someone who would have financially put a lot into FL (just like he did with Jagged).

At the end of the day, everyone has their own perspective of the last few years, people will hate me, people will hate the current team. When I decided to leave FL I moved on entirely, but that doesn't mean I want FL to die - hence why I waited a year to make my original post. I wish the current team all the best in their en-devours. I don't think my post will do anything, but it was worth something rather than not saying anything.

[Byra]

You cannot purely accuse the ones after Divey and himself in this process, hence the community was already on its way to die even when Soul existed. There is no need to be hardcore politicians over a tiny community that we all had memories with or cry about the things that had already happened. I wouldn’t care at all as it’s been more than 3 years by now, but just open up the server and let it die in peace as some people already proposed. I’m not even gonna hop on if that happens as I got much to do but guys come on now… This goes mostly to the management as I’ve really been irritated when I read all these; stop being pathetic and be grown ups already, all of us got their good memories in it, everybody will accept the fact if you just let it go. This was for the sake of my 7 years here, peace out all of ya.

[Marty]

Divey once abused admin powers for me and spawned a shit ton of ingredients for Molotovs and I gave him the cashish.

Mavis coded backdoors into the game mode.

Dr Internet is a splitter and focussed on limeshite.


Everyone's opinions here are tainted.

#Marty4Owner

[Montana]

Give us server, thanks