Is Shadow of Lylat really dead ?

[psy_commando]

I just saw this on the SoL forums : http://www.game-warden.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15270

:(

[RennardFuchs]

Sad day... really sad...

[Robert Monroe]

My one last bastion of hope for the SF community. Gone.

Meh.

[Thu'um]

*sighs*

i would have rather went on dreaming it would some day be real. ignorance is really bliss

[Icy]

Well then. At least we did get some new info finally. Sad day, but I can't say I ever expected to see it finished. It's been in development for what, 10+ years? A mod? Nah.

I do hope they can release maybe a demo build and/or some assets of what they had, just so the SoL fans can finally get something for all the years they've waited.

[LoneWolf]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqyUAtzS_6M

[Scourge]

Salute to the fallen.

I was really hoping this would end up finished... but Life's life, gotta roll with the punches :l

[The Shaper]

I can't say I am distraught. Saw a bit of this back in the day, looked good. Now? Not so much, not even a fan of SF anymore.

Still, this looked promising, shame it won't be finished.

[FoxMcCloud]

Well it was sad to see this go. I was really rooting for this project too.

[conaly]

Hi,

personally I've given up waiting a long time ago, but still somehow had the hope, that SoL will be finished. Too bad, but I can absolutely understand the reasons, as some friends and I also had to abandon a project which we were working on for years, because most of us went to university, into flight training or got kids...

[jeth]

Well that sucks.... ah well, I didn't really think they were going to finish it anyways.

[Salem]

[thunderflare]

I saw this a while back, but after realizing they had been doing the project for over 2 years I was hoping that they'd get it done soon. Sadly I guess not. :(

[Peter]

This is kind of like StarFox Command. Everyone was expecting something awesome, but got nothing like they wanted.

Then again, Command was actually finished.

[Psygonis]

Then again, Command was actually finished.

If making SoL had been our job, it'd have been finished a looong time ago.

We're all grown-ups, we've all got jobs, studies, families and so on and so forth. It's sad to look back, wondering whether we could have done more, I know.

The bright side of this is that we're contacting all the team members in order to get everyone's permission to release what's been done so far. Models, musics, artworks, source-code and such. For the moment, several members cleared the procedure so we might let your hands on some fun stuff in the end!

Anyway, thanks for your support from SFO. It's been quite an adventure, to be involved in that project!

[Robert Monroe]

While I'm glad you enjoyed what you did...

Man, I was sitting on this puppy since 2003 when it was first announced. Ah well..

[sroberson]

While I'm glad you enjoyed what you did...

Man, I was sitting on this puppy since 2003 when it was first announced. Ah well..

Agreed, except I only found out about it a couple months ago and it immediately changed my belief in how a new SF game should be set up. The multiplayer promos that were shown for the game were what made me really cross my fingers because it looked like it would be mind bogglingly fun

[DZComposer]

I think it was the scope creep that killed it, I really do. Had we kept to the original plan, we may have actually released something.

The last gasp was an attempt to switch from Freespace2 to the Unity engine. There was a small burst of activity, but nothing significant came from it.

Watch for a music dump from me. I will be releasing anything I did for this project that is worth releasing.

Of course, I probably won't release anything that was early WIP, but anything finished will definitely be released.

[DZComposer]

Sorry for the double-post, but I need to say something:

Don't bash the dev team over this. It was a volunteer effort, and we tried to keep it alive as long as we could. Too many people left. Those that stayed tried to keep it going, but I think the scope creep just got too much, especially with the engine switch. There was more work to be done than people to do it.

No one was getting paid for this. It was pure volunteer effort, and the problem with that is Real Life gets in the way. People have career moves. People have kids. People have other real life things that pop up. When that happens, little things like working on a fangame get pushed aside.

[sroberson]

No hate here, I have deep respect for the people who worked on SoL - Especially the programmers because I wish I was any good at programming haha.

I meant to ask earlier actually...But are there any working parts of the game that can be played? Or is it in too many pieces? I just recall from the demos that I saw, it looked pretty functional to me.

[Robert Monroe]

Not bashing or hating, just really sad D:

[Star Fox Runner]

It's a shame that this never came to fruition, this was the one SF related fan project I thought would actually be released. Sadly life gets in the way as others have already said.

RIP SoL, and thanks to all the hardworking dev members who attempted to make it a reality.

[Hope(N Forever)]

I am wondering whether it is possible, as long as the project remains volunteer-based, that its development team would simply switch hands to another dedicated group of people who'd love to see this game actually coming through eventually. With so much material already available, I can see it easily build upon and following the same path and vision the original development team had. In fact, the members of the original development team could even decide amongst themselves who would stay with this possible new team as consultants, keeping the project's overly-ambitious vision consistent.

I mean, think of it this way. It is just like Star Fox themselves. The team's name and goals remains the same, but Star Fox had different members over the years. What's important is that Star Fox, as this entity, simply remains around to protect Corneria and the rest of the Lylat system from whatever threat there is.

[StarFoxfan-FUR_ever]

Technically speaking, yes, that would be possible, Hope. However, one would think the dev team would only be willing to hand the semi-finished project over to a group of people they can trust. How would you feel if you were in the process of enhancing the look and design of a "mountain/valley" area, only to find that the finished product did not include your contributions, or rather, was done over from scratch because someone else thought their design looked better? Same thing for the storyboard. I'm certain the original team would not be happy to find very noticeable changes to the story they envisioned.

[DZComposer]

We've left it up to the people who made the assets as to whether or not they would be released. Most of the people seem to want to.

I've already released the music I did that I felt was worthy of being released. (The stuff that wasn't is VERY incomplete)

To anyone else wanting to do a mod, I have some advice:

Nail-down what you want to do as early as possible. Like before you start building things. Form a plan, and stick to it. If you're the leader, read up on Project Management. If you're not the leader, suggest that the leader read-up on project management. If you get additional major ideas during the development process, hold them. Maybe you can do a second release later. Scope Creep is a big enemy! Avoid it, or your project may suffer the same fate as Shadows. Yeah, it may mean cutting a cool idea you got while mission planning, but a release without that feature is better than the project dying from feature changes. I honestly think if we had stuck to being a mission set for FS2, this mod would have been released years ago. But, we decided to do a total-conversion (We're talking powerups, the Barrel Roll mechanic, and even on-rails missions), but had to wait for the SCP to catch-up to what we wanted. And then we decided to scrap using the FSO engine entirely in favor of Unity and I think it just created too much work for a volunteer team.