My thoughts on the PB series...

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My thoughts on the PB series...

Postby monstarules » 5 September 2017, 08:06

Time for a long ranty post.

I am glad to see some older users around. I will say, a lot of fun happened between 2011-2014, but after 2014, there was a sharp decline of users. I will never forget the words "I want gun". You vets should aaaaalll know what I am talking about (gunshop maps, for you newer sorts). Gunshops were tons of fun, and raiding clan maps was also fun. However, as clans just stopped being popular and had many impersonators, they also became quite pointless (the lack of the clan system had something to do with that).

A big reason of decline was the lack of updates, but in addition to that, there were schisms in the staff, rude staff, staff that outright lied to EG, and more staff issues. Oh, and people making gunshop maps to have s*x by abusing the ragdolls, hacking, and glitching were probably a contributing factor. The petty hacking that occured on clan sites was also rather amusing, but it created so much animosity, and the fact that promised features never came out also added something into the mix. These forums took way too long to come up, and they were too late to do much.

Oh, and the non-interaction with the community and the staff had something to do with it. I remember trying to talk to Spaz and PixelVoxel when they were admins, and they acted like they were better than the community, and didn't care (well, they are certainly not staff anymore so they got what they deserved). Perhaps the lack of implementing community suggestions also had an impact; the widely suggested actual sniper rifle didn't come out until 2013.

Can't forget the stupid ban reasons and the censorship things too. That needs to be loosened up. We all used to be able to cuss, now we can't swear or even say certian players names in the chat. People used to get banned for it too. Maybe it's because I am an American, but censorship sucks. I'm sure PB 2.5 will be popular but it is what happens in the first months of the release that sets up this game for a true success. I'm liking what I am seeing. However, flash games like this are set to expire, if PB 2.5 doesn't get programmed with an actual language, like C++, Java, or C, we're probably going to end up witnessing a game with a short lifespan, as NPAPI plugins are being nuked off of pretty much every browser.

We are living in a time where technology outgrows itself. Just spanning in a time from 17-3 years ago, Internet flash games were what made this world go round. Now, even the most standard computers that are cheap can run at least Minecraft, older Battlefield games (a laptop with an i5 can run BF4 era games with a quite playable framerate), indie games that don't require much such as Project Reality, and much more. The interest level is declining in online flash games, and older OS'es are getting updates that make them stop working, so that people have to upgrade.

I'd like to see PB2.5 keep it's sidescrolling style, that is definitely a popular and unique thing. I do like the 2.5d graphics. I like the increase of things, and the customization of characters that is being promised. However, what causes games to fail is not following through. I know Eric does this mostly in his spare time by himself. Con Artist Games released a game called Warfare: Online, which had a tremendous start, but no updates due to lack of staff/funds. It was a game that had so much potential, but too little content, and it failed because the staff was unable to keep it up and running.

Eric probably should set up a donation page of sorts so that we can help him somehow. Some of us may have programming skills (I for one am actually an expert with programming logic, and I learn languages fast, and if you ask me for an example, I could provide), graphical art skills, and might be able to help him, and he probably could use better translators/voice actors for the audio, or text. Maybe he should take some applications for GAME DEVELOPMENT staff. Yes, people help by acting as forum moderators, and hacker catchers, and whatnot, but there needs to be more actual behind the scenes staff and contributors.

Any criticism or response is welcome!
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Re: My thoughts on the PB series...

Postby MI6 AGENT 007 » 5 September 2017, 18:36

My thought of the PB series was great PB1 was hard but PB2 was easier because of time warp and the health system PB2 SP was pretty easy to me, SP was easy and I when I found out about MP it was full of users and so many updates and new events going on. But look at PB2 now decline in users, staffplay event died, Staffs not showing up in chat or even bothering to, WA server is gone, Site crashed a whole bunch of times during the summer, no new events happening, you see the same users everyday, more bad people are in this community, guests are getting worser because of what I went through with them, problems are arising(Main reason why people are probably leaving this site), Map makers quitting, no new maps out there, people starting to lose interest in 2.5 because I heard it will be released in 2020?! What?! And then another good reason is Eric Gurt is not taking the time to read everyone's problems or complaints about this site and fixing it IE: bug issues with this sites, Coolbuddy is even taking time off which leaves Eric doing everything on this site( which seems stressful that he's probably taking time off from working on 2.5 and other stuff), chat is dead almost 24/7, Eric is sorta avoiding questions about 2.5 and is saying its only 16% ( I know it has to be more than 16% done) If you dont believe me ask Mingo he has a video about him avoiding questions. And Eric if you reading this please reply to this topic because almost everyone wants to hear what you have to say about this community dying and people saying PB2 is dead. I mean it was a great good community and hate to see it collapse.
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Re: My thoughts on the PB series...

Postby monstarules » 5 September 2017, 20:56

I saw it a long time ago. I would put more thought into it, but I just wont at this point. It's obvious Eric is alone in his efforts rn. If this game is truly set to be rolled out in another 3 years, I just don't know if I will still be interested. A lot of the older vets of this community, myself included, are close to being in, if not already in our 20's, and going to school, or working. There are enough games and gaming communities out there that would be more than happy to have additional members, and if we are trying to have fun, we won't be beating a dead horse. Some of us are rather patient, but a lot of us are rather fed up with a few things (from what I can see, and personally attest to) and don't have any issues heading to greener pastures. My clan especially was annoyed with quite a few things, and we actively tried to get the game changed for the better.

While I do respect Eric for everything good that he has done, I cannot respect some of his other decisions, such as working on 2.5 alone and not allowing anyone else to assist in development, except for "creative idea supplier"s or forum/game moderators. I also didn't go too much into the censorship I have witnessed here. It can only be described as fubar. It's just messed up. I do not support censorships like this on an online forum where the majority of persons are in their teens-twenties. This isn't Catholic school. When the censorship crackdown started, it really killed the playerbase. I'm all for banning the posting of pornography and racism, but as far as it goes, someone getting banned for saying the wrong name, or dropping an f bomb, is just simply childish. Oh, and making polite complaints, that are organized, and well put about the situation has also attracted administrator attention in the past and gotten people banned.

Too bad what we think doesn't really matter though, at the end of the day, he pays the bills for this stuff.
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Re: My thoughts on the PB series...

Postby MI6 AGENT 007 » 6 September 2017, 01:22

He could at least take some time to check out the problems arising in the site tho, and again I really hate to see a wonderful community like this completely collapse.
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Re: My thoughts on the PB series...

Postby GhostX5 » 11 September 2017, 05:39

Agreed. I don't want this community to collapse and die due to 1 reason. Upon hearing the thing about Adobe killing Flash Player in year 2020, I was completely devastated by this, everyone would be like, "What's going to happen with other games that were run by Flash Player?", unfortunately they would become .exe files and would cause a lot of damn problems to every player who planned to download things especially this.

Plus, about Eric Gurt releasing PB2.5 in year 2020. Seriously? Why are you releasing it in the same exact year Adobe would start the extermination of the Flash Player? I don't think I would be able to play games anymore, since I would be graduating senior high school, up to college, then reaching up to my military enlistment. If there's a chance for me to reach PB2.5's release, I would be catching up to it and playing the game, seeing how it works. Been waiting for this about 2 years, now it'll reach up to 5 years, due to some things that are still incomplete.

I know players are losing interest to PB2.5, but I'd wish they would come back to play PB2.5 once it's released. For me, I wouldn't lose my interest in this, even it takes years to complete, plus new games too.
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Re: My thoughts on the PB series...

Postby Dr Jekyll » 12 September 2017, 06:40

The problem with PB 2.5 is that it's been promised and hyped up but never released, even as an alpha. Interest has died down in all but the most fervent users, such as yourselves. I myself am fairly new to this community, but I don't think there is much hope for any revitalization for several reasons:

1. Disinterest
Despite the fact that PB 2 is amazing for a flash game, it still is a flash game and there (obviously) exist better shooter games out there. Along with the disinterest that spawns from an aging game, experienced players leave due to their friends having done the same. Without said experienced players, the game devolves into any other multiplayer platform and loses its unique charm.

2. People change
As Ghost mentioned (I'm still not entirely clear on quoting), eventually we all will age out and lose the ability to play this game as much as we could before. This has most likely happened to the original generation of players.

3. Lack of change in the game itself
Remember some while back, when guests got randomized names? That era, at least to me, seemed to have far more guests than before, along with more confidence in their play style and dialogue. The reversion destroyed all of that. Change keeps this game going.

Essentially, either the current generation of players needs to come up with their own charm, memes, and play style, new players need to come in, or updates in any aspect of the game need to happen in order for this game to keep going.

... or you could just release PB 2.5
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Re: My thoughts on the PB series...

Postby monstarules » 14 September 2017, 18:55

We do need to remember that 2.5 is nowhere near ready to release. There is no campaign, and we wouldn't want just re-skinned 2. As far as it goes, from what I am seeing, Eric is not making this in flash, and indeed is making it in an actual programming language...from what I understand. I could be wrong. Regardless, what happens next is what happens next. He is singularly developing the game, and doesn't want outside help, from what I have seen. That is one of his biggest issues. He currently is doing it alone because when he made 2, a lot of his devs and helpers either quit, became bad in the eyes of the community, did stupid things, etc. I really think he is also afraid of his ideas being reworked, and becoming more popular than his, which is what happened when PB VoiD came out. What seperated PB2 and PBV was the fact that PBV actually had solid, frequent, updates and changes, and included community ideas, and the forum was the pioneer of this one. The unofficial PB2 forum was very popular, and it was a shame when it got shut down for supposed copyright infringement.

Which brings me back to censorship. My discord nickname on the PB2 server was changed because my discord name is Monstarules✓ᴮᵃˢᵗᵃʳᵈ. Jesus Christ. Enough is enough with the censorship, you can have a wholesome forum without censoring every goddamn cuss word there is. People aren't going to be suddenly posting stolen credit cards and pornography because they can swear on a forum. This is supposed to be for fun. This isn't the Holy Catholic Church, or some sort of Baptist holdout, it's a gaming forum, for deliciously exquisite pizza sauce sake. Not only that, it is a gaming forum for a SHOOTING game that contains blood, cursing characters, and gore.
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Re: My thoughts on the PB series...

Postby Eric Gurt » 15 September 2017, 07:39

monstarules wrote:He currently is doing it alone because when he made 2, a lot of his devs and helpers either quit, became bad in the eyes of the community, did stupid things, etc.

I don't feel like many of devs have left, even if you mean artists.

monstarules wrote:I don't use ms paint for big shit...PIXLR

Here's how we will get more members...

1. VoiD calls his Navy SEAL buddies
2. He tells them what an asshole eric is
3. They go and jump Eric gurt
4. While eric is in teh hospital, VoiD will get "written permission" to make PBV

Speaking of helpers. This comes from PB:V forum. It's been long time ago though this post reminds a quite familiar mood.

monstarules wrote:I really think he is also afraid of his ideas being reworked, and becoming more popular than his, which is what happened when PB VoiD came out.

I just feel like VoiD should not be anywhere near my projects & titles if he ignores my conditions. On the other side he is completely free to make his own games/titles and I would definitely not mind giving a shotout to some of his works if I'll like them as independent projects no matter was it inspired by PB2 or not. Yet PB2:V is still a decompiled version of PB2 with barely any changes that tries to look like I can be responsible for it's content - it confuses players and I don't really need it.

I could keep updating PB2 but it's engine can't handle many updates and might start lag/become too big for download and redistribution even more if these are implemented. It has some problems that can't be solved with visual changes. There also been not much more attention to the game after any updates in the past. I think it's clearly pointing at core problems which I'll try to fix for 2.5/3.

monstarules wrote:This isn't the Holy Catholic Church, or some sort of Baptist holdout, it's a gaming forum, for deliciously exquisite pizza sauce sake. Not only that, it is a gaming forum for a SHOOTING game that contains blood, cursing characters, and gore.

We've been here before really. This website was unlisted from Google search results due to absence of censoreship rules for few months back in the days.

monstarules wrote:Yes, and I will clear that up. Also, I just told off iNova for being an anti-void moron who believes that we are "plagiarizing" a commonly used sidescroller engine. The engine was just modified by Eric Gurt.

This also comes from PB:V forums. PB2 does not use any pre-made or modified sidescroller engine. It was entierly made by me and I don't know who could tell you the opposite.
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Re: My thoughts on the PB series...

Postby monstarules » 16 September 2017, 05:23

Sarcastic remarks based on a bunch of 14 year olds meming. Not a good example to use. And my apologies, since playing with the PB2 engine a while back, I realized you made it because it was all literally in Russian.

Regardless, who are the other devs? You are the only one we have seen.
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Re: My thoughts on the PB series...

Postby MI6 AGENT 007 » 16 September 2017, 06:34

Well I would like to say Eric should just get other artists or devs to help him out to speed up the pace instead of doing by himself because that will stress you out or somethin like that.
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Re: My thoughts on the PB series...

Postby Eric Gurt » 16 September 2017, 18:14

monstarules wrote:Sarcastic remarks based on a bunch of 14 year olds meming. Not a good example to use. And my apologies, since playing with the PB2 engine a while back, I realized you made it because it was all literally in Russian.

Was curious whether you still think same. As for me it looked quite offensive if taking into account how such hatred was coming from almost everywhere as well as quite unfair comparison of me to somebody who tried to use my work unfairly and without any effort.

monstarules wrote:Regardless, who are the other devs? You are the only one we have seen.

Programming-wise I'm the only one, all others are artists for the most part and they are listed at Contact page.
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Re: My thoughts on the PB series...

Postby MI6 AGENT 007 » 16 September 2017, 19:38

@Eric Gurt can't you like hire more devs or something?
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Re: My thoughts on the PB series...

Postby KARL SERG » 16 September 2017, 20:22

MI6 AGENT 007 wrote:@Eric Gurt can't you like hire more devs or something?


His funds are limited. He may have to open up a Donation page.

Honestly, it seems more and more like a good idea. There was a modder on Steam who asked for donations in order to update his mod, on grounds that he already used his own funds for the mods in question (it was about Stellaris, a 4X Sci-Fi game). If that guy could do it, I don't see why Eric wouldn't give it a shot.
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Re: My thoughts on the PB series...

Postby monstarules » 17 September 2017, 20:57

I could help programming, but I don't do flash since it is going to be gone soon.
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Re: My thoughts on the PB series...

Postby Eric Gurt » 18 September 2017, 00:24

I don't plan to keep all my projects with me as a solo developer, though I want to keep PB2.5/3 in this key (and it to be more of an identifying example of work I can do). Then I plan to try working in cooperation with other developers (probably will announce this on my twitter page).
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Re: My thoughts on the PB series...

Postby MI6 AGENT 007 » 18 September 2017, 01:00

Eric Gurt wrote:I don't plan to keep all my projects with me as a solo developer, though I want to keep PB2.5/3 in this key (and it to be more of an identifying example of work I can do). Then I plan to try working in cooperation with other developers (probably will announce this on my twitter page).

Yeah Eric that will speed up the pace and it will defintely make more people high to play since its been a while
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Re: My thoughts on the PB series...

Postby Dr Jekyll » 18 September 2017, 07:30

Unless PB2 somehow re attracts its audience, I don't think many new players will come to 2.5 and the problem is that said players will probably have an issue with the flash, censorship, or community issues mentioned above...
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Re: My thoughts on the PB series...

Postby Eric Gurt » 19 September 2017, 14:55

PB2.5 will not have much in common with Flash Player.
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Re: My thoughts on the PB series...

Postby MI6 AGENT 007 » 19 September 2017, 15:12

Eric Gurt wrote:PB2.5 will not have much in common with Flash Player.

So basically this causing more problems which slowing down the process?
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Re: My thoughts on the PB series...

Postby Eric Gurt » 19 September 2017, 20:53

MI6 AGENT 007 wrote:
Eric Gurt wrote:PB2.5 will not have much in common with Flash Player.

So basically this causing more problems which slowing down the process?


Not much.
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