So, team, how's it going?

Hello everyone and especially our respected devs! :) I don't want to sound too impatient and ungrateful (don't get me wrong, I appreciate your work and I understand that you don't want to put unfinished stuff for everyone to see), but it's been quite a while since we had some official information, so, could someone of the devs throw us a bone or two to discuss, maybe how's the development going in general, or what are you working on right now (that's interesting too), or what are the obstacles in your work (maybe we could offer our humble help?)? Maybe you could show us a little teaser of the next patch or give us an rough date (no deadlines, of course ;)) to look forward to? Thanks in advance!

As far as I can tell we are just about finished :)

Just waiting on some new models really, but we have no ETA on when those will be done

Jeff wrote:
As far as I can tell we are just about finished :)

Just waiting on some new models really, but we have no ETA on when those will be done

That's good to hear, thank you for your answer.

Nice,  News!

Any news about campaign? Progress?

I'd be glad if they at least will release patch for skirmish. Dear devs please give us approximate date of release!

No chance!
The Patch is almost done but we are waiting for a few llittle things.
We are no real Company, we do everything in our free-time.
So please excuse if we cannot give you guys an date.
But there will be very soon and exclusic review for the new Patch 8)

I hope there will be something about the soviet campaign

So no news about the campaign?

Probably not. Not to be rude to the team, but I will say that they tend to be very secretive; and lack of new information to talk about OR updates won't get this mod very far as a whole.

Last time I spoke to Maxi and Rommel about the campaign( 2 weeks ago~ish), they said that quite some progress had been made. I hadn't seen much of this 'progress' apart from some map images, but it will at the least suffice for me.

But the real question is, why are we left out waiting for new information, even if its minor like campaign stuff? I know the team wants to surprise us a ton and get us all excited but really I'm just curious why nothing really gets out until everything is done. I mean, if the community knows the current progress there may be less issues in the patch concerning things like balance for example. If we know that an OP unit may be created in next patch but the community knows about it, we could stop that from happening in time so that we won't have to wait an additional 3-6 months for another update.

132 wrote:
But the real question is, why are we left out waiting for new information, even if its minor like campaign stuff? I know the team wants to surprise us a ton and get us all excited but really I'm just curious why nothing really gets out until everything is done. I mean, if the community knows the current progress there may be less issues in the patch concerning things like balance for example. If we know that an OP unit may be created in next patch but the community knows about it, we could stop that from happening in time so that we won't have to wait an additional 3-6 months for another update.

Thats exactly why we have Balancers ;).

To me, the wait is what should make it exciting. We are still doing this as a hobby. We are not a game company. I'm sure you realise that we take our time because we have to. However, when it comes to gameplay, we are currently stagnating a bit as I am away, Darc is occupied with work and the others are busy with other things. It's good to see that you are devoted, but we can't do much at the moment...

Waiting is exciting? I personally think its is frustrating the more there is (talking several months). I know that this is a hobby and there is only so much time BUT I am just wondering as to WHY there is no new updates or at least a few things about the progress of the mod mentioned. I know when I was reading the announcement of the recent patch, that the team was working "in the shadows for several months" or something like that but my question is WHY in the shadows? Not just me but several others have gotten fed up and impatient over this issue under the illusion that nothing is being done since there is nothing new said about the mod or something like that.

I would like to ask you to please re-read my post. I clearly implied that most of us are busy with other things. This means we cannot continuously work on the mod. This 'in the shadows' thing you mention is either because we aren't working on it for the moment or simply because we don't want to divulge everything that we have planned. There is nothing wrong with keeping a few secrets here and there.

Furthermore, we cannot help you with lack of patience. I advise you to do other things to keep yourself busy. We work at our own pace. Not hearing anything for a couple of months is quite common for mods. Some even do it for years and many people claim the mods are dead, but then an update appears and everyone is happy. As they say, patience is a virtue.

I suppose you are not the kind of man that enjoys a surprise judging from your comment, eh ;)?

chaosval3 wrote:
I would like to ask you to please re-read my post. I clearly implied that most of us are busy with other things. This means we cannot continuously work on the mod. This 'in the shadows' thing you mention is either because we aren't working on it for the moment or simply because we don't want to divulge everything that we have planned. There is nothing wrong with keeping a few secrets here and there.

Furthermore, we cannot help you with lack of patience. I advise you to do other things to keep yourself busy. We work at our own pace. Not hearing anything for a couple of months is quite common for mods. Some even do it for years and many people claim the mods are dead, but then an update appears and everyone is happy. As they say, patience is a virtue.

I suppose you are not the kind of man that enjoys a surprise judging from your comment, eh ;)?

Lack of understanding? How bout rereading my posts. I hope you know that in my previous post i said that "I know this is a hobby and there is so much time" so I'm pretty sure i have covered that before. That was not what I was complaining about the slow pace. It was just how several months will go by without a word from the progress of the mod. I think you are confusing the two together dude.

And also just to let you know, Im not asking the team to change anything at all, but just a few examples to through out there for why having no updates or signs of progression is not necessarily good. Just because other mods do it, doesn't mean its always a good thing. Basically, its a way to keep the mod and this forum popular, and based on being a member for a few years i can already say that history repeats itself. Not to diss them (no offense intended just speaking the truth), but look at zombie mod. Once extremely discussed and popular since their beginning. They have achieved so much however without any recent activity for updates/patches in years or what not, their community is basically zero and is not deserving the amount of attention it should get. EVEN if they were to release an awesome patch recently, their community would still drastically be small in-comparison, so not everyone is happy. Think of all the effort up in, all that really needs to be done is something NEW to keep their community INTERESTED and INFORMED so that their community remains more patient and larger.

Personally I want EF to deserve the popularity for all the hard work put into it, but without much activity (not necessarily talking about the pace but) or even NEW things to discuss, it isn't likely going to happen.

Last edited November 16, 2014 at 7:38 PM by 132

Well, you are giving suggestions and I gave my opinion on the subject. You know I am part of the team, right? You know that I mostly know what happens internally, right? We are fully aware that our current activity is a bit lacking and it has been in the past several times as well, but this mod is only as active as the players want it to be apart from the team. We work on it internally when we can. It's called 'internal' for a reason :P.

If players want activity increased they will also have to organise tournaments, groups, discussion themselves. We can't be held responsible for all the activity. Plus, one day, development on this mod will stop. I do not know when, but it will stop. People will then realise that it is themselves that create the most activity, not we in the team. Activity is based on the player base. Player base is garnered by advertising. Advertising requires marketing and marketing requires money. This is something we do not have for the mod.

We had some major activity spikes back in the day, but they dropped several times due to Relic's patches that broke our mod, the release of COH2 or simply the state of balance that was considered unfavourable back when we held tournaments, and these players gave up on the mod, never to return or to stay biased on EF forever thinking the mod would never change. From my point of view, EF's golden days have passed and our most popular days are over. Nonetheless we aren't giving up on the mod. We'll see it done to the extent where the team is satisfied and deems the mod finished.

I am sure you noticed that mod activity for COH is dwindling in general. This game is old. The team is small and we do what we can. If all you want to hear is that the mod is still alive and in progress, then yes, it is still alive and in progress. As always, details will come in the next update.

Besides, if you know that this is a hobby, I would like to suggest to you to respect my post and save yourself the time of commenting on this particular subject for the future as there is very little we can do about it. You aren't the first to say this, we have had these instances many, many times.

I would like to thank you for your dedication and your critical thinking and I would also like to ask you to continue doing it for as long as you see fit.

I bid you a good day sir.

(PS, it's funny that you mentioned Zombiemod. I am part of the mod as one of the faction designers. Burton has been one of my modding partners for quite some time and I am working on some stuff as we speak for the mod. If the fans of Zombiemod really care for the mod, they will have to be patient.)

Last edited November 16, 2014 at 9:07 PM by chaosval3

132 wrote:
But the real question is, why are we left out waiting for new information, even if its minor like campaign stuff? I know the team wants to surprise us a ton and get us all excited but really I'm just curious why nothing really gets out until everything is done. I mean, if the community knows the current progress there may be less issues in the patch concerning things like balance for example. If we know that an OP unit may be created in next patch but the community knows about it, we could stop that from happening in time so that we won't have to wait an additional 3-6 months for another update.

Oh well, times of putting in OP Units is over since quite a while. Also, most stuff is settled, except for replacing a single ability here and there and that's about it (at least after the next patch release).

When the patch is ready it'll be released. Same with the stats update on the main page.. Takes time to Change and isn't done in a few minutes.

132 wrote:

chaosval3 wrote:
I would like to ask you to please re-read my post. I clearly implied that most of us are busy with other things. This means we cannot continuously work on the mod. This 'in the shadows' thing you mention is either because we aren't working on it for the moment or simply because we don't want to divulge everything that we have planned. There is nothing wrong with keeping a few secrets here and there.

Furthermore, we cannot help you with lack of patience. I advise you to do other things to keep yourself busy. We work at our own pace. Not hearing anything for a couple of months is quite common for mods. Some even do it for years and many people claim the mods are dead, but then an update appears and everyone is happy. As they say, patience is a virtue.

I suppose you are not the kind of man that enjoys a surprise judging from your comment, eh ;)?

Lack of understanding? How bout rereading my posts. I hope you know that in my previous post i said that "I know this is a hobby and there is so much time" so I'm pretty sure i have covered that before. That was not what I was complaining about the slow pace. It was just how several months will go by without a word from the progress of the mod. I think you are confusing the two together dude.

And also just to let you know, Im not asking the team to change anything at all, but just a few examples to through out there for why having no updates or signs of progression is not necessarily good. Just because other mods do it, doesn't mean its always a good thing. Basically, its a way to keep the mod and this forum popular, and based on being a member for a few years i can already say that history repeats itself. Not to diss them (no offense intended just speaking the truth), but look at zombie mod. Once extremely discussed and popular since their beginning. They have achieved so much however without any recent activity for updates/patches in years or what not, their community is basically zero and is not deserving the amount of attention it should get. EVEN if they were to release an awesome patch recently, their community would still drastically be small in-comparison, so not everyone is happy. Think of all the effort up in, all that really needs to be done is something NEW to keep their community INTERESTED and INFORMED so that their community remains more patient and larger.

Personally I want EF to deserve the popularity for all the hard work put into it, but without much activity (not necessarily talking about the pace but) or even NEW things to discuss, it isn't likely going to happen.

Yes. EF deserves more popularity. However, all the stuff you mentioned consumes lots of time - companies/Publishers have whole sections of People just for creating and writing articles over their game, press is used to publish Information about the Progress of development and so on.

We only have our community Manager Bishop who already is responsible for technical Support issues, which also covers a large field.
I myself am not that good at writing articles/Setting up cool screenshots, that's why I don't post News entries. I wanted to create a shoutcast about the EF changes for the next Version, but I don't have something to Show yet.

Hendrik wrote:


We only have our community Manager Bishop who already is responsible for technical Support issues, which also covers a large field.
I myself am not that good at writing articles/Setting up cool screenshots, that's why I don't post News entries. I wanted to create a shoutcast about the EF changes for the next Version, but I don't have something to Show yet.

I have zero issues writing articles and setting up cool screenshots, for news entries If I was allowed to. I use to be a Reporter IRL before I became an Accountant. I could write something interesting, if you guys wanted me to...

Sounds pretty neat! I am all for it. Let's hear what the others have to say ^^

Floki wrote:

Hendrik wrote:


We only have our community Manager Bishop who already is responsible for technical Support issues, which also covers a large field.
I myself am not that good at writing articles/Setting up cool screenshots, that's why I don't post News entries. I wanted to create a shoutcast about the EF changes for the next Version, but I don't have something to Show yet.

I have zero issues writing articles and setting up cool screenshots, for news entries If I was allowed to. I use to be a Reporter IRL before I became an Accountant. I could write something interesting, if you guys wanted me to...

Sounds like a plan imo..

chaosval3 wrote:
Last time I spoke to Maxi and Rommel about the campaign( 2 weeks ago~ish), they said that quite some progress had been made. I hadn't seen much of this 'progress' apart from some map images, but it will at the least suffice for me.

Sorry for the late reply but indeed, there's progress on the camapign maps, however the coding department is heavily outnumbered :P
At the moment the only coder willing and able to work on the campaign is Bish so it would be great to have more coders to our avail who have the required knowledge to code actual campaign missions. Given that this was the case, I'd be more than motivated to release stuff connected to the campaign(s). However in this situation, whilst you guys don't have any insurance that stuff is going to be released, I don't want to bait anyone by releasing screenshots or the alike.