On a Lack of Interest

So I've been thinking about why I haven't been playing Creatures lately and why I haven't had much of an urge to do any developing. I guess part of it is that the community has been rather inactive as of late (although granted, it seems like everyone is horribly busy and/or sick right now, not just the Creatures community), although that's definitely not all of it as I'm finding Creatchi to be more enjoyable than the actual game right now. 

I've come to the conclusion that the biggest problem is the way I tend to play the game. 

I'm not the sort of person who can just inject a few metarooms, some agents, and then hatch some creatures and get to playing with no issues. No, I have to gut every single metaroom to remove any creature-unfriendly agents or navigation and replace them with fitting creature-friendly substitutes. This sounds simple on paper, but more often than not every world I attempt to create turns into a coding project. 

Creating a new agent/metaroom every once in a while? That's fine. I can do that. Having to code every single time I want to start a new world? Not so much. 

Even if I manage to make it past the initial setup, I have to contend with my finicky taste in agents. I generally prefer natural-looking agents, or at least agents that don't look "goofy." However, my brain is extremely particular in what it considers not to be "goofy." Furthermore, even if an agent manages to look good, it also has to be creature-friendly AND fit the metaroom I want to put it in. The end result? There's somewhere in the range of twelve agents I can use without my brain throwing a fit. I can generally fill up a small room (like the Grendel Hideout) without issue, but small rooms aren't good for large creature populations - besides the fact that everyone's likely to get crowded and start beating each other up, a lot of creatures tends to be a major strain on the room's resources. 

So there's not a whole lot of metarooms I can use, either. Notably, the list of metarooms I can't use effectively include the C3 Jungle Terrarium, C2toDS, and Chione (the latter of which is particularly bad, considering I helped make that one). All of this also probably helps explain why I don't find Veridia to be as enjoyable as everyone else seems to think it is. 

Setting up a world should not be this hard, and yet it is. Beyond the fact that I'm probably ADHD, I have no suitable explanation as to why I have to do it this way. All I know is that it blows and I wish I could be more flexible. 

Woah, What happened?

I'm still around, yes. In fact, I'm actually rather active over at Creatures Caves. However, you wouldn't know that by looking here, judging by the lack of posts for roughly two months. 

I don't think I need to say that it was the result of a hiatus. However, this hiatus was a particularly nasty one; not only was my will to do anything Creatures-related sapped, my will to do anything productive was sapped. But fortunately, I'm working on getting myself out of this rut and will hopefully get my motivation back soon. 

Unfortunately, the timing of the hiatus couldn't be worse considering that the CCSF is just around the corner. What I originally intended to do was make four genetic breeds (two grendels, a norn, and an ettin) and a metaroom. What actually got done was one extremely simple genetic breed and a metaroom without flora or fauna. For what's probably the biggest event of the Community, you'd think I would be more driven to actually get this stuff done in time.

However, while my actual submissions to the CCSF may be a little disappointing, that may not be the whole story. If I can manage to get all my ducks in a row by the time the CCSF starts, I may release a thing or two here over the course of the CCSF. That is a very big if, however - it's just as likely I won't get around to making anything more than I've already made.

On a final note, I really need to be more realistic here. Seriously, how many times I said I'd do something on this very blog and then have absolutely nothing come of it? Too many. 

Hiatus IV

As so happens when a new college semester starts up, I've completely lost interest in doing anything related to Creatures.

I don't have any major projects going on right now (apart from an easily-finished metaroom and maybe updating the Metallophagus Pack with bugfixes), so nothing much of value is getting lost there. However, "anything related to Creatures" includes Survivor. This is unfortunate since Mahk Mako got a little too friendly with the remaining contestants, and as a result my lack of activity has kinda left that plot thread hanging.

Mea and C1anddsaddict, if you're reading this, go ahead and assume Mahk buggered off and has gone back to his usual "watch and record" style of reporting. I'm not certain I'll get my drive back before the game ends - if I don't, then I probably won't update the column again until the time comes to bid it farewell.

For the same reasons as above, I apologize for the slight delay in getting the next Freak of the Week uploaded. I had to move back in to college Sunday, and as a result it kinda slipped my mind. Which means Mea's Borgetta unfortunately lost a day for her feature here. But she's up now, so anyone who got interested by her Survivor antics can download her and see how she acts in-game. To make up for that, Borgetta might get two weeks as Freak, since I'm not certain if I'm completely willing to make a new Freak for next week.

And that's the update.

I've been thinking....

The hiatus is still ongoing - in fact, it might be a little longer than I thought it would. It might actually be permanent.

Yes, I'm actually considering retiring from development for Creatures. My interest in the series has been the lowest it's ever been in a while, for one - the last time I opened the game, in order to work on one of the genetic breeds for the CCSF, I did some really basic edits, hatched a test norn, went "bah!" and closed the game and kit.

Development in general has been getting rather tedious for me. I'm flat out of ideas, for one, and the ideas I do come up with on my own tend to be rehashes of previous things or stuff other people have done. Plus, given how much stuff I've made, I'm not getting much gratification out of development - it lost its charm for me a long time ago. This is the main reason why I'm nowhere near as prolific as I was back when I was starting out.

Secondly, real life has been demanding. My college classes, despite being few in number, have been really demanding (Creative Writing in particular). Plus, I've been struggling with a few health issues - I had to go to the ER last Friday because I thought I was having a heart attack (thankfully, I wasn't).

Finally, other pastimes have been far more interesting. I've been hanging around the TVTropes forums a lot and using the Character Development Threads there to hone my writing skills, a good thing since I'm planning on making writing a sort of career alongside programming. I also got into competitive Pokemon recently, and I'm having a blast with that (though I kinda suck at it). These things together make Creatures look incredibly boring.

Put it all together, and I'm finding it hard to do anything for Creatures even with the upcoming CCSF acting as a motivator. Even the Sea Garden is starting to look incredibly unlikely, even if I ditch the accompanying genetic breeds.


However, right now I'm only thinking about it - I haven't actually decided if I'm going to do so or not. For all I know, I could get my interest back within the next week or so. If I do decide to retire, I'm going to drop all my other projects and focus on finishing the Flesheater Grendels - since they are my magnum opus and I've been sitting on them forever, I might as well make them the last thing I ever release.

Either way, I am going to be contributing something to the CCSF - I'm helping Nev out with one of her projects, as some of you might have noticed on CCaves. Even if I don't get anything else out, there's that to look forwards to.

I'll let you guys know soon about what my final decision about the subject is.

Hiatus III

The community's been wonderfully active as of late and there's been a few good releases lately. A perfect time for a hiatus, huh?

This one isn't going to last quite as long as the previous one (I hope, anyway), but it's for similar reasons - I've found other things that hold my interest more than Creatures can currently (*coughTvtropescoughPokemoncough*), I'm not much in the mood to develop, etc. 

That's not all of it, though - it's school season once again, and tomorrow I head back to college to start my sophomore year. I don't have a whole lot of classes, plus I've got a dorm room to myself, so it shouldn't be too imposing on me, but I'm not going to be very active while I'm still getting into the swing of things.

For those of you wondering about my projects: The Sea Garden is going to be my main release for the CCSF this year (along with a set of genetic breeds to go with it). I'm also planning on another Past Seas update that adds another layer of complexity to the ecology as well as fixing a few more bugs, in addition to a Garden Box conversion of the plants and critters.

For the record, by "hiatus" I mean "not playing or developing for Creatures." I'm still hanging around the community, I'm still willing to answer questions people might have about development, etc. Just don't expect a major release from me any time soon.

Status Update

First off, I finally got my new laptop last Tuesday. It's an MSI 683US - in other words, a gaming laptop with a dedicated graphics card. Suffice to say, it's working beautifully - no more random slowdown and noisy CPU that probably wasn't healthy.

As far as Creatures goes, this thing runs C3 and DS (C3 from the Creatures Trilogy, and DS from the free install - I'm not touching Exodus with a 10 foot pole if I don't have to, given all the inconveniences I've heard about it) perfectly fine, along with all the programs necessary for development (in my case, that would be the Genetics Kit and CAOs Tool - I haven't gotten around to installing the Map Editor yet). So once I get around to developing again, there will be no issues.

But there's more - the increased processor can also handle FRAPs and Creatures running at the same time - in other words, I can record videos now as well. I still need to get the hang of editing and whatnot, but once that's done I might record a video of some of my projects (and possibly make promotional videos for the ones I've completed). Just don't expect commentary from me - apart from my not being very fond of vocal commentary in general (with a few exceptions), I'm not cut out for it since I'd trip over my own words 20 or more times in the attempt and the thought of it makes me nervous.

So does this mean the hiatus is over? Well...unfortunately, no. Quite the opposite, actually. The CC is being really, really quiet - the blogs are inactive apart from Geek2Nurse's, and most of the activity at CCaves is due to either newbies, the C4 forum, or both. I've almost no motivation to work on anything for Creatures right now (although I did try to create a better swimming agent while waiting for a chance to hook this thing up to the internet - I didn't get very far, unfortunately).

However, that's not the only reason I'm still on hiatus at the moment - the other major reason is that, since this computer can handle much more than my old one could, I'm playing other games that take advantage of the new processor and graphics card - especially StarCraft II. Brood War was one of my favorite games, and now that I can run the sequel without any issues, I've been playing it practically nonstop. So yeah, the "other games are more interesting than Creatures" reason is still very much in effect.

The final reason for the hiatus: the C4 hype is really starting to annoy me. I  couldn't care less about Creatures 4, and that mindset isn't changing because its release is imminent. There are other games that I'm much more excited about (Pokemon Black and White 2, for example).

Between those 3 things, I can say that this hiatus is going to last for a while (at least for another month). I'm not certain when I'll get around to all the things I was working on, but know that I haven't abandoned them completely. I'll get back to them at some point. 

Hiatus 2

Once again, interest in other games has dragged me away from Creatures for a while. I don't know when I'll get around to finishing all my projects - probably around 2 weeks or so. Note that this doesn't mean that I'll be absent from the community - I'll still be around. I just won't be contributing anything, which includes posts here.

On a slightly more distressing note, the name change not only failed to keep the bad traffic away, but the bad site is currently the one contributing the most traffic when it comes to links (as far as whole sites go, Creatures Caves is thankfully in the lead by a significant margin). I'm wondering if the name had anything to do with why such sites were linking here in the first place. Do any other bloggers have issues like this, or am I just unlucky?

Hiatus

Remember when, back in my first post, that sometimes I'd get more attracted to other things and stop playing Creatures for a while?

Yeah, that's why there's been no posts here. Once I can get motivated to get back to playing Creatures again the regular updates will resume.

On a higher note - the waterfall grendels V3 and their agent pack are almost done now. The collab project with mea is about 50%-60% finished, I'd say. Development went more or less smoothly, so it probably won't take very long to wrap everything up when I'm ready to develop again.