Welcome to SFO 2.0!
Yes, I know, we’re late with everything!
If you look at the credits of any arcade game, you’ll find at least 20 different developer names. And we’re talking about arcade fighting games with NO internet multiplayer support (which are way less complex than SFO). But at the end of the day, we don’t have a staff of 20 professional developers, nor do we operate as a professional development studio with multi-million dollar budgets. What we do have however, is die-hard fans with a passion, who dream big, and strive for even bigger!
Earlier this year we were down to 9 daily logins, and absolute record-low for the 2.1 million registered users of SFO. And while some were ready to pull the SFO’s plug, others thought there was still time to make a comeback. By putting our hundred dollar bills together, and spending months of tireless development, we were able to reach 1142 logins on the 2.0 release with Dan and Nash. The last time we’ve seen those numbers was during Gambit’s release many moons ago. So while we were not able to achieve all that we wanted (aka: the return of 15,000 active players) we did manage to reverse many years of community downfall. And we’ve done it all with an unheard-of shoe-string budget.
Want to know what REALLY happened? Then read on.
The plan was simple: Improve SFO as much as possible. Re-write the network-code. Release 2 characters and email 2.1 million old logins in hopes of reviving the community back.
The only way to achieve this was to work on SFO full-time, which meant that good’ol TMy would not be able to work on anything else, and thus would have to take time off work in the “real world” (TM). As a temporary measure, and in hopes of “things getting better” after the 2.0 release (and that the community would once again be filled with thousands of players and a steady-stream of dream-vote donations to offset our operational and development costs), I have agreed to temporarily work for McDonalds-grade hourly wage. This was the basis of all calculations for the dream-goals percentage bars. It was as low as anyone can go, and I only did it for the love of SFO. Little did I know, that I would never see that McDonalds chedda. It would be a far away dream never to reach the shores of my life.
Once the development began, so did the endless stream of problems. It may surprise you, but back in 2k1, no one at Macromedia thought of future-proofing the Shockwave engine to support 16 years of continued development. Over the years, SFO has grown to be so big and so complex, it was 3 times larger than any arcade game ever created, and we were now at the edge of what could be accomplished. Every time new sprites were added, new features, new code, Shockwave fought back with errors that were never seen by anyone EVER (because no one would be daring enough to cram 16 years worth of code into what originally was a browser-based game). It doesn’t mean that we can’t find ways around the circa 2k1 limitations, but it does mean that the road ahead could prove to be unpredictable due to unforeseen technical issues and problems.
The network code fought back harder than all others. Circa 2k1 shockwave was based on an ancient TCP/UDP system that would not support NAT pass-through, and would force packet-gathering on all other traffic types. I assure you, EVERYTHING was attempted, including a custom 4-tunnel system which eventually broke the entire game until it was removed. The only thing we could settle on was UPnP with server-side UDP/Green-Ping. If you compare SFO’s 1.9 game-play video footage with 2.0+, there is a noticeable improvement with lag in 1on1 Green-Ping capable games, and UPnP did allow for a much larger percentage of players to be able to host games via the automatic UPnP port forwarding. But alas, we were not able to reach the level of internet multiplayer performance seen today in multi-million-dollar professional published games. But I assure you, this aspect of the game was explored to the absolute maximum of what our time would allow. In comparison, if the network code remained untouched, we would have had yet another new character in our roster. But the only way to know was to try.
Thanks to the generous support from the community, we were able to sustain a 1.5 month full-time development schedule prior to 2.0. This had to include upgrades to the network code, TMC changes for the clans, automatic dream-goal calculations, new intro, new music, new stages, 2 new characters and around the clock beta-testing of everything mentioned. Suffice to say, not all of it was done.
In the final weeks prior to the release, things have gotten so bad, that I personally worked 13 days straight, 18 hours each day. And while I may not voice my personal situation in detail (and while things did get better compared to 3+ years ago) there were still multiple occasions which forced me split my time between SFO and care for sick family members. There were times when I would literarily come back from a hospital, to work the remainder of the day on SFO until 5am, day after day and week after week. And the final kicker was that with the 18 hour day schedule, I ended up working on SFO for $3.50/hour.
If you look around our community, you’ll find countless people who say that love SFO more than anyone else. And perhaps they are right, since “love” is not a commodity that could be easily measured. And if you ask: “TMy, why did you push yourself so hard for SFO?”. Maybe that’s my proof, and that’s my measure. Because aside from running the community for 16 years straight at a continued loss, the last few months of development should let you know just how much I still love SFO, and how much I would want for this community to make a comeback.
My apologies that the character colors did not make it, along with the new intro (murder and I tried for countless hours, but Shockwave just would not accept the play-back of the new intro video). The music didn’t get updated, along with stages, TMC, and who knows what else. Even the main menu buttons were several days late, along with bug fixes for Dan and Nash. And yes, the weeks spent on the new network code did cut into the character development, which in turn left the new characters lacking extra moves.
At the end of the day, if you know of any Shockwave programmer who is willing to create multiplayer capable characters for cheaper than $3.50/hour, then you should hire them. But as it stands, what was accomplished now is the absolute best that we could do (even with the help from multiple dedicated people, some of whom have succumbed to the in-human pressure brought forth by the ambitions of the 2.0 release).
On the email front, we learned of the steep prices associated with LEGAL email spam. It may surprise you, but it is very hard to send more than 60,000 emails each month, and the costs associated with such sending, were not something we were prepared to deal with. What’s worse, is that we found out that some 70% of all SFO in-game accounts were created with fake email addresses, From about 50,000 emails sent (going from: most recent logins to the oldest) we got 156 clicks. That’s less than half-a-percent in case you were wondering. But how would we know any of this unless we tried?
From the cost and development point of view, we never had a business plan (since we’re not a business, but a humble fan-site hub). The hope was that: players would donate towards characters, and in turn, a portion of those donations could go towards the operational/server/bandwidth costs, bug-squashes and new features. In short: anything and everything SFO related would be completed on full-time development basis within the budget of the char development. In reality, there was no time left for any bug fixes, new features, new colors, or anything else for that matter, and I still ended up working 18 hour days for $3.50. In fact it gets even worse: by attempting to keep the costs down as much as possible, Captain America went from the sound of Thor’s hammer for nearly the same price as Psylocke. We are talking about a character that has a shield (which is not supported by SFO’s circa 2k1 code, and thus parts of SFO will have to be completely ripped out and rewritten) with literally TWICE as many animation frames compared to Psylocke, all for the same development cost? (you can’t tell, but I’m doing an epic face-palm right now).
What’s worse is that a number of our most dedicated players, supporters and all those who pledged to support SFO on monthly basis have all fallen on harsh times as well. Some have lost loved ones, some have lost jobs, and others continued their battle with a serous illness. And in-between the funerals and the uncertainty of everyday life, we now stand before a very real problem of not being able to cover our operational costs once more. We’ve lowered those costs as much as we could, but there is still an outstanding amount of $294 monthly. In between June and July, we only had 2 pledges. If this continues, the unpaid bills of our operational costs could quite frankly shut us down. As an act of desperation we could relocate the funds from the 2 upcoming characters towards operational costs, which would in turn roll-back the percentage bars and cancel the Psylocke/CAmerica projected countdown timer and release dates.
Why didn’t we think of this before? Well first off, none of us have ever done anything like this, because nothing like SFO has ever been created in the history of the world. Second: hindsight is always 20/20. Third: we were all really hoping that the 2.1 million mail out would bring back a substantial number of old players and would perhaps fill the void of $5 donations. … but alas, such is life.
Personally, I was really hoping that we would not have to penny-pinch every single SFO expense, but at this point, we have no choice but to resort to having multiple Staff Dream Goals. These will include: Outstanding operational balances for July and August, the new Bug Squash event, 300 new character colors, and a brand new TMC Character Balance System (or: CBS for short).
But none of this can be done without your help. Not only does the future of SFO depend on your donations, but we also depend on your input and hard work. Because of this, any SFO member who donates 10 or more Dream Votes towards any of the Staff Dream Goals can send a petition to any of our sysops in order to receive the honorary staff moderator privileges. This means if you donate towards the future Character Balance System, not only are we interested in having you be our staff, but you will also have a chance to give input on changing, balancing and perfecting every single character in SFO. All those years you’ve put towards playing the game, can now be used as expertise aimed at achieving the complete balance amongst all of our current and future characters.
The only major exception is that your current SFO account must be in good standing, and, you have to be accepted by all of our sysops in order to receive your petition approval for staff moderator perks and TMC access. And of course, you also have to follow the SFO’s rules of conduct. Remember: what TMyApp giveth, Blade taketh away.
All in all, your personal views on SFO 2.0 would largely depend on what you would consider to be “success”. For some, success can only be achieved with absolute perfection, for others, even small improvements are enough to fuel inspiration to strive for more and to keep going.
Do we have plans on how to improve SFO even further? Yes, but it is hard to plan the next Network Code Improvement, circa 2k9 character bug fixes, or new and amazing SFO patches and fixes if we’re not sure if the community can sustain even the basic operations (let alone future SFO development).
As always, the past, present and future of SFO has always been in the hands of it’s community. Head on over to the Dream Goals section to gain more info on all mentioned above. Please accept my humble thanks to all those who have supported us in the past or plan on doing so in the future, including those one-time fiver donations that coincide with each release (yes the little things are always noticed, and are always appreciated).
Lastly, if you look back on 16 years, SFO was always the underdog. Perhaps that’s what made it so much fun. And if you ask me, going from 9 logins to 1142 in a few short months is still a great way to prove that “Dreams Don’t Die”!