Now that Tri..Trip..Trip..something is out..

[orealis]

Heaps and heaps of ppl have requested things we'd love to see as new features in Pontifex in that.. "new features thread" now that Trip..thing is out.. any chance any of those new featuretties will get implemented (while the programmers take a break from Trip..thing....)..?

[benski]

I for one never expected the source code, just as I never expect it from any game worth playing. I think what everyone's complaint is that we were promised certain things when we purchased Pontifex. We never asked you to give us anything, no contests, no add-ons, nothing. You promised us these things. Here were a few of your "happy customers" from a couple months ago.

http://chroniclogic.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard/topic.cgi?forum=3&topic=68

" target="_blank">http://chroniclogic.com/cgi-bin....c=68

It looks as though times haven't changed much since then. I really hope CL continues to make great games, but please PLEASE stand behind your product and your word.

[chroniclogic]

Right now we do not have plans to add any features to Pontifex, we are pretty busy trying to sell Triptych.  That does not mean that we will  never do anything with Pontifex, but we dont have plans for it right now.

Josiah Pisciotta

[chroniclogic]

There will be some Pontifex related update soon, keep checking the web page for updates.

Josiah

[rrheuts]

yep was afraid of that.. once they had enough of things they would drop it like a brick :/

They have a new toy to play with and let us stand alone. Guess it's the last time i try and help a small company. I thought it would be fun to recieve lots of updates and stuff, editors and maybe the source code after a while. But no.. not even 1 single lousy update after some bugfixes. #### this makes me angry.

At first it would seem to be worth the money, played bb1 a long time, and bb2 some time longer. But after finishing the levels (wich are not that difficult) the fun of building is dissappearing, with bb1 the levels were huge, and bridges were gigantic structures.

Hope you are going to rethink about not updating, i personally think you should try to keep it active. I'm not buying your new game in a million years, i forsee the same thing http://www.pontifex2.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':('>

Hope to be building bridges in a short time!!

[Mirlen]

Any hope for a patch to allow it to run properly on a Thinkpad T22 series laptop?  The display looks ok in windowed mode but in full screen you cannot see the menu etc.  And in windowed mode it's mega mega slow (unusable).  I'd love to be able to take it with me and show people...hope this gets fixed!  I did notice that if I blindly go thru the menus, the 3d DOES function and it's decently fast too, it's just that the menu and many/all of the text options do not display, the cursor is a big 'ol rectangle etc..

[falkon2]

I personally don't see much of a community building up over triptych - I doubt triptych contests would be half as popular as Pontifex contests

Unlike Pontifex, triptych is a type of game where, at some point, all the ideas for new features will be exhausted, and the "final version" label will be slapped on. From then on, you'll get the same gameplay over and over again -

Not so with Pontifex - There can always be new map packs coming out, though that hasn't happened for over two months. Someone needs to breathe some life back into the bridge builder community.

Pontifex on its own, however, is getting old. There is only so much you can do with the physical limitations affecting level sizes. I miss the large-scale construcion projects of the original bridge builder.

[chroniclogic]

Mirlin have you tried updating your OpenGL drivers?  I am not sure what kind of video card that has, but you need full OpenGL support for Pontifex to run correctly.

Josiah

[mendel]

Quote: from rrheuts on 2:57 pm on June 19, 2002
I thought it would be fun to recieve lots of updates and stuff, editors and maybe the source code after a while. But no.. not even 1 single lousy update after some bugfixes. Hmmm.. we were promised (and new buyers still are!):
"Access to any other free downloads or promotional offers Chronic Logic makes available to its valued customers "
"The ability to participate in our official contests. These will vary in nature and there will be some for both the economics-oriented as well as the artform-oriented bridge designer"
"Access to our members only forum where you can [...] download their posted bridges"

We got:
* a map pack
* 3 contests, quite similar, for the economics-oriented; no "hall of fame" yet
* a forum that does not allow file uploads

Updates=improved gameplay, (more) editors, and source were never promised, though I agree that'd've been nice and easily summed up as "warm fuzzy feeling" which *was* promised :-)

But then, I've said the same thing before, to no effect (perhaps the 3rd contest?). If you want to scare off potential buyers of pontifex, you have to say it in a public forum. Everyone who reads it here has already paid.

[Mirlen]

It has the latest S3 drivers installed, and as I said, the 3D portion DOES work, it's the NON-3D portions that have problems such as the main menu (Pontifex logo shows but not the menu) and the cursor.  I'll see if I can dig up anything newwer.

Anyone else out there have a Thinkpad T20 series they can test on as well?

[chroniclogic]

First off I was not part of the making of Pontifex so my say is limited but I can tell you a few things.  

Quote: from rrheuts on 12:57 pm on June 19, 2002
yep was afraid of that.. once they had enough of things they would drop it like a brick :/

They have a new toy to play with and let us stand alone. Guess it's the last time i try and help a small company. I thought it would be fun to recieve lots of updates and stuff, editors and maybe the source code after a while. But no.. not even 1 single lousy update after some bugfixes. #### this makes me angry.

At first it would seem to be worth the money, played bb1 a long time, and bb2 some time longer. But after finishing the levels (wich are not that difficult) the fun of building is dissappearing, with bb1 the levels were huge, and bridges were gigantic structures.

Hope you are going to rethink about not updating, i personally think you should try to keep it active. I'm not buying your new game in a million years, i forsee the same thing http://www.pontifex2.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':('>

Hope to be building bridges in a short time!!

Ok updating Pontifex, sure everyone wants it, sounds easy enough right? Wrong, if part of Pontifex is changed then the whole game has to be re-balanced, this was probably the hardest part of making Pontifex and most time consuming.  Sure it would be nice to do, and it would be fun for the people that own Pontifex, but you have to look at the whole picture.  If we spend 2-4 months updating Pontifex, that is time that we are working towards something that will bring in no money.
Now you can go and say, you #### small company all you care about is making money.  Right let me explain something else, if we are going to make games, we have to make money, I have bills to pay, I have to eat, no one here is rich or independently wealth and never has to care about money in their life.  Sure if none of us had to eat, or needed a place to live or anything else that requires money then ya sure, we could work on updating Pontifex for free for the rest of our life's just to keep you happy.  
As for never helping out a small company again?  So you would rather go pay twice as much for a game from a big company that does not give a #### about you and would not even take the time to reply to this?  That makes a lot of sense, you know what a big company would do if they updated one of there games? They would not give it away for free, it would be called a sequel or an expansion pack and you would be paying for it.  So go support your favorite corporation and for twice the price see how much they care about you and your complaints and ideas.
We actually have worked on a newer bridge building game but could not complete it because of our limited resources.  We also planned to upgrade Pontifex after finishing with Triptych, but because of our financial situation it is not something we can do at this time.  
As for releasing the source code, where did you ever come up with this idea?  We are a small company so we like to give away all our hard work for free.  We have spent years developing a complex physics engine and now we are going to give away all the code for it, to make our fans happy?  So that a "big" company could take our code and make their own games with it to make their executives even richer?  Think about it.

Josiah Pisciotta

[chroniclogic]

Actually the menu is rendered in 3d, it sounds like a problem with the alpha blending.  There's nothing we can do about that, but you can try writing your card provider or IBM to see if there's a fix.

Alex

[falkon2]

You know, I can actually see that prediction about the source code and software giants coming true, should you release the source, even if you copyrighted it.

Its a scary world we live in.

If you want to go spend ุ - ์ on a game with bugs that shouldn't be in a final release and updates consisting only of fixes to these bugs, then go buy from the large publishers, have fun.  Granted there are many polished games in the non-indie market, most of the games released are trash.  Then when you get into the ฤ range you have your choice of hunting games at wal-mart.  I am happy with what I've bought, expecially compared to it's price range competition.  I also played the demo for Triptych, which is the best "tetris clone" I've ever played.  I may end up buying that as well!  

Anyways, if you want an indie developer to be able to update their game, don't just get in a message board and bitch, go out and make some noise to help them sell more copies.  Get in message boards and tell people, send emails to gaming mag publishers and game website webmasters, share thoughts with Chronic Logic on ways you think they could bring in more money.  Personally I sent an email to Computer Gaming World telling them they should mention Pontiflex in their magazine.  Maybe someone will send them the game to review :cough:.

The point is if you really want to see new content, be constructive and take some initiative.  

[rrheuts]

I can except all the things you say, and i do agree with them. And I (programmer my self) do understand the difficulty to update your own programs.

But let me take another game as an example: Clonk. It's not a very famous game (i think) though it has a vast community. And lots of updates. And the company itself updated it for about 2 years. Now the're working on a brand new version, completly diffrent from the thing they started. And they have released the source code. That gave the community a new boost, someone used the source to make a opengl verison of the game, wich really looks nice, and has great potential.

So i never meant that you promised us the source, but if you look at the opensource world, it's doing ok. I'm sorry if I sounded a little rude, but I've bought other games/programs from small company's (clonk for example) and have seen the story there. And i'm just a little afraid the communnity would die. So no hard feelings http://www.pontifex2.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':('>

AS for larger company's... I only buy really good games/programs, the others I ehm.. well.. i don't buy them. But for most of the small company's i do buy the software, just to support them in giving me a community and nice service + updates.