Just some questions.

[SantaClaws]

I'm sure everyone is dying to know a release date or scheduled time for Sov3 to come out, or even some updates (as well as many other things). I know topics like this come up every 2 months or so and demand answers, but I'm simply just asking all the questions I've wanted to ask about the new game and if Meiun decides he wants to answer or not then so be it.

My first question is, can we the community expect any updates/images and or a progress report? I've been dying to see new content or even a list of things that have been added into the new game. My second question is, has anything that the community suggested, actually made it into the game? It would be really cool to see some of the ideas and or suggestions that the community and players have came up with, in the game. My third question, at this point, is there a set date for anything? Alpha testing, Beta testing, release? It seems that an alpha/beta would be coming soon, just simply because the length so far this game has been worked on. Last question, how will you determine which players will be testing alpha, or have you already decided?

These are just a few things I've personally been wondering about, this topic isn't meant to grind Meiuns gears by assaulting him with a variety of questions, or demand answers, I've just listed a couple questions and hopefully he will be so kind to answer.

[stick d00d]

Seems like every time one of these topics comes up we just get a answer of 'not sure'. I feel like the interest in SO3 is dying off each month that goes by. I understand this is going to be a free to play game and it is just a hobby, but I feel like there should be some sort of time frame after this long. Even an answer of '1 year or so' would at least make it so we don't get our hopes for something that won't be here for quite a while longer. Not trying to sound like a dick or anything I just really have a lot of interest in this game, as many other people that have stuck around this long do.

[darkflash]

I completely agree. When he made the sneak peek topic I thought he was going to update it occasionally. But he really doesn't at all :/.

[T-Rok]

Patience you must have young fellows. On second hand, what are you talking about. We recently got an extra peek. Did you miss the weapons topic where we got to guess weapons and then have some of the animation revealed?

[SantaClaws]

I agree with what both of them are saying. I thought Meiun was going to update occasionally, but that topic hasn't had anything new since the day it came out. I also agree with stick_dood when he says that most of the community have just lost interest, or is tired of waiting, simply because they haven't seen anything new let alone progress, in half a year to a year. That is very depressing and discouraging to a community. To see no progress after a long period of time, its almost upsetting. But I still have no doubt this game will come out, the time it will take, nobody knows, hopefully the community will stay.

Patience you must have young fellows. On second hand, what are you talking about. We recently got an extra peek. Did you miss the weapons topic where we got to guess weapons and then have some of the animation revealed?

Yes but that was from Ceroblitz, and those where exciting yes, but nothing has been said from Meiun, which a lot of people are wanting, and waiting for.

[sly 3 4 me]

Time is of the essence. Look at the sneak peek topic, it was created randomly and without notice. I'm pretty sure having a topic that nags at progress or results would not motivate someone to do so, at least it would not in my case. It's best to wait it out.. Think if Meiun did not decide to create the current donor server out of generosity to those who helped with payment to run the game's server costs. We'd simply have a forum of random discussion and information.  ;)

[SantaClaws]

I don't think that was created spontaneously... Prior to that, there where just as many topics like this one. He created it because he noticed the community was getting antsy. He wanted to show them, there is something to stick around for. We have all seen the old updates, but yet we have no idea if anything even looks the same anymore. Its been half a year since we've seen anything from Meiun. Now, I'm not ranting or demanding, I'm just saying, people do get tired of waiting eventually. And who knows, maybe if he did a weekly/monthly update report more people would be active on the forums, and actually be excited as to whats to come next. We don't know anything, for all we know the project could be at a standstill and wont be out for another year and a half. Personally I'm optimistic about it, I think an alpha or beta will be out sometime before 2013 starts, just solely based off the fact of how long its been being worked on since the start. I know it's long and tedious to work on the same game for probably over a year straight, but it shouldn't be hard to make sure your community is happy and updated with what is going on. I'm just saying, a little more insight would be appreciated greatly :)

[Meiun]

I'll be perfectly honest here. I consider myself awful at writing up posts about the game. In case none of you noticed, I usually end up editing just about every forum post I ever make at least once or twice. It also ends up stressing me out an unreasonably large amount having to find time to piece together info that I would feel comfortable revealing about a game that I already feel I can never find nearly as much time to work on as I want to.

I know many of you are extremely anxious for info, and I can certainly understand that. But typically it comes down to something along the lines of either me spending an hour trying to figure out a news update post (which is always difficult for me), or me spending an hour actually working on the game, often when that hour may be one of the only ones I actually get to devote to the game for the week. Naturally I tend to lean towards actually working on the game some if I can. On a similar note, I'm often frustrated enough that I so often only end up finding such little chunks of time being able to do anything with the game that I often feel it would end up just disappointing myself and others if I were to reveal that X_X

Stick Online is something that I will never give up on, or ever stop being passionate about. I've been doing Stick Online for about 1/3rd of my life now. It is far too important to me to ever abandon. However, I can not emphasize enough how difficult it can be to find time to program (from scratch) an entire MMO while also working a full time job programming as a Software Engineer for another company (my real job), while also maintaining a strong relationship with my girlfriend, friends, and family. Work alone is often more than enough, so what free time I do get after all of that I sometimes need to spend just relaxing and trying to maintain my own sanity.

I understand that this answer may be a bit disappointing to many of you, and for that I do sincerely apologize (but I can guarantee it is far more disappointing for me >_<). I certainly don't mean to ever string anyone along, and I often I feel that anytime I post a progress update that only increases peoples eagerness for a release and adds more pressure to everything. While many of you know that I have always been a fan of keeping a lot of stuff secret, I am by no means trying to keep anything secret when I say that I genuinely have no idea when there will be any sort of release for the game. This is in part because I am awful at estimating, but it is more importantly because based on the utterly unpredictable patterns of development progress, I honest to god can't predict that with any sort of real accuracy. I've tried, but there is just not enough consistency in the work patterns/stats to make an estimate off of that would hold any truth.

While development on the current version did start well over a year ago, I don't exactly think of the game as having "been in development" for that long. Because while the game is non-stop on my mind and being planned for in my head, sometimes long periods of time will go by when very little will get done. And other times (not nearly as frequently as I'd like lately), I can go through a massive surge of progress in an unbelievably short period of time. This makes it very hard to predict any sort of release. If I could work on the game full time instead of my actual non game based programming job, the game could probably be done in a matter of a couple months (I'm horrific at estimating again, but that's my best guess). But seeing as that doesn't look like its going to happen anytime soon, it will likely be a lot longer. This last year has been my first year at my "real job", and thus has been a very stressful one in terms of how much pressure I'm under. Things have gone real well so far at my job, and I have sort of been banking on the fact that things would settle down after the first year and I'd have more time to really work on SO. So far signs have been indicating that this may be the case, but it is a bit too early to tell for sure.

As I said before, even if things did stay very stressful for me I'd still never give up on SO. I'd just keep crawling along with it at whatever pace I was able to and continue to hope for a time when I didn't need to crawl anymore. I know that many people will likely lose faith or interest (as I'm sure many have already). But even if every single one of you quit the community and cursed both me and Stick Online, I'd still just as happily make V3 if only for myself. Besides, I'd certainly hope that anyone who was a true fan of the game would at least come back to check things out when the game finally were available.

Yes, that was a massive ramble. And yes I realize that I still didn't give anything in terms of a real update. If this outrages you to any large extent, feel free to storm off from the community. Just be sure to check back in a year or so in case V3 came out in that window. If not, feel free to storm off again and repeat the cycle. But right now it is late, and I'm tired, so instead of doing one of my customary edits/rewrites I'm just going to go ahead and click *post*

[Matty_Richo]

I guess I understand this from both sides.

Stick Online has been down for what? 4 years now? And some of us have actively been a part of the community on both here and Stick Hangout (when that was alive) that entire time. It is hard for us to have been dedicated to the game and the community for that long and still have so little information (I'm pretty sure we haven't seen a single hat or monster and the only weapons are the few that Cero showed off).
But at the same time we do have the donor server and best of all, in my opinion, we have a very close community which is proved in the fact that we have lasted 7 (or is it 8|) years for some of us, 4 of which have been with very little new actual game content. Sure it'd be nice to have some new updates about the game but all that is going to do is get us excited for something we may not be able to play for another 3 years, but even without updates I know that I am not about to up and leave, we still have a community and we still have the donor server and I certainly haven't spent 7 years with Stick Online to leave now.

So thanks for responding Meiun and all the best with work and development on V3.

[darkflash]

Thank you for that helpful info Meiun. I check up on this forum almost daily and I don't plan to stop soon. I will be here for when v3 comes out and I will sure get my friends to play it also. No matter how long it takes I will be waiting.

[ARTgames]

Im subscribed to the update board to have it send me emails when a new topic is posted. And its nice having a update email show up once in a whiled in my email. I cant wait for the day so3 will show up in there.

[SantaClaws]

I really do appreciate the response Meiun, as well as the rest of the community I'm sure does to. I understand that working a full time job and keeping a sane relationship with family friends and your girlfriend is very stressful, and on top of all that you have a huge community behind you that your trying to keep happy. It sure must be hard, I don't envy you :P I'm happy to hear that everything is going good with your job and such, and believe it or not, I'm happy that you told us the wait is going to be much longer then we have expected. The reason for that is now (if people read this topic of course) wont go posting rant topics about updates, or when the game will be released at all. The reply you posted pretty much answers the main questions everyone wants to ask, and those are, when will the game be out? Do you have any updates? How far along are you? How come your never on the forums? I also do hope I didn't put any added stress or pressure on you by creating this topic, and I appreciate it greatly you took time to reply to it :) I don't think you really have to much to worry about community wise, both you and I know, there is a large number of people dedicated to waiting for this game to come out, and do check the forums on a daily basis. You will always have a part of the community behind you to support you :) Thanks again Meiun :)

[stick d00d]

I know I came off as impatient in my post. I just really wanted to hear from you again regarding V3. Thanks for the post and good luck with everything. You will always have support from this community (no matter how many people leave) and I really do wish you the best.

[ASD!]

Hey, as long as I know that there is at least some form of development going on with the game, I will continue my daily checks of the forum  :D

[Loganvz123]

tl;dr: Meiun has a real job, game not nearly complete, the game will never be dropped, he thinks he sucks at writing forum posts so he likes to work more on the actual game than spending lots of time doing status updates.
Blocks of text, ftw.