Future of RifE

[Valkrionn]

The past few months have seen very little activity from the team, and most of us (myself included) find ourselves unable to become interested in the setting again. Without any real development, the mod has sunk into stagnation, and the longer it goes on the less likely more development will take place.

At this point, I personally am moving on to a new mod, an entirely new setting. Much of the RifE codebase will be recycled, but very little of the content (IE, entirely different civs, buildings, units, magic, setting in general). Some of the team has expressed interest in working on it with me, others are moving to Civ5 as best as is possible atm, and a few (Opera, for instance) have stated they'd like to continue working on RifE and FfH in general, though quite likely in very different ways from previous plans.

There will be at least one more release, but this will only be a release of the current Public SVN Branch, with any bugfixes from the Development branch included.

I and the rest of the team apologize for failing to deliver on our plans, and hope you'll still be interested in what we produce in the future.

 

[Aoleleb]

*falls to knees* Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

That about sums up my feelings on this.

 

[Valkrionn]

To be perfectly frank, it is the setting itself that has me so disinterested in RifE. I am simply tired of operating within the bounds of FfH, and the limited creativity it allows us. All we can do is add NEW civs, and at this point there is simply no room for that; All of our civs are too strictly specialized. The only thing that will get me working again would be a complete rewrite, and as the setting is not actually ours, I'm not willing to do so.

I have put more effort into modding in the last two weeks than I have in months, simply because I am now working on my own setting. Hopefully this makes sense; I'm not completely abandoning modding in any way, I just cannot continue working within the confines of RifE, or FfH at large.

 

[Aoleleb]

So will this new modding project with recycled codebase be something like RiFE, just with a new original setting?

 

[Valkrionn]

No. I'm taking the existing codebase and building on it, in order to emphasize playstyle adaptability. Without going into too much detail (and I will NOT go into detail until there is a beta, nor will I give an ETA until there is a beta ), any civ will be able to adopt any playstyle; Civs are unique only in which playstyle the favor at game start.

 

[arcticnightwolf]

The mod is dead. Long live the mod!

 

[Elder Methyl]

What a Shame.

 

[Lplate]

Thanks for all the work on RifE. Good luck with the next one.

 

[Tschuggi]

keep up modding. You are a great team.

 

[Nor'easter]

You did a great job with RifE, I've had a lot of fun playing it, and will look forward to what's likely to be the final released version.

As you note, though, if you're no longer enthusiastic about it, you should definitely move on to something that really excites you, and make the mod you really want to make. I'll definitely look forward to THAT as well.

 

[thadian]

this was and still is a great mod. RIP - i will keep playin, just like wildmana. but i agree with Nor. Better you find yourself inspired by what you are doing and do that because it will have higher quality.

I had long thought about converting some of the FFH mechanics to put my own D&D game into civ, but i didn't want to be a cheap copycat and make a watered down, inferior FFH which is what it would have been perceived as. Thats why i never modded or tried - i wanted to, but i couldn't bring myself to want to try.

 

[Valkrionn]

I had long thought about converting some of the FFH mechanics to put my own D&D game into civ, but i didn't want to be a cheap copycat and make a watered down, inferior FFH which is what it would have been perceived as. Thats why i never modded or tried - i wanted to, but i couldn't bring myself to want to try.

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I'm trying to keep my designs as distinct from FfH as possible; Some mechanics will be recognizable (there's no avoiding that, when there's such a variety in FfH/RifE), but put together in entirely new ways. One thing I decided early on is to avoid any kind of Good vs Evil mechanism, or alignments in general, since FfH has that cornered.

 

[Acrux]

Thanks for all you've done with RifE. I see myself continuing with this mod for years and years (e.g. for as long as the operating systems of the future are back compatible ). In a sense, this announcement encourages me to play the mod more: I'd actually been holding off a bit, anticipating the various SVN releases.

I'm sorry to see this phase end, but I'll be very interested in seeing what's coming next. Hopefully we'll be hearing many more details soon!

 

[Imrahil66]

New mod will be fantasy based too?

 

[Hankc]

I'm sad to see the end of RifE, but I take some solace in the news that it might continue in some form. I look forward to whatever projects the modders are working on.

 

[Foxdrake]

...There will be at least one more release, but this will only be a release of the current Public SVN Branch, with any bugfixes from the Development branch included.

I and the rest of the team apologize for failing to deliver on our plans, and hope you'll still be interested in what we produce in the future.

OK.

So when will that be?
Where will we be able to get it?
Will it be in the download sticky?
What was the last update? (1.31.195.exe)?
and...
Thanks for everything.

 

[arcticnightwolf]

OK.

So when will that be?
Where will we be able to get it?
Will it be in the download sticky?
What was the last update? (1.31.195.exe)?
and...
Thanks for everything.

Well, since the (future final) update won't contain most of what was in the (planned) design documents, then there's no need to continue working on them. Valkrionn said, that it will be only "release of the current Public SVN Branch, with any bugfixes from the Development branch included", so the question only is, what will be moved from DevSVN to PublicSVN, what will continue being developed in RifE2 and what will be discarded. So IMHO it's just matter of < REDACTED > - I dare not guess, but it definitely won't be long.

Also, it will be in the sticky download thread. The last update that was released in form of an executable was 1.31.195 (+some hotfix), however it's possible to get more recent versions via SVN.

edit: RifE2 is just a working title - it's shorter than "the new Valkrionn's mod that will replace RifE", but otherwise don't look for any hidden meaning there

 

[Calavente]

I'm sad to hear/read that.

I had hoped that you would at least go up to 1.4

The year starts badly...

However I hope you'll find pleasure in Rife2 (as kindly named by THE articnightwolf in person). And If I can ever find the thread somewhere when you'll release the first beta, I'm sure I'll play and become addict. (please make some announcement on Rife2 in the current rife thread when you'll release so that we can come and see.)

My question is : will Rife2 (for lack of a better name) be a Civ 5 or a Civ 4 mod ? (well anticipate the "Civ5 of course", but I have to ask... )

EDIT: well, I forgot : your apology is received with a comment : thanks for all, and I'm telling you you didn't have to apology. However I appreciate it a lot.

 

[arcticnightwolf]

My question is : will Rife2 (for lack of a better name) be a Civ 5 or a Civ 4 mod ? (well anticipate the "Civ5 of course", but I have to ask... )

Some of the team has expressed interest in working on it with me, others are moving to Civ5 as best as is possible atm

rife2 will be civ4bts

disclaimer: all the things are yet in very early stage, so it can change - i'm just saying how the things look right now, but civ5 is unlikely, since some people of the RifE team already have some design for civ5 mod and are just waiting for dll source code release, and having 2 civ5 mods ... well ... idk - rife2 will probably most likely be civ4bts

disclaimer to Valkrionn: i'm just saying things i consider to be public (ie the working title and the mod being civ4) or things that wouldn't reveal pretty much anything from the design stuff you/we keep in secret

New mod will be fantasy based too?

most likely yes ... i think ... it's valkrionn who announced it, so we probably go with his fantasy version ( because, who would oppose him - we all know how stubborn hamsters are, right? )

 

[Valkrionn]

Just a few points (no worries anw as I'm going to say mostly the same things ):

I'm not off until Sunday/monday, so the final release will be around then.

The new mod will be fantasy (though NOT tolkienesque or DnD; more alt-history + magic/magitech).

The new mod's working title is E'iten. (name for the earth used by my favorite civ).

Any release (beta or otherwise) will be prominently announced in this forum, and our main forum will be expanded to accomodate E'iten discussion (likely I'm the next few days). Same goes for the wiki.

I likely will be leaking spoilers, but only with screenshots; otherwprds, no spoiler until a mechanic is done.


A few basic principles I will mention now: fewer, far more adaptive civs (this is being done in a way wholly unique, as far as civ is concerned ). Strong magic, without an overwhelming number of spells. No alignments; FfH does that too well. No angels/demons, same reason. Only one race (Humanity) with different racial subtypes; I didn't want elves/dwarves/goblins/etc, too recognizably FfH.

And that's all I'll say for now.