Titanic Honor and Glory

[Cam Houseman]

I was asked to join the project by Tom in May or June of last year, long story short: Tom got mad and withdrew the job offer.

Long story is:

A friend made a visually impressive thing that caught Tom's attention, and Tom sent out an email that (paraphrasing here) basically said, "We have thousands of subscribers and millions of views, come join us and you're stuff will be seen by more people."

The friend asked me to look at the email and give my thoughts on it, which essentially what I told him was, "He's being very vague in this email. Ask for some elaboration on things. What is it you're going to be doing? What will your work schedule be? You are allowed to ask him questions if you have questions." etc etc.

Tom took 2 weeks to respond to him, with an equally long response. An important thing to note is that before my friend sent me that 2nd email to look over (to give my thoughts on it), he said, "I think we both know who he's talking about in point #4"

I, vainly, assumed Tom was talking about me. Imagine my surprise when I read #4 and it said (again, paraphrasing), "Don't trust everyone online, they think they have all the information. They don't, only we do."

So yea, I wasn't exactly looking over the email with the unbiased of glasses for the remainder of my time. I still stand by what I wrote to my friend though, which ended with, "If I were you, I'd decline the offer."

A few weeks go by and Tom reaches out to me, with the same vague, "We have thousands of subscribers and millions of views, come join us"

I sent Tom a list of requirements that had to be met and written down in writing before I would join the project. Among these are:

I have to be able to continue making my own videos. My channel earns me revenue which allows me to pay my bills. I cannot shut down or private all my videos after I join your team. This would kill my revenue, force me to quit your team, and go work one (or more) minimum wage jobs to get back on my feet financially.

I require $10 an hour (extremely low pay for someone in the game industry, most game developers make at a minimum $50,000 a year)

I work on my own stuff (at the time) for 10 hrs a day, I can afford to devote no more than 2hrs a day to your project.

What would I be working on if I joined?

I own the rights to all the models I create while working for you

etc etc.

They all boiled down to protecting myself and looking out for myself. Which any sensible person can understand. Nobody in life looks out for you, you have to do that yourself.

Tom took 9 days to respond to the email in which all he wrote was: "I find your terms agreeable but I must rescind the offer as I do not wish to work with people who distort private conversations and accuse me of threats which I did not make."

I'd also like to point out that I accused him of no threats in the messages between my friend and I. His ego couldn't handle the fact that someone saw the way he was acting and had a negative opinion of him after they saw those things.

Hi! Great to see you here again

I'm not very surprised, remember the drama on Paul Lee's page and reddit?

By the way, we've talked before, I'm General Skywalker on Discord

 

[Cam Houseman]

Oh! And they posted a new progress plan!
2018 Plan:

November 2020 Progress Plan:

key:

DARK GREY - NOT STARTED: ~20%
LIGHT GREY - BARELY STARTED OR BEING ENTIRELY REDONE ~10%
RED - PARTIALLY DONE ~22%
YELLOW - MOSTLY DONE ~15%
GREEN - DONE, BUT NOT YET OPTIMIZED ~8%
LIGHT BLUE - DONE BY MODELER GIO CASTRO BUT NOT OPTIMIZED ~5%
PINK - DONE IN ENGINE, BUT NOT YET OPTIMIZED OR IN NEED OF UPDATES ~10%
BLUE - DONE, OPTIMIZED, AND IN THE ENGINE (THOUGH STILL SUBJECT TO UPDATES OR FURTHER OPTIMIZATION AS REQUIRED) ~10%​

thoughts?

 

[Cam Houseman]

Kyle Hudak, one of the developers (saying just incase someone didn't know) messaged this is the Titanic: Honor and Glory Discord Server, an thoroughly detailed explanation of the colors

"A slightly more detailed description of the progress plan stages is as follows:

LIGHT GREY - These areas are of two sorts: Either they've been started, but are progressed no further than some basic modeled walls and floor or other elements, or they were made to some degree (even finished) before, but due to new research or other issues, are now being redone, either totally or in part.

RED - Areas that are partially done. That means usually built in Sketchup. Maybe the main room structures are partially complete, texturing isn't done for the basic model stage, furniture is only just started, etc.

YELLOW - These places are mostly done. Room models are done or nearly done, furniture or fittings may be done to a high degree, textures too. But at this stage, things are still in Sketchup and optimization hasn't started yet.
.(edited)

GREEN - These areas are done on Matt or Gio's end in Sketchup, but are not ready to be place in the engine because they still need to be properly UV mapped, refined, textured, hi-polys made, lightmaps, etc.

LIGHT BLUE - These spots are modeled by Gio Castro in Sketchup, but far from done usually. Matt has to go over them and refine and optimize them further in Sketchup to bring them to the GREEN stage, then they will need to be taken from there and made game-ready.

PINK - These are effectively GREEN areas, but which have been quickly lightmapped, divided up, and placed in the engine for visualization purposes. They still need to be optimized, mapped, textured, etc. Many areas you've seen in "Megademo" material are of this type. Some PINK areas may also need to be updated to a large extent. For example, the Grand Staircases are effectively done and engine-ready, but I'd really like to go over them again and optimize how the texturing is done, which may be considerable reworking of most of the models. The way they're done now take up an IMMENSE amount of resources and doesn't look so good when the textures are reduced to even mid-level quality.

BLUE - These areas are more or less done through all stages and currently playable in the engine, though are still subject to minor updates and fixes if needed, but nothing game-delaying or redo-worthy.

Optimization as used here generally mainly involves making the models as low-poly as possible or is reasonable, UV mapping them, light-mapping them, baking textures for them, making hi-poly models for the baking process as needed, adjusting for accuracy and proportions, dividing or grouping as needed, making LODs and collision meshes, etc. All the stuff that isn't or can't be done in Sketchup."

 

[Andy A Carter]

If Blue is done, I would say at there current rate another 5 years.

Also it doesn't list the progress / state of the Brown areas

 

[Cam Houseman]

If Blue is done, I would say at there current rate another 5 years.

Also it doesn't list the progress / state of the Brown areas

Agreed.

I think those brown areas is decking, I think someone said they zoomed in and saw planking

 

[JTDillon]

Hello everyone, this is a post about the upcoming (maybe) video game currently in development called Titanic Honor and Glory. I didn't quite know which forum to place this in, there isn't a video game category so I decided "General" would suffice since by description says "..anything Titanic related". I was just curious about the sinking mechanics and how they would work in the game, what other people thought, and maybe toward the end ill complain about the game itself haha.
Id like to mention that this post wont be necessarily positive toward the game, specifically its development. Some fans instantly become enraged when they come across anyone who would dare critique the H&G team so I thought Id warn you ahead of time and tell you that I was a HUGE supporter of theirs and was one of the people who donated money to them.... TWICE! I was exactly where you are now 9 years ago and defended them adamantly for YEARS so please don't crucify me for my opinion, I am just frustrated. I'm just posting this for catharsis & discussion, I don't wish the project or the team ill, on the contrary I sincerely want them to succeed and for the project to be a smashing success- the work they have done is extraordinary! I'm not talking bad about them because I'm a jerk, I'm frustrated because I had such high hopes and I'm simply explaining why I lost that good will. Yes, that disclaimer is necessary- fan boys can be extremely toxic so I try to disarm them, if possible, before and after the triggering content.


SINKING PHYSICS - When they initially announced the project nearly a decade ago they said the game would have 2 basic modes; In both modes you could freely tour the entire ship but in one mode the ship would be sinking, the other mode would just be a stationary ship. This is what made me really excited for the game, I have always been curious about the flooding of the ship; Not just in a general sense of "water spilled over bulkheads via E-deck", but specifically which avenues the water took to get into different areas. Some people just have random arbitrary fascinations and one of mine happens to be sinking ships -yes, I am THAT cool .
I was around 20 when the project was fist announced, I heard about it early on and I was somewhat ignorant/naive/overly optimistic about what computers (games,programs etc) were capable of. I truly believed it would be a game in which the water would accurately move and behave as it did during the sinking. I knew it wouldn't be perfect, but I thought it'd be accurate at least. As I have gotten older I have become more cynical, or as I call it: realistic. Now that I am a bit wiser, especially with computers, I have no idea how they're going to be able to portray the water mechanics in the game. I know many of you might tell me to simply watch their "Titanic sinking in real time" YouTube video (if you haven't seen it id highly recommend it) because they show interior shots of the flooding and to this I would reply that those aren't video clips of the game engine at work, those are animations, not game play footage.
I was wondering what some of your thoughts were on this, how do you think it could work, how would you do it? I don't think they're going to be able to somehow program accurate water physics into a game, I think the water movements will have to be pre animated. In order to accurately simulate sinking ships the Navy and cruise ship companies use elaborate computer programs that are expensive and require Einstein tier processing power and even then you're not getting pretty 3D environments and moving bodies of water in real time, you get a 2D profile of the ship with flooded areas shaded in blue with tons of data (text).
In the YT video I mentioned earlier they show exterior shots of the ship as she is sinking and at a few points you see the exterior water line hasn't risen over a certain wall meaning there should be water on one side but not the other, however the water line is equal on both sides despite there being no possible way for water to be where it is... this just shows that its a model of the Titanic and a static body of water, they animated the model ship moving downward at an angle into the water and it just clips though the walls. I really hope this isn't the route they take with the game itself, that would be so cheesy.
The work of animating the flooding would be grueling... it would of course need to be coordinated with the movement of the ship (as she listed and whatnot), it would need to be happening simultaneously in a lot of areas at once which would require a hefty GPU and CPU to handle.. IDK how they plan on handling this. Probably something like going into different areas puts you into a loading screen before you enter another zone so your PC isn't trying to do all of this at once. The demo they've put out so far is beautiful, I have a Nvidia GTX 2080 with an intel i7 8700K, for those of you who aren't tech savvy I'm saying I have a good gaming computer and the current demo gives my PC a workout; I cant imagine the entire ship, NPCs, water physics/animations etc all at once happening even on the best gaming PC available.
So I'm just curious what some of you guys think about all that. Mainly I just want a game or simulator where I can see the flooding semi accurately... I know this is a tall order. I do have "Sinking Simulator" on Steam (its free!) but its only a 2D profile of a ship and the physics are pretty terrible!
But if I come across a genies lamp one day Id definitely wish for a magical game where I could see the sinking EXACTLY how it happened. I guess I should use that wish to make it so it never sank at all shouldn't I?.....so I guess Id wish for the Titanic to have never sank, and to just have a exact replica where I could explore it freely as it sank with the assurance I would be safe...wait, that's 2 wishes isn't it? Lets just move on....

Now this is what makes me a bit fussy about the entire thing.... they haven't even gotten to the sinking yet. Not even close. Its been nearly 9 years and they haven't finished the interior of the ship yet. When they initially started the project they had a little preview demonstration showcasing they had modelled the entire grand staircase within around a month (I may be off on that estimate) and I was impressed by how fast they were progressing so I donated. One month to do the Grand Staircase? Using that as a rough guide I figured they could model the entire ship in 2-3 years. Some time goes by, maybe 2 years and they ran another crowd funding campaign asking for donations and because of that initial confidence I had in them I donated again, an even larger amount because there was a lot of enthusiasm and confidence in the project.... but as time went on they seemed to stall over and over, despite raising their goal a few times. IDK how many fundraisers they did in total but they raised quite a bit of cash. Since then they have focused more and more on shameless promotion of models and other peoples products for commissions as well as YT videos for monetization. This is fine, if they need money I want them to have it, its just.....IDK.
They at one point took a trip to Southampton and researched what the city looked like in 1912 and programmed it into one of their demos. That's cool and all, but with how painfully slow the progress was I couldn't help but wonder why they weren't focusing on finishing the ship instead since it was what everyone paid for, crazy idea right?... Why not finish the ship first THEN work on cool extras like the historic city of Southampton. It took them a lot of time to dig up old street maps, photos and things of that nature then fully model buildings into the game. Now they plan on doing fully voiced NPCs, its a lot of work to model NPCs motions, their outfits, and voice acting.... They talk about there being a storyline to progress and follow as if it were Titanic: A Story Out of Time with missions and all. Again, that sounds awesome (not to me, but I could see how some would love it) but id like to just get the ship first. Its taking them nearly a decade to do the modeling of the ship (looking at their progress page the ship seems 50% done?), at this rate to do everything they want it'd take decades. By the time they make any significant amount of progress their engine will be obsolete and the team will be in their 70s... Let me put it this way... Triple AAA game studios with dozens of experienced game developers, cutting edge equipment, millions of dollars to work with struggle to put out games with NPCs and missions etc.

I'm almost 30 now (God I hate saying that, time is so cruel) and at this point I honestly doubt the game will ever be 'finished' (everything they have pitched). MAYBE we will one day see a fully modelled ship you can tour, but I am pessimistic about the sinking mode. If it does get finished I will be into my late 30s or older and my passion/interest in things like games will be drying up like a watering hole in the Sahara. I would appreciate if the guys making the game were more transparent about what is going on - address why its taking so long. I understand they don't know what certain areas of the ship look like but at this point in time if you don't know it means nobody knows - you're gonna have to wing it. I understand they're just guys working on a side project because its their passion, but the problem is they didn't pitch it that way. If they would've advertised the project as a handful of people who will only work on this project a couple hours a week and given accurate projections of how long it would take there's no way I, or anyone in their right mind, would've donated. In their update blogs and videos I get the impression these guys are better suited for politics, they manage to speak for 10 minutes without saying anything at all. Its like a big bowl of cereal, its a lot to chew on for 10 minutes but its all empty calories....no nutritional value, no substance.
They don't wanna address how long its taking. Why they keep mismanaging their budgets. Why there is a lack of progress reports. They kind of ignore all that and give us the run around, "we've been really busy..... we've had things come up...... were still looking for (more) investors..... but anyway, head over to our store and buy a 3D printed model of the Titanic. Watch our YT videos (so we can get that sweet ad revenue!). Buy the Trumpeter Titanic model from OUR website (so we can charge an additional 50$ commission).".

I know I'm coming off bitter, but at this point it seems like they've just been milking the project and topic for money via passive income. I will concede I have completely given up on checking in with their updates and whatever about a year now... maybe their vlogs and YT videos have improved, maybe they have become more transparent and forthcoming, maybe they've started getting more done, but I did check their progress page and it honestly seems like practically nothing has changed in over a year.
Like I said, if they were just honest with us.... Did you waste money and not handle your budget correctly? Did you even have a budget? Did you just lose motivation over time? Did you blow your money on drugs? Maybe one of your crew stole money and equipment then disappeared? If they were just forthcoming and real I would have so much more respect for them. But for years they really acted like things were going fine, always giving the impression that they were about to somehow break through a "barrier" and things were about to start going faster. I don't know how to quite articulate what I mean, but I don't mean to say they said that literally.
Like I said, maybe things have changed and they're now a lot better.....I hope they are, but I don't have the interest or patience to sit through anymore update videos just to get nothing. I did it religiously for the first 4-5 years, then occasionally would catch up for a couple years, now I'm burnt out. I always defended them, I remember other people saying EXACTLY what I am saying now and much more, people who were clearly knowledgeable with game development and PCs but id defend them as if they were infallible. Now here I am, a grumpy old man haha. I remember a lot of gossip about how the "lead" guy was quite toxic; Claims like he would bully "competition", got people who disagreed kicked off of certain message boards, harassed former team members, lied and backtracked about certain things...stuff like this.

I see a lot of people who have only recently heard about the game in their YT video comment section... their videos (particularly their "Titanic sinking in real time" videos) get millions upon millions of views - every anniversary of the sinking they milk the cash cow by posting a live stream of them giving commentary of the titanic sinking as they play the same video they played the year before (Titanic sinking in real time). All these people aren't aware how slow the project has progressed and they're all willing to support the project by purchasing products/donating/watching videos hoping to get an update (earning the team ad revenue each time they do), advertising the project attracting more people who will do the same. I'm just worried that this will continue and the team will keep making money without ever putting out the product they pitched almost a decade ago which means all of us (there were a lot of us who donated A LOT of money) basically got fu... screwed. At a certain point you gotta wonder what the motivation would be to actually make the game? To everyone who initially donated we were promised free copies when it came out.... that money was spent a decade ago... they're making a nice passive income stream right now so what incentive is there to actually crank the thing out?

A similar situation occurs with "Early Access" games. A developer runs out of money before they finished their game so they release an unfinished, or "Early Access", version at a reduced price for some quick income with the promise that they will use the money to finish work on the game. Well they end up selling a lot of copies because people assume the game will be finished eventually so they better buy it while its cheap. What happens is the developer makes a ton of money and suddenly loses the incentive to finish the game.... Suddenly they arent worried about covering cost. Sometimes its not that insidious though, sometimes its just bad fortune. Am I STILL rambling on? Holy........... I just looked up and saw this short story I have written and I have no clue why I wasted so much time writing this pointless post.
Im tempted to go back and erase some of it so I dont come off so neurotic but at the same time I dont want to waste all the time I spent writing all this crap.... Please, if anyone actually read all of this, dont hate me for being critical of H&G. I tried to be fair, I tried to explain my thought process as best I could. If you think im a jerk, explain why, I pride myself on how well I take criticism. Seriously, just ask anyone of my ex wives or former friends. Heck, even my parents will testify to that, we dont talk anymore though. Theyre all close minded bigots who lack vision but theyll tell you how open minded I am! .....im trying to be funny. .....im just gonna go.....

 

[Dan Parkes]

I understand where you are coming from - I feel similarly. A couple of basic points:
1. They are making an announcement this weekend as it happens (YouTube live stream), in their words: "A bunch of updates on the status of the game, our new direction, and insight into what's been happening" I am hoping that the "new direction" is that they will follow the general consensus and drop the elaborate fictional game concept and refocus on simply building the ship - that is what most if not all of the backers are really wanting.
2. Have you tried their "test game" Britannic: Patroness of the Mediterranean on Steam? It is a "virtual museum" experience. Water physics are basic at best, but I found the experience very immersive and I sincerely hope the direction the main game will now take.

 

[Cam Houseman]

Hello everyone, this is a post about the upcoming (maybe) video game currently in development called Titanic Honor and Glory. I didn't quite know which forum to place this in, there isn't a video game category so I decided "General" would suffice since by description says "..anything Titanic related". I was just curious about the sinking mechanics and how they would work in the game, what other people thought, and maybe toward the end ill complain about the game itself haha.
Id like to mention that this post wont be necessarily positive toward the game, specifically its development. Some fans instantly become enraged when they come across anyone who would dare critique the H&G team so I thought Id warn you ahead of time and tell you that I was a HUGE supporter of theirs and was one of the people who donated money to them.... TWICE! I was exactly where you are now 9 years ago and defended them adamantly for YEARS so please don't crucify me for my opinion, I am just frustrated. I'm just posting this for catharsis & discussion, I don't wish the project or the team ill, on the contrary I sincerely want them to succeed and for the project to be a smashing success- the work they have done is extraordinary! I'm not talking bad about them because I'm a jerk, I'm frustrated because I had such high hopes and I'm simply explaining why I lost that good will. Yes, that disclaimer is necessary- fan boys can be extremely toxic so I try to disarm them, if possible, before and after the triggering content.


SINKING PHYSICS - When they initially announced the project nearly a decade ago they said the game would have 2 basic modes; In both modes you could freely tour the entire ship but in one mode the ship would be sinking, the other mode would just be a stationary ship. This is what made me really excited for the game, I have always been curious about the flooding of the ship; Not just in a general sense of "water spilled over bulkheads via E-deck", but specifically which avenues the water took to get into different areas. Some people just have random arbitrary fascinations and one of mine happens to be sinking ships -yes, I am THAT cool .
I was around 20 when the project was fist announced, I heard about it early on and I was somewhat ignorant/naive/overly optimistic about what computers (games,programs etc) were capable of. I truly believed it would be a game in which the water would accurately move and behave as it did during the sinking. I knew it wouldn't be perfect, but I thought it'd be accurate at least. As I have gotten older I have become more cynical, or as I call it: realistic. Now that I am a bit wiser, especially with computers, I have no idea how they're going to be able to portray the water mechanics in the game. I know many of you might tell me to simply watch their "Titanic sinking in real time" YouTube video (if you haven't seen it id highly recommend it) because they show interior shots of the flooding and to this I would reply that those aren't video clips of the game engine at work, those are animations, not game play footage.
I was wondering what some of your thoughts were on this, how do you think it could work, how would you do it? I don't think they're going to be able to somehow program accurate water physics into a game, I think the water movements will have to be pre animated. In order to accurately simulate sinking ships the Navy and cruise ship companies use elaborate computer programs that are expensive and require Einstein tier processing power and even then you're not getting pretty 3D environments and moving bodies of water in real time, you get a 2D profile of the ship with flooded areas shaded in blue with tons of data (text).
In the YT video I mentioned earlier they show exterior shots of the ship as she is sinking and at a few points you see the exterior water line hasn't risen over a certain wall meaning there should be water on one side but not the other, however the water line is equal on both sides despite there being no possible way for water to be where it is... this just shows that its a model of the Titanic and a static body of water, they animated the model ship moving downward at an angle into the water and it just clips though the walls. I really hope this isn't the route they take with the game itself, that would be so cheesy.
The work of animating the flooding would be grueling... it would of course need to be coordinated with the movement of the ship (as she listed and whatnot), it would need to be happening simultaneously in a lot of areas at once which would require a hefty GPU and CPU to handle.. IDK how they plan on handling this. Probably something like going into different areas puts you into a loading screen before you enter another zone so your PC isn't trying to do all of this at once. The demo they've put out so far is beautiful, I have a Nvidia GTX 2080 with an intel i7 8700K, for those of you who aren't tech savvy I'm saying I have a good gaming computer and the current demo gives my PC a workout; I cant imagine the entire ship, NPCs, water physics/animations etc all at once happening even on the best gaming PC available.
So I'm just curious what some of you guys think about all that. Mainly I just want a game or simulator where I can see the flooding semi accurately... I know this is a tall order. I do have "Sinking Simulator" on Steam (its free!) but its only a 2D profile of a ship and the physics are pretty terrible!
But if I come across a genies lamp one day Id definitely wish for a magical game where I could see the sinking EXACTLY how it happened. I guess I should use that wish to make it so it never sank at all shouldn't I?.....so I guess Id wish for the Titanic to have never sank, and to just have a exact replica where I could explore it freely as it sank with the assurance I would be safe...wait, that's 2 wishes isn't it? Lets just move on....

Now this is what makes me a bit fussy about the entire thing.... they haven't even gotten to the sinking yet. Not even close. Its been nearly 9 years and they haven't finished the interior of the ship yet. When they initially started the project they had a little preview demonstration showcasing they had modelled the entire grand staircase within around a month (I may be off on that estimate) and I was impressed by how fast they were progressing so I donated. One month to do the Grand Staircase? Using that as a rough guide I figured they could model the entire ship in 2-3 years. Some time goes by, maybe 2 years and they ran another crowd funding campaign asking for donations and because of that initial confidence I had in them I donated again, an even larger amount because there was a lot of enthusiasm and confidence in the project.... but as time went on they seemed to stall over and over, despite raising their goal a few times. IDK how many fundraisers they did in total but they raised quite a bit of cash. Since then they have focused more and more on shameless promotion of models and other peoples products for commissions as well as YT videos for monetization. This is fine, if they need money I want them to have it, its just.....IDK.
They at one point took a trip to Southampton and researched what the city looked like in 1912 and programmed it into one of their demos. That's cool and all, but with how painfully slow the progress was I couldn't help but wonder why they weren't focusing on finishing the ship instead since it was what everyone paid for, crazy idea right?... Why not finish the ship first THEN work on cool extras like the historic city of Southampton. It took them a lot of time to dig up old street maps, photos and things of that nature then fully model buildings into the game. Now they plan on doing fully voiced NPCs, its a lot of work to model NPCs motions, their outfits, and voice acting.... They talk about there being a storyline to progress and follow as if it were Titanic: A Story Out of Time with missions and all. Again, that sounds awesome (not to me, but I could see how some would love it) but id like to just get the ship first. Its taking them nearly a decade to do the modeling of the ship (looking at their progress page the ship seems 50% done?), at this rate to do everything they want it'd take decades. By the time they make any significant amount of progress their engine will be obsolete and the team will be in their 70s... Let me put it this way... Triple AAA game studios with dozens of experienced game developers, cutting edge equipment, millions of dollars to work with struggle to put out games with NPCs and missions etc.

I'm almost 30 now (God I hate saying that, time is so cruel) and at this point I honestly doubt the game will ever be 'finished' (everything they have pitched). MAYBE we will one day see a fully modelled ship you can tour, but I am pessimistic about the sinking mode. If it does get finished I will be into my late 30s or older and my passion/interest in things like games will be drying up like a watering hole in the Sahara. I would appreciate if the guys making the game were more transparent about what is going on - address why its taking so long. I understand they don't know what certain areas of the ship look like but at this point in time if you don't know it means nobody knows - you're gonna have to wing it. I understand they're just guys working on a side project because its their passion, but the problem is they didn't pitch it that way. If they would've advertised the project as a handful of people who will only work on this project a couple hours a week and given accurate projections of how long it would take there's no way I, or anyone in their right mind, would've donated. In their update blogs and videos I get the impression these guys are better suited for politics, they manage to speak for 10 minutes without saying anything at all. Its like a big bowl of cereal, its a lot to chew on for 10 minutes but its all empty calories....no nutritional value, no substance.
They don't wanna address how long its taking. Why they keep mismanaging their budgets. Why there is a lack of progress reports. They kind of ignore all that and give us the run around, "we've been really busy..... we've had things come up...... were still looking for (more) investors..... but anyway, head over to our store and buy a 3D printed model of the Titanic. Watch our YT videos (so we can get that sweet ad revenue!). Buy the Trumpeter Titanic model from OUR website (so we can charge an additional 50$ commission).".

I know I'm coming off bitter, but at this point it seems like they've just been milking the project and topic for money via passive income. I will concede I have completely given up on checking in with their updates and whatever about a year now... maybe their vlogs and YT videos have improved, maybe they have become more transparent and forthcoming, maybe they've started getting more done, but I did check their progress page and it honestly seems like practically nothing has changed in over a year.
Like I said, if they were just honest with us.... Did you waste money and not handle your budget correctly? Did you even have a budget? Did you just lose motivation over time? Did you blow your money on drugs? Maybe one of your crew stole money and equipment then disappeared? If they were just forthcoming and real I would have so much more respect for them. But for years they really acted like things were going fine, always giving the impression that they were about to somehow break through a "barrier" and things were about to start going faster. I don't know how to quite articulate what I mean, but I don't mean to say they said that literally.
Like I said, maybe things have changed and they're now a lot better.....I hope they are, but I don't have the interest or patience to sit through anymore update videos just to get nothing. I did it religiously for the first 4-5 years, then occasionally would catch up for a couple years, now I'm burnt out. I always defended them, I remember other people saying EXACTLY what I am saying now and much more, people who were clearly knowledgeable with game development and PCs but id defend them as if they were infallible. Now here I am, a grumpy old man haha. I remember a lot of gossip about how the "lead" guy was quite toxic; Claims like he would bully "competition", got people who disagreed kicked off of certain message boards, harassed former team members, lied and backtracked about certain things...stuff like this.

I see a lot of people who have only recently heard about the game in their YT video comment section... their videos (particularly their "Titanic sinking in real time" videos) get millions upon millions of views - every anniversary of the sinking they milk the cash cow by posting a live stream of them giving commentary of the titanic sinking as they play the same video they played the year before (Titanic sinking in real time). All these people aren't aware how slow the project has progressed and they're all willing to support the project by purchasing products/donating/watching videos hoping to get an update (earning the team ad revenue each time they do), advertising the project attracting more people who will do the same. I'm just worried that this will continue and the team will keep making money without ever putting out the product they pitched almost a decade ago which means all of us (there were a lot of us who donated A LOT of money) basically got fu... screwed. At a certain point you gotta wonder what the motivation would be to actually make the game? To everyone who initially donated we were promised free copies when it came out.... that money was spent a decade ago... they're making a nice passive income stream right now so what incentive is there to actually crank the thing out?

A similar situation occurs with "Early Access" games. A developer runs out of money before they finished their game so they release an unfinished, or "Early Access", version at a reduced price for some quick income with the promise that they will use the money to finish work on the game. Well they end up selling a lot of copies because people assume the game will be finished eventually so they better buy it while its cheap. What happens is the developer makes a ton of money and suddenly loses the incentive to finish the game.... Suddenly they arent worried about covering cost. Sometimes its not that insidious though, sometimes its just bad fortune. Am I STILL rambling on? Holy........... I just looked up and saw this short story I have written and I have no clue why I wasted so much time writing this pointless post.
Im tempted to go back and erase some of it so I dont come off so neurotic but at the same time I dont want to waste all the time I spent writing all this crap.... Please, if anyone actually read all of this, dont hate me for being critical of H&G. I tried to be fair, I tried to explain my thought process as best I could. If you think im a jerk, explain why, I pride myself on how well I take criticism. Seriously, just ask anyone of my ex wives or former friends. Heck, even my parents will testify to that, we dont talk anymore though. Theyre all close minded bigots who lack vision but theyll tell you how open minded I am! .....im trying to be funny. .....im just gonna go.....

Seems you can't criticize them. Beware Facebook, you'll get torn to pieces saying something out of line

I'm hopeful, maybe they'll turn over a new leaf!

 

[Cam Houseman]

Seems you can't criticize them. Beware Facebook, you'll get torn to pieces saying something out of line

I'm hopeful, maybe they'll turn over a new leaf!
View attachment 75720

this happend:

 

[Samuel Halpern]

Just an observation. The first post in this thread was in March of 2013. It is now February 2021, almost eight years later. Interest in Titanic hit a peak again in 2012, the centennial of the disaster. Interest tend to exponentially decay with time. The window of excitement and opportunity is slowly closing. By time this thing is finally released, will there be anyone around who really cares anymore?

 

[Cam Houseman]

Just an observation. The first post in this thread was in March of 2013. It is now February 2021, almost eight years later.

Hi Sam!
I agree. In the April 2020 update video, Tom said:
"This is where it currently stands: The goal of the project is to recreate the Titanic, inside and out, 100%. We're currently around 80% finished, give or take 1-2 percent."

Yet, the chart from their website shows this progress plan from December

Kyle Hudak posted this in their Discord server
"A slightly more detailed description of the progress plan stages is as follows:

LIGHT GREY - These areas are of two sorts: Either they've been started, but are progressed no further than some basic modeled walls and floor or other elements, or they were made to some degree (even finished) before, but due to new research or other issues, are now being redone, either totally or in part.

RED - Areas that are partially done. That means usually built in Sketchup. Maybe the main room structures are partially complete, texturing isn't done for the basic model stage, furniture is only just started, etc.

YELLOW - These places are mostly done. Room models are done or nearly done, furniture or fittings may be done to a high degree, textures too. But at this stage, things are still in Sketchup and optimization hasn't started yet.
.(edited)

GREEN - These areas are done on Matt or Gio's end in Sketchup, but are not ready to be place in the engine because they still need to be properly UV mapped, refined, textured, hi-polys made, lightmaps, etc.

LIGHT BLUE - These spots are modeled by Gio Castro in Sketchup, but far from done usually. Matt has to go over them and refine and optimize them further in Sketchup to bring them to the GREEN stage, then they will need to be taken from there and made game-ready.

PINK - These are effectively GREEN areas, but which have been quickly lightmapped, divided up, and placed in the engine for visualization purposes. They still need to be optimized, mapped, textured, etc. Many areas you've seen in "Megademo" material are of this type. Some PINK areas may also need to be updated to a large extent. For example, the Grand Staircases are effectively done and engine-ready, but I'd really like to go over them again and optimize how the texturing is done, which may be considerable reworking of most of the models. The way they're done now take up an IMMENSE amount of resources and doesn't look so good when the textures are reduced to even mid-level quality.

BLUE - These areas are more or less done through all stages and currently playable in the engine, though are still subject to minor updates and fixes if needed, but nothing game-delaying or redo-worthy.

Optimization as used here generally mainly involves making the models as low-poly as possible or is reasonable, UV mapping them, light-mapping them, baking textures for them, making hi-poly models for the baking process as needed, adjusting for accuracy and proportions, dividing or grouping as needed, making LODs and collision meshes, etc. All the stuff that isn't or can't be done in Sketchup."

I think they won't be done anytime soon. I can't wait for this project, but Demo 3 made the game crash 3 times, I was only able to explore once, and I have a good computer (I think). We can only hope, I guess.

 

[B-rad]

I think that they were just over eager and excited and unrealistic expectations were made by them and the general public. The amount of detail they have achieved deserves the highest praise, but I know such deep research takes A LOT of time. I also have had projects that I've promised, but one or two road blocks later I get discouraged and lose interest, and either progress stops or slows down. One such project is a documentary about Anna Sjoblom as she moved to Tacoma, WA (where I live) right after the sinking, but my contacts have not followed through as of yet, and now with the pandemic, its not looking like its going to get done any time soon at all. So I understand how such a PUBLIC project (what started off as a side geek-out gig) could get too big for the reality of the situation, if that's what happened. Who knows?

 

[Rose F.]

It also sounds like there's drama involved from Tom departing the group, and while H&G are clearly unable to disclose what's going on, there might be some legal scuffles coming from it? I haven't followed the project in months (not since they did the revised final plunge and seemingly did nothing to address the criticisms levied at it back in 2016) but looking at their video about the stream postponement, that seems to be what the audience is implying is going on.

That's almost certainly going to damp some of the momentum the project had, and curb enthusiasm. As interesting as this project is, I'm starting to wonder if they have a future if all of these things continue to build up.

 

[J Sheehan]

Ah, for goodness sake everyone!

A few things:

1) Cut 'em some slack for crying out loud! The pandemic we're going through has obviously had an effect on everything we're going through right now, and it's no doubt affect the Titanic HG team as well.

2) Just be patient with them! The project will be done WHEN it's done.

3) I see the THG project as art; look at this video clip between 0:37 and 0:43 and you'll see why I'm annoyed with all the doubters out there.

0:37 to 0:39; those asking when the project will be done.

0:40 to 0:43; those willing to wait until the project is fully finished.

No more criticisms please!

 

[Cam Houseman]

Ah, for goodness sake everyone!

A few things:

1) Cut 'em some slack for crying out loud! The pandemic we're going through has obviously had an effect on everything we're going through right now, and it's no doubt affect the Titanic HG team as well.
No more criticisms please!

the pandemic hadn't lasted for 8 years. There's other issues, as well. Here's a quote from a friend of mine on Discord

this has happened to many other people

 

[Alterean]

Ah, for goodness sake everyone!

A few things:

1) Cut 'em some slack for crying out loud! The pandemic we're going through has obviously had an effect on everything we're going through right now, and it's no doubt affect the Titanic HG team as well.

2) Just be patient with them! The project will be done WHEN it's done.

3) I see the THG project as art; look at this video clip between 0:37 and 0:43 and you'll see why I'm annoyed with all the doubters out there.

0:37 to 0:39; those asking when the project will be done.

0:40 to 0:43; those willing to wait until the project is fully finished.

No more criticisms please!

No, saying no more criticism is stupid. If it weren't for the people being critical of this project, then the team would just keep on doing the same crap they've been doing. Telling them how amazing they are over and over again when they do nothing is the problem with the project, but now that criticism has started to get larger and larger the team has decided they want to change, which is good. We'll see if anything actually changes, but it's a step in the right direction.

Stop telling people to be patient, and cut them some slack. We've done that, now is the time to be critical of them, and stop praising them for everything they say.

 

[Rose F.]

Ah, for goodness sake everyone!

A few things:

1) Cut 'em some slack for crying out loud! The pandemic we're going through has obviously had an effect on everything we're going through right now, and it's no doubt affect the Titanic HG team as well.

2) Just be patient with them! The project will be done WHEN it's done.

3) I see the THG project as art; look at this video clip between 0:37 and 0:43 and you'll see why I'm annoyed with all the doubters out there.

0:37 to 0:39; those asking when the project will be done.

0:40 to 0:43; those willing to wait until the project is fully finished.

No more criticisms please!

Even moreso than the pandemic, there hasn't been much in the way of updates to the game as a game since Demo 3, which was... 2017, I think? Since then they've done a bunch of side projects, such as modelling 1912 Southampton, The stuff related to the Britannic, the tangent where they instead invested resources into modelling the SS Atlantic, (which barely has any significant connection to the Titanic aside from both being WSL,) there were reports of them wanting to do something Lusitania related...

The most recent thing relevant to THG they've posted was the updated Final Plunge, and that's something they've been sitting on for a while (and didn't really update anything from the 2016 animation aside from adding silhouettes to represent passengers and making the lighting a bit darker.) Now, I don't really follow them elsewhere, but so far as I can tell, they've been mostly silent on their other social media platforms too.

There's "Be patient," and, "Hey, it's been six months since we've heard anything at all, and years since you've made an update to the actual game. What's going on?"

 

[Cam Houseman]

I also think we should cut Matt Dewinkleer and Kyle Hudak some slack, as they're the only ones who are spending time (occasionally) with the community on Discord, Facebook, reddit, etc.
Tom, on the other hand, has acted like he's leaving the team, saying trash in his YouTube comments and stuff

 

[Saberius Prime Gaming]

I also think we should cut Matt Dewinkleer and Kyle Hudak some slack, as they're the only ones who are spending time (occasionally) with the community on Discord, Facebook, reddit, etc.
Tom, on the other hand, has acted like he's leaving the team, saying trash in his YouTube comments and stuff

Tom left? What the heck for? He had it good...

 

[Rose F.]

Tom left? What the heck for? He had it good...

To clarify, we don't know if he left left. He simply said he's not done anything for the THG project for the least year or so (despite one of the april updates has him claiming that as soon as lockdown ended he'd be working 24/7 to find an investor.)