Someone made a new srb2 camera mod on the forums. It's trying to make a better analog camera option that has things like a boss targeting camera and a "put behind the player" button, among a host of other changes.
I sat on this ask for a while because it was telling me something I already knew and I didn’t have anything interesting to say to that other than “Yeah, Fickle’s camera mod is cool”
Though I guess more accurately that would be “Fickle’s camera mod is cool, but the last time I used it, it felt a little loose and weird.” But nothing I wasn’t willing to get used to, I guess.
I’m answering this now because I glanced through the SRB2 forums recently and it sounds like Fickle’s camera mod is getting rolled in to SRB2 proper at some point in the future. Though given how many years there was between 2.1 and 2.2, I wonder how long that’ll actually take. :p
I’ll also use this post to say something else, since I doubt many people who read this blog also read what I said on the SRB2 forums about the camera issue:
I was super out of line with the posts I made about SRB2′s camera. The complaints I had with it were still valid, but the way I expressed those complaints was not. I did the one thing you’re never supposed to do: I jumped to conclusions and I argued against strawmen that didn’t exist. I acted like a total moron.
I was very, very amped up for SRB2 2.2. When faced with the reality of what 2.2 actually played like, I had all this excited energy that had nowhere to go, and it all exploded on to my blog. I said things that weren’t true, and all it took was a single second to stop and think about the developers like the people they actually are. Being a former SRB2 team member, I let my attachment to that game cloud my judgement in a way that’s frankly weird when I look back on it.
In a world where so many ignorant people get so angry at game developers for being “lazy” or “idiotic” I have always tried to see the other side. To see the developer’s perspective. A million more thoughts go in to the creation of something than you could possibly ever realize. As a game developer myself, I forgot that. I was nothing more than part of the angry, stupid mob.
Like I said, the core of what I thought still rings true – SRB2 focusing on aiming a platformer with the mouse is annoying at best. But the way I expressed those thoughts, and the conclusions I came to, was possibly the worst way I could have handled that.
Do not follow in my footsteps. Show more respect, and be smarter about your criticisms.
