Good read from P3 dev

[FaTony]

http://trashmasters.ru/index/pripev/0-36

Google translate does a fairly decent job there. In short, P3 was doomed right when RWS signed with Akella who then outsourced development to Trashmasters who clearly say that they produce shit for a quick buck. It's there in plain text on their site.

[Flanagan]

I don't know what the hell you mean, by "Google translate does a fairly decent job there" because I couldn't make heads or tails of any of that. I don't know if it's how the original text is written, or maybe you messed up and gave the wrong link by accident, but I don't see how you pulled out anything about Postal 3. I mean, they mentioned some game development-related keywords every now and then, but I have no idea what any of that meant.

Maybe if a Russian user could take a look, they could give a proper translation?

[Toploader]

Yeah the slang does not machine translate that well and lots of words don't even come across in English.  FatTony is himself Russian so might not seem as scrambled to him. Would be nice to get more more coherent translation.

[FaTony]

I'd probably translate it by myself in the future. I'll be a very hard material to translate though. They are using the power of Russian language to a great extent which will require significant processing to keep the same undertones in English.

[Toploader]

I'd ask my girl to do it but she'd be offended by the heavy use of 'mat' no doubt.

[FaTony]

As a fluent speaker of both Russian and English, it really strikes me that there are basically two different worlds, different things are said and how they are said. I've read and heard many things from RWS and I can understand how they are thinking. I can also understand how Akella and Trashmasters are thinking. And I can also understand how both of them (RWS and Akella, TM) almost completely don't understand each other.
RWS is an American company with a huge American culture baggage. And American way of thinking has some things assumed, things that were fought for in the past, but now they are taken for granted. And Akella... well really they are just trying to make money. There are a lot of things American citizen takes for granted, most of them don't exist in Russia yet, they haven't been fought for, and, in fact, most Russian average Joes can't even imagine them. When I heard some past interviews with either Vince or Mike, I've just felt that they subconsciously applied those American business ways to Akella. You can't do this, it'll be very far from truth if you do.
As for Akella (and TM, always implied), well there's no infrastructure here in Russia, people are trying to survive, make some money and continue living. We mostly can't have grand plans or don't have resources to do them. In fact, most plans that work have emigrating from Russia as a first step. Trashmasters say that they were just a small group of so-so guys who worked on random unimportant games which were good enough to stay in business. They say that they absolutely understand low quality of their games and perhaps low quality of themselves but it basically ends with "Hey, it's Russia and we gotta eat." So they just couldn't even in theory produce good Postal game. They also say how "those rich Americans" gave them unrealistic design documents which they obviously couldn't implement. And yet somehow nobody from RWS could see this. "It's in final stages in Moscow. Everything's gonna be OK." Yeah, right.

By the way, the article starts from here: http://trashmasters.ru/index/o_studii/0-9

[Flanagan]

who cares

[Toploader]

Nah, this is not about cultural entitlement and RWS expecting too much, it's about gross mismanagement at Akella / TM. I#m not blaming the core team at TM mind, things started off very well indeed.

Postal 2 was made on a much smaller budget, with a much smaller team of 6 (of whom some this was a first professional project), in under a 3rd of the time, and was a vastly better game (most would agree).  Sure some stuff had to be cut from the design, that always happens in game development, but they didn't even get the fundamental stuff right.  For example, I'm sure a modder with source code and 30 mins could fix the broken melee collision code.

And none of this excuses them punishing their supporters both in Russia and the US for not releasing the mods tools to allow someone to patch up the broken game they left behind.

[Toploader]

being Latvian myself (basically Russian, but not really) I can absolutely relate to that sort of attitude.

My girl's Russian Latvian, been there a few times.  Where ya from there?

[Flanagan]

hwo cares

[Toploader]

Ah, I never wondered that far south, she's from Krāslava.

[Flanagan]

sigh    wh o catres

[Toploader]

Well I think so, but she's Russian Latvian rather than native Latvian, so Russians her mother tongue. Krāslava is mostly Russian speakers, kind of a creepy place with all it's unfinished buildings from back when the USSR collapsed.

[prawdziwy 666]

They also say how "those rich Americans" gave them unrealistic design documents which they obviously couldn't implement.

Postal 2 was made on a much smaller budget, with a much smaller team of 6 (of whom some this was a first professional project), in under a 3rd of the time, and was a vastly better game (most would agree).

do I have to say anything else???

[Faldarn]

sigh    wh o catres

Well I think so, but she's Russian Latvian rather than native Latvian, so Russians her mother tongue. Krāslava is mostly Russian speakers, kind of a creepy place with all it's unfinished buildings from back when the USSR collapsed.

Seriously flanagan, lol