First off, I owe everyone, fan or foe, an apology. Over the course of making Incoming Source I have received numerous complaints about our Halo related material. I take full responsibility for that.
I’m not going to lie, I do love the game Halo. So when I first started Incoming originally over 5 years ago (see our pictures), there is an exact replica of Master Chief (Spartan Armor). There is also an exact replica of the Warthog. So our Halo related material wasn’t just born overnight, it’s been in the game for quite some time. When Incoming came back and used the Source engine those ideas just came with. We modified our models of the science fiction marines but we still wanted to have the Master Chief armor vibe to it. Well it vibed a bit too much. So much that people thought that we were stealing. That wasn’t the case at all. To us the model was unique, it was our child, so to speak. To others we were stealing a Master Chief. We apologize, that wasn’t our intentions.
As for the Warthog model, I will not lie and I wish I had something to back this on but all I have is my word. We had received permission from Bungie Studios 5 years ago to use the Warthog and Spartan Armor. The deal was if we were a non-profit organization we could use the exact models. Well, five years down the road we assumed the deal was still on. But people start pointing and saying things such as “Why do they have the Warthog?” So I personally e-mailed Bungie again another five times with no reply. So I assumed the deal was still on. And considering nobody had come after me or the game I thought we were in the green. I wish I could have made everyone feel more comfortable about this model but I didn’t have the original email and Bungie never replied back. So the team decision was to scrap it.
As for our arrogance, as everyone has claimed that we have been, was not to offend anyone or hurt anyone. To us our work was great, our work was very important. The team was very supportive of itself. When we received some amazing concepts from our talented 2D artists we were gunning to get it modeled and skinned. And when it was done we were amazed and had expressions such as “Wow!” to see it in full 3D glory. “We have our first player model!” and other comments of the sort. We didn’t stop to think how other people would view it and we didn’t take into careful consideration the flames we might receive for our Warthog model. We just assumed everyone would love the models as much as we had. And when they didn’t, I’m not going to lie, it sucked and it hurt as we were working very hard for the public. Not because we cannot take criticism, but because we had people basically screaming in our faces “You Halo rip-offs! Doesn’t even look good! Hope your mod dies and you crash and burn”.
Yeah, you can only hear that for so long before you just can’t hear it anymore. So we sort of got in the mind set of “well, it’s a free mod, free everything and if they want to complain they don’t have to play.” So yes, we stopped listening to what we call the halo flame. To us we weren’t Halo as we had known the single player story as among other things and w e weren’t going to let people tell us we were. In a way I suppose, we came off as extremely arrogant and stuck up. We are hear to apologize for that as well. But when all you hear is repeated flame day in and day out, you get sick of it and start putting up walls so you can’t hear it anymore. But I apologize for any rude comments and arrogance that’s been presented by our team.
On a lighter note and hopefully good news to everyone. We are scrapping all Halo related models. These which include our Human model which is being completely re-done. Our “Warthog” which is now the “Gladiator” has gone through massive changes and looks awesome while still holding on to the soul of the dearly departed Warthog.
This is Incoming-source’s Official apology. For the bad comments, for the arrogance and for the poor decision of not thinking through the material.
All we really want is to make a game that is enjoyable for everyone. It’s free and we want to make it feel like you are playing a high quality game. I just ask for people to understand how we feel as well. Yes we know you either hate us or love us. Yet for us, we love our work. We are proud of our work. Supportive criticism is always welcome, but we have heard enough flame and are making those necessary changes. We are sorry.
I’m not going to lie, I do love the game Halo. So when I first started Incoming originally over 5 years ago (see our pictures), there is an exact replica of Master Chief (Spartan Armor). There is also an exact replica of the Warthog. So our Halo related material wasn’t just born overnight, it’s been in the game for quite some time. When Incoming came back and used the Source engine those ideas just came with. We modified our models of the science fiction marines but we still wanted to have the Master Chief armor vibe to it. Well it vibed a bit too much. So much that people thought that we were stealing. That wasn’t the case at all. To us the model was unique, it was our child, so to speak. To others we were stealing a Master Chief. We apologize, that wasn’t our intentions.
As for the Warthog model, I will not lie and I wish I had something to back this on but all I have is my word. We had received permission from Bungie Studios 5 years ago to use the Warthog and Spartan Armor. The deal was if we were a non-profit organization we could use the exact models. Well, five years down the road we assumed the deal was still on. But people start pointing and saying things such as “Why do they have the Warthog?” So I personally e-mailed Bungie again another five times with no reply. So I assumed the deal was still on. And considering nobody had come after me or the game I thought we were in the green. I wish I could have made everyone feel more comfortable about this model but I didn’t have the original email and Bungie never replied back. So the team decision was to scrap it.
As for our arrogance, as everyone has claimed that we have been, was not to offend anyone or hurt anyone. To us our work was great, our work was very important. The team was very supportive of itself. When we received some amazing concepts from our talented 2D artists we were gunning to get it modeled and skinned. And when it was done we were amazed and had expressions such as “Wow!” to see it in full 3D glory. “We have our first player model!” and other comments of the sort. We didn’t stop to think how other people would view it and we didn’t take into careful consideration the flames we might receive for our Warthog model. We just assumed everyone would love the models as much as we had. And when they didn’t, I’m not going to lie, it sucked and it hurt as we were working very hard for the public. Not because we cannot take criticism, but because we had people basically screaming in our faces “You Halo rip-offs! Doesn’t even look good! Hope your mod dies and you crash and burn”.
Yeah, you can only hear that for so long before you just can’t hear it anymore. So we sort of got in the mind set of “well, it’s a free mod, free everything and if they want to complain they don’t have to play.” So yes, we stopped listening to what we call the halo flame. To us we weren’t Halo as we had known the single player story as among other things and w e weren’t going to let people tell us we were. In a way I suppose, we came off as extremely arrogant and stuck up. We are hear to apologize for that as well. But when all you hear is repeated flame day in and day out, you get sick of it and start putting up walls so you can’t hear it anymore. But I apologize for any rude comments and arrogance that’s been presented by our team.
On a lighter note and hopefully good news to everyone. We are scrapping all Halo related models. These which include our Human model which is being completely re-done. Our “Warthog” which is now the “Gladiator” has gone through massive changes and looks awesome while still holding on to the soul of the dearly departed Warthog.
This is Incoming-source’s Official apology. For the bad comments, for the arrogance and for the poor decision of not thinking through the material.
All we really want is to make a game that is enjoyable for everyone. It’s free and we want to make it feel like you are playing a high quality game. I just ask for people to understand how we feel as well. Yes we know you either hate us or love us. Yet for us, we love our work. We are proud of our work. Supportive criticism is always welcome, but we have heard enough flame and are making those necessary changes. We are sorry.