Feature Removal Competition Bonanza! (Rant)

Happy May everyone! Let's just get on with this. Kicking things off this month we have another rant targeted straight at the smartphone industry.

If you're the kind of person who gets pissy if their phone brand gets slated, then don't worry because this rant doesn't target any of the big brands (Samsung, Apple, Huawei, HTC.etc.) If you are however a LeEco (formerly LeTV) fanboy, then I suggest you close your tab or turn back now.

I am a huge smartphone, tablet, and gadget enthusiast, ask anyone I know about this and they'll confirm that. Sometimes when I'm bored out of my arse I may end up looking up what the tech industry's getting up to, particularly in the Chinese market as a lot of the latest innovations in smartphones lately appear to originate from there. Case and point...

6GB RAM in a smartphone? Vivo Xplay 5 Ultimate. Straight outta China

First 2K resolution display (2560x1440) in a phone? Vivo gets it again with the Xplay 3S (a lot of people attribute this to the LG G3 which was the first phone by a major brand to include a 2K display but not the first overall.)

First deca-core (yes 10 CPU cores) smartphone? Introducing the Zopo Speed 8!

So whether you think Chinese tech is wondrous or just a pile of cheap crap, it's tough to deny that they're innovative and are driving many of the features that are seen in many modern smartphones today. However lately, there's been another minor craze that's been rearing its ugly head with LeEco (and possibly UMI as well turns out UMI thankfully has more sense) hyping another feature, or more accurately, hyping a lack-of-feature in a certain phone. LeEco have decided to cut out the 3.5mm headphone jack, a feature which is seemingly commonplace among smartphones nowadays.

Now I've always had a very low opinion of LeEco, I've always seen them as a very backwards company who somehow managed to successfully piss everyone off by hyping their first batch of phones like hell only for them to skimp on various features. For starters they skipped the SD card slot and while this alone is enough to turn me away it's something that a few manufacturers are sadly doing, their phones run Android but have no Google Play which is partly down to the fact that China has very limited access to Google's services but despite that, most other manufacturers still include Google's services on their devices when selling their phones outside of China.

The whole removing the 3.5mm bullshite started after a rumour cropped up about Apple's next major iPhone release, the iPhone 7 of course, which is rumoured to be skipping the headphone jack. LeEco decided to take this rumour and go full retard with it and remove the jack from their latest lineup of phones (which still by the way, skip all of the aforementioned features as well.)

Now here's the part where I ask what the whole point of this is, there are very few USB type-C earphones out there (I forgot to mention that LeEco are hoping to phase out the 3.5mm jack in favour USB type-C earphones) and this is a move which will only hurt LeEco financially (probably for the best in this case as LeEco have consistently failed to learn from their mistakes) and a company like LeEco who is still a small name in the phone world needs as much financial backing as they can get. Not to mention that maybe some people want to use their headphones while their phone is plugged into say, a power bank of some sort? Bluetooth headphones exist sure, but not everyone wants to use bluetooth. The only reasonable way around this is if LeEco are so stubborn over this is to either include an adapter or include a second USB-C port.

One thing I want to put out there as well is the fact that another reason why LeEco did this is because they wanted to beat Apple to this. Imagine if Apple decided not to ditch the audio jack in the next iteration of the iPhone. I really hope they don't as not only would this NOT piss a load of people off (I have never owned an iDevice as writing this so it wouldn't affect me, at least not at first) but it would also catch LeEco with their pants down, making them look like a proper set of twits.

That being said, this would be around 150% as juicy as it normally would considering that not-too-long ago they lashed out at Apple for being an outdated company because they released a small flagship smartphone (LG did the same, but the difference here is that LG actually make decent phones.) I dislike Apple and I hate defending them but I have to stick up for them here, a small flagship is a brilliant idea considering that everyone is jumping on the 5.0''+ craze, leaving those who want a smaller phone either in the dust or treated as second-class citizens by forcing them to buy phones with budget specs. LeEco also brought up the fact that Apple aren't innovating, I'm not going to go into this, but if LeEco are implying that they're the top innovators then they're completely fucking delusional. Name one thing that LeEco has done that practically any other manufacturer hasn't and no, removing basic features and pissing off entire internet communities by doing so doesn't count.

Now I can see this audio jack being phased out eventually, and if more manufacturers jump onto this ludicrous bandwagon then the big brands will follow, there's very little we, the consumers, can do about that. With manufacturers already phasing it out, it'll happen eventually, maybe not for a year, maybe not for another two. We don't know. Right now it's only one relatively small manufacturer who's doing this, if Apple does decided to jump onto the bandwagon and phase out the jack in favour of lightning-port earphones (as the rumour goes) then that will be the beginning of the end for the audio jack and we don't like it, well there's not much we can do. We vote with our wallets, if you think a company's done well, buy it. Otherwise, if they've fucked up, avoid it.

8th May 2016 Update: I have decided to release a follow-up post to this rant when the iPhone 7 is released to see if LeEco really have gone and dun goofed with their frankly idiotic removal of the headphone jack (like I said, LeEco did this to beat Apple to the pie despite it possibly not even happening.) If Apple does include the 3.5mm in their iPhone, expect LeEco to be thoroughly humiliated in this follow-up and judging by the latest iPhone 7 leaks, it's really not looking good for LeEco. I'll go grab the popcorn because this could be juicy!

12th June 2016 Update: Very disappointed and saddened today to see how Motorola has now jumped onto the feature removal bandwagon with the Moto Z. Their only saving grace here is that they've left it in their mid-range Moto G models (which is more than what LeEco have done.) Still I'd like to know why they think this removal is so necessary because all I'm seeing is "let's remove this audio jack cos Apple might be doing and it's the trendy thing to do!" To make things worse, it looks like the iPhone 7's jack removal is a given. Although there is still one last glimmer of hope...

Iron's Fundamental Flaws

Lately, I've been looking at Iron and its horrendous development. It was supposed to be done in December but that sadly didn't happen. I have come to the conclusion that the game is flawed from the ground.

Combat in a platformer game is hard to do without having to adhere to strict limits, having you only being able to shoot in two directions is very restrictive and makes for some very poor combat. That being said there have been ways around this. I recently played a demo platform game called Butcher which by the way, is a brilliant game and is probably one of the few so-called "retro-style" games out there that actually pulls off the whole retro theme very well (major praise going out to THD for that.) Anyway, Butcher uses an eight-directional playing sprite while pulling off omni-directional shooting.

Another indie game, Cave Story also pulled off an enhanced platform combat system by opting for four-directional shooting (three-directional when on-ground.) I don't think I need to explain in much detail what Cave Story is - it was pretty much the Undertale of 2004 and is generally seen as the forefather of modern indie gaming.

Unfortunately, Iron can't employ such a system. This simply because I outsourced the sprites to a friend of mine, unfortunately I didn't take combat into account and I was left with bi-directional combat which is pretty shite in a platformer game. I could request for new sprites but this would take a lot of time and I want to get the game out as soon as possible, mid-July would be nice.

That's why I've made the decision to completely overhaul the game, genre and all into something new - an RPG game. This may even result in me using a whole other engine. Sadly no one pre-ordered Iron, however if people had pre-ordered it I would offer them an immediate refund given the circumstances. The Thallium pre-order bonus will remain for the time being.

I have decided to hide Iron's download page for the time being, so you won't be able to access it, unfortunately this will mean that Thallium can't be accessed either although I'll leave that page up. Project Plasma and Project Plasma Mobile will obviously remain up also.

I'll release updates as I go along but I hope that with these major changes, Iron's development will be far less messy than it is right now.

Thallium - https://archangelatom.itch.io/thallium (game currently inaccessible)
Project Plasma - https://archangelatom.itch.io/project-plasma
Project Plasma Mobile - https://archangelatom.itch.io/project-plasma-mobile

Going on a Short Hiatus

Back in January I put up a short blog post about how I was suffering from a burnout and how I felt disillusioned by the prospects of game development. My situation has not changed (it's got slightly worse if anything) I've decided to take a short break from game development for the time being. However the fact I'm suffering from a burnout isn't the only reason I'm going on hiatus. I'm at that point in my college year where there's an awful lot of work being given out to me and for obvious reasons it's important that I get this done. If I don't do the work I fail the course which means no qualification for me.

So I'll be using this hiatus to do any outstanding coursework and assignments that need to be done. On top of this, I'll also be spending this time on fulfilling other personal interests of mine. I will also be learning a few code languages as well (Python specifically, but others as well.)

In bullet points:

• I'll be keeping this blog active and will still post throughout my hiatus. (Just probably not about game development although sales may still be announced here.)
• I'll be keeping my Twitter account active and will still tweet things.
• Any sales I have planned in the interim will proceed as normal. (These will still be announced on this blog and on Twitter.)
• I'm not cancelling any currently ongoing game dev projects I have. (Iron for example)
• I will still look at and occasionally post on the itch.io community forum.
• No one has driven me to this - this is my own personal decision.
• Game development will hopefully resume by the end of May.

And on that note...

Leap Day Sale 2016!

One last post for the month I guess.

For one day only - Chaos Symbol is hosting a leap day sale with Project Plasma and my upcoming game, Iron, having their prices cut down by 29% for today only!

Project Plasma Mobile Has Been Discontinued

CHAOS 2, or Project Plasma Mobile, was a prototype Android-exclusive mobile game that was released on 12th April 2015. It was a pile of shit and it is now being discontinued as I feel my time is best devoted to bigger, better projects such as Iron.

The PC version of Project Plasma (CHAOS 1) is still in development, it's just Project Plasma Mobile that's been axed due to the fact that it's a prototype game that is quite honestly a trainwreck. Putting out any updates, whether they are to salvage the game from eternal shittiness or otherwise would be a waste of time not to mention the fact that it was clearly a prototype and not a full game per-se.

This is only to say that there will be no updates for it anymore, the game will still be available as a download if you're into trainwreck Android games.

Or if you want a vertical scrolling shooter game that's a bit more wholesome then the PC version is also available to buy with a free demo available.

Project Plasma: http://archangelatom.itch.io/project-plasma
Project Plasma Mobile: http://archangelatom.itch.io/project-plasma-mobile

Smartphone May Not Ship as Described (Rant)

So this is a rant that I had in the works for well over a year now, however I decided to completely rewrite what was going to be added so it would fit in-line with recent events and I also wish to throw some shade at a certain smartphone company as well. Originally Samsung was going to be the victim when I wrote this out just over a year ago but that wouldn't be fair, because there's an indie smartphone company that's just recently emerged who's just gone and fucked everyone over.

First off, let me get my point across - Stop making new mobile operating systems.

Stop making new mobile operating systems and improve upon existing ones.
Stop making new mobile operating systems and improve upon existing ones.
Stop making new mobile operating systems and improve upon existing ones.
Stop making new mobile operating systems and improve upon existing ones.

We clear? Good.

Why am I saying this? Because a new mobile operating means higher compatibility issues which in turn means higher costs for development unless you have the module already. It also means more time wasted on compatibility. This something I'll return to later in this post as I want to shift the focus to a whole new level of cuntery.

A robotics company called Turing Robotics Industries (TRI) is wanting to enter the smartphone market with what is simply called the Turing Phone which is being funded through crowdfunding. Now this phone is controverisal as it is due to its lack of USB port, headphone jack, and requiring users to use WiFi to transfer files between the device and the phone for security reasons which is heavily ironic as wireless transfer is less secure than using a solid wire. With all of this you can tell that these guys are going to go very far in the smartphone industry and will probably even topple the likes of Apple and Samsung... /sarcasm

Anyway, they've obviously decided to add to their controversy by swapping out one of the phone's most important features... the fucking operating system.

TRI decided to swap out the OS - Android to Sailfish. Now I've always been known as having an affinity towards Android, however I'm not an overfanatical fanboy and I do approach competing systems such as iOS with an open mind, but this particular change angers me somewhat simply because they're using an indie OS. I'm all for indie stuff, I'm an indie games developer for fuck's sake, but mobile operating systems is where a clear line is drawn. As I said earlier on more operating systems increases development costs due to having to buy software (such as GameMaker export modules) to export to these new systems. Not only that but it increases development time having to the games (or apps) compatible with the new system and even wastes bandwidth (for those on limited connections) as it means more files potentially need to be put up to cater for the diverse number of systems out there.

These new systems should be discouraged and I personally refuse to cater for these new indie mobile operating systems such as SailfishOS. I dislike Apple for their business practices and forcing developers to buy Macs to develop games for iOS, but if I got into a situation where I'd have to choose developing for SailfishOS or developing for iOS, then iOS would win. Yes SailfishOS is compatible with Android apps, but to what extent? Just because SailfishOS allows Android apps to work outside of their native environment in no way guarantees that they'll work well. Plus they'll need an app store to allow for Android app downloads and with no Google Play you're limited to either sideloading apps or a very limited app store.

The dumbfuckery doesn't even stop there...

This is how I'd react at this point if someone else had written this blog post and I was merely reading it.

So not only have TRI proven to be absolute complete and utter wazzocks in changing the product's spec and giving consumers something they didn't pay for, but they've also gone and mislead their consumers with this statement. Deception or dumbfuckery? You decide.

Here's a part of their latest statement regarding the phone's change to Failfish... whoops sorry, SailfishOS.

Sailfish OS runs exceptionally fast on the Turing. You will not have to worry about performance issues with Turing’s Snapdragon 801 because Sailfish OS has been optimized to run fast on your Turing Phone. The Turing Phone will still be able to run Android Apps on the Sailfish OS without issue. An Android application store will be available for you to download your favorite apps.
The Sailfish OS is an evolved continuation of the Linux MeeGo OS previously developed by an alliance of Nokia and Intel. MeeGo mobile software platform was created through the merging of Moblin and the Maemo OS originally developed by Nokia.
This essentially means you have one of the world’s fastest mobile device running the fastest mobile OS with the capability of running your favorite apps in a secure environment.

The above statement was taken from this Android Authority article. You can read and cringe at the full statement there. Notice that the guys over at Android Authority aren't too happy with the change either and have also pointed out that TRI's statement is full of bullshit.

Phandroid, another Android news site, also proceeded to rip TRI to shreds for this bullshit decision.

Well fucking said Phandroid. This screenshot of their article pretty much summarises what I'm trying to get across here.

First off "SailfishOS runs exceptionally fast on the Turing." Well this I can't comment on as I haven't seen it but the part that gets me when they go ahead and say the device has a Snapdragon 801, a smartphone that don't get me wrong - is still very much a capable chip and was originally designed for flagship devices and has seen airtime on such devices such as the Sony Xperia Z3 and Samsung Galaxy S5, but then they go ahead and say that the SD801 makes the phone the world's fastest.

Right... so they're using a two year old chip that's been superceded by not one, not two, not even three, or four, or even five, but six superior chipsets (SD650, SD652, SD805, SD808, SD810, SD820.) All of those chips have performance that smashes the two year old SD801's performance and that's not even taking into account competition from rival chipset manufacturers such as MediaTek, Samsung (Exynos,) and Intel (yes they make mobile chips too.) The fact that they're claiming that a Snapdragon 801 powered phone is the fastest around when it's two years old and is a 32-bit in the era of 64-bit devices is just idiocy and if you have the balls or lack-of-brain-cells to make such a statement then you shouldn't be in the smartphone industry, or any tech industry for that matter.

The fact that TRI have played around with consumers' money and made spec changes and have had bare fallacies published is the embodiment as to why I treat crowdfunding with extreme caution. Once you've put your money on the table, there's no way you're getting that back unless the project falls short of its goal. People paid good money to make sure that this phone saw the light of day, and now TRI have made it so that the consumers will get something pretty different to what they paid for. I'm fairly sure this is the kind of shit that can be grounds for a dispute and refund through PayPal's dispute system.

When TRI did this they basically said to their backers "haha we've got your money and we're gonna change the spec sheet and give you something different and there's absolutely fuck all you can do about it!"

Shame on you TRI. That's all I have to say.

Massive Update Coming For Project Plasma

A while ago last year, I mentioned that the next update for Project Plasma was going to be big, huge maybe, however back then I was too vague as I didn't have much of an idea as to how much would be getting added, although I did know that I was going to add a lot of things to it. However over the months I've been giving this update some thought and I know exactly what to do with the game.

I can now officially say that this update will be fucking huge.

Imagine the 0.9.5 and 0.9.6 updates that were pushed out towards the back end of 2014, and the 1.0.2 update thrown in there as well. Those are Project Plasma's three biggest updates and they still don't come to how big this update is going to be, not even combined.

First off, this update isn't going to be 1.0.4, only small updates get minor number increments, this update is worthy of being called 1.1. That alone should be enough to give you an idea of the overall scale of this update.

Note: This is not an official changelog. This is just to give everyone an idea as to what to expect, a full changelog will be posted upon release.

Here is a list of what will likely be coming.

I'll start with the fact that there will be a major easter egg coming to the game, a new hidden boss, who here thought that Level X's Crystalline was too easy? Well, you guys have another thing coming.

Second, achievements might be coming. I'm still undecided on this. It all depends on how hard they are to implement. If they turn out to be a pain in the arse, then I'll do away with them otherwise, let em come!

The last major thing I have coming is probably the biggest thing although it'll be the one that will probably be the least noticeable in-game. I will officially be ditching GameMaker 8.1 on Project Plasma in favour of the more modern GameMaker: Studio that has been used with Project Plasma Mobile, Iron, Thallium, and will be used in Project Plasma 2. This will hopefully equate to a better, and hopefully smoother gameplay experience for you guys not to mention less of a headache for me when I have to put future updates out for the damn thing.

This also means that I will be able to use GameMaker's own system again although I will keep using SGAudio as I would pretty much have to rip the audio code out of every asset in the game and replace it with GameMaker's audio code, needless to say, that's a pain in the arse.

There will likely be other things coming that will happen likely down to the engine switch, however I'm holding no promises in that department. So I guess that's it until the release. I can't quote a release date yet I have no idea how long all of this will take, last time I ported a game from GM 8.1 to GM:S it had a shitload of bugs so either it'll be a real slog, but it'll be done soon... hopefully.

Let's Ban the Next US President! (Rant)

So before I start this, I know I said once that I'd be making a point to avoid making blog posts (including rants) that are about politics. This was something I put forward in my anti-rant about Scottish Independence that I put up back in September. However, I'm breaking my own rule for this one, because something happened yesterday that was just fucking ludicrous so here we are in what might possibly be my most controversial rant yet! Yay.

Parliament debated whether to ban Donald Trump... a potential US president... from the UK.

This bullshite all started when someone called Suzanne Kelly set up a petition to have Donald Trump barred from the UK. This petition exploded in popularity gaining tens of thousands of signatures every minute and currently stands at over 575k signatures from all across the UK. The reason behind this ban is because he said that he wants to ban all Muslims from the UK. He also allegedly (I'm saying allegedly as I haven't actually heard of him saying this) wants to tag and track all Muslims in the states in a way not too dissimilar from Adolf Hitler and his anti-Semitic crusade.

Believe me, I'm definitely no supporter of Donald Trump's comments. They are way past the line and I think tracking them is absolutely absurd. However, there are reasons as to why there are two steaming piles of bullshit on both sides of the fence here.

First off, the bullshit behind what he said.

By banning Muslims from the country, he is literally playing into the hands of extremists groups who claim that Muslims will be turned away and shunned and I will say that there is a degree of truth to that, especially with the recent happenings in Germany where a group of refugees went round and molested a load of lasses. So yeah an argument could be made that they're not doing themselves any favours, however I also think it's unfair to paint a work of fine art with a DIY brush if you get what I mean.

Second off, the bullshit behind this whole "BAN HIM" fiasco.

I understand that many people feel strongly about the guy's comments and I am among those who think what he said is way too extreme when what should be done is let any offenders get caught by the judicial system. In the states that's fine as they already have a strong judicial system in place, however in the UK our justice system is shit. People are afraid to prosecute a refugee, or anyone helping a refugee due to fear of being scrutinised or persecuted for it. There's a point where someone needs to say "let em talk, I don't give a fuck" and I think it's safe to say we've gone past that point.

One MP in the debate said that people in her constituency would refer to Trump as a wazzock I'm reasonably confident that people around where I live would say the same. However banning him from the country is a step too far and I can put money on the fact that anyone who supports the petition to have him banned hasn't thought through the consequences that well and simply signed it as a knee-jerk reaction to what Donald Trump said. If you signed the petition, I understand why you did and I won't hold it against you, but I'd like to put a major point forward here.

The key thing we need to bear in mind is that this guy could be the president of the United States who are currently our biggest and most important ally right now. Should we ban him, and he ends up making it into the White House, we'll be in a very awkward position. Not to mention this would potentially and likely even break down our historic relations with that country. As intense as his comments were, the consequences of a ban would likely be far worse.

Trust me on this, I'm certainly no supporter of Trump, but I think banning him is certainly the wrong decision. My final word on this to parliament would be to stay out of other countries' politics and focus on issues that relate to our own country. Parliament have said "no we won't debate this" to certain petitions in the past, and they should have given this petition the same response but hey I'm just one small indie developer who feels the need to get stuff off his chest every once in a while.

---

This will be my last politically orientated blog post here for at least a year. I do however reserve the right to bend this rule should something truly ridiculous happen but these things are few and far between so I'm pretty confident that I'll be able stand by this rule without needing to bend it. Like I said at the beginning, political (and religious) events are a topic I aim to avoid on this blog but I just had to speak up on this one simply because of how poorly thought out this campaign was.

Burnout

This is a topic I held back from mentioning here as I felt it was too personal to share however I feel that I seriously need to let people in on this as it will provide some insight as to what's going on, particularly with Iron and its development.

I have come to the conclusion that I've suffered from a complete burnout, more than likely down to pushing myself too hard to get various things done - Iron and my coursework at college both in particular. How have I been feeling? Well, it has been affecting me I'll say that. I won't go all typical Tumblr lass on you all and be all "oh I'm so depressed I hate my life" because that's not the case. I have been suffering from bouts of depression which have inhibited me from working at my normal pace, but these have just been bouts of depression and I do end up recovering from them. It's not the end of the world.

Without getting too personal, I will say that I'm currently trying ways to overcome this situation. The main thing I'm doing is that starting at the beginning of February, I'll be developing Project Plasma 2 alongside Iron. I was saying in my last blog post that PP2 seems like a much more exciting prospect than Iron and that looking ahead to that is making me seem bored, even somewhat disillusioned, with Iron and developing it is seeming more and more like a chore. I won't cancel it as I've put too much time into it now, but as of February it will be taking more of a back seat and I'll be flitting between PP2 and Iron's development.

If a game seems like a chore to develop, I won't develop it.

I will make sure Iron is released before PP2 however which is pretty likely as PP2 looks like it'll take ages to complete. I will give more details on PP2 as well comparisons between PP2 and its predecessor as well as PPM to see how things will improve from its predecessor which was released around a year and a half ago (no PPM doesn't count.)

I'll get through this, I'm not horrendously depressed or anything and I don't want people reading this to think I'm trying to turn this blog into a fucking stereotypical Tumblr blog. I guess the best I could describe things right now would be me being somewhat disillusioned by certain things, however I'll find ways to work around these issues.

A Statement About Iron

So Iron sadly failed to be released last year, that sucks. In the Year in Review post I put up on New Year's Eve I mentioned under 25th December that Iron failed to be released on that date while I put after it in brackets that I would be putting a statement out regarding that. Here is that statement.

I'm going to be completely honest about everything, while big companies who did this will say anything to appease their fanbase. I value honesty and transparency, not a load of bullshit set out just to set everything straight - to me that's just a long, spaghettified (for lack of a better word) way of saying "lol shut the fuck up it's coming now get off my arse." I don't want to do that.

The reason why Iron wasn't released is because I wasn't able to get it to a point where I could say "there you go first level done here's a taste of what's coming" like I said I would. I know that seems like a straight-forward and obvious reason and there are some people who would gladly say "well yeah no shit Sherlock" to that. Well, there's more to it than that.

One of the cornerstones I set out when I began Iron's development was that I would not procrastinate, and I sadly failed to keep up to that cornerstone and for that I apologise and I feel I've let people down with that. I won't bother making excuses, development on Iron began during summer last year and I had a shitload of time to do it, so while college work has impacted on this, I can't and won't use that as an excuse.

One major reason however why I haven't been working on Iron as much as I should've done is that I just don't feel enthusiastic about it. In other words, I really don't feel happy or excited about developing it anymore... just bored I guess. I look ahead to future projects, including Project Plasma 2 and CHAOS 6 and I see those two games as much more exciting prospects to look forward to. Iron's development just seems incredibly dull by comparison. However I like doing things in an orderly fashion when it comes to game development and on the road map I've listed CHAOS 3 as Iron (yes CHAOS 4 was Thallium, but that game's development began after Iron's.) I don't want to start CHAOS 5 for that reason and the only reason why I looked at starting CHAOS 6 was because GameMaker: Studio was down.

The bottom line is, Iron is coming, however I'm not saying that to say "calm your tits," if you're pissed or disappointed that I wasn't able to get it out on time, I won't stop you, and you have every right to feel that way. My aim is to have it out by the end of February, after that I will probably start PP2 regardless but we'll have to see how I feel at the time.