Author Spring RTS Book-Packt Publishing

[sam]

Hi All,

Looking out for a potential author to write a book on Spring RTS-Packt Publishing.If any one is interested in authoring this book, Please feel free to contact me on sayamaw@packtpub.com.
Thanks

[Caydr]

A book about what?

[Forboding Angel]

It's a bot.

[zwzsg]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Packt+Publishing

- "Packt Publishing" is the company.
- "Spring RTS" is the subject of the book.
- An author is what he is looking for.

[imbaczek]

it's not a bot. we have been contacted by packt but couldn't really figure out how to respond; we've been discussing this proposal in quite some detail in private.

i suggest keeping this thread civil.

[sam]

it's not a bot. we have been contacted by packt but couldn't really figure out how to respond; we've been discussing this proposal in quite some detail in private.

i suggest keeping this thread civil.

Please feel free to contact me if you are interested in authoring this book at

*Sayama Waghu*
Author Relationship Executive
Packt Publishing
www.PacktPub.com <http://www.PacktPub.com>sayamaw@packtpub.com
Thanks

[1v0ry_k1ng]

A book about what?

[Tribulex]

A book about what?

[SinbadEV]

I would guess a book that covers EVERYTHING about spring.

Chapter 1: The History of the "Spring Project"
Covering TA, the Yankspankers, Demo Recorder/Player, XTA, the early demos, chronicle the development until today

Chapter 2: Spring RTS Engine Players Guide
Covering, Obtaining the engine, obtaining mods and maps, configuration, the lobby clients/servers, playing in lan mode etc.

Chapter 3: Advanced Players Guide
Covering Installing, Using and basics of authoring Lua widgets, adjusting advanced settings, cheating, running auto-hosts etc.

Chapter 4: Content Development History
A history of Spring "Modding", Mapping, Hacking and other Content Developement topics... cover 3DO and BOS/COB TDF/FBI HPI stuff as a historical curiosity with just enough information for people to understand what under the hood of TA-Tech(AND IP) based mods.

Chapter 5: Mapping Guide
Chapter 6: Mods, Games and Mutator Basics
Explains how to hack and modify existing Mods
Chapter 6: Unit Creation and Scripting
Chapter 7: UI Design
Chapter 8: Introduction to the Spring Lua API
Chapter 9: Advanced Topics
Advanced Gadgets, Map and Mod Rules,

Appendix A: Tutorials
Appendix B: Glossary
Appendix C: Lua API References

My BIG question is who would buy this book? Essentially all the above mentioned information SHOULD (and mostly is, just poorly organized) be available in our project wiki...

If someone wanted to pay me 20$ an hour writing up Spring documentation, communicating with developers and all that stuff... I think getting this information out there and tied together would be an awesome job... What's the Packt Publishing business model for these kinds of things?

[JohannesH]

If I'm paid I'll write you a BA strategy guide.

[Tribulex]

BA is the cancer of spring. BA != spring.

Ill write the ui guide once i finish gewy.

[JohannesH]

BA is the cancer of spring. BA != spring.

Ill write the ui guide once i finish gewy.

If im paid more i can make an xta one too.

[Tribulex]

xta != spring. If you are making a book about spring, you cannot be partial to any one project.

Also since when do you play xta?

[Caydr]

Well, I could definitely write it, I made AA which BA is based on. Regardless of your opinion of how AA/BA has become a positive or negative influence, my level of engine knowledge, past and present, is undeniable. This means that from late 2005 to early 2007 I had a period of being, uninterrupted, the developer of choice for 2/3 to 3/4 of Spring's players. In a sense I still am; BA is in essence just AA without all the things I screwed up in the last couple months I was running AA (due to time constraints brought on by my getting my first job).

My problem with committing to anything is simply that there are a ton of other people who would undoubtedly like to take a shot at this as well. Regardless of their past/current/future success in actually creating popular mods/games, they as individuals and as teams undoubtedly have a tremendous amount of knowledge as well. As such, they're going to also possibly want to write the book.

So how would you decide which individual/group actually writes the book? It's a lot of time an effort that would be spent only to have you tell me, "Sorry, some other guy is going to write it."

I'm in a unique position right now because I'm actually working on the first stages of completely reworking AA from the ground up, it would largely be a matter of just documenting what I'm doing and why. I also happen to be quite good at technical writing, English spelling/grammar, etc.

[SinbadEV]

Based on my understanding of what I've found poking around on their website they negotiate the contract for the writing of the book prior to you starting to write the book, so the decision on who would write it would be made before said contract were drawn up... likely they are looking for someone with good business English technical writing skills that can be demonstrated with references or examples of prior efforts...

though I could be deluding myself... they might just be a no-risk-venture deal where you are basically paying them to publish a book for you in exchange for a small percentage of the profits from the publication... in which case they don't care about your skills or experience and will draw up a contract with anyone who's willing to pay the fee... I personally don't feel I'm qualified to write this book, nor do I have the free time.

[Tribulex]

So we cant just say "Oh i will write the ui part" ?

I kind of need money, so I guess ill do some research and start writing sample chapters? Is this the way to go?

[SinbadEV]

So we cant just say "Oh i will write the ui part" ?

I kind of need money, so I guess ill do some research and start writing sample chapters? Is this the way to go?

I'd imagine your best bet to get answers would be to contact sam.

[Hobo Joe]

I hate to rain on a parade, but seriously, nobody would buy this book. Everyone who plays the game is at least mildly familiar with it's history and it's makeup, and if they want to know more they can simply look around forums/wiki's for a bit. It's pretty much all there.


It would be a lot of time and effort for basically no payoff.

[Pxtl]

I would totally buy a book on developing games with the Spring engine... if it weren't for the fact that it would be out-of-date before it hit the presses.

[AF]

What the book Fandango is all about:

1 - The events

The SpringLobby developers mailing list and a select few developers are emailed something near identical to the post starting this thread.

This causes a ruckus in #sy, leading to a secret forum begin setup with those in #sy, developers, and anyone contacted being automatically dealt in, all swiftly executed by neddiedrow.

This forum as time progresses grinds to a halt as discussion moves elsewhere, and various random people who seem unrelated or have been deemed improper suddenly appear to have access trickled to them as time goes by.

2 - The Initial Developer Consensus

Spring is changing a lot, and has changed a lot in API in the last 2 months let alone year. Any book would immediately become out of date within 3-6 months due to a release, and almost certainly 1-2 months if using a developers build.

This is especially true since numerous major components already have replacements lined up and deployed threatening to make them legacy or obsolete, such as the lua definitions vs tdf/fbi or the lua scripting vs cob/bos scripting, not to mention numerous discussions on refactoring the rendering component of the engine.

3 - Realism

Who would write this book? How is a community that fails to document and keep up to date a basic wiki manage to pull off an entire book in a feasible time scale when the engine they're document is constantly changing in rather drastic ways that require rewriting the book as you go along.

Never mind a single person or small team. Could we spare such a small team right now? What benefit would a book have to us at the moment when it is guaranteed to have little use or value to those who buy it?

The engine is not static enough yet, its not in any state to be 'finalized' in any way yet.

4 - The Conclusion

What we have here is:

A publisher that doesnt really understand the basics of spring development in this forum. You do not need to understand a single line of code to have come to the conclusions I have drawn, you don't have to have checked out git, you can figure it out just from looking at thread titles in the dev forum.

It is my impression the guy found spring, went oooo, aaaaah, and filed off a stock response as part of his usual business marketing plan which he's worked before with other projects, opened the about page in spring lobby, found the developers mailing list, and copy pasted stock email thinking he was mailing the spring developers, and not the mailing list of an associated project.

As of yet he has demonstrated no knowledge of spring beyond basic user login and registration skills

A neddiedrow who sees an opportunity to advance the community but despite the advice and reasoning doesn't want to sign it off and move forward and instead wastes time keeping a potential door open. This is a known human fallacy, people don't like loosing opportunities and will hold on to options for as long as they can, even if it is obvious that it will harm them more than ignoring all options

A subsection of the community who is positively enthralled by the idea of someone finally documenting the engine, despite that subsection being the primary documenters so far. This subsection will deny that they hold this role however, yet continue to volunteer it.

A handful of people interested in the book and the advantages it would bring them and the power or influence it could yield. These people however have little interest in actually doing the work but they'll yap on and on and on about it.

My personal conclusion?

Spring isn't ready
Anyone who buys the book is being conned right now
Thus starting the book is both a waste of time and unethical

But most of all:

Your all wasting your time, get your arses into gear and do something productive