spring 95.0

[hoijui]

ZK and BA uses different engine versions as default since a long time, which means that linux package systems, that only support one engine at a time, can only support one engine at a time, which means that linux users can only play one of the two (currently BA), if they are not willing (and able) to do extra work. in other words.. a pretty fat and ugly problem with the current system.
but i agree that the voting thing is too much overhead.

[FLOZi]

Sounds unworkable & I don't see anything wrong with current system. There is already plenty of communication between mod devs and engine devs.

'plenty' is rather overstating it, we don't even have minutes to mull over any more.

[Google_Frog]

I don't think anyone collects reliable stats for BA. I'm not sure if they ever did. This page is very far from reliable: http://zero-k.info/stats/

I heard that there were static builds for Linux so the multiple engine problem is solved once we get a working engine version beyond 91.0.

[hoijui]

there is still no universal lobby support for multi-engine versions.

[abma]

there is still no universal lobby support for multi-engine versions.

weblobby? zero-k lobby?

[Google_Frog]

By "universal support" do you mean no support for all OS or that not every lobby supports multiple engines? I don't really care if there are some lobbies lacking features, we only need one good lobby (it is nice to have many though). Games will include their own lobbies to do what they require and the lobby which comes with a bare spring install should have multiple engine support. Although this raises the question; Why does the bare spring install include a lobby?

[Anarchid]

Why does the bare spring install include a lobby?

Because lobby is required for basic functionality like having a multiplayer game without manually editing startscript.

The alternative - not shipping one completely - might be more purist on the "games not mods" approach, but would add yet another obstacle to already quite formidable walls that face any newbie spring game developer.

[Google_Frog]

I'm thinking we could point people to weblobby.

[Anarchid]

I'm thinking we could point people to weblobby.

If it was just a bit more stable. Afaik, it still doesn't work with chrome, for example.

Though being what it is, it could be more inviting as a "construct your own".

[abma]

Why does the bare spring install include a lobby?

TA Spring! Imo: the more lobbies can autodownload engine, the fewer sense does it make, to bundle it, yes. Not sure when the point is to remove lobbies from the spring installer, i guess when the "majority" of lobbies can autodownload engine.

[Silentwings]

Although this raises the question; Why does the bare spring install include a lobby?

Because the 'Spring engine' is reasonably well known, has had articles written about it, etc. People who come looking for 'Spring' and know little else are best off being given something functional that displays the range of games to play online.

[raaar]

Why does the bare spring install include a lobby?

Because lobby is required for basic functionality like having a multiplayer game without manually editing startscript.

The alternative - not shipping one completely - might be more purist on the "games not mods" approach, but would add yet another obstacle to already quite formidable walls that face any newbie spring game developer.

^ this

Having a simple, game-neutral multiplayer lobby packaged together with the engine is a major asset, together with the official server.

From my point of view (ocasional player, game dev), both engine devs and other game devs are accessible and responsive through this forum and the chat in the official server. They also react to what's reported on mantis.

the current way spring is being developed seems reasonable. We have to take into account what motivates people to develop the spring engine, namely for devs that aren't also game devs, and leave it a fun and learning experience.

some points:

1- If the game dev community becomes too restrictive, engine devs are less likely to be creative and experiment with the code and have fun

2- On the other hand, if they are too free to arbitrarily add/remove/rework stuff, it can create other problems or delay releases too much (creates new bugs, etc.)

3- if we offend/push the engine devs away, some game devs might take their place, but at a risk of being biased to their game in detriment of others, or the engine may stagnate (after all, it's unpaid hard work)

me lightly "harassing" engine devs because of spring 95 is related to point (2). In a situation where the mostly played games are requiring different engines (segregation=bad), not enough priority was put into:
- releasing a new version quickly that works for most games
- fixing regression bugs

a voting system does not seem necessary. We just need to have a clearer scope for releases and then be more responsive when test versions are out so that the bugs/regressions are found quicker.

[hoijui]

i tried weblobby a few times in he past, and it always instantly crashed my firefox. right now i tried it in opera, and it crashed the java plugin.
this is on linux ((l)ubuntu).
if weblobby would be stable, then .. maybe... but how would we make it easily available to linux users?
the best way to reach linux users, is to have something in the default software manager. could we have an entry there for "Spring (WebLobby)", which only consists of a shortcut to http://weblobby.springrts.com ?
it is kind of silly, and i don;t know if it will be accepted by the distros, but if yes, then it would be a quite simple way.

[Jools]

The problem with weblobby is that Firefox itself is unstable. It has a memory leak. The only way to keep FF somewhat workable is to use a third party fix like memory-restart.

It's crazy that these kind of things have to exist!

[Anarchid]

I routinely use weblobby for 8-12 hours when i'm at work, with firefox. Doesn't seem to go insane during that time.

Admittedly, i don't play games with it. And chrome/chromium just don't work, full stop (i just checked if that changed).

[Jools]

Have you checked how much memory it uses? Mine grows to over 500 Mb after half an hour and people have reported that it can use as much as 2 Gb of memory if left alone.

[Forboding Angel]

I like how everyone always just ignores this: http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=30574

On linux it's a moot point because most linux flavors seem to package ff with it.

[Anarchid]

how everyone always just ignores this

Doesn't it still require java to be pre-installed on target machine?

[varikonniemi]

Weblobby has been constantly crashing for me with the three latest FF versions on Mint15/64. It works generally, but if i leave it open it is guaranteed to crash in 24 hours.

On chromium it does not work.

Due to these reasons i had to switch back to SL, which surprise surprise does not have the UI corruption bug anymore that i saw constantly under unity.

[REVENGE]

Why does the bare spring install include a lobby?

Maybe one could link the user, at the end of the installation, to a page showcasing the various lobby clients available for their OS?