Spring RTS Engine

Anyways, I've played BA for a couple of years now (usernames were kt08 and feeltheschadenfreude, and apologies if you are one of the large number of people I have raged at).

I'm assuming most of us are PC gamers since we play Spring mods, and I'm assuming that many of you use Steam, Valve's game distribution service. Recently Steam can out with something called Greenlight, which is basically a crowd-sourced game submission program.

http://steamcommunity.com/greenlight/

Assuming no legal issues with the OTA content used as the basis of BA and its cousin mods (and issue since Supreme Commander's developers might attempt to claim rights), what do you people think about attempting to get the Spring engine and its mods on Steam? It would certainly help the it reach a wider audience.

I think if it could happen it would be awesome (especially with the release of 91.0). Another fact to ponder over is that 'Steam for linux' is on the horizon, and if this ever happens crossplatform will be a good feature to advertise. Never the less in the end the decision is pretty much up to the devs.

That is if spring (and yes I mean spring games) can even exist on the steam platform being mostly foss.

The main obstacle is that spring is not a game, and that it's games are mostly created by people who are that panicked by the idea of packaging games up individually that it prevents them from sleeping ( with some notable exceptions ).

To top this off:

• There is still no 'method' of packaging and distributing a game and just that game for linux without ending up with a shared common system wide spring installation. Want a spring game that requires Spring v89 installed at the same time as a Spring v90 game, followed by a game with a modified v90 engine? I'm aware there is movement on this front with static builds but there's still some way to go
• There are still no consistent 'minimum requirements'
• The lobby situation would be a mess, why register and login to the spring server? They already have a Steam account, how do they play against friends on Steam?
• Few games here have the consistency and branding necessary ( spring 1944 Kernel Panic and Evo are good examples of games that tried to get their act together on this front, follow their example)
• I fully anticipate Valve won't touch any *A games with a barge pole
• Integration of the steam SDK..

AF wrote:Want a spring game that requires Spring v89 installed at the same time as a Spring v90 game, followed by a game with a modified v90 engine? I'm aware there is movement on this front with static builds but there's still some way to go

Afaik only a static build Lobby is missing (there is NOTALobby, but I would prefer something open-source)

Where do these static builds actually go? I can also see shared settings being an issue. What works best for vanilla BA might not be best for other games and vice versa

In case of Steam & Desura, the packages are installed in the user's home dir in a /opt & win-like one-folder fashion. So installs would be portable ones with the config in them. Never the less Spring should in theory support multiple configfiles already, so you can specify stuff for all installed Spring-powered games.

now.. ah.. do you think it wise to attract the attention of valve.. not that i m biased and stuff. but.. well but

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... nihilation

Yeah, uh, it appears someone has jumped the gun and put us on Greenlight already. I was browsing through the listed items and nearly had a stroke.

Hahahahahaha..
Everyone is talking here about if it should be put on Greenlight or not, having a civil conversation, while BA is already on there....lol.

Using my concept orange spring logos too

That needs taking down, it's apalling. They're using an unnofficial spring logo that doesn't even look like the official logo or the fauxgos, half the screenshots are XTA, oooold XTA at that, and Atari IP is on blatantly show.

It's also 'based at' not 'built on' suggesting we officially sanction it.

Maybe OP did it?

Does anyone know who put that up there? I don't want all of us to have to flag it and get noticed by Valve but if we can't find the guy and make him remove it in the next three or four hours I say go for it.

Here's his friend's list http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/7656 ... 41/friends Does anyone know any of these people? I don't.

what would be wrong with flagging / removal? i don't know the guy whose account we are wondering about, so i can only conclude that he has nothing to do with the project in the first place

would it harm the likelihood of a more "professional" submission of spring mods in the future?

You guys do realize that greenlight is about helping indie developers to sell their games, right? Even the steam games that are "free-to-play" have micro-transactions. The game needs to be able to generate profit so that valve can take their cut. There is nothing there that is truely and completely free.

Having an obscure mod that uses TA content but comes with the disclaimier that you must own the original game is one thing. Announcing to the world that you are trying to make a profit off of TA content is something else entirely.

KaiserJ wrote:
would it harm the likelihood of a more "professional" submission of spring mods in the future?

yes

I'd hate to take the chance they have a URL blacklist or get the impression Spring based games are somehow less legit. That said,it needs to be cleaned up ASAP and if we can't get the guy who put it up there to fix it, we have to report it en mass and get it taken down.

I'm sure it wasn't malicious and the guy was just trying to help, but MAN did he step in it.

that should all be a lecture for us to not get in-valved with steam..

This item has been banned for either violating the Steam Terms of Service or the Terms of Service for Greenlight.

PicassoCT wrote:that should all be a lecture for us to not get in-valved with steam..

This item has been banned for either violating the Steam Terms of Service or the Terms of Service for Greenlight.

You know that had to do with using TA assets and telling the forum to report the game. It doesn't tell at all that other mods can't be put on Greenlight.

I think we should submit mods where we know that all the assets are accounted for. But definitely after talking about them first. I'd use Zero-K and Kernel Panic as much better choices.

But we could easily submit just the Spring Engine itself as the way maps and mods are treated would work well with something like Steam Workshop and Steam integration in general.

luckywaldo7 wrote:You guys do realize that greenlight is about helping indie developers to sell their games, right? Even the steam games that are "free-to-play" have micro-transactions. The game needs to be able to generate profit so that valve can take their cut. There is nothing there that is truely and completely free.

Steam already has many truly free games without micro-transactions. If Greenlight shows Steam that its community wants it. We could see Spring on there too.

Zero-k would be an awesome fit, especially if they go through with the kudos system they're talking about. It has achievements, upgrades, and missions; as well as already becoming a social platform with its own forum, and a macro game (planetwars). Beyond that it has some of the best support/development, and multi engine support among even more things.
Another benefit would be that it could "separate" itself from the spring engine fairly easily with support being on its native forum.