Let's learn from Wesnoth and think about the future of spring

[Super Mario]

I would too.

Free game, but with premium content (unlockable commander mods, units, skins). Using a CC-BY-ND license for the content, even if most of the code is GPL.

So a f2p game then.
How are you going to verify to make sure that your users have bought your content instead of being hacked?
Are you going to verify accounts on the server or on the user client side?
How are you going to handle the micro transaction progress?
How are you going to get the initial player base and most impotently how are you going to keep that said player base.

[raaar]

I would too.

Free game, but with premium content (unlockable commander mods, units, skins). Using a CC-BY-ND license for the content, even if most of the code is GPL.

So a f2p game then.
How are you going to verify to make sure that your users have bought your content instead of being hacked?
Are you going to verify accounts on the server or on the user client side?
How are you going to handle the micro transaction progress?
How are you going to get the initial player base and most impotently how are you going to keep that said player base.

I'm making the game because I like doing it. I've been complaining about rts games for years. Time to make mine. Making money off it is secondary (I have full-time job, etc.).

first i'll start with having the reworked game released and have a few hosts running. Then tweak the game over time, try to get players, use feedback, etc.

I'm thinking of adding a bit of proprietary lua code that manages locked content and interacts with an external server at the start of the game. Money transactions and account management would be handled through that server. Account-related interaction between game server and external server may require moving out of the official spring server, though.

zero-k has grindy aspects to get commander modules and donation based "purchases" (apparently) and I don't think it even tries to have any proprietary code. The peoples urge to go to a stable populated server is stronger than the urge to bypass whatever restrictions it has. I've seen this happen multiple times.

[8611z]

Engine Devs: ohay, we broke yer shit!
Me: ok
Engine Devs: Fix yer shit!
Me: looks for any and all documentation to find essentially, nothing. Yells at engine devs
Engine Devs: we broke your shit and it's your fault that we broke your shit and you're a douchebag for complaining about it because our time is worth more than yours and we're still not going to tell you how to fix it.

I'm highly familiar with this issue, and one of my personal goals as an engine dev (and as a person?) is behaving differently and communicating better with the game devs (even if we often don't see eye to eye). I hope they think I succeed and I will keep on trying anyway.

I see no big issues:
enough decent information exists in changelog, forum, wiki, git history, announcements. For further questions exists this forum.

My previous post was not my text/view but a reply taken out of an announcement/info thread.
It is unchanged except in original was a different name of course.
In what kind of situation or community can a well meant Info/How-To-Thread cause such reaction?
What does it say about real value of documentation?
How it changes people and community when such tone/mentality stays for a while goes without saying?
I think that state of mind is still around and it is not good for forum.

Unsurprising sidenote:
My post instantly got a warning, original post had gotten nothing. (It had merely been cleaned in language by a moderator, hush hush)

Anyway, back on topic (sorta):
Knorke, 1)what's your personal goal in being part of the spring community? 2)Are you trying to make it a better place? 3) Are you trying to make games? 4) Are you trying to make money?

1) Mouse wiggler. 2) Maybe tried, now fascinated like at slow-motion car crash. 3) Unsure, were byproducts. Currently no. 4) No.
I do not know how to answer those questions or why they matter.

[PicassoCT]

double post sorry

[PicassoCT]

So it boils down to the utopian idea of changing man in miniature? Who we are is what we got.

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If you gave me nanobots and woven diamond i could build bridges far and wide, free floating for miles to another side.

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but iron brittle is what the world gives you and math is what humanity made, and it takes us to the other side,
as long as repaired, as long as maintained, as long as to future generations explained.

There is no changing man. There is no board where angels persist.
Some of the open source projects can afford it, swimming in contributor, to enforce a "Angels only" policy.
Others (and in my opnion the better ones) make due with ( productive ) headcases like me (and you).
And oh, wonder it works.
Progress happens.

Im not happy about a lot of stuff myself, and on some i bang the doors at times.
But in the end i stay and make, for better of the times.

[NeonStorm]

Priorities as I see them:

My mantra: Power. Flexibility. Ease-of-use.

Aim #1: Make Spring more 'Game Developer Friendly'

Recognise that potential game devs are Springs true end users.

Goal 1.a - Ingame editor for mapping and modding (ScenEd)
Goal 1.b. - Showcase existing content and how each game has unique elements that have been achieved by Springs P.F.E.
Goal 1.c. - Advertise the engine as a product to potentitial developers - Ludum Dare is a great way to do this


Aim #2: Make Spring Games more 'Player Friendly'

Recognise that lobbies are the main barrier to game devs maintaining interested players.

Goal 2.a. Lua Lobby?
Goal 2.b. Web lobby is probably a smart ticket too

Aim #3: Get more game developers

Aim #1 is the means to this end.

Aim #4: Get more players

Aims #1 through #3 are means to this end.

I agree, especially on his 1.a and 2-4
Everybody - even my brother who doesn't care about math or programming at all - can create maps.

1.a - map editor with trees, mex-spots and rocks. Maybe use ZK's terraform GUI but with infinite global build power.
1.b - Lobby improvements. Examples: filter to only show maps the host supports.
1.c - Fix for: The BA:DSD clusterhost is dominating over freedom of choice.

• If 9 want BA:DSD, 7 want FFA, nobody is going to the other host because everybody is afraid to be alone there and I think this perma-DSD is hurting the experience spring provides.
  
  There should be at least commands where you can say "!callmove HostName" and it moves all who voted "!move number" only if number >= the ones which will move.
  Then everybody has the guarantee that he will not be alone sitting in a room until the DSD-host exits again.

1.d - A package installing everything you need to get a unit model ingame and a gadget done + a (fast offline) API browser.

[8611z]

So it boils down to the utopian idea of changing man in miniature? Who we are is what we got.

No, it boils down to that a minimum amount of "netiquette" is not much to expect.

[Super Mario]

I'm making the game because I like doing it. I've been complaining about rts games for years. Time to make mine. Making money off it is secondary (I have full-time job, etc.).

first i'll start with having the reworked game released and have a few hosts running. Then tweak the game over time, try to get players, use feedback, etc.

I'm thinking of adding a bit of proprietary lua code that manages locked content and interacts with an external server at the start of the game. Money transactions and account management would be handled through that server. Account-related interaction between game server and external server may require moving out of the official spring server, though.

zero-k has grindy aspects to get commander modules and donation based "purchases" (apparently) and I don't think it even tries to have any proprietary code. The peoples urge to go to a stable populated server is stronger than the urge to bypass whatever restrictions it has. I've seen this happen multiple times.

I'm pretty sure that I meant it as a live-hood, not as a side project.

[Super Mario]

What happen to this? That looks promising, as it's a good way of teaching the basics of creating games with the spring rts engine. It appears to haven't been updated since 2012.

[PicassoCT]

It was released. It is used. I used it to make a test-unit for spring.SetUnitPieceParent.

Also dat memorys of the beginning of jw

[smoth]

What happen to this? That looks promising, as it's a good way of teaching the basics of creating games with the spring rts engine. It appears to haven't been updated since 2012.

People like to think you can just make a simple tutorial and get people started. Programming isn't like that.

Spring as an engine started as a way to run ota crap in 3d. It still largely is. The difference is that the Lua interface with the engine exposed parts of this ta-like setup.

Spring has SLOWLY been pulling a lot of hard coded crap out into Lua implementations. Not that you will give this post a moment's thought but that is sprigs future as an engine.

As a community we have a lobby and tons of content. As knorke said earlier, spring is a great platform. If you were a content dev you would get frustrated beyond belief at all the disparate parts.

It is a bastard half-engine/half-game.

As such we have the engine help us with somethings and other things, while helpful can get in the way until they are fully implemented in Lua.

Either way, I'll bite. What is your goal in this thread? So you have a point or are you here to just bullshit

[PicassoCT]

No trollbait ? Hoko is a serious person.

I think we have diffrent groups with divergent interests, sometimes even working against one another. Example is the AI-Devs vs GameDevs.

For GameDevs Lua-fication is a blessing. For AI-Devs it makes there life hard.

Regarding Games:
I think over time some of the games will gain a modification life of there own. Which is good, although i can imagine devs getting zelauous about compromising there vision (certainly not me )

So the actual question is- how easy is a Lua Game to grasp and to modify - if you have no clue what the engine actually does.

There is where the need to learn to code starts to kick in. In OldTA, you would start by modfiying values. Everyone can edit spreadsheet-data, which is what unitdefs are for most outsiders. Everyone has paint, so they can draw stuff.

Not everyone has a 3d editor and time/nerve to learn that skill. A drag and drop library would be usefull there- loaded with rapid if you click a "Make a Mod for this game" button.

Although some of the architectural more complicated games will have to be cruzified. To warn future generations.
This was the plan all along, luafications goal was to get us into the frying pan. And here we are.

[raaar]

There are other issues regarding spring's future as well.

I've been reading rumours about devs wanting to remove TA legacy stuff for years (3do, bos/cob, tdf processing, etc.). I don't expect legacy support to be improved or encouraged, but I don't want it removed either.

Now I may be ok with removing some hardcoded quirks that unexpectedly affect unit values, like I think at some point aircraft had their brakerates divided by 10 and if they had turnradius of exactly 500 it was being interpreted as 1000. Stuff like that. Other stuff like modinfo.tdf is ok too, I mean....it's a single file, with a dozen parameters.. not too much trouble.

But removing 3do, bos/cob or unit info tdfs is going to be a lot more troublesome. Having applications to convert to the new recommended formats is good, but forcing a conversion is not, because it also forces game devs to use other tools.

Some game devs (like me) may also have written external applications to make managing their game easier, which would need to be adapted to processing lua files.

As a game dev I expect engine devs' ongoing work to make my life easier, not harder.

One of the big advantages Spring has is it's ease of using the legacy formats TA used and make similar games. It may end up being THE hub for many TA mods that are out there still using the original TA engine (I still don't get how it hasn't happened already).

[FLOZi]

Unit info tdfs were removed years ago in favour of lua, but there is a lua tdf parser that maintains backwards compatibility.

Long story short; What an engine devs means by 'removing' something doesn't necessarily equate with what a game dev might think

[smoth]

I've been reading rumours about devs wanting to remove TA legacy stuff for years (3do, bos/cob, tdf processing, etc.). I don't expect legacy support to be improved or encouraged, but I don't want it removed either

that is just my constant pushing to have superflous stuff like the above removed as there is NO real reason to hold onto any of the specific items in the engine's code. As a community I feel us having bos/cob makes it even more bewildering for people starting in spring as people will point them to BA or something. TDF is code bloat imo. 3do renders badly, has no access to glow or translucency, behe does have a converted to convert from 3do btw but he is unable to dig it up due to IRL priorities at the moment..

But removing 3do, bos/cob or unit info tdfs is going to be a lot more troublesome. Having applications to convert to the new recommended formats is good, but forcing a conversion is not, because it also forces game devs to use other tools.

if the tool is made available it takes like MAYBE 5 minutes to replace your old unit def to lua. The remainder really are about the same for manual conversion. TDF doesn't really exist any more as flozi says. it was the extra parsing to support it that I was advocating the removal of.

Some game devs (like me) may also have written external applications to make managing their game easier, which would need to be adapted to processing lua files.

I wrote a .tdf editor years ago in c# for shits and giggles, outside of you, I am the only one who wasted the time playing with that(I did it to refresh my coding knowledge).

As a game dev I expect engine devs' ongoing work to make my life easier, not harder.

bos scripts are limited in comparison to lua, it is like saying you want to go uphill biking on a tricycle and I zip past on my mountain bike. Even lua defs are significantly more powerful. See flozi's weapon def inheritance code. or my generalized script that builds out my unit animation scripts based on parameters in a def file.

One of the big advantages Spring has is it's ease of using the legacy formats TA used and make similar games. It may end up being THE hub for many TA mods that are out there still using the original TA engine (I still don't get how it hasn't happened already).

It's ease of use in legacy formats? Like the dated 3do builder or the unstable and very dated scriptor? They are less stable than upspring IMO. It isn't ever going to be the HUB of OTA mods as there was massive amounts of conversion work for projects coming to spring. I know, I did that dance 8 years ago. ESP when you are somehow having the idea that you can easily import an OTA model. Most of them have only half of the faces with the bottom half being a void due to people only seeing models from one direction in ota.

Trust me, I can fire up gundam annihilation in OTA but if I tried to play it in spring it would take a good deal of effort. Not that it matters I play GRTS whenever I please. I do keep a working copy for personal use...

Picasso, only compile AIs. We already have CRAIG.... just sayin..

[raaar]

You argue against even having bos/cob and 3do support, like it's a bad thing it's there. Currently nothing prevents people from using lua and s3o. If devs did what you ask people would be forced to convert, would probably run into issues and waste WAY more than 5 minutes (like we just did arguing about it).

XTA people for example are merging in TLL and GOK factions. Tech A people already got TLL faction added to it. It took a while, but it's happening.

bos scripts are limited in comparison to lua, it is like saying you want to go uphill biking on a tricycle and I zip past on my mountain bike.

Flawed comparison. Legacy stuff has limitations, but if you aren't going to run into them or already have workaround "templates", they don't matter.

Don't like it? don't use it.

Sometimes when people I know are procrastinating something they get all hyped about fixing something else unrelated....Just saying....

[gajop]

I agree with smoth on this one, although I'd go one step further and question the importance of s3o and similar Spring formats in the future where there's standardized stuff like collada (assimp) that is equal if not more powerful.
We should definitely not be bound by the limits of any of the old formats, but that doesn't mean things will suddenly get dropped either. I don't think there's any such plan at least, and there's certainly a lot more ways the engine could be improved without removing stuff either.

[raaar]

in the last year, what % of engine dev time was spent maintaining legacy stuff like 3do and cob/bos to fix bugs or add new features (moody refactoring "because" doesn't count)?

any honest estimate?

Are there any significant developments being hampered by the existence of legacy compatiblity?

[gajop]

any honest estimate?

4.2%
do you really expect a realistic number?

[smoth]

I agree with smoth on this one, although I'd go one step further and question the importance of s3o and similar Spring formats in the future where there's standardized stuff like collada (assimp) that is equal if not more powerful.
We should definitely not be bound by the limits of any of the old formats, but that doesn't mean things will suddenly get dropped either. I don't think there's any such plan at least, and there's certainly a lot more ways the engine could be improved without removing stuff either.

I honestly think nano, the economy etc are all a great place to start