Total Annihilation 2 is alive - Page 4

Total Annihilation 2 is alive

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knorke
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by knorke »

luckywaldo7 wrote:Because advertising (...)
That silly arguement always comes up but it is never thought through. It always just gives superfacial purposely bad advertise-sentences and nothing else. (side note: your BAR and zero-K mottos are both so generic they could be swapped with each other.)
Why would the advertising change? The games can still be advertised seperately!
The only difference is when it actually comes to installing. So for example like this:

"Zero-K: A futuristic RTS with unique balance and unit variety"
This game runs on the springRTS network. To play install spring and meet us in ingame.

Imo it is possible to present that in a way that does not bring any "12 crappy failgames in one package" taste with it.
The link would then install (or start, if already installed) the generic-spring-lobby-portal-battle-net-whatever-you-call-it-lobby and download the nessecary files. Either via rapid or via steam or other pre-loading mechanism.

This "branding and reskin" idea is imo unfeasible, still needs different installers being in circulation just to have a bit different colors or logos.
It also leads to players clicking "play game-A" icon on their desktop and then going into a match of game-B.
Just read reviews and comments carefully and you notice lots of confusion by this:
bla.png
bla.png (5.71 KiB) Viewed 19404 times
Notice how zero-K is described as the best mode, but the review is actually left on a different game.
So zero-K is seen as a mode [sic] of another spring game.
There are several reviews where people write details that hint they actually played a different game than what they thought they did.
For example when someone writes how he enjoyed playing against "CAI bot" - on a game that does not have such AI.

With "start springlobby" you would imo not get confusions like that.

hokomoko wrote:f they happen to accidentally start spring.exe
The discussion has already advanced beyond that since years. Sorry, I but there is no use to argue those same misunderstandings again and again.
Chililobby is the future
What makes you think it would be "the future" and not just "yet another lobby"?

The talk about "nice and pretty menus that must look similiar to the game" also misses the point imo.
Players are well able to know the difference between a 3D game and a 2D lobby - at least if the lobby works as expected.
If one reads closely, the reviews about "this ugly piece of shit software" are caused by something not working or by totally strange functional things. (like the same errors popping up again and again or having to go online and join a multiplayerroom to play singleplayer)
If everything functions flawlessly and is clearly structured then players are more likely to ignore visual flaws. ("maybe the menu looked bit ugly but who cares, now i am playing")
luckywaldo7
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by luckywaldo7 »

knorke wrote:This game runs on the springRTS network. To play install spring and meet us in ingame.
Feels to the user like it's using one game as a way to force additional software/games on them. (Similar to being forced to install Steam or Origin for just the one game you want)
Notice how zero-K is described as the best mode, but the review is actually left on a different game.
So zero-K is seen as a mode [sic] of another spring game.
Yeah, that is pretty terrible; having all games under one identity dilute any single game's identity.
Imo it is possible to present that in a way that does not bring any "12 crappy failgames in one package" taste with it.
The link would then install (or start, if already installed) the generic-spring-lobby-portal-battle-net-whatever-you-call-it-lobby and download the nessecary files. Either via rapid or via steam or other pre-loading mechanism.
I still disagree, but if you are offer to get 90% of the work done toward it and needed help with some polishing bits, I would probably contribute.
hokomoko
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by hokomoko »

knorke wrote:The discussion has already advanced beyond that since years. Sorry, I but there is no use to argue those same misunderstandings again and again.
They discussion may have advanced, but the situation is pretty much the same as it has been 7 years ago (except some improvement attempts by ZK/ZKL).

It's funny that you call my observations 'misunderstandings', as I'm actually basing them on my own experience with Spring.

I think I first downloaded spring when it was TA:Spring (god knows when), and I thought I could play SP TA with it. I can't remember too much, I think I downloaded it, didn't understand anything, may have started spring.exe, may have not.

Several years later, in ~2008 I've found about S44 and it looked really cool so I downloaded it (thankfully it had a unified installer). This time, I'm 100% certain I started spring.exe, I've managed to pick the mod, I've also managed to pick a map (some were supplied with the installer I think) and I had no idea what this script thing is.
Fortunately, there was also a spring 1944 single player launcher, which let you pick a side, a map and a difficulty level.
What it never said, was that CRAIG (S44's wonderfully cheating AI) was not only way too difficult but also not similar at all to playing MP. (The thought going through my head was that if I can't even beat the AI on medium, I won't have any chance in MP)
Fast Forward to ~2011 when I finally had the guts to attempt playing S44 (won my first game! Godde was on my team).

You may attribute this escapade to me being daft.
That's probably true, but I think a lot of daft people could have lots of fun playing spring games but gave up somewhere along the way.
What makes you think it would be "the future" and not just "yet another lobby"?
With reasonable effort it can provide the whole game experience in the same executable, with downloads etc. entirely transparent to the user. It can be rebranded/reskinned like luckywaldo7 said to fit with the rest of the game.

Have you had a good look in OpenRA's site?
Unlike any spring game/mod/site I have seen, it actually mentions multiplayer being its focus!
I want to point out that when playing it, if you load the dune 2k mod, you have a dune 2k menu, with dune 2k colour scheme etc. (same for RA and C&C) and when you look for MP games, you actually know what game you're going to play.
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knorke
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by knorke »

Open-RA lobby is very different to spring ones. Everything that is not criticially needed Open-RA has removed. There is not even a chat outside the battleroom.
For list of all open rooms you must go to http://www.openra.net/games/
To organize matches you have to join the IRC.
For spring imo not appropriate.

The animated background in menu is not strictly nessecary, it is just one way of many to show which mod is selected. (=which filters are set)
Imo if that is unclear then it is a problem of tweaking existing lobby settings:
Show modname more prominent in battlelist or more visible filters would archive the same.
hokomoko wrote:I think I downloaded it, didn't understand anything, may have started spring.exe, may have not.
Players starting spring.exe is a misunderstanding.
Basically it is the blabla about how spring.exe should warn the player and tell him that this file is only meant to be used by modders and that players should start the lobby.
( http://springrts.com/mantis/view.php?id=2887#c8195 and many other similiar suggestions)
That might be as simple as having a different background image with a text. Somehow that was never wanted: instead the trend went in opposite direction for a while with "spring.exe should be more attractive to players with nicer pitcture", imo wrong way.
luckywaldo7 wrote:
Notice how zero-K is described as the best mode, but the review is actually left on a different game.
So zero-K is seen as a mode [sic] of another spring game.
Yeah, that is pretty terrible; having all games under one identity dilute any single game's identity.
Yes, that is bad. And it is what happens with one-game-installers:

The player goes to steam, install "zero-K", gets a "play zero-K" entry in his steam-list, gets a "play zero-K" icon on his desktop. Then he starts lobby, has disabled the filter (like 99% of players eventually do) and joins a BA game. And his gametime in steam will be logged to wrong game too.
THAT is how games game's identitis get diluted.
If the whole thing was named "spring games portal" or "spring lobby" (oh?) then it is more clear that there are different games.
luckywaldo7 wrote:
knorke wrote:This game runs on the springRTS network. To play install spring and meet us in ingame.
Feels to the user like it's using one game as a way to force additional software/games on them. (Similar to being forced to install Steam or Origin for just the one game you want)
It is like that anyway. You use one downloader-updater-thing (say steam) to install another downloader-updater-thing (some spring game's lobby) that then downloads more stuff.
Might as well be honest about it.
luckywaldo7 wrote:I still disagree, but if you are offer to get 90% of the work done toward it and needed help with some polishing bits, I would probably contribute.
Lobbies and other dl-tools basically do all that already. Tell someone "Install springlobby, click the game-XY battle" - and engine will download everything. weblobby has (had?) clickable links with parameters.
It needs decision on some standards but such thing will never happen.
Look at some discussions about lobby protocol: smallest difference and it goes "Oooh we need new server."
Or example: Lua-SP-menus like in KP or ST, imo would have been viable way to create singleplayer. It just needed a way to start spring.exe with a special script.txt. But it went nowhere. Of course could create my own SP-launcher (in random WIP or so there actually is one) but what is use is that? Just-another-crap-launcher, no standard.
Not even on limiting playernumbers can there be an agreement. What are chances for more complex decisions? 0.

And in the end, if a new super-duper lobby was to appear, which game would be left to use it?
One game has already made big flop, bit later another game decided "now it doesnt matter" and seems headless with its last suggested date being a post on steam: "in few weeks (!) there will be release." Fuse has been greenlit, it is too late for big changes, the rocket is pointed in god-knows-what-direction, so lean back and enjoy the fireworks.
luckywaldo7
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by luckywaldo7 »

It is like that anyway. You use one downloader-updater-thing (say steam) to install another downloader-updater-thing (some spring game's lobby) that then downloads more stuff.
Might as well be honest about it.
It's not about honesty or dishonesty, it is about giving the user the experience he wants/expects.
knorke wrote:Lobbies and other dl-tools basically do all that already. Tell someone "Install springlobby, click the game-XY battle" - and engine will download everything. weblobby has (had?) clickable links with parameters.
It needs decision on some standards but such thing will never happen.
Look at some discussions about lobby protocol: smallest difference and it goes "Oooh we need new server."
Or example: Lua-SP-menus like in KP or ST, imo would have been viable way to create singleplayer. It just needed a way to start spring.exe with a special script.txt. But it went nowhere. Of course could create my own SP-launcher (in random WIP or so there actually is one) but what is use is that? Just-another-crap-launcher, no standard.
Not even on limiting playernumbers can there be an agreement. What are chances for more complex decisions? 0.

And in the end, if a new super-duper lobby was to appear, which game would be left to use it?
One game has already made big flop, bit later another game decided "now it doesnt matter" and seems headless with its last suggested date being a post on steam: "in few weeks (!) there will be release." Fuse has been greenlit, it is too late for big changes, the rocket is pointed in god-knows-what-direction, so lean back and enjoy the fireworks.
All of this is incoherent rambling.
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knorke
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by knorke »

all you did was posting empty phrases.
Google_Frog
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by Google_Frog »

The player goes to steam, install "zero-K", gets a "play zero-K" entry in his steam-list, gets a "play zero-K" icon on his desktop. Then he starts lobby, has disabled the filter (like 99% of players eventually do) and joins a BA game. And his gametime in steam will be logged to wrong game too.
THAT is how games game's identitis get diluted.
If the whole thing was named "spring games portal" or "spring lobby" (oh?) then it is more clear that there are different games.
Why do you think it will have a filter which can be disabled or even that we will use the same server?
luckywaldo7
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by luckywaldo7 »

Google_Frog wrote:
The player goes to steam, install "zero-K", gets a "play zero-K" entry in his steam-list, gets a "play zero-K" icon on his desktop. Then he starts lobby, has disabled the filter (like 99% of players eventually do) and joins a BA game. And his gametime in steam will be logged to wrong game too.
THAT is how games game's identitis get diluted.
If the whole thing was named "spring games portal" or "spring lobby" (oh?) then it is more clear that there are different games.
Why do you think it will have a filter which can be disabled or even that we will use the same server?
If you're not at work and getting paid to post, it isn't worth it.

In forum hindsight, Knorke usually is just argumentative for the sake of being argumentative, and there isn't actually anything to be learned or accomplished.
luckywaldo7
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by luckywaldo7 »

FWIW Knorke, I didn't intend for you to take any remarks about Spring Tanks personally. And I might have also contributed a dozen or so times to ZK, but some of that benefited other spring games as well and I have no particular loyalty to ZK. I want everything in Spring to succeed.

I still disagree that a "Spring Portal" with lots of minigames is the best way for success. Established games with more dedicated developers just do better. That's not an opinion, that's the reality for the last 9 years.

If someone wants to prove me wrong, and develop something that makes minigames easier, I can offer a little effort now and then. But unless this conversation actually ends in effort, there is no point to it.
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knorke
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by knorke »

luckywaldo7: This thread has obviously turned into a troll-off.
I thought it was pretty clear from the smileys that your assumptions about mah mod were imo useless. :arrow: :regret:
(it does not need pointing out that the game is "outdated on wiki" when I put that note myself and so on)
Neither of use cared enough to walk away, what did you expect from that?

Google_Frog wrote:or even that we will use the same server?
First off, that quoted text was part of "discussion about diluting a game's name" - not about zK server at all.
If you look at the mentioned excepts from players reviews, this text is not fictional. That is excactly what has happend in some cases: Some players installed evolution-rts and use it to play zero-K. They think that zK and other games are somehow "running on" evo (as if evo was the engine or main-game) or in some cases that they are playing evolution-rts but actually they were playing something else. (One can tell from hints if they mention something from other games. Sometimes it was even more obvious, like when infologs were posted in chat but I stopped reading chat.)
The game-names are randomly chosen to make it more neutral, thought from context it would be clear.



So even if that text was NOT about current zero-K server situation, it is actually something I have wondered about.

That is why I had asked Licho 28 days ago:
"So will there be a new, seperate lobby server?"
I understood his reply in way that, testing aside, a seperate server would be only used if some planned changes could not be applied to main spring server.

( Changes=stuff like https://github.com/spring/uberserver/issues/121 and some other things mentioned in commits and elsewhere )

Tbh I did not follow it any further and have no idea if the lobbypeoplepersons came to common terms or not.
I kind of assumed "yes", maybe because of faith in them? Or maybe because I did not see any clear post about it.
So, did they?
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knorke
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by knorke »

luckywaldo7 wrote:I still disagree that a "Spring Portal" with lots of minigames is the best way for success.
For record again, that minigames stuff came up by 100Gbps.
I have no idea what is with the focus on minigames.
But I still see no real technical reason why there can not be a "Spring Portal" with all games. (not just mini ones)
Already discussed in similiar threads, not going to do it again.

Worth noting is that most of the time, the game-specifique lobbies do not even take full advantage of being game-specifique.
For example: Why all this complaining about "mimimi I can not controll that so many bad AIs are included with engine"?
If you have controll over the lobby then simply not show those AIs! Same with maps.
Basically do not bother with validAIs.lua or similiar - just hardcode it.
iirc zkl only shows LuaAIs? but with evo there was lots of "minini the evil NullAI"

And same with everything else too, for example modoptions.
Why just lists modopions in some ugly list, without any design?
If you want to support all mods, list is simplest option - because you do not know how many/what options will be there.

But if you already know that this lobby is only for my game then why not go all-out?
You could actually arrange the modoptions-elements and make them graphically.
For example instead of a prude dropdown box with "metalMultiplicator = 3" you could have resource icons that look like the ones ingame.
You could hide debug-modoptions. And just so much more things.

Think graphical options like in Worms:
Image
bla.png
(315.65 KiB) Not downloaded yet
Being a one-game-lobby gives the lobby much more freedom with design.
But no game-specifique lobby really takes advantage of that freedom.

And so all the game-specifique things in lobby are imo quite lame hacks.
Like differences with some protocol-command - and so zK-matchmaking does not work with springlobby.
Or validAIs.lua not implented in engine.
Or this lobby shows elo - and that lobby does not.
Or this lobby always has black playercolor when seen by others.
I have nothing to do with lobbies, but as player those reasons for incompatibility are just lame.
It is just not awesome enought to justify the drama and incompatibility.
Those are problems but are these really that impossible problems?
Imo it is only half technical, more a problem of people having to agree on one thing.

If a lobby really starts doing those things above, THEN it has imo "gained the right" to call itself game-XY-lobby. If the lobby is awesomely made to perfectly fit one game, then it is understandable why maybe it is incompatible with other games.
Otherwise it is just a generic plays-all-games-lobby with a lamer name.
gajop
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by gajop »

#Lobby discussion:
There are multiple reasons why I want to make an in-game lobby, and I think everyone (even those using an external lobby such as ZKL/SP) could benefit from using it. At the very least having certain in-game support (e.g. being able to use channels while in-game, or see friend online\offline information). This is the main reason I separated my work into chililobby (chili based GUI) and liblobby (in-game Spring lobby implementation). I would expect everyone to use the latter one in their game (or something that provides a similar functionality).

Not going to go into any further design detail about chili lobby, but I'm a high proponent of modular software and standardization. Literally everything I made for Spring (and I made a lot) is designed and implemented to be customizable for any Spring game.

I don't plan to go into long discussions about this... It's my hobby, there's a thread, it's open source. Help or leave me to my work.
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1v0ry_k1ng
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by 1v0ry_k1ng »

Why do you think it will have a filter which can be disabled or even that we will use the same server?
Separating ZK from the main server/having built in filter sounds like a good idea. Its important that computer games feel polished if players are to take them seriously, the whole package from the moment you double click the icon till the moment you exit should be streamlined to immerse the player. In a product that is to be sprayed at the masses, there is no room for the lobby to be a toolkit to download and play various other potentially broken games imo.
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PicassoCT
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by PicassoCT »

Would be intreresting to have panel tests with eye-trackers on the lobbys ..
or gurls..
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Forboding Angel
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by Forboding Angel »

1v0ry_k1ng wrote:
Why do you think it will have a filter which can be disabled or even that we will use the same server?
Separating ZK from the main server/having built in filter sounds like a good idea. Its important that computer games feel polished if players are to take them seriously, the whole package from the moment you double click the icon till the moment you exit should be streamlined to immerse the player. In a product that is to be sprayed at the masses, there is no room for the lobby to be a toolkit to download and play various other potentially broken games imo.

I used to agree. I don't anymore. A decent number of people from steam play BA and ZK semi-regularly.
8611
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by 8611 »

Can you give a rough estimate on what the numbers are?
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Forboding Angel
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by Forboding Angel »

Nope, I do zero tracking. I do, however, notice when users who are only in the evo default channels are ingame and not playing evo.

I haven't tried to track it, because I don't care. If they are having a good time then it is a net win for everyone.
8611
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by 8611 »

I am just wondering in what region "A decent number of people" is. Is it one, is it five, a dozen, hundreds, thousands players.
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PicassoCT
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by PicassoCT »

well, lets define the set of indecent numbers..

Negative Numbers are not decent.

irrational numbers are in-decent..

perioding numbers - no matter what base indecent..

any numbers occuring in sexposition description non-decent (69 etc.)
_
not many left..
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