CA - Community Annihilation :P

[Licho]

HoboJoe, programmers of TF2 follow player suggestions because they are payed for it and would be dumped if they didnt :)

It's a decission that commercial game can make. Not a hobby project..
Start paying development and I think they would be willing to do what you suggest..

[smoth]

I dislike many changes in CA but some are livable but tbh im not content with CA's current development and trying to point that out got me muted and removed from CA dev team.

You got muted because you are a dumbass.

[overkill]

I dislike many changes in CA but some are livable but tbh im not content with CA's current development and trying to point that out got me muted and removed from CA dev team.

You got muted because you are a dumbass.

QFT

[Noruas]

Players, like most people, do not really know what they want, and how much they are really missing out.

That is what kept Xta barely alive.

[Neddie]

They can't really kick people off the team. They can marginalize you if you are useless, but in the end, you let them force you out, not the other way around.

CA developers are CA players. Sak is both. Det is both. Licho is both. Hell, I'm both. In a way, it is player motivated development - as a player you just have to overcome some obstacles and contribute. Do I personally feel marginalized? Yeah, but if I am removed from the team it is because either I allow myself to be provoked into offending the majority of my peers or I allow people to pressure me until I leave. In the end I still hold the power, I still have choice.

So did you, Otherside.

[Gota]

Thats the problem.
Everyone thinks he is king.
Each person should do what he is best at if indeed he wants whats best for the project.
When everyone think they can come and effect different areas of a mod/game and get a chance to influance not by only sayign their opinion but also by actually changing things you get fail.

Maybe newbies should vote what they want to be changed?people who play for 2 weeks....
They dont know a thing but theyll already vote and potentialy change things.
That is rediculeous.
The bigger the team the more it needs a leader.
An OTA based mod like CA or a stand alone game are potentialy very complex with many different sections.
The more complex it is the more you need specialized people to glue it all together and make it wholsome.
At the end you do need a standard and an authority to decide what is appropriate and what isnt,what lives up to the project's standards and what doesnt.
If people cant overcome their ego when they are told what they did is just not good enough(in a subtle andnice way)than they dont belong in a project who's goal is to make a high quality game/mod.
When you allow tens of people to vote and actually promise to change everyhting according to the results of different votes you are seeding fail and should not expect to get anything achieved.
There should just be aclear structure with subsections.
a "project leader" and a subsection leaders like visuals,lua,balance etc.
Those in turn draw in other peopel to contribute under their guidence in each of the sections.
That creates avery conveneinet and effecient heirarchy.
And when i write leader it doesnt mean a big boss that tells everyone what to do but a person to look at the project from the heighest perspective,initiate discussions and bridge different development sections.

If on the other hand the people who are involved only want to do whatever they want and think is fun and not a mix of fun and some common goal and also have big egoes than you get an unstructured mess where nobody has any authority,nobody to make a final descision and a tendancy to not go through with ideas to their completion.

[Elkvis]

Imo great things could be done if you just took CA from around revision 1200ish (pre-economy centre, pre-normalization scripts) before it started to go downhill and turn it into what it should have been - a proper effort to improve and add exciting new features to the AA/BA line of mods.

You want it to be constrained to a BA with upgraded graphics and features.
How unimaginatively xenophobic.

[TheFatController]

Imo great things could be done if you just took CA from around revision 1200ish (pre-economy centre, pre-normalization scripts) before it started to go downhill and turn it into what it should have been - a proper effort to improve and add exciting new features to the AA/BA line of mods.

You want it to be constrained to a BA with upgraded graphics and features.
How unimaginatively xenophobic.

Xenophobic? what the fuck are you talking about ¬_¬

[Crayfish]

It means you are afraid of aliens.

So you should be, aliens are scary.

[Elkvis]

Imo great things could be done if you just took CA from around revision 1200ish (pre-economy centre, pre-normalization scripts) before it started to go downhill and turn it into what it should have been - a proper effort to improve and add exciting new features to the AA/BA line of mods.

You want it to be constrained to a BA with upgraded graphics and features.
How unimaginatively xenophobic.

Xenophobic? what the fuck are you talking about ¬_¬

how deliciously poetic.

[TheFatController]

How unimaginatively xenophobic.

how deliciously poetic.

How "adverb" "word that has no relation to your post".

[Elkvis]

I refer, again, to the second word in my first post. With every post you are reinforcing my original statement.

...I also refer you to any celebrated piece of literature. You can take your attempt at rigid enforcement of primary school English up with the respective author.


edit: I'm embarrassed that i used the same grammatic structure twice in a row. I feel uncouth.

[Jasper1984]

I think he meant afraid of new things with xenophobic. Xenophobic usually means a fear of foreigners, though.

[Crayfish]

Xeno does literally mean alien, in the original sense of the word alien before it became commonly associated with extraterrestrial life.

[Saktoth]

When players disagree with things, they talk about it. When they dont, they tend to just get on with things. Protestation and disagreement is always over-represented especially in something like a forum thread- people will whine!

CA is developer driven development. If you do the work you get the power, and CA is open so anyone can contribute. Balance wise though, we mostly seek out the most skilled players in our playerbase (det, google, myself, licho) to consult on these decisions, even if they dont do dev work.

Players who dont know how to play will have a very hard time understanding balance, because they might think something is OP when in truth they just dont know how to counter it properly, and might think something is UP just because they dont know how to use it properly.

Your model sounds... cute, but, what comprises a CA player? Many users of the CA downloader dont play CA at all (according to our own polls) and you can be prettymuch certain that any BA players will simply vote no to every single change out of spite.

[lurker]

'any'? Be reasonable when making a public post or it will distract from your actual point.

[Otherside]

Oh really

my popular change got reverted cos det doesnt like me

and i was being used as a fall guy to revert other peoples commits cos some other dev's didnt want to take that responsibility

So so called "power" to shape CA based on the work you put in is totally subjective cos if u work on visual stuff and widgets etc you have free reign to do what u want if u work purely on balance you dont. And it makes it look like your doing less

[TheFatController]

you can be prettymuch certain that any BA players will simply vote no to every single change out of spite.

Sorry but it was the CA team that created the "mod war", especially Otherside's constant efforts in #main, #ca and on the forums and the rest of the devs condoned it. There's absolutley no reason someone cant enjoy both mods and most players really don't give a toss about the drama they're just looking for an enjoyable game to play.

The "community" would function much better if people didn't try to turn their mods into partisan issue, this isn't an election its people playing computer games for godssake.

[exdeath]

Should? Don't we have enough TA clones? 2-3 is fine with different goals, but the current count is ridiculous.

There are many ideas (even if you only count only the most ideas for clones) that spring modders dont used, some clones ideas that usually made.

Balance mod: A mod that makes the game balanced. (dowpro fo dawn of war)
MODS like this for spring: xta, BA .....

Semi-Realism mod: A mod that make the game a little more real [without make the game a not balanced one and making the game fun] (forgotten hope for bf1942, Realism total war for rome total war, project reality for bf2, experience ww2 for bf1942.....)
MODS like this spring: none

Realism: A mod that tries to make the game very realism without caring if the game will not become very very balanced, people that make mods like this think that too much realism will not remove the fun of the game, the game will become fun, but in another way. (europa baborum for Rome total war, wargames for operation flashpoint, ww2 reality for bf1942..)
MODS for spring:none

Original content: A mod that tries to make the game more closer to original movie, rpg game, cartoon...... that the game was based on. (Wh40k Tabletop Experience for dawn of war game, FoC Realistic Galactic Civil War for star wars empire at wars..
MODS for spring: Spring is not a comic, movie, cartoon, anime.... but if you count games that want to make the game closer the original ta, there is one.

Bugfix mod:Mods that try to fix the bugs that are on the game. (Circle of 8 for temple of elemental evil, true patch for vampire the maskerade bloodlines)
Mods like this for spring:

Insane mods: MODS that chance the game completely make the characters faster, firing more bullets, doing more damage.... (bootlegs editions of street fighter 2, slaughter for bf2, bootleg editions for mortal kombat games...)
MODS like this for spring:??????

Sandbox mod: A mod that used test what the engine can do, you can spawn vehicles, spawn enemies... (BF2:Sandbox for bf2, garry mod...)
MODS like this for spring:???

Expansion mod: Mods that are made like if they were expansions of the game, the dont change too much the gameplay (expansions dont do this), but add more maps, races, characters
MODS like this for spring:


As you see that are many mods that can be done without creating a whole new game, (even more than the ones that i said [like the mods that make the game suit better to be used for competition, mods used to make machinma]) so complaining about using the original content instead of creating a new thing is not a so valid argument...

[Jasper1984]

Realism: Is it appropriate for rts?
Semi-realism: http://www.moddb.com/games/spring-1944
Bugfix mod: I think engine bugs are to be fixed in the engine? I am sure they do this. Testing extremes of what might happen in game to see if it crashes.
Expansion mod: Thought these already existed, forgot name though.
Original content: Star wars, Gundam

Sandbox mod: Use .cheat? I guess you might mean that you want a nice gui around that.
About this, the idea has popped up to have a mod extension with which you can name areas, put named (collections of)units and give them multiple different (named)orders. It then creates a .lua file with functions to spawn these units, start their orders, and some functions relating to the named areas. Next to that it should also create a file with a picture which serves as a reminder of what is where, and what orders are where.
The user can then use the picture and lua to do the logic side of the mission. Of course the picture does not have to be a plain picture, you can use browser-based interactivity of some kind, so that, for instance, if you hold you mouse over indicated unit spawn positions, that it then shows what unit is there.
The idea is to make mission making efficient, not having to figure out positions manually. The editor should probably also allow for the game to actually run, so you can see how units will move in practice.

Shit i went off topic again talking about ideas i am too lame, and probably to stupid to implement.