Forking BA

[CommanderSpice]

There has been some discussions about the recent releases of Balanced Annihilation.
Some people, including me, are unhappy with the new direction the game is taking.

It has become clear during this discussions, that to preserve the game I am addicted to, it needs to be forked.

There is nothing personal to this conclusion.
Apparently the vision of you, the BA devs, differs greatly from what BA was in the past and still is on most servers.
I am sure you are putting in a lot of time and work to make BA what you think it should be, and I'd like to try the game one day.

But I am thinking of what would be lost.

So there will be a fork at version 9.46.
Its purpose is to preserve the game that we know and love.
There will of course be occasional balance tweaks, as there were always.

I'd like to ask you to give permission to using a copy of the current TrueSkill database on SLDB,
so the players can play it without the initial flaw of random balance.

[PepeAmpere]

So as first thing I suggest to add Peewee +1 or +2 HP boost. Because now BA is completely disbalanced. Ok, ok +2 is maybe too brave.

Maybe such announcements should contain at least one link to any real action from your side, otherwise some people can consider your statement as an absurd joke. And all good people with love in hearts assume this is not A joke!

[Silentwings]

Fyi, as already mentioned in viewtopic.php?f=44&t=35793&start=20#p580192, a while ago us moderators/admins were asked by various infra/game devs to develop community guidelines covering when forks/mutators can use Springs infrastructure - meaning, botflags, SLDB, SPADS and its TS databases, rapid etc.

These will super-cede the old system of games writing their own "branding rules", will protect the branding used by devs over their own established games, and will also make clear when a fork/mutator can use Springs existing infra.

Until we've finalized them - we did not expect it to be needed so soon and we'll do our best to be quick - I'm afraid I'll have to ask for a pause on this. Sorry!

[Ares]

God's speed Shadowfax

[CommanderSpice]

As there is no real rush, please take your time.
I think clear rules for this are in the best interest of everyone.

[Silentwings]

So - we now have https://springrts.com/wiki/Licenses_Forking_Mutators.

After viewtopic.php?f=44&t=35840 it seems that BA has no developers left for you to ask (?!).

Afaics this leads us to: give us mods a short time for discussion & we'll handle the request.

edit: since Floris has now also un-resigned himself in viewtopic.php?f=44&t=35849, he should have a chance to respond first; if you can't reach a resolution that all agree to amongst yourselves, then contact us Spring mods about the issue.

[CommanderSpice]

So there will be a fork at version 9.46.

I'd like to ask you to give permission to using a copy of the current TrueSkill database on SLDB,
so the players can play it without the initial flaw of random balance.

AFAIK you are the only BA dev, Floris.
Can you please answer this?

[Forboding Angel]

22 Days ago you already made a fork: https://github.com/CommanderSpice/Phoen ... its/master

[Silentwings]

The point is not the existence of the fork, but if it is endorsed by BA or not - and, consequently, if the question that was actually asked is handled by BA devs and/or moderators.

Afaics the last line of viewtopic.php?f=44&t=35840#p580419 might easily pass for a green light, but after viewtopic.php?f=44&t=35849 it isn't clear.

Since the current reponse from BA seems to be to ignore the question, if it remains stuck this way for couple more days then it passes to mods.

[Silentwings]

Question ignored by BA afaics ->

With the new name + screens + removal of branding/etc & so much discussion gone on in here/autohosts it seems clear that this won't be mistaken by players for official BA releases. Avoiding most/all 9.46+ changes and exploring involving players in balance changes seems a clearly different direction to recent BA releases.

So, yes, this fork can initialize its own TS database from a copy of BAs.

One point - if/when this is going to get played - it should be done in a way that makes it clear that it uses infrastructure that is separate from BAs. So, new autohosts with clearly distinct names, please (ask for botlfags if needed). I suggest also creating a new forum if development discussion is going to happen (ask via pm to the Adminstrators group), and to use viewforum.php?f=14 as a temporary place for discussion until one exists.

Locked. Use a new thread for discussion, if needed.