Mod development process.

[Tim Blokdijk]

Hello Mod Developers/Designers.

There has been some discussion about how to involve mod development more in the overall development process. I have written a proposal about how we could get the development of code & content closer together.
You can read the PDF here.
It's based on the AI development discussion that some of you might have picked up on.
I would like to have your feedback on this proposal.

Please note the following:
This is about improving the development environment and its processes.
So your development time is spend more productive.
Nothing more, all other discussions like what gets included with a Spring release, what features are more important, etc. - I like to discuss all that once we have the new closed development sub-forum (all mod developers will get access to it) that is proposed in the document.

Also note that the "open source" requirement will exclude most mods from the start.
This won't mean you as a mod developer are excluded, not in any way! We just can't have your mod in SVN/WebDav, if you decide to work on a new project or clean up your existing mod or work on another mod that is already accepted you can get all the access you need.

Another thing is that this is a new thing (involving mod developers in the overall development process) so things need to settle in, there is little experience on how to run a open source project with a lot of content.
We will have to learn things as we go.
There is also no pressure to complete anything before any date or something, this document is about defining how we intent to work together, not to pressure people into something or tell them what to do.

Right.. Now give me my feedback so we can get this thing going.

[Nemo]

Getting content creators and engine devs closer together is a great idea. You might have a hard time defining just who really is a 'modder' as opposed to a 'tweaker'. For example, I have few to no artistic skills, and I can only do the simplest of scripting. However, I do all of the balance and text monkey work for a project. I'm not really a creator of content, but I am a noteworthy part of an ongoing mod.

Your choice, since its *very* easy to open up a fbi file and start messing with things, while creating quality models/textures/animations is a FAR more skillful process - but that text element is still needed.

SVN can be very handy for mod dev, but if you're concerned about certain mods making use of Spring's SVN hosting, there are free ones all over the place. For example, I recently got 1944 going with OpenSVN, and its great.

[FLOZi]

This looks like a good idea. I hope I'm considered to be nice enough to join in.

[PauloMorfeo]

I think Spring needs someone to fulfill the role of the one who acts as a brige between developers and modders.

Someone who understands modding and knows what is needed, to ask for acurate and correct features and to advise on how stuff should work. Someone who understands, at least moderatly, the inner works of the engine and knows how to code, too.

SJ was "the man" and i think that losing SJ was more a problem of losing that brige than, actually, the lead developer.

Just an idea.

[Das Bruce]

How do you decide who's a modder and who's not? You could decide yourselves but best idea if you ask me, (and you always should), is ask the mod lead of each mod.

/edit/ It appears your link is borked. /edit/

[Zoombie]

So peoples like Fang and Cyder and, untill recently, Smoth?

Almost forgot Argh, GZ, and Guessmyname.

[Das Bruce]

So peoples like Fang and Cyder and, untill recently, Smoth?

Almost forgot Argh, GZ, and Guessmyname.

Gnome, flozi, warlord.

[Zoombie]

I can't be expected to list everyone, can I?

Maybe I should have just said "Moddler leader people types".

[Argh]

As soon as I have SVN access, I will upload NanoBlobs. The new release is very nearly done.

[AF]

be sure to commit your buildtrees too with the BUGFIX tag, as XE9.23 will be released bundled with the next spring release.

[Argh]

Actually, I was just going to email them to you, when I am convinced they work appropriately and result in desired AI gameplay. BTW, has anybody bothered to mention how much NTAI rules for modders lately? I'd forgotten how cool this was to work with.

[AF]

oh btw, make use all filenames are lowercase, as it will break NTai on linux if they're uppercase. Everything must be lowercase......

[maestro]

So peoples like Fang and Cyder and, untill recently, Smoth?

Almost forgot Argh, GZ, and Guessmyname.

Gnome, flozi, warlord.

hmmmm
(wonder why im totally forgotten again... )

[Das Bruce]

So peoples like Fang and Cyder and, untill recently, Smoth?

Almost forgot Argh, GZ, and Guessmyname.

Gnome, flozi, warlord.

hmmmm
(wonder why im totally forgotten again... )

Cause I couldn't remember how to spell your name.

[Tim Blokdijk]

@ Nemo: Balancing a mod takes quite a lot of time and skill to tweak. So I absolutely won't try to exclude someone like that.
Still I'm not going to decide who would be "in" or "out" I don't like that term also. I hope we can find relatively transparent criteria for that.
An important criteria would be that your not going to waste someone's time.
We don't need people that spam idea's around without having the backbone to stand fast and implement them.

@ FLOZi: IMO you would be a mod developer.

@ PauloMorfeo: Yes, we (Tobi and I) where thinking on having Argh with NanoBlobs take the first wave, see how he manages. Once it's clear this is going to work (and how) we can (step by step) expand it to more people and mods. Argh is quite capable and knows how to explain problems and suggest fixes.

@ Das Bruce: The job of giving access is for SVN Administrators, but I think it's a good idea to have a "mod lead" that can ask someone to be accepted.
Link works here btw?

@ Zoombie: It's Caydr but yes people like them. That is, they can get access to the new sub-forum, we won't give svn commit access to a lot of people for now.

@ Argh: I expect that you could get commit access somewhere next week unless something strange happens.

@ maestro: I consider you a mod developer, but I also know you are protective of your content. Now you are free to be protective but if you like to do this and have the proposal work (some of) your (future) work needs to be released under an open source license. I'm responding to you here but this is actually more a general remark, I expect that some people have to ponder this requirement.

[Wolf-In-Exile]

There should be a more concrete way of determining who is a "mod developer".

[Das Bruce]

@ Das Bruce: The job of giving access is for SVN Administrators, but I think it's a good idea to have a "mod lead" that can ask someone to be accepted.
Link works here btw?

Fair enough. Oooh, works now, will read and critisise... err critique...

[Argh]

Um... as for transparency of "who is a modder"...

1. You must create original content. I am pretty skeptical of accepting people who don't make anything that doesn't count as Original Art. Tweaking stats and doing a kitbash mod of pre-existing OTA stuff is not serious modding. Making all-new animations, artwork, sounds, etc., is an important qualifier.

That means that Maestro, FLOZi, Smoth, and Caydr (and yes, Fanger, GuessMyName, Centurion-01, and many others) are all, absolutely, in the "modder" category. For those with bad memories, Caydr has been building absolutely original content for GEM

However... people making a "mod" like "XTA: The Rebalance Wars"... are, in my opinion, on very thin ice. I would be pretty darn annoyed, myself, if somebody just ripped off my content for NanoBlobs and tweaked minor stuff, and then requested to be called a "modder".

While my statements above contain no absolutes, and there are always exceptions to the rule... I'd say that in general, unless you're re-modeling and re-scripting units at a minimum, you're not really making original works, and should not be allowed to participate.


2. You must release something that is functional and relatively bug-free.

I don't mind, and strongly encourage, weird gameplay ideas. Weird is good. Weird will improve Spring. Weird will help people building non-weird things find really great, offbeat ideas to stea... er, borrow from

However, I have serious problems with the idea that people who build mods with divide-by-zero errors, endlessly-looping COB scripts, and other evidence that leads a reasonable person to suggest that they don't understand the word, "playtest" should get to call themselves Mod Developers and join the party. They can read our documentation, sure- and I, for one, intend to provide as much as I can find time for, just as I have been.

It's not that I don't want people like that to learn and improve- the whole objective of this process, after all, should not be to create some bogus "modder elite", who get to dominate the Spring release process. That would be extremely bad for Spring.

However, if we're going to have a private Forum, like the mappers do, it's pretty important that we have some quality standards, so that newbies are aware that they need to spend the time and effort needed to clean up their "products" before being able to post there, let alone release via SVN.


3. Lastly... I think that while people who're totally and legitimately Mod Developers exist who're using Other People's IP... they should never, ever be allowed SVN access for those projects. It is never going to be safe for GuessMyName's project to be on SVN. It's a 40K rip. I have no problems with it, and encourage his effort to succeed- which it appears that it is, and surprisingly quickly, from the screenies I've seen- but... you cannot put stuff like that into SVN. And, of course, there needs to be a practical upper limit on filesize, or Spring will become a bloated monster.

Personally, I think that after this release... if a mod wants to qualify to become part of Spring, it needs to not only satisfy the terms of the GPL and Creative Commons licenses, but we should probably have a voting process. This will probably mean the quick removal of NanoBlobs, which I'll be the first to admit has a very... ah... tiny public following... but whatever replaced it would still be an Open Source project, and would be something likely to make players sit up and take notice. So if anybody's wondering if I am manuevering for a prime seat or something... no. Not unless I can hold it, by releasing superior content that actually generates player interest, as opposed to making wool-gathering mods for a very narrow audience

[KDR_11k]

Argh: I hope with "endlessly looping COB scripts" you mean those that don't fulfill any purpose in doing so (or don't contain any sleep or wait commands), right? I've got plenty of infinite loops in my scripts that do things like regularly check if the unit needs ammo and if there's a source of that nearby or fill up the unit's storage tank and look for opportunities to dump the stuff.

Nanoblobs would probably stay even if the players didn't want it, it's pretty much a reference to look stuff up for (new) modders.

Wool-gathering mods... Man, stop throwing all those awesome ideas around . OMG Catan mod!

[Argh]

Ah... infinite loops for checking purposes... yes, sorry for being unclear... we all do that, of course.

I am talking about stuff that has no qualifier or condition that will hold it, loops instantly and will lock up Spring. Y'know... the sort've thing that playing your own mod for an hour or so before releasing it would prevent (I playtest NanoBlobs at least an hour every time I sit down with it like this, believe it or not, to make sure it's still right).

There are a few... projects... whose makers will remain anonymous... that would not rise above this pretty minimal standard.

I do not believe in arguing about "Quality". I am just fine, for example, with an experimental gameplay design that features simple colored spheres and cubes doing "battle", so long as the scripting end doesn't just consist of ripped-off stuff from others' works. And I don't care if somebody cannot paint 3D objects worth a darn, but otherwise builds very polished work- if the gameplay is there, they can always go begging for artists later. The point is that there are some things, reasonable limits... that should be met, or we will get flooded with crappy projects, instead of encouraging people to raise the bar. At the same time, it would be very, very unwise to raise it to a standard where only people running a team could hope to qualify- which is something that would kill Spring, since it would encourage mono-maniacal and entirely popularity-driven projects. We need the weirdoes, folks, if we're going to have a hope of seeing the Next Big Thing come out've Spring.