Project 10 in 2010 Brainstorming

[Jazcash]

I just had an awesome idea:
Talk less, do more.

This 100%.

[very_bad_soldier]

Its open source, and you can not force anyone to do anything.

I have to disagree a bit. Of course no one is forced but I am sure if we have an official list of high priority goals (aka roadmap), we could find some devs to work on it. But only under the assumption that those goals are reasonable and we all agree spring will really benefit from them.
I have some spare time in the next weeks probably and would be willing to join any project that seem the most helpful for spring (sure, it has to be at least a bit appealing).
Springs biggest problem is IMO that the functions and the information is scattered across so many websites/progams. We need more integration.
Thats also why I would disagree on that "talk less do more" approach. Spring needs more coordination, not less. I dont think other big and effective open-source projects would have get that popular by that approach.
But dont get me wrong, of course no one is forced but even without force I think we can find some people to work together as a team.

EDIT:
A good start would maybe a wiki page where you can see on which task which developer is working on, planning to work on or would like to see someone working on.

[Gota]

If you want more coordination,you need a more pyramidic structure.
Initiate a project,make a decision and you might find yourself in a position to make decisions and have people to work with you on them.

[very_bad_soldier]

If you want more coordination,you need a more pyramidic structure.
Initiate a project,make a decision and you might find yourself in a position to make decisions and have people to work with you on them.

Uhm... thats exactly how things are handled at the moment right?

[Gota]

yes,except the tons of threads about WTF SHOULD WE DO?
exchange those with actual actions and development and youll get what you want.
I do support the Original Poster of this thread.

[Jazcash]

yes,except the tons of threads about WTF SHOULD WE DO?
exchange those with actual actions and development and youll get what you want.

This is partially what my drama thread was about. So much discussion but nobody ever follows up the conclusions.

[very_bad_soldier]

yes,except the tons of threads about WTF SHOULD WE DO?
exchange those with actual actions and development and youll get what you want.

Thats the exact opposite of what I proposed. Thats exactly how the tons of threads before this one ended. You know where it lead to.

[zwzsg]

An example project: "Person who makes the best Spring promotion video and puts it on Youtube gets a nice order of Omaha Steaks in the mail"

Are "Omaha Steaks" something I can consume in France? Is it possible to receive prize while staying anonymous?

[Master-Athmos]

EDIT:
A good start would maybe a wiki page where you can see on which task which developer is working on, planning to work on or would like to see someone working on.

Like...
http://springrts.com/wiki/SpringEngineTODO
http://github.com/spring/spring/tree/master
http://github.com/feeds/spring/commits/spring/master
http://springrts.com/mantis/my_view_page.php
?

Well it might be true that nowhere it's really made clear what each dev is working on and there also should be some kind of list of the "big picture" of what's new. I wouldn't know that Tobi is pretty close to finishing a Lua Cob alternative if imbaczek hadn't casually mentioned it...

I have some spare time in the next weeks probably and would be willing to join any project that seem the most helpful for spring (sure, it has to be at least a bit appealing).

That includes a game related project (which your work wouldn't be restricted to)? PM me...

[zwzsg]

If you're going to crap on the concept please do so in the other thread like I asked so we can get some work done in here.

I don't see work getting done here. I see all talks no actions like in the other threads.

I have allready offered to write a spring soundtrack, all I need to know is what theme's will be used??
industrial?, orchestral?? etc..
why pay for something you can get free.

Make me an electro-indus soundtrack for KP. Or maybe one that would be 8 bit / retro gaming / demoscene. Whatever, just seeing how it looks should be enough to know how it should be soundtracked. Your challenge will be to make it so it accompagny nicely the current audio soundscape from massive unit spam, blending in without clashing, but still letting you pick up events from the sound alone.

[koshi]

I just had an awesome idea:
Talk less, do more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aCC1MRkznA

[HectorMeyer]

Make spring.exe an appealing application with integrated lobby, which you don't even need to leave to manage your content.

Use a nice main menu - Singleplayer, Multiplayer, Options etc. No more springsettings, selectionkeyseditor and lobbyclients needed - the only shortcuts the autoinstaller makes are spring.exe and uninstall. Make everything look really smooth and polished. Instant internet connectivity in the main menu by default - shoutbox, news. Enable custom skins, which can be stored in the modfiles (BA skin, S44 skin etc). Functionality of separate lobbyclients should be kept though.

Make separate tags for mods and their versions, which allows for a clean overview of installed mods (also for maps, AIs, widgets). Automatically download old mod versions if replays need them. Automatically download old spring versions and make a replay file launch with it if needed. Basically, integrate a reliable downloader which automatically gets and installs everything needed for what you clicked on. Also, allow browsing of installable maps, mods and other content through the application, every item with a little pic and description.

Enable Rankings, Ladders, Planetwars for each mod. Modcreators can ask the administrator of the "ladder server" to register their mod there, so any mod can be played competitivly. Players have different ranks for each mod, ranks are purely based on results of competitive play. Make all sorts of statistics of your and other players accounts and spring overall (nr. of games, mods played daily/weekly etc) available, everything accessable through the application.


Create a single, powerful, content creation application, for mod, map and art/model creation, with integrated access to an "open" database and export/import abilities for external applications.


/noob brainstorm

Feel free to flame though.

[SinbadEV]

....STUFF...
Feel free to flame though.

First off, if you believe there is any chance of all that stuff you said actually happening I have a bridge to sell you.

I agree with the majority of your points... according to a number of dev comments on the subject, having everything run from a single interface would cause a number of problems, namely that spring has been built from the ground up to support single matches, it's not designed to unload a map and mod, it's not designed to run in low memory mode until it's needed etc... effectively they make a number of good points that effectively boil down to something I agree wholeheartedly with. It's easier to develop a number a independent applications the to try to integrate it all in one.

Not saying you couldn't design a game to work the other way, just saying keeping things insular is healthy when you have to rely on the work of volunteers.

The points you've made, however you might think they do, don't rely on a single executable. There is no reason why a Lobby Client couldn't be built with all the features you've described that still calls spring.exe the same way.

If you opened a Lobby client and where presented with the option to start a single player game (big friendly button) without having to go online, then spring.exe was left in the install folder and would give you a message saying something that would scare noobs and direct them to the lobby client (heck, even have a menu item that would run the lobby client)... I don't see how even an idiot could be confused by it.

[werdo]

Make me an electro-indus soundtrack for KP. Or maybe one that would be 8 bit / retro gaming / demoscene. Whatever, just seeing how it looks should be enough to know how it should be soundtracked. Your challenge will be to make it so it accompagny nicely the current audio soundscape from massive unit spam, blending in without clashing, but still letting you pick up events from the sound alone.

can do, Ill pm you in a week or so, what formats should they be?

[Argh]

what formats should they be?

Final format should be OGG, stereo. No limits on compression / bitrate other than keeping the filesizes reasonable.

[Sefidel]

This is going to be a long one.

I have been developing software for over 10 years now and I believe my input is needed. I will address several issues on this post so read it all

1)CLIENTS
It is extremely healthy for us to have multiple clients. I myself have been building a solo project forever, and the first thing we need to remember that these things take ALOT OF TIME. 2010 is a realistic goal for a time frame. Now first thing about clients we need is to standardize the protocol, which at the moment is text and digits, each used for different issues. This may not seem like a big deal but its just plain inefficient. Secondly TASCLIENT is overbuilt, overfeatured, and a real resource hog. We need to eliminate This application from the pool, and the only way to do that is to choose a different client as the primary download. So somebody, myself or other, needs to make a good enough client to replace it.

2)SPRING.EXE
This application has alot of issues. There are MANY MANY inefficient OPENGL calls, specifically vertices being submitted on an as-is way.
It is much more efficient to submit vertices even 1000 of them, at the same time. There are efficiency issues that are killling us, some of them very specific to LUA integration. Additionally the application degrades poorly on computers that dont have the graphical cards neccassary. This should be top priority since OPENGL can check to see what methods are available, and those methods can be downgrades to a method available.

3) LUA
A Standard GUI is needed, and it needs to be good. Ive seen some of the lua scripts people use, and some of them look like a 3rd grader wrote it. Loops that dont check themselves out correctly, Calls that are made way more often than neccassary,etc.

4)ADMINISTRATION
This is a serious issue. The moderators we have now dont do shit but troll. There is no leadership. And they fear new blood. at the very least there should always be at least 1 moderator available, but often times there are none, or they are afk. Most moderators recieved their status long ago and dont actually moderate a god damn thing. In order to move forward we need twice as many mods. Additionally we need a council that can veto a mods decision, so that it is not the final say. This causes people like me cause trouble.

5)ELECTION OF A PRESIDENT
We need an elected official. If we are going to be open source then we still need a "president" elected by our people, and for our people. This president would have broad powers, to override the council, oversee and approve changes to protocol, software, website etc.
This is a neccassary step for a fair system, and for a leadership role to be taken.

6)STOP DEVELOPMENT
For god sake this should be obvious. Mods, Maps, and Applications need to immediately cease development of new features and only work on bugs. We have ENOUGH features and as fun as some of those are, each one that sucks costs us all time and USERS. We need to create a release schedule that only involves bug fixes.


7)BUNDLE PACKAGE
A bulk download is completely neccassary, it will probably be in the form of an autodownloader, but with no options. options cause diversity and thats bad in our case. It should come with standard maps and mods, etc This MUST BE STANDARDIZED.

8)STOP TROLLING
This forum, and the chat rooms on spring are troll central. This is the immediate social cancer of spring and needs to be stopped. I personally am a troll, and i can tell you its just to damn easy.

9)MARKETING/FACEBOOK
Lets face it(no pun intended), facebook is where the people are. If we want users then thats how its going to have to be. We need a Spring facebook group that works, and even possibly a facebook app for spring. Millions of users, we have like 1000. the 60000 estimate is crazy, half of those are just me with proxies anyways. Plus many users have dynamic IP. Or play from work and home etc. We neeed facebook integration ASAP.

Thats it for now. thoughts?

[Gota]

Except lua and spring.exe,which i know nothing about,I support your suggestions.
+1

[Sefidel]

Getting developers together - it does not work that way :) There are now 4 lobbies in development. Developers can rarely agree :) Each differ in basic concepts or stuff like architecture/language. Again only way is to start such project and try to get help. I will for example refuse to code in C++ because its too time consuming compared to other technologies.

with todays processor speed,C++ is overkill in almost every case.
this does not include obj-c since it is the primary OSX language for development.

[very_bad_soldier]

Maybe make it impossible to run spring.exe directly, let it need at least one command-line parameter to prevent noobs from installing spring, manually running spring.exe and baaawwwwing "Where the fuck am I??"

Moving spring.exe to a subfolder "bin" would be another nice addition IMO. After that, assemble the four lobbies to one awesome uberlobby

[Satirik]

Secondly TASCLIENT is overbuilt, overfeatured, and a real resource hog. We need to eliminate This application from the pool, and the only way to do that is to choose a different client as the primary download. So somebody, myself or other, needs to make a good enough client to replace it.

ressource hog ? lies ! SpringLobby is the default lobby in the windows installer and the main lobby on linux ...