Give BA its own site?

[knorke]

for all the TA IP talk just search some old CA threads. (And maybe have a look how look it took them to become ip free)
Everything that can be said about it has been said before...

If somebody wants to make a basic site (download,mappack, guides,..) today and can do it in a way that the site does not die tommorrow, then just do it.

[Ares]

Atari is in a bad way, ironically lawsuits were a big contributing factor in its decline. Prospect of any lawsuit is nigh unfathomable. Opposition to BA remains on principle.

Chess with different pieces is still chess. The question is: would you rather play chess with different pieces than never play chess again? If so welcome to BA, you are keeping a great legacy alive, until the day (which may never come) when you are asked to desist. In the meantime enjoy the luxury of knowing that every day spent playing has left you one day better off than having not done so.

Those who opted to never play chess again, consider what it is about different pieces that offends you. Perhaps offer to lay a stepping stone across the murky waters which you turned away from in disgust all those years ago, even just to help others get across in the meantime. Maybe as a community it's not so unrealistic to dream of everyone reaching the other side. Yes, for everyone to be happy I regret to inform you that castling had to be sacrificed, the queen got nerfed and knights received a controversial penetration vs armour bonus along the way. Not to mention every piece had to be painstakingly recrafted with matchsticks.

But that was what it took for as many people as possible to enjoy the spirit of a great game. At the end of the day everyone agreed it was worth it. I heard rumours that they even set up a website along the way...

[SinbadEV]

Atari is in a bad way, ironically lawsuits were a big contributing factor in its decline. Prospect of any lawsuit is nigh unfathomable. Opposition to BA remains on principle.

Chess with different pieces is still chess. The question is: would you rather play chess with different pieces than never play chess again? If so welcome to BA, you are keeping a great legacy alive, until the day (which may never come) when you are asked to desist. In the meantime enjoy the luxury of knowing that every day spent playing has left you one day better off than having not done so.

Those who opted to never play chess again, consider what it is about different pieces that offends you. Perhaps offer to lay a stepping stone across the murky waters which you turned away from in disgust all those years ago, even just to help others get across in the meantime. Maybe as a community it's not so unrealistic to dream of everyone reaching the other side. Yes, for everyone to be happy I regret to inform you that castling had to be sacrificed, the queen got nerfed and knights received a controversial penetration vs armour bonus along the way. Not to mention every piece had to be painstakingly recrafted with matchsticks.

But that was what it took for as many people as possible to enjoy the spirit of a great game. At the end of the day everyone agreed it was worth it. I heard rumours that they even set up a website along the way...

OMG this post is epic and deserving of it's own thread if not website and cult following.

[smoth]

was online no kremmy went back to the pornos

[Wombat]

AF, if u want to do something,then do it, coz atm it looks like u ask someone to beg u for it/ask for permission.

[AF]

And whether it's somehow official or not, I don't think that even makes much difference really. What matters is that someone just updates it when new version comes at least. And that the site is not totally shit.
If nobody feels like getting to it, too bad, but I don't get what AF for example is waiting for. If you want to make a site, do it faggot! If you'd actually read the quote by Niobium you've quoted 9 times, you might realise that's basically a mandate to make a site. Not like you'd need any permission, you're free to make a site about any game you like, and with BA you're even allowed (at least by BA devs, dunno about atari) to host an installer there.

And normally I would, and have done many times in the past. Each and everytime it ended in disaster:

• Spring Developers Website - The developers asked the community, make us a developers site, so I did, I offered one up, it was put up on BerliOS for testing, it never went anywhere, the developers silently abandoned it. enfact it's still there! Silently ticking away sending me emails everytime someone registers.
  
  Beforehand I said I wanted cooperation and I couldn't manage and write all the content myself. The very nature of the site required help. None was provided beyond initial requests for features that dried up quickly.
• Spring Site Redesign MkI - I started on a new site redesign, but the developers were of the opinion that until a better site is built we won't move. Time passed and a rival site design came along and the whole thing descended into chaos and was forgotten, and my time was wasted.
• Spring Site Refresh v1.5 - A truckload of graphics and CSS changes to take the existing site and bring it upto date where sent to developers. I had a new design in the works but thought until its ready ( and if it fails ), improving the existing site might be better and more likely to succeed. All the graphics etc were sent, it was a simple drop in replacement.
  
  Nothing changed and it was forgotten.
• Spring Site Redesign MkII - I launched the new site on a subdomain and announced it in a blogpost. I spent much time devising the new design and technical implementation and talking with community members in private to gauge the reaction.
  
  When it was released I got feedback and made improvements. Then roflcopter turned up with a design that only accounted for the homepage and had serious design issues, however it looked pretty as an image, and the community pounced on it.
  
  2 weeks later Fnordia checked the forums, and without telling anybody or asking, pulled up Roflcopters design, bashed together a crummy table based layout, and deployed to the live site. Nobody knew until it was live. Not just my design, but my working implementation, all my time and effort was totally blown out of the water. Community support for my work collapsed and I abandoned it.
• Wolfegames - I built a new website for Argh, since his old one was rubbish ( by his own admission ). Since he said he hadn't the time I 'just did it' for him.
  
  Argh failed to cooperate and made excuses for not updating his site "I have time to post humonguous arguement posts on the forums, but I cant copy paste my show off threads into blogposts because I dont have the tme!"
  
  In the end the site was gaining major traffic but was disastrous because he failed to update it with even the most essential of information. I ask that it be taken down as it was a dent in my portfolio and damaging to his prospects, in hopes that while the site he put together at short notice wouldn't be as technically or aesthetically pleasing, it would be more helpful and up to date as a result.

So as you can see, I tried just doing it many times before and got horribly burnt, again and again and again.

The only successes I've had are helping other people quickly with their sites, mainly foreboding angels sites, and he builds and maintains those himself.


I know Beherith will help if he commits, but so far he hasn't, and I'm willing to plan out with their timescales for the new content rather than just giving them something plastered in OTA models mixed with BA kitbashes from unit universe.

When Beherith and Bob contact me and start discussions about what they want and need, I'm happy to buy a domain, set-up hosting, build a site, design it, and make quite large technical gestures and to pull in all the content needed, and have quite a few ideas to manage that. Content should not be an issue, and its one I've thought about extensively, both for BA and for the other games I've considered and pondered making this offer to.

I do want assurances though that I'm not going to be a one man band who turns up with a fully built site and plays Bingo to decide if its used or not though.

I have a full time job and other projects, and cant afford to go off on a wild goose chase to build a site that may simply be ignored or rejected at the last stage. I'd want to be able to work with the maintainers and make sure I don't waste any effort, that I know their plans and can plan myself accordingly, and that I can avoid costly mistakes early on. I don't need a lot of time or effort to be invested by other people ( though they're welcome to ), and all my work would be done in such a way that other people can help contribute.

I would need an answer soon though. I have a new job soon and this entails a 2 week gap during which I intend to take the hours I spend working and use them to do personal projects. If the offer is not accepted by wednesday, that time will be filled with additional Shard updates ( on top of those planned ), extra features to my own website redesign, and an alternative new project ( not spring related ).

With the site I'd likely be building graphical artwork as well, so a refined logo, loading screen templates, etc, so community and official involvement is paramount.

So again...

Definitely a good idea that the BA team would support, but no-one with the necessary skills/hosting has stepped up.

I believe this post would be my 11th attempt to offer such a site

[Licho]

Oh AF if you need a place to release your creative talent, Zero-K badly needs proper site design/css cleanup :)
It is active site and you can modify existing stuff and deploy instantly. So you can be sure it will be used.

[smoth]

Ummm the spring site design stuff went fine everyone liked rofl's design more is all af. Seriously man you need to get over that one.

If you are looking for a maintainer for a ba site i think maybe someone like jazcash could do it. I say male the site as a subdomain on your site and worse case scenario, it would be good for practicing design ideas.

[smoth]

Oh AF if you need a place to release your creative talent, Zero-K badly needs proper site design/css cleanup :)
It is active site and you can modify existing stuff and deploy instantly. So you can be sure it will be used.

^ or you could do this :D

[Ares]

That post was helpful AF, you are obviously commited and also more than accommodating to Bob's project. Bob voiced his opinion earlier in the thread:

Pre Website > Trailer > Trailer Website > Completion > Full Website > Release.

Atleast, that's how I would do it. Mind you, this would happen at the end or near the end of the completion of all the art assets.

Currently he is very pre-occupied with art assets, so this is his priority, however, having read your above post it should be clear to see how serious you are about offering services. I think the best way forward would be for Bob and Beherith to offer further clarification of website plans, even at this early stage. Official approval then needs to be given or declined to AF. If granted AF will put the gears in motion to create a permanant or preliminary incarnation of the future website.

The site eventually needs to be a hub of activity related to the project, it's important for every aspect of it to be discussed in detail with anyone contributing. Ability to do this immediately may be hampered by AF's time constraints, but it can still be done progressively towards time of release. This could mean difficult sacrifices along the way for you AF. Ultimately, a website which does not meet the satisfaction of Bob and Beherith will not be a website worth having. All that is left is to await their will.

[AF]

Ummm the spring site design stuff went fine everyone liked rofl's design more is all af. Seriously man you need to get over that one.

Imagine if somebody pulled out the s3o format from under your feet after building and putting into game 200 s3o models, purely because Argh proposed a model format that was especially great at giant centipedes modelling in theory? Wouldn't you rage that it was totally insane? That your models were now useless? That the new format and its implementation were absurd? That there was no reason to abandon the old work?

So please, don't kick up even the slightest of fuss next time a tag breaks a single unit or weapon in your own project, then call me overreacting when I express displeasure for having my entire project rooted up and express the desire nto to have the same thing happen on new ones.

Oh AF if you need a place to release your creative talent, Zero-K badly needs proper site design/css cleanup :)
It is active site and you can modify existing stuff and deploy instantly. So you can be sure it will be used.

I've considered this before, however preliminary inspection with my browser indicates a CMS I'm unfamiliar with running on a .Net

Any work I do would thus almost guarantee a complete redo using PHP/Mysql. Although I know .Net languages, I have no experience with ASP, and everything I've read leaves me with the thought "barge pole"

[smoth]

50 of my models have more man-hours to them than 2 of your mockups. I can not ripp apart you preposterous supposition succinctly using my iPhone but no your analogy isn't close. You want to argue asinine drivel such as this meet me on mumble sometime otherwise accept that rofl's design was prefered and yours wasn't

[AF]

You obviously still do not get the point. I know roflcopters design was preferred, I've stated so several times now quite clearly. Fnordia could have waltzed in and restyled this site to look like MY design, and I would have reacted exactly the same way.

Whose design it was is irrelevant, and this is not a case of not accepting that someone elses work is more popular.

[smoth]

So restate your analogy to something less preposterous, offensive and disproportioned so I can understand you. As it stand your little rant managed to only offend me, belittle man-years of work and explain nothing.

[AF]

So restate your analogy to something less preposterous, offensive and disproportioned so I can understand you. As it stand your little rant managed to only offend me, belittle man-years of work and explain nothing.

Code: Select all

Error NotAMagnitudeComparisonException thrown

I had no desire to continue down this path and only did because I thought it rude not to bother with your posts.

I am not comparing the magnitude of your model work to my own work as equivilant ( which lead to you throwing insults at me, you were not privy to the entire development process and only see what I showed the community and requested feedback on ).

Merely I tried to re-frame it in such a way as that of a similar hypothetical event, but with your own projects rather than mine. The absurdity of the centipede model should have made it clear

Since I do not post on here to offend ( and when I do I make it blatantly obvious), I advise that any post I make that offends you is not an offensive post, but one that requires clarification. I have no quarrel with you, so why would I endeavour to offend?

[Johannes]

Thing is you don't necessarily need to depend on anyone when making a game site. You host it, you create it, if it's useful and people learn that it exists, it should see traffic from some new players soon enough. And when it exists and is decently maintained others will probably be encouraged to create new content for your site.

Of course things are different if you depend on others to produce content to start with, or are redesigning an existing site. But if you just create a brand new site, made and hosted by you, suddenly you don't have to worry about all these external factors always bringing you down.
The minimum you'd have to do, it seems to me, once the site is up and running, is just an update whenever a new version is released. Doesn't seem like a terrible burden even if you wouldn't delegate that to anyone. Otherwise it should serve a purpose just by existing, as you said even Wolfegames got a lot of hits.

Ultimately, a website which does not meet the satisfaction of Bob and Beherith will not be a website worth having.

And how would a site being made somehow piss them off, unless it somehow was really, really awfully made? Almost any site is better than no site, it's still possible to make another site if that's wanted.

[AF]

And how would a site being made somehow piss them off, unless it somehow was really, really awfully made? Almost any site is better than no site, it's still possible to make another site if that's wanted.

+1

Thing is you don't necessarily need to depend on anyone when making a game site. You host it, you create it, if it's useful and people learn that it exists, it should see traffic from some new players soon enough. And when it exists and is decently maintained others will probably be encouraged to create new content for your site.

Because my time is not a bountiful commodity, and other people would be happy for me to do it, but for them. I'm happy to do the work, but I'm not going to put my time and effort into something that may or may not be used, when I have other projects I could be doing that I can say with certainty will be used.

[Jazcash]

If you are looking for a maintainer for a ba site i think maybe someone like jazcash could do it.

Sure could, and I'd be happy to. Provided BA actually went somewhere instead of being stuck in a 16 or more player DSD loophole.

[Johannes]

If you are looking for a maintainer for a ba site i think maybe someone like jazcash could do it.

Sure could, and I'd be happy to. Provided BA actually went somewhere instead of being stuck in a 16 or more player DSD loophole.

If it has a good website it will !

[smoth]

See, not 1 but 2 people wanting to post news and shit. That would be good as the posting won't get too stale