The elephant in the room (evolution rts and spring)

[smoth]

SL is fine for devs.

for games, yes silent, I have held for a long time that we should do packaged releases like ZWZSG helped me do with gundam. I am not sure how that would work with RAPID.

Also the multiple version support becomes really clunky when you want to do something outside of userland. AKA portable self-contained installs like I did with gundam

[knorke]

If you care so much about people having a buggy experience, go fix bugs.

I did. So did others too.
But after a while you realize that Forboding Angel lacks understanding to most issues and worse, is introducing new problems faster than they can be fixed.

But you know for someone raging - knorke comes up with quite a lot of evidence.
Just dont understand why he is spending so much time on evo.

I spent time to various projects. There is several people in spring who do the same.
And at steam release almost everyone spent time on evolution rts. Even if was just players trying to help in lobby chat, in one way or another many people were involved. What was their motivation? Afterall, it was not their game. My thinking is that everybody wants to see "spring do well", a spring game doing well on steam would have been part of that.

I found something and was not satisfied it met the standards of a AAA game. Here is a long list of vaguely described things written in lengthy prose I think need addressing

MTR

That is not at all what I wrote. It has also nothing to do with expecting AAA quality.

It is interessting that you post "MTR" - because that does not exist anymore.
MTR=monthly topic rotation = topics that get discussed forever but nothing gets done.
Some years ago if someone said "spring needs an ingame tutorial!" or "There should be a proper manual!" then it would pretty much remain a pipe dream. Either there was technical shortcomings or there was nobody who wanted/could do it.
That is different now: If you look at old MTR topics today then you notice somebody is actually working on it or knows an realistic way how do to it. But most likely it has been done already: Ideas that some years ago could only be dreamed off are today routinely implented.



So to get back to topic:
EVERYBODY failed.
I can not exclude myself.
Of course in the end it was one person would judged the game okay for release and pushed the button.
BUT: Anybody could see what state the game was, that there was no singleplayer, no tutorials, no througly-tested lobby or anything. We all knew how important these things are and what happens if they are missing.
That is something anyone could have noticed.
Developer people could have noticed dozen of more issues.
What other outcome could there possibly have been?
We have all seen before how irrational FA reacts to even small problems:
How could he possible be able to lead such release?
If somebody really thought that this project had any chance of sucess then they were informed or in denial or naive.
We have all seen evolution rts fail before (on desura) with the same issues as now on steam. At some point someone, the community, you, should have stepped in and talked him down.
More than technical problems it was human/social failure.



A while ago in forum was said:
-- "People forgot that, if evo is on steam, EVERYONE is on steam." --
...
Does this still hold true?
Or does it only apply if the game had done well but not if it does bad?
Does it matter when FA now blames spring/others for his game problems?
Does it matter when there is a "developer" blaming this & that, saying that something is impossible, or how other projects would have done worse?
Is it positive to the idea of open source that you tell customers "Well, go fix it yourself then"?
I think explaining all this away as "the GPL permits it" does not cut it, it seems wrong.
Is the only thing to be said really that it is not illegal?
Closing eyes like that is part of what caused the problems in first place.
After the initial first-aid, should "spring" just silently ignore the desaster, as is currently happening?
It is easy and oh-so-trolololzy to brush all that off as drama and butthurt but eventually just "go fix the bugs" misses the point.

[Forboding Angel]

Ok so, to recap:

Evo has 2 actual bugs. One of which only occurs for users who play zk and other games using spring 91 then come and play evo on spring 96. It's not game breaking, but it does make chili go away. Knorke's fix for this only made the problem happen every single game and broke other things as well. I'm not

The second, only happens once in a blue moon, and is so rare that even smoth has deeemed it not worth fixing as it only happens in the rare instance that a player is selling everything he has and in the process loses everything before the sell finishes. Moreover, the function still works, it simply throws an error. The game doesn't break.

These things happen so rarely that they are not deemed worthy of fixing. And in Knorke's case, the fix made everything worse. I don't know why he thinks that I commit every single thing I test (alluding to him telling me that I did it wrong... that was me trying to fix what his fix broke and thinking that I had succeeded iirc).

So to sum up, evo is pretty much 99.9% stable.

So explain to me why any of the rest of it is my problem? The lobby is constantly worked on and no one can make that work happen faster. If you want it to happen faster than I suggest that you start throwing money at Ikinz, Carrepairer, and Anarchid. I have taken care of all that I can.

Springlobby is nowhere near fit for consumption. Notalobby infringes. ZKLobby is only reliable if you're playing ZK (lol bro, do you even sync?). TASClient is a bad joke. Out of all of the choices, Weblobby is BY FAR the most versatile and flexible, it also has the advantage of inline updates so that no client side updating is necessary. It also is managed by two guys who I can trust implicitly.

The problems with Evo's launch had nothing to do with the game itself. The game itself did fine. The problems stemmed from the lobby, and it would have been a shite sight worse if it had been any other lobby than Weblobby. CarRepairer and Ikinz worked their fucking asses off fixing shit right and left, and by insulting me, you indirectly insult them as well.

If the engine devs would accept that the lobby should be part of the engine (a la battlenet) and implement a single unified ingame lobby (lollualobby?), the lobby problem would not be a problem. The engine devs have decided that the lobby is not of their concern, and so for 8 years, the same problem has persisted.

So if you want to cry and whine to someone, that someone should not be me. Also, the Desura stuff was never botched, wtf are you on about? In fact, the Desura guys practically begged me at one point to get the other spring games to jump on Desura as well.

[MetalSucker]

...
So explain to me why any of the rest of it is my problem?

Springlobby is nowhere near fit for consumption. Notalobby infringes. ZKLobby is only reliable if you're playing ZK (lol bro, do you even sync?). TASClient is a bad joke. Out of all of the choices, Weblobby is BY FAR the most versatile and flexible, it also has the advantage of inline updates so that no client side updating is necessary. It also is managed by two guys who I can trust implicitly.

The problems with Evo's launch had nothing to do with the game itself. The game itself did fine. The problems stemmed from the lobby, and it would have been a shite sight worse if it had been any other lobby than Weblobby.
...
So if you want to cry and whine to someone, that someone should not be me.

This:

I think the important thing to take from this is that games must be treated as complete packages. People will not gain magical interface comprehension skills while using the lobby part of the package. It is not useful to release without first making sure that the lobby works really well or to ignore lobby problems when they arise.

Currently most spring games go lobby->download system->engine,maps->game. Users should not be made aware of this complexity by making it *all* work smoothly. It does make sense for a game release to include all those things.

[PicassoCT]

i think thats the prize of freedom, some people overrestimate themselves and phail
some phail but selfrepair and get another run
few make it

the actuall problem i see is, that nobody ever talked about the transformation that would have happend if- a spring game would succeed on the mass market.
The truth is, this community would cease to be.
Success can kill too.
Skill is hired away, arrogance that was laughable when everybody was living in cardboard boxes suddenly hurts. Plans by one team force every other community memeber to dance in funny ways.
(Happens in a mild variation allready, with zk not adapting newer engine versions.
Release means stability first, which is cryostasis for the tempering engineers.)
But i digress.
Lets all venture forward to the happy end that awaits all brave salmons at the end of the river.

Im - in every apsect and every fibre of will, against any form of censorship. If emmanuel released on steam tomorrow, i would fight to my dying breath to have him have that right. The Alternative and bureaucratic corruption that would grow - after a "safer" approach would be voted in- would be worser.

I do not want to crawl in front of anybody, on my knees, to be allowed to release some crippled mediocrity, which had to be "cut" down for technical reasons.
You can enforce a spring screen, showing how stable a game is (aka Bugs in the last month). Customer Information is good.


Evo is dead. Long live Evo.

[Silentwings]

Currently most spring games go lobby->download system->engine,maps->game. Users should not be made aware of this complexity by making it *all* work smoothly.

You can stop making this point again and again, unless you have something material to contribute towards its resolution with. Everyone agrees with you and had already agreed with you long before this particular thread took place. That said, as said above, it is currently the responsibility of any game that offers a standalone installer to also provide a suitable lobby - simply because no one else is going to. It's not ideal, and it's not easy either, it's just life.

[MetalSucker]

.. shut up or do something about it..

I will.

[Silentwings]

I'd prefer not to be mis-quoted ... if I want to be impolite I can do it quite well myself. But thank you :)

[Forboding Angel]

This:

I think the important thing to take from this is that games must be treated as complete packages. People will not gain magical interface comprehension skills while using the lobby part of the package. It is not useful to release without first making sure that the lobby works really well or to ignore lobby problems when they arise.

Currently most spring games go lobby->download system->engine,maps->game. Users should not be made aware of this complexity by making it *all* work smoothly. It does make sense for a game release to include all those things.

It does include those things, but it is not feasible. Ask any of the lobby devs how much goes into making a lobby. If this were truly the case, then spring games would not be advertised at all anywhere and spring would have ceased to exist in 2006.

Stating ideals is nice, but that doesn't make them more feasible.

[Jools]

TASClient is a bad joke. Out of all of the choices, Weblobby is BY FAR the most versatile and flexible

I don't see what there is to gain with insulting other people's work. Weblobby is fine too, but Tasclient is the only lobby that looks decent and not like a teenage warez or porn site. Stop insulting other people's work and you have my respect.

Only problem I have with tasclient is due to pr-downloader, that doesn't let you configure download directory for maps and games.

[smoth]

did you ever try moving around the tabs in springlobby? I prefer it because I can adjust the layout easily and after I did that, it is way better than TASCLient was.

[Jools]

did you ever try moving around the tabs in springlobby? I prefer it because I can adjust the layout easily and after I did that, it is way better than TASCLient is.

That's subjective of course, but moving from chat to battle with F2 works just fine...

[smoth]

doesn't for me, I need to see both. but this is not on topic.

[raaar]

Forb spent lots of time working to get Evo the way it is (arguably pretty good). Even experienced devs get lazy and may sometimes ask other dev friends trivial questions about stuff they don't do well, so what? Linking to it later to try and make them look incompetent is offensive and mean, Knorke.

The lobby issues could have been worked around without writing a single line of code. By providing better summarised information on how to download of the game and maps on different lobbies, game hosts, host commands to start/stop games, set options, start positions, votes, etc.


As of today, people click the "how to play" on the Evo site and get a description of units and resources, nothing about how to start games. On the steam page, there is a video on about using a lobby to play, but it's 30+ min long (that's too long).

[Forboding Angel]

As of today, people click the "how to play" on the Evo site and get a description of units and resources, nothing about how to start games...

Yeah, I proposed to Ikinz last week that we start a lobby section on the evo wiki. I asked him for an outline on what to cover (I thought he would be the best person for it), but we haven't gotten to it yet.

Lots of things are planned, but when you only have one or 2 people doing them they take a looong time to finish.

Case in point, moving all evo units to lego. There is still one or 2 that have yet to be done (Jammer and All Terrain Engineer off the top of my head), and a few that took forever due to lack of inspiration.

[knorke]

Evo has 2 actual bugs.

lol

One of which only occurs for users who play zk and other games using spring 91 then come and play evo on spring 96. It's not game breaking, but it does make chili go away. Knorke's fix for this only made the problem happen every single game and broke other things as well.

Nonsense:
Look at this video of FA playing 2 weeks ago: http://www.twitch.tv/evolutionrts/c/5075759
Go to 1h14min, this is where the bug happens to you. Did you there previously play zk on spring 91? No.
One game it works - next game no LuaUI - you cant explain that.
How can you still deny the bug after it has happend to you yourself?
I explained what the bug is and showed how other games fixed it.
The fix that you applied was something totally different. From your comment here, maybe it was something smoth came up with.
Even if you do not want "my" fix: I bet many other people in spring could have told you what is happening there. Still you did not get it fixed, since the first reports from desura, and still say how it is not game breaking.

The second, only happens once in a blue moon, and is so rare that even smoth has deeemed it not worth fixing as it only happens in the rare instance that a player is selling everything he has and in the process loses everything before the sell finishes. Moreover, the function still works, it simply throws an error. The game doesn't break.

It was said which two things need to be changed. You only did one of them. I replied to issue with "You only did one of two fixes, it will still sometimes break" but you did not understand.

And in Knorke's case, the fix made everything worse.

You did not apply my fixes, but did something else.

So explain to me why any of the rest of it is my problem?

You released something that is still "constantly worked on." You are the "leader" of this project and so are responsible for everything in it.
You failed that responsibility and now are unable to do anything.

Even experienced devs get lazy and may sometimes ask other dev friends trivial questions about stuff they don't do well, so what? Linking to it later to try and make them look incompetent is offensive and mean, Knorke.

Accusing someone of being incompetent is sadly always offensive and it is hard to not make it look like a epenis competion. (lol hard) But I think here it needs to be done even if it ruffles some feathers because of the scale of things.

Forboding Angel is not an experienced dev. He can call himself "one man dev machine" all that he wants, but he is not. I would not care, but he is trying to "discuss" things clearly outside his understanding. So when he says "I tested that" or "I will fix that" or "This is not possible" or "It does not matter" -- it means nothing.
It simply can not be trusted because he lacks knowledge or insight.
That is not mean, it is the truth. The sooner he and others recognize that, the better.


Read that a second time and let it sink in:
"It's not game breaking, but it does make chili go away."
LuaUI crashes but it is not game breaking.
...
no words

[Forboding Angel]

Evo has 2 actual bugs.

lol

One of which only occurs for users who play zk and other games using spring 91 then come and play evo on spring 96. It's not game breaking, but it does make chili go away. Knorke's fix for this only made the problem happen every single game and broke other things as well.

Nonsense:
Look at this video of FA playing 2 weeks ago: http://www.twitch.tv/evolutionrts/c/5075759
Go to 1h14min, this is where the bug happens to you. Did you there previously play zk on spring 91? No.
One game it works - next game no LuaUI - you cant explain that.

Wait a second... you've been spying on me??? You know what spring games I load up and what engines I start!?!?!? *GASPED*

Or oh wait, I was testing something the day before in zk and spring 91.

Silly knorke. No one said it happened immediate after, (or even at all). That's the first time that bug has ever happened to me personally. What it is is an inability to read the config files that get written by chili. Exceedingly rare.

Starcraft 2 randomly freezes up on me due to the Nvidia hardware bug and has for the past 2 years. It's not often, but it happens probably once a month or every other month. Blizzard finally fixed it about 2 days ago. Why did blizzard wait for 2 years to fix it when they were very well aware of it? Oh that's right, because it was exceedingly rare.

If you want it fixed so badly, Knorke, submit a merge request. Either that, or, suggest a fix that doesn't horribly break everything else in the process.

So explain to me why any of the rest of it is my problem?

You released something that is still "constantly worked on." You are the "leader" of this project and so are responsible for everything in it.

This "Project" is "Evolution RTS". Everything else is auxiliary and a means to an end. Evolution RTS is constantly being worked on.

Read that a second time and let it sink in:
"It's not game breaking, but it does make chili go away."
LuaUI crashes but it is not game breaking.
...
no words

It isn't game breaking, I.E. the game does not crash and burn. It is still playable, and it can even be fixed with luaui reload. It is game hindering, but not game breaking.

Anyway, enough of this. If you have issues with things and care so badly, put or shut up.

https://github.com/EvolutionRTS/Evolution-RTS/issues

https://github.com/EvolutionRTS/Evolution-RTS/

Feel free to contribute more than simply your forked tongue.

[abma]

The engine devs have decided that the lobby is not of their concern, and so for 8 years, the same problem has persisted.

wrong, the engine currently still isn't in a state to have a proper ingame lobby. there are several steps towars an ingame lobby.

imo this thread should be locked, everybody blames everybody. not very useful

[knorke]

Read that a second time and let it sink in:
"It's not game breaking, but it does make chili go away."
LuaUI crashes but it is not game breaking.
...
no words

It isn't game breaking, I.E. the game does not crash and burn. It is still playable, and it can even be fixed with luaui reload. It is game hindering, but not game breaking.

Your own videostream shows that /luaui reload does not fix it.

just a flesh wound.


No, this time I am not repairing your game.
Yes, that is of course because my fix was wrong and has nothing to do with you.

[PicassoCT]

Now, now knorke. No emo here.

If you have proof than nail it now. You can write software, that is such a architectural error avalanche, that any change after a while leads to certain death, making bugs unfixable.

Delete that emotional outburst, make your proof - else we have a thread lock, and nothing gained here.