ZK lobby server split is a disaster? - Page 2

ZK lobby server split is a disaster?

Various things about Spring that do not fit in any of the other forums listed below, including forum rules.

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Super Mario
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Re: ZK lobby server split is a disaster?

Post by Super Mario »

I'm with Jazcash here, ZK has grown from a modded version of BA to an independent game with content that no longer infringes TA IP. It's a game on it's own right. associating it with as "one of games that is part of spring game collection" does a disservice to it.
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AF
AI Developer
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Re: ZK lobby server split is a disaster?

Post by AF »

I'm quite capable of being a member of multiple gaming 'communities'. I didn't realise I was unique in this regard.

Otherwise I echo 1v0ry_k1ng sentiments, but add that even if it was a disaster, what ZK developers do is the ZK developers business, if the departure left everyone else with subcritical mass then you have a bigger problem than splitting up communities
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FLOZi
MC: Legacy & Spring 1944 Developer
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Re: ZK lobby server split is a disaster?

Post by FLOZi »

In a personal capacity:

All games through one hub is Springs USP, it pains me to see so many decry this obvious fact after the damage their viewpoint has done over the years.
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smoth
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Re: ZK lobby server split is a disaster?

Post by smoth »

FLOZi wrote:USP
if my understand is correct, yeah I agree flozi but for whatever reason the server was an actual roadblock for ZK. Most other projects are nowhere near that point
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FLOZi
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Re: ZK lobby server split is a disaster?

Post by FLOZi »

Tbh it was more of a response to Jaz and AF than to Licho / a comment on ZK.
darklord42
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Re: ZK lobby server split is a disaster?

Post by darklord42 »

As long as they don't actually fork the spring engine, and I can still download, and play ZK through springlobby and the latest spring engine, I'm happy. I don't see there ever being true OSX/linux support with their lobby and Spring 91.0 will never compile for OSX.

It's good to have an alternative to fill in the shortcomings. OSX support is a goal of the main spring engine, (even though few osx devs have popped up out of the wood work to actually see it happen at times)
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Jazcash
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Re: ZK lobby server split is a disaster?

Post by Jazcash »

FLOZi wrote: All games through one hub is Springs USP, it pains me to see so many decry this obvious fact after the damage their viewpoint has done over the years.
Like I said, it make sense for many games with small playerbases to incorporate themselves into one big community, but, like I said, not for large ones that wish to be seen as independently capable.

I completely understand your viewpoint. Not sure if you remember the Spring community/spring network stuff I had a bash at 3-5 years ago but I wanted to tightly integrate all the communities and make it easy to get to know all the popular games made for Spring at once.

But for a project such as ZK, it makes sense to me for it to break away from this community and form its own dependencies and platforms. I mean, it even has its own lobby, that's proof enough that it's ready.

The USP of being able to launch multiple games from one client isn't a problem. I mean, a lot of games are simply just mods the same way valve games or Minecraft incorporate many different third-party gametypes and modes. However, if these mods get popular, they should be encouraged to form their own communities and platforms. The same way DOTA went from being a Warcraft mod into DOTA 2, a now massively popular game in its own right with nothing to do with Warcraft anymore.

DayZ or Warsow are the other two titles that spring to my mind when I think of other examples where this happened.
Last edited by Jazcash on 20 Jan 2015, 22:44, edited 1 time in total.
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FLOZi
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Re: ZK lobby server split is a disaster?

Post by FLOZi »

Jazcash wrote:
FLOZi wrote: All games through one hub is Springs USP, it pains me to see so many decry this obvious fact after the damage their viewpoint has done over the years.
Like I said, it make sense for many games with small playerbases to incorporate themselves into one big community, but, like I said, not for large ones that wish to be seen as independently capable.

I completely understand your viewpoint. Not sure if you remember the Spring community/spring network stuff I had a bash at 3-5 years ago but I wanted to tightly integrate all the communities and make it easy to get to know all the popular games made for Spring at once.
I do - a huge missed opportunity that I bemoan whenever I get the chance. It was a really pretty forum, too! :(
luckywaldo7
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Re: ZK lobby server split is a disaster?

Post by luckywaldo7 »

FLOZi wrote:All games through one hub is Springs USP
I'm pretty sure that Zero-K is openly-licensed enough that it can still be packaged in a Spring Bundle, and hosted on the spring server*. Nothing as far as the USP is lost.

Really this all just boils down to the dedicated ZK players moving to a different server, so that there will be fewer players on the Spring server.

*(Although I guess technically you won't get the ZK 'meta-features' through the spring server)
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qray
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Re: ZK lobby server split is a disaster?

Post by qray »

Without judgement:
ZK already has for some time it's own web site with forum, map list, help pages, replays etc.. And I would guess that many players from there don't visit here at all - or at least not often (why should they if they just play ZK?).
So wasn't there already a community split on some level and this is just a little step further?
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Jazcash
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Re: ZK lobby server split is a disaster?

Post by Jazcash »

FLOZi wrote: I do - a huge missed opportunity that I bemoan whenever I get the chance. It was a really pretty forum, too! :(
Thanks. I think the only thing that stopped it taking off was the fact people needed to register a completely new account to use the forum. If they didn't need to, and could easily switch between the engine forum and the community forum with one click then I think it might have been successful. A lot of people liked the idea but said that these reasons were why they didn't want to use it.

It's a shame the main server playerbase has dwindled so much. There's a lot of Spring games with so much potential but I still feel like they're limited by the entire platform as a whole. By that I mean that getting a Spring game up and running is still as daunting as it ever was.It's just a hodge podge of different people's efforts sort of glued together in the hope that the person installing everything has some vague idea of how everything works together and can figure it out themselves if they get stuck.

I played a game of BA about 2-3 weeks ago. It took me almost half an hour to get the thing up and running without bugs. I ended up having to manually setup my config in a text editor because springsettings.exe is apparently no longer a thing.

Here's a list of most of the things that need to be in working order for me to get into a game of BA:
  • The Engine and its installer
  • SpringLobby
  • The main server
  • The server that SpringLobby grabs game/map files from
  • SPADS
  • The server SPADS is running on
  • The BA game file
  • The map file
Granted, a lot of these are perfectly fine and have fine developers. But even so, just hoping that all of these things will work together in harmony 100% of the time is a massive risk. I actually couldn't use SpringLobby in the end because any file it tried to download such as BA or maps got stuck at certain % and just never finished. I spent 10 minutes trying to fix it before I gave up and just ran an old version of TASClient that was sitting around on my harddrive which worked fine.

These are exactly the reasons I think it's better for a game like ZK to setup its own foundations. That way they can do things like fork x as to ensure updates aren't made to it which conflict with ZK and prevent people from being able to play.
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CarRepairer
Cursed Zero-K Developer
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Re: ZK lobby server split is a disaster?

Post by CarRepairer »

Jazcash wrote:getting a Spring game up and running is still as daunting as it ever was.
Nah that's a huge exaggeration.

And editing spring settings is still a thing.

Image
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Jazcash
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Re: ZK lobby server split is a disaster?

Post by Jazcash »

Ask a 12 year old to setup and launch a game of BA. Then ask them to setup and launch Minecraft.

Also, I didn't say Spring settings are no longer a thing, I said springsettings.exe is no longer a thing.

Also, you have to "download" weblobby now?

The KP installer is the right idea, every Spring game should have one.

Edit: The buttons on this page don't even work properly.
gajop
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Re: ZK lobby server split is a disaster?

Post by gajop »

What FLOZi said was pretty short and to the point.
Jazcash wrote:If anything, it should be the lobby client's job to allow connecting to multiple servers at once, like most advanced IRC clients.
Only possible if the protocol is the same.
That is the key issue here. Different implementation/host is imo OK. Different protocol = not.

There are ways to make protocol more extensible to suit a wider variety of games. This is actually the core responsibility of good protocol design.
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PicassoCT
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Re: ZK lobby server split is a disaster?

Post by PicassoCT »

Jazcash wrote:
Edit: The buttons on this page don't even work properly.
I bet its the linux distribution page- it is decorated in the functional style of linux. To continue, one can look at the fency buttons or press ctrl+alt+t to open a terminal.
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AF
AI Developer
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Re: ZK lobby server split is a disaster?

Post by AF »

I moved AFLobby towards protocol agnosticism, other programs have done similar things, there's no technical reason the current clients couldn't, it's a problem of developer time and effort not technical challenge

In the meantime, what did we do before the CA/ZK projects formed?
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BlitzTank
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Joined: 26 Jan 2015, 16:57

Re: ZK lobby server split is a disaster?

Post by BlitzTank »

Forboding Angel wrote:Sigh.
Licho is insane. Performance in 96 is fantastic. Try fixing your damn game.
"EvoRTS Developer" I'm not sure that I need to say any more than that. Engine devs are catering to the wrong people.

As qray said, ZK has been it's own entity for a long time, ZKL doesn't even list other games or join the spring channels unless you tell it to. I think the majority of ZK players don't even realize the server changed because nothing is different. The only difference now is that I can't check every once in a while to see if BA players are doing anything other than 8v8 dsd for once, but I don't think I'm missing out on much.

There's a lot of talk of "spring" and "games" here but I'm not sure what you guys are referring to, I mean, there's decrepit old BA which has been stuck in an 8v8dsd timeloop for about a decade now. There's a few little 'mods' like evo and tech annihilation which nobody plays and then there's ZK, which is the only properly developed "game" on this engine with any potential.

I think "disaster" is an appropriate word to use as far as the spring server goes, since it basically lost its only decent game and its only hope of growing but ZK server is fine. Silly devs should have listened to Licho's requests.


gajop: 7 day ban issued (skipping the warning system) seeing as this account was created for the sole purpose of trolling (this post).
We do not need you here.
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smoth
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Re: ZK lobby server split is a disaster?

Post by smoth »

I am not sure if he is trolling or just an idiot fanboi.
luckywaldo7
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Re: ZK lobby server split is a disaster?

Post by luckywaldo7 »

smoth wrote:I am not sure if he is trolling or just an idiot fanboi.
Or a little of both, like a new Otherside.
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smoth
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Re: ZK lobby server split is a disaster?

Post by smoth »

god, that guy did more harm to ZK than good. He started out nice though.
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