Spring RTS Engine

probably does have to be brought up with tim, now myself, I personally want control of my site as it is more then just gundam.

However, until an agreeable naming/title I continue to fight to correct the conventions as far as game/mod descriptions. I hope that by making it known that spring is many games and not a bunch of mods(which are assumed to be ta based) The players will be more interested in spring.

smoth wrote:probably does have to be brought up with tim, now myself, I personally want control of my site as it is more then just gundam.

I have my own domain that has ftp access, and with it, I can give out an account for a specific sub-domain if I choose. Then that person has unlimited access (maybe restricted as far as how many MB go in it) in that folder.

That's the kind of thing I was thinking about. but I don't know how great an idea it is, just throwing it out.

You'd still have complete control of the section...but I guess it would be restricted since it'd have to fit the overall design...

anyway...thoughts...

conq:
http://cs.selu.edu/~ssmith/BB/index.php
http://cs.selu.edu/~ssmith/
http://cs.selu.edu/~ssmith/GUNDAM
http://cs.selu.edu/~ssmith/gallery

I have my own

We just need more exposure to the "Mods" page on the wiki imo. A direct link there, something to the effect of, "Download more mods here!" would probably do the trick, it would allow mod makers to keep the thing up-to-date, etc.

A standard button can become outdated easily. I mean, I've moved the AA page about 30 times by now. A link to the mods wiki can be kept up to date.

That "how to call mods" stuff is not that important for the new site.
But as we are talking about it.. I don't think "game" is correct to.
A game to me is something you buy in the store, a cd with a manual and a box around it.
And a game is single player, multiplayer, a soundtrack, several sides to play with and a load of maps an AI that beats me, an engine that won't desync and a fanbase with modders and fansites.
Gundam is good shit and a lot of hard work to pull off, but.. it's more or less a set of units. Now don't get me wrong your Gundam will get to a stage where you can call it a game and that I will fully agree with you. But that is still somewhat premature right now. (unless you run into ip problems..)
Still if "we" decide to call it "games" then I'm not going to be anal about it.

Anyway about the site:
The new site will also have a new domain (springrts.com)

The way the new site is set-up atm is that it's a introduction to all that is Spring. But "mods" would have there own theme that changes the layout and grapics to match that "mod". I like to keep the text about Spring in general but I guess it could be changed per theme if required. So you can link to the new site like this: http://www.springrts.com/index.php?theme=mod_name

But everything is open for discussion, it would be possible to give each theme its own about page?
We can add sub-domains for each "mod", link to a "mods" own site, I don't really care, everything is possible, but we have to make up our mind about this at some point.

Well, there are a number of ways we could do it. I'm not sure how easy it is to integrate tags into the gallery and news posts, but I can see each front end running only screenshots tagged to that "game" and news entries tagged to that "game" in a text box below the normal news area. The standard site would not include the secondary news or links direct to the derivative forums but would be content neutral, showing rotating header bars and screenshots with different "games" displayed based on tag.

Thing is tim, that in the gamer idiom mod will always mean modification. For spring to have it's own vernacular in regards to game and content packages is a bad thing as it will lead to misconceptions and general confusion.

Ideally we want an identifier that is descriptive, unique, and yet intuitive. The only example of this I can think of right now appeared when Nintendo released the NES for the American market. Titles on the system were known as "Game Paks" rather than Carts or Cartridges. This change of designator was put in place to combat the negative connotation of Carts and Cartridges which existed in the American market following the collapse of numerous Atari derivatives and the great crash of the industry in 1982.

If neither Mod or Game can serve, we must generate a new term.

smoth wrote:I have my own

Don't take me wrong, I full expected you to. (I think I actually had already seen some of them)

smoth wrote:Thing is tim, that in the gamer idiom mod will always mean modification. For spring to have it's own vernacular in regards to game and content packages is a bad thing as it will lead to misconceptions and general confusion.

But I still like the idea of having different themes for the mods. then you can have your way, and still have a "separate" site (true, you might have to totally re-design it) and it can still be part of the larger site.

The trick is, do we want Spring to be "TASpring" or do we want it to be an engine that drives other games/packages...

(I'm trying to not use the word "mod" for smoth's sake, but I'm not doing that good of a job )

We want it to be Spring.

smoth wrote:Thing is tim, that in the gamer idiom mod will always mean modification. For spring to have it's own vernacular in regards to game and content packages is a bad thing as it will lead to misconceptions and general confusion.

It's not that I don't agree with you here, 'mod' is not the right name. Not for Gundam anyway. I don't have a really good alternative, content pack, module, unit pack, game, add-on, expansion pack, spring data?
Maybe we should keep calling the ta derivatives mod's? I don't have a real clue.

In the Quake days we called such mods total conversions. Nowadays IMHO the word 'game' fits the best, and spring is merely a dependency (from the end user's point of view).

Part of the problem is that "mod" always implied that it was a modification on an existing game. That is, Quake mods used Quake resources but added their own stuff. In the case of Spring, this is not so except for TA-derivatives. Gundam isn't a mod of anything, but BA is a mod of Total Annihilation that has been developed for the Spring engine.

So I think "game" is a perfectly fine term for Spring's packages.

I still argue that all "games" are indeed mods of TA.

When you mod a game, you aren't free to choose how some of the workings of your mod will be, because you are restricted to the what the engine can do. And the engine can usually only do stuff that the game it was meant for included.

In making mods for Spring, you have the exact same problems. You are very limited in what you can do, as the Spring engine was designed to run TA content.

When .75 is out. and the first mods come out that use LUA to get away significantly from TA gameplay, this might change. If you get different resource models, unit upgrades, spells, different building methods, unit prerequisites, different LOS modes, squads, modifiable GUI and stuff like that, then you are truly free to choose how you want your RTS to be.

At that point, you'll actually be making a game. Now you are modding.

Really. What difference do you see of someone making a mod for Spring or one for C&C:Generals? It's all the same, modelling, scripting, balancing, tweaking. It's the exact same process.

Boirunner wrote:I still argue that all "games" are indeed mods of TA.

When you mod a game, you aren't free to choose how some of the workings of your mod will be, because you are restricted to the what the engine can do. And the engine can usually only do stuff that the game it was meant for included.

In making mods for Spring, you have the exact same problems. You are very limited in what you can do, as the Spring engine was designed to run TA content.

When .75 is out. and the first mods come out that use LUA to get away significantly from TA gameplay, this might change. If you get different resource models, unit upgrades, spells, different building methods, unit prerequisites, different LOS modes, squads, modifiable GUI and stuff like that, then you are truly free to choose how you want your RTS to be.

At that point, you'll actually be making a game. Now you are modding.

Really. What difference do you see of someone making a mod for Spring or one for C&C:Generals? It's all the same, modelling, scripting, balancing, tweaking. It's the exact same process.

Many of us are working and have been working with SVN builds for months.

Boi...

if you are starting from scratch you are not modifying anything. You are starting from scratch. Therefor gundam, ee, starwars, 1944 etc are all NOT mods.

if they took the ta content added theirs to it modified a few things that would be one thing however, that simply isn't the case.

Gundam is a TA mod in the same sense that spring is a Windows (or Linux) mod.

Besides, it doesn't really matter. There's this smart word... legacy, there it is. 'Mod' is a legacy word. Like it or not, that's how 'game packages' are called in spring, for the better or worse.

not legacy word. Again, I think it is important to correct this now. I have been pushing for it and I will not stop until it is corrected.

Ideally we want an identifier that is descriptive, unique, and yet intuitive. The only example of this I can think of right now appeared when Nintendo released the NES for the American market. Titles on the system were known as "Game Paks" rather than Carts or Cartridges. This change of designator was put in place to combat the negative connotation of Carts and Cartridges which existed in the American market following the collapse of numerous Atari derivatives and the great crash of the industry in 1982.

If neither Mod or Game can serve, we must generate a new term.

I'm with Smoth, I've been trying to find an acceptable and accurate replacement for the term for a while.

even udner that analogy Gundam isnt a TA mod because Gundam isnt developed under the TA engine.

It would be a spring mod as spring is a windows/linux mod.

But that just sounds ridiculous.

This was all thrashed out on smoths forums, resulting in a logical simple definition of whats what.