Spring RTS Engine

AF wrote: The engine is an engine. Try and launch it with no maps or games and tell me exactly how much of the content is hardcoded.

*5 minutes later*

Yes there was no content! Well... there was a pretty picture of palm trees on a beach map somewhere, and some buttons that didn't do anything, but I'm sure Ataris lawyers will take care of this. Foilage is a legal menace that must be stamped out at all costs.

If after all this you still think the engine is a hardcoded game that lets you twiddle which direction peewees face, then the solution is NOT to bundle games

( but the engine is a game you say? We dont need to bundle the top 10 games, apparently it already is one so we're sorted no? )

The solution is to stop average players downloading the engine, and point them towards the games instead, and to make the engine more of an engine.

What I meant with that is that the general gameplay is always the same no matter what mods/maps you play. Spring is a game engine just like the Quake engine, Half-Life engine etc. There are a dozens games that use the Quake engine nowadays and if you try them out they all are the same, meaning the differences are so little that you know you are playing Quake even if the title of the game you play is different. Just because you tweak the game engine doesn't give you a new game. It would be a different story if Spring was a 3D engine or a more abstract game engine.

As of pointing some things that are hardcoded, here are a few: queue system, the commands, the unit formations, the game shortcuts, the unit properties, the resources, the weapons etc etc.

Then the community itself brand quite often themselves Spring as a game. A very visible example is http://springfiles.com/spring. Strictly speaking every BA, DA, SA, GA should be compiled with the engine and no user should ever know what the hell Spring is. That's something that only devs and people interested in the innerworkings of the game should know.

abma wrote: next time let him (your friend) download the spring installer, setup a game in lobby and let him download with the lobby download system.

Thing is that the first experience for someone should be ultra simple and pleasing. Now he had his experience so he never playied the game again and he probably won't get motivated if I just start bugging him.

Most devs just aren't really interested in making the game user-friendly or anything like that. They just make the game for their own needs(like in all open source projects) and that's just fine. Just don't tell me of how easy it is to use it later because that's the same story with Linux people trying to convince dummy users of the easyness of Ubuntu.

What I meant with that is that the general gameplay is always the same no matter what mods/maps you play.

I am sorry but no. You only go further with the rest of your post to only describe *a games.

We have already had 4 games show up which were not even rts:
Spring:td
Kdr's flight sim
Fissure
E.O.W.

Zwzsg wrote pacman
Aegis wrote snake

You are ignore points and just posting what suits your already weak argument.

Don't feign a lack of community experience of breadth on a lack of engine support ( especially when engine devs and various content developers tell you otherwise )

smoth wrote:We have already had 4 games show up which were not even rts:
Spring:td

Really? Where can I download this spring td?

Not trying to troll you here, but you just can't count that. It's not released and the last time more information came out about it is months or years ago.

answered in pm

it has been released.

there is a public svn.

I'll tongue lash you in pm.

smoth wrote:Zwzsg wrote pacman
Aegis wrote snake

They're more proof-of-concept that Hey guise, Lua can do anything!!! than proper complete actual games.

You can't really compare a widget that took a couple hours programming, and, let's say your GRTS mod wherein a thousand of hours were poured into.

zwzsg wrote:

smoth wrote:Zwzsg wrote pacman
Aegis wrote snake

They're more proof-of-concept that Hey guise, Lua can do anything!!! than proper complete actual games.

You can't really compare a widget that took a couple hours programming, and, let's say your GRTS mod wherein a thousand of hours were poured into.

Actually you can, if you want see smoth raging through the roof1

zwzsg wrote:

smoth wrote:Zwzsg wrote pacman
Aegis wrote snake

They're more proof-of-concept that Hey guise, Lua can do anything!!! than proper complete actual games.

You can't really compare a widget that took a couple hours programming, and, let's say your GRTS mod wherein a thousand of hours were poured into.

My years of work are mostly lost in art assets and balance work for each version. The gameplay that is added only really amounts to probably a few 1000 hours yeah.

Either way, his point was that spring can only do RTS and I think that you guys have proven spring is NOT limited to just that.

Pithikos speaks more sense than people are admitting.
The main reason this great project doesn't have more regular users now is down a lot to the confusion between engine and game.

Each spring project on its own == not much
All the projects together under the Spring name == awesomeness with sizable player base.

But unfortunately the first experience a player will have after hearing about Spring ie this website doesn't do its best at just getting a user in-game. A default game in the installer is a must. Just say "This game is one of many which run on the Spring engine".

Sure associating the engine with one particular game would piss off the forum regulars but would benefit the player base hugely.

For how impossible it seem that this will happen, it already happened once in days past. An installer with S44, CA, etc... as the official download from Spring website.

Pithikos wrote:

CarRepairer wrote:Sigh. I regret my colorful choice of words.

Pithikos please go back and read only the second sentence of my post. You still are not understanding it.

Well I never playied ZK so I guess that's the reason

I didn't say play ZK. I said try ZK Lobby. If you never play ZK in your life you can still try ZK Lobby and tell future friends use it when you introduce them to spring. (assuming they're on windows).

Please go try ZK Lobby right now and join a battle for a mod you don't have and a map you don't have.

[User was warned for this post]

carrepairer fails @ contributing.... and only selfishly spams his own interest/creations.


Anyway, in rl I always tell people I play Spring... because "Balanced Annihilation" sounds a bit gay and just like 'another mod' of some old game which is retarded when you look at it now. (no offence :p)

He contributes he tells you better options exist. ZK lobby was made for nubs with simplicity in mind. If his friends struggle to use SL they can try it instead.

You can join game even without having engine and mod.. it will autodownload all needed stuff and no need to struggle with manual download of anything. Just one click:

http://i54.tinypic.com/2w71x5e.png

A default game in the installer is a must.

which one?
can not be *a due to copyright.
could be zeroK but zK already has its own installer which even downloads the engine, so that would make no sense.
could be KP, gundam or S44 - but those already have their own installers.
everything else is wip or meh or has an update cycle faster then the engine.

on zkLobby:
it is not on http://springrts.com/wiki/Download
So if I had to guess I'd dl from http://zero-k.info/Wiki/Download#Windows which gives me the version that only shows zK battles in battlelist, unless some option is unchecked which no noob will find. (at least was like that last time i tried)

He contributes he tells you better options exist. ZK lobby was made for nubs with simplicity in mind. If his friends struggle to use SL they can try it instead.

You can join game even without having engine and mod.. it will autodownload all needed stuff and no need to struggle with manual download of anything. Just one click:

http://i54.tinypic.com/2w71x5e.png

okay okay, my bad then, srry for the flame CarRepairer

Is this the point where I say: Click here?

Edit: Also, the engine should no longer be distributed to the end user, and left up to the game in particular. I've said this for years. Doing this would be a huge boon. I would be happy to help with installers. Spring 0.83 is going to be easy as pie to work with due to a lot of really nice enhancements added by various engine devs and Koshi.

Also, leave CarRepairer alone. He contributes a LOT, and in my own little corner has done a SHITLOAD for evo. Plus, he's a cool guy.

Well I would gladly make a version thats packed with spring installer and has the option to filter only ZK games default off.

ZKL already turns the option off if it detects spring installed or springinstaller running.

Also imo no harm in packing all legal games with installer as well as 100 most popular maps.

You could pack S44, KP, ZK, Gundam, EvoRTS etc..
+ 100 most popular maps (will gladly prepare the files)

How well do the different installers co-exist? IE if I install Gundam and then S44 will I get 2 engines? Will they share the same settings / widgets etc..? Does the user know things are shared? (do they need to know?)

Im not bashing having separate installers, Im just curious.

Although I personally prefer the way zklobby handles everything. It's surely the most simple way of doing it that we have. Handing out zklobby in the installer is probably second to having a default game provided in terms of increasing noob-friendliness.

knorke wrote:

A default game in the installer is a must.

which one?
can not be *a due to copyright.
could be zeroK but zK already has its own installer which even downloads the engine, so that would make no sense.
could be KP, gundam or S44 - but those already have their own installers.
everything else is wip or meh or has an update cycle faster then the engine.

Does it need to be one without it's own installer? Perhaps a rotating game of the month?
Also probably shouldn't mention this for fear of IP debate, but seeing as its the most played mod.. what's the worst that could come from distributing BA? We get told not to and have to remove it from the installer?

On your second point, zklobby is mentioned under Game downloads but should be in the main download section IMO.

Also the first text could be re-written to be a bit more informative, "just want to get ready to play".. instead of what?
Maybe an order of Universal Downloaders -> Seperate Games Installers -> Bare Engine Installer would make more sense?

How well do the different installers co-exist?

at the moment, not very well at all. Maybe will be better with 0.83

Does it need to be one without it's own installer? Perhaps a rotating game of the month?

well, it would be twice the work to maintain two installers for one game. And rotation would just be superconfusing if you got game A with your spring and can not play with somebody who got game B. (because he downloaded a bit earlier)

Also imo no harm in packing all legal games with installer as well as 100 most popular maps.
You could pack S44, KP, ZK, Gundam, EvoRTS etc..
+ 100 most popular maps (will gladly prepare the files)

Needs some way to prevent players from accidently playing zK on a KP map and other way around.
Afaik no lobby provides that function yet (validmaps.lua)
Not knowing what maps go with which game is actually a big problem for beginners.
Also at least EvoRTS has its own "evo lobby" etc.

Also the first text could be re-written to be a bit more informative, "just want to get ready to play".. instead of what?

instead of "download all kind of funny but quirky mini games" or something
Or instead of "download the bare engine to make your own game"

Maybe an order of Universal Downloaders -> Seperate Games Installers -> Bare Engine Installer would make more sense?

After login, anybody can edit the wiki (games & download page are wiki, too) If you fuck up, it can be reverted. Or just create a temporary page to test your changes.