Spring RTS Engine

Warlord Zsinj wrote:No, I disagree, Felix.

At the moment, TA Spring isn't a TA knockoff - because it is referencing TA. Spring essentially is TA. It can't even be remotely denied. It's not like "Dark Reign" can be considered a knock-off of Command & Conquer, because while they have similar premises, and vaguely similar designs, they are quite clearly different games.

But Spring is literally TA. The SY's have built TA, and then have improved it. It's not like Dark Reign was C&C and they just improved a couple of things.

If you look literally at Spring, the entire design is TA. The game design is TA. The UI is TA. The entire progression of the game is TA. The changes that make Spring so different are truely minor. Sure, it's enough to make a big difference for players - but ultimately, the game is still 3D TA.

If you profess anything otherwise, you'd be lying.

And honestly, if someone is really not going to play Spring because it has the words "TA" attached to it, do we really want them to be playing Spring with us? I know I don't.

Thats all good and true, but we neither want to advertise it as being that, for fear of being sued, nor limit it to just that, for fear of every mod seeming too similar.

Warlord Zsinj wrote:And honestly, if someone is really not going to play Spring because it has the words "TA" attached to it, do we really want them to be playing Spring with us? I know I don't.

When did that come up? The thing is to lessen our risks of getting sued big time.

And for some reason i believe @t@ri knows about this, but is ignoring it for the time being. Why? I dunno, I just have that feeling.

I rekon there is an atari oprative amung us... In fact, this is probablie why everyone gets on each others nerves... This operative is stiring things up in secret!!

I HAVE IT!!! THERE BUYING OFF OUR GUI PROGRAMERS!!1!1!! SABATARGE!!!

aGorm

Warlord Zsinj wrote:No, I disagree, Felix.

At the moment, TA Spring isn't a TA knockoff - because it is referencing TA. Spring essentially is TA. It can't even be remotely denied. It's not like "Dark Reign" can be considered a knock-off of Command & Conquer, because while they have similar premises, and vaguely similar designs, they are quite clearly different games.

But Spring is literally TA. The SY's have built TA, and then have improved it. It's not like Dark Reign was C&C and they just improved a couple of things.

If you look literally at Spring, the entire design is TA. The game design is TA. The UI is TA. The entire progression of the game is TA. The changes that make Spring so different are truely minor. Sure, it's enough to make a big difference for players - but ultimately, the game is still 3D TA.

If you profess anything otherwise, you'd be lying.

And honestly, if someone is really not going to play Spring because it has the words "TA" attached to it, do we really want them to be playing Spring with us? I know I don't.

It is currently, but we're not building a TA engine any more, we're building a general RTS engine. Alot of our work now is rebuilding TA exclusive components so they are capable of things massively different from TA in any way. The project now is more to move away from TA then it ever has been in the past, and that trend will continue as long as our biggest limitation is trying to do stuff that TA didn't do.

And yes, we do in fact have a link to TA.

But that doesn't mean we need to have that link in our name. And we want to play down our link with TA if/when Atari comes.

Warlord Zsinj wrote:No, I disagree, Felix.

At the moment, TA Spring isn't a TA knockoff - because it is referencing TA. Spring essentially is TA. It can't even be remotely denied. It's not like "Dark Reign" can be considered a knock-off of Command & Conquer, because while they have similar premises, and vaguely similar designs, they are quite clearly different games.

But Spring is literally TA. The SY's have built TA, and then have improved it. It's not like Dark Reign was C&C and they just improved a couple of things.

If you look literally at Spring, the entire design is TA. The game design is TA. The UI is TA. The entire progression of the game is TA. The changes that make Spring so different are truely minor. Sure, it's enough to make a big difference for players - but ultimately, the game is still 3D TA.

If you profess anything otherwise, you'd be lying.

And honestly, if someone is really not going to play Spring because it has the words "TA" attached to it, do we really want them to be playing Spring with us? I know I don't.

arg, this post is idiotic. THe original dev's for spring had very shortsighted vision (depending on how you look at it... it could be said that the only vision they had was to make TA in 3d, and did not realize the possibilities, which would be accurate. Spring has now been expanded to something so much more than TA. TA a la AA/XTA are mods for spring, not the other way around. And by tacking the name Total Annihilation on the front of spring we are limiting the percieved availability of spring to do other things.

aGorm wrote:I rekon there is an atari oprative amung us... In fact, this is probablie why everyone gets on each others nerves... This operative is stiring things up in secret!!

I HAVE IT!!! THERE BUYING OFF OUR GUI PROGRAMERS!!1!1!! SABATARGE!!!

aGorm

The infiltrator is either min3 or drone.
I just know it.

I still like "The Spring Wars" myself, since it has quite a philisohical deep meaning to it as well.

No. Just no.

Forboding Angel wrote:

Warlord Zsinj wrote:.....

arg, this post is idiotic. THe original dev's for spring had very shortsighted vision (depending on how you look at it... it could be said that the only vision they had was to make TA in 3d, and did not realize the possibilities, which would be accurate. Spring has now been expanded to something so much more than TA. TA a la AA/XTA are mods for spring, not the other way around. And by tacking the name Total Annihilation on the front of spring we are limiting the percieved availability of spring to do other things.

I'm in full agreement.

Dam it !!!! Somebody Write a letter to atari and get this mess sorted before Atari does attemt to take action, I mean now its in the press its only a matter of time.

This is just a thourght....

Comp1337 wrote:

aGorm wrote:I rekon there is an atari oprative amung us... In fact, this is probablie why everyone gets on each others nerves... This operative is stiring things up in secret!!

I HAVE IT!!! THERE BUYING OFF OUR GUI PROGRAMERS!!1!1!! SABATARGE!!!

aGorm

The infiltrator is either min3 or drone.
I just know it.

My money's on Warlord Zsinj, he's the one trying to make us stick with the TA association(sp?) afterall!

DeathHawk wrote:Dam it !!!! Somebody Write a letter to atari and get this mess sorted before Atari does attemt to take action, I mean now its in the press its only a matter of time.

This is just a thourght....

No.

We want to avoid Atari as long as possible - at least until someone gets around to renaming "TA Spring" to "Spring"... if possible until we get a GPL'ed mod to distribute for Spring!

Warlord Zsinj has a point tho Spring is essentially TA so what he basicly saying is true not only that all the people i know play this game all call it a Total Annihilation Remake

DeathHawk wrote:Warlord Zsinj has a point tho Spring is essentially TA so what he basicly saying is true not only that all the people i know play this game all call it a Total Annihilation Remake

It may have been a TA remake a year ago when I started playing it, but it's a generalized 3D RTS engine in the spirit of TA right now, much the same that, say, Age of Empires II is a RTS engine in the spirit of Warcraft (actually in the spirit of Dune, which was the first RTS IIRC...)

What do we share with TA?
-Resource system. Simply sharing a resource system does not mean a game is a clone of another. Plus, we're constantly clamoring for more options.
-GUI. If the new GUI didn't eat programmers at an alarming rate, we'd be working on changing it.
-Scripting language. Last I checked it was planned to eventually overhaul this.
-3D terrain. So generic as to be meaningless in drawing parallels between TA and Spring.
-Moddability. See 3D terrain.
-Various file formats and extensions. Pretty meaningless because formats are simply ways of storing data and thus nothing new and revolutionary, and extensions can be changed with a few mouse clicks.

At the moment Spring is more of a 3D RTS that happens to run a lot of TA mods. I don't know when it transitioned from being a TA 3D remake to a full-fledged 3D RTS engine, but it has. There's a lot more to Spring than just TA, and I think that labelling it "TA" does an injustice to the modern features that Spring has that TA lacked, and does an injustice to all of the non-TA mods out there.

DeathHawk wrote:Warlord Zsinj has a point tho Spring is essentially TA so what he basicly saying is true not only that all the people i know play this game all call it a Total Annihilation Remake

true but as long as u keep saying that, thats the only people we are gonna get if we don't differentiate from TA.

I like how Spring started as just TA3d (imagine if we had called it THAT!) but has now ended up (and will continue to evolve as) as a metavers of very different mods. I don't really think of Gundam, AA, EE or FF as MODS per say, but rather free, fan made GAMES. They each play radically different, despite being built off the same engine. Thats whats great about Spring. An AA game will always be different then an EE game, and its not just a pain job difference. Its a game play difference.

That is Springs strong point, not its connection with TA.

PS: I don't know what a metavers is, but it sounds cool.

Zoombie wrote:PS: I don't know what a metavers is, but it sounds cool.

Metavers should be versions that describe something, themselves for examlpe.
Metatext describes the file it is in, format etc.

I actually thought you meant "Metaverse", as in "Meta-universe", that actually made a little of sense to me..

Maybe a metagame?