Spring developer crisis

babbyboolay · Post by **babbyboolay** » 03 Aug 2013, 02:03

Such hostility and obnoxious posts from people 'in power', no wonder the community just keeps shrinking.

+1 to Pepe for having a clean lobby with no spyware/mal-ware that we know of that installs and supports multiple engines and upgrades. It mostly just works. ZKLobby is a mess, I tried using it, not only does it make you jump through hoops to see other mods; the whole 'anti-troll/anti-smurf' borders on offensive. SpringLobby is 1995. Sorry but it is.

I don't think you want a lobby in the engine executable. That stability and what not is questionable and will be a mess to manage. A nice simple lobby that has the features people need would go a long way. I know of one; but it can't be spoken of here.

The problem I see is that one mod is trying/becoming festering wound and taking away from the good it has shown is possible with spring.
In the immediate future there needs to be an effort to independent-ize the lobby server. There is talk of banning /renames in a certain mod that is ban happy with it's players. The autohosts of one person is now 'no longer supported for personal'. The relays are gone. TERA is gone - probably not a bad thing. Lobby documentation sucks; from what I can see. Anyone care to show me something otherwise?

abma · Post by **abma** » 03 Aug 2013, 02:07

PepeAmpere wrote:The problem I see is that one mod is trying/becoming festering wound and taking away from the good it has shown is possible with spring.
In the immediate future there needs to be an effort to independent-ize the lobby server. There is talk of banning /renames in a certain mod that is ban happy with it's players. The autohosts of one person is now 'no longer supported for personal'. The relays are gone. TERA is gone - probably not a bad thing. Lobby documentation sucks; from what I can see. Anyone care to show me something otherwise?

http://springrts.com/dl/LobbyProtocol/
https://github.com/spring/uberserver
https://github.com/spring/uberserver/issues/7

babbyboolay · Post by **babbyboolay** » 03 Aug 2013, 02:10

uberserver .. not so much explanation and my python is lacking.. current implementation running on Windows or Linux? Seems OS and DB independent with SQL Alchemy

This has a nice readme ..
https://github.com/spring/SpringLS

Is that the most updated relay host?
https://github.com/spring/relayhost

I might start there in a VM - then eventually see if I can get an alt lobby running. I have one VM with 5TB of bandwidth monthly - should be more than enough I would think. Can you share any stats?

knorke · Post by **knorke** » 03 Aug 2013, 02:39

babbyboolay, you speak in diffuse riddles.
If you refer to zK autohosts blocking notalobby, you just need to update it.
http://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/5242

The relays are gone.

Right now I tried SLrelaySlave and it worked. They just broke sometimes and come back a bit later.

babbyboolay · Post by **babbyboolay** » 03 Aug 2013, 02:43

knorke wrote:babbyboolay, you speak in diffuse riddles.
If you refer to zK autohosts blocking notalobby, you just need to update it.
http://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/5242

The relays are gone.
Right now I tried SLrelaySlave and it worked. They just broke sometimes and come back a bit later.

All might be good with the world I guess.

abma · Post by **abma** » 03 Aug 2013, 02:45

babbyboolay wrote:uberserver .. not so much explanation and my python is lacking.. current implementation running on Windows or Linux? Seems OS and DB independent with SQL Alchemy

This has a nice readme ..
https://github.com/spring/SpringLS

uberserver runs on the official server.

babbyboolay wrote: Is that the most updated relay host?
https://github.com/spring/relayhost

I might start there in a VM - then eventually see if I can get an alt lobby running. I have one VM with 5TB of bandwidth monthly - should be more than enough I would think. Can you share any stats?

afaik yeah, its the most up to date relayhost. no clue how to correctly set it up.
stats... about stats: if you're lucky you will reach 1GB traffic with a spring relay host i guess... can't be so much.

Post by **gajop** » 03 Aug 2013, 03:04

babbyboolay wrote:Such hostility and obnoxious posts from people 'in power', no wonder the community just keeps shrinking.

Is this what you see? Because I honestly see the admins/moderators/spring devs as being as lenient as possible. The only way it could only be any less hostile, if we stopped giving a fuck and started allowing anything. This post really sums up what I feel nicely: http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.ph ... 40#p545620.

In regards to two main cases (the rest just being spam bots or obvious trolls) where mod enforcement had to happen recently (NOTA lobby and zerver's MT fork), the 'people in power' really tried to do sort things so the community benefited: we don't want to lose Spring-stuff devs as long as certain well-known rules were followed. And we really cannot change these rules because it would be dishonest to the people who followed them (e.g. complied to licences) or because we feel it would hurt the community in the long run.

It's best not to confuse people 'in power' on the springrts.com/phpbb forums with those on the lobby server. Most of the mods here don't have any powers in the lobby, and vice versa. Also I believe one should try not to see every action there as malicious. Often, what one sees as tyranny is an imperfect technical solution, really meant to benefit the players rather than harm them or impose someone's authority.

PepeAmpere · Post by **PepeAmpere** » 03 Aug 2013, 05:14

abma wrote:
PepeAmpere wrote:The problem I see is that one mod is trying/becoming festering wound and taking away from the good it has shown is possible with spring.... .... ... ... etc.
some reaction

PepeAmpere didnt write anything like that. It was babbyboolay.

gajop wrote:This post really sums up what I feel nicely: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=30709&start=40#p545620.

gajop, save your feelings for better time, pls. I think previouse responses answered enough.

KingRaptor · Post by **KingRaptor** » 03 Aug 2013, 05:42

You know, babbyboolay almost sounds reasonable until you realize it's t[O_ot] (alias zerpzerp).

His latest offense for which he was banned (not counting ban dodging) involved him investing over 3000 metal and 5 ingame minutes into killing a newbie teammate who wasn't playing well.

CarRepairer · Post by **CarRepairer** » 03 Aug 2013, 05:45

Note the contradictions in this post:

babbyboolay wrote:The autohosts of one person is now 'no longer supported for personal'.

Complaining that Springie was changed into an on-demand spawning host for any number of players, in other words a "relay host."

Then, in the very next sentence complaining that...

babbyboolay wrote:The relays are gone.

smoth · Post by **smoth** » 03 Aug 2013, 13:03

KingRaptor wrote:You know, babbyboolay almost sounds reasonable until you realize it's t[O_ot] (alias zerpzerp).

His latest offense for which he was banned (not counting ban dodging) involved him investing over 3000 metal and 5 ingame minutes into killing a newbie teammate who wasn't playing well.

Lol I wondered why the guy appesred to to have an axe to grind with licho. Geeze

babbyboolay · Post by **babbyboolay** » 03 Aug 2013, 15:10

I have no axe to grind and only recently came back to spring and was just saying things how I see them. I was corrected and assisted by the devs/forum, that is all. Thanks.

AF · Post by AF » 04 Aug 2013, 19:43

babbyboolay wrote:I have no axe to grind and only recently came back to spring and was just saying things how I see them. I was corrected and assisted by the devs/forum, that is all. Thanks.

Maybe not but you are utterly uninformed of what goes on outside of the small bubble playing your chosen game. Even I'm more up to date on these things than you and at least I can get the basic terminology and concept right.

This thread is not about what we can do to make the engine and games more player friendly, nor is it about the level of polish in GUI ( or how being able to mock up some snazzy graphics in 5 minutes suddenly makes you an expert in UX design and UI frameworks ). Nor is it about politics and 'people in power', which you're also utterly uninformed about.

People here know fullwell what can be done to make those bits easier, and have hundreds if not thousands of ideas. We all know what to do, we just don't have the manpower time and energy to do it. I had Real life, Smoth has debilitating migraines, Abma probably has a gf/bf pestering about this spring thing ruining their relationship who knows, and most other people are in similar boats. Inevitably they all leave or start other projects and not enough people arrive replace them.

9heart · Post by **9heart** » 17 May 2014, 04:38

First I read http://springrts.com/wiki/Building_Spring_on_Windows

and spent about 6 hours trying to set up compiler, linker, etc, but quit in frustration

Then i realized in those 6 hours I could have made a simple rts game in Unity+Unity asset store, and put it on ios/android/pc/mac/wii/ps3/linux/windows phone/web/xbox/blackberry.

CarRepairer · Post by **CarRepairer** » 17 May 2014, 05:41

9heart wrote:I could have made a simple rts game in Unity

Spring is a versatile 3D RTS game engine. Using extensively Lua for scripting game-specific code to make nearly every aspect of the engine customizable, from GUI, to unit AI, to pathfinding.

http://youtu.be/jUcqY4GfRpI

... also ...

Re: Spring developer crisis

Why are you comparing this to making a game with unity? The proper context here is, how difficult is it for you to contribute code and patch the unity engine?

Post by **gajop** » 17 May 2014, 07:47

9heart wrote:First I read http://springrts.com/wiki/Building_Spring_on_Windows

and spent about 6 hours trying to set up compiler, linker, etc, but quit in frustration

Then i realized in those 6 hours I could have made a simple rts game in Unity+Unity asset store, and put it on ios/android/pc/mac/wii/ps3/linux/windows phone/web/xbox/blackberry.

Not sure why you were compiling Spring, that's not needed to make games. Nowdays you can even get pre-compiled development builds online.
You may find making RTS games in Unity more difficult than you imagine: Unity itself has no special support for RTS last I checked: meaning you would have to implement performance-critical things like pathfinding yourselfs.
Could the barrier of entry be lower? Yes, sure, but compiling has nothing to do with that.

Post by **gajop** » 17 May 2014, 16:51

Although this topic is slightly outdated, I'd like to post an update as far as the initiative goes.
I introduced Spring to about 50 sophomore students today (although to be fair I was mostly showing them my Scenario Editor and just mentioned SpringRTS in name). One guy even recognized it (I was using a mix of BA/BAR for the demo).

Also talked to a game programming class TA and he said he might allocate 1-2 weeks to Spring for his class (starts in about a year). Still not sure on that though, but should at least be able to demonstrate it.

luckywaldo7 · Post by **luckywaldo7** » 17 May 2014, 18:02

9heart wrote:First I read http://springrts.com/wiki/Building_Spring_on_Windows

and spent about 6 hours trying to set up compiler, linker, etc, but quit in frustration

What made you think you needed to compile and how might that be remedied so future potential developers are not similarly confused?

FLOZi · Post by **FLOZi** » 17 May 2014, 19:08

I added a 'if you're only looking to make games go here instead' to that page as a bandaid

Spring RTS Engine