XTA isn't remotely close to TA. BA is probably closer. There are tonnes of added units and balance tweaks in BA, but the fundimental balance structures are basically OTA still, XTA made MAJOR modifications to the flow and play of the game.Linebacker wrote:Of course you know the details much better than I. But I thought XTA was the closest mod to OTA. And so far I looked at Spring as the state-of-the-art version of Total Annihilation. If I am wrong here (correct if need be), then it would make sense to include this Classic TA-mod from zwzsg?SwiftSpear wrote:It's unfair that XTA is always the default showcase mod for no apparent reason.
Stats - The 100th mass promotion topic thingy
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SwiftSpear
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AF:
many times you need far more than copy one sdz file to right location.
You need to move multiple files, sometimes replacing older versions.
Sometimes you also want to remove older version or some unused stuff.
You need some version management, compatibility warnings etc. While it's more complicated initially I think it's worth the effort. (In fact I think the worst part is desigining it properly, not implementing it).
In the long term it would vastly pay off, because of immediate and easy access to all spring related enhancements and features directly from lobby. People would be willing to experiment more (knowing you can just click to join game with new mod or download new widget and then click again to delete all that extra stuff which got downlaoded) and content developers would be encouraged to be more creative and release stuff faster.
many times you need far more than copy one sdz file to right location.
You need to move multiple files, sometimes replacing older versions.
Sometimes you also want to remove older version or some unused stuff.
You need some version management, compatibility warnings etc. While it's more complicated initially I think it's worth the effort. (In fact I think the worst part is desigining it properly, not implementing it).
In the long term it would vastly pay off, because of immediate and easy access to all spring related enhancements and features directly from lobby. People would be willing to experiment more (knowing you can just click to join game with new mod or download new widget and then click again to delete all that extra stuff which got downlaoded) and content developers would be encouraged to be more creative and release stuff faster.
Also imagine other services which could be provided by central resource management: links to websites of mods, and to forum threads accessible directly form lobby, embedded changelogs etc.
Right now its pretty messy. I see someone with mod X version Y and I have no clue where to get info about this mod, what other people think about it, where to download it etc..
Or I seek a widget or an AI containing feature Z but I have no idea if it exists and how compatibile it is with certain mods, I have to search forums, UF, personal site of Trepan etc to check for it.
It's all isolated and scattered around right now. Having some nexus tracking all this scattered stuff would greatly simplify the use especially for new palyers.
Right now its pretty messy. I see someone with mod X version Y and I have no clue where to get info about this mod, what other people think about it, where to download it etc..
Or I seek a widget or an AI containing feature Z but I have no idea if it exists and how compatibile it is with certain mods, I have to search forums, UF, personal site of Trepan etc to check for it.
It's all isolated and scattered around right now. Having some nexus tracking all this scattered stuff would greatly simplify the use especially for new palyers.
We need to make this place more appealing to new users, then they will start pouring it. Right now this place is a hellhole for newbies wether you want to admit it or not, and thats what Ive been telling everyone who asks me "wth is Spring?".
I do wish I could say that "Spring has a really good tutorial system, nice people, and its easy to learn, come and join" but that would be outright lying as of now.
But i agree with most things already stated in this thread. We have some really good idea's here. We have the potential to make spring popular. We just need to put it to work.
I do wish I could say that "Spring has a really good tutorial system, nice people, and its easy to learn, come and join" but that would be outright lying as of now.
But i agree with most things already stated in this thread. We have some really good idea's here. We have the potential to make spring popular. We just need to put it to work.
PURE's first Alpha has been released to the artists, I will probably be trying to find someone to make us a promo vid over the next two weeks.
Given what I'm seeing in SVN, it looks like it may be one of the best new releases of Spring- it's fixing a lot of bugs in the groundbreaking 0.75 release, and features a few important features besides, so I think this is going to be the time, if ever, to push- between what could be done with SWS, '44, Gundam, KP, TD and several other games, I feel that Spring is ripe for a promotional push, and I urge other game designers to get our best video people to make some sexy materials and get the ball rolling.
In short, Neddie, I think it's going to be time very soon. There are finally enough projects at the required level of quality.
Given what I'm seeing in SVN, it looks like it may be one of the best new releases of Spring- it's fixing a lot of bugs in the groundbreaking 0.75 release, and features a few important features besides, so I think this is going to be the time, if ever, to push- between what could be done with SWS, '44, Gundam, KP, TD and several other games, I feel that Spring is ripe for a promotional push, and I urge other game designers to get our best video people to make some sexy materials and get the ball rolling.
In short, Neddie, I think it's going to be time very soon. There are finally enough projects at the required level of quality.
Pretty much it. Whenever I've seen people see Spring they generally tend to react "Oh man this looks cool. Where's singleplayer?".iamacup wrote:1) make load and save work
2) someone make a bloody campaign and some propper AI
we have a game people who are crap can play, get good then go online.
this is all we need for a larger player base.
And I agree with Licho.
Ladder is usefull only for veterans, new players won't have interest in it initially.
That's why I think we should focus on support for new players, making spring easy to use and providing all necessary information in structured way.
But regarding ladder I think it would be best to implement some "ranked game" support directly to lobby server. (This can exist along with ladder).
That's why I think we should focus on support for new players, making spring easy to use and providing all necessary information in structured way.
But regarding ladder I think it would be best to implement some "ranked game" support directly to lobby server. (This can exist along with ladder).
I actually think a content management system is very important. If you remember back when the FU servers were integrated into TASclient for map downloads you can see that system was quite important in the user experience.
I think I recall cuppy and tc__ talking about implementing this feature in springlobby. It was to have similar capabilities to the old system, but with the inclusion of downloading mods. In exchange the UF banner and a banner ad from unknownfiles would be displayed for revenue.
I think I recall cuppy and tc__ talking about implementing this feature in springlobby. It was to have similar capabilities to the old system, but with the inclusion of downloading mods. In exchange the UF banner and a banner ad from unknownfiles would be displayed for revenue.
Yeah but this is again putting all eggs into one basket (like with file universe).
Content database should be separate from UF and hosted on spring server, with downloads provided by UF (but there should be some backup mechanism - say BT tracker, and option to put files to other server than UF).
Database - would provide some API for lobbies and web backend for browsing.
API should provide services such as:
- identifying versions of resources (say identifying all different versions of same map), determining which one is the newest
- providing download information for version (pointing to UF download or to other server and serving torrent)
- providing additional resource information (dependencies on other resources and versions, incompatibilities)
- providing resource related info (this could be done as a web page containing changelog, resource info (mod homepage, forum thread), opinnions, rating, download stats etc).
Resources would have to be transofrmed into some universally accepted form - like zip including some xml manifest.
This could be created using some client side tool, which would make sure resource is packed properly, create manifest containing dependencies and other necessary stuff and create torrent for upload to central database.
I imagine program which you run on client, program allows you to select few files in spring and say this is my mod XXX version YY. Program then creates manifest, packs files and optionally uploads info (manifest + torrent) to central server (providing you are one of the owners of "resource" and can add new version of it).
You are then allowed to upload zipped version to some mirror hosting (like UF) and notify central database that its there.
Or you might do nothing and rely on BT system to automatically seed resources from your machine.
Other lobbies which would want your new version of mod could download it directly from your seeded version in spring folder or use zipped version on mirror.
After downloading zipped version they would check checksums of files inside the zip towards checksums in torrent and if the mirrored file turns out to be invalid central server would be notified.
Content database should be separate from UF and hosted on spring server, with downloads provided by UF (but there should be some backup mechanism - say BT tracker, and option to put files to other server than UF).
Database - would provide some API for lobbies and web backend for browsing.
API should provide services such as:
- identifying versions of resources (say identifying all different versions of same map), determining which one is the newest
- providing download information for version (pointing to UF download or to other server and serving torrent)
- providing additional resource information (dependencies on other resources and versions, incompatibilities)
- providing resource related info (this could be done as a web page containing changelog, resource info (mod homepage, forum thread), opinnions, rating, download stats etc).
Resources would have to be transofrmed into some universally accepted form - like zip including some xml manifest.
This could be created using some client side tool, which would make sure resource is packed properly, create manifest containing dependencies and other necessary stuff and create torrent for upload to central database.
I imagine program which you run on client, program allows you to select few files in spring and say this is my mod XXX version YY. Program then creates manifest, packs files and optionally uploads info (manifest + torrent) to central server (providing you are one of the owners of "resource" and can add new version of it).
You are then allowed to upload zipped version to some mirror hosting (like UF) and notify central database that its there.
Or you might do nothing and rely on BT system to automatically seed resources from your machine.
Other lobbies which would want your new version of mod could download it directly from your seeded version in spring folder or use zipped version on mirror.
After downloading zipped version they would check checksums of files inside the zip towards checksums in torrent and if the mirrored file turns out to be invalid central server would be notified.
I really think the in game UI needs a bit of a makeover. It looks like the game is still in testing and despite the widgets and such it seems kind of thrown together with no overall scheme besides err semitransparent boxes... thats the most noticeably bad thing for me as I pretty much just screw around on single player.