Spring RTS Engine

So its ok for someone to cap a third of the mexes in map to type LOL's in DT's, but its not ok for someone to capture those mexes and build units to win the game?

Not if they didn't give you permission, no.

There is no player autonomy. There's just a engine and a goal for everyone to win, all the rest of the rules like no commbombing or no lame flash using or shitty porching with mmakers are only in your head.

Then I, as a coder, will figure out a way to grant that autonomy.

I for one have and will continue to cut on player's mexes if i see that they arent doing anything to win the game, if he wants to play around and watch pretty explosions, im sure he can do that with a few less mexes.

Who made you the arbiter of other people's fun? Nobody. So, why should the game engine allow you to ruin their fun? My answer is, "it should not".

This isnt real life democratic country. You dont have any rights like i said. There's a engine, and a goal to win, just like chess has a board and pieces and a goal to checkmate the king.

First off, they're still real people, not just pieces on a board, that you're messing with. Listen to yourself You have a very warped idea of how behaving like that affects the real people you do it to. If I had somebody do that to me, I'd delete Spring in a heartbeat, tell my friends it sucked, and badmouth it online.

When you do stuff like this, you're not manipulating some "pieces on a board". You're interfering with how a fellow person chooses to play a video game. You're supposedly on the same team- teammates do not do these sorts of things. It's comparable with spawn-killing your team in a FPS game... which is a banning offense, on any decent server.

Second off, I will build the rules that give them the "rights". You're absolutely right- all "rules" that aren't actually code are totally unenforceable, and are "gentlemen's agreements".

Therefore, it's time to change the rules of the game.

<starts coding>

Then I, as a coder, will figure out a way to grant that autonomy.

I, as a player, do not want that autonomy 8D

Who made you the arbiter of other people's fun? Nobody. So, why should the game engine allow you to ruin their fun? My answer is, "it should not".

Who gave the player the rights to make me lose that match?

Why should the game engine limit my capability of compensating this player's lacking skill, giving me a chance to win the match?

and who made YOU design the rules of the game? Why should i follow your gentleman's rules?

You have a very warped idea of how behaving like that affects the real people you do it to.

yeah im a nazi manipulator hitler of the internet designed to come here and kill all your joy

SwiftSpear wrote:Argh: I'd like to see some more developed teamplay rules. Things like dgun and selfD for the commander being canceled if he's around more allied units then enemy units, transports not being able to pick up allied units without some sort of consent flag being issued on the part of the player being picked up, and the outright blocking of reclaiming allied structures. If it can be done with host side lua that would be the best way of doing it.

Disabling dgun against ally units would cause some really annoying situations like not being able to dgun enemy units hiding behind a single ally flash and thus losing your comm.

Disabling selfD for commander would also make it impossible to strategically suicide your comm while an airdrop is flying over it(yes that actually happened) and thus saving 3 of other bases with the sacrifice of some not nearly as expensive buildings/units.

Disabling transporting or having to require conformation would mean that you can't save your ally comm that is about to die in few seconds because your ally cant react as fast as you to the situation and you can't pick him up with a nearby transport to save him (yes that also happened a lot).

Disabling reclaiming would harm teamgames, newbies/some people tend to build 2+ t1 labs, then start building a t2 lab without using the previous labs at all. In these situations I reclaim their labs because they are essentially just rocks on a map. Other example is the need to reclaim a building left on lost front so the metal wont be wasted. I could list a lot more but can't be bothered.

Thankfully it can't be currently done via some host lua, maybe as a mod gadget, but that would require all clients to employ same mod. No way I'm willingly crippling myself.

Argh wrote:First off, they're still real people, not just pieces on a board, that you're messing with. Listen to yourself You have a very warped idea of how behaving like that affects the real people you do it to. If I had somebody do that to me, I'd delete Spring in a heartbeat, tell my friends it sucked, and badmouth it online.

No, multiplayer computer games are not real life. There are only representations of the real people in the actual game. These representations are only pieces on a chessboard like you nicely put it. The people use these units to achieve their goals. Like in chess, you try to exploit these pawns to the fullest. Be it yours or opponents.

If someone would react like how you described than he shouldn't be playing in the first place (which is funny because I never seen you play, ever).

What would team games be without the backstabbing and other intrigue...

Regret wrote: Disabling dgun against ally units would cause some really annoying situations like not being able to dgun enemy units hiding behind a single ally flash and thus losing your comm.

Disabling selfD for commander would also make it impossible to strategically suicide your comm while an airdrop is flying over it(yes that actually happened) and thus saving 3 of other bases with the sacrifice of some not nearly as expensive buildings/units.

Disabling transporting or having to require conformation would mean that you can't save your ally comm that is about to die in few seconds because your ally cant react as fast as you to the situation and you can't pick him up with a nearby transport to save him (yes that also happened a lot).

Disabling reclaiming would harm teamgames, newbies/some people tend to build 2+ t1 labs, then start building a t2 lab without using the previous labs at all. In these situations I reclaim their labs because they are essentially just rocks on a map. Other example is the need to reclaim a building left on lost front so the metal wont be wasted. I could list a lot more but can't be bothered.

Thankfully it can't be currently done via some host lua, maybe as a mod gadget, but that would require all clients to employ same mod. No way I'm willingly crippling myself.

All of those things would have to be mod specific, and hence would not end up in BA, so it doesn't matter much.

What would team games be without the backstabbing and other intrigue...

Better. You can't do any of this crap in StarCraft

No, multiplayer computer games are not real life.

Anything that involves other real people is "real life". This whole argument started because of what happened to the OP.

People who don't get that are idiots. I've seen almost every one of you self-righteous people, defending this sort of behavior, whine, bitch and moan about some nub rage-quitting, com-bombing your teams' bases, etc., etc., so don't even try to advance that argument, it's bullshit. People are very much affected by behavior like this, and it reflects very poorly on Spring.

I accept the argument that this situation is caused because the rules do not forbid it. Therefore, I will change the rules.

who made YOU design the rules of the game? Why should i follow your gentleman's rules?

Because I'm a game designer. You're just some dude with an opinion.

Any other stupid questions?

Thankfully it can't be currently done via some host lua, maybe as a mod gadget, but that would require all clients to employ same mod. No way I'm willingly crippling myself.

All of those things would have to be mod specific, and hence would not end up in BA, so it doesn't matter much.

You're right folks- this cannot be done with a Widget, which is actually too bad, because I'd rather do it that way, and make it up to players, not a game designer decision.

Meh, once I get the Gadget done, I may try to hack it into the engine, this isn't exactly difficult to code or anything, we already have everything we need, and I think it'd be best if it was just an option, like /water, etc.

Nor am I planning to make it so that you should not be able to combomb, etc. That would ruin the gameplay of OTA mods, and is entirely out of scope. I'm not even thinking about messing with that kind of thing, it'd destroy game balance all over the place.

The whole issue of reclaiming stuff, however, immediately brings up the issue of permission.

You should not, imo, be able to transport, reclaim, self-d or attack your teammates living units, without their explicit consent.

"Consent" should probably be just a variable, set through a Widget, yay or nay. It should not be some difficult, arcane thing, with a million bloody options, and people who trust who they're playing with will just turn it off.

At any rate, I'm getting the code done now. The code's not very hard to write- I think the hard part will be writing the Widget side, tbh. I will release it under a PD license for testing purposes when I'm done.

<goes back to coding>

Argh wrote:Anything that involves other real people is "real life".

People who don't get that are idiots. I've seen almost every one of you self-righteous people, defending this sort of behavior, whine, bitch and moan about some nub rage-quitting, com-bombing your teams' bases, etc., etc., so don't even try to advance that argument, it's bullshit. People are very much affected by behavior like this, and it reflects very poorly on Spring.

Ad hominem.

Other than that, to clear up the obvious misunderstanding, I used "real life" in the following sense:

Wikipedia wrote:"Real life is a phrase or term referring to life in the real world. It is most used to mean life or consensus reality outside of an environment that is generally seen as fiction or fantasy, such as something on the Internet, virtual reality, a dream, a novel, a movie, a hallucination, or a delusion.

I'm pleased I started this thread; despite the umpromising initial responses I think the debate has become a very good exploration of the philosophical issues. This post aims to clear up one or two misunderstandings and to respond to some of the more significant offerings.

Firstly the discussion has tended to assume that anyone falling foul of the louts who interfere with, and twoc, allied units will necessarily not be 'pulling their weight'. This is not true: My point has been both that it is wrong to interfere but also that those who do interfere are frequently incompetent themselves as regards making sound strategic judgements. My com was snatched during a game in which I had contributed a mobile group to help the left side of an Altored Divide game, while building fortifications on the quieter right flank, and this theft was justified on the grounds that I was failing to help. Absolute nonsense: I was simply playing in a style emphasising the role of defence in depth and tech buildup while also helping the most hard-pressed of my allies wherever they were threatened by ground attack. The moral I draw is that if players think they can interfere with allies on a whim then only one (very boring) play style becomes possible because all others, including perfectly viable strategies, are decried as selfish or wasteful, and subjected to com-snatching, resource-stealing, or the like.

As Teutooni said:

The passive porcupine problem, eh? There is nothing wrong in storng defense, if done correctly.

Argh has (very eloquently) argued for the most important aspect of the problem here: the need for players to enjoy the right to play as they see fit, provided they do it in earnest. This is why I used the word 'Sovereignty' in the thread title: it expresses the status of a player as an end in themselves, rather than (purely) a means to the team's end.

What's next, after that? Actively running their econs, and basically playing for them? Talk about screen savers...

Or how's about using them to suicide?

Oh wait, you guys have already tried, lamely, to defend such incredible violations of players' autonomy!

I defend my use of the word 'Soviet' to describe this sort of behaviour, because what Argh mentions here is (roughly) what the Soviets did when they screwed Eastern Europe over for 50 years.

If the idea of an individuals responsibility to his team in a competitive environment is 'soviet' i dread to think what would have happened if the cold war went hot, it would have been hilarious to see US soldiers going AWOL because it 'infringes on their sovereignty'.

This is nicely put but irrelevant, since the analogy is with nation states, not individuals. Warpac states were not free to leave or determine their own destinies, NATO states were. The tragic aspect is that this freedom frequently came at the price of efficiency in terms of procurement and command structure.

I do not think comnapping an ally against his will, or reclaiming his mexes against his will, is a good idea.

I find this heartening - it represents a moderate competitiveness and hopefully something all non-extremists can agree on.

There is no such thing as sovereignty of units. You just have your mouse, your keyboard and your balls. Thats it.

There is no player autonomy. There's just a engine and a goal for everyone to win, all the rest of the rules like no commbombing or no lame flash using or shitty porching with mmakers are only in your head.

I for one have and will continue to cut on player's mexes if i see that they arent doing anything to win the game, if he wants to play around and watch pretty explosions, im sure he can do that with a few less mexes.

These are undoubtedly extreme positions; amoral egoism is logically very difficult to defeat but it is also a position from which it is impossible to morally condemn others, something that most of the players defending very competitive and 'all-out' play styles seem to wish to do in relation to new or unskilled players.

Argh wrote: Better. You can't do any of this crap in StarCraft

build zealots and make them hit your ally's nexus.

Build sunkens on ally zerg and kill his hives

Build marines and shoot ally's nexus/command centre

Have you actually ever played a RTS game? There are always ways to screw up a team-game.

Because I'm a game designer. You're just some dude with an opinion.

Im a guy who plays spring, youre just some dude with a worthless opinion without any gameplay experience to back your shit up. I could call myself a game designer too, would that make my arguments any stronger?

~~we could continue this QQ blamegame for ever, but the only guy making arbitary rules, and saying people should obey them here is you

If someone would react like how you described than he shouldn't be playing in the first place (which is funny because I never seen you play, ever).

No, multiplayer computer games are not real life. There are only representations of the real people in the actual game. These representations are only pieces on a chessboard like you nicely put it. The people use these units to achieve their goals. Like in chess, you try to exploit these pawns to the fullest. Be it yours or opponents.

+1

These are undoubtedly extreme positions; amoral egoism is logically very difficult to defeat but it is also a position from which it is impossible to morally condemn others, something that most of the players defending very competitive and 'all-out' play styles seem to wish to do in relation to new or unskilled players.

can you name the "all out players" who are judging people?

Personally, I do not condemn people. I only condemn people who try to change the world into what they think is right, instead of adapting to the world.


Let's take argh's argument into closer inspection here as example.

who made YOU design the rules of the game? Why should i follow your gentleman's rules?

Because I'm a game designer. You're just some dude with an opinion.

If i get this straight, Argh should be allowed to design arbitary rules to the game, because he's a game designer, and i should be forced to obey those rules because im just a dude with a opinion

I do condemn and object this idea as it is absolutely retarded, one might aswell say that in chess the black player musn't move bishops and white player mustn't move horses. Lets call it chess 2.0

now im a ~Game designer~ like you argh \o/

As a host you can choose who plays in your game, as a player you can choose what game you join, I don't really see what's the problem?

If argh want's to try and code some tools in his mods for the host to use if he so choose, to each his own I guess. Strikes me as unnecessary given the above. You want to force people into doing as you want instead of just not playing with them? Does this not strike you as a bit futile?

I'd hate to see some "rules of sound morals and ethics" enforced by a committee of moderators, that just sounds totally unnecessary and unwise. I think this should definitely stay in the hands of the host/players. Maybe if someone is known to repeatedly harass complete newbies or somesuch, an exception could be made, but only for those kind of situations on a case by case basis.

Problem being that just by looking at "RandomPlayer09", no one can guess he's in fact someone who's willing to hijack friendly commanders, DGun allied buildings "for the greater good" and so on. What one player finds acceptable another friend might disagree with. And discovering those things the hard way ruins the experience for everybody (affected player quits the game, now you're one player short and going to lose anyway).

A 1vs1 game is a simple battle of wits. Whoever has the better strategy and execution wins. A team game is a social situation as well as a mental challenge, there needs to be some sort of basic rule everybody agrees on or no one is going to have a good gaming experience. Unless you're accepted by your team as leader, or unless you have their authorization to do it, interfering directly with their units is going to affect their game negatively.

Being egotistic works well in a straight fight, since it's only you and your enemy fighting over limited resources. On a team game, however, you must share your resources with your allies as well. If you don't want to, why are you even playing a team game? Why not just play a 2v1 instead?

If you see your allies doing something really stupid, warn them. If they don't change their minds, either quit the game or get ready for a loss. It's inevitable. And playing against your allies will not win you the game unless you're good enough to win alone.

Regret wrote:

Argh wrote:First off, they're still real people, not just pieces on a board, that you're messing with. Listen to yourself You have a very warped idea of how behaving like that affects the real people you do it to. If I had somebody do that to me, I'd delete Spring in a heartbeat, tell my friends it sucked, and badmouth it online.

No, multiplayer computer games are not real life. There are only representations of the real people in the actual game. These representations are only pieces on a chessboard like you nicely put it. The people use these units to achieve their goals. Like in chess, you try to exploit these pawns to the fullest. Be it yours or opponents.

If someone would react like how you described than he shouldn't be playing in the first place (which is funny because I never seen you play, ever).

There is a reason the units belong to your ally, not you: because it's a team game. As such, it's up to every player to use their units how they see fit. Taking the analogy and running with it: when your friend is playing chess and you have a bet saying he's going to win, you're not allowed to move his pieces. At most you can tell him he's doing something wrong and hope he'll accept your suggestion. As much as you have a stake on the game, they are still his pieces and he's the only one who should be able to move them.

As a host you can choose who plays in your game, as a player you can choose what game you join, I don't really see what's the problem?

I think that mainly what we're seeing is clashes between players who don't know each other, and a few bad apples who aren't getting banned because they're smurfing or simply because this isn't recognized as a serious form of griefing by the Lobby moderators. From Swift's comments, though, I suspect that any such cases would probably be treated fairly seriously. It may just be that since the primary victims of this sort of things are nubs, they're also the least able to make any complaint, simply because they don't know how... and then they just quit, and we've lost another player we could have retained

As Spring grows an audience, it's inevitable that these sorts of things will occur. What's not inevitable is that no changes should be made to prevent it where possible, without destroying people's game designs. This looks like a prime case for this sort of thing, tbh, it's no different than allowing placement within a team box or whatever.

Just a generic prohibition against letting people manipulate your units without your permission would make the vast majority of non-game-design-related abuses related to the OP's primary complaint go away.

I'd hate to see some "rules of sound morals and ethics" enforced by a committee of moderators, that just sounds totally unnecessary and unwise. I think this should definitely stay in the hands of the host/players. Maybe if someone is known to harass complete newbies or somesuch, an exception could be made, but only for those kind of situations.

I agree, that'd be futile, cause even more work for Lobby moderators, etc., and would be a complete waste of time. This is the kind of thing that can only be addressed by changing the way that the code works, frankly.

If you wan't to remove the ability to screw with allies, you could have a gadget that doesn't let trough reclaim or pickup orders on allied units, and disable all friendly fire. I'm pretty sure those could be easily done.

Then the only thing left would be obstructing your allies with units, for example building a grid of DT:s in their base or something. To disable this you would need a map that didn't allow units to pass outside of a given zone for each player, dividing the map into x separate 1v1 games, connecting 2 zones when there is only 1 player left in each... just what some people want?

I think that people need to be more communicative in team games, as if they do not know what the allies they are accepting to play with intend to do they cannot really complain if they do something they dont like. I also think that people should be aware of what their team will be especting from then then they join a game... in spring, most people will be especting you to play in a competitive manner, to win the game, so you should either make sure you will be of some use to the team (even if you could be better but want to mess around a bit) or communicate people that you do not intend to win or will try a unusual tactic that has little chances of working, and see if they still agree to play with you in the team.

I also think that noobs should never jump in team games before learning how to play the game, and I dont mean just knowing how the interface works, but also having some basic idea of where to use what... that is, read basic documentation and, if the game has a tutorial, make it... In case of spring, experimentating with all of a mods units in singleplayer can be a good way to learn how to play it, since most mods in spring have similar gameplay where only the units and their balancements change.

Problem being that just by looking at "RandomPlayer09", no one can guess he's in fact someone who's willing to hijack friendly commanders, DGun allied buildings "for the greater good" and so on.

The host can kick people ingame, there's no other way to handle this. You can't force someone into playing nicely or not (rage) quit, you can only kick him and .take or restart the game. It's not realistic to expect any else. It's the price you pay for taking in any random players for a quick game, just accept it.

Regret wrote:

SwiftSpear wrote:Argh: I'd like to see some more developed teamplay rules. Things like dgun and selfD for the commander being canceled if he's around more allied units then enemy units, transports not being able to pick up allied units without some sort of consent flag being issued on the part of the player being picked up, and the outright blocking of reclaiming allied structures. If it can be done with host side lua that would be the best way of doing it.

Disabling dgun against ally units would cause some really annoying situations like not being able to dgun enemy units hiding behind a single ally flash and thus losing your comm.

Ya, dgun is hard to fix... I guess you could do something like "dgun may not fire if it's target area will contain more allied units than enemy units" That's probably the way I'd try to do it.

Disabling selfD for commander would also make it impossible to strategically suicide your comm while an airdrop is flying over it(yes that actually happened) and thus saving 3 of other bases with the sacrifice of some not nearly as expensive buildings/units.

That's such an obscure situation, that ya, maby if applied to the current game it would occationally cause frustrations like that, but it's something players would quickly adapt to.

Disabling transporting or having to require conformation would mean that you can't save your ally comm that is about to die in few seconds because your ally cant react as fast as you to the situation and you can't pick him up with a nearby transport to save him (yes that also happened a lot).

Once again, it's something you have to adapt to, it's an obscure enough situation that we really shouldn't determine the flow of the game by one potential.

Disabling reclaiming would harm teamgames, newbies/some people tend to build 2+ t1 labs, then start building a t2 lab without using the previous labs at all. In these situations I reclaim their labs because they are essentially just rocks on a map. Other example is the need to reclaim a building left on lost front so the metal wont be wasted. I could list a lot more but can't be bothered.

That's just stupid. Tell your allies to reclaim thier own labs, or give them a con if they can't. You're being an asshole doing it without concent, I'd quite literally ban you from games I'm hosting for doing that. If you play with people who don't give a crap, fine, I'm not going to stop you, but that's something absolutely unacceptable to impose on people who don't want to play that way.

Thankfully it can't be currently done via some host lua, maybe as a mod gadget, but that would require all clients to employ same mod. No way I'm willingly crippling myself.

One way or another it's optional.

manored wrote:I think that people need to be more communicative in team games, as if they do not know what the allies they are accepting to play with intend to do they cannot really complain if they do something they dont like. I also think that people should be aware of what their team will be especting from then then they join a game... in spring, most people will be especting you to play in a competitive manner, to win the game, so you should either make sure you will be of some use to the team (even if you could be better but want to mess around a bit) or communicate people that you do not intend to win or will try a unusual tactic that has little chances of working, and see if they still agree to play with you in the team.

I also think that noobs should never jump in team games before learning how to play the game, and I dont mean just knowing how the interface works, but also having some basic idea of where to use what... that is, read basic documentation and, if the game has a tutorial, make it... In case of spring, experimentating with all of a mods units in singleplayer can be a good way to learn how to play it, since most mods in spring have similar gameplay where only the units and their balancements change.

Well, that'd be the perfect solution. Sadly, very few people on the internet want to read any sort of documentation before jumping into the sweet sweet xplosionfest.

Zpock wrote:

Problem being that just by looking at "RandomPlayer09", no one can guess he's in fact someone who's willing to hijack friendly commanders, DGun allied buildings "for the greater good" and so on.

The host can kick people ingame, there's no other way to handle this. You can't force someone into playing nicely or not (rage) quit, you can only kick him and .take or restart the game. It's not realistic to expect any else.

That's what I was saying: it doesn't really work. If the guy explodes a friendly commander, then gets kicked out, the rest of the team will still be at a disadvantage.

That's what I was saying: it doesn't really work. If the guy explodes a friendly commander, then gets kicked out, the rest of the team will still be at a disadvantage.

It's the price you pay for taking in random players for a quick game, you just have to accept it.

and the thread was interesting...