Spring RTS Engine

So basically, spring has about a bajillion ways to get it, and all of them pretty much suck cock.

We have weblobby, which is by far the best method probably, but it's dependence on java cocks the whole thing up for most users.

We have springlobby which is unstable in the best of times.

We have tasclient, which is great for people still using XP and spring directory setups from 6 years ago.

We have NL, which violates spring's GPL (last time I checked) but is probably by far the nicest lobby and the one with the least issues.

We have flobby, which while it isn't, it might as well be vaporware at this point.

And we have ZKLobby, which, in my tests tends to be barely functional and great if you like to play pretty much only zk, but otherwise it's setup is pretty bad (jerks you around from room to room, auto does shit for no visible reason, etc.

Tbh, what we really need is a modern tasclient. Tasclient was always very good in terms of usability. Once spring changed to being a general rts engine, it's development went to left field and it stagnated for the most part.

I'd love to pimp NL, but I would prefer that myself and evo not get excommunicated from spring for shit that isn't my fault.

So, if you're putting together a dl page for a game site for a player who knows dick all about any of this... What do you do?

I am working on a (yet another) lobby client, please take a look at this post at ZK forums. In my second post in that thread i provided some details about the technical background.

For now this was just a spike solution to test some things i read about but couldn't use in my job and to gain skills in .NET.
Currently i'm working at the battle-related part of the protocol. If that's done I'll do a little cleanup and put it on github. It will be devided into a generic lobby client and a library which extends it towards zk (the commander and comparison stuff).

I don't intend to get in conflict with your licensing, so before i do anything public with it, i'll discuss it here. Currently everything (except zk images) is made from scratch.

Concerning your question: This can grow into a solution for your problem, but it will take some time and will probably need more than me to finish it.

-P-

Very nice looking so far. On an aesthetic front, imo you should use more contrast in your color choices, but I imagine that the design/color coordination/etc is far from done so commenting on stuff like that isn't particularly helpful.

Tbh... I'm going to make a lot of people mad when I say this, but imo concentrate on making it good for local hosting of games. Autohost integration is all fine and good, but springie spawns have tons of issues (not the least of which almost always using the wrong engine version)...

Tasclient was very good because it focused upon the player side of things, and less on making it great for interfacing with bots/autohosts. No matter how much work you put into it, you're never going to be able to achieve "good" autohost integration. You may achieve adequate autohost integration (ZK would be an example of this), but "good" simply isn't going to happen.

Thankfully, for local hosting, nat transversal is a pretty common feature nowadays, so port forwarding isn't as big of a deal as it once was.

I'm sure many will disagree with me on what I have said, but in answer I point to every other lobby and it's strengths and weaknesses. Namely, weblobby and notalobby (both of which I like very much, but they both come with some pretty big caveats).

Edit: Read the thread on the ZK forums. You are obviously headed a different direction than generic spring related lobby so my comments are mostly invalid. My bad.

So, if you're putting together a dl page for a game site for a player who knows dick all about any of this... What do you do?

Tell player to go to http://springrts.com/ and install spring. Tell player that spring engine runs different games and yours is one of them.
Installer includes springlobby and zKlobby, one will hopefully work. Tell player to join your autohost from which point lobby will download game and maps as needed.

Weird little side-idea... you know how in Steam you can be on the Steam page and clicking a link to a game on the Steam page will launch steam and then install the game? I would be pretty cool if you could make a lobby or installer for Spring do that... like a meta-app for getting games, lobbies, maps and engine versions.

edit: Why don't I proof-read anymore?

Weird little side-idea: You know how you can be on the Steam page and clicking a "special" link will launch Steam and install the game? It would be pretty cool if there was something like this for Spring that would install games, lobbies, maps, engine versions etc.

knorke wrote:

So, if you're putting together a dl page for a game site for a player who knows dick all about any of this... What do you do?

Tell player to go to http://springrts.com/ and install spring. Tell player that spring engine runs different games and yours is one of them.
Installer includes springlobby and zKlobby, one will hopefully work. Tell player to join your autohost from which point lobby will download game and maps as needed.

Except that it's springlobby, the download page here is clear as fresh shit, and the lobby will work properly roughly 33% of the time on a good day.

I know this because I recently did all this and I know what I am doing. Moreover, how dumb is that concept though? Here is the download page for this game, but oh, darn, you gotta go to this other place to download something else that isn't the game but allows you to download the game?

Lolwut?

Forboding Angel wrote:Here is the download page for this game, but oh, darn, you gotta go to this other place to download something else that isn't the game but allows you to download the game?

Totally how Steam works... just need better spin and less friction.

Except steam is an established platform. Spring isn't. Desura could have really made itself the indie platform of choice, but they just let it stagnate and shit the bed.

could something like https://code.google.com/p/windows-package-manager/ do what you want? just need a "package" that contains everything and pretend it's an installer?

Nah, I would rather explain spring's idiosyncrasies in a way that the normal player wouldn't be turned off by it and would understand what he is seeing when he sees it.

It's a real pity that everyone hates Java now... WebLobby was such an elegant solution.

You should probably be more specific, even though I know what you mean.

Blame Oracle. Weblobby is becoming an actual app though, so that's some good news.

Forboding Angel wrote:Moreover, how dumb is that concept though? Here is the download page for this game, but oh, darn, you gotta go to this other place to download something else that isn't the game but allows you to download the game? Lolwut?

More like: There is this "spring thing", install it and you can play games, including this one.
It is a somewhat clear concept actually.

Except that it's springlobby, the download page here is clear as fresh shit, and the lobby will work properly roughly 33% of the time on a good day.

Problem is instead of trying to improve that (for example report your bugs with springlobby or think how to make dl page better) you say "Oh, this is all stupid. I make my own download thing!"

I think games relaying on spring for providing lobbies, downloads etc is much better than every game wasting effort to do the same things and reinvent things again and again. Other advantage is the shared forum so that all "it does not work" questions are in one places where devs can answer them.

Forboding Angel wrote:I know this because I recently did all this and I know what I am doing.

No, I think not.
I do not remember it saying on evo page "install spring from springrts.com, join evo room." or anything similiar.
You did the opposite, trying to distance from spring. Seperate forums, seperate installers. There was always some Desura installer or weblobby plus firefox turned into one .exe etc

I agree FA. Best bet is improving TASclient. Luckily someone still maintains it (more or less?). I was thinking of making some bug reports on TASclient.

Made a thread to start it off. Hopefully everyone using TASclient currently can contribute with bugs they encountered and then hopefully some will get fixed. TASclient bug report thread

klapmongool wrote:I agree FA. Best bet is improving TASclient.

I think that ship has sailed, tbh. The only really good thing about tasclient is it's UI. The way it actually works is beyond sadface .

Springlobby is the opposite. The way it works is actually quite good now that abma and others have started helping koshi & co. SL's problem is it's UI at this point, but no problem is unsolvable.

knorke wrote:

Forboding Angel wrote:I know this because I recently did all this and I know what I am doing.

No, I think not.
I do not remember it saying on evo page "install spring from springrts.com, join evo room." or anything similiar.
You did the opposite, trying to distance from spring. Seperate forums, seperate installers. There was always some Desura installer or weblobby plus firefox turned into one .exe etc

This is a dick statement to make. You conveniently forget that when i did all that it was because there was no multi-engine (there wasn't even rapid that that time), so the only way to really do it was to distribute in isolated mode. The moment multi engine became a thing, I jumped on the weblobby bandwagon.

All the installer is is portable firefox that sends people to a url that has some custom color and channel settings for evo. I did this so that you could have the lobby in a separate app. I also have a very clear button that simply takes you to that url by clicking it and point out that java is required.

I fully resent your connotation because it is off base and frankly, horseshit.

You seem to not really understand just how hard SL is for a newbie to use. Fuck, the other day when I set it up I had to go through no less than 4 confusing dialogs that even I was a little puzzled about, and as I stated, when it comes to using SL I know what I am doing. Moreover, even when I properly set the spring path it wouldn't accept it, and my setup is vanilla!

On the same day, I did the same thing with tasclient, and realized that it was still setup for best use with Windows XP, IE it's trash for actual use.

Today I installed the lobby-who-shall-not-be-named, which is using portable mode (which is actually detrimental now to the whole process), and while it worked pretty nicely, the chat ui for it is quite not-good.

Weblobby is still the best lobby from what I can tell, but the java dependence kills it.


So, I ask again:
For a game's download page, what should it say?

If you haven't noticed by now, I am asking a serious question while making a very poignant point (the same one I have been making for what... 5 years now?).

So, I ask again:
For a game's download page, what should it say?

This game runs on the springRTS network. To play install spring and meet us in channel #nameOfYourGame.

The spring installation is not perfect but how will be get better faster:
1) all games try to do their own (sometimes hacky attempts) at installers, tutorials and help forums.
2) Only do all that once and gamedevs concentrate on their game and leave lobby, support to the respective people.

Now that is a very nice way to say it. That said, there is no spring network. Not really.

It's hard to rally around springlobby when it barely works compared to the other lobbies. Also, not everyone knows how irc style commands work, so your basic assumption is flawed (to a minor, but important, degree).

I use springlobby for playing everyday, it works. Sometimes something does not work. All lobbies are like that though.
But imo no use to talk in such vaguely ways about which lobby is "better."

Also, not everyone knows how irc style commands work, so your basic assumption is flawed

afaik all lobbies require to use text commands at various points. To join chat channel in SL click Tools - join channel. Or click channellist for a channel list.
Even if there was no (easy( way to join channels, can still write "meet in #nameOfYourGame battleroom" etc

there is no spring network. Not really.

I think there is.
There is a subforum and FAQ support for players who crash. Then the whole download system with its mirrors/sites, replays page, the lobby server,...some things are only loosely connceted but think all that can be called spring network. And any game can and should use it.

Spring is the only multiplayer game in memory that I have had to use chat commands in the lobby.

Smoth and I pitched the idea of spring as a platform many years ago (before your time actually) and it was summarily shot down. If that had actually been the goal, we wouldn't have the silly fragmentation that we have now.

Yeah, SL works well when you learn how to use it, but users shouldn't have to learn how to start a game. That's the super boring part. The more you need to learn the less likely you are to dedicate(especially when it's not fun).

If I didn't have an inane interest in TA, and creating things, I would never have tolerated jumping through the hoops required by most Spring games. Although it is getting much easier.

Also, chat commands no longer belong any where near a commonly used user interface, they just don't. When you have a GUI to show options, why should people have to remember or reference options.