What has happened with with Balanced Annihilation Reladed anyway?

What has happened with with Balanced Annihilation Reladed anyway?

Balanced Annihilation with remade Units

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ympale
Posts: 6
Joined: 13 Jul 2017, 12:29

What has happened with with Balanced Annihilation Reladed anyway?

Post by ympale »

Hello, I've got a bunch of silly questions.

Yesterday, when I checked the crowded list of games I've got installed in SpringLobby, I found out I have 8 versions of BA, among them BAR test-5612, and it got me wondering what has happened with it, and it got me wondering so much I have made an account here to ask. I did try to piece it out myself from posts I could find, but search has been unhelpful, and the topics I could find had giant gaps, and I only found something about the main dev is missing, so, the comprehensible version, please?

Also, I would also like to know more about BAR, like, the aims, differences with BA, how much of it is open source, how much of it is original content? AFAIK, right now, only Spring-based game on Steam is the poorly accepted evoRTS, and Zero-K pretty much stalled in the Steam Greenlight, which isn't really representative to the current state, where SpringLobby lists BA games as most played (with evo having all it's hosts constantly empty), and I have got a feeling BAR was meant to rectify this...

Also, adding to that, who are the authors, could someone list the authors of the content, for example who modelled the Comms? Just curious in case I wanted to try and develop a Spring game, and instead of the TA models wanted to use the BAR ones, who should I ask for permissions.

Also, I hope I didn't touch any sensitive subject.....
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MasterBel2
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Re: What has happened with with Balanced Annihilation Reladed anyway?

Post by MasterBel2 »

More knowledgable people will come with better explanations later, but basically the main dev of BAR (Beherith) went MIA (or something like that). Beherith owns much of the models I believe so that's who you'd likely have to ask.

The aim of BAR, approximately, is to be a game along the lines of BA which had no IP infringement (terms probably wrong but meh), so that, for example, steam would be a possibility.

I will leave the rest of the explaining to more knowledgable people.

~MasterBel2
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PicassoCT
Journeywar Developer & Mapper
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Joined: 24 Jan 2006, 21:12

Re: What has happened with with Balanced Annihilation Reladed anyway?

Post by PicassoCT »

In Retrospect, hiring consultants like Chris Roberts and Jon Romero might have been a mistake.
tzaeru
Posts: 283
Joined: 28 Oct 2007, 02:23

Re: What has happened with with Balanced Annihilation Reladed anyway?

Post by tzaeru »

There are several people who have contributed a little bit of art work, graphics, code and so on to BAR. As MasterBel2 says, you'd need to ask Behe for any deeper clarification. He's occasionally seen around the forums. I don't know if he's going to continue BAR, if he's just lacking the time or if he's lacking the interest, but the license issues have been attempted to be clarified on several occasions, including here: viewtopic.php?f=44&t=35708&p=580079&hilit=bar+license

In short, BAR's artwork is licensed under CC-BY-ND ( http://imolarpg.dyndns.org/trac/balates ... t?rev=2120 ), the definition of which you can read here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/

In summary, you can use and redistribute BAR models in your own projects, even commercially as long as you attribute to Peter Sarkozy. You can not modify, remix or otherwise alter the models.

And yeah, BAR was meant as an non-infrigmenting version of BA with fresh and updated models and other artwork. It looks pretty good when combined with modern better-looking maps. I contributed a little bit of code to BAR and was pretty excited to see the project succeed, but y'know, it just kinda faded in development at least for now. I think there's a lot of other components than only the game itself that would need to be considered when launching a product like BAR. You'd need a customized lobby experience (which we're working on for BA), installers, websites, so forth. While it's a lot of work, it is a doable amount as well, but I guess right now it's just kinda lacking direction and lacking leader-types who make stuff happen. I'd love to get involved with what very little time I have if things are getting going again, but y'know, there are jobs to run and dogs to take out and spouses to fuck and uni courses to finish and ten other games to play. Real life gets in the way.
ympale
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Joined: 13 Jul 2017, 12:29

Re: What has happened with with Balanced Annihilation Reladed anyway?

Post by ympale »

tzaeru wrote:There are several people who have contributed a little bit of art work, graphics, code and so on to BAR. As MasterBel2 says, you'd need to ask Behe for any deeper clarification. He's occasionally seen around the forums.
Sadly, I'm still new, so, I'm not allowed to PM Beherith yet...
tzaeru wrote:In short, BAR's artwork is licensed under CC-BY-ND ( http://imolarpg.dyndns.org/trac/balates ... t?rev=2120 )

In summary, you can use and redistribute BAR models in your own projects, even commercially as long as you attribute to Peter Sarkozy. You can not modify, remix or otherwise alter the models.
Well, do these modifications restrictions mean that I can' even, say, resize the models?

Also, it occurs to me, who did the original content in BA? Garpike and Wolverine weren't in TA, for example.
tzaeru
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Joined: 28 Oct 2007, 02:23

Re: What has happened with with Balanced Annihilation Reladed anyway?

Post by tzaeru »

ympale wrote:Well, do these modifications restrictions mean that I can' even, say, resize the models?
I think resizing the model would be OK.
ympale wrote:Also, it occurs to me, who did the original content in BA? Garpike and Wolverine weren't in TA, for example.
I think Garpike is from Twilight, a TA fan mod. Wolverine is also listed as an extension unit for TA ( http://units.tauniverse.com/?p=u&v=6077 ) but I don't know which mod introduced it or if it's just solo work.

BA derives from Absolute Annihiliation which in turn derives from various TA fan mods. Most units existed as TA mods before making their way to BA.

The full road is so muddy and taken so many turns that much of the license info is probably lost for good.
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nixtux
TechA Developer
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Re: What has happened with with Balanced Annihilation Reladed anyway?

Post by nixtux »

Hi, I disagree you can't resize model under the current licence. If you could re-scale it via metadata as you can with some model formats I would see less of an issue, but as soon as you re-scale it with upspring your modifying the content.
raaar
Metal Factions Developer
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Re: What has happened with with Balanced Annihilation Reladed anyway?

Post by raaar »

Why hasn't the BA community changed to BAR?
tzaeru
Posts: 283
Joined: 28 Oct 2007, 02:23

Re: What has happened with with Balanced Annihilation Reladed anyway?

Post by tzaeru »

raaar wrote:Why hasn't the BA community changed to BAR?
The most immediate reason is that BAR's never been officially released. But beyond that, BA's playerbase is a bit oldfashioned. By now, it's difficult to even do normal balance changes without a vocal minority wanting to split off. BAR represents a huge change in a lot of ways. All the menu items, unit graphics, so on, would change which to some makes it appear like a completely new game. That's not necessarily something that many BA players want. Personally I'd still loved to change to BAR. BAR represented a plausible way away from stagnation which has been a huge issue for BA for long.

Additionally, there was occasionally some talk about that when BAR would be published, there'd be a bit of effort to extend the audience beyond just that of BA. This would have needed websites, installers, all that be rolled out at the same time, but they weren't really that complete.

The only person who can really release or direct BAR now is Behe. I don't recall him ever having stated specifically how he wanted BAR released or if he had some bigger plan for it.
raaar
Metal Factions Developer
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Re: What has happened with with Balanced Annihilation Reladed anyway?

Post by raaar »

edit: nvm
ympale
Posts: 6
Joined: 13 Jul 2017, 12:29

Re: What has happened with with Balanced Annihilation Reladed anyway?

Post by ympale »

nixtux wrote:Hi, I disagree you can't resize model under the current licence. If you could re-scale it via metadata as you can with some model formats I would see less of an issue, but as soon as you re-scale it with upspring your modifying the content.
Well, should I even try to ask Beherith about this?

Also, I'm so dumb I forgot till now I also wanted to ask, what is the most recent version of BAR, and where could I find it?
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Forboding Angel
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Re: What has happened with with Balanced Annihilation Reladed anyway?

Post by Forboding Angel »

raaar wrote:Why hasn't the BA community changed to BAR?
As weird as it sounds, current BA on github is far more modern (save models and sounds) than bar.
tzaeru
Posts: 283
Joined: 28 Oct 2007, 02:23

Re: What has happened with with Balanced Annihilation Reladed anyway?

Post by tzaeru »

Forboding Angel wrote:
raaar wrote:Why hasn't the BA community changed to BAR?
As weird as it sounds, current BA on github is far more modern (save models and sounds) than bar.
^-- This is very much true - for all who haven't seen it, the current development BA really looks and feels and plays much better in most departments. There's now proper out-the-box shader for unit outlines, improved unit movement via raw movement, generally improved UI experience, rounded up unit prices for easier comparison, various additional vfx, so forth.
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PicassoCT
Journeywar Developer & Mapper
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Joined: 24 Jan 2006, 21:12

Re: What has happened with with Balanced Annihilation Reladed anyway?

Post by PicassoCT »

Eh, model replacement- and integrate the awesome gui of BAR and be done with it? You are allowed to copy and paste them?
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