The end of the maintenance branch -- "BA" questions

The end of the maintenance branch -- "BA" questions

Classic game design, maintained to please you...

Moderator: Content Developer

Lumpy3
Posts: 2
Joined: 19 Jun 2020, 01:28

The end of the maintenance branch -- "BA" questions

Post by Lumpy3 »

Hi All,

I played BA a fair bit about 10 years ago and recently randomly came back onto the scene on a whim one day.

I stumbled upon BAR via reddit and got exited in the project and then wound up finding the fightclub lobby and have since been playing both games alot , BA on the springfightclub lobby and BAR on the roadbar lobby.

I am active on the BAR discord and I enjoy being apart of the development cycle and watching as the bots evolve etc.

I am also very active on the springfightclub community and regard most players on there as friends.

I have spoken with players from the springfightclub community and there are legitimate concerns at the moment that this proposed change to ownership of the engine could mean the death of springfighclub.

This scares me, enough to warrant posting on this thread against the change.

I don't see how killing springfightclub is integral to the development of BAR, frankly there aren't enough players at the moment to keep BAR alive and without the player base on springfightlcub the game will die before BAR even gets off the ground.

I dont want to take sides in this however it must be said that the idea of the spring engine (at least back when i used to play) was for community and development of the engine so we can all play the game we love.

Split from viewtopic.php?f=12&t=41367, off-topic (Silentwings)
abma
Spring Developer
Posts: 3798
Joined: 01 Jun 2009, 00:08

Re: The end of the maintenance branch

Post by abma »

Lumpy3 wrote: 19 Jun 2020, 02:22 In the springfighclub community at the moment there is a legitimate fear that this proposed change could prevent any development that is currently being worked on by mando and others, effectively killing springfighclub and its remaining playerbase.

The posts made above don't (to me) clearly spell out this intent, however if there is a threat to springfighclub I feel obliged to post my support against this as I do not want to lose both the community and game that i love.

I don't see how killing off springfightclub is integral to the development of BAR, frankly there aren't enough players to keep either game alive at the moment.
your fears are totally wrong: spring is a engine released under the gpl2+ license. The license in short says, when you release a binary file (i.e. the executable) you must release the source code too. This means in short, that springfightclub can modify the engine too. "We" can't "kill off" springfightclub, i have no clue who told you this wrong statement. Springfightclub could forever use spring 103.0, but you never would get an updated engine if they don't step into development: it would be killed off just because the owners of springfightclub didn't involve in the engine development, i.e. by creating bug reports or pull requests. We really have no interest in "killing off springfightclub".

this is totally offtopic: if further comments about political stuff are made in this thread, i split/create a seperate thread for that.
User avatar
AF
AI Developer
Posts: 20687
Joined: 14 Sep 2004, 11:32

Re: The end of the maintenance branch

Post by AF »

This thread has nothing to do with ownership or control of the engine, that's not what's being discussed.

To try and summarize, if I understand correctly:
  • there is an old maintenance branch 104 that has had a handful of ongoing fixes but isn't gettng new features, and has major technical issues
  • right now the maiintenance branch has been idle for a month, and automated builds are broken
  • there's a develop branch that fixes those technical issues and requires a handful of changes
The maintenance branch is unmaintained, and hte OP has suggested we make it official. That's all.

Game devs:
  • they appear to have consensus that migrating from 104 to 105 doesn't take much effort, but does require changes
  • none have voiced opposition yet
  • can still use 104 if they want, it'll just be officially unmaintained, not unofficially unmaintained, so no change
Players:
  • have nothing stopping them playing 104 for years to come, nobody is deleting spring 104 downloads or the maintenance branch
  • could see significant FPS gains if 105 development can continue
  • are still able to put a copy of BA and spring engine 104 in an installer and distributing it for 20 years and longer
  • can test 105 and report bugs, nobody can fix bugs or performance regressions if nobody reports them
  • could fork the engine and launch the Fall RTS Engine that just stays the same if they can find a willing developer
Engine devs:
  • agree with OP though there's some discussion about backporting/forwardporting changes
  • are in short supply
Other than people agreeing, what actually needs to be done to implement this?
Ares
Balanced Annihilation Developer
Posts: 555
Joined: 19 Mar 2011, 13:43

Re: The end of the maintenance branch

Post by Ares »

Please be less hostile, all I have done is defend the engine and its creators. I have no influence over Spring and you are reacting very negatively against an alternative viewpoint which benefits everyone including BAR. If anything this validates the point I am making.

My technical discussion and hard evidence is being met with a a smokescreen of speculative posts about arbitality updating OpenGL and git. Focus is being diverted away from real discussion by a few power hungry individuals in an attempt to seize control of Spring Engine for personal gain.
User avatar
FLOZi
MC: Legacy & Spring 1944 Developer
Posts: 6240
Joined: 29 Apr 2005, 01:14

Re: The end of the maintenance branch

Post by FLOZi »

From what I can tell all the hostility / 'you are killing our project' comes from the previous decision to enforce spring minimum version on the main server. A decision that still baffles me seen as we moved to engine-agnostic hosting years ago.



No-one is taking away 104 Ares.You can keep playing BA with your 50 fps 10,000 units, forever. On your separate lobby server if you so wish.


As abma indicates due to the license there is no 'control' to be seized, only forks in the road.
Ares
Balanced Annihilation Developer
Posts: 555
Joined: 19 Mar 2011, 13:43

Re: The end of the maintenance branch

Post by Ares »

This is about the future of Spring please stop bringing up random unrelated topics and focus on technical discussion.

For example show me a picture of BAR on new openGL with 20k units and 55 fps, then I will take your side.
BaNa
Posts: 1562
Joined: 09 Sep 2007, 21:05

Re: The end of the maintenance branch

Post by BaNa »

I may be wrong in my understanding, but how does this affect BA at all? If you folks are still running 103, how will ending the maintenance branch of 104 be a problem at all? You can keep running 103 (or 104 for that matter) til kingdom come.
Ares
Balanced Annihilation Developer
Posts: 555
Joined: 19 Mar 2011, 13:43

Re: The end of the maintenance branch

Post by Ares »

BA wants to run on new engines and use the official host, however BA was banned from official host by the BAR devs. BAR don't even use the official host themselves and currently pay to keep www.balancedannihilation.com offline using BAR donations rather than return it to the BA community. This is done in an attempt to deny BAs existance at http://springfightclub.com/ to raise as much money as possible for Iceuicks and was even used to boost his SEO by redirecting BA's site to BAR.

New engines were made incompatible with BAs Mac users by Ivand so he could use new opengl calls to add a new widget which isn't even enabled in BAR.

BA always wanted to use new engines and cares about perfomance as demonstrated by my criticisim of getting 9 fps with 1 unit in BAR.
Last edited by Ares on 19 Jun 2020, 20:05, edited 3 times in total.
User avatar
Silentwings
Posts: 3720
Joined: 25 Oct 2008, 00:23

Re: The end of the maintenance branch

Post by Silentwings »

I also haven't got the faintest idea why "SpringFightClub BA" has anything to say/do/care about this. Seems a bit like the Amish turning up outside Airbus and demanding to stop production because aeroplanes can't fly, and met with "?????".
Ares
Balanced Annihilation Developer
Posts: 555
Joined: 19 Mar 2011, 13:43

Re: The end of the maintenance branch -- "BA" questions

Post by Ares »

For any future BA player stumbling across this thread in the future wondering why it doesn't make sense the original was split from here

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=41367

to manipulate the message and prevent players voices being heard.
abma
Spring Developer
Posts: 3798
Joined: 01 Jun 2009, 00:08

Re: The end of the maintenance branch

Post by abma »

abma wrote: 19 Jun 2020, 08:27 this is totally offtopic: if further comments about political stuff are made in this thread, i split/create a seperate thread for that.
you can't say that you haven't been warned...
Ares
Balanced Annihilation Developer
Posts: 555
Joined: 19 Mar 2011, 13:43

Re: The end of the maintenance branch -- "BA" questions

Post by Ares »

Cant have conversation when they wont allow the other side to be heard.

Apparently opposing views are forbidden and the whole discussion was just for show as the plan was to disregard community feedback regardless and let BAR continue with their hijacking of Total Annihilation:Spring's founding mod and engine so they can add lootboxes, donation buttons and lie that they invented Total Annihilation 2.
Last edited by Ares on 19 Jun 2020, 20:11, edited 2 times in total.
abma
Spring Developer
Posts: 3798
Joined: 01 Jun 2009, 00:08

Re: The end of the maintenance branch -- "BA" questions

Post by abma »

Ares wrote: 19 Jun 2020, 19:09 Cant have conversation when they wont allow the other side to be heard.

Apparently opposing views are forbidden and the whole discussion was just for show as the plan was to disregard community feedback regardless and let BAR continue with their hijacking of Total Annihilation:Spring's founding mod and engine so they can add lootboxes, donation buttons and lie that they invented Total Annihilation 2.
so, whats your suggestion, how to get rid of the maintenance branch and continue development with fancy new opengl features?
User avatar
FLOZi
MC: Legacy & Spring 1944 Developer
Posts: 6240
Joined: 29 Apr 2005, 01:14

Re: The end of the maintenance branch -- "BA" questions

Post by FLOZi »

TASprings founding mod was XTA, didn't realise BA was derived from it. :wink:

(It's not, it is of course derived from Absolute Annhilation by Caydr which in turn was based on UberHack mod by BraveSirRobin, i.e. UberHack plus hundreds of 3rd party units mostly used without consent or credit)
Ares
Balanced Annihilation Developer
Posts: 555
Joined: 19 Mar 2011, 13:43

Re: The end of the maintenance branch -- "BA" questions

Post by Ares »

so, whats your suggestion, how to get rid of the maintenance branch and continue development with fancy new opengl features?
Give engine access to Mando instead of Ivand, as previously stated.
abma
Spring Developer
Posts: 3798
Joined: 01 Jun 2009, 00:08

Re: The end of the maintenance branch -- "BA" questions

Post by abma »

Ares wrote: 19 Jun 2020, 22:09 Give engine access to Mando instead of Ivand, as previously stated.
AFAIK mando can't program at all: at least he didn't show other by creating pull requests or bug reports: why should we give him access?

also access is not needed to create pull requests... atm its even unclear if ivand will get write access to the git repo, for now pull requests which needs to be reviewed + accepted are the way to go.

thats my last warning: be more serious or you'll be banned too.
Ares
Balanced Annihilation Developer
Posts: 555
Joined: 19 Mar 2011, 13:43

Re: The end of the maintenance branch -- "BA" questions

Post by Ares »

I didn't know caring about the future of Spring is a bannable offense, but that would explain why you are still here.
abma
Spring Developer
Posts: 3798
Joined: 01 Jun 2009, 00:08

Re: The end of the maintenance branch -- "BA" questions

Post by abma »

if you care, don't demotivate the only people which do or did useful for spring: thats the result of your recent posts. i don't know why you are a fan of mando: he did nothing for spring. he crashed autohosts and personally attacked people: he was only destructive.
Ares
Balanced Annihilation Developer
Posts: 555
Joined: 19 Mar 2011, 13:43

Re: The end of the maintenance branch -- "BA" questions

Post by Ares »

Mando is the best programmer in all of Tokyo and he saved BA, he is a hero and he cares more about Spring than anyone
abma
Spring Developer
Posts: 3798
Joined: 01 Jun 2009, 00:08

Re: The end of the maintenance branch -- "BA" questions

Post by abma »

Ares wrote: 19 Jun 2020, 23:18 Mando is the best programmer in all of Tokyo and he saved BA, he is a hero and he cares more about Spring than anyone
he was incapable to be part of the spring community: so its maybe best if he continues to work alone which he already does on springfightclub as you say.
Post Reply

Return to “Balanced Annihilation”