Idea for next update

by lulz234561 on 04/27/2007 23:59, 93 messages, last message: 07/08/2007 04:06, 46885 views, last view: 05/05/2024 08:41

I thought it would be a good idea to add a new gametype, Instagib CTF. DM and CTF is always dominated by people who get machineguns alot, because think- 30 damage a hit and like 5 hits a second, thats 150 damage. A rifle is one hit kill WIHTOUT armor. With armor, its one or two hits, and it has a wait time of a second or two. You cant kill groups with a rifle unless they all have rifles, and machinegun can always kill anyone, no matter what they have. Its just too powerful.

So, the next update should balance the machinegun and add Instagib CTF, so cheap n00bs who cant kill without 150 damage a second actually get some skill.

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#74: Re: gameplay inhibited

by Khane on 06/27/2007 18:47, refers to #73

I disagree with this. If a game like this is loved by the designer, but never gets other players, where are we then? The designer is left with a game they enjoy, but nobody to play against! You may do it for yourself, but in the end, the players are the ones who decide if your project lives, or dies.

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#75: Re: gameplay inhibited

by tentus_ on 06/27/2007 18:54, refers to #74

I disagree. There will always be something for Aard to do in Cube, because there is joy in creation. Playing multiplayer is nice, but it is only a means of sharing the fun, it is not necessarily the fun in and of itself. I have found that making something is the greater joy in what I do (haven't you ever played with Legos? It's the same idea, just carried on to a higher level).

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#76: Re: gameplay inhibited

by Khane on 06/27/2007 18:59, refers to #75

Really now? While this might be true of other opensource projects, this is a game, and games are meant to be played. You're saying that if we cut out all the multiplayer options and the singleplayer options, the game would still be fun just because of editmode? I don't buy that. I play Sauer to compete and to test my skills against other players. The joy of creation is nice, but I don't feel it compares to the extreme intensity of 1v1 match.

The lego analogy doesn't really match up, because with legos you don't have a way to play with your creations after the fact except by posing them.

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#77: Re: gameplay inhibited

by tentus_ on 06/27/2007 23:40, refers to #76

The lego analogy is there *because* you can't do anything beyond creation- but the act is still fun. That's why the company has done so well for so long.

Games are meant to be played, yes, but I'd still mess with Sauer if there was just editmode. I hardly ever play online matches, because my internet computer is not my most powerful- I keep my good hardware off the cloud, and that is the hardware I use for most Cube stuff.

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#78: Re: gameplay inhibited

by Captain_Ahab on 06/28/2007 02:52, refers to #77

I think the lego analogy applies...my youngest daughter *loves* Sauerbraten because it IS the ultimate lego set. You play games...you play "with" toys. Sauerbraten is a "toy" which you use to build games.

I wish I could code well enough to do the mods I want, but I can't. Else I would do them and contribute for the greater good. I used to dabble with FORTH, but that's a long time ago..

So I'll just make blender models instead. Once I figure out a foolproof way to put them in game ( to my standard of quality ) and share to whoever can make use of them and that will be all I can do but I'm slow, lazy and busy.
I do have goals of my own for the kind of game I want. The RPG side of Sauer is the only way to go. As a result, I don't care about fps except to waste a bit of time now and again.

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#79: Re: gameplay inhibited

by Aardappel_ on 06/28/2007 05:18, refers to #73

what Gilt said.

Most any project I have started with one reason: to scratch an itch I have myself. Pardon the arrogance, but the vision the average "end-user" would have for this project is not as interesting as mine.

Really, the amount of possible gameplay suggestions out there is totally endless. I follow my own vision. I do consider each and every idea I hear on these forums, but frankly just from statistics they of course have a small chance of making it. Thinking that just because I don't implement/accept your gameplay ideas I must be close minded is, well, rather close minded.

I (we) have spent a LOT of effort in creating sauerbraten. People thinking that in addition to that, I should be the slave to feature requests of random users rather than follow my own vision boggles my mind.

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#80: my 2 cents

by Geartrooper on 06/28/2007 08:44

This has been covered over and over and over. There is no resolution to this conflict of ideas. Aard is making the stuff he dreams of and contributors like myself are feeling snubbed. Contrary to belief, content is not leverage. I still try to use it, but it isn't. Aard reads our ideas, yet on this side we get a bitter feeling like time wasted. I'm sure it isn't intentional. Bottom line is your ideas won't be used as you see them in Sauerbraten. There should be a warning label. Sauer is bitter! :P But this time this converation is being brought up by more of the heavy contributors. We cringe as half-assed games beat sauer in popularity. We know Sauer is better. But we are powerless to change it. I believe this is a departure of sorts. Sauer has grown into a sturdy tree and is popping out seeds like crazy. Best bet you've got is to keep a hand on a limb and a handful of seeds.

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#81: Re: my 2 cents

by Khane on 06/28/2007 21:16, refers to #80

This is pretty much precisely how I feel. It seems like this is "his" project, and not "our" project. I know that as a player, I contribute nothing to the development process, but also if players, like myself, BunK, Solea, Drakas, etc, didn't exist the game would be dead. But instead I feel...somewhat ignored, simply because I have philosophical differences with the "community leader". Very bitter indeed.

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#82: Re: my 2 cents

by sinsky on 06/28/2007 23:34, refers to #81

I liked what you said about how games differ from other software with players etc. (it was you right? sorry if I'm mistaking you for someone else) but Aard is not a community leader in player communities, he leads development. Maybe the fact that developers are different from players and fewer, more rare, precious, etc. creates bitterness but I got some very bad news - in conventional game communities this difference is a lot bigger and the number of disappointed people a lot larger. This isn't something Aard invented by himself to torture people, it's simply the way things are. Maybe communities with players with more experience and tech knowledge such as this will become more common in the future and players could freely enter development but right now I think we all agree this is not something you'd call normal. Maybe in a hundred years :) OK let's make it a thousand..

I've noticed in commercial games features are added when lots of people have similar requests. Here in the most wanted thread there's a similar rule. Pehaps if there was a way for people to request such things in a more ordered way there would be better balance. Of course I'm just pointing out obvious things and this post is getting long and boring..

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#83: Re: my 2 cents

by windows_sux|mac_sux|linux_sux|bsd_sux on 06/29/2007 01:32, refers to #82

Dell IdeaStorm-type voting site? :P

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#84: Enough, now calm down.

by Quin on 06/29/2007 03:42

Everyone who has replied here has managed to find the most negative view they could of my post and totally ignore the whole point I was trying to get across. I'm really disappointed to see some of you participating in this sort of way. One person who has replied to me, actually did read my post correctly, and they didn't even reply here.

I suggest some of you go back and read post #72 again. You'd understand then that I don't expect other people to go out there and work on anything they don't want to, I am the one who wanted to do it for the benefit of the community. With attitudes like these, I wonder why sometimes. At least I made no extremely personal, nor verbally offensive, attacks. I simply vented some things that has frustrated me with development around here.

To this end, it is in fact I who have been asked to do things that don't really interest me for Sauerbraten in an effort to contribute somehow, which I have done happily and to the best of my ability, not to mention other various parts of the community I have volunteered my time to over the past year because something in that area (usually lack of time from the original organizer) was lax. I'm not just a coder, I do many different things with the vast array of skills I have acquired doing things exactly like this.

So before people think I don't understand how things work, realise that I'm not some newbie that's just happened along around here, I'm a guy with heaps of respect for this project and it's developers, who came along to help and has received nothing but stonewalling unless the task needed to be done is something nobody else cares to do. I don't mind helping/organizing people, writing docs, etc. but I have many other useful skills too, which actually cover areas of my own personal interest.

Something that worries me is that if I maintain a separate mod that is addressing some of the requests of the community, that I may sap a considerable amount away from the Sauerbraten community, which is the exact opposite of my intentions behind being around here.

So please people, calm down. It's not for me to say what should and should be done in Sauerbraten development. I'm given the tools and source to modify it at will for free, and I have done so quite successfully. I just have this different view on life where I like to share what I have with everyone, which is probably why I do little feature requests in between my many passions. By all means, you are not forced to adopt it.

Thank you.

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#85: ..

by gaylord on 06/29/2007 11:38

thread closed

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#86: Re: my 2 cents

by sinsky on 06/29/2007 13:14, refers to #83

A voting site is a good idea. Votes could be manipulated so features that are going to be added anyway always get to the top. And players will actively vote and feel part of development. All problems solved :)

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#87: Re: my 2 cents

by Aardappel_ on 06/29/2007 17:46, refers to #81

I am really suprised you all manage to get "bitter" over this, it seems people have no sense of reality over what is involved in a project like this.

Let me turn the issue around, and ask: how would you prefer that sauerbraten would be run? Letting the community decide what gets implemented? Well lucky you, these kinds of projects already exists. Its the 1001 engine projects you can find on the net with no direction, and point using them, the most "successful" of which is crystal space. Go download that and see how it stacks up.

Without my vision which you are all so bitter about, there would be no sauerbraten, both in terms of its design and implementation work. It is mindboggling to me that you expect to come into the project, and think the direction you want to take the project in is more worthy than the person that made the project what it is today.

It is a community project. Does Aard have final say however? Damn right. He spent about 100x the effort on this project than you did. Think about the things you love about sauerbraten... most likely they will be there because I had a strong design/direction for them.

This is no different from any other large and succesful open source project.
Why don't you go email Linus a list of all the features you think would be a good idea for the next kernel. See how successful you are. Every good project has strong leadership with a strong design direction. Without it, you go nowhere.

Or closer to home, go tell the warsow people you want so and so engine/physics/gameplay changes. You get the picture.

Why are your ideas better than other people in the community? (we can't implement em all), why are you ideas better than those of the original creator? Why should other people spend time implementing your ideas for you?

In other open source projects, new features are sometimes born from the community, in the sense that they put in lots of effort to add to the codebase in a sensible way. But really, in sauerbraten ONLY 2 PROGRAMMERS besides myself have made significant contributions to the codebase (can you guess who they are?), and these are generally people I listen to if they want to change something. And no, making small changes to gameplay parameters to suit your own idea of what gameplay should be does not count as "contributing".

I see some of you feel they should get things in return from me for their community work. I am sorry if I ever gave that impression. You should only ever contribute to sauerbraten to the extend that it is fun to you. None of us are getting paid for this project, including myself. I am not implementing anything just because someone else tells me to, and neither should you.

Indeed, the fact that my work on sauerbraten is a hobby, not paid work, is crucial. Really, if you want me to work on your features that I don't want, why don't you pay me? Me and eihrul have set up a wonderful company just for this purpose. We'll add anything you want to sauer.

And look at the current feature set of sauer, it already contains endless features that are in there not because I thought they were going to be necessary, but because of strong community demand. Requested features DO end up in sauer, though maybe not as fast as you'd like, and they may not be YOUR features... if you think that sucks, you need a reality check.

Yes this topic has been debated over and over, not just on these forums but in other projects as well. I hate having to write long posts like this, but it seems there's always a new group of people that need to be educated that open source is not "everybody has equal voting rights" (you do not understand the "bazaar" idea if you think this), nor is it "contract programmers for free!".

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#88: Re: my 2 cents

by Grinch on 06/29/2007 19:14, refers to #87

Why aren't the tracker systems being used? It's the standard way for outside developers to submit bugs, feature requests and patches. It allows new comers (like myself) to see submission and review history. These support systems put in place by SourceForge help everybody, why doesn't Sauer use them?

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#89: Re: Grinch

by Morosoph on 06/29/2007 20:33, refers to #88

Answer: the main developer determines the development method.

There is a thread for bugs, and one called "Most Wanted Feature", so it's not as if there isn't a feedback mechanism.

If there's some issue that is important enough in its own right, you can always create a thread.

Of course, like most of the world, I have a special preference for my own ideas, but I do try to remember who is doing the coding. One day, maybe, I could do some myself. It might not be this project, and then I would probably only post the diff: the main developer would still not have to take my code!

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#90: Re: my 2 cents

by Aardappel_ on 06/29/2007 21:53, refers to #88

because... they are not convenient for the way we work? We prefer to cut down on overhead.

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#91: Sauerbraten is sick

by robam on 07/08/2007 03:04

I am quite new here (this is my first day of posting), and I'm only a 17-year-old with very little coding experience, so I'm sure my opinion holds very little weight. Also, I'm sure I won't get most of my facts straight.

But I have noticed something very disturbing about Sauerbraten.

Aardappel created Sauerbraten. It is his baby. But, I believe, it wasn't about the game. It was the engine: How can I make a game engine that allows map editing on the fly? He succeeded. He gave away his new engine for free, and even released the source code as a courtesy. But people started using his engine to play games.

Fine. Let them play. But they better not come to me for their silly FPS feature requests.

When feature requests started coming in, Aardappel dismissed them. This was his coding experiment. If something looked like a fun challenge to implement, then he would spend time on it.

They wanted something as mundane as 3d sound or gun models. All they cared about was gameplay or sophistication. They wanted silly online features. Aardappel had created Sauerbraten. He had spent countless hours swimming in a sea of code, an ocean that he had painstakingly wrought into being. They had no say in the matter.

Others implemented their features for them. They offered their contributions to Aardappel, but their code would have polluted his pure, intellectual experiment, his conglomeration of neat ideas.

Aardappel, you are a visionary. You have held onto your vision. Other people might have wanted something, but you believe they don't understand. You were the one with the original vision, and you believe that you are therefore the one with the relevant, correct vision. The others didn't possess your creativity or powers of reasoning.

Aardappel, you make mention of Linus Torvalds. You say that he does not pay attention to most feature requests. That is true. But Linus knows that the Linux kernel is no longer his pet project. He knows that it is used and enjoyed by other humans around the world. He welcomes the massive amounts of help offered to him by his community.

The Linux kernel is the jewel in open source's crown. It is presided over by a benevolent dictator, who realizes the impact his creation has on others.

Aardappel, you have created something very special and unique. Please do not hinder its evolution into something truly great.

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#92: Re: Sauerbraten is sick

by demosthenes on 07/08/2007 03:39, refers to #91

You don't understand the underlying principles behind Sauerbraten.

It is what it is, and it is what it is designed to be. You create something from scratch which is on par with Sauerbraten and then come back and tell Aard what he's doing is wrong.

Sorry. Probably the kindest reply you'll recieve, though.

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#93: Re: Sauerbraten is sick

by demosthenes on 07/08/2007 03:42, refers to #91

Sauerbraten is what it is, and it is what it was meant to be.

You create something that is on par with Sauerbraten and then come back and see about trying to tell Aard what he ought to do with his own engine.

Sauer isn't a modification of something else like Torvald's kernel was. It's original code, and Aard can do as he pleases with it. It's open source and well-commented, so you can take it and run with it at any point you like. But the design philosophy set out in the beginning by Aardappel is something he's going to continue to follow despite your complaints or essays.

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