Sauerbraten is sick

by robam on 07/08/2007 03:28, 24 messages, last message: 07/10/2007 01:58, 12338 views, last view: 05/04/2024 11:40, closed on 07/10/2007 02:49

I originally posted this in an out-of-way thread, but I thought it might need more light. Perhaps I have gone too far to make a whole thread about this idea. I don't know. But I feel it is very important if Sauerbraten is to survive. After seeing developer after developer complain about being "snubbed" by Aardappel, I thought the underlying problem should be addressed.

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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#5: Re: ..

by robam on 07/08/2007 04:53, refers to #4

Thank you again, demosthenes.

I realize that Sauerbraten was just a side project of his. But it has become much more than that. It is now one of the most popular open source games out there. I believe that Aard isn't acting accordingly.

(Ooh...easy math. 1 * 1 = ?)

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#6: Re: ..

by Gilt on 07/08/2007 06:09, refers to #2

"open source. Sometimes I wish he hadn't"

haha, yeah...

Anyway, this is just another one of the issues with such idealistic notions of 'sharing'. Realistically, you may wish to 'give', only to meet what others actually wish to 'take'.

I also like how you imply that mods are 'horrific' :) I can't really agree; I've enjoyed playing mods like CPMA, which featured subtle tweaks to Q3's mechanics, and also mods that feature more drastic changes. I believe them to be complementary to a game, and a sign of a healthy community.

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#7: Re: ..

by robam on 07/08/2007 10:19, refers to #6

Hey, Gilt. Just a comment on mods: I think mods are great too. I played Action Cube for a bit, and I didn't feel guilty about not playing vanilla Cube, and many mods of other games. They certainly are signs of a healthy community.

The "horrific" event I described hasn't happened yet, and hopefully never will. This would involve a true fork in the development, possibly with most of the developmental resources going into a more receptive, Aardappel-less version of Sauerbraten. I hate to think of this happening, as I greatly respect Aardappel for his enormous contribution, and I believe that original creators deserve a great deal of respect. Aardappel in particular deserves an enormous amount of respect, because he single-handedly took Sauer so far (and is still, of course, working hard).

I know it would be (and, to some extent, is) extremely hard for him to see his hard work in the hands of others that don't necessarily share his vision. But I feel that, with only a small amount of compromise on Aardappel's part, Sauerbraten can easily grow into one of the most popular, most celebrated, and most ingenious pieces of open source software there is. The alternative, as I see it, is for Sauer to crawl along at Aardappel's pace, or for Aardappel to be forced out of the picture altogether.

Also, I haven't explicitly said this before, but I sincerely hope I'm wrong about Sauer's directorial issues. I would give a lot to hear Aardappel say "You're wrong, Rob, I understand the community that has developed around my creation, and my vision has [or, even, will be] changed as required to reflect its popularity and prominence." Sadly, his posts seem to always carry a defensive theme, reasserting his right to make the decisions and repeatedly referencing the hard work he has put into Sauerbraten, giving me the feeling that it has left him embittered and suspicious of others who would care to contribute.

Aardappel, I will be the first to say that Sauerbraten is yours, and it is your choice what to do with it. I just want you to know that I would hate for its potential to not be realized. It is because I love Sauerbraten and because of my respect for you that I urge you to guide us respectfully in making it better, before it dies or runs away from you.

4 + 5 = 9!

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#8: Re: ..

by eihrul on 07/08/2007 11:03, refers to #7

Depends on what you mean "fork in development".

The current people programming on Sauerbraten are mainly (no offense to other smaller contributors, I'm just listing main ones atm):
me
Aardappel
Gilt
baby rabbit

Aardappel is mostly focusing on the RPG game atm, Gilt is mostly working on the editor, and baby rabbit on the GUI/particles.

Most of the general engine maintenance and new features is pretty much done by me these days.

Now, let's imagine a catastrophic scenario, where all programmers but me and Aardappel go away. That leaves, well, me and Aardappel, who are basically responsible for 95% of the engine code and continue to be.

So, really, programmers are not an issue.

Now, many of our content creators have gone off to work on their own projects, but we still have enough contributors to keep limping along: Kurt, Geartrooper, Fanatic, Kaiser (many good contributed maps lately on his part), etc.

So, will Sauer really ever suffer a catastrophic fall? No, at worst, it might just fade away as people become bored with it. Even now, it has pretty much saturated its target player base and has seen better days in terms of number of players. But still, it's not exactly crashing and burning either.

What's the way out of that? People need to take matters into their own hands and start actually making good on all their promises to make mods - which usually turn out to be vapor. You want features? YOU take charge. Don't wait for us to do it.

See, I would really like to see GOOD quality differentiated mods for Sauer pop up, because the reality is no one type of gameplay will satisfy everyone. But no one is really stepping up to the plate there yet.

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#9: Re: ..

by robam on 07/08/2007 11:37, refers to #8

Eihrul, for the 4th time in one day you have made me very happy. I am so glad I am so wrong about that catastrophic failure scenario. But still--why only two active programmers? That seems a tad slim. And you're not planning on leaving, are you?

But I'm still worried about the popularity fading away. Sauerbraten could easily be the next big thing. It's a totally original engine with some great content. Mods are cool, but I would personally love to see the 164Mb Sauerbraten package be all the rave.

I based my opinions of Aardappel from what other people have been saying to or about him, and by what he says himself. I would like to know, from your knowledgeable self, how far off the mark I am. I'm also interested in your personality: how much like my characterization of Aardappel are you?

I realize now that I was being a little crazy when I started this thread. Talking to people online about Aard scared me (I heard "it's all about the players" every two seconds, although I only believe that one-third of the way). But I became really frightened when I read the General thread, and saw Aardappel practical insult people for their feature requests, even for totally obvious things like colored lights. The fact that he at one point refused them because he felt mapmakers would abuse them disturbed me. I guess things weren't as bad as I thought.

The point I'm trying to make is that Sauerbraten deserves to be big, and it just isn't quite there. If mods are the answer, so be it, but I don't really agree with that. The Sauerbraten engine has been confused with the default content for good reason--together they make the popular playable game.

I'd love to help out. I can't really pinpoint one thing that I'd like to do--I'm capable of making maps or models or composing music, I'm not really a programmer (although I am capable of writing code), but my greatest interest is in the engine itself. I'm particularly interested in computer-human interaction, and I think I would most enjoy helping out with the editor. Remember, though, that I'm not a seasoned pro like I suspect the rest of the team is. I'm just a stupid junior in high school (actually, extremely smart) who still has acne (don't worry--it's very minor) looking for a summer project. I guess that's my resume. Take it or leave it.

I do not want to see Sauerbraten fade away, like you so ominously hypothesized. It's far too good for that.

See how smart I am? I know that 3 * 8 = 24 (no calculator)!

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#10: ..

by Passa on 07/08/2007 14:27

Look.. Sauerbraten is not the same as other projects. You can't compare it in the same light. For one, development on its engine is now beneficial monetarily to both eihrul and Aardappel. You seem pretty well read up on the stuff going on around here so I'm sure you've heard of dot3 labs? Therefore the chances of Aardappel and eihrul deciding to jump ship is unlikely, more likely is a change to a closed source model.

The Sauerbraten project has no 'team' other than the core coders. Sauerbraten is instead formed by a collection of the communities work. Maps from Quadropolis are generally seen as fair game, and all the good ones are normally thrown in with Sauerbraten. The textures are generally just Creative Commons or similarly licensed packs whose authors most likely don't even know their stuff is included with Sauerbraten. The development focus is always generally the engine, whereas other 'projects' you might want to compare Sauerbraten to instead focus on content, as they most likely work with a pre-made engine.


"General thread, and saw Aardappel practical insult people for their feature requests, even for totally obvious things like colored lights. The fact that he at one point refused them because he felt mapmakers would abuse them disturbed me."

The volume of people coming in each day asking for 'VEHCLES N SHIT' is also disturbing, and bound to eventually annoy the hell out of Aardappel. If you go further back, to the early days of Cube and this forum, you'll see all of his posts were actually very patient, he answered virtually everything, no matter how blatantly obvious it was. But as time has gone on, I'm sure his patience has waned.


Anyway, I've pretty much danced around in circles here, but hopefully you'll get my point :) and thanks for the good attitude to all the responses you have garnered robam :)

PS. Sauerbraten is not dead imo ;)

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#11: ..

by Quin on 07/08/2007 15:21

All points I attempted to make, and everyone took the most negative stance they could toward it.

I have no problem having to work on my own mod to see the features and gameplay I want.

What's bothered me is that when I asked to contribute to my own area of interest (code/gameplay), I was asked to do these other things nobody else wanted to do (docs, wiki, etc), with the intention of letting me contribute code after time had passed (which almost happened, but vapourised at the last moment).

The biggest argument I see toward suggestions/contributions is "Why should I do something that doesn't interest me for someone else?". This stance is a tad bit hypocritical if you ask me.

You may eventually see the finished version of my bots from SauerMod in Sauerbraten. Not because I have the same desire to contribute to the engine I once did (my focus now is the community), but because of the massive amounts of respect I have for eihrul and the kindness he has shown me by helping with my own development answering questions, explaining things, and taking bug reports.

This could be argued until everyone passes out from exhaustion, and I'll surely be reamed for expressing my own jaded point of view, but hey.. nobody else's opinion matters, remember?

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#12: ..

by djGentoo on 07/08/2007 18:21

The Linux kernel doesn't have forks. Sauer does. Problem solved! If you want new features, then code them.
Don't call me a n00b; I know 6+9=15. So THERE! :P

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#13: sigh

by Aardappel_ on 07/08/2007 22:42

your analysis of the situation is completely off. Do I have to repeat myself again? I guess writing a wiki page about this topic someday would be worthwhile.

The fallacy that this project is about an engine and not a game keeps coming back. See it as you will. Just because you would like to see more "complex" gameplay (whatever that would be) doesn't mean that the current gameplay wasn't intended as such. The reason I don't implement vehicles, crouching, and whatever else gets asked for repeatedly is not because I don't care about gameplay or the community, but because they don't fit with sauers gameplay. Someone's gotta have the last say in design, and it happens to be me. Deal with it.

As eihrul said, there is no developer crisis. The people that complain the most are the ones that contribute the least, and vice versa. You personally are trying to stir things up that aren't there, and as you said, you haven't done anything yet. You come in here with high and mighty ideas on how open source should work, and think you know better than us.

Sauer has received a constant stream of great features since inception, even in gameplay. Why don't you enjoy those as they come rather than trying to command us from the sidelines.

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#14: Re: ..

by ATIRULE on 07/09/2007 00:02, refers to #2

agreed
I believe that many of sauer's players are loseing some respect for

Aardapple because he keep Shoting Feq Requests. Down but still sauer is
Aardapple's baby he may rise his baby

and way he see's fit but if that child

is to grow and compete in the world

of open src game dev
that it MUST grow to suppass its parents original expations and evolve into something more that its creator
invisioned and into a Turely great Game

"A good softwhere dev make softwhere he likes A Great one make soft where the people Want"

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#15: Re: ..

by demosthenes on 07/09/2007 01:07, refers to #14

I am fairly certain by what you said and how you said it in that post that you didn't understand either the previous post or the fact that features don't take just ten lines of code; that in fact, you understand neither.

Sauer belongs to Aard; he makes design decisions. If he doesn't implement your favoritest feature evar that you stole from another game, tough!

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#16: ..

by Captain_Ahab on 07/09/2007 01:15

I think a big fear is that if a great mod is built, and people build a map using it, that it might not be compatible with the original anymore.

as for me, I will use the most recent public release. I will make sugeestions for what I'd like to see in it for how I play with sauerbraten. I will be happy for what comes out of it. If I ever get time to learn c++ and do something useful, I'll give back. What else can any member of the community do?

< go RPG, go! >

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#17: ..

by a baby rabbit on 07/09/2007 10:01

If an idea or contribution seems unappreciated then refine and polish it so as to impress (or maybe dig through Aards posts and web pages to see what his ideas are and how your stuff might fit it), but please don't cry... Sorry, but this whining and shit stirring about forks/revolts is getting really tedious.

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#18: Some points to consider...

by Eternl Knight on 07/09/2007 11:25

{Sauer isn't a modification of something else like Torvald's kernel was}

I call "bullshit" on this one. First of all, Torvalds Kernel (otherwise know as Linux) was written from scratch using concepts learnt (not "copied") from Minix. His kernel wasn't a modification so much as a new implementation based on fundamental concepts central to operating system design. A simple example of this, Minix is micro-kernel based whereas Linux is monolithic.

If one is to put Linux into the category of "software modification", then Sauer squarely falls into this category as well.

Secondly, I have been reading the forums every couple of days (it isn't THAT busy after all) for a while now and, honestly, I have yet to see Aardappel make a nice (i.e. non-aggressive or non-snippy) reply. I might have missed one, but on the whole I think even that proves my point. Judging solely from Aardappel's comments on the forum (my sole source of non-hearsay evidence on the guy), I would have to say that were I trying to "help out" - I would be put off VERY quickly. I am personally interested in the code for extending into shared online worlds (no, not another MMORPG *grin*).

IF Aardappel wanted to make this a "community project", yes he would need to be a little more polite to the people asking things on the forums (or at least less snippy/aggressive). However, as I see it - he is NOT interested in making this a community project. He is simply interested in making available his own PERSONAL project for other people to use/abuse as they see fit (so long as the license is respected of course).

As such, I can understand his frustration at some of the posts I see him replying to. The "readme" for the code states:
"Sauerbraten is not a commercial product, it is merely the author's idea of a fun little programming project". Keeping this in mind, perhaps some people need to remember that Sauer is Aardappel's "fun little programming project", not the "community-developed octree gaming engine". This may or may not ring true for everyone (even Aardappel himself), but it does seem to fit the facts as I can see them.

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#19: ..

by Acord on 07/09/2007 15:15

I'm not sure I understand what people are so pissed about. Sauer comes out with regular updates and totes cool new features each time. The core game is about as complex as Quake 3 Arena, sans a few unimportant and useless things like ducking, and it runs good on just about everything, except for things with built in graphics cards, which are just plain old junkware anyways.

I'd say the only complaint I've ever had about this engine is that the documentation is spread out over the forums, the wiki, and the docs, as well as some old stuff on Quadropolis.

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#20: Re: docs everywhere

by MeatROme on 07/09/2007 15:24, refers to #19

Well, we're trying to consolidate documentation in the wiki ... like old stuff from quadropolis and even the odd useful post in this forum ... but seeing as no-one actually reads any of the docs before posting here the efforts have somewhat tapered out recently.

The core documentation inside the docs subfolder of your installation /does/ sport some background information and hints on how to go about stuff (like editing) - but it's never been meant to be more than a terse reference ... for quickly looking up some seldom used command. A lot of extra special cases being dealt with in there would defeat that purpose ... stuff like that should go in the wiki.

If you haven't got the necessary rights to modify the wiki you can apply for them (if you're a "known entity" in the community) ... making a post on this forum ready for cut-n-paste to the wiki can definitely help in making you a known and trusted entity of this community, which will help your application be accepted ;)

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#21: ..

by Quin on 07/09/2007 16:32

Quite right indeed. It doesn't matter if my "useless feature X" is worthy of Sauerbraten. I get far more pleasure developing than I do playing the game.

It was to this end that I had hoped my efforts would benefit the engine I like so much, and I felt hurt that I had been mislead. Now I can see I have just become very cynical as a result of other people's attitudes.

I won't apologise for speaking the truth, but I will stop this destructive attitude and instead do something constructive to rectify the situation, even if that means doing it alone.

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#22: Re: Some points to consider...

by Aardappel_ on 07/09/2007 23:19, refers to #18

Sauerbraten is what it is, it already IS a community project, if you look at how many people have contributed something. It just isn't a democracy.

If you feel my posts are agressive, well, that may be due to the fact that the only times I need to jump in is when people are getting severely confused about the direction of the project, such as in this thread. I don't have the time to personally help every new community member, so there's not a lot of me being helpful on these forums in that sense :)

I am not too worried about scaring people off, as the biggest complainers are not the ones that intend to do anything anyway.

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#23: Re: ..

by Aardappel_ on 07/09/2007 23:21, refers to #21

Quin, I have seen you mention things along the line of "being misled" before, and I honestly have no idea what exactly you are talking about. If it is related to me, why don't you explain me, either here or on irc.

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#24: Aggressive Posts & Definition of "Community Project"

by Eternl Knight on 07/10/2007 01:58

Hi Aardappel,

Just some addenda to my post (in response to yours).

Firstly, I can understand you reasoning behind the posts I find aggressive. However, that doesn't change the fact that I (and others) find them so and that I cannot really find recent examples of non-aggressive posts. This creates a form of "negative feedback" to any-one that wants to contribute because they don't see any rewarding "Hey that's a great idea" posts only the responses you give when you disagree (vehemently or not) with the poster. As such, the dictator comes across as not so "benevolent" (and more like a tyrant). I am not saying that this is how you really are (as I personally recognize the fact that you cannot judge people by the rare forum post), but this is the only image we tend to get of you.

Secondly, I think we have different definitions of "community project". A community project (in my mind) is where the community has some say in the direction of said project. This may not necessarily be a "democracy" but there is some method through which the community can move the project in a direction in which they desire.

Sauer does not fit this description (at least from my perspective). Instead it adopts "community generated content" if/when it fits the direction that the _developers_ desire the project to go. this is not necessarily a bad thing, but it differs significantly from what I consider a "community project".

the best comparison/analogy I can make is that of a "community newsletter" where people from the local township can publish articles compared to the community newspaper where the editor decides which of the letters he/she receives can go in the editorial, but the paper's overall tone is set by their personal bias/judgments.

--EK

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