by phoenix » Tue Jul 19, 2011 10:26 am
If you look at what we inherited anyone wanting to jump into age writing is swamped with navigating a variety of versions that can make a persons head spin right off its shoulders. And each version has its major issues.
We have:
1) Ages Beyond Myst which can be extended to "The Path of the Shell" (The equivalent of Complete Chronicles) but limited to single player unless updated with a patch (eg: deep island - one of many).
2) Until Uru (correct me if I am wrong, but the online update of ABM-TPOTS)
3) MOULa the first release of the mmorpg engine from Cyan (corrections welcome)
and
4) The current version of MOUL with Cyans server running through Amazon (loads of lag, broken sound, screen freeze, inefficent server usage with up to 6 connections on two or three different servers from launch to play)
Even with the avatar emote, we can spend hours animating new movements but cant test it, because it only runs in MOUL, and we dont have an offline MOUL sandbox yet.
The dev cycle of this has already proven to be quite expensive for us, because when we could be sharpening one flavour, our tools are constantly in migration. Take the latest version of Blender. As great and functional as it is, I gotto now learn a whole new interface from scratch, pushing my dev cycle back even more months. I cant rotate the scene the way I used, have to remember a whole new set of layouts, and on top of that switch between versions of Blender to get things done. (I am not joking when I say I have 4 versions of blender installed, and 2 versions of Uru split into 4 or 5 modifications) For me that is madness. Open Source is great, but unless we have a stable dev cycle, we end up pushing people away rather than attracting them. The tools have to migrate a little slower to allow people to firstly adapt, and secondly to be creative. No creativity = no content. Its a left brain versus right brain thing. The one you feed is the one that grows.
I love Open Source and the proof is in my software collection. I reckon 90% of my software is open source, because it gives me the kind of freedom I want, and I dont lack anything that may be on the market these days. But when versions are released for the sake of coding rather than stable usage, we end up with new gui layouts like the latest version of MS Office. It does exactly what the old one did, just they wanted to brand it as NEW! so they jumbled up everything and confused the hell out of our mothers and fathers who are getting old and set in their ways. BTW, I been using Open Office 3.1 for years now. I know it, it is powerful and can do whatever I need it to do. The buttons stay the same, and its stable.
This brings me back to the question about a roadmap. Since the hard core fans like yourselves are committing to a GoW CWE version, it would be great to see what you guys are really thinking, as in a summary page for the engine, tools and content. Reading through threads on the forum with conflicting viewpoints and heated arguments over features is all great but it would help if we had a concise summary of what you guys are planning. Then it makes it worth it.
It would be so useful to have a central GoW repository, where you can download tuts, tools, engine, code, content... whatever. And with the forum in another link on the site.
From what I can glean so far GoW is dropping ABM TPOTS development in favour of CWE with Dirtsand and Blender 2.57 as the level editor. But you can imagine how confusing it is for a newbie to wade through which thread is for what version. They end up trying stuff that wont work with the setup they have. They spend all that time trying it out, writing on forums, just to have someone tell them a few days later, "Oh sorry, that wont work for that version!"
I can fully understand that various versions can be aimed at certain levels of age enthusiast, like...
1) Newbie: ABM-TPOTS with Blender 2.49b and alcscript in single player mode (helps em get the feel of the age building)
2) Semi-Intermediate: extending ABM-TPOTS with SDL and Python
3) Intermediate: Patching and connecting to 3rd party shards, Setting up your first shard
4) Advanced: Running your own CWE client and dirtsand server
Sure, it would work but it makes re-learning tedious because the rules change. What you learn in ABM-TPOTS you cant apply in MOULa. Top that off with a new interface everytime blender upgrades, you spend half your life learning new interfaces instead of using really stable tools that are designed to get you building!
That is why a roadmap is so important. It makes that dev cycle efficient!
My vision for the engine is to run my own server with completely original content that ties into the Cyan content. When a player reaches a certain book in the Cyan version, they would link to my shard to experience a different aspect of the same story. They would be able to link back from a book on my shard to relto on the Cyan server, or to another shard. But as for my shard, it would be 100% original content. No Relto, Bevin, Aegera, etc.
Now extend that to other shard servers. With each running their own content, linking into Cyans story, we get a truly huge game play experience.
GoW has truly surpassed any other community age development I know of. You guys have re-coded the engine to use the more recent directx sdk of 2010, your pyprp is constantly evolving (now at version 2), blender has been wrapped for URU (so to speak) at version 2.57 and you have a killer forum that covers every subject under the uru sun.
I look forward to the day when we can download an GoW-CWE-Dev-Pack, ready to install with all the essential goodies in their rightful place.
GoW-CWE-Dev-Pack
1) CWE engine with shard jumping ability
2) Dirtsand in executable form, on dhcp or fixed ip, "with sandbox mode"
3) Blender - whatever version that keeps us creatin' and not configurin'
4) All the tools and utilities in a standard heirachy relative to what they do
5) GoW tutorials from building you own "relto" (ie: your own "landing age" or "home page", and not Cyans one) to running your own shard in a structured and concise format.
Please guys, can we have a roadmap. I got ages to write, but spend more time learning new tools because the tools they keep a-changin'!
Phoenix