This place is dying.

Post by **hurleybird** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 11:56 pm

Wow. I don't think the forums have ever been this dead.

I think that after the next release (assuming it ever comes out) we need to do something *very* different in order to grow (and more importantly, keep) a thriving community.

Personally, I would switch away from Phpbb as soon as possible. Phpbb is buggy and insecure as hell, and isn't really a very 'fun' forum software. Vbulletin is a million times better, is very secure, easy to customize to our own style, and if we split it a few ways the $160 dollar cost would be negligible (Dan 1, Dan 2, Jacks, Chuck, Mkruer, Klaus, and myself perhaps? Thats only $26 per person). Not to mention, a migration from PhpBB to vbulletin would be painless, and we wouldn't lose any of our previous forum content.

I also think that we need to focus more on general sci-fi and games discussion. Waiting for years between point relealeses is enough to turn even the most commited fans away (and it has). The community needs to be able to sustain itself even when nothing much is happening on the VS front.

As an open source project, we need to attract new talent in order to accomplish our goals. This means that we need a strong community. Community building should therefore be one of our major goals. What do you think?

plueschinger · Post by **plueschinger** » Sun Jun 11, 2006 12:39 am

Hello

In some parts I agree with you.
Vbulletin is much smarter and faster, I think,
With my modem I need ages to load here a side,
The other forum, where I'm member, uses Vbulletin (www.linuxforen.de),
and there I can load a side much faster.

At the moment I make a translation of the master_part_list.csv into german,
and it looks like I'm alone there in the translation part of the forum and that I have to translate it alone, the only exception is "Halleck".

Regards
Plueschinger

Spaceman Spiff · Post by **Spaceman Spiff** » Sun Jun 11, 2006 1:22 am

It's not just the software. Especiallly in the WCU section it's the lousy support.
I mean why should people stick to the board if they barely get any attention?

Post by **www2** » Sun Jun 11, 2006 1:46 am

i am also I agree...

a few idea's
1. a new version system e.g. z.y.x.w and z.y.x.w.v + buld ****

The z.x.y part this systeme is use for main Branches (trunk) and is only use for the main releas... this releas is only 1 or 2 times in a year...

The x part of the system is for the bugfix of the main releas and a couple extras stuf e.g. new ship, cargo, stations and older fun stuf... This releas is cheants 1 time in the month....

The w part of the releas system is for the securty bug that not in the x releas cane... this releas cane max 2 tims cheants in a week...
note: this is only use for the network part of the game...

The bulds is the unstabel version and the devs play gound and is not Recommended for the normal user...
The buld ar buld on a daly base as source code and windows binary and if can aldo x68, x86-64 and macos X binary...

2. A beter Organization
The titel say it...

3. A beter documentation of the source code

4. More user's on irc (#vegastrike) and a dev irc chanel (e.g. #vegastrike_dev)

Post by **klauss** » Sun Jun 11, 2006 2:27 am

I don't like vBulletin.
It doesn't work well almost nowhere I go.
Probably because I'm often behind firewalls. Even at home - I'm that paranoid.

PhpBB, on the other hand, has always behaved acceptably (when not impecable).

About support - for that, we need more active developers. We're all overwhelmed by RL at some point or another, and when not, the number of tasks and the enormity of the project always makes it too much for one or two guys. VS is barely doing alright, at the time, and has a lot more devs than WCU.

For WCU development to advance noticeably better, each section (AI-programming, physics programming, graphics programming, 3d-art, 2d-art, sound, music) have to have at least one guy (some could use more than that). Right now, it's not that - some sections have noone, which is really bad (I, for instance, know nothing about AI in the VS engine - I could whip up some AI implementations if I knew everything about how it's been organized in VS, even if I don't know that much about game AI - but without knowing both, game AI and VS AI, there's no hope in me trying to accomplish anything in that area).

So... recruit, people, and we might get better.

Post by **mkruer** » Sun Jun 11, 2006 3:42 am

Most of the issues related to phpBB have their genesis with SF, like NO E-mail support (until just recently) and slow MySQL response times, server space limitation preventing better gallery and wiki integration. Even if we went to vBulletin, it would not help with the majority of things that are â€œwrongâ€

Post by **hurleybird** » Sun Jun 11, 2006 8:22 am

klauss wrote:I don't like vBulletin.
It doesn't work well almost nowhere I go.
Probably because I'm often behind firewalls. Even at home - I'm that paranoid.

Vb doesen't work well when your behind a proxy, although the new 3.6.0 version coming out is supposed to fix that.

Post by **hurleybird** » Sun Jun 11, 2006 8:31 am

[quote="mkruer"]Most of the issues related to phpBB have their genesis with SF, like NO E-mail support (until just recently) and slow MySQL response times, server space limitation preventing better gallery and wiki integration. Even if we went to vBulletin, it would not help with the majority of things that are â€œwrongâ€

Halleck · Post by **Halleck** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 3:51 am

The only issue I have with phpbb (and this is a major one) is that the version we have doesn't save your unread posts outside of the session. So basically, you have to read all new posts in one sitting or else you lose the info on what posts are unread.

I hear this is corrected in the more recent verisons of phpbb. This is a problem since I wind up not checking the forums for weeks or even months at a time since I don't have the time to read everything. It would be cool if it functioned like Simple Machines Forum, where you can log in, read a few posts, come back later in a different session, and still see unread posts.

As to the development... I think it's unfortunate that a lot of the work being done doesn't really show until it's 100% complete. The development community and the public "fan" community don't overlap as much as they should.

But, there's only so much that can be done. Development ebbs and flows, that's normal for a volunteer project. I think the only thing we could do to improve things is have more of the backend development stuff be more visible and better organized. We shouldn't be losing contributions or having models sitting around waiting to be put in-game where nobody knows about them.

Post by **mkruer** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 4:15 am

All of what you have asked for is supported in phpBB3. However as a stop gap e-mails do work so you should be able to get e-mail alerts when new message have been posted.

Is response to the development, I think that some of the reasons why we do not post here all the time is because first we want to make it a surprise when it comes out, and also the devâ€™s donâ€™t want the flack from CIC members saying â€œit sucksâ€

Post by **hurleybird** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 5:35 am

I don't think anyone here has been 'whining' that development is taking a long time (well, not in this thread at least). What I'm saying is that we need to make some effort into building (and keeping!) a strong community, or else we won't be able to replace the team members that we lose over time (and in fact, due to the growing complexity of the program, we should be looking to *gain* more developers over time). Changing to a forum software that doesn't suck, and focusing on more topics that are not VS related (like games, sci fi, linux) would help us to keep an active community. Heck, we could even start a VS clan, or a VS folding team. *Anything* to help build (or re-build) this community.

Halleck · Post by **Halleck** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 5:56 am

Upgrading to phpbb3 sounds like a reasonable compromise. Plus, we'll get to keep all our old posts which is really important. Lots of valuable information and content there.

Also, I think most bb software will be less than optimal on SF.net's webservers. They aren't really that well equipped to handle huge, dynamic, database-driven sites.

As for the community stuff... I think the focus of the community should be on discussing and building vegastrike. Offtopic discussion is fine, but I think it would be inappropriate if the VS forums became an all-purpose discussion board. I think the focus should be Vega Strike and it's mods, like it is now.

I think people would be more interested if the progress that was being made on the game was more visible, and trackable.

Post by **mkruer** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 6:08 am

hurleybird wrote:I don't think anyone here has been 'whining' that development is taking a long time (well, not in this thread at least). What I'm saying is that we need to make some effort into building (and keeping!) a strong community, or else we won't be able to replace the team members that we lose over time (and in fact, due to the growing complexity of the program, we should be looking to *gain* more developers over time). Changing to a forum software that doesn't suck, and focusing on more topics that are not VS related (like games, sci fi, linux) would help us to keep an active community. Heck, we could even start a VS clan, or a VS folding team. *Anything* to help build (or re-build) this community.

The site is Hellcats call. I will help in any regards to moving and/or supporting a new site, but frankly itâ€™s not my call. In fact I have brought up moving the entire site numerous times to now avail. Here, even did the research for you. http://www.siteground.com/

As for your reasons, they all seem to revolve around upgrading the forums, but the forums are not the problem. If I had to take a poll I would guess that the majority of people here donâ€™t care either way.

If you would like to try any of your idea go ahead and do it. Everyone will support you to their own abilities.

Post by **mkruer** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 6:14 am

Halleck wrote:Upgrading to phpbb3 sounds like a reasonable compromise. Plus, we'll get to keep all our old posts which is really important. Lots of valuable information and content there.

Also, I think most bb software will be less than optimal on SF.net's webservers. They aren't really that well equipped to handle huge, dynamic, database-driven sites.

Changing over the forums software would/should not affect the content, so it a null issues either way. You are also correct to assume that the SF web servers are weak, but hey it works and its free.

Halleck wrote:As for the community stuff... I think the focus of the community should be on discussing and building vegastrike. Offtopic discussion is fine, but I think it would be inappropriate if the VS forums became an all-purpose discussion board. I think the focus should be Vega Strike and it's mods, like it is now.

I think people would be more interested if the progress that was being made on the game was more visible, and trackable.

I agree with this 100% and as a matter of fact I am still considering a site split. So all WC goes to the wcuniverse site. It would no longer be VS:WC but just WCU regardless of the engine being used. Donâ€™t get me wrong the linage will still be there, but by making it not just VS will make the biggest improvement to the community as a whole.

Aalst there is one issuesâ€¦ I donâ€™t want to migrate until phpBB3 arrives hopefully sometime this year.

Kangaroo · Post by **Kangaroo** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 7:06 am

hurleybird wrote:Vb doesen't work well when your behind a proxy, although the new 3.6.0 version coming out is supposed to fix that.

Damn.

Oblivion · Post by **Oblivion** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 10:50 am

Well, i hope not.

VS has a lot of issues, but it still seems to be the best open-source space-shooter out here today.

charlieg · Post by **charlieg** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 3:48 pm

When was the last release of VS? 'Nuff said.

Development is not yielding results in a way that attracts new blood. Release early, release often.

VS releases late and infrequently, last release was nearly 18 months ago (Feb 2005) and that was a minor point release (0.4.3) with the last major point release (0.4.0) nearly 3 years ago (Sept 2003)!

Post by **klauss** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 5:23 pm

Charlie... I just picked up 0.5.0 development again. It was frozen for a while. Hopefully, that's good news

It's a shame, though, that things advance so slowly, and when one of us gets buried by RL issues, there's noone available to take over. That's the problem with small OS teams - which is the case of VS: we're few coders, we're OS, hence the problems. If we were many, chances are that one gets buried, the other one can pick up and "save appearances".

With some luck, I'll be able to post some updates on the Ogre front

Post by **hurleybird** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 2:40 am

klauss wrote:Charlie... I just picked up 0.5.0 development again. It was frozen for a while. Hopefully, that's good news

It's a shame, though, that things advance so slowly, and when one of us gets buried by RL issues, there's noone available to take over. That's the problem with small OS teams - which is the case of VS: we're few coders, we're OS, hence the problems. If we were many, chances are that one gets buried, the other one can pick up and "save appearances".

Ironic, as the best way to recruit more coders is to releasen new versions!

Post by **mkruer** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 2:51 am

I discussed with HellcatV a while back (almost 2 yrs ago now) about breaking VegaStrike into two different projects.

One was what the VegaStrike game itself now would be considered a â€œmodâ€

Post by **hurleybird** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 3:43 am

IIRC thats what Chuck has been suggesting for awhile.

Post by **mkruer** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 3:58 am

Well then... letâ€™s do it.

The question is when?

Personally I would like to hold off until phpbb3 is release. It will make things much more flexible.

One of the things that is defiantly going to happen is WCU is finally going to migrate to the WCU Site.

Main reason why I am holding off is because I want a separate forum dedicated to WCU but at the same time keep the user database with direct link back to VegaStrike.

Or something like that