[PROPOSAL] Preliminary release (0.1) ?

thehawk · Post by **thehawk** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 3:45 am

*chuckles* I figure if these guys did it..

http://www.agdinteractive.com/KQ1.php

*grins*

-thehawk

spiritplumber · Post by **spiritplumber** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 3:53 am

Hey, Origin sold speech packs, in the pre-cdrom era.

Sound wise: I admit total ignorance.

Installer wise: I'm all for having a "pretty" installer like in the olden days, just right now it's premature to worry about it...

Update wise: Sometime late tonight/early tomorrow probably. I "outsourced" a couple ships and am basically waiting for the units.csv entries. (so far I did all the extra ships by myself O_O; )

crouton · Post by **crouton** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 7:45 pm

I'm curious when 'enough is enough', so to speak. Does anyone have an idea (even if it's personally held) when anything will be finished, and why you think as such? And please don't point me to the 'TODO file thingum'.

Perhaps I'm being blunt, but what I see are developers doing whatever they feel like whenever they feel like it. This isn't a commercial project, yes, but surely there is some expectation of releasing the fruit of your labors. Is this merely a project for the sake of dabbling with Wing Commander properties?

Post by **chuck_starchaser** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 9:00 pm

This is why you can't be, and will never be, project leader, crouton.
You say you don't want to be "blunt", but you are very blunt.
And when people like spiritplumber, klauss and myself have been losing sleep in the rush to finish things, when there's really no deadline except the artificial one you created, and instead of appreciation one gets impatience from you, the best thing I can think of saying is GO STUFF YOURSELF.
BYE BYE. GET LOST!

Post by **mkruer** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 10:37 pm

How about this. the first Alpha (0.1.0) release will be when the Priv branch is merged back into the WCU branch, sense a lot of the changes that were made to the Priv Brach were not included in the original WCU. This would have to be the first thing done. The second step would be to add support for all systems in the WCU (jump points and what not) Also if you have not noticed, we are trying to drop most if not all XML from the initial WCU release.

So simple steps before the first release.

0.1.x Release
1. Priv => WCU
2. Add all system links and verify that they work
3. Include all available AND working ships that are currently in WCU to the initial release regardless of era.
4. Most XML replaced

0.2.x
1. Support for WCUDB
2. WCUDB modification on WCU website. (This will be used to standardize the data)
3. More Ships added
4. All XML replaced

Anything stated above is guarantied to be inaccurate.

What I am working on is the WCUDB, which will be my top Priority.
Once the WCDB is done, I am going to work on WCWI (Which I NEED help on but apparently no one has the time or is interested in because it is not Privateer)

crouton · Post by **crouton** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 10:48 pm

Thank you for your vote of confidence, chuck. And another thank you for actually answering my question. If you'll scroll up just a bit, you'll see on July 5th that I backed off any 'deadlines'. You guys wanted time to put content in, I honored that. Any lost sleep was your own choice. Perhaps I was too blunt, but sometimes cold water in the face is a good thing.

A call for a manager was put out long ago, and we all know what happened on Crius.net. A second call was put out recently, and I answered (again.) What should a manager do? What skills should a manager have? How will a manager make a project better, when there are no consequences to ignoring a request? I currently have a job as a software tester (QA). I am very intimately aware of how a project is handled. I have seen projects that are cancelled well into the lifecycle, projects that are months behind schedule, and the very rare project that comes in on time delivering everything expected with very few outstanding bugs.

I see great potential and fantastic ideas oozing out of every post. I have seen you guys come up with innovative features that would make WCU very exciting to play. Features that just aren't available in other space sim games or aren't as good as what you're coming up with. But it has to be tempered with reality - when can Joe Sixpack play what you've created? As I stated previously, do you guys even have a plan to let WCU loose unto the world? Perhaps I am wrong to apply what I know and have learned from a commercial setting to an open-source setting, where the rules are vastly different. But that's what I can give to this project. I can work on the website, set up milestones and release schedules, work on documentation, and prepare a testing scheme to find bugs. And there will be some hard questions on what WCU is and wants to become.

The question now becomes, do you (as developers) really want to have the structure that any manager will bring?

P.S. Thank you, mkruer, for outlining a very reasonable schedule. There's no dates on it (which is OK), but it is something concrete to work towards. And that's all I'm asking about.

spiritplumber · Post by **spiritplumber** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 10:50 pm

er, hi ^^;

is there anything i can help with? i was going to do the Armada ships this week but I had a HD crash I'm still recovering from.

Manager wise.... I think we're still at the "let's add as many WC elements as we can, we can cull later" phase. I don't much need a manager but I do know that some people are more comfy with deadlines and direction.

My personal goal right now is to get a "self sustained ecosystem" for WCU, as in, a universe which LOOKS like Wing Commander, doesn't collapse on itself or generate too many flightgroups, and with planets/bases you can land in and understand.

Then we can do plots and so on.

smbarbour · Post by **smbarbour** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 10:56 pm

chuck_starchaser wrote:This is why you can't be, and will never be, project leader, crouton.
You say you don't want to be "blunt", but you are very blunt.
And when people like spiritplumber, klauss and myself have been losing sleep in the rush to finish things, when there's really no deadline except the artificial one you created, and instead of appreciation one gets impatience from you, the best thing I can think of saying is GO STUFF YOURSELF.
BYE BYE. GET LOST!

Easy, chuck! He is not trying to be incendiary, nor is he trying to "crack the whip." He was just asking what parts that are being worked on and what everyone feels is "necessary" for the next release of WCU.

BTW, I would rather have a project leader who was blunt and to the point about things than someone who just sits there and says "It will be done when it's done." We all appreciate the work that the developers are putting in. Please don't run people off by getting upset when someone asks how things are progressing.

crouton · Post by **crouton** » Thu Jul 14, 2005 12:37 am

spiritplumber wrote:Manager wise.... I think we're still at the "let's add as many WC elements as we can, we can cull later" phase. I don't much need a manager but I do know that some people are more comfy with deadlines and direction.

Does this include the much-maligned Dragon? Might as well be complete across the board, yes? I'm trying to work up a list of ships already completed and to-be-done using WCNews' ship database, I'll see if I can get that done tonight.

My personal goal right now is to get a "self sustained ecosystem" for WCU, as in, a universe which LOOKS like Wing Commander, doesn't collapse on itself or generate too many flightgroups, and with planets/bases you can land in and understand.

Then we can do plots and so on.

That's fine, but what kind of timeline are you forecasting for the ecosystem? That's the kind of questions I'm asking, in order to see how far we are and how far we have yet to go.

Post by **mkruer** » Thu Jul 14, 2005 12:56 am

spiritplumber wrote:er, hi ^^;

is there anything i can help with? i was going to do the Armada ships this week but I had a HD crash I'm still recovering from.

Manager wise.... I think we're still at the "let's add as many WC elements as we can, we can cull later" phase. I don't much need a manager but I do know that some people are more comfy with deadlines and direction.

My personal goal right now is to get a "self sustained ecosystem" for WCU, as in, a universe which LOOKS like Wing Commander, doesn't collapse on itself or generate too many flightgroups, and with planets/bases you can land in and understand.

Then we can do plots and so on.

When It comes to planets and or bases, the rule of thumb used to be, â€œnever Allow for a ship get stuck in a system with no fuelâ€

Post by **mkruer** » Thu Jul 14, 2005 1:01 am

crouton wrote:
spiritplumber wrote:Manager wise.... I think we're still at the "let's add as many WC elements as we can, we can cull later" phase. I don't much need a manager but I do know that some people are more comfy with deadlines and direction.

Does this include the much-maligned Dragon? Might as well be complete across the board, yes? I'm trying to work up a list of ships already completed and to-be-done using WCNews' ship database, I'll see if I can get that done tonight.[/qoute]

This is where the WCUDB comes in. The Dragon WILL BE in the game because its canon, but it will only be available for people who are at the right place and at the right time. So in essence its nearly impossible to get.

Post by **chuck_starchaser** » Thu Jul 14, 2005 2:23 am

smbarbour wrote:Easy, chuck! He is not trying to be incendiary, nor is he trying to "crack the whip." He was just asking what parts that are being worked on and what everyone feels is "necessary" for the next release of WCU.

No, he waskn't just asking; read his post again.

BTW, I would rather have a project leader who was blunt and to the point about things than someone who just sits there and says "It will be done when it's done." We all appreciate the work that the developers are putting in. Please don't run people off by getting upset when someone asks how things are progressing.

If you would, then take him, please!

spiritplumber · Post by **spiritplumber** » Thu Jul 14, 2005 6:29 am

The autogen takes care of the "stuck" thing already for the most part... if there are no bases in three adjacent systems a capship called "garrison" will be added, you can dock there and refuel. And if in a fix, if you're playing a relaistic game, just wait for a capship to jump through your empty system

Re Dragon: Okay, but I'm against ANY limited-prodiction ship (dragon, bearcat, wraith, morningstar) being flyable. And I'm not doing the Dragon out of principle. If someone wants to do it, I have no problems with it being put in the game, I'm just not going to devote any brain cells to it or to any other supership... just a pet peeve I have

thehawk · Post by **thehawk** » Thu Jul 14, 2005 10:59 am

Man, Chuck, I hate to be be the one to tell you this, but from observing your interactions with people, you are not looking for a project manager for this thing, you are looking for a project secretary.

Part II. If anyone is losing sleep over this, STOP IT. There are very few jobs in the world, and no amount of pay, that make stress reasonable.

-thehawk

crouton · Post by **crouton** » Thu Jul 14, 2005 3:16 pm

Spirit: Concerning the 'superships', we can simply make them incredibly rare. Or 'special ops' only, where the player would see them on scripted plots.

Post by **chuck_starchaser** » Thu Jul 14, 2005 4:35 pm

@crouton: Klauss is going on a trip, but he says he should be able to finish the sound files before he leaves, so, they'll either be done sometime tomorrow or not before the end of the month.

@spirit: And klauss also says he should be able to commit my changes and his changes to the tractor beam, before leaving. Let's cross our fingers. My linux installation is dead now, btw; I have to re-install it, so I can't do any engine work till then.

charlieg · Post by **charlieg** » Thu Jul 14, 2005 4:57 pm

Chuck, why the firey reaction to what is a very good point? If development is not remotely organised, nothing will ever be finished or released. Since nobody else stepped up to the plate to be project manager, surely a tiny bit of cooperation [or at least consideration] is not too much to ask. Your 'bye bye get lost' flame was way out of line.

Post by **chuck_starchaser** » Thu Jul 14, 2005 5:47 pm

I don't agree it's a "very good point" at all. Open any magazine about software development and you'll find it's become common wisdom, --and *wisdom* indeed, you DON'T rush programmers. I often buy Game Developer magazine. There was a 'postmortem' historical I read recently, by the manager of a game software company, and he was relating the enormous pressures they were getting from their investors, and how careful they were to hide away those concerns from programmers. You cannot run a software project like a sweat-shop.
Add to that, the fact that this is an open-source project. Crouton doesn't pay me a salary, and if he did I wouldn't take shit from him anyways. Ask my boss, if you don't believe me.
Add to that the fact that there IS NO deadline. Now, I didn't necessarily mind his offering a tentative "let's try and release something in the near future". But I do mind the tone when he says "...I see are developers doing whatever they feel like whenever they feel like it...", like who does he think he is? What is HIS contribution, that he should feel like he has a right to criticize developers?
Add to that the fact that I had already told him we were working as fast as possible on the sound stuff. Then MY question becomes, "when 'enough is enough'" --crap to take? He set a goal, to release soon. That's fine. The fact that we are all aware of the plan is *enough*. Rushing, criticizing, THAT's way out of line.

crouton · Post by **crouton** » Thu Jul 14, 2005 5:48 pm

Chuck: That's fine. I'd like to get an idea from you on how extensive your sound editing will be, so I can figure out how long a timeframe those edits might take. Send me a PM or email, please.

crouton · Post by **crouton** » Thu Jul 14, 2005 5:49 pm

Stupid double post....?

Post by **chuck_starchaser** » Thu Jul 14, 2005 6:12 pm

Nothing secret. There's no "editing" of sounds, only signal processing (filtering and stuff). What klauss is working on now is the comms, applying his filters, plus the non-linear filter I sent to him to emulate the telephonic codec. That will make the comms sound like they are coming out of a speaker-phone, instead of sounding full of bass and hi-fi-like.
What he did with all the other sounds was to "clean them up" in terms of restoring high frequencies and hisses that were lost in the downsampling.
He also removed excess bass from bar dialogs.

What I was keen on finishing also but won't be possible for this release due to klauss' trip out of town, was the code we were going to add to the engine, to add early reflections to dashboard switches' clicks and all that. I only found out yesterday (or was it the day before?) that klauss is going away for 10 days, so I sent him the software I wrote to compute the reflections, and was hoping we'd get that code commited for this release; but now it's hopeless.
When we do get that implemented, it will add simulated echos from all dashboard sounds as they bounce off the HUD, and side-windows or glass bubble-top. That will really give one the feel of "being there" in the cockpit as it looks.
The other piece of software I wrote is to implement "sound holography", which is a way to try and make speakers sound like you are wearing headphones, by having each speaker emit a cancellation signal for the other channel, such that the left ear hears ONLY what comes out of the left channel, and the right ear hears ONLY what comes out of the right channel.
The only gottcha is that the speakers need to be good quality (well matched) for this effect to work well.
Anyhow, all this will have to be a patch. But the sounds, talks and comms should be done tomorrow, AFAIK.

charlieg · Post by **charlieg** » Fri Jul 15, 2005 12:01 am

chuck_starchaser wrote:I don't agree it's a "very good point" at all. Open any magazine about software development and you'll find it's become common wisdom, --and *wisdom* indeed, you DON'T rush programmers.

You kill your own arguments y'know. Crouton was never trying to rush people. He was, quite rightly, trying to structure some kind of release cycle with an initial release earlier rather than later. He was probing to see what could be done and when. And all he gets back is pretty rude 'get stuffed' attitude from you?

I don't know what's more annoying. The fact that a guy your age would be immature enough to [re]act that way or the fact that you won't apologise for it?

Yeah, don't rush programmers. But don't let them just work without any organisation, because it's a known fact that nothing will get finished or released. All teams need some kind of release engineering to be effective. Look at how Privateer Remake development is going. Frequent updates are keeping the community and the development alive!

Post by **chuck_starchaser** » Fri Jul 15, 2005 12:16 am

OT
Charlieg, you're a poisonous individual, you know? Since back the days in crius.net you never wasted an opportunity to attack me, specially towards the end, and when I got kicked, you came to attack me in this forum. The only moment you stopped was when you got kicket out of crius.net yourself, and for a few days you were nice to me; then were on the attack again. There's never a time you write a post in disagreement that you don't add little adornments of insult at a personal level. And like a carrion animal, you wait until several people seem to be aganst someone, then you join them. So now you're sticking your snout in what's none of your goddam business because you think you "finally got me" or something, right? Well, let's see if you have! Bring it on!
/OT

spiritplumber · Post by **spiritplumber** » Fri Jul 15, 2005 12:29 am

Re superships: Making them only show up in plots works great for me

Re fight... is there anything I can do to help defuse the situation? This isn't a matter of "got me" or not. If crouton wants to take on the duty of telling people to get a move on, I'm okay with it -- I work better without supervision, but that's me. I'd really like it if we could avoid the whole hierarchy thing sicne it starts fights.... thankyou ^^;

crouton · Post by **crouton** » Fri Jul 15, 2005 4:26 am

I can see chuck's point of view, and I apologize if I came across rather harsh. But try to see things from my perspective. I see a lot of work being done, but is any of it being kept track of? And I'm not just talking about ship models and sound files, what about documentation? I know most of you don't really care, and that's fine, but how many more ship models are left to go? What items deemed essential are not being worked on simply because nobody knows about them? Wouldn't you rather know how the project is progressing overall? That's all I really have to say. I'm not perfect and this isn't old-hat to me (yet.) But I'm willing to give it a honest try.

If anyone wants to continue this particular discussion, please email me. Seeing as this has veered off the original topic, one of the moderators is free to close this topic.