So... are we dead?

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shedeen
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Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2014 11:54 am
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So... are we dead?

Post by shedeen »

Hey guys,

Wall of text incoming. Take cover! :o

I came to Stratagus pretty late compared to everyone else on here. I was wondering if anyone was still developing anything with it, or even had any interest in it anymore? I believe Andrettin is still working on Wyrmsun, but that appears to be about it except for me. Its a shame there's so little activity, because its a great engine. Perhaps it is just too dated to be of use to anyone anymore, especially with 3D engines like Spring available nowadays?

I've been thinking about this for a while: I think that in order for Stratagus to have any success with potential players and developers it needs a really awesome project that everyone could get excited about and get behind. Something very complete, polished, and playable. I think that it could be something everyone would contribute to, if they wanted. Obviously we would have to all agree on a solid theme and direction, but for the time being I envisioned a really fast paced, fun, multiplayer oriented RTS, like something that could compete (haha :roll: ) with Starcraft 2. Nothing super complicated, we would just try to do the best standard RTS we could, to serve as a good showcase for the engine's capabilities. A project that would attract players first and foremost would maybe be what rejuvenates Stratagus and keeps it relevant.

I have a lot of random thoughts floating around about this, so this is by no means a concrete idea - I'm just throwing this out here to get people thinking. An important thing I had in mind was what direction to take the graphics in. I think that it would be good if there were some way for us to update the overall graphics quality, say increasing the max cell sizes to 48x48 and eliminating the 256 color restriction. Maybe add support for translucent effects for things like explosions? The other idea I had was to go in the other direction and do a retro-style game, with lo-fi pixel graphics, similar to a lot of indie games on the market.

The other thing is multiplayer. What kind of support do we currently have for it? I think most RTS communities center around multiplayer, so that's what we would probably want to focus on.

Yet another thought I had was how we could push the Android angle. I know we can run Stratagus games on Android devices, so we could try to market that as well. The ability to go mobile is something we could take serious advantage of, because there simply aren't that many RTSs for mobile devices.

As for a base resource set, I'd say Doom Wars is currently the most robust project we have. It's scripts are the most advanced I've seen thus far. So I'd say we'd want to build on top of that. Here's the thing though: I think we should keep it an original project - without using assets from existing sources.

Here's what I can do:
- I'm a decent artist, so I can do tiles/units/buildings/ui if necessary, but I'm sure there's others on here that are far and away better than me!
- I can script. I've spent a while familiarizing myself with the lua scripts. I'm not as familiar with the source, but I do have some experience in C++.

Anyway, that's all I've got for now. Everyone is free to throw out their own ideas/critique mine/tell me this is possible or impossible. I realize this would be a massive undertaking, but when I see the other awesome projects people are working on like Doom Wars and Wyrmsun, I can't help but think we would be more that capable of it. I also realize that we probably all have day jobs and lives, so we can't work on this 24/7. But I figure with all of us working together, maybe we have a fighting chance? I don't know about you guys but I don't want to see this engine go to waste. ;)

Alright, wall of text over. What do you all think?? :|

EDIT: Sorry, just realized this might belong in the Other Projects section. Feel free to move it mods.
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Andrettin
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Re: So... are we dead?

Post by Andrettin »

I ain't dead =) And I agree with you that this engine has a lot of potential. I don't think the graphics are really a problem; pixel art wouldn't really use more than 256 colors, and for UI elements (which would be what we usually use non-pixel art for) we don't need to index them to palettes, so they can use more than 256 colors. And to be honest I prefer pixel art to the use of 3D models.

I disagree with "not using assets from existing sources"; one great thing about open source projects is that we can build on what was done by other open source projects of the past, be it by using open source media, or by looking at other open source code.

Given your skills and motivation, it seems to me that it could be a good idea for you to make a mod for Doom Wars to implement the changes you would like to see in the game. If you'd like to mod or give ideas for Wyrmsun you would of course be welcome.
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Kyran
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Re: So... are we dead?

Post by Kyran »

shedeen wrote:Obviously we would have to all agree on a solid theme and direction
You are such a dreamer. :) How about this one? Or this one. Maybe even this one or this one. The next version is due for release soon. I've just been busying working on my other project.
04:27 jim4 why haven't you added wc1 support? this project sucks. i'm only going to use freecraft
05:06 jim4 finished wc1 support yet? i've been waiting for 6 years
05:10 jim4 new things scare me
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b_o
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Re: So... are we dead?

Post by b_o »

One reason why there's not as much buzz as you'd like is that it's not really widely advertized, just search for it and you'll only find a few mentions. Most people have probably never heard of it. It's also sort of a niche engine designed for a relatively specific type of game, and there's competition within that niche because there's a lot more game development tools available today which can create those types of games than before. If some of the existing stratagus games had better PR, there would probably be more buzz around the engine.
toney
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Re: So... are we dead?

Post by toney »

Hi, guys! I want to keep evolution alive, so I will advertise the projects where I can. The first step was modifying the links at http://www.lgdb.org/game/aleonas_tales. Maybe I will be able to maintain pkgbuilds for Arch GNU/Linux AUR and maybe packages for repo.
Cheers!
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