Is it dead enough now?

Elric · Post by **Elric** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 01:22 pm

Some of you certainly remember a post I wrote at the beginning of this year. As Cruaich pointed out at that time, we already had this discussion one year before, mainly on your now-lost forums. It raised a few enthusiastic or desperate answers, but as it happened one year before, nothing really changed on the project. And as those of you who have access to the Cabal forums know, the recent calls for IRC meetings remained largely unanswered.
Believe it or not, at one time, this project used to get 100+ mails a month on its mailing list, without spam and with a weekly IRC meeting. At least, when I worked on DarkPlaces last year, I had the impression to contribute indirectly to TF. Now it feels like contributing to Nexuiz.

I won't repeat all I said in my old post. Basically I see 2 solutions:

1) Get one or more coders (I'm way to busy to do anything significant, and Willis isn't much less busy than me apparently). And when I say coders, I mean real ones with time to waste on a free project, not I-code-10-lines-and-you-wont-see-me-again coders. QuakeC coders or Q3 coders: our data are close enough to Q3 formats to allow the creation of a TF mod for Q3 without too much pain; and as a side note, I've actually started to work on a Q3 version of TF using Predator's Q3 BloodBath, as a proof of concept. I haven't coded many things for now (again, lack of time), but from what I saw it's quite easily doable. Ah, and I suppose you saw Q3 source code is near.
Even if we can get a QuakeC coder, we will need to find some process to build some kind of stable releases of DarkPlaces regularly, but that's another debate...

2) No coder means no new code, which in turn means no new feature. You may not like that, but that's a fact. In particular it means no crouching and no single player. Face it and deal with it: forget about them for the next release. We must cut off the dead code and features to make a clean and coherent release. It won't be complete regarding the original game, but it must be stable. Cutting off code doesn't mean we lose it. We use a versioning system (CVS) and so we will be able to dig it out later if necessary. With the current development pace of the project, we must aim for the minimal if we want to release something before the next 5 years.

As the project is today, I simply see no other way. Again, you may not like the situation. I certainly don't. But denying the fact that someone is sick doesn't help him getting better.

Daedalus · Post by **Daedalus** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 01:33 pm

Dammit! Not another one of these!

Look, Sir, it's true, this place is pretty lifeless most of the time, but these 'Doom and gloom' threads don't help one bit. It destroys morale.

What is there without Transfusion in the way of progress for Blood? Nothing. Not a damn thing. (Apart from user levels.)

Yes, you'll get the bitching noobs constantly, but I for one am willing to wait damn-well ten years for this project to be complete. Dead serious. I don't care about some Bloodite who wants satisfaction now. If they cannot be patient they do not deserve this wonderful gift; people who love Blood so much that they are willing to do this. Nothing has ever been quick with Blood. Those who don't understand this yet can p*** off.

A bit of hope, even the smallest thread of hope is far greater than no hope at all. Fact.

Hope is a good thing, maybe one of the best things and truly good things never die.

Post by **Kazashi** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 01:44 pm

I'm going to make a quick post for now, as I'm about to head off to bed, and will hopefully make a more detailed one tomorrow.

Yes, this does come up every few months or more, and the lack of progress is an issue. What good is there in caring about morale if there physically aren't enough people to work on the project? There is one coder who is available some of the time, and we used to have some mappers doing work but I don't know where they've gotten to. There's no talk, and no progress. That's the harsh reality.

Daedalus · Post by **Daedalus** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 01:48 pm

Even one coder and a handful of mappers will finish this in the distant future. Would that I could lend my services, I would not stop until breath has left my body, but this is not about me.

My point remains. Given enough time, the project will be completed. There's nothing more to it.

da_weezle · Post by **da_weezle** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 02:50 pm

I agree with ÐÐ on this. Every once in a while a topic like this pops up, every time with the same questions. I've been following this project for quite some time now (several years) and I remember the project being declared 'dead' at least once by the majority of its members. Furthermore, I agree with ÐÐ about being willing to wait for years for this project to complete (or some state close to completion). I applied for coding about a year ago, but at the time there was a great lack of direction. If I remember correctly that was around the time that the project-leader left. This left the new coders (don't remember who the other one was at the time) kind of in the dark about what had to be done. It was kind of messy, several different people tossing information toward us. I did look into the code at the time and looked into QuakeC as well. I am still willing to offer my services to this project but (ironically) I won't have time to work on it in about half a month from now. From september I'll have my internship for school and it'll take about half a year for that to be completed.
I'm not sure that there is a project-leader at the time, but it seems to me like that is a big issue. It sure was a problem for me at the time. Also, I think it would help to give a clear summary of who's working on what and what needs to be done for the project, so every developer has a good overview.

Necrosis · Post by **Necrosis** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 05:15 pm

ÐÐ took the words from my mouth. And like weezle, I said I was willing to help (I offered to map) and it seemed as though it was going to happen, but very little information was given to me and so I've got nothing to do. Maybe I should just pick a good map and get started on the geometry...

oBe · Post by **oBe** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 06:25 pm

Isn't it possible to slap Transfusion and WinBlood together? I read somewhere it was.

All finished models looks excellent to me and it would be shame to let all that finished work go to waste, and it would solve the coding problem (meaning no coders).

Post by **DustyStyx** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 07:38 pm

Q: Is it dead enough now?

A: No. I'm still kicking.

[s]Feel free to contribute to Nexuiz if that's what you feel like doing. Chances are all you'll end up doing is programming for DarkPlaces... just like the work you've been doing to "contribute" to Transfusion for the last 2 or 3 years.

[/s]

[edit] I don't read everything all the way through when I get p*** off. Coming in ever few months without doing anything directly for Transfusion and asking "is it dead enough" really f*** p*** me off!

Yes Nexuis has benifited from all the work you've put into DarkPlaces but that's what GPL is for! If you want to work on Transfusion work on Transfusion. Whenever I bring something up about the gameplay that I think may be enegine related LordHavoc always says "Oh, that's qC." Engine level stuff is great but there are still a ton of things that can and should be addressed with qC. Weapons code, game play, etc etc.

We've quarantined the developers "Cabal" Any talk about work is religated there, cutting off access to anyone new that may want to come in and contribute to the project. It has become stagnant.

If anything the largly ignored IRC meetings only show that a wiki based, freeform development model may be the way to go. The IRC, dev-mailing list, SourceForge CVS development model worked when there were programmers who wanted to use that kind of format... to anyone else it's like pulling teath!

The forums are active, it shows that people are interested in the project. I'm positive that there is a large amount of untapped tallent out there, even in thoes that think they don't have anything to contribute. I certainly had no idea that I could come up with a half way decent skin (some may argue that I still can't

) untill I just sat down and tried. At the time the forums were single channel discussions. Everyone had access to them.

There's no reason why wiki/php forums can't be integrated into CVS et. al if done properly

da_weezle · Post by **da_weezle** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 08:03 pm

I'd doubt that WinBlood could add much to TF (with all respect to WinBlood btw). Maybe some AI from monsters or something like that (I'm not sure what code we have in TF for that right now), but the textures and models are all being created by our TF-members.

[edit]
Woops, waited a bit long with pressing the Submit button.

I am familiar with Cabal (and have access to it) btw.
[/edit]

oBe · Post by **oBe** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 10:02 pm

Actually, I meant it the other way around, where the transfusion models would be implemented in WinBlood to create some instant Hires-3D-Jonof-port kinda thingy, just to make sure those efforts don't go to waste.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Aug 14, 2005 01:47 am

....if some1 realesed something IT WOULDN'T LOOK DEAD DAMMIT!!!

Elric · Post by **Elric** » Sun Aug 14, 2005 08:54 am

(Sorry for the size of this post. I had lots of things to answer)

Ðædalu§ Ðeathmask wrote:Yes, you'll get the bitching noobs constantly, but I for one am willing to wait damn-well ten years for this project to be complete.

Don't get me wrong: I really love this project and I want it to succeed. But I'm not ready to wait 10 years for that! Besides, I think this project won't ever release anything again if it doesn't succeed into releasing something and improving significantly its internal communication and organisation by the end of this year. If the activity on the project slows down even more than today, I'm afraid people will simply gradually stop working for it, because it wouldn't be interesting to spend time on a project that produces (nearly) nothing.

Ðædalu§ Ðeathmask wrote:Hope is a good thing, maybe one of the best things and truly good things never die.

As Kazashi said, I'm afraid it's no longer a question of morale. It's about hitting a bit the project to wake him up from its deadly sleep.

da_weezle wrote:I applied for coding about a year ago, but at the time there was a great lack of direction. If I remember correctly that was around the time that the project-leader left.

I suppose you talk about Tim, the former Lead Programmer. The project never officially had one Project Leader I think. It had 3 during quite some time (Project Manager/Release Manager, Lead Artist and Lead Programmer). But now, as you said, there's a lack of direction and I'm not sure who they are if these titles still exist. I doubt anyone on the project has a clear answer to that question, and that's one of the major problem for sure. As for the easyness of contributing to TF, that has always been something we did rather badly as far as I remember. We certainly need to improve that, but on the other hand we saw so many people saying they want to help, and who disappears as quickly as they came... So I guess it's a bit discouraging

Cruaich wrote:Yes Nexuis has benifited from all the work you've put into DarkPlaces but that's what GPL is for! If you want to work on Transfusion work on Transfusion.

Well, of course I can't "regret" that Nexuiz benefited from the work I did on DP for Transfusion, even though I must admit I'm not a huge fan of this game... When I resigned from my Lead Programmer position (and even before that), I've never hidden the fact that it was partly because I was no longer interested in doing game code (QuakeC). So working on the engine and tools looked to me as the best way to contribute while still doing something I like to do (it's my free time, damn it!).

Back to that time, I warned several times about the lack of game programmers after my resigning, but no one seemed to care so...

Cruaich wrote:We've quarantined the developers "Cabal" Any talk about work is religated there, cutting off access to anyone new that may want to come in and contribute to the project. It has become stagnant.

I completely agree it's a bad thing. We didn't even have a private IRC channel at the beginning, and I was just fine with it. Openess is very important for this project and I think we've lost a good part of it since a few years.

Cruaich wrote:If anything the largly ignored IRC meetings only show that a wiki based, freeform development model may be the way to go. The IRC, dev-mailing list, SourceForge CVS development model worked when there were programmers who wanted to use that kind of format... to anyone else it's like pulling teath!

That's one of our major point of disagreement. I'm convinced that forums or wikis aren't enough for the developers, though they're great tools for users / developers or users / users communication. CVS or any other versioning system is really important. I know most artists don't like that much, but for coding you can't properly work without it.
As for IRC, I must admit it looks like online meetings are no longer possible at a team scale now. It's really sad, because I still think it helps a lot. But I'm still convinced that an active (and open) mailing list is key. Again, take a look at the archives of our mailing list on SF.net: the most active days of TF are clearly linked to the number of mails. Of course, you can still argue about which is the cause and which is the consequence, but I was certainly used (and well used).
I mean, what you seem to regard as outdated methods have clearly proved to be more effective that what is used today IMHO.

Post by **Kazashi** » Sun Aug 14, 2005 11:34 am

Let's see... what to say... I for one am not annoyed by this kind of post, it seems to be the only way to get people talking in a lively manner about the project. Every several months it happens; some progress is made because people can't stand to bear thinking of it as 'dead' - for a few months tangible progress is made, then dies down again for several more months. There's not much use in getting p*** off at a proven cycle of events. I am annoyed, however, with various areas of progress within the project. Those 'new' models included in 1.1b3, they were done TWO YEARS AGO. The textures for them were done at least 12 months ago in most cases. Other areas are falling sorely behind, such as coding and mapping. It's not looking dead because we're holding back all our content, it's looking dead because there aren't people to make content and add it to the game. Saying "release something now" is going to get you a buggy and incomplete build. Some people are saying that they can wait years for a new release. The longer this drags on the less chance there will be of releases

There might be something wrong with The Cabal forum. It does stop the general public from getting involved in greater depth, but what does that matter when the team itself doesn't even use it? I've tried making posts asking for discussions about various formats to use, I've set up roadmaps and TODO lists, and they get little or no response. Maybe the forum should be opened up, maybe it might encourage some kind of kick in the pants for development.

It seems that there are still people willing to contribute. Unfortunately the lack of team communication or hierarchy interferes with that. I've been working on this for some 4 1/2 years, and even I don't know who's in charge at this point. As Elric said, there have been people who have approached us in the past and began to contribute, only to disappear not long after. Not all of these were to do with communication. But we do need to fill the ranks, especially in the coding and mapping departments.

I can't really think of much else to say right now, I've already expressed my concerns previously, and it does feel like flogging a dead horse at times.

predator · Post by **predator** » Sun Aug 14, 2005 12:59 pm

Obviously I don't think this project is dead, otherwise I wouldn't be here.
Nevertheless I think Mathieu is right in some areas.

Here are my impressions.

I think it's good that we have a "developers only" section here.
I don't think there's anything wrong with this - people from outside the team do have other sections to communicate with us and share their ideas.
Suggestions section for example - people use it sometimes if they have something to say to us. We also have "Transfusion Discussion", where we are now, and it is also used by people.

As far as mapping goes - yes, it would be nice to have some order here.
I already said a few times it would be good to have a lead mapper, somebody who would coordinate all mapper actions. I voted for Joe and I still think he's the best candidate.
We need to know which members of our team are still actually willing to work on TF maps and what they are doing.
As far as I know Bloodite is working on E1M1, and I have E1M2, E1M5, BB7 on my hands, but that's where my knowledge ends. I have no idea what's going on with other mappers because I hardly even meet them here.

oBe · Post by **oBe** » Sun Aug 14, 2005 02:00 pm

Couldn't you make the Cabal viewable to guests but not replyable? I agree active members need a place to talk work related, without outside meddling (a bit like I'm doing now

), however...

Say I wanted to adress my photoshopskills to do some prop-skinning or something, then there's no way for me to know what has been done or not, other than making a post in another forum, asking for it, waiting for reply and instructions. But by then, a week has passed and my experimental skinning mood is over.

@predator: how is that mapping guide coming along?