The Fate of Scenarios, "To be free, or not to be?"

[JPetroski]

Now that TOT scenarios can feature video, and much larger events, and sice FW scenarios are now using pretty much unlimited events, unlimited rules, unlimited units, unlimited anything, scenarios in the future will be much, much larger.

There are TOT scenarios that are allready weighing in at 70+MB!! How many websites can actually afford to host that? Not many. FW Civ2 scenarios as well should start growing larger now that the possibilities are endless.

The problem with this is that on average how many sites will be able to host these scenarios? Apolyton and it's hosted sites are the only ones that I can think of. What I think the future of scenarios may be, is that they will no longer be free. If Aufstieg turns out to be huge, (and a hit) I'd be forced to send it out to people individually via the regular non-electric mail ways! That would cost me tons of money! I'll pay myself tons of money to have it created, but I would definately be forced to do the unspeakable, charge people what it would cost me to buy a zip disk, package it, and mail it to their destinations! Of course, no profit would be made, and so I dont see any morale problem with it. What I DO see however, is that this could be a tragedy for Civ2!

I am urging Apolyton (if you have the meens), to host the large scenarios coming out for TOT and Regular ol' Civ2! It will be a pain in the butt, but it really must be done by someone, or else this game will no longer be as fun (because you might have to pay to play it)!

Look, I nor no one else, wants to actually go to the trouble to package, mail, and such a scenario, but the way they are getting bigger, it might have to be a reality.

DanQ, and MarkG, please, preserve the best part of Civ2: Original, fun, innovative scenarios, for FREE.

What are all your thoughts on this? What can be done to prepare the civ sites to hold such large scenarios (the greatest threat being from TOT). Aufstieg could clock in at over 50 MB including sounds, some others are allready almost double that! This is the way of the future. The days of the 500Kb scenario may be dying.

However, other than Aufstieg, I will at least try my best to keep my scenarios under 1Mb in size, but the sound factor, well, that kills that.

Thank you for your time,


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John Petroski
Vudak@aol.com

[St Leo]

IMHO:

[*]ToT is a dead end because of its BMP graphics format.[*]I can download a full-blown game demo in under 50 megs. What is the point of getting a CivII scenario that is larger than that? [*]*.gifs + *.txts + *.bats = good files[*]*.wavs + *.avis + *.dlls = bad files[/list=a]

Naturally this is just my opinion and it is not meant to offend in any way. It's getting late here...

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St. Leo
http://ziggurat.sidgames.com/
http://www.sidgames.com/forums/

[Civfan]

a bad omen for TOT? Actually, can TOT run on gif files? I think it can, but not sure. If it can, this will surely reduce the size of scenarios. This Aufstieg scenario, 50mb? For TOT right?

[Archangel]

I told JP how big my scenario was and he freaked . There is another option, and thats to get a website at http://www.ezbriefcase.com . It allows you to hold 50mb. I made 2 accounts to fit my scenario. I have a very fast connection so its no problem uploading, but there are bigger problems.
1)I have no desire to make a decent website, I don't have the skill or the time anymore.
2)Even if I did make a website, promoting it would be a major hassle, and especially since I'm not expert website designer, nobody will want to visit.

I'm counting on apolyton here to help me out. Would Mark or Dan be wiling to host it? Would you guys have the time to spent downloading and uploading the scenario? I'm pretty sure apolyton has the space... Would Mark or Dan trust me with their FTP information and let me upload it myself? If any webmaster has the space and is willing to trust me, I'll be more than happy to upload the scenario myself.

My scenario with the required files is around 5mb. The scenario with all of the files is around 60mb (rough estimate, probably is more). However, I spent a lot of time on these extra files, sounds, icons, dlls, avis, and so I really want them on the internet. I don't care if several smaller sites host the required files, but I need 1 site to host everything so I can link the website in the readme for anyone who wants the whole deal.

[JPetroski]

No, Aufstieg is FW!! Well, I'm just hoping it does not go over 20mb much less 50mb, but if I can implement all the neat ideas I have, it might be up there... (90% being from sound of course, but you would want to download it).

Thanks,

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John Petroski
Vudak@aol.com

[Panda]

I know what you mean about the size of sound files. I was tinkering around with the Babylon 5 scenario last year to spice it up with event sounds, which came to total 19Mbs.

I see two problems: download time and longevity. Connections rates vary, as do costs of staying on-line. I doubt many people outside the US download anything over 5Mb because of calls costs. In the future we're promised faster speeds and lower costs so larger sizes will be less of a problem, but not now.

Secondly, my attitude towards sound files are yes, they're very nice, but not essential to gameplay. Civ2 is a visual game. There is no place for ambient sounds, the only sounds occur when an action is taking place. After a while I get irritated by the repetiton and either faze out the sounds or simply turn the speakers off. Value of sounds to me then = 0. Then again there has not been any real development foward in sounds as there has been in graphics. As there is no size limit to any sound file, you could produce longer and more polished combat noises.

Lastly, I don't know why the .bmp format of TOT graphics should be such a minus. I find lots of scenarios out there which use .bmp graphics files rather than .gif files, reflecting that more people are turning to the game editors rather than an external paint program. In terms of compressed size for downloading there is only marginal difference between .bmp and .gif format.

[Mao]

I second JP's suggestion...and now I just have to get my lazy ass off of my computer and get ToT...

[St Leo]

90% being from sound of course, but you would want to download it

Why? Their only use is telling me that combat is happenning during the AI's turn when I am reading a book or something.

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St. Leo
http://ziggurat.sidgames.com/
http://www.sidgames.com/forums/

[JPetroski]

Well, simple. Sounds are not just for unit attacks. That is what your fellas glitch is, its not really that bad, and it saves you time so I congratulate you on not liking the sounds. However, ever since Mike J. and I became friends I've been hooked on sound effects. Aufstieg will feature totally new ways to present sound. I dont want to give away to much of the scenario, so I wont. Just when it comes out, I will divide the sounds into downloadable, small files. Just download a few to try em at least.

Thank you,


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John Petroski
Vudak@aol.com

[Civfan]

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[This message has been edited by Civfan (edited March 30, 2000).]

[William Keenan]

If there is one thing I have learned in my twelve years working in the computer industry it is this: capacity increases to meet demand.

Does a 50MB file might sound absurdly large to you? I remember when the thought of a one meg file sounded absurdly large to me, unthinkable even. I'm quite sure no one needs me to tell them that the march of progress in the computer industry has not slowed any, in fact, quite the opposite is true.

Today 50MB may be a big deal today but history tells us it will not remain so for very long.

[SixArmedMan]

I've always admired scenario creators. They are, in effect, game designers innovating and creating new games for civ2 players. What's sad is that these people never do get paid unlike real game designers. In all honesty, I would've paid to play such great sceanrios like red front. The thing is, the civ2 public widely regards scenarios as being free commodoties. What scenario creators have to do is to form together and create some kind of cartel or union to enforce prices on the civ2 public and freelance scenario creators. It's unfair that so much work is put into these scenario, yet so little to show for it.

[Civfan]

What? Charge for scenario's. Are you mad? Civ2 is a legend in its own right as a game but also as an interactive game. Most game companies would pay a bundle for the way consumers interact with the game. I would say keep the scenario's free but to keep the game alive, bring out a collection of scenario's at a cost price. Scenario designers get a royalty for their work. To get people interested in purchasing the scenario collection, the scenarios in the package would have major updates. Say with Red Front, first release the scenario to the public as free and if its as popular as is, create the update for the scenario package. Mr Nemo would make a bundle in royalties for version 1.3 or 1.4 of Red Front. Micropose would make milk the cow just abit more with the Best of scenarios collection 2 and 3 and 4 and soforth. But its all an idea.

[DarthVeda]

Kyokoujitsu is going to weigh in somewhere around 40-70mb. Without Music and Movies it will probably be around 11mb, and without sound, more like 6mb.

BMP is an ok format if you know how to use it. I can get BMP's to zip smaller than GIFs.

Face it, ToT is the wave of the future.

[blackclove]

The main problem is that if we publish anything on disk, Microprose can legitimately claim we need to send them royalties. After all, we would be making money off of their product. That would mean any disk that includes a scenario would need to pay a license fee of some kind the way the Doom add-ons eventually had to (and that's the reason you no longer can get 30 Doom add-ons for your machine).

It's a shame. It would be great to publish quarterly CD's full of Civ scenarios released during that time. People could pay a fee (say, $19.95) and get all of them together on CD. Heck, I'd do that to support my habit! People would of course have to give permission to have their scenario included on it. And we might not even discourage piracy... if the pirates want to make the contents freely available on the web, more power to them. After all it's their download connection . Just as long as they don't sell it, it'd be great.

Ah well, it'll never work unless someone had a LOT of free time. But you might be able to pay yourself pretty well off the proceeds if you had a CD burner. And if you paid Apolyton to advertise it on their site... well, who knows, it could be a neat little company.