Announcement

**Mark_Everson** · June 17, 1999, 19:28

Peter:

Hype? We're not clever enough to utilize hype , at least I'm not.

On the forum orgainization, this is a Working area. The current specs for the game will be posted on the new web page when it goes up. That should be in the next week or two.

The 'poll' thread "should the numbers be visible to the player" seemed to make sense to lots of people. If not, at least they were willing to provide a vote anyway! Some elections make me think such an effect is occurring.

On a release of the V0.05 code that's actually Useable (these potential customers are So picky ) F_Smith took on the job. Unfortunately, he had a surprise crash project at work, and then left for a conference. Hopefully he'll be back to work on it soon. I tried to bundle it all into a win95 exe but got numerous errors that I couldn't fathom, so I quit after an hour.

I disagree about the order of importance of things you assert. If we want to avoid doing everything three times we Must have a decent plan with some thought behind it. Our first alpha should have at least a decent sketch of Most of the game models so it can serve a purpose.

I am probably even more frustrated than you are that the 'write once, run anywhere' java with respect to V0.05 has not lived up to my expectations. We will move beyond the problems soon, but when I can't say.

-Mark

**Dominique** · June 17, 1999, 19:39

I, too, can't see much of a hype. I don't even care for any running version right now, since I absolutely trust in our coders they will be able to solve any possible problem occurring.

Maybe some topics seem very abstract at a casual glance - I freely admit that I don't understand each and every thread if I don't follow it every day... but, then again, I think evereybody should concentrate on a few areas of interest only - no use to try to meddle in each and every aspect of the game.

Sure, we need a lot of imagination right now - so what? Every good programmer / designer needs that, otherwise he's got the wrong job

I think each of us knows that it won't be possible to include every feature which might come to mind - and if there's a "dead-ended" thread, it only shows that either the issue isn't that important or all that can be said has been said.

**Peter Dobrovka** · June 18, 1999, 01:45

-There is no need to implement every feature suggested.
-There is no need to implement accepted features immediately.
-There is no need to implement stunning graphics and to tune the program for speed in this early stage.
-But if you want to implement anything you should begin someday (sounds logical, doesn't?).
I am glad to hear you are working on the problem to make the current code usable.
The most work you will spend on clash anyway will be the little things: little bugs, display problems, interface tuning. And believe me, if you really think you can make a paper of design and features before you implemented anything you will have several bad surprises soon. The badest of them will be realizing that a feature that looked so good in imagination is unuseable in real life because of various reasons.
At last: Some things are hard to understand and very abstract in a "specification" you can read on a website. A thing you never can simulate with any specification is the feeling how much fun a feature can bring or kill because this is somewhat complex. There are very many games that have incredibly great features - while you read them on the cover or in the gametest. And when you play the game probably you will say: OK, nice thing, was fun to watch but now I would like to disable.
If you develop a game you will have an evolution. It is very good to have visions but the right way ist to start to do it and make little changes on the way.
Believe me, you WILL have to make changes. But it is easier and more fun to follow a thing like "could you place the display for food onto the same screen as the display for happyness" and test the effect than to hundreds of such improvements at once.

This was a suggestion from someone who is programming games since 11 years - take it or leave it, I will not bother you again until I see some program running.

Peter

------------------
3DTT - the 3D sequel to Transport Tycoon - demo 4.0 in June 1999
Path of Mankind. Turnbased Civ-like game - demo 15 coming soon

**Dominique** · June 18, 1999, 16:05

Peter,

what, please, do you expect?

This is a team consisting of people from all over the world, most of which have never met in person. From my point of view (and from my experience) there absolutely must be lots of talking before any serious programming is done.

One thing in your post, however, is IMHO outright wrong: There is a need to care for, as you put it, "stunning graphics" even in this early stage. Why? See, a player has exactly two things when playing a game: Graphics and sound, with the latter more being some nice add-on. Graphics is everything, in a way. Strip the graphics, and all that remains are numbers, boring numbers - this is true for each and every game, even 3D action shooters.
For each feature implemented in a game there must be a visual representation, and it must be convincing - if you have a fantastic feature, but are unable to visualize it, better drop it.
Btw.: Sometimes people tell me very nice things about the web pages I do and tell me they get the impression that everything fits together nicely - the reason is exactly that: Because I do the graphics and the coding / HTML-writing parallel, so each can depend on the other. While you are certainly right that there will be changes, many of these changes come from a constant exchange of program and graphics ideas (and problems, of course).

The only way a good game can be done is by letting it grow - but this includes graphics from the very beginning - no use to write complex algorithm and try to "get some clothes for the naked baby" in the end - they wouldn't fit, be sure.

**Blade Runner** · June 18, 1999, 17:58

Peter,

We try to think first and then do it. Our threads a kind of maps, so we know where we would like to go, what we would like to do. We can not guarantee to implement everything which is on the site, but we try to use the best and funiest of the idea's.

Blade Runner

**Peter Dobrovka** · June 19, 1999, 08:14

Dominique, I understand that graphics are very important to you since you are an artist. I agree that graphics are absolutely essential even for the very first implementation of the program. Me too is making the graphical display first before the basic data structures of the whole game are clear, but there is no need to have the final graphics already done to develop the game engine.
Come to my Homepage and download the English or German version of Path of Mankind. It is the 14th beta release since the project started 1997 and the graphics are still not very different to the first version (you would not think it's using 65536 colors). This will change NOW because we convert the game from DOS to Win95 and make some huge changes in interface and gameplay.
The other current project, 3DTT, has more graphical intensity yet due to its 3D but there will be several changes in the 3D objects. They are absolutely not the final, nor the textures and icons. We concentrate on developing some very wicked gemetric features and the overall gameplay - This game is no game yet, it is more somthing like a 3D landscape demo - but we already have the feature of building railroads and streets and we release the program frequently to have REAL feedback. Sonn there will be the 4th release since December.
Discussions like in this forum we had, too, in the beginning but not so much and not so long and what we have discussed we have to rediscuss again now, because it is an absolutely completely different thing to brainstrom about something virtual and to use the program that DOES something. The wishes and ideas turn sometimes 180° if you can SEE what you wished.

Peter

------------------
3DTT - the 3D sequel to Transport Tycoon - demo 4.0 in June 1999
Path of Mankind. Turnbased Civ-like game - demo 15 coming soon

**Dominique** · June 19, 1999, 10:09

Peter,

(strange for two Germans writing English here ), for one CLASH will be much more complex than WAY-X is to be, which makes more beforehand brainstorming and coordination necessary.

Two, graphics' task to visualize information is much more stressed in CLASH. CLASH will in no way try to simulate a "natural" look with real 3D etc. but will instead be played on an information screen. It is of upmost importance to know very early in the development phase what can and what can't be done graphically.

Btw. I don't see myself as an artist, but a graphics-oriented programmer. I did my share of game programming on C64 and Amiga...

Ah, since you posted the URL of your homepage, 2 short tips:

a) include width and height in EVERY IMG tag
b)don't use those dreadful banners

**mca** · June 19, 1999, 19:03

First of all, I'm not a member of the Clash team.
Secondly, I have little practical experience in larger software projects.
Thirdly, I am going to ramble, so you have been warned :-)

The Clash project is a community project and much like a bazaar-style
open source project, so I recommend you all read the paper
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/...al-bazaar.html
The Cathedral and the Bazaar if you are not already familiar with it.

Clash is not really open source though, which puzzles me, because I think you
all would do it even if you thought you would never get a single
cent (or pfennig) for all your work. Please, please, please tell me if
I'm wrong in this. But you should read the paper in any case.
For inspiration if nothing else.

Obviously, in a community project people will work to have fun,
and everyone is doing what they like the most.
Some people, like Mark, who will obviously have to do all the stuff that is
no fun for anyone :-), do some work because they feel an obligation, though.
But it is also clear to me, that the Clash project has a lot of people that
find great fun in writing long papers
about modelling the history of mankind but fewer that wants to implement
them and get their hands dirty with code (or perhaps management is too
restrictive and crushes any attempts at prototyping before all
design specifications are ready? ).

Most of what Peter says therefore makes sense to me,
as I believe in the positive
effects of the Show me the code and Release early, release often
principles (in networked community projects, that is - I'm not so sure how
great is would be in corporate environments).

Don't get me wrong, I actually like long papers about
modelling the history of mankind, and you guys have come up with
some amazingly inspirational stuff,
so I have fun just following the project, lurking in the shadows.

BTW, I'm a bit scared by the "if you want to join the team, you must be
willing to dedicate
10 hours a week to the project" requirement that I saw somewhere
(or was it a hallucination?). What if I want to do just a little work?
Like maintain a version control system, make suggestion about the
program design or implementation (if you ever get to that point :-),
write a little code (yes, I'm a Java programmer),
fix a few bugs or problems here and there, etc.

Also, I wonder how you're going to
divide any income while not deteriorating into micromanagement or
petty bickering over who did how much work
and how important/effective each person is?

End of ramble and Good Luck!

Martin

[This message has been edited by mca (edited June 19, 1999).]

**Mark_Everson** · June 19, 1999, 20:41

Martin:

Well, we certainly would like to have more java coders on the project. I'm pretty beat tonite so I'll only respond briefly to some of your points.

We are a community project, and anyone that's interested can join. So we pick up at least half of the 'Bazaar' flavor IMO. All of us are doing this primarily for the love of the Goal, with the possiblility that it will never earn anything. However, there are many in the group who Would like to see some monetary return if Clash is a success. Thus I refer to what we are doing as Quasi-open-source.

On writing of long papers on game mechanics:
Actually, I think None of us enjoy writing these things. I certainly dislike it. But to have something of this size move ahead in a reasonable manner Planning is Required. When I was doing Clash on my own, an approach with simultaneous interactive design and coding Was the best way, at least IMO. But with many designers and coders I believe it would be a Complete Mess to move ahead too soon. July 30th will come soon enough, and then we will be in Active coding. (Until then we are certainly trying to have the people who are solely coders doing productive things.) There are other issues involved in the process we are going with that I don't care to go into here. Check out apolyton.net/forums/Forum21/HTML/000070.html if you want to see the plan and some rationale.

On the 10 hrs/week that was in my judgement near the minimum amount someone could spend to have a reasonable role in the project. My main reason is that below a certain threshold it is IMO very difficult for someone to contribute seriously to a complex project. For someone who drifts in and out, there is a much bigger chance of misunderstandings that can make their contribution worth less, or worthless. Perhaps and average of like 5 hours might be more appropriate for high-productivity people. For one-time Clearly Defined projects within Clash we'd certainly be happy to consider exceptions.

On splitting up the rewards if we get any... IMO we need to get along further before worrying too much about it. I know this is not a legally enlightened opinion . I think most people would like to have the opportunity to get Some money than to Definitely get None.

-Mark

[This message has been edited by Mark_Everson (edited June 19, 1999).]

**F Smith** · June 19, 1999, 21:48

We're definitely more 'Bizarre' than Cathedral.

And I think I speak for everyone virtually present.

For example, the Java2 graphics classes will pretty much change everything we do in the way of graphics, so measure twice, cut once might be the best approach. We'll get one out soon. I can fix the old code up to be cross platform by Friday, I think. Then we'll go from there.

[This message has been edited by F Smith (edited June 19, 1999).]

**Mark_Everson** · June 19, 1999, 22:04

'F':

We're certainly open source now. Send it to whoever wants it. However, my plan had always been to close off the openness of the source to those within the group at Some point. We still have to have a full-group discussion on that concept at some point.

Glad to hear you think you can get the old code cross-platform soon. It will be valuable to be able to show people there's Something solid, even if it is dated in terms of the design.

**mca** · June 19, 1999, 23:17

I see my rambling was successful. But as rambles usually are, it was a bit unclear.

I don't demand working alpha-versions here and now, as that would be impossible, and I definitely recognize the value of a good design. However, I was worried that you would by default aim for close to perfect before releasing anything to people outside the core team.

Most of my worries stem from the non-openness (as I see it) of the project, as you risk losing a lot of potentially valuable input from those people that are not going to spend 10 hrs/w on the project in order to be allowed to contribute on the same terms as the core team. Also, some of those <10hrs/w people may later turn into "serious" contributors, but may not even consider looking into the project when they see the current requirements. As for making worthless contributions, sure, it will happen, but it is the risk of the contributor.

As for not worrying too much about splitting any monetary rewards, I think that it is not only "not legally enlightened" but "quite legally naive" and I think that if anyone is going to make money from this project, it is going to be your lawyers :-)

Finally: I am suprised! Did none of you enjoy writing what you did? Really? You all hated it did you? Oh well, now at least I know why money and lawyers will have to be involved. I can just imagine the court room: "...and this report from my client's psyciatrist clearly documents the trauma brought about by his work on the authoring of the game mechanics specs. Thus, he is eligible to receive greater compensation than he was initially granted...". *sigh* It is so sad. And to think that from the look of it, I could have sworn that the authors were quite enthusiastic about it...

Martin

[This message has been edited by mca (edited June 19, 1999).]

[This message has been edited by mca (edited June 20, 1999).]

**Peter Dobrovka** · June 20, 1999, 00:54

>for one CLASH will be much more complex
>than WAY-X is to be

How can you say this if you even did not look? (There is no game called WAY-X...)

There are two projects:
1. 3DTT:
This is gonna be a Transport Tycoon like game in real 3D. Real 3D means it is not only a 2D tiled map that we display as 3D (like SinCity3000 was intended to be).

2. Path of Mankind:
Mark already knows it. This will be a CIV-like game. It has as much ambitions as clash for complexity, ease of use, improved AI and realism but will stay closer to CIV. So cities will still be the main basic structures on the map and there will be building construction within cities.
In the beginning we had 15 different resources and planned to have 30. Now after several test playings we reduced them to 9!
In the beginning we distributed the city's workers onto the tiles similar to CIV: one worker on a tile harvests everything the tile provides. But we had the possibility to put up to 15 workers onto one single tile. To redistribute them was hell.
Version 14 now had an interface changing in the city view introducing the scrollbars for workers. For every resource there is a scrollbar and you can set the number of workers for every resource. This solution is the finest yet to make complex decisions with very few mouse action.
At the beginning we had pure numbers only but we returned to CIV's way to display numbers by icon masses - Call To Power missed this (it has an exemplary bad interface at all!).
These are basic things that you will discover on your own during development. - But only, if you begin to have a program.
This was my first statement and this will be my last: You can't develop the things that you are discussing if you don't have a program. The question f.e. "should the numbers be visible to the player?" is wrong. You don't have "numbers" at this time, you can't discuss their visibility. And when you will have them you will have to discuss this question for every single number.
PoM's interface f.e. has too many numbers disturbing the player - but we have real problems to decide which of them to wipe out.

Peter

------------------
3DTT - the 3D sequel to Transport Tycoon - demo 4.0 in June 1999
Path of Mankind. Turnbased Civ-like game - demo 15 coming soon

**Peter Dobrovka** · June 20, 1999, 03:44

mca, you have partially hit the point. There are many people who enjoy writing long feature papers and suggestions, a look at the postings nearby in the "CIV-improvement suggestions" forums proves this statement.
Also true, these people get off at the moment when the coding stuff gets the focus. They used to disappear even when algorithms are discussed. (I name the drawing of graphics as coding, too). At the beginning of the 3DTT-project I had 20 and more people all wishing to contribute (the hype as I call it). At the moment the things became strucutred and the first coding begun they disappeared like the morning mist in the raising sun.
But this is not true for everybody. Especially the originators of projects are sometimes even the opposite: they like to discuss algorithms and coding and dislike the feature stuff. This is mostly because they used to know already what they want to do.
But the anti-code-people are not useless because they can be much more creative than these who do already think by coding terms. Many ideas they do have wouldn't be discussed inside the coder's group because they are somewhat complex to implement.
But the idea-people dry up soon if there is only paper and no program to make them have new ideas. The circle closes again.
I think Mark has been split into two souls: On the one hand he agrees with me and would like to do something that brings visible results, on the other hand he is unsure about the project's details and is afraid of doing something now that he has to rewrite later. Is this guess true, Mark?

Peter

------------------
3DTT - the 3D sequel to Transport Tycoon - demo 4.0 in June 1999
Path of Mankind. Turnbased Civ-like game - demo 15 coming soon

Announcement

Do not forget to implement and release...

Do not forget to implement and release...

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