Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: Skullar on February 12, 2009, 09:39:12 am
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Hello there folks. Recently there has been an issue with SCP team. I don't know anything about it except what IP-Andrews stated here, but I think I can pretty well understand both sides.
The SCP team is constantly improving the builds. They are removing bugs, adding new features, provide more possibilities and make fs2 more stable. ( I LOVE what they are doing !!! I complained about a few things in the last years and they took care of everything )
OF COURSE they don't want their efforts and THEIR hard work to be in vain. You spent months to make a feature running, and then comes a mod team that claims they don't want to do anything to incorporate it into their mod.
Of course this is frustrating. Why writing the code for glow and shinemaps if no one has the patience to make glow and shinemaps for his mod ? Why add new SEXPS to fred if no one touches up his campaigns with them ?
I understand they want everyone to use what they are doing. Fair enough.
On the other side we have TBP final and IPANDREWS extremely reasonable approach on things. Even against my objection in the past :)
Take something into consideration :
TBP is final, which means there is a full and complete TC offering 120+ vessels. And one reason TBP is one of the few mods and TC who actually HAVE a full and complete release is DISCIPLINE.
The discipline to say : "Let's aim for something well defined"
The first release was our famous Earth-Minbari War Demo. It was something that was purposefully aimed at. We packed together the ships, the sound effects , the interface art , made 5 missions and voila..... we had something to play with.
We resisted the urge to improve one vessel for the 346th time ( while others were not even started ) and managed to release, and that was a wonderful thing.
So many projects around, and unlike TBP they all suffer from undisciplined ambition. The few vessels done are never detailed enough ( while the other 90 % not even have a raw mesh ), no mission ever has enough features ( waiting for even newer and cooler SEXPs while 95 % of the intended campaign missions have not even been started in FRED )
There are never enough cool ideas what could be done ( and none is ever realized, coz there could be an even cooler idea tomorrow..... )
Just look around.
FATE OF THE GALAXY.
Even more detailed Star-Destroyer, 10 more Polygons on TIE interceptor, even ships I have never heard of ( whatever-wings ).
Tons of stuff in the making, and therefore nothing ever nearing completion. NEVER. Just like everything else, progress is unplanned and chaotic as cancer. ( sorry, at least I have the impression )
Although I would highly anticipate one, I doubt they will ever release. I think they will get lost in the endless plains of undisciplined ambition and loose themselves in various details like even more polygons here and yet another vessel there, until the team breaks up like so many and the project is deserted. Starved to death.
They asked what we expect from the project. Well. X-wing, y-wing, one or two TIEs, a corvette, a transport, perhaps a star destroyer or a calamari. That would be enough for me to make a campaign already. But I think that is to reasonable to be attractive. ;)
Same goes for similar projects, like apocalypse. Too few people with too high goals.
The Babylon Project is successful. We HAVE a release and we are proud of it. Because we know that dreaming of what WOULD be cool distracts you from knowing what CAN be done in reasonable time.
IPAndrews objected to a number of things in the past, for example to the infamous HIGH POLY update. Of course a high poly update would have been cool ! But let's be honest : It would have never developed the way we dreamed of ! New models wouldn't have been 100% compatibel to old ones. Entire campaigns would have become obsolete. The original fredders long gone, no one would have volunteered to update a foreign campaign ( Everyone has own stuff in the making ). Also, the interest in DOING campaigns at all would have severely decreased. ( What ? It could be made obsolete with the next build ? Then I wait for the next build ! There will always be a next build ? Too bad, I had such a wonderful idea, but I don't want to fred for NOTHING.... )
And even without compatibility issues..... The new MIDWINTER looks superb ! But wait.... somehow the game looks crappy. The old OMEGA class now looks so silly by comparison ! This can't stay like that ! We have to redo the Omega class ! And the .... class ! And the ..... ! **** repeat 110 times **** And the XYZ !!! But I think we will be through with this ambitious apdate in 2018 !
You got the point. I think we owe VERY MUCH to IPAndrews ( and his precursors ) for maintaining discipline. Otherwise we would still be adding 3 more polygons to the NIAL fighter. And all the people who helped to get all the 120 vessels done would have never showed up, coz they would have never had anything to play and to inspire them.
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EACW and ITNOTE
ITNOTE was this little 3 mission campaign I did as a SEXP test for EACW. The combat trials are nicely set up , and the cutscenes use the new SEXPs. I did far cooler CUTSCENES with EACW no one has seen yet, but I am on it.
Like ITNOTE, EACW will make use of a current 3.6.10 build. So, in a way.... TBP is definitely making use of SCPs beautyful new builds. The wonderful thing is : TBP looks better and better along with SCP. Why do we have to touch the TBP 3.4 stuff ? Unnecessary.
TBP DOES develop : Campaigns and missions are in the making, so I don't see ANYONES stuff being not used.
With EACW under development ( courtesy the guys from SCP , I love you ) I still look into a golden future, and there is much fun in store for all of us.
Well, If we can find more voiceactors with DISCIPLINE....
Greetings
Skullar
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I think attacking other campaigns is completely uncalled for simply for your own personal perspective on them.
This was not about the quality of the Mods, it was about the compatibility of mods and tables, which were causing problems with debugging the source code when errors were appearing.
And, quite frankly, having IPAndrews appear on here, attacking the entire team simply for 'daring' to ask that some of the problems with models be fixed was also completely out of order.
Nobody denies that amount of effort you people have made on TBP, now please give other teams the same level of credit.
Regardless of what people may think, the requests from the Team were to improve the experience for your own players and to increase the stability of the game for them.
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Hello there.
Actually I don't know what IP did, and I don't want to attack anyone, especially not the other project teams. They are working on stuff I am anxious to play !
I just had the impression that recent disagreements could have to do with this problem of "undisciplined ambition" ( or call it the DUKE NUKEM FOREVER problem, it happened to them too ) , and I just wanted to state it here as a reminder for all us of including me. I think I am with TBP since 2002, and I have seen numerous times that unplanned progress unfortunately frustrates more than it does good. TBP had its desertions as well :) The best times we from TBP had were always the times we were aiming for something specific in the not-so distant future.
Besides... what problem is there you mentioned ? Compatibility with debugging sourcecode ?
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And, quite frankly, having IPAndrews appear on here, attacking the entire team simply for 'daring' to ask that some of the problems with models be fixed was also completely out of order.
I attacked your team in the private forum for your behaviour as discussed in this (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,60731.0.html) thread. I did not attack your team "here" in the public forum. I simply informed everyone what happened in the private forum and what they can expect from your team. If that casts your team in a bad light that's your team's fault not mine.
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That thread is in a Public Forum, the Freespace Source Code Project Forum, not the private one, and I consider that post an attack on the team for asking for models to be corrected.
It doesn't cast any project I'm involved with in a bad light, but that doesn't mean I cannot defend other people's projects.
They were the ones willing to keep the problems a private issue, you chose to make them public, and even to include a sarcastic comment in your signature.
Oh, and as for 'That's your teams fault, not mine', no, it is not anyone's 'fault' other than the person throwing generalisations around, just because someone says so doesn't make it fact.
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I attacked your team in the private forum for your behaviour as discussed in this thread. I did not attack your team "here" in the public forum. I simply informed everyone what happened in the private forum and what they can expect from your team. If that casts your team in a bad light that's your team's fault not mine.
How much of the team, exactly, was involved in that private forum discussion? A fair number I assume, given that you're so consistently blaming all of us? And if not, then please make sure you direct your anger a bit better, because frankly I'm getting tired of being blamed for something that happened in a forum I can't even access. Especially when the team you're so happy about blaming hasn't actually made any decisions at all on the matter in question.
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Perhaps you should all read again my post in the public forum where I clearly state "I'm not up for debating whether their behaviour is justified, or not. I'm simply informing you all that these are the rules of the game and now you all know.". I fail to see how I can be accused of attacking anyone in the public forum after such a clear statement.
The private forum is a different matter, there was a small invasion by a significant number of your team members launching personal attacks against myself and my fellow team members. In doing so they were acting on behalf of your team. If you want details, ask them. If you have a problem with it, ask them. The internal workings of your team aren't my concern.
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As I said before, I consider what you said to be an attack, you started claiming that the SCP Team would expect continual and unending updates, I'm not certain of what happened in your internal forum, and, quite frankly, I don't care, the internal workings of your team aren't my concern, however, the crux of the matter is there were models and table entries that required correcting, if you had a problem with the way it was approached, there is a specific forum for project heads, there is also PM, but coming on here and accusing the entire team of, to quote your signature 'thinking they own your mod' is totally out of order.
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Bear in mind that the issue that started all this is the fact that if there are bugs in TBP it's the SCP who get blamed and told to fix it. So it's nothing to do with the SCP thinking they own TBP and everything to do with the SCP taking the blame for things that may be TBP's fault.
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Nevermind the fact that the public forum post was grossly inaccurate, and yet purports to be just 'the rules of the game'.
Shade, I think IPA attacks the team as a whole because most of his dealings have been with more prominent and veteran member(s) of the team. We're just getting caught in the sh*tstorm crossfire.
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@Skullar
We're all proud of TBP, but that's not the point.
TBP bugs are beeing reported on Mantis. Due to the mass of error messages in TBP, it's hard to find code bugs. And it's often not hard to tell if the bug is a content problem, or a bug in the code.
And who takes are of the content problems? They could stay in Mantis forever.
The discipline of the TBP team is admirable and I'm certainly not talking about myself here, but to be really "final" the issues have to be fixed, otherwise how the "bugs" in Mantis should be dealt with, except for dropping TBP out of Mantis. And that is almost like dropping the support for TBP completely.
The SCP team never asked TBP to add new content, or use new features.
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I don't know anything about it except what IP-Andrews stated here, but I think I can pretty well understand both sides.
Umm... and how do you arrive at this bizarre invocation of logic? If you only know IPAndrews's side, then how can you understand both sides? :)
We are by no means demanding that mods make use of all the SCP's advanced features. Far from it -- in fact, I have repeatedly stated my personal opinion that unnecessary enhancement (redoing effects and HTL'ing models for the umpteenth time) can be harmful to a mod. Just look at how long BWO has been in development, and how many times they've revamped their assets.
The only thing we want TBP to do is to fix their bugs. There are numerous bugs in the so-called final release, some of them severe enough to crash the game. (Or has nobody tried using the VE Dreadnought?) Other bugs, while not causing crashes, cause incorrect behavior -- for example, TBP contains an ai_profiles.tbl that is set as a lesser priority than the FS2 RETAIL AI settings, meaning that the TBP AI settings are not actually used.
All we want is for TBP to fix their bugs. This is an essential part of any mod, and is required by the very discipline you advocate, Skullar. :) Wing Commander Saga, Inferno, and BWO have all worked hard in cooperation with SCP members to remove the bugs in their mod. TBP has not.
Now, I apologize for being overbearing about this subject in the past, but I figured "if the carrot doesn't work, use the stick". My initial "carrot" overtures to TBP met with much more resistance than I was expecting, or thought was reasonable, so I made some "stick" overtures. Obviously that was ineffective, and probably caused IPAndrews to prefer his own interpretations rather than what the SCP team said. So now we're taking the opposite approach. We (not me, but many members of the SCP team and even some non-SCP members) are creating a TBP patch that will fix all of the mod errors in TBP. We will provide this patch to the TBP team as a gesture of goodwill.
However, it's important to understand that working around TBP bugs is tiring, and in fact actively discourages SCP coders from handling TBP requests or bug reports. Every single time we debug TBP, we must click through nearly 100 warnings and errors. If the TBP team wants to use the SCP features, then they need to play by the rules of those features. If they insist on providing buggy models and tables, why should they deserve special treatment?
That's why we have been discussing dropping support. (And please note, we have not actually made an official decision on that yet.)
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Shade, I think IPA attacks the team as a whole because most of his dealings have been with more prominent and veteran member(s) of the team. We're just getting caught in the sh*tstorm crossfire.
You may find this hard to believe but I actually sympathise with your position and that of Shade.
but to be really "final" the issues have to be fixed,
No the issues do not "have to be fixed". Once again, the SCP team does not run TBP. Nobody does. The mod is dead and it remains FINAL. The SCP team's demands will continue to be ignored.
Let's not restart the debate for and against either. The specifics relating to TBP were discussed to death in the internal forum. Let's not rehash the same debate here again for it to descend into personal insults like the internal one.
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The only thing we want TBP to do is to fix their bugs. There are numerous bugs in the so-called final release,
The "so-called" final release is the FINAL release. End of story.
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:nervous:
As one of the many people who enjoy TBP, i find this appalling. There are known issues with this mod, and the people producing it are REFUSING TO FIX THEM???
That is the impression i'm getting, anyway. "Final", to me, means bug-free; TBP seems to be "feature complete", but FAR from final. Now that nothing new is being added, it should be easier to concentrate on refining the stuff that is in there....
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Well, as Goober stated, there are a group of fans working to fix those problems now, hopefully that will resolve some of the issues at least so that people can enjoy TBP without worrying about instability so much.
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the people producing it are REFUSING TO FIX THEM???
There is nobody "producing" TBP. It is no longer in production. The mod was declared FINAL last september and the team disbanded.
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there was a small invasion by a significant number of your team members launching personal attacks against myself and my fellow team members. In doing so they were acting on behalf of your team
Interesting statement, given that SCP internal access != TBP internal access. In short, the only members who could "invade" your internal forum are the people who should have access in the first place, either by being HLP admins or by, or all things, being members of the TBP team.
Of the first category I can think of two, and of the second category I can think of four (one of whom is also a member of the first category). So five in all. So, what we have are, besides the one admin, potentially up to four members of TBP launching personal attacks against members of TBP? And by doing that, speaking for all the members of the SCP and yet not at all speaking for the members of TBP? If they're speaking for one team that hasn't yet been consulted, certainly they would be speaking for the other team that hasn't yet been consulted as well, right? Or is TBP exempt from this "person = team" rule you've invented?
You want to blame someone for personal attacks? Fine. Blame them. But to say that the SCP team attacked you is a lie. Yes, I used the "L" word, because I'm done being nice, and it applies. The things you're blaming the SCP team for doing are things which the SCP team has not done. The decisions you claim the SCP team has made regarding TBP are decisions which the SCP team has NOT made, as they are still being debated, and in fact the debate is more about helping TBP fix its errors (and you don't even need to lift a finger) than cutting off support. Ergo it is another lie. Yes, I used the "L" word again, as it applies. I'm done being nice.
Further, you're massively twisting the facts in that vaunted "explaining the rules" post of yours. The reason we'd like a patch is because currently we can't fix many bugs that show in TBP. Why? The game is impossible to run in a debug build. You are complaining that the SCP would stop fixing bugs found with TBP data, while the truth is that it is your refusal to allow (not even make... just allow) any patch for TBP that makes it impossible for coders to actually do what you want them to do. Guess what? Reproduce the bug using retail or some mod that doesn't give 17 million debug warnings and it'll still get fixed, just don't expect SCP members to spend three hours clicking through debug warnings because TBP's data files are riddled with minor errors that you won't allow anyone to fix. And sure, TBP is final. But then all released games are. Incidentally, most released games still recieve patches post-release. To fix problems that lingered in the final version.
It may be that many of these problems didn't show in earlier builds. But then, we're not talking about earlier builds, are we? TBP already has builds which it (more or less) works on, and nothing the SCP can say or do will affect those. It was your choice to include a multiplayer element relying on newer builds, not ours. And similarly, it was your choice to not update - or allow others to update - the data to run on those newer builds without too many warnings, not ours. Yes, I can see how this is definitely our fault.
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the people producing it are REFUSING TO FIX THEM???
There is nobody "producing" TBP. It is no longer in production. The mod was declared FINAL last september and the team disbanded.
Can't you just get a few people together from the old team and polish it a bit?
It doesn't seem like it'd be a huge amount of work. Why abandon this project when it's so near true completion?
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Well, as Goober stated, there are a group of fans working to fix those problems now, hopefully that will resolve some of the issues at least so that people can enjoy TBP without worrying about instability so much.
Well, i read that, and i applaud them. My post was directed more at IPAndrews, who seems to adopt the old Microsoft stance of "Bugs? Our product is complete and usable (under controlled conditions), we don't need to fix bugs..."
This is a bit disturbing, really.....
There is nobody "producing" TBP. It is no longer in production. The mod was declared FINAL last september and the team disbanded.
When what is wrong with someone producing a patch to fix problems that were existing back then? Or has this degraded into a clash of egos?
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Can't you just get a few people together from the old team and polish it a bit?
No. Sorry.
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Interesting statement, given that SCP internal access != TBP internal access.
You are absolutely correct. This was SCP team members abusing their global administrator privileges to invade our supposedly private TBP forum.
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The mod is dead and it remains FINAL.
Then why are there new bug reports specific to TBP? And if it's dead, why is there a problem with the SCP dropping support for it? You may consider it 'dead', but as the SCP itself is an ever changing beast, upcoming changes to it are going to affect TBP, whether it's desired or not. Most notably will be the move to the new FS2NetD, as I doubt the 3.6.9 compatible server will remain up just for TBP's sake (although at this point I think it would be great if it were, then we really wouldn't have to worry about supporting TBP in 3.6.10). It sounds like you're not concerned with TBP's compatibility with future SCP releases, so why should we be? Am I missing something?
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Can't you just get a few people together from the old team and polish it a bit?
No. Sorry.
Okay. Can you turn it over to a new team?
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Then why are there new bug reports specific to TBP?
Because we have fans who develop missions and campaigns. Sometimes they report bugs with the game engine.
And if it's dead, why is there a problem with the SCP dropping support for it?
None. The SCP team can do as they please. We don't tell other teams what to do. One might expect some attempt at backward compatability such that the end user experience of TBP in 3.6.10 is comparable with 3.6.9 but that's all one can reasonably expect.
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Isn't the problem with TBP assets? Models, in particular?
It sounds as if the final release was a bit premature and it just needs another coat of polish.
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Can't you just get a few people together from the old team and polish it a bit?
No. Sorry.
Okay. Can you turn it over to a new team?
I must admit that I know absolutely nothing about the case, I find it hard to imagine that the original team doesn't allow a creation of a patch (what they do, if I didn't misunderstood anything), why would they allow minor/major changes?
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Okay. Can you turn it over to a new team?
It's not in my place to give other people's work as a gift. This would be a great disrespect to the enormous team that put so much hard work into TBP, and their decision to end development of their game. On the other hand if you wish to start your own B5 total conversion for FS Open please, please go ahead. I'd love to see it :yes:.
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Then why are there new bug reports specific to TBP?
Because we have fans who develop missions and campaigns. Sometimes they report bugs with the game engine.
So then, while the mod has officially lost the support of its creators, it continues to live on through its fans. Its fans then, I would imagine, are more than welcome to modify, tweak, etc the mod to their hearts content. If a new team decides to carry on the torch, they should feel free to, perhaps under a modified name (a la Desert Combat vs Desert Combat Extended for BF1942). If anyone is interested I'm sure that shouldn't be a problem.
And if it's dead, why is there a problem with the SCP dropping support for it?
None. The SCP team can do as they please. We don't tell other teams what to do. One might expect some attempt at backward compatability such that the end user experience of TBP in 3.6.10 is comparable with 3.6.9 but that's all one can reasonably expect.
Then I find your "Open Warning" post a bit offensive, as you seem to be telling people what should already be common sense. When a developer stops supporting a piece of software, it's a bit far fetched to expect the developers of software that product relies on to continue to worry about supporting it, don't you think? You're basically warning people that if they stop working on their project, at some point down the line it might not work anymore and that the SCP team is somehow in the wrong when this happens. Otherwise, it sounds more like you have a problem with _how_ this decision process was being handled, including the posting in TBP's internal forum (which I don't initially see a problem with a HLP admin doing), and the subsequent antics. If that's so, I think your warning was still a bit misplaced.
Also, the SCP credo has always been 'retail compatibility first'. There was, to my knowledge, no similar promise for mods. I suppose it was always assumed that a mod could be patched to work properly with future versions. This might be one of the first times where such a case has arisen. I don't remember another one anyway.
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None. The SCP team can do as they please. We don't tell other teams what to do. One might expect some attempt at backward compatability such that the end user experience of TBP in 3.6.10 is comparable with 3.6.9 but that's all one can reasonably expect.
Please cite examples of where the TBP experience in 3.6.10 differs from the TBP experience in 3.6.9.
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None. The SCP team can do as they please. We don't tell other teams what to do. One might expect some attempt at backward compatability such that the end user experience of TBP in 3.6.10 is comparable with 3.6.9 but that's all one can reasonably expect.
Please cite examples of where the TBP experience in 3.6.10 differs from the TBP experience in 3.6.9.
I am curious as well.
Okay. Can you turn it over to a new team?
It's not in my place to give other people's work as a gift. This would be a great disrespect to the enormous team that put so much hard work into TBP, and their decision to end development of their game. On the other hand if you wish to start your own B5 total conversion for FS Open please, please go ahead. I'd love to see it :yes:.
So would you object if someone made a patch for the game?
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Isn't the problem with TBP assets? Models, in particular?
It sounds as if the final release was a bit premature and it just needs another coat of polish.
We can start with short list of issues...
n x null MOI
god.pof has completely borked lod0
VE dread crashes any debug build that dares to try to load it
Drakh mothership uses the 'detail0' model (the main lod0 model) as one of its turret base submodels
...
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You are absolutely correct. This was SCP team members abusing their global administrator privileges to invade our supposedly private TBP forum.
There's that plural again. "SCP team members". Since you're so adamant that a large part of the SCP team has invaded your private forum, would you please care to explain who besides Goober even has the ability without being on the TBP team in the first place? That is, of course, assuming that TBP members are allowed to post in the TBP forum without it being an invasion. You seem to be getting a bit fuzzy on the subject.
And frankly I wouldn't even consider an admin posting on a project internal to be an invasion, especially when they do it because they want to discuss something relating to that project in private.
[Edit] Not to mention that if you didn't want the discussion in TBP internal, you could have moved it to the SCP forum instead. Or asked someone else to do so if you've given up your TBP moderator privileges. Hell, that could still be done - I'm sure there are a lot of people curious to see what exactly happened who would be very happy if that was done.
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So would you object if someone made a patch for the game?
I take it, from his comment, that yes, he would object, which seems to me to be far more of an insult to the work other people put in than a compliment to it, since without work, TBP will not simply lose support, it will become unsupportable.
I hope I'm wrong, but that's how his comment reads to me, that it would be other people touching his teams work.
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All I saw in this thread is Skullar saying how awesome TPB is and how they're way better than every other project that isn't released. Can anyone explain this thread to me?
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Just let the TBP die.. Please..
I spent too many years ... too many hours... I am too old for this crap..
Models were lost... When Ian said is done... the is done.. meaning no will, no resource, all our planes where shattered million times...
Guys is easy... if you find a new issue (this is the professional name) for something that is related to TBP... just ignore it... There is no one left to try to fix the TBP.. so is DEAD
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Just let the TBP die.. Please..
I spent too many years ... too many hours... I am too old for this crap..
Models were lost... When Ian said is done... the is done.. meaning no will, no resource, all our planes where shattered million times...
Guys is easy... if you find a new issue (this is the professional name) for something that is related to TBP... just ignore it... There is no one left to try to fix the TBP.. so is DEAD
You don't have to do it, but would you object to a fanmade patch?
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Thing is, it doesn't need to be, that's what is so frustrating.
Let's wait until we hear back from IPAndrews as to his opinion on a fan-created patch for it. Hopefully I'm wrong and he doesn't mind the idea of such a thing, then that is probably the best way to go, it means the fans get a more stable version of the game, and he can still consider the version the team created as final, as the patch would be unofficial from the point of view of the TBP team.
I'd still very much like to see TBP as an active part of this community, it was the backbone of the SCP for quite some time because it was usually the first point of contact for new members, it'd be a pity to see that fall by the wayside, particuarly when so much time and effort has been spent getting it this far.
There is no one left to try to fix the TBP.. so is DEAD
The thing is, there ARE people willing to try and fix it, but they are unwilling to even try without some kind of acknowledgment from the team that this is ok.
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Just let the TBP die.. Please..
Yeah, good idea!
Remove it from the Moddb, remove all DL links, shut down the TBP MP server and so on.
Guys is easy... if you find a new issue (this is the professional name) for something that is related to TBP... just ignore it...
Eh? You're kidding?
There is no one left to try to fix the TBP.. so is DEAD
There are a few guys, who volunteered to FIX some ERRORS.
Let them do it, will ya?
I mean, you might think, FIXING some bugs/ errors IS a big waste of time.
BUT it's their time.
EDIT: I can't see a problem with a unofficial patch, but i think Flipside is right, let's see what IPAndrews think about that.
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Just let the TBP die.. Please..
I spent too many years ... too many hours... I am too old for this crap..
Models were lost... When Ian said is done... the is done.. meaning no will, no resource, all our planes where shattered million times...
Guys is easy... if you find a new issue (this is the professional name) for something that is related to TBP... just ignore it... There is no one left to try to fix the TBP.. so is DEAD
This is one of the most self-contradictory sentiments I've come across in a long while. If you guys really did spend so much blood, sweat, and tears working on this project, wouldn't you want to have people keep playing it far into the future, so as to have all of said work pay off? There's a whole group of people who's apparently willing to sit down and iron out the bugs that exist in your "final" release. (And really, that's such an ironic term, since I'm sure that just about anyone in IT would tell you that no release is ever truly final so long as there's room for improvement.) These people are willing to take the necessary steps to ensure that the public can continue enjoying your work far into the future. So why does this issue even exist in the first place?
(Note that I have no affiliation with the SCP and have never even played TBP, so I can only go off of what has been publicly discussed.)
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Okay, I think I get it now.
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TBP is dead, or done or whatever, which means they've released a really buggy version and have stopped working on it. Meanwhile, all the people who encounter these bugs expect the SCP coders to manipulate the code so TBP works, instead of the other way around.
When the SCPers got tired of this, they asked the TBP staff to fix TBP bugs, so the SCP staff wouldn't have to fix TBP bugs. But that involved posting on their "dead" internal, which for some reason they cared about that even though it was a dead project.
So the TBP staff got angry. Why should TBP staff have to fix bugs in TBP? The project is done! The TBP staff wants TBP to be unsupported, for some odd reason. But then the public doesn't like that. Tough luck, TBP says. This is what TBP released and you can't modify it because we put a lot of work into it, and it would be disrespectful to fix our bugs for us.
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Is this right? Because that's sure as hell what it seems like.
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Given that none of the active TBP team members have actually spoken up about it on this thread (IPAndrews has stated multiple times lately that he considers himself done with it and thus can hardly be called an active member anymore), I'd be careful about generalizing about what the TBP staff wants based on what's been said here. It's pretty clear how the people posting feel about it though.
Just as the SCP team isn't just one person, neither is the TBP team.
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Given that none of the active TBP team members have actually spoken up about it on this thread (IPAndrews has stated multiple times lately that he considers himself done with it and thus can hardly be called an active member anymore), I'd be careful about generalizing about what the TBP staff wants based on what's been said here. It's pretty clear how the people posting feel about it though.
Just as the SCP team isn't just one person, neither is the TBP team.
I did say that that's what it seems like; I figured that any active members would have posted about this already. I really don't want to offend anyone, but please, someone who does both care and have the time, get this all straightened out.
EDIT: Yeah, I guess it was kind of out-of-line, but this entire situation seems kind of out-of-line, even though that doesn't justify it. :/
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As one of the many people who enjoy TBP, i find this appalling. There are known issues with this mod, and the people producing it are REFUSING TO FIX THEM???
you are close it's actually not so much 'the team refusing to fix them' as it is 'the most recent leader throwing a hysterical hissy fit if anyone suggests that it be fixed'. such a disciplined and responsible position.
and IP if a project is 'final'ized before completion then the proper term for that is 'abandoned'. maybe one of the older leaders of the mod should come in to offer the support you are so vitriolically opposed to providing.
and I find it particularly amusing that the SCP telling you that you need to fix problems with your project == the SCP thinking they own your project. wouldn't the SCP trying to fix problems with your game content be this? if that is the only way to fix the problems doesn't that mean that if you refuse to fix them mean that you in fact think the SCP owns your project?
let me guess "IT'S FINAL ****COCK!"
It's not in my place to give other people's work as a gift. This would be a great disrespect to the enormous team that put so much hard work into TBP, and their decision to end development of their game. On the other hand if you wish to start your own B5 total conversion for FS Open please, please go ahead. I'd love to see it :yes:.
you have a funny way of showing your 'respect' not 'allowing' someone to fix your bugs. I mean not only stopping trying to fix the problems your self but trying to road block others? I have a feeling that the many people over the years who have come and gone on this project expected continual development, never an end to support, this is something heartless corporations do not fan games. in fact I'm absolutely certain at least some of them were expecting this because that is what I thought when I was working on it as a content provider, I don't have that little purple icon under my name because it's fashionable and I never decided 'my' (your words here) game should ever end, that is entirely you and tomcat who made those choices.
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No intention about offending, (sorry because I'm not native English speaker so I could be saying things that I don't actually want).
Is it just me who thinks that some TBP members have gone mad or behaving like little children? :confused: :confused:
What I get is that:
- They say TBP is not going to be updated by them because whatever reason (I don't have any more free time, I'm bored of TBP, "Real Life" has hunted me down or whatever). Any of them is fully valid as all the work we can enjoy here is FREE work, nobody is paid for it.
- They agree that SCP or any other won't fix any code bug based on their buggy data (because this buggy data makes code bug debugging a PITA to work with).
- SCP crew members pointed this to them and asked for the data to be fixed. But as they did on an internal forum, some TBP members get really angry because they feel that this is some kind of "privacy" agression.
- OTOH it seems that there are people willing to create a "fan-made" patch (as "official" does not exist anymore).
- But nevertheless, some TBP members still don't agree on that.
Maybe I'm completely dumb but the whole thing seems the BIGGEST absurd and stupid discussion I've seen in my whole life. We are all supposed to be mature people, who work hard for our lives and then spend some time with a game we love. Come on!, we are not in the kindergarden anymore.
I don't belong to either SCP or TPB, but I do really think "official TBP" possition is just crazy.
(If the real world is run by things like that, NOW I understand Middle East conflict, religion wars, Italy goverment vs. judges trouble about that poor girl, and so on...)
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TBP is dead, or done or whatever, which means they've released a really buggy version and have stopped working on it. Meanwhile, all the people who encounter these bugs expect the SCP coders to manipulate the code so TBP works, instead of the other way around.
This is true to a certain degree but it's more a case that the large number of bugs in TBP prevent coders from actually fixing legitimate code bugs too as it makes it much harder to tell what is a data bug and what is a code bug.
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TBP's final status:
I am not going to discuss the decision the TBP *team* made to end development of TBP here. It was an internal decision. No public consultation was required. It is not up for being second guessed. It is not up for debate. It will not be reversed. It is none of the SCP team's business. It is none of the public's buciness. All things come to an end. It was our right to bring it to an end. We did. Last year!
I cannot make it any clearer and I hope (although I would be pleasantly surprised) there are some reasonable people who can understand this.
Meanwhile this debate, is not a debate, the decision was made as discussed above. Also there appear to be four kinds of people visiting this thread. Megalomaniac SCP team members. SCP team members who don't want to be associated with megalomaniac SCP team members. Random members of the public jumping to odd conclusions from invented details. Oh and then there's me. Stubbornly 100% happy with the decisions my team made. So really given everyone is rooted in their positions we are all wasting our time. Let's go do something else.
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What we are waiting for feedback on is your opinion on a fan-made patch, there are fans who are willing to fix the problems, if you and the team don't want to do it, then fine, but there are still people who want to play TBP and they are willing to create a patch to do so. Now, I suspect this patch WILL get made one way or the other, no-ones asking you to do it, but they'd much rather you stated that this was ok, or at the very least, that you didn't care if they did so, because of respect of the work done so far.
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Flipside. That's actually a considerable suggestion. Post in the public forum with details of your proposal please.
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Ok, I'll get some input from the people who are interested in doing it, and make a post, I've just had a root canal so this very instant probably isn't the best time, still a bit groggy on the anaesthetic.
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Flipside. That's actually a considerable suggestion. Post in the public forum with details of your proposal please.
Ok, I'll get some input from the people who are interested in doing it, and make a post, I've just had a root canal so this very instant probably isn't the best time, still a bit groggy on the anaesthetic.
:confused: :confused:
I still don't understand WHY you have to ask anyone's permission about creating a patch...
I thought this was a fully FREE forum/content site. Unless you wanted to use any content for earning money, I thought you could use whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted, however you wanted.
I thought that people asking "Hey, I love your model/texture/code upgrade, can I use it in my mod?" was just a "politeness" issue, not a "legal" one. If I'm wrong, please tell me.
But I DO really HOPE I wasn't wrong. The other way would seriously dissapoint me about how this community worked, (although, in that case, I do know that it would be just my problem :( :().
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Well it IS basically politeness. I mean it is THEIR work, least you can do is show them some respect, lest be trash-talked by everyone else on here about your lack thereof. But you're right I think, it's legally okay to use them.
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It is, but it's a simple question of manners, permission doesn't HAVE to be obtained, but I'd personally much rather reach an amicable solution to this than have bad blood between the people involved. The fact of the matter is that Hard Light owes a great deal to the work that IPAndrews and the rest of the team put into TBP, and, although I don't always agree with him, I do understand how he feels, God knows, if I spent as long as him on a project, I'd be pretty sick of editing it too, and it's all too easy to assume that, since I am prepared to re-open the project once, that I was prepared to continue updating it. IPA is right in saying that you have to find a place to draw a line.
If an agreement can be reached, where the fans themselves can do these updates, and it can be endorsed by the team, not as an official update, but an official fan update, then it solves a lot of problems, no bad blood, the patch can be available in the TBP Forums themselves, which makes life easier with regards to obtaining it, and the fans themselves become responsible for maintaining the project they love, which is, after all, what the TBP team have been encouraging them to do for ages, by allowing them to create new campaigns etc, this is merely an extension of that.
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Well it IS basically politeness. I mean it is THEIR work, least you can do is show them some respect, lest be trash-talked by everyone else on here about your lack thereof. But you're right I think, it's legally okay to use them.
I hope you're right...
So what kind of impoliteness arieses if someone tries to aid you by fixing your own bugs? More over when either you don't want to do it or you cannot do it. :confused: :confused:
Also I don't play TBP, but I haven't seen SCP people saying TBP work is worthless. In fact all the people says it's a great mod. But nevertheless, they just say that TBP data is buggy. And this is a fact, not an opinion. So there cannot be impoliteness when you are just posting facts.
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Well it IS basically politeness. I mean it is THEIR work, least you can do is show them some respect, lest be trash-talked by everyone else on here about your lack thereof. But you're right I think, it's legally okay to use them.
I hope you're right...
So what kind of impoliteness arieses if someone tries to aid you by fixing your own bugs? More over when either you don't want to do it or you cannot do it. :confused: :confused:
Also I don't play TBP, but I haven't seen SCP people saying TBP work is worthless. In fact all the people says it's a great mod. But nevertheless, they just say that TBP data is buggy. And this is a fact, not an opinion. So there cannot be impoliteness when you are just posting facts.
I wasn't referring to that in particular, but just the use of someone else's product without their permission/opinion.
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I think things generally got off on a wrong footing, the crux of the matter is there are problems, and as long as someone is prepared to fix that, that is enough for the SCP team, the TBP team have drawn a line under the work they are willing to do on the project, and that, also, needs to be respected.
Anyway, this has calmed down a bit, and I'd like it to stay that way, I'd very much like for this to be resolved without any further incidents on either side, so, I'd personally suggest that this thread is now locked, and we continue the discussion about how the fans can approach this in the TBP Forums, since further discussion here is pointless, and I don't want it to flare up again.
I'm not going to lock it myself, I'll leave that decision up to an Administrator.
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TBP data is buggy. And this is a fact, not an opinion. So there cannot be impoliteness when you are just posting facts.
No that is not a fact. TBP was developed to provide a stable end user experience for 3.6.9 and that's exactly what it does. Check your facts before making such statements in the future.
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Well to be fair there are some 3.6.9 bugs too. 3.6.10 merely makes them more apparent. It's the difference between getting a warning every time in 3.6.10 debug or occasionally suddenly finding yourself staring at an MS error message in 3.6.9 release.
For the most part TBP works well on 3.6.9 or 3.6.10 release builds.
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difference between getting a warning every time in 3.6.10
Warnings don't affect end users. They play using retail not debug.
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Yeah but the crashes do. Like I said, 3.6.10 debug makes the issues much more apparent.
TBP does occasionally crash for no apparent reason. Not often. I've had some commercial games crash more. But it does.
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Crashes in TBP Final are next to nonexistent for the end user and you know it.
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They're uncommon and I don't think it's fair to say that TBP is buggy. But there are some end user bugs still. Multiplayer particularly is affected by them.
Now whether they are due to TBP data or SCP code is the whole issue that caused this problem.
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I don't think it's fair to say that TBP is buggy.
Hopefully that will be the last of the SCP team trying to portray TBP Final as a bug ridden calamity for their own personal gain then. That would certainly be positive progress. At least in the realms of honesty.
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"But there are some end user bugs still. Multiplayer particularly is affected by them."
hopefully the whole of the TBP team (consisting of IPAndrews and tomcat apparently) will be willing to address this issue someday some way.
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for their own personal gain
Please tell me what the SCP team stands to gain personally from this thread.
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hopefully the whole of the TBP team (consisting of IPAndrews and tomcat apparently) will be willing to address this issue someday some way.
TBP's final status:
I am not going to discuss the decision the TBP *team* made to end development of TBP here. It was an internal decision. No public consultation was required. It is not up for being second guessed. It is not up for debate. It will not be reversed. It is none of the SCP team's business. It is none of the public's buciness. All things come to an end. It was our right to bring it to an end. We did. Last year!
I cannot make it any clearer and I hope (although I would be pleasantly surprised) there are some reasonable people who can understand this.
Meanwhile this debate, is not a debate, the decision was made as discussed above. Also there appear to be four kinds of people visiting this thread. Megalomaniac SCP team members. SCP team members who don't want to be associated with megalomaniac SCP team members. Random members of the public jumping to odd conclusions from invented details. Oh and then there's me. Stubbornly 100% happy with the decisions my team made. So really given everyone is rooted in their positions we are all wasting our time. Let's go do something else.
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I read this so that the former TBP team just wants to be left alone and not be pestered with TBP related issues anymore. And it makes perfect sense too, nothing is forever anyway. These people have already done more for us than I'd ever even dare to hope.
I understand they want to protect their work - after so many years you can hardly just drop it like it was nothing. Then again, it's pretty impossible to stop people from tinkering with it as it has been released via internets. Yet the team should be given the possiblity to step aside with dignity. Maybe a solution would be to release any HLP endorsed post-TBP modifications via projects of their own? Add-ons maintained and distributed clearly and completely separate from the TBP itself.
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<- Has only read the first page
I want to ask (as an "outsider" :P) whats wrong if ppl want to fix your mod? A personal question: Have you wrote the mod for your own ego or for the community and the players? I understand that you dont want other ppl working at your project, but you should re-wage what is more important.
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I haven't seen IPAndrews deny that TBP's bugs are harmful to the SCP's development. All I've heard him say is that the SCP is trying to take over TBP. Nothing more. To be honest, that's completely unreasonable. If TBP bugs really are getting in the way of SCP development and TBP really won't fix them, then TBP should be removed from HLP, assuming that IPAndrews will not allow someone that does want to fix the supposed bugs to take over.
If they want it to be "done" and there are still bugs left, good for them. We'll blame then for leaving with an unfinished project. But if in doing that, they're compromising another project's ability to work, a project that they're using as a base for their mod, then they don't really have a right to drop it while their bugs are clogging up Mantis.
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I'm sorry but just because a bug doesn't necessarily affect the end user experience doesn't mean it's not a bug. A bug is a bug is a bug. The very fact that bugs have been found and corrected in this internal patch implies that bugs did exist in the TBP final release, whether or not they were at all noticeable.
Heh, our personal gain? I stand by my previous statement:
This is going to go down into HLP history as the source of some major lulz if some things aren't sorted out post-haste.
In all seriousness though, if you're trying to wrap your head around this, please don't start accusing either side of behaving one way or the other, it's not really bringing anything helpful to this thread. It should be clear that this thread isn't bringing across the entire story, so it's not a good way to grasp what's been going on. What there is to bring from this thread, is that the veteran TBP staff has long ceased plans to offer any more support in the way of development for TBP, but IPA would consider a community supported patchset to ensure future compatibility a reasonable suggestion. You may also gather that the community is interested in working toward that end, so I think it's safe to say that this thread has in fact seen its purpose achieved.
Actually I just noticed the slam of FotG in the first post, I must have stopped reading short of it. While it's not giving credit to the fact that Brand had a hard drive crash and has pretty much had to start over, hence the reason for the new and improved versions of all the models, there's still a kernel of truth in what he had to say about discipline, so I can respect what he had to say. Could have been a bit more tactful though.
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I hate to even post in these types of situations but lets get some facts laid out.
First TBP was finalize 5/20/08. The installer and DVD were released later but that was the last compilation of the 3.4b core. This whole issue SCP/TBP arose on 1/20/09. That's 8 months after the final release. There were at least 6 beta builds that tried to fix all the problems that could be fixed before 3.4b before the final. That doesn't count 3.4 or 3.4a builds.
Vidmaster and I officially joined the TBP team at about the same time as the final release. With the release of the DVD the project was considered done and moved from a development stage to a FREDer stage. In doing so IP stepped down as head of TBP and turned the forums over to Vid and I. When we took over there was one thing that we promised to do:
Keep the 3.4b core as the final version of TBP. No patches, nothing overrides the core data. That was and is the golden rule an is clearly stated in the TBP rules thread.
This does not hinder or halt and fan made development it merely means anything need to be done as a mod.
The current situation started off simple enough with a question about TBP being final in the TBP internal forum. I received a message from IP about his ICQ (or whatever messenger) conversation with Goober on the same day. At almost the same time I received a PM from Goober to go to ICQ which I did. We had a civil conversation about the status of TBP and possible solutions. I explained the above status of TBP 3.4b being final and there would not be a patch. I acknowledged that there are bugs and I should know as I run debug builds constantly in TBP to work out the bugs in multi. I do the same in FS2 except when I decide to just play for fun. I too paged through all those warnings for almost a year because I didn't know about the -no_warn flag. I agree it is a pain in the but and know that the coders can't us the -no_warn flag to skip the bugs. I put forth the following ideas:
TBP stays final
I reproduce all bugs possible in FS2.
I am not against any updates but said updates need to be in a mod folder.
I even stated a complete MediaVP style update in the future wouldn't be out of the question.
Now you may ask why a mod folder. First it preservers the 3.4b final rule because the core data is not changed and TBP final can be played by simply turning off the mod. Second if the patch does break existing campaigns and missions it can simply be turned off and those missions will work again. Third FREDers have the choice of writing for TBP final or the mod. Some FREDers want to keep their stuff compatible with the 3.4b core and use the 3.6.9 exes that are included with TBP Final.
At this point I thought the issue was resolved until I received a second summons to an ICQ session on the 23rd. I stated the same things as before an again thought the situation was resolved. Then out of the blue on the 30th I received a message containing the following:
I have raised the subject of dropping support for TBP in the SCP internal. I should warn you that Taylor, karajorma, Wanderer, and I have all directly experienced the frustration of trying to work with a bug-ridden mod, and we will all likely be in favor of terminating support. And I'd be willing to bet that the other members of SCP would be in favor as well, once they see our position and verify TBP's problems for themselves.
"Discontinuing support" would mean that all TBP-specific Mantis bugs would be closed, all TBP-specific Launcher options (such as the -tbp command line option) would be disabled, and there would be a popup upon game start saying that TBP is not supported by the SCP. In addition we would remove TBP from the list of validated multiplayer mods for FS2NetD.
The message continued but that was when the you know what hit the fan. Basically we were told fix it or we will break backward compatibility by removing all TBP specific features and multiplayer will be cut off. Now having worked on multi for over a year I didn't take that very well and contacted Vid and IP. Vid and I decided that the best course of action would be to talk to the other coders mentioned in the message. So I did and received positive feedback from them about the ideas I put forth. IP didn't take it as well and I can't blame him for that. Things quickly spiraled downward in the TBP internal forum.
During the downward spiral in the TBP internal we were also informed that people had been working on a patch for 3.4b. No one bothered to ask or even inform us the people in charge of TBP about it. There had been mention of members of the SCP making changes for their own personal use in fixing bugs. This however was the first we heard of a patch and not only herd of it but were told TBP would be patched whether we wanted it to or not. Not as a mod but as a 3.4c.
Now how would you feel having clearly stated the position that TBP core is not to be changed, having put forward possible solutions and then being notified that your project was going to be updated by another team? Pissed me off and it wasn't even my work in the 3.4b core.
Now the downward spiral continued at an even faster pace starting with the thread in IP's signature. Even the SCP team members that had thought a mod was a possible solution backed off their initial positions. No longer was an update via mod and reporting bugs with FS2 data good enough solutions for some of them. IP also withdrew the option for a mod because of this. The models were now off limits for fixes.
In the mean time we are trying to FRED an get mutiplayer up and running. We are at a state where we don't even know if there will be multiplayer. Pretty much all work on multiplayer has come down to finishing up what is currently being worked on and holding off on any new stuff as it may be a waste of time to make it in the first place. How do you think we feel stuck in the middle? We have to maintain our promise not to change 3.4b while trying to develop for a mod that may have support removed from the engine and multiplayer shut down.
Thankfully things have started settling down a bit and hopefully cooler heads will prevail. But don't jump to conclusions on who is wright an who is wrong. I don't think there is even one person that knows the whole story. As far as us not replying in threads like this there is an old saying: "Leave sleeping dogs lie" That is my approach. When the dogs have rested then we will discuss the issues. Threads such as this usually do no good but to anger both sides. I could go on and on but I have other stuff to do..........
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Okay, at the moment it looks like there mayyy be the potential for a consensus to emerge.
1) Would both parties be willing to work with an update if it was delivered as a mod, rather than a change to the core engine?
2) Would both parties be willing to consider the option of a 'Director's Cut' or 'TBP Special Edition' in the future, updating the core engine to 3.4c? This could come much later.
It would be great if TBP could continue in its position as one of the SCP's flagship total conversions. Although I think your commitment to finalizing TBP springs from the same commitment to reasonable milestones that made TBP so successful in the first place, we shouldn't let it stand in the way of a final step towards perfection.
As IPAndrews said, we've got to weigh the risks and rewards, and if at some point it seems like a rerelease of the core files wouldn't be too much of an issue -- it might even drum up new publicity! -- maybe the TBP team should do it.
In the mean time, we can deliver the patch as a mod in order to maintain multiplayer support.
Is that generally reasonable?
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Lets keep discussion on that to the TBP forum. It will just get confusing if we try to discuss it in both places.
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,60953.0.html
Note all posts not relevant to the subject will be deleted.
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All right, I'll repost that last post of mine over there.
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And on that note I think it makes sense to close this thread. Discussion can continue on the TBP forums and since I'm an active member of both teams and have argued both sides no one can complain I'm showing favouritism. :p