Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - Standalone => The Babylon Project => Topic started by: emtilt on July 23, 2011, 06:07:51 pm
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I've always been a fan of B5, so, when I recently discovered this game, I was excited and installed it. Now, I don't know how much active development it still receives, but I thought I'd throw my 2 cents out there in case anyone wants to improve some things.
The games itself is pretty neat. Unfortunately, I think you guys have set up a huge barrier to growing the player community. Your average computer user wants to just download, install an play a game. Anything more is too much. When I went to install this game, it took me about an hour to get everything working. The available installer is almost completely unuseable on its own. Aside from obviously needing single player campaigns, to play multiplayer, a whole host of things has to be done. First you need Zathras, which is barely described at all on the main website. But then that won't work with the inferno executeables include with the game download, and an obscure forum post has to be found to point the user in the right direction for those. Additionally, I needed a missing scptrackir.dll as well as to install OpenAL - neither included with the main installer nor described on the main site. Then you need multiplayer maps. Then you have to figure out which exe you're actually supposed to use. Then you get a bunch of errors which, it turns out, don't actually matter. The information about how to do all this is out there, but it's scattered in obscure forum posts and takes a long time to get together.
If you guys want new users to not immediately give up, fixing this should be a priority. I'm a very adept computer user and it still took me a while - what about your average user? They aren't going to stick around. A good user base is what keeps projects like this alive - be friendly to potential users!
I know I have little right to complain, but I am hoping my comments help the community keep this great project alive. It's easy to not notice problems like this when you've been using the software for years; the new user, however, immediately notices them. Anyway, these are just a few thoughts on the matter - take them or leave them. I'll enjoy the game either way!
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I'll second all of the above! I got TBP working fine but it really is some work. As the original release mustn't be altered, I'd suggest you put all necessary files into Zathras, including the latest stable launcher and inforno build that this version of Zathras is compatible with.
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The games itself is pretty neat. Unfortunately, I think you guys have set up a huge barrier to growing the player community. Your average computer user wants to just download, install an play a game.
We know. I want to release a new Installer and DVD for years now but we are always waiting on something (damn feature creep).
A new fs2_open release, my voice acted Fortune Hunters campaigns, Zathras testing, ...
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How come the DVD and the installer pointed to on the main website are different? It seems like standardizing the install process could help. If the installer on the main website included Zathras, the most current fs2 builds, and all of the required DLLs, that would be a huge step toward making the game more user friendly. Even if all of those aren't included, adding a feature to the installer that checked for them and notified the user, possibly even offering to download them automatically, would also fix the problem.
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I agree. But I still would suggest that if a complete DVD release is pushed up further and further, you should include all the necessary updates to launcher and engines into new releases of Zathras, which are more frequent.
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We can't include the exes in Zathars anymore. There are too many options. You have standard, SSE, SSE2 and the different platform ones.
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There are too many options. You have standard, SSE, SSE2 and the different platform ones.
Then you either need to provide a seperate exe archive on the main page below Zathras or you could always include the most common working one and then point to the others in the readme. Who e.g. needs SSE and SSE2 versions nowadays?
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SSE/SSE2 are instruction sets, should you have the capability of using them (basically a CPU after what... 2001?) you should use them.
Using standard only if you can't handle SSE/SSE2.
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[justthinkingaloudhere]
You could simply bundle the SSE2 build(s) and declare system requirements that necessitate the use of at least a P4 level CPU. Then perchance mention in some troubleshooting section that people, who insist on using really old hardware and still want to play TBP, can download non-SSE builds from some location.
Unfortunately, due to the nature of FSO and the unfortunate TBP-related incident some time ago, creating a simple one-click installer for everything isn't quite possible. TBP itself is off-limits in terms of modifying, so only the 3.4 Final version can be distributed. Then the FSO engine is being developed all the time, and in terms of multiplayer, that requires TPB multi players to also keep their builds up to date.
Technically I suppose you could do things so that TBP itself is distributed as is, and when Zathras things reach an approved point, release them, with the latest recommended SSE2 INF build, in a single installer/DVD, that can sniff around the target computer and install itself on TBP without much hassle. That way at least the singleplayer aspect could be simplified. To a point. Multiplayer would probably still remain as a different dilemma.
[/justthinkingaloudhere]
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Any and/or all of those changes would be a huge improvement over the current system.
Installer scripts are easy to update. Even if TBP has to be released in it's current form, a simple wrapper installer could solve the problem and could be kept up to date. Such an installer could:
-Include the most current TBP installer, Zathras, FS exes (bundle them all, the installer can get system info and use a lookup table once it knows the user's CPU - if that fails, default to SSE2 with a warning), and relevant dlls
-Begin by checking for an existing TBP install;
----If found, skip to next step
----If not found, call the TBP installer and install, followed by adding any needed dlls or drivers
-Update/install Zathras & and FS exes
-Option to add campaigns and such
Such a script would be a one-time investment in development time, and then would be easy to keep updated.
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Technically I suppose you could do things so that TBP itself is distributed as is, and when Zathras things reach an approved point, release them, with the latest recommended SSE2 INF build, in a single installer/DVD, that can sniff around the target computer and install itself on TBP without much hassle.
that actually *was* the plan and if I am not mistaken, the DVD automatically installs Zathras and sets the necessary mod flags.
Does it not?
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Unfortunately, due to the nature of FSO and the unfortunate TBP-related incident some time ago, creating a simple one-click installer for everything isn't quite possible. TBP itself is off-limits in terms of modifying, so only the 3.4 Final version can be distributed.
I still think that IPA's argument of "whatever I worked on in TBP cannot be altered anymore, 3.4b is final." doesn't hold any water IMHO. Almost all TBP assets were worked on by several people over time... no single member get's the privilege to decide what can and cannot be modified anymore.
Personally, I would be in favor of making a 3.6.12 compatible base package with an easy installer (basically TBP 4.0). But that's just my $0.02, I know FUBAR and Vidmaster don't share my POV.
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Technically I suppose you could do things so that TBP itself is distributed as is, and when Zathras things reach an approved point, release them, with the latest recommended SSE2 INF build, in a single installer/DVD, that can sniff around the target computer and install itself on TBP without much hassle.
that actually *was* the plan and if I am not mistaken, the DVD automatically installs Zathras and sets the necessary mod flags.
Does it not?
I... don't know. If that's the case, awesome.
Unfortunately, due to the nature of FSO and the unfortunate TBP-related incident some time ago, creating a simple one-click installer for everything isn't quite possible. TBP itself is off-limits in terms of modifying, so only the 3.4 Final version can be distributed.
I still think that IPA's argument of "whatever I worked on in TBP cannot be altered anymore, 3.4b is final." doesn't hold any water IMHO. Almost all TBP assets were worked on by several people over time... no single member get's the privilege to decide what can and cannot be modified anymore.
I agree with you. IPAndrews dabbled with many things, but did not single-handedly pull TBP out of his arse. And with the highly moddable nature of any FSO game, preventing people from modifying TBP isn't something that could actually be achieved. IPA can say "don't touch it" and even yell at people, but he can't really prevent people who decide to modify or redo any or all TBP assets. Especially since he or no one here can pull any legal stunts to ensure that TBP is not modified. But I'm talking as a non-teammember here, so yeah. It's really up to the current TBP team.
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I agree with the above, although I wasn't around at the time as well. Still if this bothers you, TBP 4.0 could indeed just be a wrapper as described by emtilt above that first installs the TBP 3.4b files unchanged, then the latest Zathras and the executables on top, but invisible to the user who from the outside only sees TBP 4.0 being installed. Thus you won't break any given promise but you could still offer a streamlined product for new users! I don't know what installer you used before, but I found the free InnoSetup extremely easy to use. You can find it here: http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php
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Most install systems should beable to accomplish those tasks easily. In addition to the one mentioned by wesp5, the NSIS installers are also easy to use but also powerful. It's at http://nsis.sourceforge.net and it does indeed allow the installer to check for SSE and SSE2 support via this plugin: http://nsis.sourceforge.net/CPUDesc_plug-in
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I'm really late to the discussion but it anything that consolidates and simplifies a TBP installation would be awesome. I was so enthusiastic for such an idea a few weeks ago I wanted a DVD 3.0....even though we don't have a DVD 2.0 yet... :nervous: