[Dazza8082]

Here, just a thought, you guys seem to want extra coders and what not right?  Well, what about advertising in some game Mag, PCZone for instance.

It would serve two goals really, first you'll generate a load of intrest from Coders, graphics designers, debuggers, end uses which could help you guys.

And second,  showing what can be done to a fantastic game to make it better. when they released it as (kinda) open source.


My only worry is for a new comer it is rather complicated the way things work,  dont get me wrong the Wiki is fantastic but the way the Media VP stuff works is a bit backward i feel.  Only in the sence that it might get confusing which version your installing or have installed...Would it be possible to slap version numbers on the file names or something. Or indeed have a VP-Version.txt file or something. Either way if the website could point out the released date/version on EACH VP it would make it a bit easier.

And of course could your servers handle the bombardment it would probably get.  I mean the pics you guys produce for the latest builds  far excedes all the space sim games of to day in my opinion, so it probably would!

Perhaps even create an ISO image or an installer that can simply have check boxes to install different VP files, even better would be some auto checking feature that could determine VP's needed and flags used by the system spec

Any how just a thought, i "might" be able to get some inches in the mag above, dont hold me to that mind u, there are plenty of developers that would pay for that space so i'll leave it with you.

[WMCoolmon]

Hmm, I've thought about adding a readme to the VP files themselves...that'd take care of the version problem, as long as people knew how to use VPView.

[Dazza8082]

Indeed, only the peeps who would probably need to know the version probably wouldn't  know what VPview was.

As i mentioned though, even if on the site each VP had an update version/date and the Z-pack mentions the overall version of the VPs  it would help those not in the know.

[Liberator]

Well the obvious solution is to only have one version of each VP available publicly, with previous versions available at request from a special password only location(password to be provided on request and demonstration of need).  I mean for most of the VPs, the newest version is the one to have anyway.

[WMCoolmon]

Well, that seems like it's going a little too far. Usually people notice bugs fast enough that checking old versions isn't really a problem.

[MatthewPapa]

I have put the ISO files up for download before....they are way too popular for my bandwidth limitations.

[Dazza8082]

You make good points about the website always having the correct versions, but how does Jo public know which version "he" has, by slapping a date on it at least they might know the rough date he has or whats available.  Remember the peeps that might DL it might be clueless about the files but may hold a degree in C++.....

The person im speaking about actually was talking about having to download the whole set each and every time, but perhaps he only needed to get a couple of different VP's for his current build....

oki im rambling there.

As for the ISO what kinda figures are we talking when you tried it?

[karajorma]

IIRC he's talking about getting more than 50GB of downloads in 6 hours.

[Dazza8082]

50GB in 6 hours..........bugger me....i guess there isnt any chance of setting up a bit torrent? help if more peeps got involved.....thats a serious amout of bandwidth needed, there goes basic commercial hosts....

[WMCoolmon]

http://www.tbp-bt.com/

[karajorma]

If you do download it though make sure you're good about seeding it too. There have been some complaints in that department about people leeching.

[Dazza8082]

too late, its gone.  did it include latest VP's / build or was that just the original ISOs

[Goober5000]

Let's get back on topic.

Originally posted by Dazza8082
Any how just a thought, i "might" be able to get some inches in the mag above, dont hold me to that mind u, there are plenty of developers that would pay for that space so i'll leave it with you.

Do you mean to say that you might be able to get us free advertising in said magazine?

[Dazza8082]

Possibly, it all depends really what’s going on in the world.  Developers can....grease the works so to speak in order to get there games mentioned.  So it really depends on how much greasing has been going on.  We obviously cant pay for the space since the SCP doesnt make any money and i wouldnt expect a full page, but we can get a mention possibly a pic or two and (its a long shot) but perhaps space on the DVD version, at the very least a link here or anywhere else u guys want.

[Dazza8082]

i didnt want to do anything incase you guys feel it might back fire or something, ie the servers cant take it or the general public feels its to hard to get working.

[StratComm]

I suppose that depends on how close we actually are to eliminating dependency on the stock VP's.  TBP could probably go on its own, but everyone else is still using Volition's material to some extent and that makes it hard to [legally] distribute.  Small numbers are fine, but throw it to public view... I dunno.  At best all we could ask for is digging up more legal owners of FS2 who would like to give it another try; at worst it'd get ignored.

[Dazza8082]

you have a good point there... I gather the material in the VP's is still controled by V.  That could play in our favour though, since we dont have the resources nessary to distribute several gigs worth of data every few hours, limiting SCP to current owners would give the slack.

TBP could be put in place to show a mod in progress using SCP that has its own installer and what not.  Might work out to everyones favour, hell if there are any copies still floating about in shops they might even shift them.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by StratComm
I suppose that depends on how close we actually are to eliminating dependency on the stock VP's.  TBP could probably go on its own, but everyone else is still using Volition's material to some extent and that makes it hard to [legally] distribute.  Small numbers are fine, but throw it to public view... I dunno.  At best all we could ask for is digging up more legal owners of FS2 who would like to give it another try; at worst it'd get ignored.

We could probably easily scrape together enough stuff to make a full standalone release using no V material (NB: remember the HTL ships tend to use V tiled maps, so they'd be out) - but for the fact we'd be crucially lacking interface art.

[Singh]

isnt it interplay that holds the rights to the contents, not [v]. If im not wrong, the only thing [v] holds the right to are the source code...

[StratComm]

The rights are very muddled.  As I remember it, Volition owns the material itself, but Interplay owns the concepts.  Ultimately if we replace stock we clear ourselves of them, but Interplay and the license remain the elephant in the closet.  I'd also point out that the high-res art done by DaBrain/Lightspeed, as well as any high-poly ships we're distributing, are derived works, and therefore also legally belong to the same entity as the original.