[crackyfish]

Hi, found this place while looking up the BSG mmo. Apparently it is browser based... may not be worth playing. However, I found you! (and promptly installed freespace 2 and is AWESOME for a decade old game).

Anyway so got a few questions about your BSG mod/diaspora/BTRL or whatever you call it its damn confusing  

1-Will I need to get anything extra or is freespace open good enough? I heard some conflicting stuff, some say NOTHING is required.

2-Checked the dev thread, what phase of development are you in now (relevant to question 3). Understand you just finished the big ship thing and it looks sweet   Will I get to blow the battlestar up? Hell I'll make a mission where I get to blow it up. Or hell I'll just kill it with friendly fire. Do you have a vid where it gets blown up?

4-Almost no hope here, but is there any way I can help? It is a rather old project so I suppose all slots are already taken by people who would definitely do a better job than a newb. Perhaps VA when the time calls for it? Any idea on when you would start taking in voice actors? How big is the team? Maybe there is hope after all. I'm referring to http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=56782.0
and the roles I'm interested in are voice actor (male, bit of weird accent but can get over that), if by sound engineer you mean someone who mixes sounds with audacity? and also seeing it is probably a long way off (3rd year in development and no alpha), I could probably learn fred on time. But just what kinda standard are you expecting?

Haven't done much voice acting in the past before, just for several old games.

I'm a (rather) hardcore gamer, and so maybe instead of playing games 6 hours a day and triple that on weekends, I could spare weekends and several days a week helping out... assuming you manage to use me.

[Shade]

1) You will need nothing except what is included in the download, once it is available. While Diaspora runs on the FSO engine, the game is a complete standalone and will not require any prior installations.

2) We're... quite far along, but with a fair bit yet to go. So don't hold your breath for a release just yet.

3) You won't be blowing up any battlestars in the singleplayer campaign, but you can do so in some of the included multiplayer missions or, as you suggested yourself, make your own mission with the included editor.

4) http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=56782.0 (though you've already found that) and http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=70415.0 should answer most of your questions. Sound engineer basically means being able to make sounds that match those from the show from scratch, which is harder than it sounds. It could also involve cleaning up and processing any voiceacting.

4.5) No alpha? We've had a playable (but initially buggy, unbalanced and using many placeholder models) game internally for well over a year now. Just because there's no public alpha doesn't mean we don't have stuff that's being tested Also, we've actually only been around for two years, not three. As for standards? Fairly high, but not insurmountable - I'd say at least a year or so of working with FRED, plus some flair for complicated event wrangling would probably be required. But hey, some people learn fast so it might take less.

I hope that answers your questions.

[crackyfish]

Well I could probably learn it in a month, I have modded for several games in the past and seem to be able to wrap my head around the editors. Will get straight to it once I finish the main campaigns.

If you expecting Blue Planet standards (still playing it actually), it will be a little hard to achieve...

Thanks for the reply. Will the modified fredder be released before the game so I can start tinkering with it?

[Shade]

The actual editor we're using is the same as the one included in nightly SCP builds, and nearly identical to the newly released 3.6.12 version. The difference is in the assets we're using, but that has little bearing on actually learning it.

[crackyfish]

Very well. Linky to a good tutorial?

[Iss Mneur]

Very well. Linky to a good tutorial?

FRED (the name of the editor for the FreeSpace engine) includes a decent tutorial.  You can also check the stickies in the FRED Discussion forum (which is pretty FreeSpace centric, but as Shade said, the only difference is going to be the assets used).

[karajorma]

I've been putting up copies of the modified FRED documentation here for a while so you can have a look through them and decide see how easy it would be for you to use FRED.

I'm slowly replacing all the Freespace stuff with Diaspora examples but the basics are useful to any FREDder so I decided not to sit on it.

Of course there's no way to do the walkthroughs until we release the game.

[newman]

4-Almost no hope here, but is there any way I can help? It is a rather old project so I suppose all slots are already taken by people who would definitely do a better job than a newb. Perhaps VA when the time calls for it? Any idea on when you would start taking in voice actors?

What are your skills? We can definitely use voice actors. We could also good 3d artists capable of modeling, uvw-mapping and texturing ships, coders, sound engineers, people who'll buy us beer, etc.
The project isn't really that old. We've been at it for roughly two years, do bear in mind it's a volunteer project and there's plenty of commercial games which spend that much time in development - or even longer.
At any rate, thanks for your interest. Voice actor auditions are still ongoing and it's not too late to get into that, either.

On another note, we need to stamp huge neon letters "STANDALONE" over everything. And then explain below what "standalone" means Because people just don't get it, saying it on a forum simply isn't enough. I'm serious here, we should look into modifying our website and moddb pages with very clear and obvious "standalone" signage.

[karajorma]

I think the problem is that although we say we are standalone, everyone mentions Freespace all the time and then people get confused.

[crackyfish]

LOL sorry. I mean you're hosted on this site and all... but if you are using freespace or at least part of it to make your game, won't there be... legal consequences for distributing it freely? Since technically I already have fs2, I'm ok. But what of those who don't have fs2 and instead just install yours?

And maybe it would be easier to work out what I can do and when if you tell me what needs to be done? Like I said, I have lots of time on my hands to learn fredding, and as I'm acting on your orders anyway, won't take much skill of my own. Basically I'm just converting your ideas into game code.

I can't model or do any c++ stuff sorry.

Lastly, while I understand this has been discussed to death already and you don't know, are you targeting a 2011 public test? As long as it is not like NEXT WEEK I should have more than enough time to learn.

[newman]

LOL sorry. I mean you're hosted on this site and all... but if you are using freespace or at least part of it to make your game, won't there be... legal consequences for distributing it freely? Since technically I already have fs2, I'm ok. But what of those who don't have fs2 and instead just install yours?

Don't worry, we've been here for quite a long time and this has all been taken into account. FS2_Open is free to be used for standalone games as long as they're not commercial. There's FS2 based projects that already came out as standalone. TBP's been out for years, for instance.
And we won't be shipping FS2 in any playable shape or form. You won't be able to grab Diaspora and somehow extract yourself a free copy of FS2 from that. That's a bit like saying you can get Unreal 2 from every game ever based on the Unreal 2 engine - it just doesn't work that way Missions, GUI, sounds, music, effects, models, textures, various code and almost the entire engine differ greatly from what was the original fs2.

[Shade]

LOL sorry. I mean you're hosted on this site and all... but if you are using freespace or at least part of it to make your game, won't there be... legal consequences for distributing it freely? Since technically I already have fs2, I'm ok. But what of those who don't have fs2 and instead just install yours?

The game engine has been released to the community and is free for non-commercial use, and is now being developed by the SCP. So we can use it for whatever we want, we just can't sell the game we make with it. But we can give it away.

What we can't do legally is give away the art assets that make FS2 what it is - But we won't need to. We're replacing everything, lock, stock and barrel. And since the engine is already free to use and is indeed developed here on HLP, and everything else is of our own making, there are no legal problems.

Basically, you have to keep in mind the distinction between a game engine and a game. FSO is just the engine, not the game. The game is what you build on top of the engine. Take, for example, Half Life 2 and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. They run on the same game engine. But you don't need Half Life 2 to play Dark Messiah. And noone ever bloody well confuses them and thinks Dark Messiah is a HL2 mod either, which is just downright unfair since that's what's happening for us all the time

[crackyfish]

so from what I understand you can release what makes the game, but not the models, voices, missions or anything, and the second you or anyone puts in a retail ship into your game, you have a lawsuit? Sorry thats the limit of my understanding.
Thanks for clearing me up.

Do you have any kind of schedule right now or you still don't have a yearly alpha release target? Sorry for askin, but couldn't exactly find anything much on this matter. Whats the short and long term plan? From what I can gather, it is hard to give a date because stuff heaps up all the time  but I'd prefer to play it before I retire.

[The E]

so from what I understand you can release what makes the game, but not the models, voices, missions or anything, and the second you or anyone puts in a retail ship into your game, you have a lawsuit? Sorry thats the limit of my understanding.
Thanks for clearing me up.

Pretty much, yeah. We can't release FS2, or games that use files from FS2, without breaking the license agreements of FS2. However, we are free to create entirely new games, like Diaspora or TBP, provided they are distributed for free, as the license on the FSO engine specifically forbids for-profit usage.

[crackyfish]

What if we port the missions on fs2 and models and EVERYTHING to TBP or this, same as how they ported fs1 to fs2 which I wish they added beams as well.
What happens if a user does that, I mean you haven't exactly made retail ships unusable...

Also, are there good odds we will see this before the end of the year, or should I not get my hopes up? It's k, you can kill my hope  

EDIT: APPARENTLY most of the models are not original models anyway and someone painstakingly made a modern variation of everything. No wonder it looks so good for a decade old game. So distributing those shouldn't be a problem... right?

[The E]

What if we port the missions on fs2 and models and EVERYTHING to TBP or this, same as how they ported fs1 to fs2 which I wish they added beams as well.
What happens if a user does that, I mean you haven't exactly made retail ships unusable...

If you knew anything about TBP, you'd realize how stupid that sounds. You can't do that, because the ships and weaponbs used in TBP (Or any total conversion, for that matter) are vastly different in terms of capabilities and design from the ones found in FS2. You could tell roughly the same story, but the actual gameplay will be completely different.

EDIT: APPARENTLY most of the models are not original models anyway and someone painstakingly made a modern variation of everything. No wonder it looks so good for a decade old game. So distributing those shouldn't be a problem... right?

MASSIVE grey area. The upgraded models for the mediaVPs (And note, not all models are upgraded ATM), while technically not retail assets, are still "Fan Art" based on the original Volition designs. Fan Art is actually protected under US copyright law, BUT only as long as you don't use it to compete with the "official" release.

[crackyfish]

ok... so you fix their things, and not get any credit for it... nice.
From what I gather, babylon project makes it so that importing the old models won't work? Don't know, not a fan of b5 so never played that.

Also any hope of an xmas release? you'd be the best santa evar. If you arn't comfortable answering its allright, I understand it is a bit of a sensitive topic. Just that if it is like another 2 years, I'd best leave now before I die of boredom. If you arn't happy stating it here, you could always pm me  then again I'm not sure if I WANT to know.

[headdie]

by rebuilding the game in TBP you are still violating the licence terms, TBP still uses the FS code base so all you are doing is copying the protected material into the freespace 2 engine

[Sushi]

I think the problem is that although we say we are standalone, everyone mentions Freespace all the time and then people get confused.

Sounds like something to add to the FAQ to me.


Regarding release dates: we don't have any public targets right now, and we aren't planning to set any. I'm afraid you'll just have to be patient and trust that we're making progress, and one day you'll wake up and find an awesome, complete game to download.

[Shade]

Added a note about it to the website FAQ some time ago when this last came up. So if they can get off their lazy behinds, Karajorma, Lt.Cannonfodder or Axem can just copy that to the stickied forum FAQ