[MatthTheGeek]

Have anyone from the Starshatter community come on this very topic or anywhere else in HLP to show their interest ? No, they didn't. That's what Goober is talking about.

[Polpolion]

Other than The E and rscaper, you mean? Don't tell me you actually expect people to find this thread randomly, that's totally absurd. I don't know how visible it would be, but doubtlessly a subforum would be far more visible than this thread.

[Goober5000]

Of course we don't expect them to show up randomly.  We expect them to be recruited to this thread through whatever communication methods are still in use now that the site is down.

Yet again I will say that if you can't get in touch with the community before the board is created, the board itself won't make a difference.  If you want to bring the community here then you need a way of contacting them.

If you want to start a brand new Starshatter project with just HLP people, and hope that old Starshatter people will eventually find their way here, then that has different selection criteria.  But nobody has actually said they want to do this.

[The E]

For those interested in/concerned about Starshattermods, I just heard from Wdboyd. Apparently he was attempting to update the site, and somehow the database got lost and was not backed up so the database for the site is gone for good and can't be restored. William does have all the files in the download section and I asked him if he would allow then to be hosted at annother site should such a place become available. I have yet to hear from him on that one, but I anticipate a response soon.\

As for starshattermods, it looks as though it's run has come to an end. William had been disappointed with the level of participation for quite some time, and has decided this is the time to bring it to an end, so no further attempt will be made to revive the site. A sad day to be sure, but anyone who enjoys the game Starshatter owes a great debt of gratitude to wdboyd for maintaining starshattermods and keeping the game alive for so long. While I am quite sad to see SSMods come to an end, I look forward to what may come from the source coding that is now in its infancy, and I am still willing to help out in any way possible to further that effort.

[yuezhi]

well, i guess there goes another mod community sinking.

[Goober5000]

That's very sad.

I look forward to hearing back from braddw25 about this William though.

[The E]

william == wdboyd, in case that wasn't clear.

[G0atmaster]

I think it would be great to have Starshatter here at HLP. My WiH project has stalled a little due to problems I've been having with the engine. Things like shields and ai acting like wussies. Once the project is here I'm sure people will follow. I can post at all the boards that I frequent and drum up some people. The only person from SSmods that I know is here is Brad but I don't know if he can get in contact with others.

http://youtu.be/okWp4ph7dxc

Here's a vid that I made to show some of the progress I made with WiH. There's some vexing problems with ai aggressiveness in that they don't shoot back unless they launch from a ship or jump in. And for some strange reason if you launch from a ship you have to charge your shields manually. 

Dang, how long did it take to kill a perseus???


Anyway, I am a leader on a completely different board.  I understand the logistics of this kind of decision-making, and I know that while community feedback is appreciated, this is not a democracy.

That said, I am highly in favor of setting up a board for Starshatter, under the philosophy that "if we build it, they will come."  I mean, think about it.  The central hub of communication and regular home for these people just imploded.  Unless the entire site operated an email/cell phone network or a facebook group or alternate forum before the collapse, there would be no way to get a hold of each other.

For example, as far as HLP goes, I have a very dated IM address of... JR2 and Turey and a very dated email address of... JR2.  If HLP goes down, I would have no way to get in touch with ANYONE else, and those that I do have are very iffy.  With no message board and no PM system, the infrastructure simply isn't there.  I would have to resort to periodically googling "Freespace 2 mods" and hope a community like this someday pops up again.



Therefore, if we build an entire sub-board for Starshatter, and it slowly creeps up in the google results, then over time I imagine old modders that get nostalgic and throw out random google searches will begin to trickle in.  As we spread word about the internet, people will become aware.

When you build a homeless shelter in the city, most people don't go around polling the homeless to find out if they will use it.  It's sorta assumed that if they know about it, they'll come.

So, IMO, it's all about getting the word out in frequently visible places on the net AFTER we get the system set up.

That's my 2 cents.

[karajorma]

So basically the only minor objection I had (what if the Starshatter community see this as some sort of takeover event) is nullified. If the Starshatter community are so disorganised that they can't be contacted, it's going to be pretty hard for them to rise up against us.

Which means I'm in favour of setting up the board now despite Goober's objections. Hopefully this will help the Starshatter community organise. If it doesn't, maybe it will help set up a new community. Even if it doesn't do that, having HLP become the place you go to get a free open-sourced space sim game isn't going to hurt us when it comes to distributing our other free open-sourced space sim games (like TBP, WCS and Diaspora).

Given that the worst case scenario is that we simply end up archiving the forum next year, I can live with the risk/reward ratio.

[jr2]

For example, as far as HLP goes, I have a very dated IM address of... JR2 and Turey and a very dated email address of... JR2.  If HLP goes down, I would have no way to get in touch with ANYONE else, and those that I do have are very iffy.  With no message board and no PM system, the infrastructure simply isn't there.  I would have to resort to periodically googling "Freespace 2 mods" and hope a community like this someday pops up again.

In that scenario, just for giggles, the IM address wouldn't do any good unless I happened to have an insane inkling to pop back on (I used to keep all of my IM accounts up using Pidgin, but I've dropped the habit).  Depending on the e-mail address you have, I may or may not get your e-mail, and it may or may not be a month or two later (if it's my infrequently used accounts, like AOL or MS Live/Hotmail).

So, yeah, in that situation, you would be hoping Turey's info was still up to date and that he still actually used it with any kind of frequency.  (I don't think your chances would be good.. last I knew IIRC, Turey had R/L issues that were occupying most of his time.)

So..

There you have it.  90% chance (IMHO) you'd be Googling up the creek without a paddle hoping for a new FS2 site to come online or this one to finally get fixed.


Aside from that, does anyone who was a part of their community know .. how much of a community they had?  Like, I mean, were people involved (hanging out and chatting or what have you) besides purely to troubleshoot or grab the latest update for the SSMod(s)?  EDIT: Just curious, nothing to do with hosting/not hosting (I support hosting, however I see Goober's point, but then again I'm hoping the SSMod folk are tenacious enough to find their way here).

[General Battuta]

For example, as far as HLP goes, I have a very dated IM address of... JR2 and Turey and a very dated email address of... JR2.  If HLP goes down, I would have no way to get in touch with ANYONE else, and those that I do have are very iffy.  With no message board and no PM system, the infrastructure simply isn't there.  I would have to resort to periodically googling "Freespace 2 mods" and hope a community like this someday pops up again.

In that scenario, just for giggles, the IM address wouldn't do any good unless I happened to have an insane inkling to pop back on (I used to keep all of my IM accounts up using Pidgin, but I've dropped the habit).  Depending on the e-mail address you have, I may or may not get your e-mail, and it may or may not be a month or two later (if it's my infrequently used accounts, like AOL or MS Live/Hotmail).

So, yeah, in that situation, you would be hoping Turey's info was still up to date and that he still actually used it with any kind of frequency.  (I don't think your chances would be good.. last I knew IIRC, Turey had R/L issues that were occupying most of his time.)

So..

There you have it.  90% chance (IMHO) you'd be Googling up the creek without a paddle hoping for a new FS2 site to come online or this one to finally get fixed.

Or just:

irc.esper.net

#hard-light

[jr2]

Point.  IDK if SSMods used IRC though.  You're right; esper would work splendid for us in a similar circumstance.  I would have remembered that... eventually. 

[Black Wolf]

Not to mention Sectorgame.

[Mongoose]

And all of us who are friends with each other on Steam, and the Facebook group, and so on.

[braddw25]

Hello to all involved in this thread,

I guess I wanted to throw my 2 cents into this discussiona about Starshatter modding and the potential of setting up some kind of space here for it. It looks as though I have inherited the role of leader of the Starshatter modding community since William (Wdboyd) has at least for the time being moved on to other pursuits. I am currently in the process of trying to round up as many of the more active modders from the old site as I can find. I just started over the weekend, and so far I've only been able to come into contact with 2 other members. I know that doesn't sound like many, but the abruptness with which SSMods disappeared is hindering the process. All the email addresses were available previously on the site, so I never stored them anywhere else. SO I have had to go creeping all over the net to find folks. I anticipate hearing from more of the folks in the near future, and I intend to tell all of them to come over here and check out Hard-light.net. The two members that I am in contact with both agree that we should try to find somewhere on the web to preserve the modding community and knowledge base that was accumulated at SSmods and in my opinion, hard-light.net would be a great place to try to start something like that. I had considered buying my own domain space and trying to make a new site on my own. Since I have never done anything like that, it would have been a while until such a site was established. If it's possible for us to have space here in an already existing and thriving community like this one, then I am all for it. I can't speak for everyone else, but I'm betting that they would be as well.

One thing about our little community at SS:mods. The level of activity over there for the past couple of years was sporadic. There were times when things really took off such as when guys like Wdboyd, Achilles, and myself were all producing mods at the same time. It would be kind of contagious and spread to other guys being more active. Once the mods were completed, then we would have a few months of less activity. We were in one of the periods when the site went down, so I'm betting that there are many folks who were out of the loop and have no idea what happened. It's those folks that I'm hoping to find and bring here if you guys will have us. I do have to check with the other members as I do not wish to speak for them without asking first, but I think they will be in favor of what's left of our group coming here as well. Thanks for considering bringing us on board. I will do what I can to get more SS folks coming here.

[Goober5000]

Okay, this is a good post.   This is encouraging news -- at least about a potential move; it really stinks from the point of view of the SSMods site.

Given these new developments, my issues (I wouldn't call them "objections") have been satisfied, so I am willing to approve the hosting.

Looking at the hosting policy, SSMods seems to have comfortably filled the criteria for a hosted project -- there's certainly significant progress, a website, and staff organization.  And The E seems very motivated to work on the source code aspect.

What exactly is desired for project hosting?  There's the subforum, obviously.  But is SSMods going to have an entire category of Starshatter expansion packs/source code modifications to download?  If so, it sounds like they may want to consider requesting space on Sectorgame or FSMods.

[The E]

Personally, I just want a place on this board to discuss and promote this thing. It was never my intention to use HLP as a file hoster (Because, let's be honest, we're not in that business). No offense to Sectorgame, but I am far more comfortable here

As for hosting downloads, I am sure that arrangements can be made with FSMods (or, for that matter, ModDB). The source code will remain hosted at google; I see no reason to move it.

[braddw25]

I Agree with The E. At this point, the main thing I'm looking for is a place for members to be able to meet and discuss projects. Once that is established we can find somewhere to host all the files. Speaking of the files, they have been preserved and I have obtained permission from wdboyd to download all the files that were hosted on Starshattermods.com. There is A LOT of stuff there and it will take some time, but I'm going to get as much of it as I can and attempt to preserve all the mods, tutorials, tools etc that had been collected on the old site.

[jr2]

Since the StarShatter is actually completely free, you should be able to use gameupdates.org as a backup location for people to get the goods until you find somewhere else.  Alan Bolte uploaded some of the files there.

I still have on my hard drive:
SCP_505.zip
SSTGS.zip
SS_Reborn.zip
vox.7z

I'll put them on the tracker jr2 posted, but if you want me to upload them elsewhere, PM me.

EDIT: here's the torrent: http://gameupdates.org/details.php?id=5035

EDIT: Not much, but it's been downloaded 23 times since uploading, so that's good. 

[darkone]

Why don't I solve the issue and just create an area on SpaceSimCentral for Starshatter, I already had a download area with the game files. So here it is, http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=85

Enjoy and if anyone has any of the mods feel free to upload them to the download area as well.