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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Who's in charge here?


Kratos

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Who's actually in charge of the server, such as who's paying for it, who knows the details.. Someone I can contact for possibly hooking up to talk about maybe giving me a little free space for a website or project forum?

 

Micah? Mindstormaster? These are the only two I believe have direct contact of the server. Please correct me if I'm wrong?

 

If it isn't possible for me to get free space on your server, could you tell me how you encountered getting these forums (these I don't believe are free) and how much the server costs and your willingness to keep it alive? I never owned my own webspace before, and I would like to explore this area.

 

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I just read, xenocide is dead too? Wow. I want to say I wonder how this happened, but honestly game developing is no easy feat.

Edited by Kratos
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I currently don't have a running project at this time. However, I've been experimenting with PHP/Javascript and am curious if you guys can handle a small MySQL server for a web based game? I believe you played Pardus, so relate to that but on a much smaller scale.

 

I'm a programmer/graphics designer/game designer in practice. I'm simply seeking some web hosting since my budget is quite tight. And since you guys don't seem to be that alive either, it probably wouldn't hurt it for a small project like mine. If it became bigger, I could always figure a way out of branching onto something of my own (or possibly paying you guys a small fee). I just rather not risk it, since I'm just experimenting.

 

It's more of an inquiry of the idea.

 

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Also, it would be nice to be in contact via IM if you're interested. I can't tell if these forums are going to collapse on itself due to little activity and what not. I just got a message a couple days ago from Mindstormaster that Ufo2k server space might be cleared if no activity is there (which is understandable). I also read Xenocide is suffering from the same fate. And since these forums are most active from these projects, it would be kind of an easy conclusion that it could end up being cleared as well for space. If I'm wrong (which I am probably), feel free to correct me. I'm just curious what's going on here.

 

It would be nice to keep the site up in general, even if it was through different/newer project blood.

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Well the forums are going nowhere, rest assured of that. I was not aware UFO2000 or xenocide were in danger of being deleted and I assume mindstorm would talk to me about it before doing such a thing. The continued presence of those sites on the server is what I believe I was paying for :/ The issue may be about assets for either game taking up a lot of space - media files or something.

 

This forum runs on php and javascript so the server can certainly handle those. You can catch me on AIM at micahdg, MSN at [email protected], or email at [email protected]

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I believe it had to do with the game server, not the project forums. ufo2000.xcomufo

 

Also, the forum still receives ~500 unique visitors a day (somehow, LOL) so though people may not be posting, they are definitely doing something :P

That is interesting...I'm actually amazed how nobody uses the forums anymore? I know I don't, but I guess it's because I'm doing other related tasks? :)

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Don't forget the XCOM reboot and the in-the-making Xenonauts games, they will definitely attract some traffic here.

 

But please, don't purge/delete the UFO2K and Xenocide forums!!! There is a lot of conversation, ideas and reading material included there, and it's an excellent resource for wannabe developers (you can see the whole development timeline, where/when problems spawned, how decisions where taken, etc).

 

If you want, we could try to optimize some assets or free some space from the FTP server, whatever "wastes" the most space and/or bandwidth. But complete project deletion should be out of the question :(.

 

In addition, however slim, there's always the chance of reboot ^_^

 

edit:

Guys, now that the project is practically dead on the waters and there are no project leaders active except from our dear Mad, could you open access (at least give Read Access) to the Top Floor?

Edited by kafros
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I believe it had to do with the game server, not the project forums. ufo2000.xcomufo

 

Yes, I got this message too (too bad that apparently I did not have e-mail notifications enabled for private messages). Currently ufo2000 game server is hosted on my own VPS at ufo2000.net. It's kind of ironic that I have regressed from the one who was "doing the development" to just the one who is "paying the bills". It's hard to say what is better. Earlier I lived in a poor country and just could not afford to pay for any services (not to mention that even the process of such payment would be extremely difficult), so the help from Micah and mindstormmaster was really invaluable. Right now it's more like that I don't have the free time and enough motivation for the game itself, but paying for the server is not a problem. For me having my own server is better because it has much better specs, is located in Europe (so faster access to it for me) and I also use it for some other purposes anyway.

 

I probably should have notified mindstormmaster earlier. But as ufo2000.xcomufo.com was provided for the ufo2000 project and not for me personally, I thought that I could just pass it to somebody else who was active at that time (it looked like Nachtwolf could be the one to take care of it).

 

Regarding the other things. IIRC, during the lifetime of ufo2000 project we already lost at least 3 forums and 2 mailing lists along with all the information. And that's sad as they could be useful for some historical references. Typically that happened because somebody would create a forum of his own, then advertised it and lured the users, then lost interest or the means to host it. The end result - all the information stored there is lost. From the very start when I picked up this project in 2002, I tried to look around for various alternatives and decided to make a bet on xcomufo.com forum because it had a lively and active community at that time. And as this forum is still afloat, I was not very wrong in that decision ;) But in any case, with the cancellation of xenocide, and also with ufo2000 slowing down to almost standstill, I'm afraid that the decline of xcomufo.com may be unavoidable.

 

Also the world has changed. There are some nice services such as github. Also sourceforge can provide free hosting for phpbb and mantis bugtracker. So new projects starting nowadays have much better infrastructure than we used to have earlier. In the xcom fans community world, the momentum seems to be moving to ninex.info and to the projects hosted there (such as openxcom).

Edited by Serge
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Well the forums are going nowhere, rest assured of that. I was not aware UFO2000 or xenocide were in danger of being deleted and I assume mindstorm would talk to me about it before doing such a thing. The continued presence of those sites on the server is what I believe I was paying for :/

Many thanks for running xcomufo.com all these years! It has always been one of the best web resources for the xcom community.

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Yup, there are two exes for xcom apoc, one for pentium processors and one for 486 processors. If you install xcom apoc using DOSbox it'll use the 486 exes, but if you install it in windows it'll use the pentium exes. The pentium exes run a lot faster in DOSbox (actually too fast for me) so it might be worth a try :) (if you can't install it in windows you could also copy the exe's from the CD instead, UFO2P.EXE is the pentium exe, UFO2P4.EXE is the 486 one - same for tacp.exe)
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Was that in the original release or after it was released in the Collectors Edition?

 

If you're talking about reducing some forums, could I recommend merging some of the sub-sub forums in the X-com sections? Namely the Geoscape/Battlescape sub-sub sections. I feel that they aren't really adhered to all that often and there isn't enough discussion to need so many sub-sub forums. Just my general feeling on it.

 

- NKF

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Yup, there are two exes for xcom apoc, one for pentium processors and one for 486 processors. If you install xcom apoc using DOSbox it'll use the 486 exes, but if you install it in windows it'll use the pentium exes. The pentium exes run a lot faster in DOSbox (actually too fast for me) so it might be worth a try :) (if you can't install it in windows you could also copy the exe's from the CD instead, UFO2P.EXE is the pentium exe, UFO2P4.EXE is the 486 one - same for tacp.exe)

Would I be able to use the export function of Apoc'd to move my mod from the old exes to the new ones?

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I'm not sure NKF, but as far as I know there was never any difference between the CE version of Apoc and the original release version.

 

Sorrow: that should work provided there are no bugs left in apoc'd's import/export functions :)

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  • 3 weeks later...
Was that in the original release or after it was released in the Collectors Edition?

 

If you're talking about reducing some forums, could I recommend merging some of the sub-sub forums in the X-com sections? Namely the Geoscape/Battlescape sub-sub sections. I feel that they aren't really adhered to all that often and there isn't enough discussion to need so many sub-sub forums. Just my general feeling on it.

 

- NKF

Do you want me to merge all the xcom1 forums into one? Or just combine the geoscape/battlescape ones? Or any other ideas? I've always thought there were way too many subforums around here, too :/

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Well the divisions look like:

 

X-COM1

-General

-- Geoscape

-- Battlescape

 

-Strategy/Tactics

-- Geoscape

-- Battlescape

 

-Saves/Missions

 

-Technical

 

That's about 8 separate forums and the geoscape/battlescape divisions aren't necessarily adhered to.

 

My suggestion was to merge Geoscape/Battlescape subforums with their parent forum. That would leave 4 forums for each game. I'm not sure if there are more efficient ways to do this.

 

- NKF

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Well the divisions look like:

 

X-COM1

-General

-- Geoscape

-- Battlescape

 

-Strategy/Tactics

-- Geoscape

-- Battlescape

 

-Saves/Missions

 

-Technical

 

That's about 8 separate forums and the geoscape/battlescape divisions aren't necessarily adhered to.

 

My suggestion was to merge Geoscape/Battlescape subforums with their parent forum. That would leave 4 forums for each game. I'm not sure if there are more efficient ways to do this.

 

- NKF

Done!

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  • 2 weeks later...
Many thanks for running xcomufo.com all these years! It has always been one of the best web resources for the xcom community.

With the risk of sounding corny... On the subject of thanking people (though off topic), I actually want to thank you Serge, for developing UFO2K. When I came here in 2005, I was a complete newbie that wanted to program in C++...I was 15 (21 now). I'm actually amazed you didn't end up getting frustrated with this fact, as I hardly did anything worthwhile for UFO2K. Your development force really inspired me and is what brought me here in the first place. I think if I didn't stumble upon UFO2K, I would have actually not been interested in game development as much as I am today, and progressed. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, and I can't help but feel the community here drove me to where I am today. I met a lot of really cool people here, and very resourceful ones at that!

 

I still don't fully understand C++ (mostly the advanced related topics such as pointers, references, which I actually researched and understood on the concept level finally a year ago), but I have over the years grown to understand programming in general a lot better. I've toyed with various ones so far, such as C++, PHP, Javascript, Python, HTML5 (though I think Javascript is the real language for this, especially for the canvas element...but if you want to start calling mark ups real languages...), and some odd network game engine I found called BYOND (Dream Maker is referred to as the language).

 

I even taken up pixel art, (which honestly, I started from crappy UFO2K add-on art), drawing in general, vector art, and some general graphic and web design art (ooh shiny buttons!). I think this was my most significant growth and influence from UFO2K, since my first real work was from a Syndicate weapon set mod for it.

 

UFO2K led me to Fallen (a space browser game spin off from Pardus's [pardus.at])

 

Fallen led me to learning Blender (3D modelling) and PHP somewhat.

 

Fallen's demise led me to find BYOND game engine. Which led to a lot of goofing off (I don't even bother playing games these days) playing retro multiplayer online fan games...but it did lead me to pixel art further.

 

I went from one indie game to another, yet I learned a lot from my newbie mistakes and grew from them. I don't think projects and their demise entails only the demise itself, but a learning experience to why they died. Which is why I'm glad to see UFO2K's forums still there for some history.

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