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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Is This Project Dead ?


AndyS

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Okay - so as the occassional poster has mentioned - this project seems fairly dead since the 1086 cut back in mid October. I've suggested I'll help out, provided some code change suggestions and heard nothing back from any of the key members of the dev team. Needless to say it makes you wonder if either everyone has found something better to do or everyone is just burnt out from the 1086 work or are they all busy coding the next big thing ?

 

How many people are out there wanting to play ?

How many people are out there wanting to see new features ?

How many people are out there actually doing code changes ?

How many people are out there wanting to do some coding ?

 

If there isn't much life in this project then personally I'd prefer to spend my time doing the things I want to do after porting this to Java (so I don't have to worry about portability, floating point maths, graphics libs, serialisation libs etc etc...).

 

Someone tell me it's still worth trying to do something with this project....

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Okay - so as the occassional poster has mentioned - this project seems fairly dead since the 1086 cut back in mid October. I've suggested I'll help out, provided some code change suggestions and heard nothing back from any of the key members of the dev team. Needless to say it makes you wonder if either everyone has found something better to do or everyone is just burnt out from the 1086 work or are they all busy coding the next big thing ?

 

How many people are out there wanting to play ?

How many people are out there wanting to see new features ?

How many people are out there actually doing code changes ?

How many people are out there wanting to do some coding ?

 

If there isn't much life in this project then personally I'd prefer to spend my time doing the things I want to do after porting this to Java (so I don't have to worry about portability, floating point maths, graphics libs, serialisation libs etc etc...).

 

Someone tell me it's still worth trying to do something with this project....

 

 

This game lost many people who were active players because downtimes of the main server.

The game has a very big community potential, but I think we are not well organized.

I cannot help with coding at this time, but I can run a server and provide hosting.

The server I currently run(ufo2000.exodus.ro:2000 - 82.211.39.133:2000) has 210 days uptime ;)

The next step of the game IMO is to make some AI, so players have something to do when there is no partner available to play.

Also maybe AI engine should be very configurable and customizable so players can make their own AI? in the future maybe AI vs AI battles? :)

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First, please let me cheer you up and tell you this project is not dead.

 

I am the staff leader and one thing must be understood about commitment and updates. It's simply that our developers all have real life occupations and sometimes these can take your whole time for a given period of time. What they can give to the project is time, and they give it for free.

 

In a perfect world, we would love to provide you nice updates all year round on a regular basis but unfortunately this is nearly impossible. This project is not a job so devs can't have it on their priority list at all times. They all have a life to deal with and some periods are more booked than others.

 

I suggest you simply wait until the next rush of activity.

 

As far as I am concerned, my highest commitment periods are mid-winter and all summer (northern hemisphere)

For other staff members, it varies.

 

Also, better organization, documentation and storyline is something we are working on. But this will not be as visible as a beta update.

Edited by nachtwolf
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Nachtwolf

 

I think my original post was misunderstood. I want to actually help with the development but... if I want to do some coding now (as I have done) I risk either doing so much to the code before anyone of the UFO dev team look at it that they throw their hands up in despair at the 1000's of lines of code or I code a few hundred lines and get bored waiting before doing any more.

 

I'm aware people have commitments - in a few weeks I wrote all the stuff in the "patch" I've put on mantis but then done nothing again until just this week, where I'm looking at the GeoData stuff and terrain to try to make it so I could make maps be of any size. A big piece of work but I'm more put off by the fact that I may code it and find that it never gets looked at never mind okayed and checked in to SVN.

 

Perhaps we have the situation where the dev team are too busy with life (and why shouldn't they be allowed a life) to "induct" more developers.... :-)

 

Andy

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Project is not dead... but main server downtime killing it... before downtimes you can see in chart about 140 active players... there was not problem meet players online... only one solution...

 

CHANGE OFFICIAL SERVER TO OTHER MACHINE!!!

 

You can use ufo2000.exodus.ro or ufo2000.kostax.cz server - they are more stable then official :-) Please make it before lost all players...

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I think my original post was misunderstood. I want to actually help with the development but... if I want to do some coding now (as I have done) I risk either doing so much to the code before anyone of the UFO dev team look at it that they throw their hands up in despair at the 1000's of lines of code or I code a few hundred lines and get bored waiting before doing any more.

 

Well, honestly the best solution would be to create a few incremental patches. I'd say 1000 lines is not abusive at all in terms of patch size. Last one I reviewed was much bigger than this.

 

Bad coding style without comments is another story... but then, regardless of the size, that patch should be corrected and it's the programmer's responsibility to do so.

 

If you are interested in submitting source code for the game, simply make sure your patch is clear and complies with the guidelines.

After all, the dev staff would be simply dumb not to look at it ! We're having fun doing this so if the patch seems good, it's not 1000 lines that will make us raise our arms and cry in a vortex of despair ^_^.

 

As a rule of thumb, once your patch reaches around 1000 lines, document your changes well and explain the most of them in an external file you give when you submit it. Then you can simply continue working on your stuff and enhance the patch, then submit the continuation of your work (patch 2). Infos in the external file should include - What the patch does, function summaries, program logic modifications and contact info.

 

You can use ufo2000.exodus.ro or ufo2000.kostax.cz server - they are more stable then official :-)

 

If the hosts of these servers are interested, I would like to talk with them first. PM would be fine.

Edited by nachtwolf
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I think my original post was misunderstood. I want to actually help with the development but... if I want to do some coding now (as I have done) I risk either doing so much to the code before anyone of the UFO dev team look at it that they throw their hands up in despair at the 1000's of lines of code or I code a few hundred lines and get bored waiting before doing any more.

 

Well, honestly the best solution would be to create a few incremental patches. I'd say 1000 lines is not abusive at all in terms of patch size. Last one I reviewed was much bigger than this.

 

Bad coding style without comments is another story... but then, regardless of the size, that patch should be corrected and it's the programmer's responsibility to do so.

 

If you are interested in submitting source code for the game, simply make sure your patch is clear and complies with the guidelines.

After all, the dev staff would be simply dumb not to look at it ! We're having fun doing this so if the patch seems good, it's not 1000 lines that will make us raise our arms and cry in a vortex of despair ^_^.

 

As a rule of thumb, once your patch reaches around 1000 lines, document your changes well and explain the most of them in an external file you give when you submit it. Then you can simply continue working on your stuff and enhance the patch, then submit the continuation of your work (patch 2). Infos in the external file should include - What the patch does, function summaries, program logic modifications and contact info.

 

You can use ufo2000.exodus.ro or ufo2000.kostax.cz server - they are more stable then official :-)

 

If the hosts of these servers are interested, I would like to talk with them first. PM would be fine.

 

Nactwolf

 

If you want small patches I'm happy to send the patches individually as the large patch is simply a patch generated by SVN based on my working copy of the UFO2000 code to which I had applied my small patches - which I had made to another SVN repositiory so that I can do lots of development but with lots of progressive check-in's (to my own repos). Bet that made no sense. Basically because I cannot check into ufo2000 svn, I manange my own SVN repository.

 

I'll try over the weekend to log on. My repos is on my personal rather than works laptop so no luck today.

 

By the way - I'd love to argue the point about bad coding without comments... I'd argue code with lots of comments is bad... ;) But that's for another day

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OK, I'm someone who really liked the game since I had internet-access. :-) Unfortunately (as already mentioned), the server was down for a very long time. That was the point, when I stopped to play the game at least once a week. And that's really the problem. A game, that can't be played, because there iss a real mess with the server(s).

 

Concearning the problem of patches: I don't think there is problem with the patches anyway. If you consider, that Microsoft has delayed the release of Windows Vista a long time you can see, that also really big software-companies have their problems with new coding... :-) So I don't think anyone can say, it takes too long for updates, or that they are not checked by the UFO2K-staff often enough. The crew does a great job, considering, that they do it all in thir spare-time. I'm not sure, if I had the nerves, to put in that much of time, work, and listening to such frustrating questions like "is the game dead?"

 

@AndyS:

As far as I have understood it, you are willing to support the project by coding. As long as *anyone* is willing to do so, the project isn't dead at all. And of one thing I'm sure: The game iss really a beloved one (not at least, because there is no real alternative :-) ). It has it's community, waiting for the next update/upgrade. I'd programm something too, but the problem iss, that I'm a real C-novice, so I problably would cause more damage, than anything else...

But my best way of supporting the game iss being confident in it's future, and go on with playing it. Just a week ago, I showed it a friend, and played 2 rounds on my own server against him (and before you ask: No, I can't keep it up and running, sorry).

 

"How many people are out there wanting to do some coding ?"

Well, my guess iss, that there are lots of people, who have the same problem, as I have. They would code, but the don't know anything about the code, or they aren't really competent.

 

"How many people are out there wanting to play ?"

"How many people are out there wanting to see new features ?"

Also a real lot of. I'm one of them. :-) And it's going on step by step. That's why I will keep the faith. The only really annoying thing is the much down time of the main server.

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Wow, sorry I have been absent from the forums for a long time

 

Yes, there is progress, but it's under the surface (just like a wave)

 

The last time I asked this question was a month before the newest patch

 

I regret not visiting the forums more often, but the life of a writer demands my time. I enjoy it though.

 

I am excited to hear that you are excited and wise to contribute, any good contribution will be loved by the staff. Some of the patches are great contributions (I don't know the percentage but they exist)

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