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The Battle for Wesnoth needs help

wesnoth.org

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Re: The Battle for Wesnoth needs help

#101

Post by wavefunction »

jordigh wrote: post #72
mproud wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There has been some recent discussion with moving the art and music assets away from GPL into a CC or similar license. The developers understand GPL was never really designed for those media. (You’ll have to remember, Wesnoth started in 2003; back then, Wikipedia was using GNU FDL for everything.) The tricky thing would be contacting all the music and art contributors to get their permission first, which is not an ea…

The GPL was designed for non-code media. It is one of the reasons that GPLv3 has more broad language that does not refer specifically to code. Having the same license for the software and media has obvious advantage: it's a lot simpler to interact between the two of them. Some artists just get huffy about having "their" art modified, as if their artistic integrity should not allow modifications. They would have the s…

I'm a big fan of use-reuse whether it's code, audio, visual or whatever, but it's a bit rude in my opinion to call artists who don't want other people modifying their art "huffy."

I would like for everyone to feel comfortable putting their creative output in the commons but I respect people who aren't comfortable in that way and abide by their wishes.

Re: The Battle for Wesnoth needs help

#102

Post by eropple »

0xCMP wrote: post #91
Narishma wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UE4 is overkill for such a game.

Yet it sounds from these comments like it'd be faster and more people would be willing to help maintain it.

The problem there, though, is not the maintenance, it's the actual reimplementation of the thing. At this point it's probably man-years of work to do that sort of a port to a new engine, and getting that sort of commitment doesn't strike me as easier than finding one or two folks to help out.

Re: The Battle for Wesnoth needs help

#104

Post by mcv »

johnchristopher wrote: post #10

I am trying to download the latest release (1.12.4a) but I am caught in a never ending loop http://sourceforge.net/projects/wesnoth/files/ . Edit: okay, sourceforge is broken for me for any download, no matter the browser. Let's consider that my sourceforge rant of the week.

I thought Sourceforge had been compromised by bad people and should be avoided on principle.

Re: The Battle for Wesnoth needs help

#105

Post by jordigh »

wavefunction wrote: post #101
jordigh wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GPL was designed for non-code media. It is one of the reasons that GPLv3 has more broad language that does not refer specifically to code. Having the same license for the software and media has obvious advantage: it's a lot simpler to interact between the two of them. Some artists just get huffy about having "their" art modified, as if their artistic integrity should not allow modifications. They would have the s…

I'm a big fan of use-reuse whether it's code, audio, visual or whatever, but it's a bit rude in my opinion to call artists who don't want other people modifying their art "huffy." I would like for everyone to feel comfortable putting their creative output in the commons but I respect people who aren't comfortable in that way and abide by their wishes.

I think it's undue ego. If a developer gives you code but imposes conditions that the code must not be modified because this damages their artistic integrity, (and I have seen people make this claim), most people would consider that ridiculous, because code is functional and usable. In the context of a videogame, artwork is no less functional and usable. Your ego is not more important than the people who are using your artwork for a videogame.

If you don't want to give people your artwork, then don't. But don't impose conditions that you will give it to them but feel personally offended if they modify it.

Re: The Battle for Wesnoth needs help

#106

Post by mproud »

joshstrange wrote: post #65
em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wanted to verify your comments about speed, and found this interview http://www.linuxexpres.cz/rozhovor/interview-david-white where the original developer says: "However, I wanted to be able to develop Wesnoth quickly, using the latest technology and latest C++ features. Because of this I didn't spend much time focusing on things like minimizing the memory Wesnoth takes up, or trying to make it ultra-fast. This doe…

Honestly I think it could be written in Javascript with better results than it currently has. I've never tried multiplayer as I found the single player laggy which is unacceptable for a game a "simple" as this. Just goes to show that language alone doesn't alway influence speed...

This game isn't exactly simple. There's an entire meta language called WML (Wesnoth Markup Language), support for a powerful AI and Lua scripting. There's also very intricate multiplayer code that I don't think in any way could be trivial with JS.

Yes, Wesnoth is hamstrung a little by its tech stack. The dev team very much wants to move to SDL 2 and support OpenGL in the future.

How will they do that? With more and interested developers. Hence, the call to action.

Re: The Battle for Wesnoth needs help

#107

Post by mproud »

seasoup wrote: post #80

If it's got a big fan base they should crowdfund something so they can afford to hire new devs.

The project prides itself with being fully free and open source. Its goal is not turning profits or hiring developers.

Wesnoth has participated in the Google Summer of Code in the past, and it’s possible artwork has been or could be commissioned.

Re: The Battle for Wesnoth needs help

#108

Post by chongli »

ectoplasm wrote: post #19
chongli wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm aware of the forks and of the empty promises from the devteam. Should a new official release appear, I'll happily retract my statement. What I don't see is very much momentum toward establishing a proper successor fork a la Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup.

SporkHack was good for a while, harder than 3.4.3 at least. Sometimes updates actually make things worse. I like Brogue 1.7.2 a lot more than 1.7.3 for example. You should try that game if you haven't already, it does so many things well!

I love Brogue; ascended it many times. I'm currently hooked on Tales of Maj'Eyal (along with 5 of my friends).

Re: The Battle for Wesnoth needs help

#109

Post by ectoplasm »

mproud wrote: post #106
joshstrange wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I think it could be written in Javascript with better results than it currently has. I've never tried multiplayer as I found the single player laggy which is unacceptable for a game a "simple" as this. Just goes to show that language alone doesn't alway influence speed...

This game isn't exactly simple. There's an entire meta language called WML (Wesnoth Markup Language), support for a powerful AI and Lua scripting. There's also very intricate multiplayer code that I don't think in any way could be trivial with JS. Yes, Wesnoth is hamstrung a little by its tech stack. The dev team very much wants to move to SDL 2 and support OpenGL in the future. How will they do that? With more and i…

Why don't you just stabilize everything and prepare to release a final polished version? Then, you can decide if you want to keep working, or if you want to stop and put the game in maintenance mode. Do you even have enough developers to support that? There is value in completing creative projects.

Re: The Battle for Wesnoth needs help

#110

Post by rdegges »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #66

Out of curiosity, I dug for info on you a little bit after reading your comment. Found your Github: https://github.com/rdegges?tab=repositories Two things are clear: 1 - you have time to be prolific in open source 2 - you have significant Python skills Seems like you fit the bill for what Wesnoth needs! Why not step in and help yourself? I don't want to come across as calling you out here - I'm genuinely interested i…

I didn't realize they needed Python help! I was looking through the site, and it appeared they needed C++ / graphics people to help out.

If that's the case, I'll certainly see what I can do!

I spend quite a bit of my free time doing open source work because it's fun =)

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