[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Why are you cloning Civ II? (was Re: Migration)

[Horn Gábor <Horn.Gabor@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi!

Sorry i haven't followed this closely, just have a few comment.

Mainly i could only repeat John Goerzen's words. Every open source
project has a natural development motivated by it's own community and
needs and developers. Wanna change it the way u like? Use the soruce to
make a fork, or provide patches and we'll be glad to try. You have
suggestion? Good, tell it, but useless to blaim anybody if they don't
immidiatelly implement your Great New Idea(tm). I don't understand  your
offense.

> 
> > Realism (most time)
> > Playability
> > More fun (not more micromanagement)
> > Simple (i should be possible to play freeciv with paper and pencil)
> > Balanced (the ideas shouldn't prefer a small amount of players)
> > The AI should be able to play with the new rule
> 
> Also, given your list, you seem to be embracing a Command Economy
> mentality.  You feel You Know Best.  I'd reject some of your criteria on
> a priori grounds alone.  Realism?  Must be playable with paper and
> pencil?

Realism "most time", and pencil+paper "should be possible" not "must
be". I think he described KISS here.

> 
> I don't care how many big numbers of small changes you have made.  You
> have Civ II.  I've played the game, I know the game.  If you don't see
> that all you have achieved is "basically Civ II," you are missing the
> forest for the sake of the trees.

It's your opinion. Mine is that i don't like paly w/ AI but humans. So
in this area unlike freeciv the "original" civ2/3 is almost unusable for
me. We have different priorities, if civ2 satisfies yours good, play
that. But to ignore all the developments because you personally don't
use them leads nowhere. You want us to develop your dream game? Cool,
how much u want spend on it? :) 

> 
> You're even closer to Civ II than Civ III is to Civ II.  And considering
> the elapsed time, and the budget expended by Firaxis, the lack of real
> change in Civ III was pretty sad.  At least the following were added:
> 
> - slaves
> - forced construction under Despotism (build those Pyramids!)
> - culture
> - strategic resources
> - bigger city radii
> - genuinely challenging AI
> 
> But steps backwards:
> 
> - cruise missiles *suck* now.  So boring!
> - nukes don't destroy cities
> - revolt rules are ridiculous

It's your criteries again. As a player who mostly play online, and if i
should name 3 things that i think to be the most important to develop,
none of these developments or backwards would be in them. It doesn't
mean they're not good, it only means we naturally have different
interest and priorities. Id somebody doesn't share your opinion it
doesn't mean he's an idiot i think. It might mean he thinks different.


> > The benefits are marginal when it isn't well-balanced.
> 
> Please clarify what you mean.

Balance is a very imprtant factor. As it seems you have mainly no idea
about the multiplayer mode, i can imagine these  changes would harm
that. Not because your suggestions are bad, but because you have no
experience about the rules and problems etc of multiplayer freeiv games.


> 
> > Perhaps the rules don't differ that much. But the
> > freeciv-engine is much different.
> > We have other land-generators
> 
> Which is better than Civ II land masses how, exactly?  You certainly
> don't generate prettier continents, or more tactically appropriate
> continents, or more geographically plausible continents.  Only
> improvement I've seen is having poles separable from continents.  You
> don't have any continent picker UI ala Civ III.  It's been so long since
> I played Civ II, I can hardly remember what it had for that.  I remember
> something minimal but functional that provided a few options about the
> type of world.

Generator is a very important part of the multiplayer games. Believe me
improve that would be a REALLY important development for the online
players. Again, as u don't know this type of game no problem u doesn't
notice this too. But maybe you should ask or experiment first again
before judging or claiming yourself The Big Game Developer(tm):)


> Multiplayer is the one area I haven't looked at.  I do wonder if you
> guys spend almost all your time worrying about multiplayer stuff, and
> therefore as a single player, I see no improvements at all.  I'm
> curious, have you guys solved the problem of Civ games taking forever?
> I can't imagine sitting around for all that time with other people.  The
> Civ III developers couldn't imagine it either, their first version was
> single player only.  Later they shipped a multiplayer which I still
> haven't looked at.

Most multiplayer games are no longer than 2-3 hours. IT takes longer if
there're much newbie players or if the game is very balanced. I don't
think 2-3 hours is "taking forever". Actually i spend more time in a pub
usually if i meet friends :)

> 
> > > Why are you cloning Civ II?  What's the endgame for you guys?  Why
> > > didn't you just buy copies of Civ II and play them?  Civ II
> > > has always
> > > been highly moddable, that's part of why it was so popular
> > > compared to
> > > SMAC.  For all this coding effort that you have done, what
> > > feature did
> > > you get that's "worth it" over spending $30 for Civ III?
> >

I like trying implement my own ideas, i like to work together with other
people, and i like playing online. Can civ2 offers it for me?

> Wrong counter-question.  The rules of chess are known, how to make a
> chessboard is known.  People buy chessboards when they want to play
> chess.  Or if they're really poor, or simply lacking one, they draw
> them.  Similarly, rational people who want to play Civ II go buy Civ II,
> for probably $10 now.  Surely, you do not propose that the point of all
> this engineering effort for Freeciv is / has been to save someone a
> lousy $10..$20?

I doubt if any of the developers work on this project for saving that
$20 :) You really misunderstand the whole thing if you think it serious.

>  We really don't *need* an open source
> implementation of Civ II.  We need *a different game* than Civ II.  Civ
> II itself is easily obtained and that's not going to change.

Maybe YOU don't need an open source civ2. Maybe YOU need a different
game which differs exactly in what u think. Let us the right WE need and
like it. Why else should we work/play wit it? If u knew many people who
needs that differnt game, good luck for developiong that. If the
uncountable hours of work of those "who did nothing just a clone" saves
u time and save u from implementing a part of your codebase, then good,
use it as u want. Let me know when it's done, i'd be glad to try sure. 


> Because you are wasting your time reverse engineering something that is
> easily obtained for $10..$20?  A US citizen could buy that for 4 hours
> of minimum wage labor, worst case.  Maybe 10 hours if you're an illegal
> alien picking grapes.  A computer programmer could make that money in
> anywhere from 1 hour to a mere 12 minutes.  Any way you slice it, the
> economics of your proposition are fundamentally irrational.  There is
> *no point* to reverse engineer *the same* game when you could easily buy
> it for so little.  You are going to spend more than 4 hours at the
> reverse engineering effort.  *Collectively*, you are going to spend more
> than 4000 hours at the reverse engineering effort.

All i can say to the reverse engineering thing is online game again. I
don't spend neither $20 but $1 on a game which doesn't give me what i
want from it. But i'm happy to put a little work for something which
actually does, and maybe could be even better. This whole point about
the money is totally useless. Working in an open source project isn't
about money at all. Programming is a kind of creativity. We are possibly
not making statues or write songs, but use the creativity we have after
the daily work to create or extend something we actually find nice and
like. It's a kind of intellectual challange and joy. Spend $20 for a
closed source game doesn't give me any kind of this fun. 

> 

> I guess professional game developers just don't think straight up clones
> / copyright violations of their games are "great work."  

Who's a professional game developer here? You mean professional who do
it for a living? Why should we do what they do? By programming skills i
do think there're some really professional coders here anyway.

> 
> Thus, it is surprising you have done so little.  Sure you have your own
> UI, your own artwork, your own AI, and engine, etc. 

It's suprrising as a "professional game developer" you calm it w/o
actually knowing the game you are talking about. 

>  By
> conversing here, I realized you guys actually *can* think deeply about
> Game Design.  That makes your behavior all the more shocking: you *talk*
> at great depth about possible major game improvements, but you don't
> *do* any of it.
> 

I think if somebody doesn't implement what u find important u say  "u do
nothing", and u completely ignore the work on other areas. 

> I mean really, why haven't you made a bold move to solve ICS by now?  Or
> at least try out a variant that might solve it?  What's holding up the
> works?

Eg we don't exactly know how to solve it. We're looking for slutions,
collecting ideas. Your is one of the many which were suggested. If we'd
start to implement every newly appearing idea i think freeciv wouldn't
have a working client still.


> > What is "4X TBS"?
> 
> Oh... my... god.  I hope people just use different terms in Germany.
> 
> The 4 X's are: eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate.
> 
> TBS = Turn Based Strategy.  As opposed to RTS = Real Time Strategy, FPS
> = First Person Shooter, RPG = Role Playing Game, MMOG = Massively
> Multiplayer Online Game.
> 
> Language caveats aside, if you do not know these things, then you are
> unaware of history, of genre, and not overly qualified to talk about
> Civ-style game design.  Of course, anyone can be somewhat qualified
> merely by virtue of playing a game a lot.  But "Why should we try
> something new?" juxtaposed with "What's a 4X TBS?" takes this
> conversation for quite a Surreal turn.
> 

Hm i think using such abbreviations won't make you a good game designer. 
i think opened mind, tolerancy and will to understand each other and not
to think your solution is the only and ultimate one might be more importnat
factors. And i think Thomas has a much wider knowledge about the game design
of freeciv than you have, maybe this is why he doesn't find things that simple
as you do.

Ok, i didn't want to say anything personally againts you, i hope you won't 
take it that way. I only say you have a limited knowledge about the game,
and u miss vital parts (multiplayer) and that's why u don't understand 
what might be the problematic area with your suggestion. 
And your blaming and judging style doesn't help much to us to concentrate on
the importnat part of your suugestions :)

bye, hirisov