[Freeciv-Dev] game engine / rapid prototyping mentality

["Brandon J. Van Every" <vanevery@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Warning, this is somewhat long.

From: Horn Gábor [mailto:Horn.Gabor@xxxxxxxxxxx]
>
> 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.

As I said before, I don't care if you don't wish to immediately
implement every / any Great New Idea (tm) of mine.  I am offended that
as far as game design goes, you guys have implemented NO GREAT IDEAS
WHATSOEVER FROM ANYBODY, and also seem to have no basic willingness to
do so.

One thing that might help you understand the level of my offense, is I
am a judge in the Independent Games Festival.  www.igf.com  The IGF
scoring system rewards innovation and punishes cloning.  I have an
exceedingly strong ideological committment to innovation in the game
industry.  I actually wrote up what scores I'd give Freeciv if it were
entered in the IGF.  Just to be a bit nicer and not beat the dead horse
anymore, I've snipped it.

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

From "The Zen of Python" by Tim Peters
http://www.python.org/doc/Humor.html#zen


Simple is better than complex.
Complex is better than complicated.
...
If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad idea.
If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea.


> 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.

I will get around to trying Freeciv multiplayer if it sustains my
interest that long, to understand "your kind" of priorities.  That will
depend on what I see when I finally evaluate the codebase.

> 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? :)

No, I most emphatically *don't* want you to develop Ocean Mars.  What I
want you to do, is INCLUDE ONE NEW MAJOR IDEA in your own game.  I don't
care what source, I don't care what problem.  I want you to stop
regurgitating Civ II endlessly and mindlessly.

> > 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.

That kind of problem would be easily solved if you guys viewed Freeciv
as a game engine, not a highly specific game that you intend to keep
playing Gatekeeper about.  When you say "feel free to go off and make
your own version, it's GPL," you're not facilitating people.  *I* can do
it, I have the skills, discipline, and time to do it singlehandedly.
But most people cannot.  Your close-mindedness to stuff other than The
Committee's One True Way To Play Freeciv hurts other people's ability to
reuse your code.

If I do undertake a project with the Freeciv code, it will be about
turning your game into a game engine.  And making the needed changes in
project infrastructure and developer culture to support that.

> 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 :)

Actually that's quite an acceptable timeframe, and I'd be curious to
know how much of "the Civ experience" you're actually getting done in
such a short time.  I certainly can't get single player Civ games done
in anything like that time.  My own goal with Ocean Mars is to squash
the *entire* Civ-style experience into *5* hours using every trick in
the book.  I consider that goal to be extraordinarily ambitious.

> 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.

Actually, from *that* standpoint, your code is completely useless to me.
I can't sell a game commercially based on GPL code.  First time sold,
someone redistributes the source, boom!  Profit gone.  And even if your
code had a proper license for the task, like LGPL or BSD, I wouldn't use
it.  No matter how good your C code is, it's C.  Your GUIs and artwork
are ugly.  Your README's say your AI is a mess.  I'd be scrapping your,
er, I mean the *Civ II* game design, so what's left?  Just some
multiplayer network code.  That might be useful under a LGPL or BSD
license, but certainly not worth a GPL poisoning.

This isn't about me looking for any kind of assistance for Ocean Mars.
Your code and your labor is of no use to me whatsoever.  This is about
what Freeciv is and isn't, what it does and doesn't do for other people.
What I'd like to see is:

1) Freeciv becomes a game engine
2) Freeciv management adopts a rapid prototyping mentality
3) Freeciv implements some major, new, interesting rule changes

Why?  Because I love the 4X TBS genre.  And I *hate* the stagnation in
the genre.  I hate it so much, I'm writing Ocean Mars.

> 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.

It's like you have all this technical creativity, yet for game design
creativity, you guys are completely dead.

> By programming skills i
> do think there're some really professional coders here anyway.

Yes, maybe that's a big part of the "problem."  You're great programmers
at your day jobs.  You've never spent any time trying to design games
professionally.  So when you work on Freeciv you think like engineers,
not game designers.  You are happy because you got to do something more
interesting than your day jobs.  Failing to realize how utterly
uninteresting what you're doing is to a game designer.

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

I've played *lots* of Freeciv now.  Aside from multiplayer, what do you
think I don't know?

> > 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.

Ok, haul out your Dilbert cartoon books.  The disease you have is called
the Paralysis Of Analysis.  You are thinking, not doing.  Take *ONE* of
these anti-ICS ideas and *DO* it.  *Fork* the code into a prototype
version.  If it doesn't work, forget about it, try something else.

That's the mentality I'd like to see from you guys.  Not talk, action!
If you want to take *action*, I will help you guys.  If you want to
*talk* endlessly about what the right course of action is, I'll be
either forgetting about Freeciv, or starting a project with better
management for game design prototyping.

> > > What is "4X TBS"?
> >
> > 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.
>
> Hm i think using such abbreviations won't make you a good
> game designer.

Why don't you try showing up in any of the industry game design forums
and having that argument?  This is like doctors not knowing the names of
body parts.  I wouldn't expect a game designer to know *every* acronym
out there, because they're always changing.  But the game designer
better damn well know the exceedingly common acronyms for the genre he's
working on!

> 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 important factors.

Yeah, so live by your words.  Turn Freeciv into a game engine already.

> 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.

Have you played all the other Civ-style games?  Walks like a duck, talks
like a duck, quacks like a duck....

> Ok, i didn't want to say anything personally againts you, i
> hope you won't take it that way.

Considering all the guff I've given you guys, that would be hypocritical
of me.  :-)  I must give you credit that you are possible to get along
with.

> I only say you have a limited knowledge
> about the game, and u miss vital parts (multiplayer)

I have limited knowledge of *multiplayer*.  That we can agree upon.  I
have spent far too many hours at single player Freeciv to take a comment
of "you don't know Freeciv" seriously.  For single player, I know
exactly what Freeciv is and isn't in the pantheon of Civ-style games.

> And your blaming and judging style doesn't help much to us to
> concentrate on the importnat part of your suugestions :)

My judgement is simple.  Take action on *something* that solves a major
game design problem.  I don't care what.  When you never do that, I
judge you harshly.  I am hoping you will change your mind.


Cheers,                         www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every               Seattle, WA

"Desperation is the motherfucker of Invention." - Robert Prestridge