Hello guys

So... Completely forgot about the project, and decided to take a look. What is the status? I fear it's pretty static... But I may be wrong. Oh and btw... Are you using that ancient Ogre engine? Why? Why not Unity 3D? It's better in every way and frequently updated.
Also my skills are much better now. I can model, make textures, script a little and draw concepts. I'd like to apply, but I want to know if this is getting somewhere first, or it's getting closed.

Disclaimer: I'm new here and have only spent a handful of hours looking through code. My understanding of the engine is lacking, but I think I can help answer this question at least in part.

Ogre isn't an engine, its a library. With it you build your own game engine.

Unity is a game engine, with it you can build games it can build. Unity will limit us, and Thrive may not even be possible using Unity. At very least, we'd be fighting Unity the entire way through the development process for very little gain.

Now having said that, its still a great platform for prototyping mechanics or creating a proof-of-concept. It is not at all good enough for serious game development.

Also, since you mentioned scripting, a large portion of the game is (or will be) scripted in LUA, so you'd feel right at home. In fact, you'll probably be pleasantly surprised at how much power you have without even touching C++ and the game engine proper.

Hope that helps and keeps you interested in the project. I'm sure a real developer can chime in and give you better answers soon!

Ore is still an engine I think, just not a game engine. But the fact is that Ogre needs alot of coding, and I don't think it's suited for a small team. I think Unity would fit great, and I don't think it's so limiting like everyone says. Many people think it's for teh casul because it has some premade libraries and an easy interface.

I know a game in alpha stage that used Ogre engine, because they thought Unity didn't allow much freedom, and the game has an huge procedural world. But the development was slow and the game was a pain to code. Switching to Unity made things much better.

I never coded to Lua, but if it's similar to C++ I can learn it.
By the way, I'll not apply unless I have the proof this game it's gonna have a future.
Unfinished and abandoned projects litter the Internet.

Jiko wrote:

By the way, I'll not apply unless I have the proof this game it's gonna have a future.

Well... How the heck could we prove you that the game it's gonna have a future? If you want to know if we are working on it the answer is yes. If more people like you were saying all the time that they won't do anything until they know if the game will have a future, the game would have no future, because everyone would be waiting for nothing. The only proof you need to help us is that you want to help. The game its gonna have a future if people like you and me don't surrender and keep goin'.

dontpanic is pretty much on point!

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Ogre is still an engine I think, just not a game engine.

You could call it a graphics engine without much trouble

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I'd like to apply, but I want to know if this is getting somewhere first, or it's getting closed.

There is absolutely no plans to close anything, but if everyone wanted to know if things were getting somewhere, before doing anything, we would never get anywhere. You will just have to give things a chance to figure that out. If you want a live pulse on what's happening on the programming front you can always look at: https://github.com/orgs/Revolutionary-Games/dashboard

If you're looking for somewhere to start, I think you'd be a great asset to have in getting the new GUI into the game: https://thrivegame.canadaboard.net/t1323p135-microbe-gui-finalisation it mainly involves a series of XML files that need to be made using the CEGUI structure, you can find the the files for the current (old) gui here: http://crovea.net/svn/thrive_assets/gui/ and I'd be happy to help get you started on it if you're interested. If you would want to get into more concrete coding/scripting, that is certainly possible as well!

Going with the others on the whole "progress" thing (since I know too little about those two programs to say anything)...

If you ask me, I think Thrive's showing an exponential increase in progress each release. Thrive 0.0.1 Indev only had two spherical models swimming around. At 0.0.4, however, you could control one of them, which is a massive breakthrough after just watching. After a couple releases, there came 0.2.1 with the compound system. Just after that came the editor in 0.2.2. Before you know it, however, came 0.2.3, with not only rudimentary photosynthesis mechanics, but species differentiation and an attempt at reproduction features, such as the production of reproductase, a center point of the Microbe Stage.

And 0.2.4's bringing a more long-term GUI.

Heck, we had a conversation with a guy named Earthium about this. He said we were going absolutely nowhere. Now, how could you "prove" that, even with the world's most brilliant minds?

Much like many things, a future can only be implied, and it is certainly implied here.

Thanks for the fast answers!
At first, I thought I had to wait, but is nice that there still are people lurking around

MitochondriaBox wrote:

Going with the others on the whole "progress" thing (since I know too little about those two programs to say anything)...

If you ask me, I think Thrive's showing an exponential increase in progress each release. Thrive 0.0.1 Indev only had two spherical models swimming around. At 0.0.4, however, you could control one of them, which is a massive breakthrough after just watching. After a couple releases, there came 0.2.1 with the compound system. Just after that came the editor in 0.2.2. Before you know it, however, came 0.2.3, with not only rudimentary photosynthesis mechanics, but species differentiation and an attempt at reproduction features, such as the production of reproductase, a center point of the Microbe Stage.

And 0.2.4's bringing a more long-term GUI.

Heck, we had a conversation with a guy named Earthium about this. He said we were going absolutely nowhere. Now, how could you "prove" that, even with the world's most brilliant minds?

Much like many things, a future can only be implied, and it is certainly implied here.

You should also keep in mind that this is an entirely volunteer project pretty much, so you should expect work on it to be slower than a normal game. By the way, Mito, any idea when 0.2.4 is coming out?

Loony Toony wrote:

You should also keep in mind that this is an entirely volunteer project pretty much, so you should expect work on it to be slower than a normal game. By the way, Mito, any idea when 0.2.4 is coming out?

By the end of the year for sure... Hopefully. I mean, they've got the design of the new GUI down, and it seems like they're already working on getting it placed into the game.

It's probably a long and painful process, though, especially when the people trying to do this are balancing their educations with this.We've got some real dedicated people, we do.

EDIT: Development on Thrive only showed serious at-a-glance progress last year. Development on Spore started in 2000, and, although it took about 8 years to come out, Thrive probably ain't getting delayed to widen the demographics. Also, more programmers will be attracted the more promise Thrive shows (dontpanic, for instance), and people come in to fill the gaps of others (NickTheNick's basically taken over in Sciocont's absence, and Oliveriver's basically filled in for Doggit).

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By the end of the year for sure... Hopefully. I mean, they've got the design of the new GUI down, and it seems like they're already working on getting it placed into the game.

I could do it pretty quickly, but I'm trying to get someone else to do it or waiting until oliveriver gets time again, as it really is a fairly easy task and I'd rather spend my thrive time on the more difficult stuff.