Miscellaneous Bugs And Questions That Don't Deserve Their Own Thread Thread

On the topic of the Thrive Music Bundle, and the Thrive Prototype releases I think we should post them on ModDB. What do you think scio?

I was thinking that maybe we wait for the website to flesh out a bit more though.

NickTheNick wrote:

On the topic of the Thrive Music Bundle, and the Thrive Prototype releases I think we should post them on ModDB. What do you think scio?

I was thinking that maybe we wait for the website to flesh out a bit more though.

I was going to release the bundleintroduce the new website, and release a prototype in quick succession as soon as the new site is a bit more polished.

Okay, sounds good. It will be interesting to see

A) Whether we get an influx

B) If we do, how large

C) If large, how well our recent changes can handle it

I concur. Oliveriver and I are working hard on fleshing out the current website design, and I should have an update to post either tomorrow or Tuesday. It will be interesting to watch the popularity of the project change as we start unveiling the new prototypes and music bundle!

WJacobC wrote:

I concur. Oliveriver and I are working hard on fleshing out the current website design, and I should have an update to post either tomorrow or Tuesday. It will be interesting to watch the popularity of the project change as we start unveiling the new prototypes and music bundle!

Well, you're working hard. I'm in France. I don't currently have access to the files, so I'm afraid I'm basically useless until tomorrow afternoon. Furthermore, I've got a lot of school work to do over the coming week, so my Thrive work output won't be very high.

It will certainly be interesting to see how the popularity will change as the new website and music bundle gain popularity. I was hesitating about telling my friends about Thrive and directing them to the forum before, but now with a website which gives enough information but isn't too confusing and spread out, I'll get to notifying them as soon as I get back. A couple of them can program and I'm sure they'll have plenty of new input and ideas.

I'll definitely be tracking our hits.

One tiny question: will this be also available on Steam?

Steam is for commercial games and come with a bunch of restrictions and legals aspects. Altought the access to thousands of players would be wonderful, it don't fit the idea of an open-source free game like Thrive.

Also, we are really far from even considering being on something like steam.

RodGame wrote:

Steam is for commercial games...some more text

well can't you have for free in the Free to play section?
http://store.steampowered.com/genre/Free%20to%20Play/

Thriving Cheese wrote:

RodGame wrote:

Steam is for commercial games...some more text

well can't you have for free in the Free to play section?
http://store.steampowered.com/genre/Free%20to%20Play/

Thanks for pointing this out. I wasn't aware. Those game mostly seems to be free company game(Profit from DLC, In-game micro-transaction). There are probably aspect that wouldn't match with the goals of Thrive.

However, if the game get to a point where it could be on steam, and it's feasible, I don't see why we should completely ignore the possibility. It should be kept in mind but not in the current plan IMO.

RodGame wrote:

Thriving Cheese wrote:

RodGame wrote:

Steam is for commercial games...some more text

well can't you have for free in the Free to play section?
http://store.steampowered.com/genre/Free%20to%20Play/

Thanks for pointing this out. I wasn't aware. Those game mostly seems to be free company game(Profit from DLC, In-game micro-transaction). There are probably aspect that wouldn't match with the goals of Thrive.

However, if the game get to a point where it could be on steam, and it's feasible, I don't see why we should completely ignore the possibility. It should be kept in mind but not in the current plan IMO.

QFT. Valve is modder and indie friendly, or so they seem.

~sciocont wrote:

RodGame wrote:

Thriving Cheese wrote:

RodGame wrote:

Steam is for commercial games...some more text

well can't you have for free in the Free to play section?
http://store.steampowered.com/genre/Free%20to%20Play/

Thanks for pointing this out. I wasn't aware. Those game mostly seems to be free company game(Profit from DLC, In-game micro-transaction). There are probably aspect that wouldn't match with the goals of Thrive.

However, if the game get to a point where it could be on steam, and it's feasible, I don't see why we should completely ignore the possibility. It should be kept in mind but not in the current plan IMO.

QFT. Valve is modder and indie friendly, or so they seem.

I pretty much believes that you "only" has to pay like 10dollars or something(I doesn't remember exactly right now) to the red cross and sucseed through steam greenlight's voting system.

So i have idea: In space stage, if one of your colonies become indenpentend and completely remoted from your civilization, in diferent evnormiment, without any contact with you, they might start evolving indenpentedly, and become another species.
What about that?

Good idea. Although I think it would be less of a physical evolution and more of a cultural shift. So perhaps it could lead to another faction or empire that is by the same species. (civil war, anyone?)
Sounds like a great mechanic though.

What would happen is the far flung colony would probably revolt and create its own nation, like the US with Britain.

I think colonies should also do this if overworked. (or overtaxed and things like that)



Also I couldn't find any thread on this:
how are we actually going to handle extinction in this
in my prototype if every single member of your species dies I throw you into observer mode, is this what we will do or will we let the player choose a new species or let the player just continue (generating a new population) I don't like the idea of generating a new population unless the player chooses this at the beginning (hardcore mode anyone?)

NickTheNick wrote:

What would happen is the far flung colony would probably revolt and create its own nation, like the US with Britain.

That's might be good for Civilization stage, but not for space...

Think about it, you traveling in space, far away from home, when you come back, you left with only 1 star? I don't like this idea...

Read his original scenario. It says the planet is out of contact, very far away, and all on its own. If all of your stars like that, then obviously they would all revolt and leave you with only one star.

I think what you are considering is just other planets in general. Don't worry, only if conditions are very bad will they revolt. One can easily maintain a large empire by keeping stability high.

I like the idea of having Hardcore mode and having the possibility to play as another specie. You could still continue your game even if you're specie didn't survive it. That might be a bit complicated to implement, but it's a neat feature IMO.

Specie revolt is also doable IMO. You would just need to create a new specie, assign this specie to all those creature. Copy your specie's data in this new specie's data. Let auto-evo do it's thing if it's still active in this stage(which I don't think so). Or, just fight with a replica of your specie in a civil war.

So, I think we should discuss the upcoming Thrive Bundle we plan on releasing publicly. First of all, to clarify the contents, it will be composed of the three prototypes and the music bundle, right?

Secondly, when do we plan to release it precisely? I am confident that the forums are prepared, with the cleaning up of the global announcements and the new GET INVOLVED thread. The website looks very nice right now, but what are we looking for to determine that the website is ready? Merging of the websites? Easier to find on Google? The wiki is unprepared for such a surge, and if people are willing to help me out with that then I would be very appreciative. I think that these three things must be prepared before we release the bundle.

Quick question. I would have asked this on the Misc thread, but there is a question there already (happens to also be by me).

My friend suggested this open source engine for the game. Programmers, what do you think?

https://github.com/TTimo/doom3.gpl

By the way, if this discussion is closed quickly, I will delete the thread, or just merge it with the Misc thread.

Interesting idea, but I'd still prefer Ogre for the following reasons:

• There's not much documentation available for the Doom3 engine. A cursory look at the header files suggests it's well documented, but it could get hard to find specific information.
  
• Ogre is actively being developed, Doom3 is not.
  
• We already have Ogre integrated into the build system. I couldn't even find information on how to build Doom3 with something other than Visual Studio, much less how to integrate it cleanly in our project.
  

The wiki certainly does need a revamp, but as you say the forum is probably just about prepared for a surge.

As for the website, this might be a good time to tell you that WJacobC and I are discussing whether to label the current designs as prototypes and begin work on a new, fully featured website that utilises many of the design aspects of both of our websites. However, WJacobC suggested we use a service called Expression Engine Core to build it, which is free to use but only for non-profit organisations or individuals. If we are to use it, we'll need to ensure that we really are a non-profit game, for which ~scio will have to be the ultimate judge.

In order to do something as major as this, we'll need at least another week or so, mainly because EE uses text-based (HTML) construction rather than the current method in which I've built the website, using a graphics program that can also create HTML files. It seems like ages ago that I posted my welcome thread, in which I said I had a basic knowledge of HTML and CSS. It seems this may now come in handy.

Tell us what you think of this suggestion and whether we have permission to go ahead with it.

I would also add that the game will need a lot of procedurally generated content. I don't know how difficult it would be to implement this in a FPS engine such as Doom/CryEngine/UDK. Maybe it wouldn't be as complicated as I think, but I think Ogre is the perfect middle between "Reinventing the Wheel" and "Having access to as much performance/flexibility" as possible.

Also, as Nimbal pointed, I don't think there is enough information available. I've been doing a lot of research on different game engine in the last months and I haven't found much about Doom3 engine. I don't think it has been used in a lot of game. CryEngine would already a better solution if we wanted to go this path IMO.

Thanks for the suggestion though.

Oliveriver wrote:

If we are to use it, we'll need to ensure that we really are a non-profit game, for which ~scio will have to be the ultimate judge.

scio won't be there until a couple of days, but the game will be non-profit. I've seen the information laying around the forum and I'm pretty sure that's what everyone has in mind. Eventually(we really don't need it for now), we might ask for donation to buy things like server, maybe even assets, ect... but we won't do any profit. Any donation will be redirected directly toward the game.

So I would say, go ahead! I've looked a bit and it seems like a nice engine that would give use nice flexibility(Remember when I was talking about dynamically presenting different language instead of hardcoding it? I think this engine will do it quite easily and would allow to translate the website in various language). I would ask them the question and make sure that a free open-source project that may eventually gather some donation for the only purpose of the game is considered a non-profit organization. We don't know for a fact that we'll even take donation some day. But I'd ask the question just to make sure to not get in trouble down the way after you've spent weeks working on this.

About the time it will take, take you can take your time to make a decent website. Just show us some screenshot here and there to show that it is still in devlopment and everyone will be happy

NickTheNick wrote:

So, I think we should discuss the upcoming Thrive Bundle we plan on releasing publicly. First of all, to clarify the contents, it will be composed of the three prototypes and the music bundle, right?

What do you exactly mean by released publicly ?