ID:194615
 
I was just browsing around when I came across www.worldforge.com (I think) which is a bunch of Linux people trying to put together a penguin EQ style engine (as much as I can gather). They obviously have a long way to go, but it gave me some ideas, particularly on the way they are all working on different aspects of a general game in their own specific worlds.

What I'd like to propose is a collaborative develoment of a design environment, I'd like to try to keep the code so that it could be used as a drag and drop (instance edit) world creator. This would allow the initial project to be followed up by a collaborative world development, but as a side product would produce code that allows any byond newbie to drag and drop a world into existance. I understand that what everyone likes about byond is that it gives you the power to develop your own world physics from scratch and I agree this is very good (I certainly intend to use this a lot myself), but it can be a bit daunting for any beginners, who may initially be looking for more of a high level dungeon builder. The other reason I like having some general world code is that if it is well managed it will be easy to link multiple worlds.

I appreciate that many of you are already very committed to your own games, but if we could agree a plan, would anyone be interested in supporting this kind of development on a part time basis? Would dantom like to support this? I feel that the code for such a project should be open source. I can see that considerable organisation would be required, but the rewards of fairly rapid development could be high.

Any views/ideas?

PS. Dantom, can we have smaller releases in future, I set fire to my dinner whilst reading the 248 release notes!
On 8/21/00 4:52 pm Al wrote:

What I'd like to propose is a collaborative develoment of a design environment [snip]

I think this is a wonderful idea. We are ourselves working towards it now. Dan has spent the last few weeks developing a "BYOND home" system which is basically a network of distributed servers (run locally by each player) with simple components for transferring data and incorporating npcs. The idea is to allow each player to build a simple home base and allow other users to visit it merely by incorporating a few snippets in the design.

A recent thread brought up the idea of allowing the instance editor to provide restricted interfaces for dm code. Combined with runtime map loading this would be ideal for your proposed system, because users could make a basic world design and allow other people to simply create the rules via the map builder. Eventually we will have this clean system in place, but for now you can accomplish the same functionality by just distributing your source and telling the map-designers to ignore it.

Anyway, I think it would be wonderful if we had a basic system in place so that new users could pick a few library files and initially code their world through the mapper. So, yes, I'm all for it. I'll help out as much as I can.

PS. Dantom, can we have smaller releases in future, I set fire to my dinner whilst reading the 248 release notes!

Sorry! Just be thankful you weren't around in the old days, when we went about eight months between releases (and then I jaunted off for two months the day after releasing)!
In response to Tom H.
On 8/21/00 5:21 pm Tom H. wrote:
On 8/21/00 4:52 pm Al wrote:

What I'd like to propose is a collaborative develoment of a design environment [snip]

I think this is a wonderful idea. We are ourselves working towards it now...
A recent thread brought up the idea of allowing the instance editor to provide restricted interfaces for dm code.
Anyway, I think it would be wonderful if we had a basic system in place so that new users could pick a few library files and initially code their world through the mapper.


I did a lot of work on a generic world building mechanism, which included letting guides add their own turf types and mob types, create new maps that would be loaded dynamically, etc.

At the moment I'm most interested in working on some smaller, finishable games. However I think I'll put a version of this up on the server that allows anyone to be a guide and see how I set it up. While some of it is too slow and clunky (parts that could be improved now by taking more efficient savefile approaches, and that might be largely replacable once Dantom implements dynamic map-loading).

The last part I was working on was an internal scripting language that anyone could use to program mobs and set up quests and such. I was using MS Outlook's "Mail wizard" as my model: all programming done by selecting from a small set of options appropriate at that point.

I'm happy to help out however I can. Possibly the best way for me is to keep developing the Deadron library to provide that "middle level" of coding support that makes things easier to create.
In response to Tom H.
Sorry! Just be thankful you weren't around in the old days, when we went about eight months between releases (and then I jaunted off for two months the day after releasing)!

And two days after you left, I arrived. Yep, I bet you had a nasty surprise when you came back, huh? =)



P.S. It's not my fault I'm weird; it's my invisible friend's fault.
I appreciate that many of you are already very committed to your own games, but if we could agree a plan, would anyone be interested in supporting this kind of development on a part time basis? Would dantom like to support this? I feel that the code for such a project should be open source. I can see that considerable organisation would be required, but the rewards of fairly rapid development could be high.

I believe someone by the alias of WorldMaker was striving to make a hub-like system with BYOND similar to what you're proposing the end result to be. However, in his case, he's tackling it all by himself. (Unless he abandoned BYOND, which is understandable if you start so big.)

I (*raise hand*) humbly (*swing hand*) pledge (*raise other hand horizontally*) my (*grasp center of horizontal arm*) support (*pull horizontal arm upward*) in (*smash self in nose with forearm*) this undertaking. =)

(*rub nose*) Seriously, though, I'm with you all the way if you want to work on something like this.


Note that I've been keeping fairly close tabs on WorldForge for quite a while. They're trying to do something quite similar to BYOND, actually, but they seem so reserved from each other that nothing they do ever gets accomplished, because 15 different sources don't have a similar code base. By the way, that's http://www.worldforge.org. If this project ever tries to get off the ground and finish, it would be mandatory for much closer communication.

Another example of communication barriers would be www.majik3d.org, which has been delaying releasing its stuff forever now, mainly because of feature creep and, of course, lack of communication.




PS. Dantom, can we have smaller releases in future, I set fire to my dinner whilst reading the 248 release notes!

Good thing I wasn't eating anything dry and flaky, or I'd be choking on it right now. =)
In response to Tom H.
On 8/21/00 5:21 pm Tom H. wrote:
Anyway, I think it would be wonderful if we had a basic system in place so that new users could pick a few library files and initially code their world through the mapper. So, yes, I'm all for it. I'll help out as much as I can.

Thanks. What would be fairly useful from an early stage would be a forum area - as Spuzzum said, by far the biggest problem will be communication (not helped by my timezone!) I think if we use babble it will either get clogged up with us or we'll get lost in the babble! Perhaps a month or two down the line it would be good to be able to upload/download code from that area as well. Is this feasible? Do you have any alternatives/preferences?
In response to Al
On 8/22/00 2:20 am Al wrote:

Thanks. What would be fairly useful from an early stage would be a forum area - as Spuzzum said, by far the biggest problem will be communication (not helped by my timezone!) I think if we use babble it will either get clogged up with us or we'll get lost in the babble! Perhaps a month or two down the line it would be good to be able to upload/download code from that area as well. Is this feasible? Do you have any alternatives/preferences?

One project we have been considering for a while is a general area-- in the form of a BYOND world-- that could be used as a project manager. Like Dan's host program, it would present the project files in an organized directory (except perhaps with a nicer form-based interface); the additional functionality would be allowing members of the project to "check-in" and "check-out" files for editing.
And, of course, it could include a message board, chat area, and news page. I'm not too familiar with the existing project managers, but I imagine that they work in this kind of capacity.

At some point I plan to add an upload area to this web page, but I'd prefer starting to get things done within BYOND since it is easier and facillitates usage of the program.
In response to Tom H.
On 8/22/00 3:01 am Tom H. wrote:
One project we have been considering for a while is a general area-- in the form of a BYOND world-- that could be used as a project manager. Like Dan's host program, it would present the project files in an organized directory (except perhaps with a nicer form-based interface); the additional functionality would be allowing members of the project to "check-in" and "check-out" files for editing.
And, of course, it could include a message board, chat area, and news page. I'm not too familiar with the existing project managers, but I imagine that they work in this kind of capacity.
Sounds perfect - when will it be ready?!?
In response to Al
Sounds perfect - when will it be ready?!?

Have you considered Deadron's forum system? It might be just right. I've used the demo a few times and it seems quite versatile.
In response to Guy T.
On 8/22/00 8:22 am Guy T. wrote:
Sounds perfect - when will it be ready?!?

Have you considered Deadron's forum system? It might be just right. I've used the demo a few times and it seems quite versatile.


It certainly could provide a piece of this system. Info and instructions for accessing the demo here:

Forum announcement

I'd love to have people using this, cause there's lots I want to add to it.

Something to keep in mind is that totally free services already exist that provide the whole shebang: source code control, forums, bug tracking, etc.

One of the most popular is SourceForge.

Now, I think it would be a much nicer experience to use Byond, and would probably help stretch Byond's features -- but if something already exists, it's always good to make real sure you have a reason to reinvent the wheel.