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    Maelstrom New Horizons


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"The Short of It" and "Now What?"

Well, "It's not size that matters, its how you use it!" xD

Point being, infinite amount of people or not, should plan for the best and work to make the best.
The thing is, with the engine's source code it CAN be updated to keep up with modern developments, along with people that will always try and keep it alive to an extent....we could simply work for years, or more. No real time limit.

Numbers is definitely not a reason to rein in, just a reason for it to take longer.
 
The thing is, with the engine's source code it CAN be updated to keep up with modern developments
Click to expand...
Sometimes it's easier to write engine from scratch then updating an old one (especially if you have code parts from the previous one which you can use in new engine, script language and parsers for instance). Many things depend on engine architecture.
 
Easier if you've got plenty of coders who know what they're doing, perhaps.
But we don't have that.

How easy is it to make a newly written engine that also works with the same type of files and structure that we're used to from the Storm engine?
 
Ahoy mates,

this all sounds great to me, but what's missing in my opinion is a bit of organization (which is extremely difficult for a forum community - so no offence meant!). Having been a coder about 5 years ago, I rarely code anything nowadays (apart from quick 'n dirty hacks), but I've got some experience in project management of software development, so I'd like to share it and make a few proposals:

1. Define the goals
The goals should be well defined and be supported by the majority of the community. I'll just outline a few goals, which seem to have a broad majority:
- Complete Build 14 - at least provide a stable Build 14 for POTC
- Port Build 14 features to CoAS (see point 3 for more)
- Improve the Engine to support better quality graphics, animations and gameplay
- Create and maintain the best pirate game ever (this should be worked out in detail... )

2. Build teams (this process is already ongoing as far as I can see)
There should be these teams:

Core team
Description
The core team is the only team with access to the sources. They should be few in numbers and have a lot of coding experience (and if possible: a lot of time
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)
Tasks
- Ensure the compatibility of all source code changes (code integrity)
- Implement source code changes by priority
- Provide a documentation to the modders on how to use the changes for modding (e.g. new public function calls)

Steering team
Description
The steering team consists of experienced modders and core team members. It has a coordinative role.
Tasks
- They analyze the requests and reported issues of the modders regarding the Storm engine.
- They decide which proposals require a modification of the source code.
- They form packages (small units of related requests) and write a short specification
- They assign a priority to each package and forward it to the core team for implementation

Modders team
Description
All PA! members, who contribute to the mods or did so in the past
Tasks
- Add features to the game, which have been requested by the PA! community
- Implement and update translations of mods (maybe in a subteam)
- Forward requests to the steering team, if features might require updates to the engine.
- Fix bugs

PA! community
Description
All PA! members.
Tasks
- Bring up ideas
- Test releases and report bugs
- Provide constructive criticism
- Occasionally motivate the above teams with praise and gratitude
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3. Create a "migration plan" for Build 14
In order to achieve goal 4 I see the necessity to define what should be migrated to CoAS and what not. This will be more work than just "copy/paste all", but it will yield better results. Besides, I don't think anything else will work out, as we'd carry too much dead freight otherwise.
- There are features implemented in the build, which were implemented in the CoAS stock game. Those can be left out.
- There are features implemented in the build, which can be achieved much easier with the 2.8 engine.
- There are features started in the build, which will never be finished (as far as we can see now). Those should be left out.
- The key features to be ported could be defined by the community (e.g. by using a poll with all the features listed) - this would result in a prioritization
- There are already (good!) mods for CoAS, so those should be taken into account as well in the planning

Well, that was quite a lot, and I could even write more, but I think it's enough for now. I hope someone can make use of these proposals. I am afraid this is all I can contribute at the moment, and if you think, it's all theoretical rubbish, I am fine with that as well :)

So long,
Sulan
 
Great suggestions Sulan, and your input is indeed welcome! We do currently have a bit of a structure and organization, admittedly though, it is quite chaotic, and we don't always seem to accomplish all the goals we set out to achieve. Membership here at PA ebbs and flows like the tides, there are really very few current members who have been here since the beginning, and I don't believe there are any modders from the old days who are still actively modding. There are many reasons for this of course, most involve real life changes that for one reason or another, just don't leave the free time to devote to our projects. Of course, some just get overwhelmed by everything or simply just get burned out.

We do seem to always have new members coming in every few months, and that is a good thing! New ideas and concepts are what have kept this community alive and active for 7 years! Unfortunately, the loss of older experienced members means there are fewer and fewer with the actual knowledge of how to implement those new ideas properly. And by the time the new members have learned enough to get there ideas actually into proper development, some of them move on as well. I'm not sure this is something that we can change, or really do anything to prevent. It's simply the way things are. The front page pirate game news, and the blogs, and at one point we even had a functioning role playing game on the forum, and a few other things as well, are all ways of trying to keep members coming back and staying active finding things here at PA they couldn't find elsewhere. I believe a lot of these were successful, at least to a certain extent. But when your trying to draw people from such a world wide membership, the cultural differences and language barriers are sometimes just to much to overcome.

I also think the availability of the games we have focused on is part of the problem as well. they were never what you would call main stream, and were never marketed to actually succeed! I think the success that we have had over the years only proves that Bethesda, Disney, Playlogic and 1C didn't realize just what they had in POTC, AOP, and more recently with COAS, respectively. And from the attitudes I have seen over the years from these companies, they really couldn't have cared less! If they had really actually tried to market and produce these games as they should have, our moding community would be in a much stronger position. I do think that if more people were aware of these games, and they were more available, there would literally be millions of people around the world who would absolutely love to play them!
 
Indeed thanks very much, Sulan! You're absolutely right in that a proper sensible structure in our modding efforts is lacking. We are trying to a certain extent and one could argue that there's slow improvement, but more than slow improvement it is not. Such improvement requires the support from the entire community though and not just a few people with good ideas.

There's been many times in the past where I knew things would need to be done and I'd request help with it because to do lots of work, we need either lots of time or lots of people. Many times I did get help, but many times also I had to do it myself or otherwise it'd never happen. And there's still a lot of those need-to-do projects that still haven't been finished. Chief amongst them, the Features of the Build Mod Write-up project! If we could complete that, we would have a proper, full feature list that would allow us to:
1. Define a full to-do list for Build 14 to be finished
2. Give us a base on which to write Manuals, Documentation and Articles
3. Allow us to select those mods that we'd want to include in a CoAS Build 15 project
 
In my mind one of the features that should be worked on, is adding co-op play. No amount of improvements can convince me that its more fun to play the game alone with tons of new stuff, than playing hte game with a few friends(even if you don't get all the extras you would if they concentrated on single player).
 
As great as that sounds, you'd need some pretty hardcore servers to host something like this, and unless we are all willing to help pay for em, Someone is bound to be left with a massive bill.
 
it could be done, but this needs to happen AFTER coas and build 14 have been combined. I will always stress the importance of moving towards that task. After I have cleared my plate of the books mod and loot mod, this is what I will be starting on.
 
Exactly why I said it wont be done for awhile (if we manage it at all)

The most important thing for the Build Mod team is to get Build 14 done :yes

And then as Firebat has said the next stage is merging CM and Build 14 to make Build 15
 
Oh, I'm sure it can be managed, we just need to get all the staff on the same page.
This is why I am going to stop working on addons for COAS (after I have finished with the ones that are in production now) and start moving the easy stuff over, like the music, first aid kits and the like.

I'm not much of a coder, but I will do what I can to lighten the load for the coding gurus.
 
Ok, you know me. Cant keep my mouth shut and of course as always, you could take some and leave some as you please.

I believe everybody has a point in what they' re saying about starting from scratch.
Porting the Build Mod into the CoAS (seeing it as an upgrade) could be one version and then...there is room for other approaches to make the game. Room to breathe and think about what has been learned from the past.

I know I am not always nice and does not say the things you want to hear. But building on top of other people's wants and dreams is a killer for every new guy. B14 has an aweful lot of nice features, it's really stunning work. But pushing in more and more stuff wont make the bugs go away and the great features like DirectSail, Capture Colonies, Diff'rent Flags Mod etc, all the great stuff that signifies the Build Mod is drowning in crashes.

I have thought about this. Even made a designdoc on it, but I wont post several pages if nobody likes the idea anyway. But have you ever thought about making a "demo" ?
A demo is short and does not require large amounts of content, taking 6 years to complete. If you think outside the box for a moment, erasing every colony and human made stuff from the original map, except for the nature, native and mysticism parts, will leave room for a New World for you to build in. Create the content from scratch - structures, buildings, characters, quests, fighting system and interaction the way YOU want. Dont bother thinking of graphics and if vants are 3 or 5 on the second row of the mast, only a few guys with a Rainman-syndrome would notice this, really. Let the Storm 2.8 graphics do the jaw-dropping on its own to start with.

Start out with one character on one island in one colony. Nothing surrounds this island, except for some pirate ships. Leave him with no money and make it a tutorial for him to raise enough money to buy a ship and sail out. From there, he can become a pirate or whatever and try sea-battles. Swallow some pills and set aside the individual dreams on your own by building a universe in combined forces, not leaving the player with the feeling of a playground for bored modders, but created only to lead him through challenges and entertainment. Something, that is not alpha, nor beta. Just remove any glitches and leave the demo with a feeling of a small, yet finished and complete work.

Finished. Finito. Fin. No stress with making a GUI first with fancy character-customization and hard-to-program code. Leave that for later. Create new content, build one island with some simple quests and try for once how it feels to have a realistic goal and get something done. By making it simple and letting the gameengine and graphics do the jaw-dropping work for you.

Release the demo. Be proud of your work. Hit the fans hard and let them come in hordes to PiratesAhoy!, begging for more. Build up the large fanbase - it might even be, some of them have skills and will lend you a hand, because they see stuff being released by some really really skilled people ('cause you are, the workload right now is just huge and you need a break from doing quantities of stuff) and does not crash
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And from there - experiment, try new features and re-think how things can be done in this small-scaled and uncomplicated sandbox to fix bugs in. Lots of people in here has great ideas and it would be sad to see none of them tested. If it works and people like it, keep it. When it doesnt work, remove it. Step by step build a world around this island, re-using the features in a larger scale and save a lot of work.

Not exactly said in a nice and easy-to-swallow package, but I hope you know me and how I think the world of you all. If I did'nt - I'd keep my mouth shut
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Your opinion is very much wanted PeterWillemoes, as is everyones involved here at PA! You do bring up some very valid points, starting from scratch would definitely have it's advantages. But with so much content already created, I think it would be a shame not to use at least some of it to build on.

I have been giving this some thought over the past few months as well, and I am beginning to think that porting the entire Build 14 over to Storm 2.8 might be more of a problem than it is a solution. That being said, there are definitely things from the Build and from the original POTC that should be ported over and done better now that we have access to the source code. There are parts of CoAS that I think we could use for our new mod as well. I think we should take the best that our build and CoAS have to offer and build on that foundation, removing all the main quests and some of the side quests and items that don't work quite right or cause conflicts.

I would personally like to see more historical characters added, and try and get away from movie influences. There is a whole 300+ year history of the Caribbean that we could draw from. And a lot of those characters are far more colorful than any Hollywood has put on screen. I am not much of a coder or a quest writer, but I am fairly good at research and could probably help quite a bit with dialog and maybe even some very basic modeling or graphical work.
 
Thagarr, I agree in what you're saying on compromises (life as the big one, for instance). I am sure, some of the stuff in both the Build and CoAS we'll definately see in a version from scratch.

But then again, what is fun and what is not - points of view - who's to decide what should be in and what should be left out - is the one dark area I want to avoid.
 
We have the resources to make the greatest Storm-engine based game ever and I reckon together we can find a proper vision for it too.
However, putting those resources to good use to make the vision come true is going to be a challenge far beyond anything we have ever attempted here.
We don't have many people here and the ones we do tend to do whatever they feel like doing.
Although this has served us fairly well in the past, it isn't the way to make a truly coherent game as much from scratch as possible.

I would love to be able to strip CoAS from everything we don't like, then build our improved game from the ground up, based on that.
But I haven't the foggiest how we can do that in reality. I don't even have the foggiest how to port the Build mod fully over to CoAS.

I do agree that porting could be asking for trouble. The Build mod code itself is based on the stock PotC,
then subsequently modified and improved to become ever more advanced.
However, this has resulted in change upon change upon change and I'm pretty certain that a lot of the code in there could use being completely redone.
I think if we'd want to truly do this the right way, we shouldn't copy PotC Build Mod code over to CoAS,
unless WE know for sure what it's supposed to do, that it actually does that AND that is what we actually WANT it to do.
Since these are a lot of "ifs", ideally we should code things anew, using only the ideas developed for the PotC Build Mod and CoAS Combined Modpack.

But really, I'm at a loss of how to actually do it in a reasonable way.
 
Hi,
How about altering the source code to fit the mods...those who code the mods know how they want it to work, so they may know how to alter the source to accomodate and improve it :shrug
I'm no coder but those who are have a virtual clean canvas to work with.

damski.
 
Damski:
Can only imagine how pirate_kk or a steering comittee would have to approve those new lumps of code, assuring they work flawless together with both the vanilla and eachother. If not, it would probably result in total .dll anarchy and choas with versions lol
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Pieter:
I know PA! are not even near where I am talking about just yet. It is so easy to get carried away with huge projects and ideas.
I am sure, you'll find a way once you get there
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Whle finishing B14, I am only suggesting a way to prevent the wishlist creating too big expectations and workloads.
 
Arr mateys!

Its quite a delayed response but I am really excited for you about this absolutely awesome opportunity!

Limitless possibilities await and it will really come down to organization and focus to getting a good result.

I wish I could participate in this endeavor, contributing with programming. But alas I am swamped with work.

I really do wish you guys the best of luck! I have faith in you!

-vorius
 
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