Planetarion Forums

Forest · 12 Jul 2004, 21:04

Now that Karmulian has quit coding pateam what is happening with the new and promised r12.

Will we get it, or will we get a rehashed version of pax once more?

mist · 12 Jul 2004, 21:34

what relevance does karm quitting have? jolt canned the redevelopment ages ago anyway, they just didn't bother telling anyone

-mist

jerome · 12 Jul 2004, 21:58

'heh'.

biffy · 12 Jul 2004, 23:32

Currently r12 and related development is in the hands of Spinner and those members of PA Team who have shown an interest in contributing to it.

Quazi Starbucks · 13 Jul 2004, 00:49

So thats just spinner then

mist · 13 Jul 2004, 02:15

from previous experience, the pateam generally shows interest, however afaik none of the remaining members are coders. judging from r10 comments, i dunno how much in the way of ideas spinner has/will be discussing with them tho.

will r12 be significantly different from this round, or a further development of pax?

-mist

Chika · 13 Jul 2004, 05:47

This is idd a very good question. Funny that Biffy's answer immediatly passed the buck. Biffy, as far as you know, will we be playing another upgraded PAX next round? Or a big new development. Or was round 11 our big new development? I hope not. As there was little change play wise betwenn 10.5 and 11.

Kal · 13 Jul 2004, 11:36

on the private pateam forums we have a nice list of possible round 12 features, which inclides all features which have previously been agreed will be in round 12, as well as other ones that people have asked for. So the community is not being ignored and round 12 should end up being a big improvement on this round.

Hicks · 13 Jul 2004, 13:04

How many times have we heard that in the last 4 and a half years.

mist · 13 Jul 2004, 13:23

he's telling the truth.

however how much of it will get implimented is always a question. there's only so much time etc and with things like having to rewrite to get rid of the radom travel time i can't see too much else getting done with spinner being part time and the only coder.

perhaps publishing the to do list is the way forward? if it's all been suggested before then noone can steal it, and you might get some useful implimentation type suggestions

-mist

Heartless · 13 Jul 2004, 14:47

Maybe Jolt should start paying Spinner so we can get a more decent version of Planetarion again. Volunteers work because they love the game, however, there's not much left people could love about the game - especially not after what has been made public lately.

NEWSBOT3 · 13 Jul 2004, 14:57

spinner has other commitments, he isnt able to work full time atm.

Eventh · 13 Jul 2004, 16:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by mist

perhaps publishing the to do list is the way forward? if it's all been suggested before then noone can steal it, and you might get some useful implimentation type suggestions

1. Put a strong license on the code, and then put it public somewhere.
2. Let people submit patches to the game.
3. Form a team with coders who evalute and validates the code.
4. Let spinner have the finaly word on if the code is good enough to use or not.
5. Add the patches.

mist · 13 Jul 2004, 17:03

spinner is paid...

-mist

Kal · 13 Jul 2004, 17:38

tbh there is quite a while until round 12, lots of this round still to go, so plenty of time to decide things.

Appocomaster · 13 Jul 2004, 18:45

have i gone insane or do i remember a post *somewhere* about at least 2 coders working with the pa team, who preferred to hide their identity?

mist · 13 Jul 2004, 20:08

yeh. they were working for free, but jolt decided it wanted greater control over the code base so asked them to stop and got spinner in part time instead

-mist

Gerbie · 13 Jul 2004, 20:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by mist

yeh. they were working for free, but jolt decided it wanted greater control over the code base so asked them to stop and got spinner in part time instead

-mist

Why Spinner? I thought he was an amateur at coding. He'd be my first choice for a lot of things, but as I recall correctly coding wouldn't be it.

mist · 13 Jul 2004, 20:39

because pax already existed, so coding new mods to that was viewed as a simpler alternative to writing a totally new game engine, would be my guess.

plus, i've no idea if spinner's a competent coder or not. on the main his stuff seems to work, so he can't be that poor

-mist

wakey · 13 Jul 2004, 20:52

Spinner can code so no worries there, after all he did code PAX as well as the Football Management game that was to be FS second product. I just always got the impression that he was more comfortable doing the pr stuff than Vish or Fudge so he became more the public face of things while Vish and Fudge got on with stuff behind the scenes with spinner lendinga hand when they needed it

Quote:

Originally Posted by kal

tbh there is quite a while until round 12, lots of this round still to go, so plenty of time to decide things.

Classic PATeam mistake. Its something I highlighted when I was PATeam but never got any attention paid to my concerns. One of PA's biggest problems is everything gets rushed meaning bugs are present, its not always balanced, last minute changes are so last minute they arent well thought out ect.

The way it should work is while your getting the round ready to go live your already thinking about the improvements for the next one. You implement the round and then immediatly shift priorities to next round, this gives time for things to be coded, time for things to be tested ect and doesnt leave a massive rush. It doesnt even have to really impact maintance of the round if you have things scedualed well enough and you have enough people around so that the coders/designers dont have to spend too long worrying about other issues

Gerbie · 13 Jul 2004, 21:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by wakey

...

Classic PATeam mistake. Its something I highlighted when I was PATeam but never got any attention paid to my concerns. One of PA's biggest problems is everything gets rushed meaning bugs are present, its not always balanced, last minute changes are so last minute they arent well thought out ect.

The way it should work is while your getting the round ready to go live your already thinking about the improvements for the next one. You implement the round and then immediatly shift priorities to next round, this gives time for things to be coded, time for things to be tested ect and doesnt leave a massive rush. It doesnt even have to really impact maintance of the round if you have things scedualed well enough and you have enough people around so that the coders/designers dont have to spend too long worrying about other issues

I agree. They should be finished coding rnd 12 by now. There will be a lot of different coding for rnd 12, if they want to test it thoroughly then it's time to start the testing. If they have any new things to implement that goes further than was already anounced they should be patient and keep it for rnd 13.

mist · 13 Jul 2004, 21:24

i'm not an expert on patent law, but can you patent software ideas? if so, why are there more than one spreadsheet etc etc?

the pateam does seem to tend to plan things as they do them, rather than deciding what needs to be done and then doing it. both approaches are equally valid (extreme programming seems very in to the prior), 'tis just that perhaps one might make pr easier than the other :P

-mist

wakey · 13 Jul 2004, 21:54

I believe i'm right in saying you cant currently you cant patent software but its something that s in the pipeline and its causing a bit of uproar because the fear is that any company who can prove they 'invented' an idea for a peice of software will be able to backdate the patent and start charging licenceing fees on it which could then see every developer both professional and hobbiest being charged for aspects of their programs. For example I was reading a article where it was talking about how every ecommerce site could have to start paying licencing fees for features like shopping carts if software patents do take off