Posted: Mon Aug 31, 2015 10:40 pm Post subject:
Why Ares 0.9 was a Pain in the Back
Subject description: or Why there has not been anything new from me in the last six months
This is my personal point of view, how I experienced working on Ares 0.9, and what I did not like. It might not be right, and others might experienced it differently. That is, it isn't an official Ares team statement. Don't worry: It will not be that emotional.
The Beginning
I started working on 0.9 directly after 0.8 had been released on October 3rd. The planned release date was January 3rd (exactly three months after the last one, which was exctly three months after its predecessor, which again... you got it). The RC was planned to be published two weeks before that, that is, before Christmas. The first unstable binary was uploaded October 21st, and I'm not counting the days before, as the community had no chance to help there. Thus: Two months till RC, and two and a half months till release.
It started as always: Releasing an initial build with several new features, and the first things I get back are more feature requests (not limited to PPM). Some talks and some tests resulted in a few confirmations and bug reports. Until November 15th, so about three and a half weeks in.
Vacation Time
For the following details, I will not count myself in. That is: I only counted confirmations, posts or bug reports not made by me, and only if they were important in regard to the current release. Particularly, feature requests don't count as help, because they are not.
Between November 16th and January 3rd, with the exemptions of December 2nd and 4th, nothing I added was confirmed here on PPM (there were a few partial confirmations, though). That is: seven weeks, or more than half the complete three month release cycle. Half! Considering the reduced release cycle of only 10 weeks, it's even worse: It was planned to end on January 3rd.
From October 21st to December 24th, with the exemption of November 15th to 18th and 23rd, nothing was confirmed or reported broken on LaunchPad either. Let me paraphrase: Right off from the very start, well into the RC phase, almost nothing happened on LaunchPad that was helping me doing my work on 0.9.
I tried to bring Ares into good shape, and was certain I was finally close to being done. While waiting, I updated and reworked older code, and found more bugs. At Christmas it struck me that it was impossible to hit January 3rd. More show-stoppers came in, like the crush command being broken since 0.8, broken ProduceCash logic and a few more. Well behind schedule, yet starting on January 5th there was no help from the community for the entire next week. I went on and fixed a few more bugs I found in the meantime.
New Year, old Tricks Complaining about getting no response helped, and I got a lot of replies -- for about a day. At least on LaunchPad, stuff started to happen now, after I started to create blueprints and bug reports. I said if no testing would happen in the next three days, I'd stop working on 0.9 and just release it as it was.
So I waited and nothing happened, thus I proceeded to prepare the release as announced... which I then had to stop because the MO team suddenly threw three or so more bugs my way to look at. It wasn't the first time this happened so shortly before release (or even after) and I hoped that this would not happen again, so here I got really frustrated, which I mentioned. Alas, to no avail, but at least I got back some sarcastic remarks. Not what I expected, but still better than nothing, right?
It is frustrating for me to have to go back to older features, often even features from many years ago. It makes even simple things become unplannable or neverending tasks, and it increases uncertainty regarding the stability and bug-freeness of the current release. I'm mentally done with the old features already and usually thinking about the future ones. Usually there is enough time the features could have been tested in already; not all bugs are caught immediately, of course, which is just natural. But if nothing is tested, I can be certain that this will happen again next time, because it's the testing errors of the past that make the current work harder.
RC Phase and Release
On January 24th, a full month after the originally planned RC date, only a third of the features and fixes were confirmed.
This time it all felt like I was working alone, with only few testers participated and reporting back. And often only when I asked for it. Whenever I was satisfied with the results, someone pointed out that I was in fact not done and had to do more work -- effectively preventing me to get 0.9 ready while keeping up the standard.
To cut the story short: Slowly the reports came in, I worked on and fixed more bugs, wrote the documentation, and released the RC on February 2nd. One could think this is the time where everyone was rushing to check that all features worked and everybody was happy with them. In the next 12 days, I had a few casual talks about Ares, but there was only one test result posted on PPM, and none on LaunchPad. I then released 0.9 on February 14th.
Aftermath
This was the most demotivating release I've worked on yet. Actually, it didn't end here, as feature requests and bug reports now started to come in even in the news topic announcing the release. That is, even in the very topic I use to say that I was finally done, people felt the urge to point out that I could have done more. I'm sure that nobody intended it to sound like that, but that's another story from the book of communication theory.
Ares 0.9 felt like the biggest Ares release in years, which was clear to me soon, and I actually scaled it back a bit in November already. Yesterday I went to find out how much bigger it actually was. Even I was surprised. See below.
Maybe the community worked as hard as always, and it wasn't enough this time considering the task that was 0.9. I don't think so, because if it would have been an ordinary release, it would have been released with almost no features confirmed actually working.
It was very unfortunate that this shifted schedule collided with private issues neither the community nor I had control over. It would have been great if that wouldn't have happened all at once. That alltogether is the reason why I did not go on like usual, and I did not publish anything in regards to another release any more.
Counterstrike
So I took a vacation. Of course the rest of the Ares Team worked on as usual, with full power as always. (That joke never gets old, does it?) I haven't actually seen anything new that was added or fixed, but to my defense I didn't yet look. Most likely it's absolutely magnificient stuff some people can only dream of.
I have not made up my mind on how to proceed with Ares -- especially if I cannot get the feature confirmations I need (or for that matter, the bug reports I deserve) and so many people just demand more all the time. Don't get me wrong: Everybody is still welcome, and I'm open for discussion.
Whatever plan I'll come up with, I'll make sure that 0.9 does not repeat itself. I hope you can understand why.
Comments? Questions? Answers?
Appendix B: The tale of years
These are the total numbers of added and removed lines of code between versions of Ares, where it made sense and where it was easy to obtain them (namely, by using GitHub's compare feature). They might not be a 100% accurate, but close.
Note that updating a line of code consists of one addition and one deletion. As no features were removed, it is kinda safe to assume almost all deleted lines were added back in some form. This happens when older code is reworked, or some function is moved to another place.
Also note that these are the total numbers, that is comparing final 0.8 to final 0.9 for example. If the same lines are changed multiple times (and this happens often), they will be counted only once. So the numbers of summed lines from all individual commits are yet higher.
Ares 0.2: Can't be compared because it contains documentation changes I couldn't factor out quickly.
Ares 0.3: +3023 -770
Ares 0.4: +2138 -1037
Ares 0.5: +3978 -2061
Ares 0.6: +4558 -3233
Ares 0.7: +4170 -1859
Ares 0.8: +3964 -2825
Ares 0.9: +8090 -3954 (numbers obtained manually)
That is, Ares 0.9 added about as many new lines as its two or three predecessors together. That is only the actual Ares code, not the YR++ definitions which I also maintain. I didn't count those.
Appendix A: An unexpected Comic Relief
Of the 133 posts in the 0.9 develoment thread, I wrote 30. Thus, if I were a Borg, I'd be called 2 of 9. QUICK_EDIT
Interesting. For the loudmouth Graion Dilach is and how quickly he tends to close the topics of Ares feature requests and bugfixes as a mod , and how he tries to "school" people on game mechanics he doesn't grasp,.
One would think he'd be a super Ares team member that has everything figured out for himself woudn't one? ha ha
____
Now more seriously: I know the lonely task of a developer. But I only know it as a coder mostly and resource and asset manager, etc. Being a programmer must be even more difficult. So I share your pain and hope that people contribute.
Personally, I cannot test ares because my buggy OS won't even let me patch YR to 1.001 so I play with custom fixes of 1.000 and/or modified exes, which would not be useful for your debugging. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
I don't use Ares so I can't comment on any features, but I have been the sold developer on a number of coding projects, and several "repair" projects where I had to learn from scratch wtf someone else was thinking...
I won't say soppy things about feeling your pain because I think that's unique to all of us, we all enjoy solving problems differently, but sometimes just finding a miniscule typo in the thousand pages feels like a major victory too.
I too have struggled with quality beta testers, and I can only surmise that it's people assuming too much, not necessarily expecting things though, just not seeing it for what it is, a large collection of disparate functions creating the end result.
Naturally we can't expect non-programmer types to have the ability to visualize how the code would be structured, especially without even seeing the code, which is why programmers do in fact make the best beta testers... you can see how many bug reports I posted in like 2 months of jumping back into the community hah
You do have another challenge with Ares though, many of the features are esoteric or not well understood, and not just from a code standpoint. If Ares allows some new fancy mine-laying bomber to fly about that's great, but there's going to be a bit of lag between adding that and a modder making it fit into a mod nicely. I wouldn't be surprised if half the requests never get used.
Joined: 19 Aug 2009 Location: Moscow State University
Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2015 9:19 am Post subject:
NimoStar wrote:
Really,m if you don't code RA2 and only TS, and specially if you don't use Ares, you should be on this thread saying what "can be done already" with it since you don't even understand how it works (or where it doesn't, on this case). There is no usable weapon on the V3Rocket or it's impact, imagine it like a GenericWarhead superweapon without the special effects. Oh wait you don't have that either
Krow wrote:
Oh wait, who's the one asking for help here? Good job. People will definitely help you even more when you provoke them.
No offense, but no one is making you code this, so you should just do whatever you feel like, whenever you feel like, everyone will appreciate any work done to improve the engine. And just ignore the comments that don't appreciate it and want you to rush, because it's not the feelings of the majority.
If you want to code a ton at a time or if you want to quit for awhile, there won't be any hard feelings; You've been a lot more communicative/cooperative than any previous Ares/Rockpatch developers. _________________ "Don't beg for things; Do it yourself or you'll never get anything." QUICK_EDIT
That's a bit unfair, PD was perfectly fine at communicating and cooperating.
I agree with your sentiment though, if the community is hacking you off a bit, take time off the project and if anyone complains that they need feature x fixing or implementing, tell them to do it themselves, its all open source after all. QUICK_EDIT
Well I didn't see much communication from pd on either RenProj or PPM, but if he communicated elsewhere then ok. Not saying pd wasn't cooperative or anything, he was far friendlier/better than DCoder (not that he can't be friendly individually) or Mr. NPatch; Graion communicates, but is vain sometimes, and well I've seen far more feedback from AlexB than anyone else. That's what I'm basing it off of. _________________ "Don't beg for things; Do it yourself or you'll never get anything." QUICK_EDIT
Also Known As: evanb90 Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Location: o kawaii koto
Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2015 4:00 am Post subject:
What 4StarGeneral says. The overwhelming majority greatly appreciate your work, what you have done for the YR modding community. _________________ YR modder/artist, DOOM mapper, aka evanb90
Project Lead Developer, New-Star Strike (2014-)
Former Project Lead DeveloperStar Strike (2005-2012), Z-Mod (2006-2007), RA1.5 (2008-2013), The Cold War (2006-2007) QUICK_EDIT
Joined: 03 Jul 2015 Location: between heaven and hell "the healln point"
Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2015 4:39 am Post subject:
Re: Why Ares 0.9 was a Pain in the Back
edit AlexB: <full quote of first post removed>
I don't to be a dumbass here but if it was a very painful pain in your back you can simply change ares logo and site and add to it bounty system then make it named A.R.E.S AFTERCOUNTER 1 yep I am still the dumbass. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2015 4:44 pm Post subject:
Re: Why Ares 0.9 was a Pain in the Back
badbully wrote:
I don't to be a dumbass here but if it was a very painful pain in your back you can simply change ares logo and site and add to it bounty system then make it named A.R.E.S AFTERCOUNTER 1 yep I am still the dumbass.
Just get out. I'm deadly serious. You're a disease. _________________ "Don't beg for things; Do it yourself or you'll never get anything." QUICK_EDIT
Not the kind of answers I was hoping for... Comparing developers and their stand in the community does not help to get the next version done. Mentioning that the situation is as it is and I could stop any time does not present anything new either. And just for the sake of completeness: naming a thing differently does not change anything.
Who is willing to still test Ares features? If I see I can't get a critical mass of testers helping (and keeping them over the release cycle, especially during a RC phase), I'll just use my time for other things. I have no interest to release untested new features to the public just to be on my own again later.
Or a more fundamental question: do you even need another version of Ares? I don't see much enthusiasm here any more. QUICK_EDIT
I think there are still things Ares could really do with having, save games for one thing so single player mods would be possible and playable. However if there aren't people who want to make a mod using such a feature and put the time in to test it, then you have to decide if you want to spend the time coding such a feature.
To put it another way, what made you want to develop Ares in the first place? Was it because you wanted to help the hoards of modders who couldn't do all the things they wanted to do, or was it because you wanted to dig into YR and see what you could make it do to further your own skills and knowledge?
If it was the former, then fair enough, community apathy would be a big killer, but if its the latter, then you don't really need the community to continue to work on it, it just means it will be harder to ensure everything works as intended because you won't have as many people trying to break it and you might want to change the release model to a continuous rolling release where its always potentially unstable. QUICK_EDIT
Joined: 09 Mar 2008 Location: Osaka (JP)/Hong Kong/Germany
Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2015 11:40 am Post subject:
Personally, I'd love to report more and contribute more, unfortunately I have no idea how to get that site to work that you use for bugtracking. It does not work for me either at home or at university, so now I'm limited to using this forum for reporting, which I'm always abit shy of doing, because it's not the "proper path" to take for reports.
If you say reports via forum are fine, I will report alot more.
And yes, I'd like another version of Ares, there are still a ton of things that were requested and haven't been touched, including many things that I'd love to see in my own mod. Otherwise, I may at some point have to convert to OpenRA instead. And then at some point, OpenRA will stop being motivating and won't receive attention anymore, leaving me with less features than Ares had. _________________
Mao Zedong wrote:
Our mission, unfinished, may take a thousand years.
To put it another way, what made you want to develop Ares in the first place? Was it because you wanted to help the hoards of modders who couldn't do all the things they wanted to do, or was it because you wanted to dig into YR and see what you could make it do to further your own skills and knowledge?
If it was the former, then fair enough, community apathy would be a big killer, but if its the latter, then you don't really need the community to continue to work on it, it just means it will be harder to ensure everything works as intended because you won't have as many people trying to break it and you might want to change the release model to a continuous rolling release where its always potentially unstable.
It was the latter when I started: I took it as a challenge. Later I wanted to provide some more options for everyone. This was always part of the challenge, though: creating versatile and usable new feature in a game compiled over ten years ago. I think I've shown that I can do it. In the last years, it was more the latter for the features easier to code or for bug hunts.
If I wanted to, I could still reseach things in the game on my own, code new features. But why should I invest time to get them into releasable shape with documentation and everything, if I don't get help to have them tested?
Also, the solution cannot be that I swallow it, take the community as it is and just work a bit harder to compensate for the apathy.
Help does not mean doing anything with the Ares source code. It does not mean working with LaunchPad. I just need testers to confirm features, or notify me when they're not working. If the community can't do even that, I have no reason to do what the community wants. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
More and more modders are leaving the mod community. It's sad :/
I could test it but I lack in moddings skills :/. But you do a good work! I like the new mods some use Ares it's be another "game" for me.
Keep up the good work so far the community want it.
PS: I can try to test something but I need to set me in the inis files and so on.
PS2: I have been here at years but the last years even I have stop played CNC games and I even a huge fans.
Another problem at the community is even you test something you do not get a good feedback. I start to play TI again and even reported some bugs to Aro. I PM Aro, and said he going to fix most of it but not all was bugs "A handful of these are certainly graphical errors. "".. I have ask him what are not the other handful of the graphical errors but no repsons... I even send him two pms, and I have seen he have read them. Why should I test TI and report bugs for the team when is no response?
The old times was better :p
So should I report all the bugs I have found out? Like a A4 document and even handful of pictures. And this is just the start of this mod. It's a good mod but some bugs should never been there. It's sometimes facepalm bugs ^^. What I get for that nothing? Just one thanks and nothing more even I ask for more information?
No reply, it's kinda bad... So I can't try the mod out 100%. So you can see even this have bad reply I can't understand how much you get. Like 0 I think and it's bad AlexB. _________________ Can you hide from me ? QUICK_EDIT
Well, If ARES would continue I would gladly test and report issues within my limited time (real life has been most detrimental to modding...) but given its been quiet so long my modding interest has waned for most part (I have done very little for 6 months+) in meanwhile ARES is in limbo (or dead?) and its hardly motivating for me to go post feature lists or collect them from ppl's posts up to see most got ignored/dismissed outright anyways.
Not to mention the some existing issues that are still open (firestorm...) and some unfortunate decisions (emp flh...) I had hoped to get solved but certain alexb did not want to deal with the latter.
So I just settle for what I get and its a bit hard to juggle limited time between asset making/tweaking, coding stuff and testing ARES feats personally but I wouldn't presume to know what the issue is with others low input.
If ask me, ARES is for most part feature wise done, just needs fine tuning/finishing some existing and few of the requested features built in and you'd have 1.0 or however you number it.
Anderwin wrote:
Another problem at the community is even you test something you do not get a good feedback. I start to play TI again and even reported some bugs to Aro. I PM Aro, and said he going to fix most of it but not all was bugs "A handful of these are certainly graphical errors. "".. I have ask him what are not the other handful of the graphical errors but no repsons... I even send him two pms, and I have seen he have read them. Why should I test TI and report bugs for the team when is no response?
The old times was better :p
No reply, it's kinda bad... So I can't try the mod out 100%. So you can see even this have bad reply I can't understand how much you get. Like 0 I think and it's bad AlexB.
No reply to that post is because your information provided is not sufficient, you do not state if you tried the various renderers and which one is being used...
The default or what. All you said is basicly, this does not work in my W10 and thats it, we can do nothing with such limited information.
You expecting good feedback for your report is twisted, you are the one reporting, it is the developers that expect feedback... It is not their role to be spending time to thank you time and time again for reporting things that may have been reported dozen times already or go long indepth about root issues behind them you as gamer wouldn't know.
As TI dev. I am not MOTIVATED to reply if basic information needs to be extracted painfully by multiple replys pecking around it every time.
Aro is very busy/much away recently (especially personal reasons...) and can not be expected to go deep in lenght to explain everything, you'd have better luck outlining them in a thread assuming half isn't stupid issues that can't be concerned actual bugs. Like reporting WIP for a BUG! Which is incredibly frustrating and gets repeated over and over. QUICK_EDIT
Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2015 12:40 pm Post subject:
Re: Why Ares 0.9 was a Pain in the Back
I knew this will come on day. This is preparing for long time, it was delaying for several times, but it had to be blown one day.
So it happened, during my absence because of vacation.
AlexB wrote:
Of course the rest of the Ares Team worked on as usual, with full power as always. (That joke never gets old, does it?) I haven't actually seen anything new that was added or fixed,
You forgot about some people whose are still testing? Some even are staying with you in chat for hours, until early in mornings?
For other stuff which you said, you are completely right. I agree.
4StarGeneral wrote:
Not saying pd wasn't cooperative or anything, he was far friendlier/better than DCoder (not that he can't be friendly individually) or Mr. NPatch; Graion communicates, but is vain sometimes, and well I've seen far more feedback from AlexB than anyone else.
Yeah, I completely agree on that. AlexB is the most friendlier of all developers. And the most communicative.
AlexB wrote:
Who is willing to still test Ares features? If I see I can't get a critical mass of testers helping (and keeping them over the release cycle, especially during a RC phase), I'll just use my time for other things. I have no interest to release untested new features to the public just to be on my own again later.
I am still willing to test as I can. But you already know that.
Guys, he is right. You overall cannot expect next version of Ares and all of your requested features to get done if you do not test features and report how they work. if AlexB cannot get enough response from community about features he is unable to create new ones, simlply because most of features are connected. he can start working on something which is related to broken feature, therefore making this new feature broken as well. We have seen that.
If you see bug tracker or here in PPM you see lot of feature requests, but very few people testing. This is just wrong. Who wants feature, he needs to test at least something. AlexB never ever said that we must test every feature. Just what you like, what would you use in mod and what you feel to test. of course, sometimes you need to test even features which you are not using, just to check if they are working.
AlexB wrote:
Or a more fundamental question: do you even need another version of Ares? I don't see much enthusiasm here any more.
Personally, I do.
Anderwin wrote:
More and more modders are leaving the mod community. It's sad :/
This is also good point. In past (while game was younger and more interesting of course) you have more smaller mods, but less of stylistic stuff. Today, you have only few mods released, but tons of upcoming mods which turned out to be abandoned later. Almost everyone here has mod, but only few released mods actually. Starting with me. I am not kind of people which criticize others but ignoring his own mistakes. I started with me. I also stopped working on my project for now, like vast majority of people. But in my defense, and AlexB can confirm that, I was alsmot every night with him for long time, testing Ares often (he creates small build, and sends me for quick tests), so instead working on my mods, I turned them for Ares testing platforms. Today you have to many stylized screenshots, photoshopped imaginery (this new prism tank, with specific angle, with specific Allied background, in several modes), too many styles, but less serious works and releases, even beta, unfinished stuff. Instead of putting screenshot with short explanations in 10 minutes, I will put hours to create ,,perfect" image and wall of text for each unit, and getting enough with this all one day and abandoning project.
But AlexB, do what you wish. You know that I will try to be in touch with you as always. If you decide to continue, I will test what I can, can't promise every night and day, but few days per week can be done.
And rest of you, whose want project to be continued, maybe this is our last chance. Spare your time if you can and go to test something. _________________ PPM Halloween Season 2021 QUICK_EDIT
Well I am still actively testing each build and reporting bugs.
I agree with Apollo that most of the coding tweaks is about refinement rather than reinventing the wheel.
One great thing about Ares is that is it playable and stable online unlike NPatch builds which are full of random lolz.
I hope you continue to refine update and work on Ares and perhaps even rewritte stuff which was left to rot e.g display of credits from oil derrick structures and bounty logic. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
Another problem at the community is even you test something you do not get a good feedback. I start to play TI again and even reported some bugs to Aro. I PM Aro, and said he going to fix most of it but not all was bugs "A handful of these are certainly graphical errors. "".. I have ask him what are not the other handful of the graphical errors but no repsons... I even send him two pms, and I have seen he have read them. Why should I test TI and report bugs for the team when is no response?
The old times was better :p
No reply, it's kinda bad... So I can't try the mod out 100%. So you can see even this have bad reply I can't understand how much you get. Like 0 I think and it's bad AlexB.
No reply to that post is because your information provided is not sufficient, you do not state if you tried the various renderers and which one is being used...
The default or what. All you said is basicly, this does not work in my W10 and thats it, we can do nothing with such limited information.
You expecting good feedback for your report is twisted, you are the one reporting, it is the developers that expect feedback... It is not their role to be spending time to thank you time and time again for reporting things that may have been reported dozen times already or go long indepth about root issues behind them you as gamer wouldn't know.
As TI dev. I am not MOTIVATED to reply if basic information needs to be extracted painfully by multiple replys pecking around it every time.
Aro is very busy/much away recently (especially personal reasons...) and can not be expected to go deep in lenght to explain everything, you'd have better luck outlining them in a thread assuming half isn't stupid issues that can't be concerned actual bugs. Like reporting WIP for a BUG! Which is incredibly frustrating and gets repeated over and over.
I did post a picture about the problem, I have try all the renders. I even wrote the campaign is working so why should skirmish not workning? Is some problem at the INI's is stay at the picture. So was it so hard to ask this? How should I know if a render could fix it, but it didn't because I have tested them all.
A tester is even a job, and a good tester need report back everything about what was wrong and so on. If not you will get the same bugs reported over and over again by the same tester. A tester use a lot of times, like me I do a really hard work to test, go over a map over and over again. It's a part of a job you can spends hours.
If AlexB didn't wrote back to the tester why should they bother anyway? It's looks he took the time to spend some time with MasterHaosis and maybe it did make the progress go faster by developing the patch and even it did he didn't stop developing it?
At this picture I posted, I have use my time to copy, paste and so on. Show the location and even the developers should find some of this graphical bugs really easy? But if some of the slopes or anything on the map have the same bugs on all maps, I still report everything. But if Aro took one minutes to report back what I should not report back again I wouldn't and Aro even save time. I gave him this kinda pictures about mission one and two. If it come a new release maybe he forgot something to fix it so I report it again. It's don't mean to be a dickhead but just do my job. I have been testing a lot of mods, even indie games and I just got good response back and I find a lot of stuff others tester don't do...
But there is something I hear often is that I often get a lot of bragging and praise about my testing. But it's fine I do not test mods and games IF I don't get some response back when I ask something. Same would I do with AlexB if I tested Ares and didn't get response about some question or what I reported wrong I just quit test it because I do not want to use my time to help a team some do not care about it. Maybe they do but it's don't looks so to me.. If you make something to a team and developing stuff but you see lack of inserting in you, would you keep doing it?
My time is worth more than that, I could or even help another mod or a indie game.
A good developers take the time to speak to the testers, audio maker and so on to make the modification, games, patch and so on so good it can be.
Sorry to steal your topic AlexB. But I will check a bit about the Ares and see what I can test for you.
It's looks at this community (CnC) a tester is not worth so much like others gaming communities. But without them the mod, patch, game will not work 100%. Just look like Batman the new game to PC ^.^. Not tested well..
But to Aro I will test it and when I finish he will get the full report. Because we have speak in the old times, and helped each other out. But if it was another guy, a game or not I would not..
Anderwin out.. If it more send me a PM, about the problem so we do not take over this topic. PS: Sorry for my bad English.
gdi mission 5.png
Description:
Filesize:
450.34 KB
Viewed:
6798 Time(s)
_________________ Can you hide from me ? QUICK_EDIT
You forgot about some people whose are still testing? Some even are staying with you in chat for hours, until early in mornings?
I certainly haven't forgotten, but I have to know how many potential testers there are still left. The more testers there are, the broader the steps I can take. If there are indeed only five to ten modders left overall, I can only be cautious and conservative. The most conservative step being to stop.
---
The following is supposed to be an explanatory answer, not a personal counter-attack or rant:
Anderwin wrote:
A tester is even a job, and a good tester need report back everything about what was wrong and so on. If not you will get the same bugs reported over and over again by the same tester. A tester use a lot of times, like me I do a really hard work to test, go over a map over and over again. It's a part of a job you can spends hours.
If AlexB didn't wrote back to the tester why should they bother anyway?
That is what I as Ares dev use LaunchPad for. Testers find a bug, they can check whether something like that has been reported already and create a bug report. Then, when I'm going through the issues, the reporter and everyone subscribing to that bug report is notified whenever something is changed. This is why there are so many "I found the reason. Fix is available in latest unstable build." posts. I posted changelogs here whenever I updated the builds, too. Still we are where we are.
Alas, I cannot check every bug report immediately. I first evaluate whether it is relevant for the version I'm currently working on. If it isn't, it stays on the stash with the others if it isn't a severe bug that needs to be fixed asap. Also, please consider that it often takes much longer to research a bug, find a solution, and fix it than it takes to report bugs. (Extreme examples are two bugs that each took over six weeks [with breaks] to find the reason for, and none of which turned out to be because of Ares. I don't remember whether only one or both were the reason Ares 0.3 was delayed.) Not to mention that bugs are generally not as fun to work on as new features.
I guess that is the same for all teams, because there usually are more end users than creators. Hundred gamers per modder in the community. And one tool creator per hundred modders. And I would bet that it's not happening because creators are malevolent. I cannot say anything on behalf of the TI team, but for me the day often is too short to treat all people as they would deserve it. It's sad, but that's how it works generally. Call a hotline and a computer will tell you that you are not the first in line and you'll have to wait. If Windows crashes and the crash report is sent, you'll not even get an answer (maybe an automated one in the control panel sometime later).
Sometimes I take the shortcut like "Known issue, will be fixed soon.", "Can't be bothered to fix that now", "I don't plan to do that", even if people would maybe deserve a deeper explanation. This usually happens when I'm busy with other stuff and my mind is on something else, so I can't indeed be bothered to task-switch. Or I'd have to explain the n-th time that a crash happens because of a wrong ShadowIndex. I can't deny that I'd often rather do something else.
Anderwin wrote:
It's looks he took the time to spend some time with MasterHaosis and maybe it did make the progress go faster by developing the patch and even it did he didn't stop developing it?
Yes, I spend time with people who talk to me privately. And I of course treat friends differently -- I hope this doesn't surprise anyone.
I am still coding, but way slower, not necessarily for Ares, and this stuff might not even go public.
Anderwin wrote:
But there is something I hear often is that I often get a lot of bragging and praise about my testing. But it's fine I do not test mods and games IF I don't get some response back when I ask something. Same would I do with AlexB if I tested Ares and didn't get response about some question or what I reported wrong I just quit test it because I do not want to use my time to help a team some do not care about it. Maybe they do but it's don't looks so to me.. If you make something to a team and developing stuff but you see lack of inserting in you, would you keep doing it?
My time is worth more than that, I could or even help another mod or a indie game.
And you think this isn't mutual? Or creators' time being worth less? This is the thread where I'm complaining that people don't respond to what I do. The ones before me said the same, three years and more ago. How often do you think I get feature requests or bug reports and, when I need more information, people don't answer? That kind of indifferenece is wasting my time, too.
In an ideal world it would be as you describe, and communication would happen properly. But the real world can be frustrating at times. You might come up with a question, and even if it is your first question ever, a modder might have answered it a hundred times already. You might ask a single question, but ten more people asked other questions that day and the person being asked is running out of time to answer.
The kind of questions I get are "How does logic X work?", "Why does this crash?" and "What does it take to create a new logic like Y?". Asking questions takes ten seconds, but often I would need hours to do the research to give a proper and correct answer. The difference between anwering the latter and actually coding that feature is only writing the code.
Anderwin wrote:
A good developers take the time to speak to the testers, audio maker and so on to make the modification, games, patch and so on so good it can be.
Sorry to steal your topic AlexB. But I will check a bit about the Ares and see what I can test for you.
It's looks at this community (CnC) a tester is not worth so much like others gaming communities. But without them the mod, patch, game will not work 100%. Just look like Batman the new game to PC ^.^. Not tested well..
I was available for talks for years, like all other Ares devs. Like many modders I'm online in an IRC channel (#renproj in my case). When I see that I'm addressed directly in a thread I'm usually answering, as long as it's not just a feature request.
There's a difference to the C&C community, though: The Batman publishers want money and if the product isn't tested well, they're maybe not getting as much as they'd like. Modding teams usually don't receive money and actually have to invest a lot of time and other resources (read loudly: A LOT!). For me that isn't any different.
So much for me. Others might have experienced it differently. QUICK_EDIT
I can't even tell what you think is wrong in some of those pictures. The rest are very meticulous "errors" at best. I'm not saying it's pointless to fix such minor mistakes, but I'm sure there are a lot more obvious and pronounced graphical errors around there that should be amended.
From top left, clockwise:
1. Tunnels are problematic since the roof is actually a single overlay, thus you can't avoid it overlapping objects that are close to it on the cliff.
2. What's supposed to be the problem here?
3. Trees tend to stick through cliffs and bridges like that. I guess the mappers just need to be more careful where to place them.
4. The sharp edge is unavoidable (except by placing slopes differently), since the slopes automatically use a certain image when other slopes are detected adjacent to them.
5. The edges are a little sharp, but then again, with the TS engine's angular slope system, it's near-impossible to have realistic, smooth slopes.
6. Ditto.
7. Yes, the cave graphics are old and the seam between the cave tiles is too visible. Fixing it is low priority, since new cliff graphics altogether are on the to-do list.
8. What's supposed to be the problem here?
9. Ditto.
10. Ditto x2. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
Joined: 09 Mar 2008 Location: Osaka (JP)/Hong Kong/Germany
Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2015 11:37 pm Post subject:
Here, I have some things to report:
1) When a unit that is PoweredBy something is spawned via UnitDelivery SW and its' powering structure is not present when it spawns, it will not be dimmed and sparks will not play. It will be powered down like it should be, but there will be no visual effect for it.
2) If a building has a non-positive Cost, but has a FreeUnit, its' actual in-game cost will be set to the Cost of the FreeUnit.
3) It's impossible to re-create TS-style Disruptors - Wave.IsLaser draws a wave instantly, instead of "rolling it out" towards the target, while the IsMagBeam wave looks mostly like a Disruptor, but there is no WaveDuration - the wave will not interrupt, but be generated continuously while the unit fires. Also, in TS, I believe, ROF on IsSonic weapons was counted from the END of WaveDuration, whereas in Ares, a ROF on any wave-type weapon is counted from the BEGINNING, ie the moment it fires (which is perfectly reasonable for any other weapon). _________________
Mao Zedong wrote:
Our mission, unfinished, may take a thousand years.
It is a bit frustrating to read this. However what you are experiencing is basically normal in game development or (community) software projects of similar complexity. Getting people to test it early, writing good bug reports and then fixing all the regressions found is time consuming and taxing. To me it looks like magic to improve a dated engine solely with DLL injections. Have you thought about applying at EA or GOG as a programmer to revive and modernize the classics as a paid daytime job? Imagine getting access to the source code with all your accumulated knowledge and working full time on it together in a team of like minded individuals with sane working hours. I see potential for a Red Alert 2 HD remake similar to what Microsoft Studios did with the Age of * series recently. The resonance on the Freeware release proves there is a market for it imho. QUICK_EDIT
EA most likely just lost all source codes (hence why they're using community-developed tools for editing mix-files and maps, rather than using the original tools) and they'll just give their usual "red tape" excuse again. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
EA even forbade Matze to release the FinalSun source code, when i asked recently this year.
When EA is such a bitch that they don't even allow someone to release the source of a personal project (which got a few WW routines/codes added and was sold to WW/EA), then there is no chance they release the games source. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
Joined: 09 Mar 2008 Location: Osaka (JP)/Hong Kong/Germany
Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2015 12:38 pm Post subject:
Matthias M. wrote:
Have you thought about applying at EA or GOG as a programmer to revive and modernize the classics as a paid daytime job? Imagine getting access to the source code with all your accumulated knowledge and working full time on it together in a team of like minded individuals with sane working hours.
Lin Kuei Ominae wrote:
EA even forbade Matze to release the FinalSun source code, when i asked recently this year.
When EA is such a bitch that they don't even allow someone to release the source of a personal project (which got a few WW routines/codes added and was sold to WW/EA), then there is no chance they release the games source.
Well, the implication was that he would get access to the code to work on it within employment by EA, not that there would be an OS release of RA2. The finished, officially EA-endorsed Ares release would then be sold as a product.
However, given that RA became OS, I think it's only a matter of time (and not a long time) that TS/RA2 will also be. Maybe even Generals. Given the pricing of recent box releases (Ultimate Edition for 10$~) containing even NEWER games shows that the profit margin is really slim. Of course, EA does not create alot of content on their own, so maybe they are strapped for things to re-release ad infinitum. _________________
Mao Zedong wrote:
Our mission, unfinished, may take a thousand years.
EA even forbade Matze to release the FinalSun source code, when i asked recently this year.
When EA is such a bitch that they don't even allow someone to release the source of a personal project (which got a few WW routines/codes added and was sold to WW/EA), then there is no chance they release the games source.
Huh?
Last year he said he would need a written permission from EA to release it and someone will need to contact them cause he doesn't have contacts anymore...
Well if he managed to contact EA recently and it is so, my guess would be it has something to do with the "Electronic Arts Standard Template Library" all EA games and services then and still today use.
True that EASTL is partially open source but that's only ~50% of it.
Millennium wrote:
However, given that RA became OS
RA is freeware not open source there is a huge difference.... _________________ Tiberian Dawn, Red Alert, Tiberian Sun ,Red Alert 2,Renegade, Command & Conquer 3,Tiberium and Tiberium Wars and Westwood related image & video archive
https://picasaweb.google.com/113361105083292812413?noredirect=1
Skype live:tomsons26
Don't forget to state who are you otherwise i'll ignore the invite QUICK_EDIT
I was contacting/asking Matze, he said he can't release the source without EA's permission and it would be up to me to contact EA, since he can't do it.
So I was contacting Olaf, Olaf contacted EA.
EA send Olaf a clear "no" about releasing the FinalSun source.
Olaf send me the answer and I informed Matze. circle closed. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
All in all the EA decision making guys are all reasonable and friendly people. It's just that source code would not make a good DLC, so it has no meaning to them. Same as customer satisfaction. What can't be sold isn't worth doing.
Also, did I miss something or when did RA become open source? CCHyper and team's RA++ is not official, and it's personal effort. Things don't fall out out the sky like that, someone has to do the work, and it's usually the community. The older C&Cs still run not because of EA, but despite EA.
I don't think that they can't relase the code because of the EASTL, which is been around since a few years. It's partially public, there are C++ standardization documents talking about it dated 2006 or 2007, and the whole thing is not used in RA. At least I haven't seen traces of it. Better: I see indications that there were persons working on it who certainly used up all the performance benefits the EASTL would have brought.
@Matthias M.: A remake would be nice, but no, I haven't considered applying at EA. As I heard, the average time developers stay with the games industry is about 5 years, so I'm already over that point anyhow. I believe there is still a market for the earlier C&Cs, as the free RA+YR offer showed. It even brought down their servers. Well, they can balance it out with releasing TT for free next time.
Anyhow back on topic ... hope you continue work on Ares but at your own pace and continue to be patient towards the community.
I hope you don't feel their is any pressure for you to deliver anything and that you work on Ares because you enjoy the idea of features being utilised in new and creative ways which deviate from original feature intentions (the heart of all modding).
From own experience of rockpatch, npatch and now Ares, this has been the most stable and easiest transition since previous developers were very hostile and treated every modder as an idiot.
I personally think there was a some miscommunication with some older developers assuming every modder was a programmer and the initial bughouse and launchpad was quite daunting to a community which is used to just inis and mostly focused on asset creation.
Also I think a lot of modders (mostly new ones) who think adding a new feature is just a line code whilst the people who have been around since release date of RA2/YR, understand the annoyances and limitations of the engine in more depth and thus are more understanding / knowledgeable of the game. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
I haven't been here for a while... but from my personal experience if life keeps throwing you into one direction, even though you fight it, maybe it probably for the better. Maybe you should just take a break like everyone suggests and then see what happens from there.
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum You cannot attach files in this forum You can download files in this forum
Why Ares 0.9 was a Pain in the Back
?
