Ambrosia Software Web Board: ARES X - Ambrosia Software Web Board

I love all of you that are working on this.

Also, can you post the Ares .pngs when you finish them? I've always wanted to do an Ares for Nova plug.

This post has been edited by gray_shirt_ninja: 24 October 2008 - 11:24 PM

Rebelious, on Oct 24 2008, 11:14 PM, said:

Rebelious, this isn't 'your' project any more than it's anyone else's. You can't just say you'll lead the project and then expect people to seek your approval. If anything, it's Pallas Athene's decision to work with you or anyone else. He could give Nathan Lamont his SMIV-to-PNG converter, and keep the source code to himself. Let's try to be more collaborative here.

Captain Bob, on Oct 24 2008, 10:47 PM, said:

I agree with Bob, Rebelious, if Nathan is open-sourcing the code, then that means anybody is allowed to work on the code and try and fix it. They don't have to do it your way, and you don't have to accept their help in your version, but it'd just expedite the process if we all worked together. So saying that you only want to work with Pallas, is not helpful in any way. I personally would like to help as well and while I may not have as much knowledge as Pallas or you, I think I would be able to do my part, just like many other around here.

I HAVE THE SOLUTION TO OUR PROBLEMS.

A group hug. Big hug everyone, come on. All together now.

-------------------------------

But seriously...

I don't mean to encroach on anyone's territory by inviting other's to join the project. I only brought it up because it's something I had asked Nathan about.

'me' said:

I didn't mean to go behind anyone's back, but from my limited knowledge of coding (and the fact that this will likely be a large project), I figured the more, the merrier. That said, I understand that more people requires more organization, but that's one of the reasons I suggested sourceforge.net. I thought it would be useful for organizing lots of people. I'm also afraid of people dropping out along the way (hence we'd need more to start with).


Anyway, none of us want conflict when it comes to who's leading the project. I'd love to appoint myself Grand Poobah (mostly because it sounds funny), as I'm sure a number of you would like to do (maybe you have better reasons that I do though). But all Poobah's aside, here's what I propose:

We hold off on appointing a leader or even trying to organize the coding that much until we actually have access to it. Once we get a look at the source code, then we can take it from there (and by that I mean do it my way) <- that's a joke
Then I'm HOPING that we can come to a general consensus on the course of action and just sort of let things fall into place (i.e. let people decide what parts of the they're best suited to tackle). If things work out well then a number of people can be co-leaders.

I'm with GSN on this; Way Awesome, you guys are the greatest!
I played the demo of Ares on my classic imac (os8, I think) and I loved the game, I just didn't know where to buy it!
after poking around, I saw it on the games section, but it was only classic. So it is totally cool that you are working hard to get this done. Cookies for everyone!
I would love to help, but I can't code or do graphics, so I would be an annoyance.
Good luck!

-K

This post has been edited by Kasofa1: 25 October 2008 - 09:39 AM

Captain Bob, on Oct 24 2008, 10:47 PM, said:

EVWeb, on Oct 24 2008, 11:31 PM, said:

I understand what you are both saying, but I felt that it was communicated that unless anyone stepped up, I was going to lead porting part of the project. If you don't want me to do it, that's fine. It's just that the more people you have prancing through your code and making whatever changes they like, the harder it is to not see cross-eyed. Too many cooks in the kitchen ruin the meal - and that's how it is with programming. Nathan wrote this game by himself, so why shouldn't one person be able to port it (which is indeed a much easier job)?

redsteven, on Oct 25 2008, 12:40 AM, said:

I understand that you weren't trying to push me out of the picture in what you were saying, I was just trying to tell you that adding more people to the project does not make the project go faster. This project will not be very large - the actual game download is under 12 MB compressed, which is nothing compared to Ambrosia's soon-to-be-released Aquaria, which comes in at 206 MB, or over 17 times bigger. That game does not have multiplayer or network capabilities, either. Considering that it's a nine-year-old game, I think that the biggest problem should not be the gigantism of the port (because ports take much less time than the actual game on average), but the general oldness of the game.

Also, SourceForge does not automatically allow everybody a nice, neat place where 100 people can work on this project. It provides downloads for all of the latest version of the project, as well as the source code that goes with that. Even with larger companies working on larger games, there's not 50 people working on the game. There's one for graphics, one for sound and music, one for networking, etc. It's their job, so they work to make things coherent. On SourceForge, someone could be yelling "YOU HAVE TO DO IT THIS WAY" on the forum, but really not know what they're talking about, and add general pandemonium to the project. The best thing to do for this type of project, I believe, is to keep knowledge of it down to a few people and hype it up just before the expected release date, not before. Since everybody here is pretty hyped up already, I don't suggest we go advertising on other boards (until we near completion).

If somebody were to drop out, it would be because of inexperience, disagreement, or lack of will. I might be a bit lacking on the "experience" department, but that is more than compensated in the will department. I think if you approach this with a small, dedicated team, things will work out better than if we broadcast this to a lot of people and have a large team which would probably get in the way.

redsteven, on Oct 25 2008, 12:40 AM, said:

This is a really good idea. We should probably work on this when we actually have the code, instead of unproductively bickering about it until the code comes.

redsteven, on Oct 25 2008, 12:40 AM, said:

Good idea, or perhaps instead of co-leaders, we could departmentalize it - have one person be the PR department, code department, graphics department, etc.

It's not that I meant to make a big long rant here - I think we all want to move in a positive direction. I just wanted to clarify my perspective on this whole project.

With all this said, I think that you're doing a very good job in leading the charge, redsteven.

EDITed for clarification.

This post has been edited by Rebelious: 25 October 2008 - 09:59 AM

Alright, the challenge has been met.






(the first two illustrate something important about the extraction)

Pallas, I can't even begin to express how awesome you are right now.

Are you completely done? If so, please upload everything for redsteven to send to / show NL, if you please.

All the sprites are available at this location.

Wow, nice job! Seriously, this is some really cool stuff. Proves that this OSX port might actually get somewhere. Can't wait!

Alright, I just sent an email to Nathan.

Quote

Well done Pallas

This post has been edited by redsteven: 25 October 2008 - 01:43 PM

Will you be making your tool/method available? I'd like to extract sprites from some plugs.

Yes; I feel the need to polish up the code a little bit before I do so (I'm self-conscious, or something) but it will be up before the weekend is over. Right now too much work is done in constructors (if you don't know what that means, ignore it, but know it's generally not good coding practice).

Pallas Athene, on Oct 25 2008, 06:35 PM, said:

Just to let you know, I'm having trouble viewing that file. Firefox is telling me there's a problem with the style sheet...

<edit> Nevermind, must be something to do with my firefox settings, it loads fine in Safari. </edit>

This post has been edited by Bubbles: 25 October 2008 - 01:52 PM

I checked with Firefox and I got the same error. Firefox is wrong, but this url should work for everyone:
http://sfiera.net/ares-x/sprites/

#538 is listed as "538 Torpedo, Green" but that's #537. Just FYI...

Sweet!

If you guys are going to rehaul the graphics when/if you get around to porting this thing, I'll happily provide graphics for extraterrestrial planets and stars. Anything 3D is out of my range of experience, though.

JacaByte, on Oct 25 2008, 12:02 PM, said:

2D will be all we need, thanks for volunteering! I'll let you know when the time comes for that.

Rebelious, on Oct 24 2008, 11:14 PM, said:

That leaves me with a question then, what if we look at this not as a time issue, but as a level of difficulty. Will it be easier to simply use another physics engine, even if it takes more time? Or is it both easier, and faster to simply port old Ares?

eveningtoast, on Oct 25 2008, 06:43 PM, said:

I don't know at this point, I haven't seen the original code yet. When I do see it, I will be able to fairly assess that question.

Rebelious, on Oct 25 2008, 09:56 AM, said:

Just want to say that, that was really well said. I agree.
I think we have brought together a good core group of people who have the 'will department,' even if some of us really cannot contribute anything right now (e.g. me).

-eveningtoast

redsteven, on Oct 25 2008, 01:40 PM, said:

After we get his reply, are we moving over to Sourceforge?
Rebelious, you were going to set that up, right?

eveningtoast, on Oct 25 2008, 07:11 PM, said:

I have already set up the SourceForge account, but unfortunately, it takes "1-3 business days" for them to approve the account. Since I set it up Friday night, Monday will be the first business day.

Anyways, I've been working on it (it's not available for the public, but I can still set things up).

Good news, my friends. The response:

Quote

We inch ever closer to our goal