Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Rowanas]

Incidentally, I feel horrible. I used a keygen for one of my favourite indie games. I know it's heinously immoral, but the game is just that damn good, that I'd break national and international laws to play it.

When I get enough cash, I'm going to send them a vast cheque to make up for all their games I've stolen, along with a vast cheque to Toady (armok be with him) for a game that he could reasonably charge for.

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

.

I know how you feel, and got banned from a forum for mentioning it once. so my advice is deleting what you just said about it before you get yourself in trouble.

[Dabi]

Incidentally, I feel horrible. I used a kitten for one of my favourite indie games. I know it's heinously immoral, but the game is just that damn good, that I'd kill kittens to play it.

When I get enough cash, I'm going to send them a vast box of kittens to make up for all their games I've had to kill kittens for, along with a vast box of kittens to Toady (armok be with him) for a game that he could do research on kittens for.

It is now forever in the realm of DF forums. Enjoy your damnation!

[Nexii Malthus]

Speaking as a game dev. I personally absolutely hate all those labels "Alpha", "Beta", "Release".

A game is a game. You can get fun out of nearly every stage of a game if it's playable, it is all up to the user. There are bugs and crashes forever and ever in software. Features are added and removed constantly every day in games, even in released games (down with the awful game-killing "feature freeze"!) with the upheaval of faster internet connection, digital distribution has meant that content, updates and patches can be delivered almost instantly to every single user globally. The technical meanings of those labels have long faded and are abused by Product Managers Of Hell to signal when investors should start investing as well create hype for consumers.

Perfection is the enemy of good enough.

Revision numbers are all you need (simple integers, 1, 2, 3..)

[Dabi]

Speaking as a game dev. I personally absolutely hate all those labels "Alpha", "Beta", "Release".

A game is a game. You can get fun out of nearly every stage of a game if it's playable, it is all up to the user. There are bugs and crashes forever and ever in software. Features are added and removed constantly every day in games, even in released games (down with the awful game-killing "feature freeze"!) with the upheaval of faster internet connection, digital distribution has meant that content, updates and patches can be delivered almost instantly to every single user globally. The technical meanings of those labels have long faded and are abused by Product Managers Of Hell to signal when investors should start investing as well create hype for consumers.

Perfection is the enemy of good enough.

Revision numbers are all you need (simple integers, 1, 2, 3..)

I had the idea alpha beta etc were more helpful to the people playing the game or interested. Most of them don't understand" 0.1932823" or "1.2.3" etc. Some have a giff of "alpha" and "beta" etc.
When i see alpha - I know what it means, if I see some numbers I'll understand that to but I prefer a label of "alpha" etc to get a quick idea of the stage of the game.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Speaking as a game dev. I personally absolutely hate all those labels "Alpha", "Beta", "Release".

A game is a game. You can get fun out of nearly every stage of a game if it's playable, it is all up to the user. There are bugs and crashes forever and ever in software. Features are added and removed constantly every day in games, even in released games (down with the awful game-killing "feature freeze"!) with the upheaval of faster internet connection, digital distribution has meant that content, updates and patches can be delivered almost instantly to every single user globally. The technical meanings of those labels have long faded and are abused by Product Managers Of Hell to signal when investors should start investing as well create hype for consumers.

Perfection is the enemy of good enough.

Revision numbers are all you need (simple integers, 1, 2, 3..)

Version numbers aren't always indicative of the stage of the product. Ad Astra is currently v1.3, and still incomplete - the creator thus labels the distribution as a "demo", since new content is being added. Put it this way: "Alpha" is a game the creator knows to be incomplete on the most basic level, possibly unstable, and usually he doesn't release unless it's to gather information from players on the preliminary stage. "Beta" is a mostly stable, at least primarily feature-complete version that the creator doesn't feel to be complete just yet, and releases to make fine adjustments to things like balance. Once a game is in beta, no core gameplay mechanins are going to change unless they're utterly broken. A "Release Candidate" is a version that the creator feels to be complete, but wants to first receive approval on from any qualified people he knows. If the RC isn't bugged and plays well enough, it's relabelled as a "Release" version, to which only certain modifications are possible. (of course, with certain things "certain modifications" are quite extensive)

DF is still Alpha - its core gameplay is still not set in stone, many mechanics are being reworked. It'll be Beta when it reaches v1.0 - all its primary mechanics will be complete, with minor adjustments being done over the following releases. It's impossible for DF to reach RC status, because it'll never be truly complete. It will only stop being "Beta" once it stops being developed, for whatever reason.

[Kogan Loloklam]

I still don't understand why he needs anything from Toady to make an importer. After all, Visual Fortress can do it. He should ask Baboonanza for help.

[Dabi]

I still don't understand why he needs anything from Toady to make an importer. After all, Visual Fortress can do it. He should ask Baboonanza for help.

I don't know for sure but there may be other factors. Like copyright or similar.

[GRead]

I still don't understand why he needs anything from Toady to make an importer. After all, Visual Fortress can do it. He should ask Baboonanza for help.

I don't think it's a question of his talents or ability to make the program. I suppose I don't know him, but I'd imagine it's simply common courtesy. It's kind of a dick move to make an importer to take content from someone elses game and put it in yours. It's also illegal and can get you sued. He probably needs Toady's permission far more than his help.

[Krelos]

I still don't understand why he needs anything from Toady to make an importer. After all, Visual Fortress can do it. He should ask Baboonanza for help.

I don't think it's a question of his talents or ability to make the program. I suppose I don't know him, but I'd imagine it's simply common courtesy. It's kind of a dick move to make an importer to take content from someone elses game and put it in yours. It's also illegal and can get you sued. He probably needs Toady's permission far more than his help.

My thought exactly. I'm sure he could do it any old time as easily as the modders here can. The difference is that they aren't selling their products, while Notch is.

[Alrenous]

I already have mostly working DOOM level importer written, and it’d be really interesting to be able to load Dwarf Fortress levels, if Toady One would be OK with that.

The permission-asking in question.


I'd say more about sales but it seems we've finally got back on topic. 

[Sean Mirrsen]

Is it just me, or will the D^ooM level importer fail to work with DF levels? Unless they're 2D DF levels, of course. You'd be better off importing to Duke Nukem 3D.

[G-Flex]

I still have to wonder how in God's name any such importer, for any game, would deal with stairs and ramps. Notch, if you have an answer, I'd be happy to hear it, because I'm really curious.

[Huggz]

I still have to wonder how in God's name any such importer, for any game, would deal with stairs and ramps. Notch, if you have an answer, I'd be happy to hear it, because I'm really curious.

In minecraft water is used in place of stairs because you can travel up and down it at will. Presumably the image could be edited to a spiral staircase or something and the mechanics left the same.

[Kogan Loloklam]

I already have mostly working DOOM level importer written, and it’d be really interesting to be able to load Dwarf Fortress levels, if Toady One would be OK with that.

The permission-asking in question.


I'd say more about sales but it seems we've finally got back on topic. 

Then why would he post in his blog that he needs to ask Toady.

I mean seriously, Toady may be busy, but he's got pretty darn good turnaround on messages sent to him. Something that takes a simple yes/no should be seriously easy to get a response from him, unless there was more to it.

Edit: Another aspect of this, he can just make it robust enough to take any kind of standard graphical image and skip the whole entire issue. .bmps are already automatically exported from Dwarf Fortress. We aren't talking about propitiatory software. We are talking about taking an output and converting it to something else. All it needs to do is recognize basic patterns in that output, which in itself isn't propitiatory either, as long as that recognition is made by him and not stolen from somewhere else. It'd have the advantage of allowing people to make their own maps from scratch as well.

I believe he really is asking for more. A Direct to Minecraft, not a processed image. Something that would either require more work from Toady, or require release of propitiatory information to him. Not the kind of request I think that should be looked on favorably.