Re: about game updates

[Ben Smith <ben@ninjatech.com>]

On Tue, 1 Jun 1999, Paul Tiseo wrote:

> At 10:26 AM 6/1/99 -0700, you wrote:
> >I've been thinking about this too.  What if we have some sort of
> >developer's forum?  I was thinking a place where people could post
> >questions and get answers from others with more experience in that area.
> 
> 	Do you mean something like a moderated, Ann Landers-like column by a known
> developer? Something like the Grandmaster B/Brian Hook column on Voodoo
> Extreme? (http://www.voodooextreme.com/) Or, do you mean something more
> freeform? If that's the case, we do have an existing newsgroup, but we'd
> have to get quality developers to hang out there.

I mean something more freeform... I'm sure a little moderation would be
useful, but having one or two known developers doing it would sorta
suck up a lot of their time that the could be spending writing the game
that will kick q3arena's ass :-).  We wouldn't want that.

I'm thinking more of a general forum almost usenet-ish/dejanewes.
Everyone would be entitled to answer posts, etc.  With good search tools,
it could be a valuable resource for that weird question you can't find in
a book.

> 
> >It would also be interesting to have something like this sort of merged
> >with an acutal project... somehow.  It'd be interesting because you could
> 
> 	I'm not quite sure what you mean here. What I am assuming is you'd like to
> have a project/column/series where future articles might depend on the LGDC
> readership's questions. If that's your idea, I think it's a great idea.
> I've been wanting to do something like that. If not, mine, mine, mine! :) 

Sort of, yeah... It would be informative to make something in the manner
of most of the recent linux apps, with a cvs repository and a mailing
list, but these two sort of merged, so the code submitter's code could 
go in the source tree but there would also be cross-referenced notes,
explaining what the patch or whatever does, or what problem it
addresses.  The project would have specific goals in mind, too.  I don't
know if I'm explaining this very well.  Some way of merging what the
contributors are trying to do with actual code base, a sort of recording
of the course an open source project runs and how it works.  If this makes
any sense to anybody, can you think of a better way to explain it?

> 
> >see how people that have solutions to the problems fix them, and doing so
> >would help the less experienced types(like me!) overcome the larger
> >hurdles.  I'm still trying to figure out how this would work, does anybody
> >have ideas?
> 
> 	My idea was to write an initial column and let it sit at a point where
> we'd need a technique implemented. For example, I want to do a game that
> would involve some complex collision detection. Maybe I'd put code up to
> that point, state what comes next and open it up to a "localized forum" on
> the LGDC. Hopefully, things would tend to a happy middle ground without
> much "scorched earth". Or, I'd put my ass on the line and code something
> myself and let experienced people tear it apart. (I can take criticism
> well, so I'll volunteer...)

This sounds like what I'm talking about.  Different people would be
able to say "well, this algorithm would work better in 640x480, but you
lose some frames in 800x600" or "Here is a much quicker way to do
back face culling in 80% of the cases" and then other people could post
followups based on their experience with the algorithm and possible
performance tweaks.  

> 
> 	What do you think?
> 
> 
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
> Paul Tiseo
> ptiseo@mediaone.net
> 

I think this would be a valuable resource for all of the non-expert
programmers out there, especially if we can attract expert developers.

-ben