Author Topic: Community Direction  (Read 3150 times)

Offline Leviathan

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Community Direction
« on: September 10, 2007, 02:55:17 PM »
Well we have just had the Outpost 2 Tenth Anniversary...

As a community what do you think our current goals should be?
What direction should we be heading in?
What should our time be spent on?
 
Present Goals:
  • Keeping the community/game active
  • Providing the game for people to download
  • Providing a place for people to discuss, get help and support etc
  • Providing a place for people to play multiplayer
  • Keeping a website up to date with downloads, guides, help, general information etc
Where should we be heading?
Our main goals should be:
  • Guides on how to create content for Outpost 2
  • Different language Outpost 2 versions
  • Outpost 2's next major version/update, aka the next Outpost 2 patch
My suggestions are as follows:
  • Documentation on hacking/moding/creating content for Outpost 2
  • Outpost 2 that is translated into more languages, with each version as a download on the site. User should be able to use any version to play multiplayer.
  • An Outpost 1.3.5 version that includes all new maps/mods etc
  • A map reference with information on all of the maps. This has already been started on the wiki.
  • Strategy compilation / mission and player guides. CK9 has just started this.
  • A place for voluntary sharing of source code of maps. We at least need some multiplayer map code examples to help people start coding their own maps - each map should have its own page as part of the map reference.
  • If this is going to be done on the wiki then we need to restructure and plan it and make it easy to navigate through the content.
  • A WON replacement with a gaming ladder. This is underway.
  • Regular newsletters to keep members informed.
  • Proper forum administration - old accounts should be deleted.
  • Generally making the game more newbie friendly. See below.
  • A new member guide with links and topics of interest etc. CK9 already started this.
Making Outpost 2 more newbie friendly.
These are just my suggestions that I think would be useful to new members:
  • Guides to teach new players the game and multiplayer etc.
  • Maps where players can jump in and play and not have to research making for simpler game play. Maps like ‘Scout Rush’ have already achieved this.
  • Battle maps where all players are given an army
  • Tech tree mod to make the research more clear for newbies. Outpost 2 is not a pick up and play game. It still has a learning curve.
Outpost 2 in another language is an important step which will help us to expand.
 
I honestly don't expect any big project like a new Outpost game to be done for a while yet. But like many I’m hopeful that it will happen. But we have Outpost 2 so it doesn't matter. We can't rely on a new game to get new members into the community; we have to work with what we have and make Outpost 2 as easily accessible as possible.
 
Many members have done a lot of work over the years and without their hard work we wouldn't be where we are today. But like many members he simply doesn't have the time to work on much currently. The community shouldn't have to rely on only a few members to get updates done like editing the website etc. I and others are not happy that a tenth year anniversary newsletter did not get sent out, and we need to avoid this happening in the future.
 
I used to do more, a lot of mapping, creating content, generally playing about with Outpost 2 and working on the wiki etc but I don't have the time now a days. My efforts are currently directed towards making a new WON for the community.
 
Not every one is fond of the wiki so we need to discuss how we can get these guides done. I was thinking we first come up with a list of guides that are needed. It has also been suggested that we make the wiki a programming wiki only and don’t include things like mission/strategy guides. They can go on the main website.

I can make you a wiki account if you don't have one, private message me.

We have come very far and that is to be congratulated. The moding and content creating possibilities for Outpost 2 have never been better. We can make new maps, missions, tilesets, tech trees, edit game stats etc. But most members just don't know where to start with it, that's why we need a proper guide for the game.
 
Making a map is not hard. Coding a DLL for a multiplayer map is not hard, you don't need real c++ knowledge or experience. It just needs explaining. And if the source is available making a new map can be collective process, a group can easily work on a map and map code to make new multiplayer maps.
 
As users with lots of experience with playing about with Outpost 2 we have a responsibility to pass our knowledge on and make it easier for the new user to get into the fun of creating content for Outpost 2.
 
I love Outpost 2 and am glad to still be apart of the community and to be involved. I hope others still have a passion for the game and will continue to contribute in the future. Thank you to everyone for making the game what it is today!
 
Outpost 2 is calling on you and relying on you.

 

Offline Mez

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« Reply #1 on: September 12, 2007, 12:20:08 PM »
Keep the present goals.

Of your main goals, the op2 language translation doesn't rank highly in my books.  I would go for member retension or guides to get new people here, but not expansion, leave it to the hard core.

Of the suggestions I would pick:

V1.3.5
Forum admin
A few guides
Strats

Offline Hooman

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« Reply #2 on: September 12, 2007, 06:15:59 PM »
I wouldn't really put a big emphasis on language translations either. They would be nice, but if they've come to our site, or visited us on IRC, they probably have at least passable English. Besides, after getting used to a game, you mostly just remember where stuff is and not really read it. It takes too long to actually read stuff while you're playing.


If we're going to patch, then we need something we can actually fix to patch. Maybe new levels and such might be worth a new version up for download, but that sort of work doesn't really need to coincide with a new version release. People can always download levels seperately and play them. It jsut might be easier to distrubute them packaged with a new version, particularly for multplayer levels. Patches can also be seperately applied, provided they don't affect client compatibility. The only real fix I can think of that we can currently make that affects compatibility is to do with the meteor defense vulnerability. We could patch it so the meteor defense always gets a chance to fire.


I've spoken to at least one person that just wants to play an occasional game of Outpost 2 to relax, and wouldn't mind a strategy guide of some sort.



My main interesting is in the programming side though. That's one of the things I've always enjoyed about this forum, is the number of people actually interested in some sort of development work.

It might be nice to release a new SDK. There are certain things about the old one that seem a bit dated now. Particularly with the OP2Helper files. The original version was just to get easily started on really basic levels, or the sorts of things already in the game. However most level designers seem to want to try something a little bit new, and for many of the things they're going for, the current helper files are inadequate.

It would also be nice to write a new level making guide. Something nice and clean, well organized and all in one place. There's plenty of stuff on the forums about making levels currently, but it's kind of all over the place, and it can be hard for someone new to it to find all the relevant stuff and piece it all together. Plus as new topics are started, the old ones move around. If the information can all be collected in a good way, then the topic can at least be pinned, but even then I'm not sure that's enough. I find pinned topics start getting ignored pretty fast. I usually don't even notice they're there anymore. But, new people do tend to take a look at pinned topics at least once, so they are still good at getting the word out about something, or pointing people in the right direction. Plus if the topic is important enough, people seem to at least remember there was a pinned topic pointing them in the right direction.

I don't really feel the wiki is necessarily the place to be pointing them though. Back when lots of people were into reverse engineering Outpost 2, and there was new info comming out all the time, it seemed like it might be a nice way for people to combine and share that info. But now there aren't too many people still working on that sort of thing so the wiki has kind of lost it's group effort appeal. It's also terribly organized and indexed, which I think is very important. Another thing that people don't seem to consider is the amount of time it takes to access the infomation you need. If I want to know some small detail quickly, I want to know it withing the next 10 seconds. I don't want to have to wait for a web browser to load, connect to some website with the large network delay, search for what I need (which is not only a pain and slow with the wiki, but also not obvious how to get at what you want), and then finally read it. If I have to go through that much trouble, I probably won't make much use of it. That's partly why most of my info is kept as .txt files on my harddrive. The forums is also a little slow to search, but was generally easier than the wiki. Also, the wiki seemed more suited to seperate articles, but I feel we need more of a guide that takes you through many different topics in some logical teaching order.

I've thought for a while that a collection of webpages would be the most suitable form for such a guide. That could allow us to organize and index the information nicely, and people could quickly find what they need from some central index page. It could also list the topics in some reasonable order for new people to read them and learn the stuff from. Plus, I started getting an extension to that idea, and thought of compiling the pages into a Compiled HTML file (.chm). Then people could download them to their hardrives, and eliminate that annoying network delay, plus the chm reader that comes with Windows is pretty fast loading. (I'm not too sure about the one I've heard of for Linux, but would anyone really develop OP2 code on a Linux box?). The chm viewer is usually much faster loading than a web browser. It should also be a minimum of work for both an online version, and a downloadable version of the docs.


As for the types of guides that should be written, there's plenty of topics on level making, even before you begin to discuss AI. We could also write something on how the SDK was created. It didn't just come out of nowhere afterall, and some people might be curious how to go about making the base SDK themselves. We could also write stuff on reverse engineering, although, this is usually not as hot of a topic. It'd also be good to post details on file formats, and guides for editing things other than levels, such as colors, tile sets, graphics, sounds, music.


It might also be nice to do more development with shell related stuff, such as what got put into Outpost2App.h. Or more work on the network code. Currently most people seem to rely on Hamachi to play, but a number of people either don't like Hamachi or just plain won't use it. Ideally the only person who should require some sort of special setup for direct play with routers involved is the game host, and then only if the host is behind a router. The earlier NAT patches allowed this to be possible with port forwarding setup for everyone, but continual work may remove the requirement for all but a game host who is behing a router to have port forwarding setup. It would also be nice to integrate the game hosting/joining with the chat. Basically something like SIGS/WON would be nice and would help get games going. Although, most people who play seem to be fairly content with Hamachi, and any built in chat client would likely be a poor replacement for IRC (or at least a lousy IRC client), so this area doesn't seem to be such a high priority for work.

An Outpost 2 remake would be nice. That would allow many of the problems with the current version to be solved. Also, if the existing graphics, sounds, and music were used, then the majority of the work just becomes the programming. This would be a much easier task to accomplish than a new game, particularly one that involved lots of 3D models and skins, etc. Plus, as many people have been saying for a while, including me, it'd probably be easier to rewrite the code for the game than to continually hack the current exe to do what we'd like it to do. (Such as the network code issues, and various small bug/glitch fixes).


As far as development goes, I basically think we should be mainly concentrating on Outpost 2. Either with new levels, patches, or editing tools, or possibly a code remake using the same graphics and with the same gamplay.
 

Offline BlackBox

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« Reply #3 on: April 29, 2008, 01:57:24 AM »
I think one major gripe a lot of people have with OPU is the terrible organization of the website. This is a really big area that we need to focus on. As I mentioned in the thread about the wiki, the biggest problem is again probably manpower to do what we want. It's easy to try and recruit editors, etc. but getting them to "stick with it" and continue putting in time to improve the website is the hard part, for a number of reasons.

Personally, I have not been as active in the community as I've wanted to be because of real life constraints. Univ and work take up a majority of my time, which gives me little free time to do much with OPU. The bit of free time that I do have usually is spent doing "leisure" activities rather than working on code, or improving websites, etc. due to the lack of motivation I have toward doing these things. (I'm writing code and maintaining computers every day at work, as well as for many of my classes so I have little motivation to do any kind of programming or sysadmin task when I come home for the day).

In any case, I hope to try to become a little bit more active at some point, but don't count on too much till probably near the end of the summer (early to mid-August).

Offline Drakmar

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« Reply #4 on: May 07, 2008, 10:22:16 PM »
All this sounds good to me. Maybe we should work on a place for the various fan-written Novellas to go. And encourage others to write their own story based on the game. I've read a lot of the stories that some of the fans have written, and I'd love to see more of them.

Offline Leviathan

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« Reply #5 on: March 10, 2009, 10:19:50 AM »
I would love to see 1.3.5 and different language Outpost 2 versions within the next 6 months to the end of the year.. I'm sure we could get this done.

Offline Sirbomber

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« Reply #6 on: March 10, 2009, 12:03:22 PM »
Is it really all that reasonable to establish timelines?  We're still not 100% sure what we need to do for 1.3.5, and people don't live for this place.  They have other stuff to do which is more important.
"As usual, colonist opinion is split between those who think the plague is a good idea, and those who are dying from it." - Outpost Evening Star

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