Do you like current state of the development?

[duz]

@Shoozza

How difficult is to start? Damn! Everything here looks a nightmare.
Start with a team to deal with the maps, then you'll start getting the pressure off your shoulder and you gonna focus on what's you are better, coding.

Someone you know could lead this team? Maybe L[one]R (idk if he's interested, just an example).
Then he gonna open a topic asking for helpers. He gonna check the player's past, you know, if he was a league admin or a good player, if he's a known map maker, if he has time for it etc. Let the team leader decide who's capable for the role.

The team gonna discuss with the community about removing, picking or changing maps. You'll have all the cons and pros arguments in some topics.
Before any discussion, make yourself clear about limitations (if you have), like if you disagree in removing 50% of the maps or changing layouts entirely losing identity etc, you know, these things.
You can have the final decision over it. DONE.
Easier than doing all the job by yourself.


You can also set a team to decide some major goals instead of starting that kind of stupid pool.
I'm an experienced player but I don't wanna be consulted about those things. You should be pointing the development to a target, but you don't even have these priorities in your mind.
So let the people that is wasting their time playing this game for ages decide, instead of being stuck like you are, wasting your time.

What's the difference in having a team for it? You're aiming something that makes sense. Correlation between decisions/accomplishments instead of this poll mess.
You have a lot of votes in the poll that should have less weight than others. Like people with 8k hours with the same vote weight than players with 1k hours. Some retired players vs who still competing vs 101% casual players etc. Even a guy with bad intentions could vote.

If you're taking decisions based on your poll, you should at least think about this poll result, 40-4. Looks like there's something wrong, nah?

[L[0ne]R]

In fact there wasn't any "drama" until december. We have been waiting quietly for the big release but nothing has happened. Also according to your answer we should accept the problem rather than discuss it. Right?

Look at how much the plans has been dumbed down. It went from "make v1.8 with new UI and a bunch of other stuff" to "just make 1.7.2 that's stable enough to release on Steam, then open-source it and forget it". There's nothing left to "discuss". It just needs to be done.

Like I said - if you want to make things better - join the team and do the work. And this is something people don't seem to understand - it's *work*. It's not fun times where you get to add all sorts of features you ever dreamed of having in Soldat while ignoring anything that isn't part of the gameplay. *Especially* not in this version which has *nothing* to do with gameplay, so it's extra boring and tedious. The second people are faced with the idea of signing an NDA, meeting guidelines, following rules, coordinating with the rest of the dev team - they get turned off and complain that it's "too hard".

I get it, those people do have a point. We need to make that process easier, and from what I understand - this is the current goal. It's already being worked towards, but you have to bear with what we've got for now. I don't see any alternatives other than being patient until it's done.

If anyone is serious about helping - contact Shoozza or ask me and I'll relay a message to him, and hopefully you can speed up the process.

Moreover, if he once says he will be doing devlogs weekly and then he doesn't write them for 2 months while having a rough deadline it feels like he stopped working, doesn't it?

He certainly should work on his communication, not arguing here.

EDIT: Heck, I'm fully willing to write devlogs myself too, maybe help with other PR stuff. I'm just not as nice as Shoozza, so I'm not sure how well I'd do.

If that's such a big deal for Shoozza, I can write devlogs every week. He just needs to tell me what he had done. I'll spend these 10 minutes per week.

I asked Shoozza something similar. The answer was simply that not enough was done to write about.

[Viral]

You are missing the point there were people willing to help and even did help, like helloer. And considering the ammount of work he did compared to the rest of the devteam, he was the one putting the most (or even the only one) of the work. So now that we face the same situation with nonexistant progress a lot of people can get mad at both MM, for giving Shoozza the "power" and Shoozza for yet again doing nothing, when we could've had some steps taken towards open-source soldat and/or hopefully get some people who are actually willing to do something.
 
Now you have a main dev sobbing, because people are full of his unfulfilled promises, no creative people, that i know, willing to work with him in a team (him getting voted out of devteam proves that). Now think about your "join the team and do something" and tell me how stupid one could be to jump into this once again?

It's the same joke if you look at the map team. I spent my time doing exactly what i was asked to by the rest (basically monsteri) just to hear he won't release any of the maps, because he expects to earn something from this dead shit game. I guess noone bothered to sort this kind of things beforehand, but on the other hand, I'd not expect someone to ask for money in a voluntary work myself. Are you expecting me to yet again spend hours doing the most boring thing in the word (preparing maps for monsteri so he can do the visual etc. in the meantime) and get fucked in the end?

[L[0ne]R]

@duz: what you're talking about has basically been done. The "map team" was small to begin with and then fell apart completely because the person leading it didn't get his way. I'd love to get back in but it's a lot of time and effort that I don't have a lot to spare, especially knowing it might not get anywhere.

@Viral: I get it, those are the problems we're faced with. Solution may be, as you say, open-sourcing, and it's closer to becoming a reality than it's ever been. So my question is: how do we get there faster?

[Viral]

It was closer when Shoozza could finally admit to MM he is not going to do pretty much anything so maybe MM would consider opensourcing it and maybe by now we wouldve had OSSoldat with some progress running. I think you should ask the devs or MM how are they going to get there faster, because it was solely their idea to go this "path to nowhere" at the first place.

[Nedi]

Look at how much the plans has been dumbed down. It went from "make v1.8 with new UI and a bunch of other stuff" to "just make 1.7.2 that's stable enough to release on Steam, then open-source it and forget it". There's nothing left to "discuss". It just needs to be done.

Forget it? Open source is our only way to revive this game from stale and lazy development right now. Because even you have to agree that working alone on a big project like Soldat is ridiculous. BTW open-source equals faster 1.8.

Like I said - if you want to make things better - join the team and do the work. And this is something people don't seem to understand - it's *work*. It's not fun times where you get to add all sorts of features you ever dreamed of having in Soldat while ignoring anything that isn't part of the gameplay. *Especially* not in this version which has *nothing* to do with gameplay, so it's extra boring and tedious.

People offered help many times and what? I heard they only had problems with communicating to Shoozza. Like for example waiting a month for an answer.

The second people are faced with the idea of signing an NDA, meeting guidelines, following rules, coordinating with the rest of the dev team - they get turned off and complain that it's "too hard".

I get it, those people do have a point. We need to make that process easier, and from what I understand - this is the current goal. It's already being worked towards, but you have to bear with what we've got for now. I don't see any alternatives other than being patient until it's done.

There is an alternative actually. Shoozza wanted to prove something but he failed and now he has to admit it and tell MM that he isn't capable of doing this work ALONE. And then MM will hopefully re-consider making Soldat open-source.

[Ygrek Starmagedon]

No one from remaining people here gonna spend time creating 100 versions of trailers or graphics and wait if devs choose something from it.

We all know that they wouldn't even use any of those if smth was created.

[L[0ne]R]

Forget it? Open source is our only way to revive this game from stale and lazy development right now. Because even you have to agree that working alone on a big project like Soldat is ridiculous. BTW open-source equals faster 1.8.

"Forget it" in the sense that MM and Shoozza can get it off their shoulders and leave the development entirely up to the community. (Though we'd still need some sort of leading dev who compiles and uploads new versions to Steam).

People offered help many times and what? I heard they only had problems with communicating to Shoozza. Like for example waiting a month for an answer.

Well I don't know what you've heard, but my personal experience was pretty different. I offered to help with the UI and was later invited to brainstorm and work on prototypes. I offered to work on maps and graphics and was later invited to work on HD remake. Today I offered to help with devlogs and communication and seems like that will be a thing now too. Maybe it's different with actual programming, I don't know. From what I heard from jrgp(maybe?), it's not much more complicated either.

There is an alternative actually. Shoozza wanted to prove something but he failed and now he has to admit it and tell MM that he isn't capable of doing this work ALONE. And then MM will hopefully re-consider making Soldat open-source.

It sounds like you're just inserting your own fantasy into the situation. Shoozza wanting to prove something? MM re-considering making Soldat open-source? I thought you wanted Soldat to be OS, now you don't? I'm confused.

[Nedi]

"Forget it" in the sense that MM and Shoozza can get it off their shoulders and leave the development entirely up to the community. (Though we'd still need some sort of leading dev who compiles and uploads new versions to Steam).

Shoozza still can continue developing. And if he wants to, as a lead developer.

It sounds like you're just inserting your own fantasy into the situation. Shoozza wanting to prove something?

Yes, it is my personal opinion and it is probably irrelevant here but i think i'm not the only one who thinks like that after seeing what Shoozza has done and said. (Look at the poll results in this thread and also the ones provided in Moroes' answer)

MM re-considering making Soldat open-source? I thought you wanted Soldat to be OS, now you don't? I'm confused.

Re-considering making Soldat open-source before steam release. Because why do we have to wait if we can only benefit from that? There are people who are waiting for it to join the team and contribute, why not make it now and with a bigger team release Soldat on steam faster? Additionally, I can be quiet and wait for it but tell me, how long? Another quarter of year? Maybe a few years? Even if Shoozza told everyone the date again how can we believe it if he had already lied to us 2 times?

[Ygrek Starmagedon]

Is open sourcing hard to make happen? If not just do it, and then postpone Steam release to like idk, maybe 29 of February (yes, I said it again xd) and work hard on v1.8. You will have far enough time to create big dev team that's gonna get along, plan what everyone's gonna do and everyone's gonna just fckn do their work and make it.

[Nedi]

Is open sourcing hard to make happen?

No.

[L[0ne]R]

Re-considering making Soldat open-source before steam release. Because why do we have to wait if we can only benefit from that? There are people who are waiting for it to join the team and contribute, why not make it now and with a bigger team release Soldat on steam faster?

Ah, I see what you mean, good point. I'll see if I can find some answers.

Additionally, I can be quiet and wait for it but tell me, how long? Another quarter of year? Maybe a few years? Even if Shoozza told everyone the date again how can we believe it if he had already lied to us 2 times?

Half a month. Sounds reasonable to me.

"Lying" implies deliberately making false statements. The first delay was actually requested by the community, no sense in blaming Shoozza for it. This delay is just a broken promise. Not a good thing, but not a lie.

Is open sourcing hard to make happen?

No.

Is that also your personal opinion?

[Nedi]

Half a month. Sounds reasonable to me.

I can wait half a month but how sure are you about that speculation? And what after that time if it fails again? We will again shout and there will be that one guy who tells everybody to wait a bit more.

Is open sourcing hard to make happen?

No.

Is that also your personal opinion?

No:

soldat now uses only open source libraries

So now MM has to choose a licence and there aren't many possibilities. Then, finally, publish code. Or did i forget about something relevant?

[ginn]

If we're gonna be real now though...

You guys could just start a new game. Soldat is in pascal and you'll need to go through so many hoops to accomplish anything when working on soldat source code.

[Guil TheDamned]

Pascal is just another language, the base is the same.

[L[0ne]R]

Half a month. Sounds reasonable to me.

I can wait half a month but how sure are you about that speculation? And what after that time if it fails again? We will again shout and there will be that one guy who tells everybody to wait a bit more.

I'm not sure about it at all, I just think it's a reasonable timeframe to finish the Steam release (based purely on my uninformed guesstimate). If after that time it fails again - then sure, shout and wave your pitchforks. If there will be someone telling you to wait a bit more - it probably won't be me.

No:

soldat now uses only open source libraries

So now MM has to choose a licence and there aren't many possibilities. Then, finally, publish code. Or did i forget about something relevant?

The fact that Soldat only uses open-source libraries doesn't mean open-sourcing is easy. There may still be elements that need to be removed / changed before open-sourcing (like all the registration and shareware elements). There may be more licensing difficulties and possibilities that you're not aware of that make the matter more complicated. You also don't just dump out the code into pastebin. It needs to be set up on a proper platform. So yes, you probably forgot something relevant.

[Nedi]

I'm not sure about it at all, I just think it's a reasonable timeframe to finish the Steam release (based purely on my uninformed guesstimate). If after that time it fails again - then sure, shout and wave your pitchforks. If there will be someone telling you to wait a bit more - it probably won't be me.

Let's wait for MM's answer on "Dear MM" thread.

The fact that Soldat only uses open-source libraries doesn't mean open-sourcing is easy. There may still be elements that need to be removed / changed before open-sourcing (like all the registration and shareware elements).

Yea, there may be needed some cleaning but, however, I've heard helloer had prepared almost everything(if not everything) to go open source.

There may be more licensing difficulties and possibilities that you're not aware of that make the matter more complicated.

You may be right here.

You also don't just dump out the code into pastebin. It needs to be set up on a proper platform.

You just dump out the code into GitHub or other platform once everything else is ready.

[darDar]

The fact that Soldat only uses open-source libraries doesn't mean open-sourcing is easy. There may still be elements that need to be removed / changed before open-sourcing (like all the registration and shareware elements).

Yea, there may be needed some cleaning but, however, I've heard helloer had prepared almost everything(if not everything) to go open source.

helloer has prepared pretty much everything to make soldat open-source, yes.. Soldat is ready for that step..

[machina]

You also don't just dump out the code into pastebin. It needs to be set up on a proper platform.

You just dump out the code into GitHub or other platform once everything else is ready.

It should be GitHub. Fuck BitBucket and other things like that, really...

[jrgp]

You also don't just dump out the code into pastebin. It needs to be set up on a proper platform.

You just dump out the code into GitHub or other platform once everything else is ready.

It should be GitHub. Fuck BitBucket and other things like that, really...

I agree. GitHub is the colloquial, de-facto, standard method for open source contributions on the internet and it has been for a long time. Very few people/projects use bitbucket and others.