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Battlezone1 kerfuffle

Started by Ultraken, November 20, 2009, 01:01:05 PM

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Ultraken

There seems to be a bit of consternation over at battlezone1.freeforums.org, and I'd like to clear things up a bit.  I'm not going to get involved in this whole community split over BZ1, BZE, BZ2.  Development of the unofficial BZ2 1.3 patch brought me here years ago, and I plan to stay here for the duration.  I don't mean that as some sort of personal rejection, just a simple fact.

There has been a recent push to warn or educate me about Dx/Reaper and BZE, with the implication that I've been on the wrong side of the issue.  Regardless of how much that community despises Dx/Reaper, he has shown both dedication and maturity over the years I've been in contact.  I ask everyone to just chill out.  I'm an adult and I can take care of myself.  This isn't about one side or the other.

My primary objective is to get BZ1 working with modern development tools on Windows 7 since that's what I have at home.  I may add some other modernizations while I'm in there, but can't make any promises since my time is very limited.  I can't afford to get into a bunch of gameplay changes or feature requests, since that exactly the kind of time-sink that led me to burn myself out on BZ2.  The product of my effort will remain the same game everyone knows, just preserved for the future.

Though I care deeply about BZ1--it was my first shipped title--I return with considerable reluctance because I knew I would get pulled in all sorts of directions.  The "experimental build" has sparked considerable excitement in the community, but I think releasing it publicly was a mistake.  What's done is done, though.

AHadley


TheJamsh

Problem is everyone always wants more... i heard a 'why wasn't shader support introduced' when TA5 was released with DX9. I mean... waaaah?!

I intend to play BZ1 when BZClassic comes out, mainly because i dont have money to spend on old games, and would like to do it in BZ2's engine.


BZII Expansion Pack Development Leader. Coming Soon.

AHadley

I dont care that BZC is exactly the same thing, I just want my BZ working! :-D

General BlackDragon

BZC may not be EXACTLY the same thing. There will be some aspects of BZ2 that make it better. Such as MPI against a HARD cpu team, provided that I can find somebody that knows enough about aips to make a challenging AI but still keeping the feeling of BZ1.

/random plea for help with aips/



*****General BlackDragon*****

AHadley

Quote from: General BlackDragon on November 20, 2009, 01:25:09 PM
BZC may not be EXACTLY the same thing. There will be some aspects of BZ2 that make it better. Such as MPI against a HARD cpu team, provided that I can find somebody that knows enough about aips to make a challenging AI but still keeping the feeling of BZ1.

/random plea for help with aips/

I don't care if it is, was my point :P

And Jamsh is the guy you want.

mrtwosheds

Quote/random plea for help with aips/
I know the feeling, currently I am avoiding further development of my LoS AIP's until I get a week or so free to sink my head back into them properly. Trying to define a set that dynamically uses aip switching to alter the AI strategy's in a real-time responsive way... hisExists confusion >= 10.

TheJamsh

looks like im doing AIP's for BZC as well now :P


BZII Expansion Pack Development Leader. Coming Soon.

General BlackDragon

Lol.

But I think it's good that we're trying to bridge the gaps in the communities. A majority of the BZ1 community is at battlezone1.freeforums.org and I believe their help in testing the Experimental build will be very helpful in the end.

Look at BZC over the past 3 years. At first I was very ambitious and excited. I started delving in and helping in every aspect I could. At first Avatar was surprised and a little scared at how fast I was going through and adding the missing bits in and reporting multiple pages of bugs. If you search through my post history you will see that.

But after a while he warmed up to me and I settled down. Or is it visa versa? :P And now I am pretty tamed and waiting on Avatar for DLLs.  :mrgreen: Ultimately, Avatar believes my help in BZC will be very beneficial. Just like I believe the involvement of the BZ1 community in this patch will be just as much.



*****General BlackDragon*****

Nielk1

#9
Ken, it's not so much a rush to educate you on their silliness but rather their small explosions that are ejecting frivolous information at us.

Ignore them. DX might have some useful info from the bits of code changed for BZE and hack fixes, but aside from what, don't get involved in the crap.

Click on the image...

TwinShadow

I agree. Was a mistake on my part for trying to see what I could do and all that. I'm banned from Spocks forum, and I'll tell you this, that is an abuse of power on his part, not here.

Anyway, from that action, I'd probably take some advice from Dx more-so than him, but I'm sure both sides can bring up good points to fix.

I don't really plan to get BZ1 again, played it a little, but the physics are so much different that I can't really get used to them. Plus, the unit management is just... well.. can't build more than 10 offensive units is just not me. (as I like to have a platoon of units =P)

General BlackDragon

#11
And for all those who are wondering WHY links to BZ1 installers are no longer allowed.

NO it is NOT because BZU/BZ2 players hate BZ1...

It's my fault actually. Not Directly mind you, but It was because of a post I made containing a link to the BZ1.4l Club installer a year ago.

I made a post for someone containing the installer for BZ1, assuming it was legal since all the BZ1 sites had one up. The next day I find out I'm banned from BZU for a week and wondered why.

Apparently somebody didn't like the fact that I posted it, so they reported the link as an illegal download to the web site provider. They in turn called CmptrWz and insisted he remove the link. Instead he removed the topic and banned me from posting for a week.  :| BZU almost got shut down because of it.

Thats why the admins/moderators here are so harsh about that.

Quarry Topic:
http://www.bzuniverse.com/forum/index.php/topic,7726.0.html

Rule Response Topic:
http://www.bzuniverse.com/forum/index.php/topic,7724.0.html

Both of those topics are here because of me.   :-(



*****General BlackDragon*****

ssuser

My 2 cents - just doing a compatibility update is probably the correct thing at this point - adding in lots of new features will make it into a "patch" and said patch would only be valid for modern systems - it probably wouldn't work on any older win 9x systems, so you would have complaints there. Avoiding the "feature wars" is a good idea.


TheJamsh

If it doesnt work on anything lower than XP, then i think the answer should be 'tough luck'. Quite frankly these people who will complain about such things desperately need to upgrade... I no longer see any problem with having games non backward compatible pre-XP.

That, and the fact that BZ2 has now dropped pre-XP support because of DX9 and NO ONE complained means it probably isnt that big of an issue.


BZII Expansion Pack Development Leader. Coming Soon.

TwinShadow

Quote from: TheJamsh on November 21, 2009, 03:16:23 AM
If it doesnt work on anything lower than XP, then i think the answer should be 'tough luck'. Quite frankly these people who will complain about such things desperately need to upgrade... I no longer see any problem with having games non backward compatible pre-XP.

That, and the fact that BZ2 has now dropped pre-XP support because of DX9 and NO ONE complained means it probably isnt that big of an issue.

I agree, and disagree with this.

1. XP has been the standard OS for the better part of 8-10 years, and is still going strong even now.
2. Though it is true that there are compatibility issues when games are made pre-XP, some will work on XP just fine, and others won't. But typically, those are abandoned as it is and never get updated further. (I can name one or two)
3. There are certain DOS games that will refuse to work on XP, and I would name a few, but I don't have them any longer.

In short, some games are indeed made better on systems like 95 or 98 and some could definitely use an update. In the case of Battlezone, an update is in order. I think most of the players for both BZ and BZ2 are using XP, Vista, or Win7 as it is. I haven't seen a person use 98 since I got a new computer years ago.