Forged Alliance Forever

Re: debating unclogging the supcom source code and FAF

2017-05-17T04:54:58+02:00

on the topic of RTS dieing:
well it's really no wonder if FAF is the best there is currently - and that is my personal opinion. There really is no game I enjoy more! But sim speeds and connectivity issues are a huge huge huge huge turnoff.
AOTS I spend my 120$ on and deeeeeeply regret it. to me it is nowhere even close to supcom. I don't recognize anything related to it except for mass(metal) extractors. But they actually went and advertised to become a successor of supcom. They also promised support for THOUSANDS of units. Well they sort of lied. Or at least I never got as far as to reach that stage with other players. usually at 200 units the game ends pretty quickly.
so AOTS was one big let down and it simply not a very fun game. you move units to a position they fight on their own and the micro you do is in form of using Orbitals and forging armies. How can that compete to microing your units and eco in FA in terms of thrill and engagement?

Grey Goo I believe is too similar to SC II and SCII is simply the better game.

PA on the other hand did an almost good job. In my opinion though too good. The idea of blowing up planets is fun and exciting but the scale of the battle is extremely complex and the game has performance issues. after all it has to sim not only one map. no it has to sim several planets that also orbit around each other and on top of that theres even more units swarming around.
Lategame Orbital spam is horrific. There are onyl two units for orbit of which one is clearly the better. PA: Titans should have been the game on release, cause if it is one thing sup com taught us : navigating a GC, Fatboy, Meabot , ML CZAr or eyotha against an army of bots is a hell of alot of fun and satisfying as hell. Theres also that factions aspect. Supcom would be a very dull game without it's factions I'd go as far as to wish for even more a-symetry.
So this is where PA messed up big time. Aside from the poor game design choices PA also has huge performance issues, memory leaks that eventually crash your client and usually more than 3~5 planets is too much for most computers to handle. So Deathstars really have no point. AS they are like the rapidfire arty only with an even longer build time...

what PA should have done and I really mean it. Take FA copy it 100% make their own textures 3d animations and designs so they don't get sued and optimize + fix bugs. That is all they had to do and I would have thrown my money at them tenfold and probably not just me.
All of these games are a failure cause they tried to fix what isn't broken at all and never fixed what really needed fixing : the performance and QOL issues large scale RTS have.

On To the actual topic though:
if said source code were to exist and it cannot be used due to legal supression. The chances are slim that this is a money issue. Simply out of principle they would probabyl keep that code suprossed. Regardless though meeting with the publishers and IP holders won't do any harm at the worsed you'll get a clear "no" to the proposal which will at least clear things up.
Now that being said: I repead if there is a source what is stopping anyone from remastering it? Last time I checked theres no copy right for algorithms and procedures. just Like you can't patent gravity or the way you do your dishes. rewriting the code in your own words and functions would be legal.
But I would go as far as to say that from todays perspective this code is probably a mess and you wouldn't even want to copy it unless it holds some key to a long lost generation of super efficient algorithms to calculate projectile angles.
it is probably hard to read and understand. Threading is definitely not optimised and neither do I believe they were using SIMD headers to effectively utilize multicore processors.

So my Opinion:
try- and see what you can get. Asking doesn't cost a dime. Maybe a little bit of your dignity.
But when it comes to large sums of money I think you're better of building the source a new.
Even if the engine is worth 12 mil thats likely due to investors wanting to make large profits and overpayed developers. The raw production value is by far lower.
Aren't there any suitable open source game engines out there? sadly this is not my field of expertise. I'm only just learning the basics of computer graphics - I'm more of an efficient algorithms guy. Rebuilding SUpcom FA as an open source Project with modern programming guidelines would probably be the best bet for FAF especially when trying to improve and evolve the game. I would wish for nothing more and I would probably be one of the largest commitors were a project like this to ever be started.

Statistics: Posted by andybe — 17 May 2017, 04:54

Re: debating unclogging the supcom source code and FAF

2017-05-04T05:40:16+02:00

Total Annihilation was completely re-written in the Spring RTS Engine, exactly 10 years after Total Annihilation's release (1997). There has been no grief that I'm aware of for that community, and now we are just like them (it's been 10 years since the release of Supcom)

Granted...TA is a much simpler game...

Statistics: Posted by rambouillet — 04 May 2017, 05:40

Re: debating unclogging the supcom source code and FAF

2017-05-03T15:33:59+02:00

i think there was a discussion about decompiling necessary parts some time ago (i remember a thread from anihilnine)
however, i made some decompile-dumps with IDA/Hex-Ray which i could provide. (They are horrible to read; u cant recompile or work with them without further investigations; so dont expect much)
personally, i didnt want to spend the time, so i stopped at that point.

Statistics: Posted by ABSTRACT — 03 May 2017, 15:33

Re: debating unclogging the supcom source code and FAF

2016-10-28T14:14:40+02:00

Zoram wrote:
So, just so that I understand, the topic is about convincing whoever owns the code/IP/etc. to let us work on the stolen source code ?

pretty much. though it wasn't stolen but I get your meaning

Statistics: Posted by tatsu — 28 Oct 2016, 14:14

Re: debating unclogging the supcom source code and FAF

2016-10-28T13:45:40+02:00

tatsu wrote:
biass wrote:If you think that then i suggest you go back and have a look at other users posts

no.

this is my fukin thread.

I'm sick and fukin tired of you derailing it.

I'll stay on topic thank you very much.

So, just so that I understand, the topic is about convincing whoever owns the code/IP/etc. to let us work on the stolen source code ?

Statistics: Posted by Zoram — 28 Oct 2016, 13:45

Re: debating unclogging the supcom source code and FAF

2016-10-28T11:47:09+02:00

tatsu stop attacking everyone who doesn't share your opinion else I close "your fukin thread"

Statistics: Posted by speed2 — 28 Oct 2016, 11:47

Re: debating unclogging the supcom source code and FAF

2016-10-28T11:43:40+02:00

@zeech

About right, each company wants to hike on the success of other games, see: dayz and etc

We could have similar gameplay, scale etc, but we shouldn't try to continue the story, i think sc2 went to far into just milking it

Statistics: Posted by biass — 28 Oct 2016, 11:43

Re: debating unclogging the supcom source code and FAF

2016-10-28T11:30:31+02:00

biass wrote:
Honestly i think the IP of supcom should end here
I love the game, but making more and more games with the same stuff pales our opinion in contrast to the original and will eventually ruin our love for the game + our wallets)

We should focus on making our own story with our own units and gameplay if some some absurd reason this ability ever comes about

Whilst I don't care about SupCom's story, faction / unit names, lore etc, it's a waste to throw away all of these years of accumulated gameplay experience, balancing, etc.
Certainly an FA fan-boot should have some big changes that people have always wanted (T3 Air redone, etc), but there should be a lot of things that should stay the same as well.

The huge problem with competitive games in the current industry, is that every time a game gets close to being well-balanced, it all gets thrown away, they make a sequel (or a different company makes a competitor / spiritual successor), and it starts from shitty square one again.

That's probably part of the success of MOBAs. I've never played them so maybe someone can correct me, but my understanding is that LOL/DOTA2/HON are not all that radically different from the final versions of the original DOTA? They only gradually evolved away from that beginning?

Statistics: Posted by AdmiralZeech — 28 Oct 2016, 11:30

Re: debating unclogging the supcom source code and FAF

2016-10-28T11:29:58+02:00

biass wrote:
If you think that then i suggest you go back and have a look at other users posts

no.

this is my fukin thread.

I'm sick and fukin tired of you derailing it.

I'll stay on topic thank you very much.

Statistics: Posted by tatsu — 28 Oct 2016, 11:29

Re: debating unclogging the supcom source code and FAF

2016-10-28T11:25:53+02:00

If you think that then i suggest you go back and have a look at other users posts

Statistics: Posted by biass — 28 Oct 2016, 11:25

Re: debating unclogging the supcom source code and FAF

2016-10-28T11:21:08+02:00

biass wrote:
So say if we took the Cybran's Rhino Tank and funded a different game with the Tank in it,

Except... we're not doing that

that's not what were talking about doing in this thread.

if it's an imperative to you that you talk about this, please, by all means make your own thread.

Statistics: Posted by tatsu — 28 Oct 2016, 11:21

Re: debating unclogging the supcom source code and FAF

2016-10-28T10:43:54+02:00

Dude, i wasn't even talking to you, i was talking to the people above my post chatting about remaking FA in different engines, its not even related to your op or whatever so i dont know why you're wildly flailing words in my direction

Yes im aware what ip means:
Intellectual property (IP) is the property of your mind or proprietary knowledge. Basically, the productive new ideas you create. It can be an invention, trade mark, design, brand, or the application of your idea. (https://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/understanding-ip)
So say if we took the Cybran's Rhino Tank and funded a different game with the Tank in it, we're stealing the IP of CT or nordic or whoever, and the legal damages could run the entirety of faf into the dirt, not fun right?

About the source code: the person who has a copy probably stole it, and i doubt a company like SE will think twice on suing FAF for theft and putting visonik into ruin for some extra cash.

Statistics: Posted by biass — 28 Oct 2016, 10:43

Re: debating unclogging the supcom source code and FAF

2016-10-28T10:32:10+02:00

biass wrote:
What?

By ip i mean everyone wanting to remake the game with the same units and the dame etc etc etc on different engines or games etc

by saying the "ip" i mean the supcom series
not IP address, "Intellectual property"

I hate how hostile you're tying to be to me despite not actually comprehending what i say, pretty rude

well if that's what it takes to have you starting to relate to how I feel when you start out in the thread the way you did then call it progress.

No you still don't get what IP legally implies.

I believe we'd have no need for it for the manipulations I said.

lemme re-quote myself from the Opening Post since you're hellbent on not reading me. honestly this all could have been avoided with three to four less doses of assumption and one extra dose of literature :

tatsu wrote:
so long as the game keeps being sold on steam and proceeds go to the IP holders (Nordic) and nothing is sold here on FAF everything FAF does such as modifying the game even eventually down the line compiling a game from edited source code is authorized so long as the people playing this modified game are only people who own FA.

and this is guaranteed because FA only launches it's patched version of FA once it recognizes the folder it's being pointed to as a FA install directory (from steam installation or CD installation).

so what I'm suggesting here is to push what we've been doing here as a community in FAF into overdrive.

Statistics: Posted by tatsu — 28 Oct 2016, 10:32

Re: debating unclogging the supcom source code and FAF

2016-10-28T10:26:50+02:00

JaggedAppliance wrote:
I'm not sure what this means though tbh:
IceDreamer wrote:Legally [the source code] shouldn't exist at all.

I guess you aren't supposed to be in possession of the source without owning rights to it?

could be it.

why not just try to work it out with the owners see if they're okay with it or if they'd need monetary compensation to be okay with it instead of assuming they would never be and give up before aver having ever tried and destroy it?

basically my two cents on the matter. maybe I'm missing something obvious here.

Statistics: Posted by tatsu — 28 Oct 2016, 10:26

Re: debating unclogging the supcom source code and FAF

2016-10-28T10:07:10+02:00

What?

By ip i mean everyone wanting to remake the game with the same units and the dame etc etc etc on different engines or games etc

by saying the "ip" i mean the supcom series
not IP address, "Intellectual property"

I hate how hostile you're tying to be to me despite not actually comprehending what i say, pretty rude

Statistics: Posted by biass — 28 Oct 2016, 10:07