A community-made trace of FAF's History

[tatsu]

We need a written trace no? almost losing FAF made me realize how hard it was to piece together information without the forum, the wikia, the irc....

Any information you have could help. Come contribute and we can build a very neat doc. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1e2m ... QtYjhxBqE/

If it turns into a huge, very pro and serious memoir I'll be proud. Together we are strong. FAF is indestructible.

Please do! The more factual information the better.

Here's FAF's History :

(I was not there for most of this, please understand the grapevine phenomenon that might occur)


back in the GPGnet days Zep could appreciate as well as other player's GPGnet's flaws (and here I may mix in FAF with GPGnet hence forgetting a lot of them).

• connection time to the client..... It's hard to put into words. remember generating an experimantal-radius-sized planet back in PA's Alpha? something like that.
  
• 100 connection limit for the main chat (new joinees kicked random inactive, you often had to click to be reconnected)
• mods where installed manually back then creating a range of problems mostly due to version numbers and people failing to find the right one to join your game
• map and mod vaults were a UI disaster, VERY slow downloads for VERY small files and a general inconvenience
• the community was heavily segmented by tiny clans that anyone could create and hence smaller amounts of tourneys and community interaction
• lack of information about mods (such mods as sorian AI which were appreciated by 100% of the people who tried it, were only spread through word-of-mouth. Phantom X had a permanent banner on top of the GPGnet lobby but that was kinda it.)
• incompatibility with ANYTHING that did not have the right (generally latest) version number

These talks got him started. Zep started to work on his own on an idea of his for a unofficial side-lobby for FA with Python because it was the fastest way to prototype something, and it is easy to translate pyQt to c++ Qt if necessary.

he released testable alphas of the client for people to try alongside the GPGnet client.

Published here : http://forum.reseau-js.com/topic/79779-forged-alliance-forever/ (I was glad sifting through this to see that the respondees where essentially the current members of Burning Phoenix Team)

I remember back then I tried it I didn't like it mostly, because I couldn't be asked, I already had a working client where the community and the action was and you had to put in some effort to succeed with the installation and actually use it.

I couldn't figure out what I had to do to get a game up (at the time the interface was basically bare (And also completely new to me!!! you have no idea how radically opposed to that of GPGnet it was)) so I disregarded it as not my business :



As far as I know up until this point it was still only Zep's input

Long time passes while gaming is not my prime focus and high school studies and teenage heart misadventures are.

come end of High School and I feel like a good 'ol game of FA would really hit the spot.

...can't connect. Why do I always pick passwords I can't remember?!?

after many many failed attempts with brand new passwords I decide to call after-sales, it's a long call, I get redirected to THQ. I explain the situation to a guy that's seemingly dull because nothing I say is hitting home.

After awhile he finally realises the unthinkable : I'm not aware. "Sir, did you know GPGnet closed two years ago?"

After drawing a bit of good from all this bad : my cd key of either SupCom or SupCom FA is good for a gold edition on steam I hang up. What am I gonna do? Steam FA is looseville!
I finally remember about the Forever project. and I download it. And OMG...it grew.



by then the interface that will be the basis for all the future version and additions is there.

So many things instantly please me about it.

1. It logs me in FAST. I mean FAAAST. I would have already been hanging on to my seat for safety if it had logged me in in 4 minutes, but it was instantaneous, the loading screen didn't even have time to show.
2. names are changeable to used names
   
3. no more relogging to the lobby, hosted games have big-ass miniatures with tons of details and are presented nicely.
4. joining a game automatically downloads the mods and maps for you (HOW COOL IS THAT) (remember I'm basically time travelling forward from 2007 here). EDIT : Wow I actually forgot to mention both were as zippy as it gets (some 1-0.5 seconds) goes to show you how used to it I've become (and taken it for granted)
   
5. the logo looks fantastic
6. Improved chat and chat notification noises.
7. It's slick and so intuitive and well organised.
8. lots of mods came stock and where henceforth indissociable from the game (see bottom of post for last-day list):
   
   1. Sorian AI
   2. 12 players
   3. metal reflections and shader
   4. water reflections and shader
   5. lobby 2.0 by moritz
   6. perhaps some others (I haven't played vanilla in forever)
9. And the map vault keeps me up until 4 in the morning.
10. TrueSkill instead of ELO
11. (others than me would also have been drooling over how slick the automatch looked but I was still too solo-setons to notice)
12. the latest beta patch (3603) that was metaphorically speaking "on Chris Taylor's desk" before the whole company had to pack it's bag. (3599 was the one GPGnet was stuck with for a long time and the one that currently is steam's FA in a more or less edited version)
13. ...And of course A whole Whoop-ton of personal balance and bug fixes that made the game infinitely better.

pip came after the FAF launch (The launch was about 6 months after GPGNet death). Thygrr was the one who helped a lot until that time. For FA itself, it was mostly Moritz and FunkOff who helped.
Poch
Xinnony (a Friend of mine) who built upon Moritz's work on the in-game lobby :


During this time Zep was working on the server.

In these days Zep got a huge code deficit where he had made around 50% of the code that made up FAF.

Later on he bridged this gap a bit more. Then came picking up a team of french guys's inspired by Boneyard (TA), idea for a galactic war. He released a closed alpha to the elite of FAF. Then much much later started an indiegogo campaign that was successfully started. He worked alone with an occasional chip-in from FunkOff.


The addition of the possibility of themeing spurred the community into action:

Zep gave FAF a relooking whereupon he changed the logo (twice): to the (black and white) one you know today and gave FAF it's own window borders and docking with a steam-like appearance:

Now the lobby featured audio and visual configurable notifications that appeared on top of FA for stuff you wanted like hosted games friends login.

there was a tourney and livestream guide.

there was a tutorial section made with a very clever use of replay files.

"someone with the same level as you is searching" message visible from any tab with the mini clickable race list. (and it would start you right up in matchmaking)

ranked mods.

Leaderboards.

Possibility of linking FAF account to steam.

Tourney and livestream tab.

map preferences on matchmaking.

mumble automatic team channel creation and switching according to what team you're on.
here's how mumble worked : if you started up FAF, this would automatically start mumble as well into faf mumble main channel with no talk or listen privileges (basically it was there in the background, mumble didn't start on top of faf.).
If started a match with more than one player on each side, it would send you to a channel labelled with that game's replay ID and a sub channel with the team (yes you could move over but nobody did, everyone was polite) when FA closed you were sent back to main.
you could also join a channel labelled by language. and talk with friends there while not in game. In that case mumble would send you back to that channel.
the transition with friends to that channel and back when you finished and started games together would not even be heard because of how instantaneous and simultaneous it was.

Complete List of mods integrated to faf:

1. Sorian AI
2. 12P
3. water shader
4. metal shader
5. Fiery Explosion mod
6. autogive/fullshare
7. ally unit cap
8. lobby vers.2.4 by Xinnony and Barlots
9. gaz ui + goom ui + some other obscure ui addons
10. hotbuild (FAF zep version)
11. hotstats
12. Engy mod
13. t3 extra units
14. upgraded support commanders
15. sequential commander upgrades + RAS on-map timer
16. Galactic War
17. Co-op Campaign
18. .....I've gotta be forgetting a bunch

In the end this really was a community Job. Everyone chipped in. From the code crunchers, to the modders, to the casters, to the players themselves, who contributed by being a very open, noob-friendly and extremely sympathetic and fun bunch to be with all around.

You may have heard good things about FAF main chat before.

lemme tell you : you don't get 900 people into a twich chat without it being dumbed down to the dumbest of the lot.

yet FAF main Chat for some reason ALWAYS felt like this :

I can't quite explain it. (simple explanation would be : there were moderators at all times. but that, of course, isn't half of the true reason)

STILL EDITING!!! -contributions welcome-

will also be taking references from here : viewtopic.php?f=2&p=56123#p56123

[Cuddles]

For ref, Luxy "Some History about Sup Com"

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5566&start=20

[ZLO_RD]

I wish i could remember accurately...
this quote may not be very accurate:
once in gpg-net chat "Ze_PilOt: I am going to make a new lobby for playing FA, and i do not need help"

i was like "WTF? not need help?"

[nine2]

There are many interesting things to read the start of FAF on gpgnet forums... eg:

"I fear, having an completely alternative to GPGnet will split the already small community."

[Ze_PilOt]

A lot of things are not true

[thygrrr]

Ooh let them have their fun.

[tatsu]

A lot of things are not true

this is what I thought too, this is why I need your help.

what were you doing at the time when you came up with the idea? did you have a job? for who? what spurred you into action? what did you know, what didn't you? what did you learn? who worked with you?

[tatsu]

:ugeek: Ooh let them have their fun.

thygrrr your name rings a bell did you work on FAF too?

[Ze_PilOt]

- I didn't choose python because it was the only language I knew.
I choose python because it is the fastest way to prototype something, and it's easy to translate pyQt to c++ Qt if necessary.
But that necessity never occurred.

- You never see the version you never see for a good reason : It never existed. It's a non-official mockup.

- But the version you saw after GPGNET death was already the one used before, and almost entirely remade by Thygrr while I was working on the server.

- 3603 was released officially. It's the version that Steam currently run, not 3599.

- pip came after the FAF launch (The launch was about 6 months after GPGNet death). Thygrr was the one who helped a lot until that time. For FA itself, it was mostly Moritz and FunkOff who helped.

- Galactic War idea didn't came from GPG, but a team of french guys. Actually, the idea came from Boneyard (TA). But the name came from them.

- I really was the one one doing stuff on GW client and server code. FunkOff contributed some code for reinforcements.

- The temporarily for the features is wrong, but it would take too much time to give the right ones .

[Ze_PilOt]

I wish i could remember accurately...
this quote may not be very accurate:
once in gpg-net chat "Ze_PilOt: I am going to make a new lobby for playing FA, and i do not need help"

i was like "WTF? not need help?"

No, I've asked for several members of the modding community to help.

I either had no answer or "It's too much too do for a small team". So I did it alone to begin with, until Thygrr came in (but there was some help for the FA code when the lobby came online, from Funkoff,...)