JGO Community Game

General Discussions
#1

All,

WWWAYYYYYY back in the beginning of JavaGaming.org, Jeff and I had an idea. We were going to start a project called Gunner Mayhem.

The game design described the game as an 8 player networked game involving 4 tanks (2 people per tank: gunner and driver) and the game was going to be developed by this community. This way, we pool the collective talents of the JGO community and build something that we give back to the community to learn from. Open source and free for everyone to learn from.

Due to having to build the games focus for Sun (:)) Jeff and I were never able to get this off the ground. Any interest in resurrecting this idea?

-ChrisM

#2

We all know you guys are super busy. Are you going to have time to head this up?

I’ve voted Bad just because I don’t like seeing good ideas being lost because of a lack of support. We’ve already seen “community written” ideas go down the tubes through a lack of interest.

However, the game does sound pretty cool. If you can get time and community support I can’t wait to play it!

Kev

#3

Sounds like a great idea! 3D, it remembers me of games like Tanarus or one of the SourceForge top-projects BZFlag. In 2D, SubSpace/Continuum or good old XPilot come into mind.

I’d like to offer HeadQuarter (and the specific implementation/customization) as the network layer. Thats the kind of game HQ was made for.

But I’m afraid the Sun guys better like to showcase their own stuff and not the things from the community. But maybe I’m wrong…

I could also offer some architectural things to e.g. implement engine independance.

Generally I’d like to contribute. Featured as a Sun-project, the survival chances are better than for other community projects. So I voted ‘good’!

#4

it’s a great idea, of course! (i voted good). However, it’ll need strong and wise leadership and that’s maybe the hardest thing to achieve.
…I also see a battle coming about what APIs to use! :wink:

#5

I just started that battle :slight_smile:

I’m always a friend of technologically rich games! So why not offer the option to implement with different APIs?

Other more important things are open: 2D/3D? Low-resource, playable off the web vs. fullblown, 250MB-d’load game, complex vs. casual gameplay, …

I have preferences for each.

#6

This sounds like a really good idea, however I have not voted yet as I am going to see how this discussion progresses :wink:

The vision of the game seems really cool as it is pretty simple in concept but should allow for some really nice features.

My reservations are pretty much the same a Kev’s. A project like this will need very careful design and control to stop it fizzling out or going of the rails. Will it be possible for someone with authority over the project to have the time and dedication to do this?

I think that the goal
[quote]Open source and free for everyone to learn from.
[/quote]
Is a very good idea, again though it will need an architecture that is carefully designed and controlled so that it will serve as a good learning aid for people to come along and be able to learn from the code. I almost think that this is probably more/as important than it looking really cool.

It is almost like what blahblahblahh (I think it was blahblahblahh any way) was talking about a while ago, creating an evolving game/tutorial for people to learn from.

Hope this doesn’t sound too negative I would really like to see this game written, and if I could find time I wouldn’t mind contributing to it. I just hope that doesn’t become a wasted opportunity.

Regards,
Dan.

#7

Ok, so here’s the deal.

If we provide a project lead on this we need community consensus on a few things. First of all, being that we will be the ones that have to support this, it should come as no suprise that we need to have the inital APIs be JOGL, JOAL, etc. That does not mean that we won’t also port to LWJGL, etc. but to get support on us running this, we need to build on top of the technology standards we are responsible for. (actually, this could prove to be a great test bed for demonstrating the differences between the various APIs and allow developers to choose what they want to deploy.)

Secondly, if we have a project lead assigned to this, then it needs to be understood that there is a LEAD on the project. This does not mean that the community won’t decide on the development of the game, but when it comes to making a tough decision the lead needs to have the authority to draw a line in the sand and make a decision. Not everyone will agree with everything that is decided but the ability to lock things down and move forward is necessary to get the job done.

With regard to server stuff…our goal in this would be to see if we can deploy to more than one server back end. We have several represented here (HeadQuarter, Grex, Sun…:)) and, again, the goal of this project is to build something fun, compelling, and useful for the community. This means supporting as many technologies as possible.

Perhaps this is a utopian view of the project, but that’s what I would like to achieve with this project.

Thoughts?

-ChrisM

#8

If you can get a good project manager on the case - which sounds feasible based on your statements above - AND you can assign at least one developer who you know will be able to devote time consistently, then it’s definitely worth doing. The PM becomes the anchor that holds the project together, and the developer becomes the ever-turning crank that ensures it never fizzles out - even if all the volunteers get ill one month (or some such disaster :)).

Without, I think it’s more likely to fizzle out than succeed :(, simply because it’s going to be excessively hard to keep things going right to the end. Even dedicated games studios have difficulty :). I’ve run volunteer organizations before, and it can be VERY difficult making things happen when none of the people working for you are salaried, even when they’re highly motivated; real-life (and more pressing things, like earning money, doing day-jobs, etc) has a tendency to get in the way :(.

Of course, I mean a genuine professional PM, not just someone who thinks they can “probably” handle proj-mgmt.

Just my 2 cents.

EDIT: just to be clear, I’m not saying I think the PM and developer have to be full-time; they just need to be able to guarantee some number of hours per week, to ensure there is ALWAYS some visible progress going on.

#9

If you were to have actual project LEAD who would actually LEAD the project then I’d change my vote!

Technologies wise, people like to argue, but at the end of the day if its a good (in terms of fun, education) its not going to make much difference.

However, as an initial input, I think you’d be wise not to worry too much about make it technology neutral at an early stage.

Kev

#10

some things whould hurt my sensibility (JOGL for example) so I don’t think it’s a good idea since most of ppl here got biased preferences ;D

#11

Personally I feel that the principle of a community written game is a good idea, with the already mentioned limits to that. If Chris is willing and able to get someone dedicated to keep it going then he’d well with in his rights to decide what tech will be used for the initial version :wink:

After all it should not really matter what it’s written in (well as long as Java fits in somewhere :wink: )

What does matter is that it:
[]is fun
[]is a good example code design wise
[]show cases java well
[] is fun

Personally I would have though that Xith would be a good choice, but if we get too hung up on which technology is used we are going to waste alot of time, get annoyed and not get anywhere.

I think that having proper lead on the project that can make decisions would be a very good move, someone need to be there to draw the line, the rest of us will just have try and accept this gracefully :wink:

all IMHO,
Dan.

#12

I’d be happy to contribute some 3d models to this project, although my texturing skills aren’t great.

Here are a few samples of my low poly models: http://www.tomsmallwood.net/maya/samples/

#13

+1

The decision to use JOGL et al is yours to make, and the decision sounds correct to me - let’s not start a technology flame war just yet. Plenty of time for that later. :wink:

The stated intention is to cause community collaboration on something, but is there any tie-in with Jeff’s ongoing “game server” work here? I’d appreciate a full statement of intent up-front, for full-disclosure purposes.

Regarding leadership, I’m a firm believer in giving a single person dictatorial control in any serious project. Anarcho-syndicalism is a lovely idea, but history shows that it just plain doesn’t work.

Nice idea, guys!

#14

I agree that if done right, this is a really good idea.

Worst case: It doesnt work out and we end up with nothing less than we have now.

#15

Initially Id say no on the game server. You guys should go ahead and develop this the way you’ld like. Since the playground, if it happens, still won’t be for awhile I’d say its best actually NOT to design around the game server.

I don’t have the time to project manage or engineering lead on thsi so I really don’t have a lot otherwise I can directly say. (I believe in meritocracies, he who does the work makes the rules :slight_smile: )

I probably at some point WOULD like to get around to taking whatever you guys develop and doing a version that ties into my server for demo purposes. Hopefulyl if you are going to open soruce it that won’t be a rpoblem :slight_smile:

#16

I would simply reiterate a couple of cfm’s notes:

a) Let’s get a much better idea of intent (and a design outline, at very least)
b) Strong leadership

I withold my vote until there’s more information, but it sounds like it has potential (of course, with no design document, how can we really make a judgement?).

On another note, what’s the deal with posting the poll on the front of the forum page?! Sure, it’s a community project, but it seems a bit unfair that the, shall we call them, “Sun Sponsered” ideas get this kind of attention, above and beyond the normal posting visibility.

Don’t get me wrong, I apprecitate that we even have this forum, and all the people and services we have access to for free…I speak simply from the standpoint of equality.

#17

This looks like a very interesting experiment and I am supporting the idea.

Relating the tech flamewar: I just want to remember that Java is VERY strong at abstracting. Doing this right and having multiple implementations for choice will probably cause some attention from people who dislike Java for games … maybe :slight_smile:

Just my two ¤ cents.

#18

[quote]I would simply reiterate a couple of cfm’s notes:

a) Let’s get a much better idea of intent (and a design outline, at very least)
b) Strong leadership

I withold my vote until there’s more information, but it sounds like it has potential (of course, with no design document, how can we really make a judgement?).

On another note, what’s the deal with posting the poll on the front of the forum page?! Sure, it’s a community project, but it seems a bit unfair that the, shall we call them, “Sun Sponsered” ideas get this kind of attention, above and beyond the normal posting visibility.

Don’t get me wrong, I apprecitate that we even have this forum, and all the people and services we have access to for free…I speak simply from the standpoint of equality.
[/quote]
Equality, what the heck is that?!?! :slight_smile:

seriously, the only time polls get bumped up to the front is when we believe that the whole community should be aware of the question being asked. To be fair, there are other polls (not started by Sun) that we have hosted on the front page. We try to be fair and if there is an important question, we try to bump it.

Not everything can be highlighted. Sorry. This one, however, requires input from the whole community because it will be built by this community.

-ChrisM

#19

Alright. Thinking back I can think of non-Sun topics that received special recognition.

I wasn’t trying to say that “everything” should be highlighted. I guess I just didn’t see the point. Yes, it’s a project for the whole community, but that doesn’t make it all that different or special in my opinion.

#20

So lets get going on this; If were going to use straight jogl then we can use

  1. MS3D models for the tanks/scenary
  2. Heightmap for the terrain
  3. Octree for scenemanagement
  4. some particle effects

and boom, you’ve got your game ;D

EDIT: I’d like to see the models as basically two parts; the hull and the turret. Then when you blast it the turret can explode up and flip around in the air “Just like the real thing” ™.