Ok, not entirely. This post is the result of an overreaction and Openlancer is not DEAD, it is merely on hold for the moment.

DO NOT GO E-MAILING MY INBOX!

Any and all e-mails that relate to openlancer in any way will be ignored. And as for the to do list he gave for the moderators, please disregard number 2. Regardless of the state of the project we will need these forums.

And for further information, robbio2000 wrote this post of his own accord, i did not tell him to write about any of this or indeed post at all. You can all yell and scream and call me a miserable, cowardly idiot, but i'm not going to be checking these forums for a good, long while.

Good bye.

Edited by - Blackhole on 12/14/2005 10:57:40 PM

sorry, Blackhole, I'm really peeved at this.

Robbio, others, it was pointed out before, that a project to create a game is intensive. For all practical purposes it requires programmers, those who have gone to school for it, as well as knowledgeable people in the fields. It is not like making a mod. And as you yourself have pointed out, black hole is 15, the point being he lacks the experience and knowledge that comes with schooling and time to do this. If he is a child prodigy, then I apologize on that issue, but, Openlancer was hyped way too much, creating ad posting text was what helped make it look impossible. If you people could do the program, you do it, not talk about it.

It was pointed out by people of what you needed, modules of sections that different people could work on, but, it requires people with the knowledge, not just enthusthiasm. As some have also pointed out, real world jobs and so forth, make it difficult to jump in on it.

A game can be done, it just takes time, possible a year or more. If you have the training, keep working on it, don't give up. BUT, leave the hype at the door. Text documents are all talk and no work. I can write fiction as well, but unless I produce the story it's all talk.


Just step back a bit annd think it through and see if it is worth persueing.

Michael

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My suggestion is, find people who can program and have the time available, see if they have the time to work on it. As pointed out, find if there are engines available, that are set up and available, ad see if those that created them, would be interested to working on the project. Then, sit down, list the objectives to the story, from point A to point B. Are you starting out on Earth, humans or are you including some aliens in it? Next decide if your using on main character in it, or multi ones so several people can be in it as the story goes. Unless a Multi online game, use one main for the story with other NPC's to interact with.

Earth, the year 2345. "Triton one, you are cleared from Earth orbit, good luck on you journey, my friend." The voice, incurageing, was my friend Joel who I could not talk into leaving with us. My name is John Hawkeings. I use to be a miner, but lost my business to the corporate company and to the droids. Automation took so many jobs. I and 100 friends are heading to the Rim of the galaxy to find new work. We have prospects in a few systems, though we have heard live is difficult. Survival hard. That last ship to the area, did not survive.

Speed ahead 2 years...

Planet Omega III is my home now. I found my claim and staked it out. If I play my cards right, I can turn a good profit here. I have to laugh though at the prospects, as the Clanton’s don't like small fry like me working the asteroids. They continue to hit my shipments, and with only half making it to the processors, it is hard to pay the bills. I may have to turn to bounty hunting, like some others had to to survive. ..........
Just an idea of a story type that can be done, then ships, people and so forth that then can be designed to fit it. Something to think about.

Edited by - Finalday on 12/15/2005 4:50:13 AM

I have a few things to say about this, things that probably should be said but I don't feel it would have a positive effect. So you can blame me or say what ever else you what. I think its painfully obvious what has happened here. Instead I'll suggest a way forward...

The Lancers Reactor should take control of project management for Open Lancer. Then a TLR moderator will need to work with various community members to create a detailed project plan. This can be done in a few stages and require the moderator to lead a forum thread to create a plan outline, multiple plan drafts, and then write the final draft. This process will have to focus on the resources TLR itself has available, the resources available in the TLR community, free open source resources, and a highly detailed outline of the resources that must be acquired to move forward with the project.

The long term goal of this project is still the same to create an open community created open source game. The short term goals should be to create an “interface” for the community as a whole to work on this project. Call it wiki planning, wiki development, wiki modding, what ever... There are tons of resources available within the global online open source community that we can readily use. This project, our community project, is certainly not impossible to do but will require REAL project management to have any chance of success.

As before I will help as much as I am able but I have other commitments that have me tied up for the next few months. There are some gaps in there were I can spend time on this project for a day or two and in a few months I can join the project full time but only if its a serious open community project and not someone's personal pet project.


-Burn

"Only the dead have seen the end of war"-Plato

Sorry, I dont give a stuff right now, I'm gonna not be answering much stuff anymore, I just dont give a care about TLR anymore.

You should go over to Hard Light Productions and talk to the guys working on the Freespace 2 source code project. I'm sure they'd be able to give some good programming tips

---

Half the people that showed no support dont even know what stress, long hours, and hard work was put into Openlancer.

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It seems to me that the people who did show support don't know what kind of stress, long hours, and hard work it takes to create a modification to an existing game, much less building an entirely new one that not only meets but vastly exceeds the limits of a game built by paid professionals over years!

---

Blackhole is 15 for anyone who was blind to see, how was he supposed to do everything you wanted?

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The golden rule of game development is to know when to set limits. If he thought he was being overwhelmed, he should have stopped adding features to his game. Hell, even I realized Openlancer was doomed the moment I opened up the design document.

I suggest dropping this "it's your fault we bit off more than we could chew, we're victims!" attitude and finding someone who is responsible and experienced to create a truly community supported project that actually has a chance of succeeding. That means, first and foremost, GETTING MICROSOFT'S PERMISSION . I'm willing to bet that they would be cool with it if anybody would just bother to ask. This would allow you to do all sorts of cool stuff like using Freelancer models and textures as placeholders.

Next you setup your website, content submission, however the hell open source development works. It's going to need to hold a lot of information and files, so don't go photoshop happy and make pretty images for it, just get the infrastructure in place. Something like SourceForge.

After that's done, then you can spend a couple of weeks drafting a design document. It not only needs to outline what features you want, but how you plan to implement them. You need a Big Huge List (TM) of every single piece of content the game will have, right down to the beer mug in the bar on Pittsburgh. You need to think about how you're going to balance your ships, weapons, and equipment, and do some math and get some hard numbers down. If something isn't in the design document, it's not in the game.

Now that you're prepared, actual recruiting and development can get underway. Pick whatever engine suits your needs and get your programmers programming. Don't worry about adding beam lasers and planetary flight and fuzzy dice in the cockpits. It's going to be a huge process just to get the game to be of similar scope to Freelancer, and to be honest it could take years, but baby steps will actually give this thing a chance. So worry about having a green square flying around in a black void shooting red dots at a blue square before even thinking about doing anything beyond Freelancer's scope.
In other words, get Freelancer made before you start adding improvements.

If someone actually wants to put serious time and effort into this, I think they should consider using the Vega Strike engine. It already has a pretty similar game concept in place to build on, and it has a pretty significant community behind it. I think a project like this could give TLR the focus it needs, more so than expanding game coverage, and would be much more rewarding.

@ megaburn

excuse me, but i am a good friend of blackholes, and this is his project, i really dont see your name anywhere in the credits for the design document, so i ask you: why are you telling the openlancer team how to make the game? your not in charge, so you shouldnt be the one telling us what to do! if you want to join the project, your going to have to be apart of the team, not the boss. you cant just waltz in and take control of some project that someone else came up with, and already has a detailed plan for.

the reason we havent had a fully open "community development" is because there are too many new ideas that wont be included, or have already been included and their mentioning is redundant. the other thing being that even though we would like as much help as possible, we are not going to be told what to do.

@ tachyon: ahem... you ask us to get a design document? WE ALREADY HAVE ONE! we have plans and variable code for EVERYTHING WE ARE PLANNING TO INCLUDE!

secondly, we have already chosen a programming language, and a game engine to use.

also, openlancer was not doomed, unless you want it to be. and in that case you can just ignore this board completely and go on your merry little way. we already have alot of the things you say can take weeks. and we can work alot faster than some of your 'paid professionals' when we put our minds to it.

why and why time and time again do you say that this will take years? we already have a plan implemented and we dont need to be told what to do. all the ideas that you and megaburn have suggested are very complicated and time consuming, what ever happend to "the best answer is usually the simplest"

and last, i just want to know why you people all want openlancer to die? i mean, is it because its such a great idea, or because you just want to ruin everyone elses day?




Edited by - Infernias on 12/15/2005 3:33:50 PM

@Megaburn: How about this? NO. I have SUSPENDED the project until i feel that we can continue production. When we restart production we will not reveal it to TLR until there is a sizable amount done to avoid this from happening.

IF you don't like this, too damn bad. I haven't given up, although robbio here has done a good job at causing the entire public to overreact. Of course, you guys ALWAYS overreact, don't you?

Megaburn, you are to back off my project NOW . YES it is the communities project, but ONLY in the case that if i give up, i will release the source code for someone else to finish. I HAVE NOT GIVEN UP YET . There is a difference between "Dead" and "suspended" that your all ignoring. Production will continue, but it won't be on TLR. It will be in a much more controlled environment where this project can flourish in its infancy and not be threatened by people like Megaburn.

You are to stop this. NOW!

Edited by - Blackhole on 12/15/2005 3:30:45 PM

So it looks like that the instant i try and save my project you all openly attack me for all your worth. You are apparently trying with all your might to take my project and twist it into something your imagination is coming up with. Openlancer was never meant to be a professionally made game. So you all hate me. You all seem to hate my very guts because you are not realising what i said and your blowing up for no reason and your stealing my project and apparently you all want to to lay down and DIE.

I AM NOT GOING TO LET THIS PROJECT BE HANDED TO SOMEONE ELSE, OR LET IT DIE UNTIL I HAVE GOTTEN A GAME ENGINE OUT!

DO YOU BLOODY HEAR ME?!

NO ONE is going to take over this project. it WILL get done, and it WILL NOT be the game of your dreams. It will be whatever game i can manage to make. One of these days, i will have a game engine, and i will prove that it is not doomed.

I will not be beat down. Ever.

Woohoo, eDrama!

ok seriously, thats not terribly funny.

and... would someone please answer the question of why some of you want openlancer to die / take over control of openlancer.

you didnt come up with the idea, so why should any of you be put in charge?

David Braben came up with it, we should let him do it.

ok, i dont know what that game is but it definitly isnt called openlancer, and it probably dosent have any of the same ideas, all i know is that neither me, nor anybody i know, including blackhole has ever heard of that game... actually i dont think anybody born after the end of the 80's knows about that game.

in all reality, even freelancer could be called a copy of that game. (now that ive read the wikipedia description)

in any case, that dosent really answer our question, but the idea for OPENLANCER was thought up and developed by blackhole. and thus, he is and will remain to be the project lead for Openlancer.

Edited by - Infernias on 12/15/2005 4:14:25 PM