Where is the final DD?

[Toren]

A Wiki will not make or break a project, but it does let the armchair enthusiast help in some way, such as myself. I have been very interested in the status of this project for a long time, maybe a year or two now. However, I do not have many useful programming skills (DeVry taught me COBOL!! ugh!), but I'd like to be able to contribute somehow.

I think actually being able to maintain a Wiki follows the philosophy of the book Hellfire quoted from, where it would be very dynamic, instead of static, which is a good analogy of a Wiki vs forum or webpages. I wanted to post things, but noticed that several of the posts were very old, perhaps a year or more.

Your decision, or whoever actually owns the TE domain, I suppose.

Essentially, a Wiki for this should just be a "spitball gallery" where different ideas and references can be posted, as well as milestones, what TE should/could/can't do, but I think the most important thing is that it would definitely allow for the community to be more active and creative. I think it would even suffice for a template for adding pages to the site itself, since there is wiki script, or text, or whatever it's called. It allows for a structured and neat categorization of things, that anyone can do.

I think one main repository of information is what the Wiki shoud be about, nothing more. It should not replace, but enhance the forums. If someone (like me) trolls the forums and finds an interesting tidbit of info, they can copy-pste it and have it available for others to see, and clear the forum of 100 posts asking the same thing.

I do tend to get long-winded at times, so the bottom line is this: I don't think having a Wiki would be detrimental, it would allow Hellfire one source to post updates to the work he's done- from there it can be hyperlinked or even echoed into a forum (I've seen it done, really fancy programming but it is possible), main points of progress with revisions archived automatically, the ability to allow enthusiasts, collaborators, and team members to toss frequently asked and important information in one location, and finally, it would make the site look like it has content.

I have seen several things that could be improved by using a Wiki, and this may actually be one of them. Currently I am looking to study programming and game development, possibly even a degree in game dev and software engineering. I will definitely look you up when I have completed, or at least feel like I can contribute more than just ASCII characters in a database, a.k.a. long-winded forum posts.

Anyway, it's good to see Hellfire make progress, and perhaps I will be able to join him in the future. No promises, though, but it's definitely something I hope to help with.

[Hyronymus]

I don't claim Wiki's are detrimental but the Wiki we had for this project just didn't work properly. Not everyone who should have used it used it and it soon became another discussion platform where people deviated from the intended discussion by leaps and bounds. The discussions and developments on this forum were hard to match with the 'Wiki progress' at times.

I don't think it would harm to give a Wiki a second chance but there has to be enough support for the entire project and I think we lost that.

[iLess]

OMG. What have i started here. Big debates about having a Wiki or not wasn't really my intention . I see however that i should've stated my suggestion more clearly. I know that a having a Wiki is not everything a project needs to be successful. What i meant is just a place that can be used to put in information in a structured way, so it can be found more easily. Something that a forum alone doesn't really provide. AND where anyone who wants to can contribute and correct stuff such that is not so dependent on one single person.

But what i really wanted to know was more in what way i could contribute atm (writing c++ code). I sent Hellfire a second email about that subj. but haven't yet got an answer from him. I just need lot more info on what has already been decided on programming specific subjects. Kinda disadvantageous that everything depends on a single person atm.

[Arathorn]

This project has lost a lot of time because we relied on single persons, but there's not much choice ATM. It could be a good idea to have things like the DD on the wiki, but actually I'm against any changes in the DD in the near future, we've spent too much time discussing it already.

[iLess]

I thought especially for proposing data structures and Object Interactions etc. a Wiki would be a good thing to have.
If you guys like, i can set up one for you. Would be on my student account though.

BTW: I found some rather strange things in this forum. It seems like there has been a cvs before (2 years ago) with code written by some guy named rein. It looks like there has been some DirectX/OpenGL Landscape Demos (or are i just imagineing this?). Where the heck did all that stuff go?
Then i found a List of important stuff which resided on the wiki you decided to ditch. In the Thread it was said that those pages will be converted and included in the Page. But where are they?

Code: Select all

Functional Requirements - Traceability Matrix 
Functional Requirements - Meta Data 
Functional Requirements - Core Features 
Functional Requirements - Environment 
Functional Requirements - Gameplay 
Functional Requirements - Gameplay_Passengers 
Functional Requirements - User Interface 

Maybe this stuff is all somewhere hidden in this forum? I couldn't find it in the DD.

[Hyronymus]

The host of the forums (orudge) can surely set one up for us, I believe that's what he did earlier too.

[iLess]

That would be a cool thing to have. Can you arrange that?

[Hellfire]

But what i really wanted to know was more in what way i could contribute atm (writing c++ code). I sent Hellfire a second email about that subj. but haven't yet got an answer from him. I just need lot more info on what has already been decided on programming specific subjects. Kinda disadvantageous that everything depends on a single person atm.

I've received and read your e-mail. Just haven't had the time to reply. Would you mind if I copy/paste the e-mail here and then reply to it? I prefer the openness of the forums for communication, as it also gives others with the same questions a chance to get answers before they even ask.

This project has lost a lot of time because we relied on single persons, but there's not much choice ATM.

At least this single person uses the CVS...

I thought especially for proposing data structures and Object Interactions etc. a Wiki would be a good thing to have.
If you guys like, i can set up one for you. Would be on my student account though.

BTW: I found some rather strange things in this forum. It seems like there has been a cvs before (2 years ago) with code written by some guy named rein. It looks like there has been some DirectX/OpenGL Landscape Demos (or are i just imagineing this?). Where the heck did all that stuff go?

It's still there. Check the "old" and "data" modules in the CVS.

Then i found a List of important stuff which resided on the wiki you decided to ditch. In the Thread it was said that those pages will be converted and included in the Page. But where are they?

Code: Select all

[...]

Maybe this stuff is all somewhere hidden in this forum? I couldn't find it in the DD.

I'm sure it's not on the forum. I was on a leave of absence when the Wiki got ditched. I don't know if any of this can be restored or not. It's a bit of a shame, really. It took quite a lot of people quite a lot of effort to build.

[iLess]

I've received and read your e-mail. Just haven't had the time to reply. Would you mind if I copy/paste the e-mail here and then reply to it? I prefer the openness of the forums for communication, as it also gives others with the same questions a chance to get answers before they even ask.

I don't mind at all.

I'm sure it's not on the forum. I was on a leave of absence when the Wiki got ditched. I don't know if any of this can be restored or not. It's a bit of a shame, really. It took quite a lot of people quite a lot of effort to build.

Hm. Thats too bad. Do you know the reasons why the Wiki got ditched?

[Zuu]

I've received and read your e-mail. Just haven't had the time to reply. Would you mind if I copy/paste the e-mail here and then reply to it? I prefer the openness of the forums for communication, as it also gives others with the same questions a chance to get answers before they even ask.

I don't mind at all.

I'm sure it's not on the forum. I was on a leave of absence when the Wiki got ditched. I don't know if any of this can be restored or not. It's a bit of a shame, really. It took quite a lot of people quite a lot of effort to build.

Hm. Thats too bad. Do you know the reasons why the Wiki got ditched?

When we/I started the weekly dedicated discussion (DD) topics they where initialy done at the wiki, which we later understood, did not work as good as discussions on a forum like this. So we decided to ask Owen (admin here) to create the Developers forum which everyone can read but only developers can write to. (however everyone can become a developer by basicly showing interest) As you can see in the developers forum there are lots of thread which have the prefix [DD], which are dedicated discussions.

I don't rememder if the wiki did crash or if we just did stopt useing it.

EDIT: the wiki does not work now. It has/had the address: http://tt2.sourceforge.net/wiki/
EDIT2: If I'm not wrong only Steve and Owen have write access to the wiki-files on the server. At least regular developers does not have write access. But I think it is possible for someone mentioned as developer at our sf.net project to grab the wiki-data.

[Toren]

I don't claim Wiki's are detrimental but the Wiki we had for this project just didn't work properly. Not everyone who should have used it used it and it soon became another discussion platform where people deviated from the intended discussion by leaps and bounds. The discussions and developments on this forum were hard to match with the 'Wiki progress' at times.

I don't think it would harm to give a Wiki a second chance but there has to be enough support for the entire project and I think we lost that.

Heh, sorry. I was up way too late, and it looked like you weren't really for it. I didn't mean to sound like that, as I'm sure you didn't inteand do sound that way either. I do understnad your skepticism. I did warn about being long-winded though.

I just thought having one place for all important and relevant data would be very useful in getting interest in the project going again. One application could be a user-updatable FAQ, where the questions and answers can be updated as they come in.

I do think you've done good work, not sure if you hear it often, but I would like to say so.

[Hyronymus]

I don't hear it often enough . If we upload all important data to the website there shouldn't be any problem, right?

[iLess]

I just thought having one place for all important and relevant data would be very useful in getting interest in the project going again. One application could be a user-updatable FAQ, where the questions and answers can be updated as they come in.

You speak my mind Toren .
As of now it looks way too unstructured. The page contains not much relevant information. Even the DD link on the page does not work. There is a list with old irc discussion logs. But I don't think they are any use for new people wanting to find out about the project. All the info for the newcomer is hidden somewhere in two forums with no index that leads to the relevant information. It Doesn't make a very good impression (sorry i don't want to offend you).
Maybe it was intended to be like this because you thought you would not need anymore devs. I don't know. But if you are interested about getting more people to contribute. You have to make it easier for them to get to know the project:

To counter this Situation I propose:
-List with the most important Threads in the forum (a "How to get involved..." Thread or Page on the Wiki/Page
-A link to the DD on the Page that works.
-Better forum Structure:
I propose a structure similar to the one FreeOrion has:
Split General Discussion into
Announcements, General Discussion, Suggestions and Design
Official Announcements go into ...
Stuff like "is this project dead?" "Whats the current status", "can i sign up to help" go into General Discussion etc.
And "Ideas, volume 2", "From boot to play. What should it do..." go into Design or the Dev Forum which. If an outsider has an idea regarding the project/website etc. he puts it into suggestions. So this post would go there

As for development i can't say much because i don't know how those two hidden forums look anyway. Why hide them? Why not just make them read only for outsiders?

I know this is quite incomplete and not enough thought through. But I hope you get the point: Bringing more structure into the mass of information here. Maybe you should think about putting old stuff which is not relevant anymore into a separate "Old Forum".


And now for something completely different:
I downloaded the code written by rein. Seems like he has already done quite something (i didn't try to compile it though <- Uses DirectInput). Was this proggie working? Why are you starting from scratch all over?

I don't think it would harm to give a Wiki a second chance but there has to be enough support for the entire project and I think we lost that.

So you Zuu and Hellfire are pretty much the only ones left?

About Track laying: I saw this cool java demo written by some guy where you could lay almost freeform tracks. What made you decide against freeform tracks and use a gridbased system?

[Hyronymus]

We decided against Java, our intention is a cross-platform game. Now about your forum suggestion: this isn't our forum so to get a different shape we might need a forum of our own. Nothing wrong with that basicly but it doesn't come flying around by itself. Right now I think too much is being suggested at one time, what is really important in your views, Toren and iLess?

[Arathorn]

Untill this project sees more development, I don't think there have to be more fora. Even on very active fora the Announcement forum is hardly ever used. I have no problems with wikis, as long as they're not used for discussions. A forum just works better for that.

I believe it was assumed that track laying would be too difficult to make (and use?) when completely free form.

[Zuu]

I just thought having one place for all important and relevant data would be very useful in getting interest in the project going again. One application could be a user-updatable FAQ, where the questions and answers can be updated as they come in.

You speak my mind Toren .
As of now it looks way too unstructured. The page contains not much relevant information. Even the DD link on the page does not work. There is a list with old irc discussion logs. But I don't think they are any use for new people wanting to find out about the project. All the info for the newcomer is hidden somewhere in two forums with no index that leads to the relevant information. It Doesn't make a very good impression (sorry i don't want to offend you).

The intention was to have a page on the website for new commers, however we didn't get there as nobody did a such page. Prety much everyone excepted someone else to do it, and nobody did any content for the website.

However, if you iLess, and/or Toren are intrested to create a such page, perhaps with help from me and Hellfire and other of the older project members, I'm sure the project will gain benfit from that.

I'm not sure who have access to the webserver. However.. there is a thread worth looking up, with some information and the template for download. Actually the zip-file with the template contain all php-files, css-files etc. for the website.


EDIT:

So you Zuu and Hellfire are pretty much the only ones left?

About Track laying: I saw this cool java demo written by some guy where you could lay almost freeform tracks. What made you decide against freeform tracks and use a gridbased system?

Don't forget about Hyronymus too.

Honestly, I've partly left actually, but can't resist to visit the forums *sometimes*...

[iLess]

We decided against Java,...

Maybe i did formulate it in a wrong way. I didn't say the game should be in java. I mean this track-laying java-proggi was just a prototype for a concept.

our intention is a cross-platform game.

My intention too

Now about your forum suggestion: this isn't our forum so to get a different shape we might need a forum of our own. Nothing wrong with that basicly but it doesn't come flying around by itself.

Well it could if you give me the green light . Where does the http://www.transportempire.com page reside? Would it be possible to set up a forum and wiki there? If not. I can just use my student webspace at the university for that (which seems not to be very much. MySql only 50 mb...), or put it on my server at home. But the later has not a very good uplink speed... And then it would kinda depend on me. Maybe not so good as you don't know yet how reliable I am and if I can be trusted. Then on Sourceforge you have 100MB if i'm right. That would be an option too. But it seems rather slow (maybe faster than homeserver though).

Right now I think too much is being suggested at one time, what is really important in your views, Toren and iLess?

Well the most important for me is an answer from Hellfire to the mail i sent him, a dev account and a list of the relevant stuff in this forum to get me / and others started.

EDIT: I just played a little around with a wiki and forum. Its not much yet. But it seems to work. http://tempire.selfip.org/.
Plz Tell me if it is too slow. I'm still learning though how to edit wiki stuff. Its kinda weird.

[Zuu]

[quote="iLess] Then on Sourceforge you have 100MB if i'm right. That would be an option too. But it seems rather slow (maybe faster than homeserver though).[/quote]

The wiki was hosted at sourceforge (sf.net), and it was painfully slow.


I checked your setup.. it's not yet verry fast, but still not too slow.


For host however.. I'm quite sure Owen (admin here) can offer some hosting.. actually if I am not wrong he hosts the current website. Also if someone wants to have a wiki again I sugest that we try to grab the data from the current wiki.


Both Owen and Hyronymus have admin status on our sf.net project and should be able to grab the MySQL data, if not regular developers can do so.

Go Admin => Shell/DB/Web => Manage Project Databases

Set password for any of the MySQL-acounts (ro/rw/admin), login and fetch a database dump.


EDIT, at Admin => Shell/DB/Web, perhaps it might be a good ida to change the website URL to http://www.transportempire.com/

[Steve]

Where does the http://www.transportempire.com page reside? Would it be possible to set up a forum and wiki there?

I own the domain, but the site is currently hosted on orudge's server. I'm sure we can easily have a wiki or whatever if we want it. I also heard about CVS, but perhaps Hellfire has that sorted already.

[iLess]

well. I would like to do such a page.

BTW. Hellfire: I'm still waiting for an answer to my mail...