Discuss W3D Hub AMA

[Raap]

A more realistic angle might be to put a non-EA IP game on a platform such as Steam and package it with the W3D Launcher, which will have a player ripple effect onto other projects.

But that still leaves the topic of the engine of course. The team not quite in a position yet where they can make any claims in regards to it, and then there is even the question of should the team want to or not.

Lastly, Steam demands a fee for offering the download, normally this is covered by the royalties of the sale or cash shop sales. Completely non-profit games cannot generate revenue and might therefore not be financially attainable to get hosted on Steam, or a platform like it.

A lot of these doors remain firmly shut however until EA perhaps one day decides to pass down this particular set of keys (in regards to engine legal matters, not the C&C IP).

[Yah-Nosh]

Yeah, just making the engine free to use would be a big boost. It wouldn't be too hard to make a "totally-not-C&C-we-swear" game from that point forward.

[Threve]

All good points here. Though my recommendation was for the Free to play platform. Anything else with how old this game is, would be heritic. (Looking at Fortnite the free download tactics have been working out well which is also worth noting...) Now, in the end all of this is rhetorical but I do believe it would be worth some type of shot at least to have our game be put on steam. Everyone now and days downloads from steam, so it just seems like basic science at this point to expand unto there if possible and we get the go-ahead. 

 

Currently (and please correct me if I am wrong) from what i’ve seen our propaganda and downloads come from posting on other chat forums, a little bit of Facebook/memes, and heavily on renegade forums. I don’t believe this is enough and might lose steam in the future. I think the expansion to game stores is the eventual direction to go and is worth a shot/argument with EA. And if not now maybe when C&C Remastered comes out/the time is right. If people still actively play old games such as Rune Scape and MW1 then there is still hope for massive player counts in the future!

An important note here, if EA does say we can go to steam but need to charge for the game/earn them $ then all bets would be off. Having this game F2P is more important in my opinion. If it’s a one time fee that isn’t to bad to get put on the steam store then I can vibe with that.

Edited January 31, 2019 by Threve

[KevinLancaster]

Could it be possible to just package the launcher on Steam but without the games?

[Einstein]

On 1/26/2019 at 1:19 PM, Einstein said:

For the Admins: When will I get my testing server access?
For Jonwil: What did you do before you began the scripts project? How did you begin, and where did you start breaking into Renegade?

*sighhhh*

[FRAYDO]

8 hours ago, Threve said:

Currently (and please correct me if I am wrong) from what i’ve seen our propaganda and downloads come from posting on other chat forums, a little bit of Facebook/memes, and heavily on renegade forums. I don’t believe this is enough and might lose steam in the future. I think the expansion to game stores is the eventual direction to go and is worth a shot/argument with EA. And if not now maybe when C&C Remastered comes out/the time is right. If people still actively play old games such as Rune Scape and MW1 then there is still hope for massive player counts in the future!

You're not too far off from our efforts. We're trying to explore new avenues of opportunity, but it's hard to find where. If you have ideas, I'm open to them. This is an open call for everyone, by the way. We can brainstorm together and focus our propaganda efforts accordingly. After all, we share the goal of growing this community!

8 hours ago, Yah-Nosh said:

Yeah, just making the engine free to use would be a big boost. It wouldn't be too hard to make a "totally-not-C&C-we-swear" game from that point forward.

 

9 hours ago, Raap said:

A lot of these doors remain firmly shut however until EA perhaps one day decides to pass down this particular set of keys (in regards to engine legal matters, not the C&C IP).

Fingers crossed. It can always happen!

6 hours ago, KevinLancaster said:

Could it be possible to just package the launcher on Steam but without the games?

Possible maybe. The team has discussed the possibility of having an installer that would install both the game (APB most likely) and the launcher. This would make an easier package to ship and be a boost for PR as we can more easily distribute that across the various indie game websites. Our launcher guy, danpaul88, has added that to his growing list of tasks so we'll see!

 

[FRAYDO]

On 1/26/2019 at 1:19 PM, Einstein said:

For the Admins: When will I get my testing server access?
For Jonwil: What did you do before you began the scripts project? How did you begin, and where did you start breaking into Renegade?

 

17 hours ago, Einstein said:

*sighhhh*

Haha, Einstein's question got ignored despite two admins posting in here already. Maybe by highlighting this Einstein may finally get his answer. @Admins

[FRAYDO]

@Einstein shouldn't you be asking @triattack though about server access?

[Raap]

22 minutes ago, FRAYDO said:

@Einstein shouldn't you be asking @triattack though about server access?

Don't forget to bring a bag of cash every month as well. Servers ain't free!

[ChAoS]

 

 

On 1/29/2019 at 1:34 PM, danpaul88 said:

Back in the day there WAS a Linux version of the FDS (known as the LFDS) but since nobody used it scripts.dll stopped supporting it a long long time ago

I know I actually got it running on a modern fedora. It's a shame though windows has so much overhead.

On 1/30/2019 at 12:06 PM, danpaul88 said:

Last time I heard EA were refusing to put CnC games onto Steam since they were busy trying to ram Origin down everyones throats. Guess they had a change of heart at some point. Doesn't really change the fact that we don't actually own the CnC IP though. I rather think EA would take a dim view on us listing our games on Steam.

I think the CnC games on steam were grandfathered in along with several other EA games.  

Same reason you can buy ME 1 and 2 but not 3 on steam. I think 2010 games an earlier are still on steam but not much after.

IIRC EA didn't like Valves DLC policy.

[OrangeP47]

Fun fact btw.  If you have a steam key or an origin key for an EA game that's on both platforms, you can activate them on both.  I had some expansions for sims 3 on steam, and some *different* expansions on origin.  For the hell of it I tried activating them on the rival platform one day and was able to consolidate all my sims holdings in one place.  Pretty sure it works for other games as well.

Also pretty sure old physical copies work on origin as well too.  I have a physical copy of Mass Effect 1 but the disk is too scratched to play, but my activation code worked on Origin so now I don't need the disk.

[Einstein]

3 hours ago, FRAYDO said:

@Einstein shouldn't you be asking @triattack though about server access?

I don't even know.

Since when can we notify whole groups on the forum?? I totally would have been using that for the testers.

[moonsense715]

1 hour ago, Einstein said:

I don't even know.

Since when can we notify whole groups on the forum?? I totally would have been using that for the testers.

If it was up to me you'd have had it with Nodlied for years now.

But it's not up to me.

[FRAYDO]

7 hours ago, Einstein said:

Since when can we notify whole groups on the forum?? I totally would have been using that for the testers.

You actually can't notify whole groups. That's just my shitposting magic at work.

[Einstein]

12 minutes ago, FRAYDO said:

You actually can't notify whole groups. That's just my shitposting magic at work.

6 hours ago, moonsense715 said:

If it was up to me you'd have had it with Nodlied for years now.

But it's not up to me.

It doesn't seem to be up to anyone

[FRAYDO]

42 minutes ago, FRAYDO said:

You actually can't notify whole groups. That's just my shitposting magic at work.

 

30 minutes ago, Einstein said:

Ah wait! I forgot to include that cool glasses thing anime nerds do when they're displaying intellectual superiority (or in this case, superior shitposting).

Nice.

[moonsense715]

On 1/26/2019 at 2:55 PM, Raap said:

Guess I'll ask a few annoying ones. 

• For W3D Hub: Roughly, when can people expect an official W3D Development Kit? [This would be a clean-slate client/server package that lets people create new games more easily, somewhat similar to Unreal 4 or Unity, just minus all the super fancy stuff.]
• For the Renegade support team: The W3D Hub Launcher will be offering support for Renegade at some point this year. Will this be the traditional Renegade featuring all of the legacy community content, or an iteration based on 5.x?  Bonus question: Is Renegade support intended to be something that is managed and updated, or will it be purely a legacy game in maintenance mode?
• For W3D Hub: In terms of the under-development projects currently hosted at W3D Hub, which of these games can players expect to see more of this year?

Dev kit: it is under development currently. Making it clean and only keeping the essential engine files plus a few example characters/vehicles/buildings for a sample game. It works right now and the game is roughly between 10-20 MB, but i'm still cleaning it up and the examples are not finished.

Renegade on the Launcher: danpaul88 is working hard on Renegade support but he has little free time so please be patient. IIRC the plan is to allow the Launcher to detect your Renegade installation and use it to connect to XWIS/GSA Ren servers (so I'd guess whatever custom content you added to it will be in it naturally). So it will not download the game from anywhere as it is not freeware. No 5.x as it will stay on 4.x. Newer scripts versions do not support Renegade at all (this is why the code is a lot cleaner and easier to change, no compatibility required).
As for updating the game? I can't answer that, but I think it will be able to download and install the latest 4.x branch script updates.

Under-dev projects: we are pushing TS Reborn right now, fixing up the balance and some assets. This should be out this year but I have no exact date.
I'm also going to give a mega push to Apocalypse Rising this year. Whether it will result in a release or not I do not know, but major milestones will be met and the game should be very much in a Release-able state before 2020 I can promise this.

[Wallywood]

On 1/26/2019 at 7:27 PM, NoSoldier said:

• Which aspects of TS:R are the ones you aren't satisfied with? How is life on your side? How did you get into W3D-modding and what led you to "make" Reborn?

Life has been extremely busy lately. I’ve started my own business, gotten married and taken on the role of step dad to three awesome kids. But life has also never been better  thanks for asking. 

As for Reborn. There are currently a lot things I’m not happy with. Mostly balance wise. But I can assure anyone concerned that OWA and Pushwall are working hard on fixing a lot of them.

Another thing I wasn’t too happy with was some of the building layouts. Example the GDI bar and WF.  BUT Chopbam and ICE have been kicking butt in that department. 

As for how I got into modding is kind of a long weird one. But the long short of it was, I started out as a player, then tester, then sound artist, and made a joke one day about taking over Reborn and somehow it became a real possibility. I wrote up a full change log of everything I would do differently and assured everyone it would be it’s own game, different from both Renegade and APB. Enough people liked it and I was kind of thrown into the role. 

Thanks for the awesome questions

[Jerad2142]

On 1/26/2019 at 5:19 PM, Killing_You said:

@Jerad2142: ECW !setjoin messages when?

I hate bot spam so never.

[Jerad2142]

On 1/26/2019 at 7:27 PM, NoSoldier said:

• For Jerad2142: Any plans for a full-deer-mod with tanks and everything? - But to remain serious, you've added some racemechanics into ECW the last patches. Any plans to further build upon that or are you focusing upon new projects?

Actually Blazea58 and I were going to make an absolutely insane Renegade map where you play as animals vs the humans, unfortunately his moddling tools kicked the bucket so the terrain was never completed.

The racing mechanics have actually been around for a very long time, possibly before ECW was named ECW (can't remember anymore). In the most recent update all I did was expand the system to support two race tracks. Not really sure if there is enough player desire to build an actual racing system to race two players against each other and all that good stuff.

[moonsense715]

On 1/26/2019 at 12:07 PM, moonsense715 said:

I also have questions to my fellow team. I'd like to encourage others too to just ask whatever.

1. When will clanwars be held again? I want to fully support this with my knowledge and most of it has been enabled on the stats pages already.

2. Would clanwars happen on a separate/temporary server or on the main game servers (this would not let other players play the game while the war is going)?

3. Can tools and a guide be posted for clans to be able to host their own clan practice server and let their clanmates join it? A git repo similar to APB SDK along with Asterisk might help this.

@Pushwall @Silverlight @Einstein Bump!

@OWA you still haven't answered a single question! D: