Community Engine?

N

Nith

First time out of the vault
So, I hope i'm not speaking out of turn being the "new guy" on the forums but i'm surprised noone has suggested a community engine for fallout 1, 2 and tactics.

I have been browsing the mod forums and some of the modders here have some grand determination, some spending 9 years on and off modding game content. To me, it seems logical that the evolution of this would be to make an open source community variation of the engine similar to what was done with the League of legends community (ace client)

At this point your probably thinking this is a monolith task, Which would probably be right but i think the key to actually getting something like this done would be something like they are doing over at the skywind, A conversion tool that converts maps and scripts into the community engine.

Now, Its my understanding that there is a wealth of tools already available that include a map editor so that means the battle is half won because there already a pre defined schema on how to load data to be rendered. the rendering part is the part that has to be filled in.

immediate benefits to this would be Total freedom to develop, deployment on different devices/platforms such as tables and smart phones, along with bug fixes and optimizations.

Only thing that would seem to hold this back is the legality of it. depending on your interpretation you could take another page out of skywinds book and make sure that the original came has been purchased, and no assets are bundled with the client.

Discuss?
 
People can't even create a community mod. How in hell should there ever be a community engine? It is not as easy as "just add tools" or something. The legality is the least of all problems.

Beside this, russian FOnline engine is as close as it will ever be.
 
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Lexx said:
People can't even create a community mod. How in hell should there ever be a community engine?
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Hmm, Thought there was a great modding community? What about...Houses team? they seem to be able to manage large projects?

It is not as easy as "just add tools" or something. The legality is the least of all problems.
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Although i don't "specialize" in graphics programming, I am a certified .net programmer. So i can speculate pretty well on how much work needs to be done for something like this. So yes its not as easy as "just add tools". but i don't think its as far fetched as it seems.



Many of the Technical and design problems he lists when creating the engine have now been killed by either brute force or changes in technology. for example: Creating a "Memory efficient" 512x512 hex grid is fairly trivial to implement these days.
 
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Nith said:
Creating a "Memory efficient" 512x512 hex grid is fairly trivial to implement these days.
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No, it isnt. Run-able and efficient are two very different things. It's probably easier than before, but it's almost surely still far from trivial, and that's a big problem with today's programmers, they have a mindset of "we can just throw more memory at the problem".

On the other points, nope, the files support and the rendering aren't the hardest pieces at all; a renderer should probably be one of the easy parts, as a mildly experienced OpenGL or SDL developer could write one (I don't think it's a special one), and it probably would suffice with adapting the one from gemrb, a community engine for infinity games, as the graphics work pretty much as Fallout ones, you pre-render the background and place characters and items on top of it (at least I guess that's how Fallout's renderer work). You have to implement quite a lot of features JUST to have something for the scripting engine to aim to, and then you have to make the scripting engine. There was a previous attempt to make a community engine, called IanOut. It failed in its original mission, but it turned into an isometric and top down engine for its own games, called FIFE (originally for Fallout-like Isometric Free Engine, but when they dropped the idea of making it play Fallout they changed that for Flexible instead). They still have the files implementing support for file formats on the tree, but it probably suffers bit rot, as nobody maintains them, and they never had support for the scripts. I don't remember if there was any other missing piece.
I'm all for implementing one, but I don't currently have the time, I don't have the skillset for all of the pieces. I thought of eventually taking one of gemrb's long term plans, which is to turn their current scripting engine into a plugin, so you have plugable engines. This allows to switch both languages, bytecodes and rulesets, so then Fallout scripts support could be implemented. Later, the trivial part would be to implement support for other file formats. An extra hard part I discussed with them is making it turn based and implementing APs. A nice idea I got from the video you pasted (I've seen it a few days ago) is to, using this other engine, make proper AI for companions, as they stated it should be embedded in the engine to work correctly, optional of course, as one shouldn't break support for the hacked ones that got into the original games. I don't know a lot about AI, though, so if it's on me it will only be an idea never realized.
 
Three approaches after we have made/picked our new engine:(A) create a new script language and adapt it to somehow run Fallout 2's.(B) use or create a new script language and manually recreate each script in the new language .(C) no new scripting language, just use/remake the old .You will need to assemble a team that together have a strategy to accomplish whichever goal. NMA needs to do a kickstarter and give money to who they trust can complete the project. Personally I am more than capable of doing it all on my own. But I'm sick of Fallout and NMA's new forum theme is a depressing reminder of failure. I also rather not receive any funds from NMA because they arbitrate against creativite work despite any level of sincerity behind its production.
 
Frungtebit said:
A) create a new script language and adapt it to somehow run Fallout 2's.
(B) use or create a new script language and manually recreate each script in the new language.
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Or, you know, make a compiler from Fallout/Fallout 2 scripts to the newer language. It's quite common today to make language-to-language compilers.

NMA needs to do a kickstarter and give money to who they trust can complete the project.
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It's more than likely that you can't. Look at what happened at GOG. Having a new engine means avoiding DRM, we'd get a C&D in a matter of seconds from Zenimax, and as we'd be making money of it they might have a case to make a lawsuit, as the project is specifically to run THEIR IP.

Personally I am more than capable of doing it all on my own. But I'm sick of Fallout and NMA's new forum theme is a depressing reminder of failure. I also rather not receive any funds from NMA because they arbitrate against creativite work despite any level of sincerity behind its production.
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You can always do by yourself as a hobby project, as most people around do with their projects. Also, how do NMA arbitrate against creative work? Haven't you see any of the successful total conversion mods?

EDIT: I don't like making this kind of assumption, but having joined today and making this kind of comment, specially about NMA being depressing and being sick of Fallout (again, why would you join TODAY if you feel that way? I can understand if you are here from before feeling that way, but changing your mind in a day sounds too fast), I feel like you are only trolling.
 
Frungtebit said:
Personally I am more than capable of doing it all on my own. But I'm sick of Fallout and NMA's new forum theme is a depressing reminder of failure. I also rather not receive any funds from NMA because they arbitrate against creative work despite any level of sincerity behind its production.
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You wouldn't be one of Prospers alter-egos would you? If you're capable, build the new engine and then get back to us...there will be plenty of people who will grateful for your efforts.
 
I think you both know I am not trolling. Trolling would be choosing not to join NMA because I thought they would remain failures. To accomplish the goal of a community engine though that requires some changes in the community. Allowing previous members to rise up again possibly. @Oppen your language-to-language idea I can't verify. However if someone did do a kickstarter and paid me sufficiently I could be grateful. As for legal trouble the only thing we want that is new functionality is the scripts yes? well if they are made unique enough we can claim it not to be bethesdas/interpays property. that puts us at least no worse than FONLINE .
 
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I think you both know I am not trolling. Trolling would be choosing not to join NMA because I thought they would remain failures. To accomplish the goal of a community engine though that requires some changes in the community. Allowing previous members to rise up again possibly. @Oppen your language-to-language idea I can't verify. However if someone did do a kickstarter and paid me sufficiently I could be grateful. As for legal trouble the only thing we want that is new functionality is the scripts yes? well if they are made unique enough we can claim it not to be bethesdas/interpays property. that puts us at least no worse than FONLINE .
 
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Frungtebit said:
I think you both know I am not trolling. Trolling would be choosing not to join NMA because I thought they would remain failures.
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No, actually I don't know. I didn't assert it either, because it might be a true concern, but I think it is somewhat unlikely because I wouldn't go to a place I find depressing. Also, trolling specifically requires you to join, because otherwise, how can you make people angry?
Of coure, in the scenario of you not trolling, which I considered unlikely, the most likely one is for you to believe your concerns are addressable.

@Oppen your language-to-language idea I can't verify.
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I don't recall the names for the projects, but you can find them on Phoronix. Off the hat I can name a C++ to JavaScript compiler, a C++ to C++11 (this one is part of the LLVM project, the projec is called something like modernize or that kind of stuff). It's essentially just another compiler, you have a lexer and a parser to make sense of your code, but the rules are generating another high level language's code instead of bytecode or assembly.

However if someone did do a kickstarter and paid me sufficiently I could be grateful.
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You could do the kickstarter, too, except if you are not in the US (I'm not either, but I wouldn't go KS with this, because of the reasons I already told you).

As for legal trouble the only thing we want that is new functionality is the scripts yes? well if they are made unique enough we can claim it not to be bethesdas/interpays property. that puts us at least no worse than FONLINE .
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No, we want it to be able to play the original games. And I don't think we want to apply DRM to it (even if we'd want, I don't know if anyone here knows how to implement that, I personally don't), so again, Beth/Zenimax will probably feel their IP is endangered. Remember they took the license GOG had to sell the games for that, and they were probably getting a piece of the cake there. With the new engine, money goes to the engine programmer, and that's it, while it almost surely can circumvent DRM'd material.
Even if they don't have a case, we'd need a lawyer to prove it in a court, if we don't comply a C&D.
 
Open your eyes man. The .DAT files are not DRM locked. Oh I SEE. You think any future purchases might have everything locked down so only those who have versions before end of December might have the .DAT freely available. Well then fine. Make a fallout (but not fallout) spin off is my only answer. I'm already suppose to be making something else.
 
Frungtebit said:
Open your eyes man. The .DAT files are not DRM locked. Oh I SEE. You think any future purchases might have everything locked down so only those who have versions before end of December might have the .DAT freely available. Well then fine. Make a fallout (but not fallout) spin off is my only answer. I'm already suppose to be making something else.
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Ahem, those spinoffs already exist. An engine for those already exists, and it's FIFE, an engine I already named in this very same thread, ONE post before your first one. What was proposed was a community engine FOR FALLOUT 1 AND 2. A spinoff is by definition not Fallout.
 
Oppen are you feeling guilty? I see you are looking for something you are wrong about. How about telling the OP he was wrong to say "Creating a "Memory efficient" 512x512 hex grid is fairly trivial to implement these day"You had this to say "No, it isnt. Run-able and efficient are two very different things."You straw manned him.
 
Frungtebit said:
Oppen are you feeling guilty? I see you are looking for something you are wrong about. How about telling the OP he was wrong to say "Creating a "Memory efficient" 512x512 hex grid is fairly trivial to implement these day"You had this to say "No, it isnt. Run-able and efficient are two very different things."You straw manned him.
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So, pointing out a particular claim is not true is a straw man? It's good to know.
I pointed out the difficulties and the easy pieces on making a community engine. I also proposed a roadmap for such a task, and stated that I'm interested in eventually doing it, when I have the time, and when I get some missing skills. However, I don't think throwing money to the problem is wise here, because it may bring some legal troubles. Do I have to feel guilty about anything?
 
Oppen, Men, you made a claim "runnable and efficient are two very different things", but that's not anything to do with correcting the OP's statement. What he said was "Creating a "Memory efficient" 512x512 hex grid is fairly trivial to implement these days".. THE OP's statement presumes memory efficiency in the implementation. . Not just being able to execute.
 
Frungtebit said:
Oppen, Men, you made a claim "runnable and efficient are two very different things", but that's not anything to do with correcting the OP's statement. What he said was "Creating a "Memory efficient" 512x512 hex grid is fairly trivial to implement these days".. THE OP's statement presumes memory efficiency in the implementation. . Not just being able to execute.
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It has. He doesn't presume efficiency, but asserts it is trivial, and it is not. It is trivial to get something that runs at decent performance in todays computers, because there is plenty of memory. That's not the same thing as being efficient, which depends on the software, not on the amount of memory you can throw to the problem.

EDIT: Point is, the complexity of making something memory efficient is almost the same as it was at the time. The only real advance I can recall in that area, pointing to simplify the subject, is that you are actually able to work with classes nowadays and be memory efficient, thanks to move semantics.
 
It still says Memory efficient. Not we don't need memory efficiency because we have so much memory. I think he is right it is trivial. The efficient memory for a 512x512 hex grid is a 512x512 hex grid. Some hexes block, some don't. done. now efficient use of the hex grid is something else.
 
Oh, right, because "hex grid" is a common data structure in so many languages. And it does things.
Of course, if you find a language where "hex grid" is a data structure, implementing one would be trivial in such a language. Then we should check if that's memory efficient.
 
You guys are funny.


Beside this, as I've mentioned far, far above, such an engine already exists. It is called the FOnline engine. It can be run in singleplayer too and if someone spends some time on it, it's even possible to port Fo1/2 over to the engine. It "only" needs either a true script converter, to get all the original scripts into AS automatically, or someone will go script by script and rewrites them all manually into AS. Both ways are possible, both ways will require time to get done. But if everyone only talks about it and nobody starts doing it, it won't ever happen. Not even with a different, 100% new engine.

Creating yet another new Fallout-like engine is the most stupid thing a human can do. We already had several tries: IanOut and FIFE to be the most prominent ones. Both were in development for years and nothing really playable came out of it, ever. But who am I to judge. :D Go on and start a new one, but don't expect to get much help.
 
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