The truth about TR2N Origins

[Concord]

QFT I personally do like Sumo and Fortress and CFT. Not so much high rubber and, urgh, DF, but I care enough about them to, well, take care for them.

Wait, wait. Hold on! You don't record every Fortress or Sumo match played on your server to bug test the debug recorder?!

Boy, sarcasm is tough in writing. So tough I had to write this to make sure people caught it.

[Phytotron]

Hey, I've got a great idea! Let's let the TR2N Origins take over all the fortress, sumo, ctf, shooting, styball, >4 axes, maps, and other stupid game modes and stuff. Arma can return to its roots and actually refine and improve sans these silly distractions.

Yeah, guys, that was meant to be rather tongue-in-cheek. Although, what, like no one played Arma before Fortress et al? Maybe not as many "snerts."

My only hope these days is that there might be a resurgence (or rediscovery, in many player's cases) of regular servers as a subset of all the other goofiness that's been added in. Methinks BiH and Shrunkland (and the 'goshdarn clone, whenever we get around to correcting that) may be the last stand for so-called "classic" servers. (Remember when I first voiced reservations about all this new shit and kept getting flippantly dismissed with "there will always be classic servers?" Yeah, not so much, huh.)

[compguygene]

I would have weighed in a whole lot quicker on this topic. But, my real life this weekend has been hectic to say the least. However, I am glad to have waited until some of the initial dust has settled before posting. If you follow how I weigh-in on topics, you would notice that I like to put my first post in a hot topic after the end of the 1st or 2nd page.

I would like to clarify some of the history about the development of Tr2nOrigins.

When this idea was first brought to me, I immediately referred everybody involved to the What Went Wrong With Armagetron wiki page for a number of reasons. I did this for 2 reasons. First, I have always felt that it would be best to avoid using Armagetron Code, if possible, and start fresh. Second of all, I wanted us to take as much of the advice, etc. as possible. I have read many stories like this of how a project had gone astray, and i think that the Armagetron is one of the better documented! (Thanks Z-Man)
At first, we decided to pick an open-source 3D engine, and go for it. Some code has even been written, and some plans drawn up. However, it is such an effort to make an entirely new game, that the effort stalled. For this, and other reasons that Destiny&Manta have already posted, we decided to make a fork of Armagetron. And, as expected, once Manta dove fully into the source, he realized the challenge therein. By the way, it was amusing to IM with manta about various issues, and him comment how much like his own thinking that the code was. To me that is a high compliment to the devs about some of the novel structures that are in the code.
There are a few more little things Manta intends to do to finalize the current Tr2nOrigins. But, after that he will begin to plan the development of the new game fully. Also, Manta did consider using the Pink Pony game at one point, and sent the developer a few ideas and code snippets.
So, as you can see, in the long term, our 2 games will diverge greatly. When Armageton puts out the .4 stable release, things will really start to change. When we put out our own original game, things will change for us! But, in the meantime, we can certainly co-exist!
Last night Destiny and a few others talked with the devs. Luke-Jr in particular described the idea of un-breaking compatibility between the two games and allowing clients of the respective games to connect to either game, via a subculture. As in, Tr2nOrigins would have a subculture for Armagetron clients, and Armagetron would have a subculture for Tr2nOrigins clients. I spoke with Destiny later about what that really meant, and what the real implications would be. That is to simply say, a win/win for both games. She felt the idea was a solid one, and she will talk to Manta today about it. I will also talk to Manta as well. I do hope to work this out amicably for both parties. Also, the current source now has proper copywrite headers and credits the Sty+CT branch appropriately. I am actually the one that is writing the history that will be on the website. What is there now, was put together very quickly by Destiny, just to be able to launch. I do intend to properly document as much as is reasonable, as many Armagetron Devs as is possible. I will be posting a topic later in this forum to gather a little more information.
As Destiny mentioned, I will be putting up some more servers. These will include official Tr2n servers based in France, and some last man standing servers that would qualify as being medium and low rubber! Also, I will be putting up some NY based servers as well. Currently, all the servers in Tr2nOrigins are based in Texas on Destiny/Manta's server.
Any commitments I currently have in Armagetron, including Ladle Servers, will continue to be honored. On a side note, my ladle servers will no longer have wrong information, and be up all the time, as they should be. I am going to host servers in both games. I have deliberately purchased enough servers to do so for the foreseeable future. I will continue to participate in this, and other Armagetron forums. TheServerPharm forum was always meant to serve both games.
I would be happy to field any more questions, at any time, about Tr2nOrigins.

Edit: I did make sure to get Destiny setup with an appropriate IRC client, and there is a Tr2nOrigins channel on freenode, #tr2norigins. Soon, our IRC channel will have a bot, and some regulars, like myself. Also, Destiny will be visiting the #armagetron channel! I really appreciate the attitude that the Armagetron devs have shown us! I knew I could count on you guys to do the right thing, in the true spirit of Open Source!

[Mecca]

I recall now having used 'delete' (no 'backspace' on Mac) with Arma keybinds, as all those non-Mac keys aren't in my copy; just wasn't thinking, and my user.cfg etc. are like 3+ years old.

Sorry, even though i use a mac as well I called it 'backspace' rather than 'delete'.

[Van-hayes]

I'm not sure what you mean by the read me's, are u talking about in game, or in the source code?

I meant the text documents that come with the windows game client(maybe with the other OS versions as well, but i only know about the windows ones). Basically most of the text documents are still the same from armagetron ad and still say armagertron ad in them, some are generic ones and don't need to be changed(the one titled COPYING is just the GPL i think) others like the one called README say at the top: "Compiling Armagetron Advanced on Windows with Code::Blocks". Its not a huge deal, and i doubt any dev is going to have a problem with it, just thought you might want to change armagetron to Tr2n in some of them so you can differentiate yourselves more.

Also the ones called CHANGELOG and NEWS point back to all the different changes to code over time I think, don't know if you might want to keep those in for a history or to make new ones starting from where you forked off.

Oh ya there were a few console commands that still say armagetron in them as well, I typed arma in the console of tr2n and about a dozen or so options came up with armagetron in them. I think most had to do with the size of the window or something along those lines.

Those were the only ones I saw at first glance anyways their could be a few more though.

[Tank Program]

Methinks BiH and Shrunkland (and the 'goshdarn clone, whenever we get around to correcting that) may be the last stand for so-called "classic" servers. (Remember when I first voiced reservations about all this new shit and kept getting flippantly dismissed with "there will always be classic servers?" Yeah, not so much, huh.)

Side note with this really... I'm all for classic servers. The only one I still run is a classic, my lamentably un-popular "Guru3's Server."

[arilou]

From playing it for a couple of days it's far better than any Arma client (2.8 or 3.0 ) in the areas
of looks (with or w/o movie pak) and smoothness. Right off the cuff the game
has a tight little community of players that all get together for fun tourneys.

[Thilo]

I love how tr2n is more based upon competitions and I love competitions

Me too. It's one of the things I pushed for when I was on the Tr2n development team.

The whole "Join a match at whatever state it's in and start playing" thing has always bothered me. It's just not rewarding. I want to take the competitive aspect of Tron more seriously, but I can't when it's chaos.

Like a soccer game where everyone on both teams just ran around and kicked the ball wherever and joined and left in the middle of plays. No positions or teamwork or strategy or anything.

In the future I hope to see Origins have a slick and easy feature to set team captains, send everyone to spectate, captains pick teams, and start a srs match.

[MrsKsr]

I'm trying to gather my own viewpoint of the new game without delving too much into the more biased of comments.. Can we please not turn this into a debate about which "game" (since I take it the devs of TR2N want it to be seen as such and not a mere fork/branch) is better?

I worry already that this is going to become an AA vs TR2N :/ I wish you luck etc. but there's no need to start badgering each game for their pitfalls. I don't believe either party wants people to choose one and forget the other and it doesn't really need to be that way.

Personally, I don't feel the need to try it. I'm happy with "lags" and the community here. If you guys weren't then good on you for being proactive and taking the initiative to do something instead of whining like some.

However, you shouldn't let criticisms of the game deter you from posting here @Destiny.. Saying this will be your last post is kind of like, "so... what?" I'm aware that in the past you have felt "pushed out" or whatever you want to call it.. But both communities have something to offer each other, I'm sure you're aware of that.. Unless both cooperate it will turn into a sort of competition.

I do have a question or two though;

~ Why did you choose to deliberately move so far away from AA instead of creating a branch?
If you're going to say the community has a large factor in this (aka those you don't "appreciate" as much as others) why did you advertise and/or justify it to this community, knowing said people would download your game..

~ Secondly, why not make a game which is not so unbelievably similar to AA?
I mean, to look at, from what I've seen so far, there isn't really a substantial difference between TR2N and AA. Which kind of makes me think, well what was the point? Other than to make some kind of statement.. (Not picking at you guys I'm just saying).. Why not put your efforts into creating a properly new game instead of a replica with a few changes :/?

If you love the idea that is AA, why move away from it? When AA was created, obviously there were things you liked about it, or you wouldn't have spent years playing it.. To pick and choose the bits you like then add a few changes and call it a new game doesn't really cut it for me. To me, it seems more like the choice between downloading a newer client of AA and keeping the old one you love. That's the only reason I haven't downloaded it, not because I have something against you guys. But I do disagree with the amount of secrecy that surrounded it, also the fact that I don't really see it as a new game. As said, it seems more like a fork of AA that's deliberately been made incompatible and labelled a separate game.

~ Please don't take offence I just spoke my mind.. I hope you can answer those questions :/

[Goodygumdrops]

but there is no way the two can maintain communities of healthy size when the games are so similar

i bet the one where people aren't allowed to be assholes to each other won't do well

[Z-Man]

~ Why did you choose to deliberately move so far away from AA instead of creating a branch?

It is essentially a branch right now That it moved away is mostly due to technical mistakes. They want to enforce running clients and servers of only one version (which is absolutely fine, saves a lot of development trouble, I can tell you), and found no other way than to make earlier versions (which would be arma) and t2o not understand each other. There's better ways, and we'll help them to implement them.

~ Secondly, why not make a game which is not so unbelievably similar to AA?

As I understand it, the long term plan is to write a completely new game from scratch which probably will be significantly different (alone the fact that they're starting development in an era where hardware accelerated 3D is the norm is a plus). They're using the current and future builds of their forked version to keep the community entertained while they build the new thing.

*clears throat* SORT OF OFFICIAL STATEMENT: Luke-Jr and Lucifer chatted with Destiny and Zurd for a long time yesterday on IRC, I posted on their forums independently (hadn't bothered to read the long IRC backlog), all banging the same drum (which, I note, is an absolute first. We've never have been in so immediate agreement): We absolutely support and encourage a lot of the things t2o is doing. Making improvements to client and server? Check. Building a community operating under different rules than the anarchic main community? Check. The main bit where we don't agree is the forced incompatibility, and it looks like that was just a mistake that can and will be corrected in future versions. Or we'll work around it, it's not too bad. We'll use t2o as an experiment, there's no denying that our own new user experience can be improved. We'll see what works there and what doesn't, then integrate the stuff that works. Maybe they'll push their plans for a completely new game through, maybe they won't and instead help us on the mainline further down the line. Either way, it's a win. There can never be enough Lightcycle games, and we can always use help.

tl;dr: Don't you worry. Both parties are actively working for the benefit of the whole community.

The little bits of trolling can now stop, too

[MrsKsr]

Good, I'm glad both parties are "working out the kinks" together, and ty Z for answering the questions.

[radian]

registered on t2on today
great to see variants like this
fantastic job
im,e sure it will get more refined as time passes
and become very popular

lets get some competitions on
to see how the game works/reacts with a full set of players/teams/clans

[compguygene]

The documentation that ships with Origins currently, was a mistake of a rushed release process. I have a mostly developed set of docs for the website and source. However, I was rather unavailable to contribute my docs when the decision was made this past weekend to just launch.
Of course, now the real work starts for us. I am making the majority of documentation, the other half of the official servers, to be based in NY and France, plus adding some of my own TheServerPharm servers and helping other server admins to move servers to the new game! Soon, the documentation issues with the shipping packages will be ready.
Tonight, Manta is fixing some issues with our custom content manager and website. To clue you in about it let me explain a little about the content management system that has been develooped. Perhaps in the future, when it is stable, we can share it back.
Zoidberg, who has a ton of experience with PHP and PHPBB3 hacks, has developed a content management system that is based around the Tr2nOrigins forum. The content of the the website is actually inside of a set of subforums that only the Tr2nOrigins team can access. So, by not messing with the html of a given post, but just editing and adding posts, it is very easy to enhance the website, and have content that is changed by people that understand only a little bbcode, and have just a little training.
Also, we are working on debugging and modifying phpbbrivals to work and manage our tournaments. Once that is complete, anyone, not just Tr2nOrigins team members will be able to easily setup, run, and manage a tournament. So, one of the greatest differences that will emerge very quickly is the website. Also, when we I have tested the ability of several totally new users going to our website, they were able to download and install the game. Unfortunately 4 of the 5 users i tried this with were unable to download and install Armagetron. The 4 users that I tested this with had never downloaded a piece of software from SourceForge before, nor any Open Source software. However, they were avid gamers, and liked the idea of a free online game, with the gameplay I described. Of course, none of them could get Authentication to work without help, so overall, it was more proof of our need to integrate the sign-up in the client.
I know that many of you think this will just split the community...I have always thought that we would ultimately be bringing lots of new users to our game! With the synergy between the two games that is being discussed there will be a flow of new users to Armagetron from Tr2nOrigins that probably wouldn't have come to Arma otherwise. Likewise there will be a flow of players to Origins from Arma. Cmon people, how many of you only play one videogame! Besides, if we are running tournaments that you want to play in, and you want to use your Armagetron Client to do so, we all win. Likewise, if I want to play in Armagetron Servers from my Tr2nOrigins client we all win!
Also, to state my personal place in all this, I would like to explain a few more things. When I created TheServerPharm Forums, it was with the idea of serving a smalll community of Server Admins and Server Owners with what would be needed for both games. Soon, I will have more features to enhance the ability of information exchange for both games, and to serve as a bridge for those, who like me, intend to be in both games.
I doubt if I will ever fully leave Armagetron! Its a fun community, filled with chaotic, but really creative stuff. I suspect that as the games diverge, I will have reasons to be involved with both!

[sinewav]

Cmon people, how many of you only play one videogame!

Me. This is the only one I need.