[bf1942] BF: Vietnam - BFCC to be bundled with it (OT)

[Lee Latham]

It seems pretty clear to me that somewhere along during the development of 
bf1942 someone (very much like myself or probably most of the other people 
on this list) got hired on and took a look at a nearly-completed game and 
said "Oh My God, no no no no, you've got to have a distributable server, 
remote console, a modding SDK etc. etc."  And all the important useability 
stuff was added as an afterthought.

  It continues to amaze me how many new games STILL come out that don't let 
you remap control keys or even invert the mouse Y axis, or let users create 
mods, etc.  stuff that Id Software IMO pioneered a decade ago.  This shows 
that somehow a lot of people still set out to make games that don't 
actually play them, or know anything about the contemporary community, 
which is also a source of bafflement to me.

Well, to whoever that was, I thank you, because BF1942 would be dead as 
Wargasm or a thousand other games, which would have been a damn shame.

But this applies to server adminstration tools, too.  If they have any 
sense, they DO have a responsibility to provide quality tools, or server 
admins simply won't bother with their game, which will create server 
paucity which will alienate end-users.  We are doing them a big 
favor!  Hell, I pay a hundred bucks a month to have  my own personal 
server, but that also gives a couple hundred some-odd players a place to 
play, too.

Lee

At 06:34 PM 2/27/2004 +0000, you wrote:
>A lot of truth in this Neal we gave up long ago on third party apps
>for BF. Yes they work but had to rely on others to get fixes etc.
>Now we have just incorporated live BF management direct into
>our clanserver Webadmin so clans have it all in one place.
>
>This was easy to do after querying on here about the "rcon"
>protocol, think it took me about 10hours work. There are a
>number of things about the protocol I'm not totally sure of but
>tbh the clans are happy, we have a system we can support
>and dont have to wait for external fixes; so all in all life is sweet.
>
>I would like to see a nice doc from dice on the protocol sure
>but anyone with a bit of coding ability and the links already
>providing here can knock this sort of thing up.
>
>     Steve / K
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Neal Clayton" <xayd at vae-victus.org>
>To: <bf1942 at icculus.org>
>Sent: 27 February 2004 18:23
>Subject: Re: [bf1942] BF: Vietnam - BFCC to be bundled with it (OT)
>
>
> > Indeed both are poorly designed.
> >
> > Regardless, the engine for BF:V is the same so one could assume that the
> > server settings and commands will be very similar.  There are existing
> > projects out there to work from if someone else decides to develop a
> > third party app for server management though.
> >
> > Either way, the reason that there's a lack of tools to properly admin
> > servers isn't entirely the fault of EA and Dice, it's only half their
> > fault.  It's half their fault for providing poor documentation about the
> > server and engine so that people can write these apps, and it's half the
> > fault of users for supporting closed source and/or  commercial apps
> > instead of getting together and working on alternatives.
> >
> > Personally I'm content to start and stop my server via usermin and do
> > the rest by command line, but if people want better then they need to
> > stop using closed source and commercial apps and get to work on
> > providing an alternative.  Look at Gastar's web-based tool, it had all
> > the functionality for day to day use that one would need, but is sitting
> > on sourceforge un-usable because it was never updated for 1.6.  No one
> > pays any attention to it because there's no support forum to get someone
> > to hold your hand while you set it up, and no one to pay for using it.
> >
> > I dunno.  Maybe I'm spoiled from coming to this game from UT.  When
> > there was a need for a mod or mutator to fix something or provide some
> > extra functionality in an Unreal game people in the community got
> > together and worked on it.  When there's a need for something in BF1942
> > people complain about it and do nothing, while continuing to work on
> > their own little conversion mod that no one will ever play anyways...
>
>================================================
>This e.mail is private and confidential between Multiplay (UK) Ltd. and 
>the person or entity to whom it is addressed. In the event of 
>misdirection, the recipient is prohibited from using, copying, printing or 
>otherwise disseminating it or any information contained in it.
>
>In the event of misdirection, illegible or incomplete transmission please 
>telephone (023) 8024 3137
>or return the E.mail to postmaster at multiplay.co.uk.
>

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Lee M. Latham
Vice Field Marshall Admiral Imperator Generalissimo of Sales and Support 
(muy importante)
+1 (713) 977-4177 x.103
lee at cgmlarson.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------