[.ygp`t3hbeast]

Can you guys stop b***hing at the FS about HD? They have lives, they have things that are more important than the coding of the game (ie: children, jobs, wives) get over the fact that its taking awhile to make it. Grow up and be patient before they decide to just say F**k it and stop.

[FS BladeKiller]

It's alright. Some people are just impatient and haven't read all of the posts where we have said how it is going with the Linux port. I will repeat it again that we are testing the Linux port and so far so good. The Mac port is being worked on. Remember HD isn't just 4.1 with some better models. It's a new engine starting with Q3 1.32b so we have a lot of work to do. You should think of HD as a new game being made from scratch. The alpha was released with a lot of old UrT assets but that was just so you could give it a good test.

I'd rather have people being impatient than not interested. There's nothing worse for a dev team than a community that doesn't care.

[FS Frankie V]

Well I must say two years ago some of the comments being made would be something that I would find myself agreeing with but now that I’ve had the experiences of working with a large part of our development team on an individual level what is usually stated as fact is in fact the complete opposite of someone else’s reality. :)

The reality of our group of rebels is we don’t spend a lot of time talking about what we might do, as a means of keeping people updated, but rather spend the time actually doing the very things that the majority of those who play the game would actually like to see introduced as part of the game and then every now and then give out a sneak peek of actual work.

Annnddddd

This is what we do.

Now personally I can handle some of the more side ways remarks but to say that anyone of the individuals that I work with do not “understand” this that or the other things of importance that involves more of talking the talk I can say they are far to busy walking the walk to give updates in a timely fashion.

It’s not that they are to “busy” with other things to give on demand updates but rather to busy doing what needs to be done with out the need for anyone running after them and even when the work is added to the mix it’s a surprise when really it should not be.

That’s the way we roll and if it’s important to know where X item is currently then ask, in the open QA section of the board

[onslaught]

Just to clarify I was not saying that you should make the game open source that would be practically impossible with an anti-cheat that actually works and totally impractical. I was figuring you have more then one person working on the Linux version and more then one person working on hd as a whole so I was suggesting you have a closed forum with a password or something similar so all those who are working on the project can have open discussions about where their at with other members of the team. The best run business I have ever seen did things this way except it was an open weekly meeting and it worked very well for them. You could even use a program like skype to do it live on cam or maybe you already do. I don't know if you do or do not as I am not part of the dev team.

It was a suggestion take it or leave it. As well it was an fs member that stated that Linux users do not understand open source which maybe a few very isolated users don't but in its self is a ridiculous comment.

All I was asking for was for you guys to once every month or so to put up some kind of posting in the news area to say hey Mac and Linux users we know your anxious to be part of the testing and were working on it this is where were at nothing specific even during the process we noticed a few major errors. As a member of your team stated if we didn't care we wouldn't ask.

[MajkiFajki]

They currently testing linux build. I forgot in which thread it was stated, so You have to belive me :)

[onslaught]

For the frozen sands team

I would just like to say I know the Linux community can get frustrating for you at times. Please understand our community (which I am proud to call myself one of) gets insulted, belittled, and underestimated on a constant and steady basis. A large portion of the Internet, business networks, and people use Linux and unfortunately people say on a constant basis that what you do in your spare time is Impossible for large corporations to do for gaming.

Urban terror is one of the few really great games for Linux so first off let me say thank you for this game and keep up the good work. Cheaters may spoil this game in many ways nothing lessens the importance of this game to the Linux community as it proves not only can it be done but it is being done and without profit so it can be done and make a profit.

You see the Linux community gets excited because this game is one of if not the best game(s) for Linux and it is hard to be patient when that game is doing something that no other game has that you can play on Linux. For us you guys are on the cutting edge and we do appreciate that.

From the many people I have spoken to over the years thank you and keep up the great work we do appreciate it.

[|it|Nexu]

onslaught, on 07 July 2011 - 03:06 PM, said:

Please understand our community (which I am proud to call myself one of) gets insulted, belittled, and underestimated on a constant and steady basis. A large portion of the Internet, business networks, and people use Linux and unfortunately people say on a constant basis that what you do in your spare time is Impossible for large corporations to do for gaming.

People that compares a video game title project that is backed by a huge budget with a project such as UrbanTerror lack common sense.
And for one, little to no game developers in the commercial gaming market right now is even bothered with producing a native Linux port of their product. 5 years after Unreal Engine 3 was released, there is still to this day not a final/solid fully working Linux port there of. Nor does it looks like IDTech5 is gonna make an appearance on Linux either.
Tho partly to blame to the lack of standard on Linux while Windows and it's DirectX API is mature and expanding in features rapidly.
Everyone is rather busy with porting their games designed for console to (Windows) PC.

[H0i]

Quote

I was suggesting you have a closed forum with a password or something similar so all those who are working on the project can have open discussions about where their at with other members of the team.

Of course. We have a private forum, private irc channel, teamspeak, etc. There is constant communication between developers.

onslaught, on 07 July 2011 - 02:46 PM, said:

All I was asking for was for you guys to once every month or so to put up some kind of posting in the news area to say hey Mac and Linux users we know your anxious to be part of the testing and were working on it this is where were at nothing specific even during the process we noticed a few major errors. As a member of your team stated if we didn't care we wouldn't ask.

Making a newspost with "we're working on it" every month will only make people frustrated. Saying that we are working on it once is enough.

Currently the linux build is being tested, I'm not a linux user myself but it is already working. It's not released yet because some other things need to go in the next alpha too, for example the auto updater.

Keep in mind, this is an alpha we're talking about. It's alpha for a reason, other developers (especially commercial ones) usually don't release alpha builds. Alpha means pre-beta: missing features and incompatibilities should be expected, and the lack of support for linux/mac is one of those things. Just be patient, it's coming.

[FS Frankie V]

onslaught, on 07 July 2011 - 02:46 PM, said:

Just to clarify I was not saying that you should make the game open source that would be practically impossible with an anti-cheat that actually works and totally impractical. I was figuring you have more then one person working on the Linux version and more then one person working on hd as a whole so I was suggesting you have a closed forum with a password or something similar so all those who are working on the project can have open discussions about where their at with other members of the team. The best run business I have ever seen did things this way except it was an open weekly meeting and it worked very well for them. You could even use a program like skype to do it live on cam or maybe you already do. I don't know if you do or do not as I am not part of the dev team.

It was a suggestion take it or leave it. As well it was an fs member that stated that Linux users do not understand open source which maybe a few very isolated users don't but in its self is a ridiculous comment.

All I was asking for was for you guys to once every month or so to put up some kind of posting in the news area to say hey Mac and Linux users we know your anxious to be part of the testing and were working on it this is where were at nothing specific even during the process we noticed a few major errors. As a member of your team stated if we didn't care we wouldn't ask.

A lot of the things you mention are the very things we have attempted in the past but as a Internet based project the things that the best run business do really do not work for us and in a lot of cases doing the complete opposite produces a better result.

A perfect example is opening our QA department to “anyone” who wishes to take part in the alpha development phase which is something that I don’t think I’ve heard of any games development company doing. The idea that you NEVER let your player base become involved in the development of the game it’s self does not work for us. This is a game that does not come with a price tag, given away for free, is another area where “open sourcing” at least the development aspect has produced better results rather than hiding behind closed doors.

This is where the QA section of the boards comes in as that is where questions can be asked and answered that a lot more people can benefit from rather than finding a development related question and answer under a topic titled “Sneak Peek I” but since we are here I’ll state what has already been stated.

The Widows release was intended as an all or nothing hardware test due to the switching to hardware rendering and less processor through Open GL.

Fact.

Linux and Apple make up 25-30% of our overall player base and anyone with business sense know that is a very big number that you can not afford to loss and the number one reason sticking with the idtech3 engine is to continue releasing versions for these platforms.

Fact.

The majority of all pub Urban Terror servers run and prefer Linux based servers so until we do release a Linux build the number of HD based servers will not achieve the same number of servers that there is for a 4.X build.

Fact.

As more and more games developers switch to edit engines like Unity and UDK there are less games being developed to run on Apple PC based products so to continue to develop a PC title for Apple represents an area of continued growth.

Fact.

With Windows we can afford to botch some aspects of the game, at first, but with Linux and Apple there is a need to get a lot more things right than wrong and once again what we are talking about is the complete opposite of a general assumption that we have little regard for these two gamming platforms when in reality it’s something that we want to be comfortable with that it is done right so far as something that is actually playable goes.
In the mean time if anyone has questions feel free to ask them in QA and we will at least attempt to answer reasonable or at least polite questions the best that we can which is just another way that we are letting those who play the game become part of the process.

You know let the fans do the things that fans do so well so to speak. ;)

[onslaught]

thanks Frankie that is excellently put and more then I expected for a response. I can't wait to see the finished product and can't wait to see how it runs on my system. My comments about how some of the Linux community feels is based on the group of people I have spoken to and is probably a more varied type of user then most people know because I know many people who never used computers due to finding windows not laid out well or confusing who started using computers after I let them use my Ubuntu machine and they found it just made sense. I say this just so you realise although its a decent sized group many may not be your a-typical Linux users but thanks to you all again.

P.S. this is what I meant as opposed to "were working on it" thanks.

Currently the linux build is being tested, I'm not a linux user myself but it is already working. It's not released yet because some other things need to go in the next alpha too, for example the auto updater.

This post has been edited by onslaught: 08 July 2011 - 09:50 PM