as lee is bouncing ideas around about opening up the engine.

i for one am against it for the time being, if you all remember fpsc went open and it got bloated messy and as i recall lee spent ages deleting obsolete or redundant or bad code. i am a bit against it until all the features we have been told we can have, and by one team. i believe it was promised we would get updates for life etc. now opening up the engine is very overly worrying. it means half the promised stuff may be taken over by a 3rd party and we have to pay for it. like i am finding now. unless inventory etc is still happening. but after todays blog i fear the worst. as fpsc just could not really hack it anymore. at least keep it locked till all promised voted features have been delivered. i am always amazed at open source creativity but this will please programmers but not people who have to basically pay twice for a feature. no offence meant just concerns

Personally I don't think it should become open source until it is in a completed state and TGC want to move on to the next project.

OldFlak....

Lee should open source the code for the editor part of Fpsc classic.



Actually, the community carried classic for the last few updates after Lee gave up on it.

I think this is the reason he's thinking about opening it up, to get the project moving faster and to get more stuff done.

I wouldn't like to see gameguru go full open source, I've seen far too many projects get warped out of all recognition and thrown away when that happens, however I would like to see an open source API for the engine which add-ons can be created for, that would be far better.

Engines will always please programmers. Sorry but you sound afraid. A lot of people already pay for features which become obsolete in future, or how you want to explain me the scripting sectore in the store. Maybe all who are against this forget one thing: A man called airslide created an advanced weapon system we had in FPSC and GG. Without him I didn´t know where we would be.


What is wrong to come to this state earlier?


I come into the forum a little earlier and FPSC was already a mess at this state and it never come out of this. Please download the 1.09 source code and look at it. If you mean this is clean, you never saw clean optimised code. I also never heard that someone coded in the vanilla FPSC, they created mods and some mods come into the vanilla(maybe scenecommander and S4real, but this was at the end). A lot of very nice guys created nice features like Water, AI, Post Processing Shaders, Weapon systems,.... (I never saw FPSC looking better as in EFX mod)

I would like to see it as a dlc. Everybody who want to modify it, should pay for it. This would garante some money for TGC which they can put in the development.

I hope it does not sounds too harsh.

@ corno,

as i said it is just a concern and i said at the moment and i am not having a go at any programmer. and yes there are some awesome generous programmers out there. and as i said in awe of the creativity, but with many hands on it i remember mods coming out of all directions and some had this and some had that and it was hard to get an exact all. i meant no offence corno1 as i said. this is a concern as i am as i said worried. not afraid! it aint goin to kill me or mug me etc. i am saying that if it remains as it was then we all get the lot as promised. i am happy for you to go off with a copy of open source as long as i get all the things on the promised voting board without any other expense issues and having to choose one mod against another with pros and cons. and that is what was going on. i know there are generous programmers out there. but i paid for a software and was promised lifetime updates and as long as that is upheld i have no worries.

in the end. tgc promised.. and this i believe is the long haul and one project. so i am debating so lee can get a clearer picture and we can all throw out concerns benefits and how to shape things and to clarify any issues etc. so that was my aim. so hence your views too. i also remember post shade was bond1 and it was part of the upgrading of x9 with tgc along with water etc. other mods were made by programmers and some free some not. but if tgc are to keep this update for life then surely they need to police it. also does this mean gg becomes free?

sounds good so far this but do explain more?

edit, sorry my mistake i didn't read well enough
well i can see open source being useful in some ways but i doubt it'll happen... maybe if progress is still slow by the middle/end of the year it would be a good idea, even if you only personally use 1 or 2 unofficial features that's still better than nothing.

and it's optional anyway so you can easily stay away from any of the unofficial changes.

personally im always happy to see more put into LUA

I don't think we need to panic at this stage Over the last year we have been shaping the company to focus on GameGuru and AGK, downgrading all other products to leave more time for these two pursuits. A lot has been invested into the GameGuru brand and the last thing I am thinking about is abandoning it. The 'open source' idea is simply to allow some contributors to check out the code and make careful contributions to the engine. We did this early on with the DBP third party module support and after five years there were ten times more unofficial plugins that official ones, and as a result, produced a programming language that could do just about anything (for its time). Maybe the word 'transparent source' might be a better term to bandy about, but of course, before we get muddy with C++ source, I think a better initial stage would be to shift all the hard coded mechanisms into LUA scripts and let you have a play with them yourself in Notepad

If you want an exact all, you must hire a programmer, there is no way out of it. If you think vanilla GG will ever be a engin with all features you want, then you will wait years without support for Lee out of the community.


Maybe Lee could say more about this, but I thought this would not change, even when Lee make the source public. I see it more as an option if you are not happy with GGs features you can choose optional a mod from the community. If you pay for it or choose a free mod, I can not decide for you. But to decide which feature is more important for my game, is better than not having it, isn´t it?


For myself I use a lot open source software, with still a lot support. GIMP, Firefox, Android, SharpDevelop,....
Of course this can happen, but how we should know?


That would slow the process of development too much. Then I would be happier if he works alone on it. If he can make it fast ok, but I didn´t think this would be the case. Instead I think he will need a two months until a half year to manage this, and this would be exact the oposite he want with releasing the source. He wants less work with faster development and not the other way round.


If you created a DLC with the source code for 20-50 bucks, I would buy it. Then if someone want to modify it, he can, Lee get more money from the sales for the official and maybe this could be good for vanilla GG. And if you release a mod in the tgc store, tgc earns money too.

Of course I see the shadows, but I am a programmer and I want my hands on the source, so I can do my stuff like I want it.

Edit: 1+ for this what Lee said

How in the world would an API for add-ons make development slower?

You have an API that people can hook their own add-ons into to make things do what they want.

The base code stays the same and Lee continues developing the base code.

If something new or changed in the base code breaks an add-on Lee doesn't have to touch it, it would be the person developing the add-on that has to adjust it.

Whereas if it was full open source every little change that people make would have to be double checked by Lee and his team in case it broke something.

It wouldn't make it so that Lee would have less work to do, but it would certainly not increase the work he has to do, except in the initial stages when he writes and implements the API.

What I should say more than that:
Like I said this would need time, GG does not have. A lot of people complaining about the missing features. Now tell them they must wait a long time for a feature, most people can not use, will get a lot bad steam reviews.

I don't see a "lot" of people complaining about missing features, I see a vocal few complaining, the majority of us have the maturity to know and understand the process, we know it will take time and while we would like to have everything now we understand.

The fact that everything is open about what is being developed and when as well as us getting the chance to vote for features has kept most of us calm and happy, but a vocal few are blowing it all out of proportion.

Besides, it would take Lee just as long to tidy up and prepare the code for open source as it would to create an API, so there's going to be time taken either way.

Love that idea.

Anyway I've nothing against the open source idea.



This can revolutionize much things around here.

3com

there we go the topic has been discussed and thoughts brought about. i am happy i believe others are happier a bit of stimuli and a good vent for some.

case closed.