A Proposal for a Fan-produced SMAC Remake

[rcb]

Hi! I'm the same rcb guy from CFC thread.

As I said in that thread somewhere, I am a long time SMAC player. I also have wanted to code a TBS game since playing Civ. So the reason I am doing this is because I've wanted to do it for ages.

Also, I did not frequent CFC, here, Apolyton or anywhere else (something which I am going to change). So it was a very stimulating surprise to find out that there are so many people still playing SMAC! This is also something which I will keep in mind while working on the "still nameless" open source AC clone. Of course, I don't believe I can pull this off alone; but I guess that if I can make it get some traction, other people might become interested, and join.

What I have done so far was to try to find out what is the situation with previous efforts, and try to contact relevant groups. I am mailing Cazfi privately; he is developing a tutorial for freeciv ruleset creators, so I am creating a ruleset from his template, and giving him feedback.

I have written an email to the freecivAC mailing list; telling them that since their project is GPL I am forking it, but would love to continue where they left off (the last blip on that radar is from 2003). So right now I am going forward with the "updating" of the freecivAC ruleset for freeciv for it to work ("work" meaning here "not crashing with") a recent version  of freeciv. In other words, I copied their code, but until I hear from them, I can't say exactly what is going on with that.

Last, but not least, I do agree that at some point someone has to shut up and start making it happen; and that's what I am doing. As soon as I have something interesting to share, I will do it (in one of the forums). Cheers!

[Green1]

Hi! I'm the same rcb guy from CFC thread.

As I said in that thread somewhere, I am a long time SMAC player. I also have wanted to code a TBS game since playing Civ. So the reason I am doing this is because I've wanted to do it for ages.

Also, I did not frequent CFC, here, Apolyton or anywhere else (something which I am going to change). So it was a very stimulating surprise to find out that there are so many people still playing SMAC! This is also something which I will keep in mind while working on the "still nameless" open source AC clone. Of course, I don't believe I can pull this off alone; but I guess that if I can make it get some traction, other people might become interested, and join.

What I have done so far was to try to find out what is the situation with previous efforts, and try to contact relevant groups. I am mailing Cazfi privately; he is developing a tutorial for freeciv ruleset creators, so I am creating a ruleset from his template, and giving him feedback.

I have written an email to the freecivAC mailing list; telling them that since their project is GPL I am forking it, but would love to continue where they left off (the last blip on that radar is from 2003). So right now I am going forward with the "updating" of the freecivAC ruleset for freeciv for it to work ("work" meaning here "not crashing with") a recent version  of freeciv. In other words, I copied their code, but until I hear from them, I can't say exactly what is going on with that.

Last, but not least, I do agree that at some point someone has to shut up and start making it happen; and that's what I am doing. As soon as I have something interesting to share, I will do it (in one of the forums). Cheers!

Thanks, man. There are times I wish I pursued a life of code. My father did back in the days of punchcards and room sized machines, but I took a different path.

There are quite a bit of AC fans. But most of them are lurkers and do not post. They are also spread thin over like 4 forums although none of those 4 move very fast as opposed boards of more popular games where your post is lost amongst hundreds of other voices and trolls. AC is more of a cult classic thing.

I hear you about forking. It will be a lot less pulling hair to get done.

I am glad you will be sharing on forums. I think that developers not talking to thier users is kind of a bad thing. In fact I was kind of bothered when I heard the post that the FreeCic forums had been down for going on 1-2 months... because "developers do not have time to go there anyways".. and they would rathered code. Maybe it is just my perception. Very hard to view emotion in text. Pretty soon you end up with a game only the coders play if that stance is taken. Although, I do agree with the stance the Battle of Wesnoth folks take: we code the kind of game we like not the game you want in particular, but if something sounds cool and as log as the game is not garbage, we will take it. You do not want to listen to every litle troll.

The strategy crowd in particular tend to be more intellegent and mature folks than say, a PvP MMO crowd would be. I think everyone here would love to give feedback/ help as our talents allow/ and give CONSTRUSTIVE not DESTRUCTIVE feedback.

[rcb]

I really look forward for the day when I can ask you guys to playtest the thing. Perhaps having real fans criticizing whatever is done spurs me (or other devs) to get it done with greater quality - to everyone's benefit.

As far as I know, Wesnoth is not a porting of an original game, so they are free to design their own game. Since we want to port the original AC, there is not much room for design. Of course it will never be an exact copy, but it should play the same. 

Getting to a more practical issue, a former dev of the freecivAC ruleset confirmed that nobody has been interested in that project since 2003, and that he will add me as a dev on the sourceforge repository, so that I can update the files, the site, etc. So I will from now on call this project freecivAC, that is, I am reactivating that project and picking up where they left, and keeping the name. I find it deliciously recursive that I am reactivating an abandoned project to port an abandoned game

For the time being, I will concentrate on the phase of this project to get AC rules and features into freeciv as much as possible. As soon as it is playable, I will bring it to the forums and ask for playtesters, and criticism. This should take quite a while, but should also be a lot of fun