Do we want a new version of Elma?

totem · Post by **totem** » 5 Sep 2012, 16:19

Qt is good, in my opinion better choice than boost library

Ropelli · Post by **Ropelli** » 5 Sep 2012, 16:23

totem wrote:Qt is good, in my opinion better choice than boost library

they serve whole different things, and besides, how qt is even appropriate for opengl-like software?

totem · Post by **totem** » 5 Sep 2012, 16:27

Ropelli wrote:they serve whole different things

agreed, yet both could be used here

Ropelli wrote:besides, how qt is even appropriate for opengl-like software?

there is GL support in Qt, look at last version of NEW!

This said, we would have to distribute elma2 with Qt dlls. QtCore if only core functionnalities are used, QtOpenGL and QtGui if we want to use Qt as GL support

Lousku · Post by **Lousku** » 5 Sep 2012, 16:30

Pawq wrote:everyone would have to learn elma basically from scratch, this time using both alos.

Gross exaggeration. You'd adapt to it in a matter of weeks. That still doesn't mean it's a good idea, though.

Smibu · Post by **Smibu** » 5 Sep 2012, 16:34

There's an IRC channel for Elma 2 now, see this topic for details.

Kopaka · Post by **Kopaka** » 5 Sep 2012, 16:35

Seems there's different opinions as to wether we want an elma 2 or an elma 1.4. Where elma 2 would be gameplay changing features that require fresh wr table etc, and elma 1.4 would be same basic gameplay with added convinience features.

What I would propose is something like a hybrid between the two. WRs, normal battles etc. are played with same basic gameplay as now, meaning no left alo or ghost bike. But you can add left alo the same way we have one wheel or no brake atm. in EOL. Something you can add as a cripple in a battle, something you can turn on/off when playing normally and the times would be saved with a flag and not into normal best time tables. Then you can make whatever teleports, exploding bananas and icy ground you want.

Of course the big overarching issue in regard to prolonging the life of elma is compatibility with modern operating systems. Even with PC's made 12 years after elma's release there can be problem with applications in the baggrund, dz reported big issues with win8, there's a lot of issues in linux, color issues etc. So stuff like framework which you're already talking about is some of the most important stuff.

This is big project, if we were to do this, we would need maybe a handfull of developers. In theory one guy might be able to do it in a couple years, but like with mila and EOL there will always be times where you have no orka or where there's too many other things taking up time, and it would end up never being finished completely.

Then there's something to be decided about how decisions should be made, just having developers make whatever features they fancy is gonna be a mess. Needs of course public discussion about everything, maybe a topic for each little feature, but maybe also some decision making group or whatever, and developers makes only what have been decided here. Need developers we can trust, and/or that they check each others code, so someone doesn't add 1008 speed for himself

. About balazs I dunno, he is aware of EOL but haven't sued anyone. Would be nice to hire him and Csaba to make new internals

.

Smibu · Post by **Smibu** » 5 Sep 2012, 19:25

Here's a link for planning the new features: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13Tu ... Fb_d8/edit

Pingywings · Post by **Pingywings** » 5 Sep 2012, 20:37

sounds good, is it pasibel to have a better internal editor?

Igge · Post by **Igge** » 5 Sep 2012, 20:39

Pingywings wrote:sounds good, is it pasibel to have a better internal editor?

No.

umiz · Post by **umiz** » 5 Sep 2012, 20:42

Igge wrote:
Pingywings wrote:sounds good, is it pasibel to have a better internal editor?
No.

Its already perfect.

culinko · Post by **culinko** » 5 Sep 2012, 20:51

Smibu wrote:Here's a link for planning the new features: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13Tu ... Fb_d8/edit

i agree with all except left alo, turbo, 3D, gears.

also, there are some "minor things" mentioned here: http://trivia.idiaths.ru/ - like different wheel size, menu helmet, overlapping bike textures and other similar graphical glitches.

ville_j · Post by **ville_j** » 5 Sep 2012, 21:09

CuLiNo wrote: i agree with all except left alo, turbo, 3D, gears.

Hopefully you did notice these are in NOT WANTED section =)

culinko · Post by **culinko** » 5 Sep 2012, 21:13

Ville_J wrote:
CuLiNo wrote: i agree with all except left alo, turbo, 3D, gears.
Hopefully you did notice these are in NOT WANTED section =)

some of them are crossed out, so i have no idea what does that mean

Benjamin · Post by **Benjamin** » 5 Sep 2012, 21:46

Nice initiative, there are so many things possible with a complete new Elma from scratch.

Before right alovolt was patched, alo´s where almost impsy. Then new wr's were driven. Why is adding left alo then wrong? It's almost the same situation...

Lousku · Post by **Lousku** » 5 Sep 2012, 21:47

Benjamin wrote:Before right alovolt was patched, alo´s where almost impsy.

Nat. Easy to master. Not the same situation at all as it's actually impsy to perform left alo with current physics.

Zweq · Post by **Zweq** » 5 Sep 2012, 22:20

Back in the day ppl didn't know how to fiddle with vsync, or some cards didnt even use to have that option, so you might be stuck with low or high fps. With low fps you could do alovolt pretty consistently. So it was just a fair patch . Reversed alovolt is just arbitrary shit

Grace · Post by **Grace** » 6 Sep 2012, 02:18

Some musings:

1. I think we should further the organisation of how level packs work. Sometimes when downloading new levs from a pack you get wrong levs from EOL db, get names uncapitalised etc.

Is it possible to separate packs into another folder? lev folder, rec folder, pack folder. Packs each have own folders inside for each pack, lev folder just random externals/balle

Currently there is some system in game for Level packs but it never really worked as intended. Perhaps some "download pack" key necessary and we have a list of packs where the designer submits on teh EOL site or to some admin a complete pack - where all is as intended to be. Then we have pack added to site and if you download that pack, it downloads the full pack to pack folder in it's own already divided folder. Can have "external levels" and "pack levels" as separate openable directories ingame similar to how we have externals now. This would fix the current messy system we have on EOL site that has errors due to duplicated entities in database and so on, so forth.

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2. Ingame support for starting battles, aborting battles, stopping battles etc. This could go quite nicely with that "mouse support" option. Right click a lev, click "Start balle" and it takes you to a menu that has all the normal startballe.exe options. Should be able to see queued levs using F3 as "13 minute first battle" or some and when right click it shows designer and maybe some level stats like #apples/flowers, "One Wheel/First Finish/slowness/Left Alo" etc. Mods can abort queued levs using this right click function. Important to always have current balle in queue as well so can abort/stop DURING balle also.

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3. More rides recorded - have stats2.txt and when you go "See Best Times" in levik, it show also "See more times" and can go to see mb 1000 saved times or 100 or something. Could just use same scroll options as searching levs/recs

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4. Mouse support - need mouse control in lev directory and rec directory. Mousewheel for uberfast scrolls, click a lev/rec = start playing teh.

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5. This is a little bit more difficult, but is it possible to make an ingame interface/database area for something like VJ's rec database? Whereby we have a centralised location for some levs where recs can be uploaded. Could work nicely again with mouse options. Click on a rec "Show ride details" comes up as one option which is current Ctrl+Alt+Enter, also "Set as ghost" which can be toggled on and off by some hotkey during ride, Other options include "upload to replay database" which takes rec to replay database and now your rec there including who drove it so can always see. Would be like

42.
47.35 by Tm
47.39 by Thundr-
... etc

If you click on teh rec, it download. If you right click on teh rec, it show details include maybe self-writed description (optional) and appel times, max speed, onewheel etc.

Could also have New replays uploaded section on EOL site.

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that is all for now, i have many ideas more though

Hosp · Post by **Hosp** » 6 Sep 2012, 02:54

Nice ideas Haruhi but I like to use the keyboard for everything in game except making levels in editor, so if you do mouse thingys I think you should still make it poss to use keyboard to watch replays and enter levels and all.

Grace · Post by **Grace** » 6 Sep 2012, 03:34

Hosp wrote:Nice ideas Haruhi but I like to use the keyboard for everything in game except making levels in editor, so if you do mouse thingys I think you should still make it poss to use keyboard to watch replays and enter levels and all.

of course.

Kopaka · Post by **Kopaka** » 6 Sep 2012, 09:54

Haruhi wrote:yada yada

I imagine it being very integrated with eol database. As in all times of yours you see ingame are those that are saved in db. Maybe not best idea to have it load directly from db everytime, but at least being able to sync it. So for example you can get your times back when reinstalling, or can see your times instantly when logging in to elma from another's comp. (of coruse a bit more stats shown in-game than now, like TT) Same would go for settings and stuff aswell. Same with levels, maybe replays: You can browse and dl all packs that are created on the site, kind of like you said. But again it's sync'd which you have dl'd. And maybe better than folders, you can select diff filters like packs, battle, other, and within those filter by year, month or designer. Again it can check which levs are battles from db etc.

Imo this would be one of the most useful convinient features and biggest reasons to make a new version, besides what I said in earlier post.

culinko · Post by **culinko** » 6 Sep 2012, 15:59

agree with Haruhi. and having a replay database would be max.

Bludek · Post by **Bludek** » 6 Sep 2012, 19:44

yes, I would love to have TT showed in-game! Maybe next to player's name or more likely in the menu

possible in EOL yet?

culinko · Post by **culinko** » 6 Sep 2012, 23:34

just remembered another bug in replays. sometimes, the run is finished, but it seems you are few milimeters away from the flower.

zebra · Post by **zebra** » 7 Sep 2012, 06:01

Some ideas:

There could be a master server, which would be used to find game servers. A dedicated server exe would be available so everyone who wishes could make his own (uphill) server. I think multiple servers could be needed if this elma 2 becomes available for free and a new generation will rise. Levels and recs could be saved to master server and those could be the official wrs. A dedicated server could be put up in a LAN where there is not necessarily connection to master server. Or can we assume there is always internet connection?

If we are going to make everything from scratch, I think it will be Elma 2.0. If we were only patching the Elma 1.3 or EOL, then it could be called Elma 1.4. Also I think that Across is still better known than Elma, so this project's name could be Across 3.0.

Grace · Post by **Grace** » 7 Sep 2012, 07:27

elma > across

Bludek · Post by **Bludek** » 7 Sep 2012, 11:36

zebra wrote:Also I think that Across is still better known than Elma, so this project's name could be Across 3.0.

bullshit

zebra wrote:Or can we assume there is always internet connection?

yes

culinko · Post by **culinko** » 7 Sep 2012, 14:03

Haruhi wrote:elma > across

Zweq · Post by **Zweq** » 7 Sep 2012, 14:31

whats up with the across disrespect

that's where all the cool decisions and polishing work for elma were made. Too bad with the collision detection/reaction bug in vertices. What's really cool about elma/across is that the wheel is actually perfectly nonelastic (or whatever) so it doesn't bounce at all, instead all the energy goes in the suspension mechanism. So if you take an elma wheel and throw it on a wall it would stick on the wall and slowly start sliding down)

Hosp · Post by **Hosp** » 7 Sep 2012, 14:40

In-game shirt creator would be coal.

jonsykkel · Post by **jonsykkel** » 7 Sep 2012, 16:29

Zweq wrote:What's really cool about elma/across is that the wheel is actually perfectly nonelastic (or whatever) so it doesn't bounce at all, instead all the energy goes in the suspension mechanism. So if you take an elma wheel and throw it on a wall it would stick on the wall and slowly start sliding down)

yehh =)d thats the reason its so smooth compared to most other bikecycle games

Lousku · Post by **Lousku** » 7 Sep 2012, 16:45

zebra wrote:There could be a master server, which would be used to find game servers. A dedicated server exe would be available so everyone who wishes could make his own (uphill) server. I think multiple servers could be needed if this elma 2 becomes available for free and a new generation will rise. Levels and recs could be saved to master server and those could be the official wrs. A dedicated server could be put up in a LAN where there is not necessarily connection to master server. Or can we assume there is always internet connection?

Was some discussion about this on irc last night, I'll just paste:

Code: Select all

[01:57:54] <Louskebab> how about simultaneous battles? private battles? has been any discussion about teh?
[01:58:06] <Louskebab> would be much more imaginable if cursor added
[01:58:29] <@Markku-> with mouse support, balle starting should be ez ingame
[01:58:35] <@Markku-> no need for separate startballe
[01:58:42] <@Kopaka> would be nice ye, atleast to plan it from start so possible to do
[01:58:46] <Louskebab> yeah, but many battles running at same time?
[01:58:58] <@Kopaka> could be awesome for meetings and such
[01:59:06] <Louskebab> yeah. private servers even?
[01:59:12] <Louskebab> lan flagtag :ooo~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[01:59:39] <@Markku-> private uphill server for nekit and madness
[01:59:45] <@Kopaka> no reason to no be able to see everyone else aswell, a private battle could just be locked to outsiders so they don't play it too
[01:59:59] <@Markku-> yeo
[02:00:16] <Louskebab> didn't get teh, hmm?
[02:00:29] <@Kopaka> like you set specific ppl that can play it
[02:00:33] <@Markku-> start private balle, select participants
[02:00:35] <@Kopaka> others can still see you in f5
[02:00:39] <@Kopaka> but cant dl the lev nad play
[02:00:45] <Louskebab> ah ye
[02:01:02] <Louskebab> meant that as "no reason for priva servers" ?
[02:01:16] <@Kopaka> ye
[02:01:28] <Louskebab> well.. uptime would be a reason
[02:01:31] <Louskebab> and lag
[02:02:08] <Louskebab> flagtag already is mostly hard to play because of lag
[02:02:19] <@Kopaka> well, with offline caching that is sent to server when back, and also you need to send times to same db all the time if make wr and sach
[02:02:48] <@Kopaka> hmm ye, lag as to how you see others are a prob
[02:03:10] <@Kopaka> wouldn't help with priv server though?
[02:03:15] <@Kopaka> it's ping in flagtag
[02:03:23] <@Markku-> would work fine in lan i guess
[02:03:25] <Louskebab> then it'd be dependent on your own hardware, no?
[02:03:38] <@Kopaka> ah ye in lan pasibel it would be fine
[02:03:51] <Louskebab> rare situations where own server would be needed, though. maybe not enough for a relatively huge addition.
[02:04:17] <@Kopaka> ez some "sync bike positions over lan when possible" option :)

That covers pretty much all the potential benefits of having a public dedicated server exe, no?

zebra wrote:Also I think that Across is still better known than Elma, so this project's name could be Across 3.0.

That seems to be true in Finland. Not sure. Good idea anyway.

zebra · Post by **zebra** » 8 Sep 2012, 12:43

Lousku wrote:
zebra wrote:Also I think that Across is still better known than Elma, so this project's name could be Across 3.0.
That seems to be true in Finland. Not sure. Good idea anyway.

At least it's true when I have talked with some of my old friends

And Across was the game I fell in love with. Elma was just an (essential) update to it that worked also in Windows. Actually I was a bit disappointed that Elma had 99% the same levels than in Across, so basically there wasn't so much new (only a little more elasticity).

Another question is that who will make the graphics? There will be 32-bit graphics (I guess) in this new version. So who is good at making 2d graphics?

Pascal · Post by **Pascal** » 8 Sep 2012, 13:03

I like some ideas from Snadles' video Elastomania: What If? - Object Triggers (Doors) and Telekinesis (this one would be cool for some balles). Possible to do?

pawq · Post by **pawq** » 8 Sep 2012, 14:38

Lee · Post by **Lee** » 8 Sep 2012, 20:33

Just thought of another idea:
Using polygons as masking instead of being restricted to those three rectangular pictures. This is a must imo.

culinko · Post by **culinko** » 8 Sep 2012, 21:44

Lee wrote:Just thought of another idea:
Using polygons as masking instead of being restricted to those three rectangular pictures. This is a must imo.

yeah that is a cool idea

Grace · Post by **Grace** » 9 Sep 2012, 04:29

Lee wrote:Just thought of another idea:
Using polygons as masking instead of being restricted to those three rectangular pictures. This is a must imo.

Yes, this is one of the most important features.

Lee · Post by **Lee** » 9 Sep 2012, 09:55

Just adding to my last post:
Being able to select a texture for an individual polygon, thus removing the need for masking at all in some cases.

Zweq · Post by **Zweq** » 11 Sep 2012, 20:36

i think if you're gonna fix apple bug there should still be possibility to create levs with skippable apples, add some shit to lev format or something

Lousku · Post by **Lousku** » 11 Sep 2012, 20:53

Also pasibel simple addition: levs without flowers. Take all appels and it's finished.

J-sim · Post by **J-sim** » 11 Sep 2012, 22:05

that's a pretty fucking good idea right there!

edit: to try and just contribute a little bit - a battlestart alert pop-up type thing would be nice. could perhaps be customizable to certain battle types, lengths or designers of your chosing.

dz · Post by dz » 11 Sep 2012, 23:06

Oh dear, this is so chaotic. I understand the first reactions full of excitement but before it gets any serious there needs to be a proper project management that takes this up and proper decision making process.

Sounds exciting though. But how to proceed, that's the biggest challenge.

Lousku · Post by **Lousku** » 12 Sep 2012, 00:09

Yeah, this topic is not wheer the planning happens. #new-elma @ ircnet, and some other supersecret places!

trew · Post by **trew** » 12 Sep 2012, 01:06

Lousku wrote:Also pasibel simple addition: levs without flowers. Take all appels and it's finished.

A few of that kind of lev has been battled. Basicly you put flowers and apples on the same places, so it's definitely something that can be added to a new version.

Igge · Post by **Igge** » 12 Sep 2012, 06:06

Lousku wrote:Also pasibel simple addition: levs without flowers. Take all appels and it's finished.

Just add a flower to every appel

Ropelli · Post by **Ropelli** » 12 Sep 2012, 08:08

dz wrote:Oh dear, this is so chaotic. I understand the first reactions full of excitement but before it gets any serious there needs to be a proper project management that takes this up and proper decision making process.

Sounds exciting though. But how to proceed, that's the biggest challenge.

It is already serious. Design about the implementation have been already decided, and some basic coding is done. Still, the project should be actively developed, so it should have at least couple of people who understands coding and the code. Now what I have experienced, there are actually quite few people who could actually do this. And it seems they aren't that interested in it. For example, totem said he won't have much time on it, and others haven't done anything about the code yet. They haven't been that active on the plannings a
either. It will take forever if there aren't people actually making this happen. Features can be discussed later, now people should focus on the making.

Zweq · Post by **Zweq** » 12 Sep 2012, 08:53

dz: well there was just some brainstorming goin on.

Perhaps it's unnecessary to write all shit about new features atm, I just wanted to make sure no classic bugs that have become features are fixed later and then forgotten.

totem · Post by **totem** » 12 Sep 2012, 13:24

Ye sorry, I'm too old for that now

i spent so much time on NEW!
It's like 40,000 lines of code in the end I guess, not counting what I've done and deleted, refactored, rewritten, etc. for more than 2,5 years (but i was alone and without specifications).
IMO Elma2 is not expected to demand less work, i don't really know. Nevertheless I can review code and help every now and then of course

zebra · Post by **zebra** » 12 Sep 2012, 14:03

I'm still interested but I don't have much time right now.
I think planning is maybe even more important to do now than implement it right away. Now it's easy to plan which features we really want. Some features may require that we implement the game in certain way and now it's still easy to change. Anyway I think that we already know quite well what we want

Kopaka · Post by **Kopaka** » 12 Sep 2012, 21:24

I started a list of coders on the implementation doc, so that we might get a better idea who is interested in helping, and what kind of skills and knowledge people have. So if you want to help, add yourself there, with nick, relevant skills, and what you might want to do. To get an idea what kind of "jobs" there could be, ropelli wrote this at some point:

Code: Select all

(Ropelli_) yeah well what ive been thinking that there is an interface between all these stuff, like drawing(opengl), maths(physics & collisions), network code, etc and each one could focus on their own thing

If you don't have edit rights to the doc, contact ropelli with your gmail.