Re: [Arianne-general] History of Arianne: Request for comments

[Stephen I. <Ste...@br...>]

content is good but confusing without any formatting or context ... the
messages from the past the you have inserted seem to blend in to the text
and i got lost in what was now and what was then! :) just needs a little
proof reading (which i can do if you want)

otherwise, cool and a really good idea,

steve

ps i have started work on the document page but need some more time

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Miguel Angel Blanch Lardin" <mig...@ho...>
To: <ari...@li...>
Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2004 6:40 PM
Subject: [Arianne-general] History of Arianne: Request for comments


> Hi all,
> I have been writting a doc about history of Arianne, as we are heading our
5
> anniversary on September.
> I would love you to read the doc please and post anything interesting that
> you would like to add or to know and that I have ignored.
>
> Regards,
> Miguel
>
> --
>
>
> History of Arianne
> Arianne is a project with a huge story behind it.
> All began on when Miguel read on Linuxgames about a post asking "What I'd
> like to see in an RPG". Miguel saw the post and said, heh, there is not a
> single RPG for Linux, it would be nice to create one. Of course Miguel
> didn't know about great games as: Nethack, Crossfire or Altima.
>
> So on July 27, 1999 someone posted about what he would like to view as:
>
> Something in line with your thoughts is my concept of a sort of Sim
Fantasy
> game setting for an RPG. That is, a great deal of effort is done to create
a
> fantasy world that runs logically in a simulated sort of way, from
politics
> to economics to monster populations, and then let the player interact with
> that.
>
> You decide you want to become King of Generia? Perform services for a lord
> until he knights you, then work your way up the noble ranks by marriage,
> heroism, warfare or deceit. Or become a necromancer, build up a huge
undead
> army and attack the kingdom, making yourself ruler when they are defeated.
A
> game that simulated the sort of thing you see in a generic fantasy world
is
> what I'm thinking of here, not an exact medaevil life sim. Incursions of
> dragons, adventurers stirring up the goblins in the hills with their
> attacks, an ancient evil awakened by careless nomads in the desert, you
name
> it, it could happen.
>
> If you wanted to get really ambitious, the entire world might be random.
Use
> a world creator, run a crude form of Civilization on it until you hit the
> right tech level, expand upon the basic parameters from the Civ simulation
> to create the individual lands, peoples, and nations. Populate it with
> random NPCs, run the world for 100 years or so to give it a bit of
history,
> and bingo.
>
> The advantage of this approach is that the game would be infinitely
> playable. The obvious disadvantage is that it would be hard to get
anything
> like a coherent story out of the game without some pretty sophisticated
> story mechanics in place.
>
> Think if it as "Rogue" on a much larger scale. Heh.
>
> And Miguel replied asking for more details and got really interested on
the
> idea. And around a month later the project page was setup and he was
asking
> for help from the hacker community.
>
> The coding of the game has begun. Project Arianne has just started. Visit
> the page http://members.xoom.com/arianne_rpg/ .
> The page is in Spanish if enough people ask for it i will post an
> alternative version in English.
> E-mail yuor ideas,question or feelings about the project.
>
> LINUX FOREVER.
>
>
> I have not been able to find this initial webpage, seems the web went down
> and it has no copy of it on my HD. All I can got from that times is a
short
> declaration of willings about what Arianne should be:
>
> What is Arianne?
> Arianne is an RPG proyect that will have the next set of features:
>
> Infinite World
> Online gameplay
> Permanent world
> Non hardcoded RPG engine
> Open development model of items
> Portable
> The most important part of the game is the offline one.
>
> Ideas to add to project:
> Depending on the path of the player or NPC, it will do or be able to do
some
> actions insteads of others, and as a result there will never be two
similar
> games.
> Every NPC will have a story, a ascendants, a set of goals and a
personality,
> so there is no two exact NPC.
> Items are added to the program using a interpreted language that ease it
> load and that makes it independent of the operating system where the
server
> runs.
> Game will is ruled by laws, economical relations between states, politic
> relations, weather, geography and so.
> To advance on experience points you don't need to kill, but to role play.
>
>
> Fun, isn't it? Keep in mind that the time when this was written, Java was
a
> stupid language featuring version 1.0, none knows about Python and XML was
> the name of a football team. Now that I read it, I think most of the goals
> are clearly hard, very hard to be reached, even with today technology.
>
> The official start day of the project is September 8, 1999. We will use
this
> a birthday date.
> The first webpage of this new era features a much interesting webpage, and
> the very first version of Arianne: a 2D Client.
> ### Website and first screenshot pasted here ###
>
> During that year, Arianne evolved anarchily and fast to a small working
> offline game where the player was able to move around a piece of terrain
of
> around the size of 3 screens. The great achievement of this stage was the
> portability, as game was runable on Windows, Linux and BeOS thanks to SDL
> that on that period was featuring the awesome 0.10 version
>
> On the year 2000, Arianne reach version 0.3.0 that was the first version
to
> feature a real client-server framework. Everything was pretty hardcoded
and
> was extremly difficult to either add new features or fix existing ones,
but
> it keeps it way up to version 0.3.6
> Also on this time the website was recoded using Midgard, a strange content
> management system, but the result was a really clear and nice website.
> ### Website and 0.3.x screenshot ###
>
> The real achivement of this release was the creation of a nice core of
> developers, of whom I think the most relevants were Ulrich Eckhardt,
> Masahiro Minami and Dan Brown, and the fact that the client was running on
> Linux, Windows, BeOS and MacOS. The base still has the problem of being
very
> hardcoded and the source was really really bad written so we did what has
> been a constant in Arianne: completly recode it saving the knowedge
> adquiered.
>
> This has been one of the greatest thing of Arianne and what on the worst,
it
> was great because we knew we could do better and we started to code it
again
> from scratch, but it was the worst because it halted the project for
around
> 6 months, where there was no significative progress.
> The project numering was changed from the expected 0.4.0 version to 1.0.0
> alpha 1.
> The whole Arianne project was extremly well documented, everything, from
> specification to design was written down on webpages and make available
for
> everyone, and skipping big details on the implementation the design is
still
> valid.
>
> Miguel managed to coordinate a nice amount of persons, around 30 and make
a
> standard image of the project so everything looks like part of Arianne, of
a
> common project..
>
> On the year 2001, it was the year of Arianne. Even more people came to the
> project, but we started to notice a strange type of contributor: the
camper,
> people that came to the projetc, asked for tasks and vanished after that.
It
> was a pity because that type of persons delayed the project a lot and made
> harder to keep features to being added.
> A new website was created, and the first version of the alpha 1 releases
was
> created named Pandora.
> ### Website and 1.0.x screenshot ###
>
> This version featured a basic server-client framework, that was easy to
> debug and expand, and that should settle the base of our next steps. This
> year also happened a two more releases of tech previews of Galadriel that
> was the 1.2 version of Arianne. It started to feature a database backend,
> and a secure login procedure
>
> On year 2002 Arianne releases a major version, named Galadriel, that added
> python RP system, a database backend for accounts, a XML storage for world
> and a small 2D client using Kyra, a sprite engine for SDL. The website was
> created again, this time using PHPNuke, trust me, you won't want to run
> PHPNuke. Olivier Milla and Djagg worked on the website really hard to make
> it unique and different and they did a real good work.
>
> The progress on the project was really awesome, even if some of the core
> developers dropped, and so great contributors arrived of whom I can point
> Skyflash. The project was number 1 on Sourceforge for around 1 month
during
> July, 2002. That means very hard work.
> But then the problems arrived, code was again, not so clean and nice as
> Miguel thinks it should be, and he suggested a new recode of the project
to
> which some others said no. That and the fact that Miguel was the one that
> write code, web pages, do PR, manage project and everything else give a
> result of a burn out, declaring the project as dead around Sep, 24.
>
>
> Arianne is dead.
>
> This project is really exhausted and IMO it can"t continue anymore on the
> actualy structure. There are 27 developers on Sourceforge and only steve
has
>   been working lately with PHP of developers site and Skyflash with
changing
> the sites content.
>
> So 24 of those 27 persons are doing NOTHING.
>
> And well, things are even worse if you take a look to the developers site.
> There are several people joined... around 20, I have dedicated several
hours
> of my personal time to create tasks and fill them with good descriptions
so
> that people can take them and just look what is the reply... Only steve
has
> used it.
> None except again Steve and Skyflash has filled a single task.
> None of the GFX people has joined the site.
>
> Well, and about mailing lists... more of the same... I have do a CALL for
> people to know what everyone is doing here... and the reply has been
> nothing:  None has had time to write a few lines explaining what they are
> doing.
>
> Project code needs a total clearing... I am writting test cases for
Arianne
> and it has found to be really instable on the Connection and Thread
related
> things, so the only way to continue is to clear it or recode it.
>
> If someone offers to take the leadership of Arianne I will transfer him
all
> the keycodes and all the rights over the code that I have written, so that
> he can  continue Arianne as s/he thinks it is better, even changing the
> license.
>
> If none offers to take it, I will meditate about either shutting down it,
or
>   clearing ALL and start again from the begin of the begin in a new way no
> developers, no website, no teams, no tasks, no contributions, no ideas.
>
> One of the biggest errors of Arianne has been to be too open, we have
> accepted on the team people that is not really to take the task, we have
> accepted tons of ideas that are really impossible to be done, I have
failed
> to motivate and coordinate this group of people into working on it. Also I
> have written a huge ammount of documetation, several of you will say that
> docs are a shit ( like Uli did ) but again, none has written a better one,
> what Uli wrote was only a email long documentation in a very technical
> language that hardly can help a newbie to understand it. I have created,
> used and recommended sourceforge trackers but little people has really
used
> it.
>
> I have tried to do an schedule of the project but people has not
contributed
> a single line to inform me of what they are doing.
> You don"t document anything... nor decisions, nor code.
>
> Personally, I still have the same motivation to create a MMOG as before
> starting to work on Arianne, so I will for sure retry it, either on
Arianne
> or  by my own with the experience that I have get on Ariane.
>
> Anyway, I really want to thank you all the 3 years of Arianne, I have meet
> real good friends, I have had great times and I have felt the proud of
being
> an open  source developer, I also have felt the sadness of getting only
bad
> words of  what you do, from inside and outside, I have also understand
that
> people always talk more than they can do. Anyway, Thanks to all.
>
> Regards,
> Miguel
>
>
> Now that I read the letter, I see that I was really under the burn off
> syndrome :-D
> After that something that I really didn't expected happened, but I got
> several request to transfer the leadership of the project but the only
ones
> that I considered serious were Euan Mee and Skyflash, after a month or so
of
> internal debate a poll was taken and everyone agreed, even Skyflash to
> transfer the leadership to Euan.
> Euan period was really short in fact. Euan though that leader must not be
> the best and greatest developer, and well the fact that the leader must be
> the example to follow soon happen. There was lot of consulting on the
> project, it was evaluated on its whole extension and lots of things were
> proposed to be improved. But Euan disappeared.
> After that Skyflash took the leadership and using the base work of both
> Euan's period and the previous work he started to work on a new version
that
> were featuring a 3D client using plib.
>
> On year 2003, the project started to move again, without dropping the
> previous code Skyflash managed to fix bugs and add new features, as a 3D
> client that allowed players to move, fight and cast magic. That version of
> Arianne featured a Lua scripting engine that made everything very
> interesting. This version was called Naxos, starting again a new version
> naming scheme.
> ### Screenshot of Naxos ###
>
> The progress of the project was totally in Skyflash's hands, and he did a
> great job, but he had to move back to home on Sep, 2003 and he requested
> someone to take over the project for at least 6 months or 1 year.
>
> Meanwhile I started Marauroa, a java clone of Arianne that has the things
I
> though Arianne should have had, UDP, a database backend, persistent
objects,
> scriptable, robust. Around Dec, 2003 I had a version that was already
> superior to Arianne written code thanks to the help of Waldemar Tribus.
>
> I asked Skyflash to pass me leader token for the next 6 months, and so on
> October, 2003 I became again leader of Arianne.
> Lots of things had to be fixed and I started the work.
> I first created a new page and removed the PHPNuke, and I used a previous
> website that Djagg wrote for Arianne. Then I wrote a revision of the
project
> status to know what where working and how. The result was that the project
> was advanced but really blocked on all the paths because the main
developer
> of each area was MIA.
> So as I had Marauroa on a stable status, and I was really amazed of how
> stable Java was, I suggested to use Marauroa as Arianne server. And as
there
> was no better idea, I got it.
>
> On year 2004, Marauroa joined Arianne as a single project, and we
redefined
> Arianne's goals, now Arianne is a framework to create online multiplayer
> games, and Marauroa is the content management system of Arianne framework.
> Marauroa now features a fully scriptable RP engine using Python.
> Arianne was rewritten, but now only as a client side only application to
be
> able to connect to a Marauroa server, and it was simplified so it was
> extremly easy to write new games, and it was also added a Python binding
so
> that you can develop Arianne games using Python.
>
> ### Marauroa, Gladiators and new website ###
>
> Arianne heads now as a great framework for developing games featuring at
the
> time of writting this three games using the system on its alpha stage.
>
> On 2004 Sep, 8 Arianne will be 5 years old.
>
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