Re: [TuxKart-devel] The nature of this game.

[Charles G. <ch...@ve...>]

Ok, rant about rant aside, here's a more constructive critique.

On Sat, 2004-07-03 at 12:04 -0500, Steve Baker wrote:
> As must already be very aparrent, I'm not a happy camper.  Just
> about everything that's been discussed here since the GoTM vote
> has been 180 degrees away from where I think it should be going.

It's going the same way that was discussed in the forums.  More and new
characters, with bigger and better karts.  And then some polish on the
game play (physics / AI) plus anything else people are willing to
contribute.

It seems (from my perspective) to be going along exactly to plan.

> It's increasingly aparrent that for many people here, the idea of
> improving and extending TuxKart has somehow changed into a desire
> to essentially throw away EVERYTHING that currently exists and start
> what is an entirely new game.

No, it's not.  It's "take an existing code base and idea and improve
upon it."  We're not saying, "ditch the code."  We're not saying, "ditch
the idea."  You can't explicitly limit what can and cannot be improved
about the game without going against the entire spirit of GotM and Free
Software.

> 1) Ingo's is clearly of the view that he wants a fairly 'normal'
>     GoKart racing game.  TuxKart is not intended to be that.

Ingo's view is a proactive one.  He's done sketches, and created 3D
models based on those sketches.  All of them have different karts.
Maybe not wildly different, but until somebody helps or provides an
alternative, and until he has them in what he considers a final state
(he hasn't even textured them!?) then this is an unfair assertion.

You have had ample opportunity to show us sketches and plans for what
you need.  "More like this game" is just not good enough if you want
people to model your ideas.

>     His models (whilst very nice) are of essentially standard
>     go-karts and not the wilder designs of games like DoubleDash
>     and others of the 'krazy kart' genre.

His are the only decent contributions thus far.

>     He's also expressed (in the Wikki section on tracks) that he
>     wants more normal tracks - shorter laps and a greater emphasis
>     on kart driving with less on the gadgets, powerups and collectibles
>     that are also the trademark of the genre I have in mind.

Assert your authority.  Ingo is not demanding or forcing the issue, just
expressing a preference and opinion.  Are we not allowed opinions?  Or
are we not allowed opinions that differ from yours?

> 2) Changing the GUI entirely.  Well, I can at least understand the
>     logic behind this (although I still disagree with it) - but I think
>     it's out of scope for the GoTM effort - it wasn't even mentioned
>     in the ToDo lists that people voted on.  But - OK - those aren't
>     meant to chain us down.

No chains, so let people work on what they want to work on.  If the end
result is an improvement, then you win.  If not, you get to keep the old
GUI.  No loss.  Why are you complaining about a no-lose situation?

> 3) Characters:  Several people have argued to throw out all of the
>     existing characters (with the possible exception of Tux).  Fine,
>     but unnecessary in my view.  This too was not something that came
>     up in the "ToDo" list or the pre-vote discussions.

Everybody has happily agreed to stick with Gown.  You have to admit that
BSOD and Geeky are hardly charismatic characters.  It's ironic that you
complain Ingo's karts are not "fun" enough yet you want possibly two of
the most boring characters you could imagine to stick in the game.  But,
even then, from what I can see it's been accepted that they're staying
with ideas being thrown around to make them more interesting.  Somebody
even did a new Geeky model.

After expressing a severe dislike for the idea of using Mozilla, Ingo
created a Mozilla model because _you_ mandated having Mozilla.

> 4) Tracks:  Do we intend to improve the existing tracks and add more,
>     or toss out all of them and make entirely new ones?   I kinda get
>     the feeling from reading Wiki and peoples comments that the latter
>     is the basic intent.

The current tracks suck.  Sorry, they do.  Yes, they could be improved
upon, but that's the choice of whomever works on them.  If somebody
provides a lovely, fancy set of cool new tracks then are you going to
reject them purely because they are not an evolution of the old tracks?

You can only guide volunteers, not control them.  You should be grateful
for their contributions if said contributions are an improvement.  Do
not judge the GotM work before we have done some.  We are not stupid
people and will not force sub-standard content upon TuxKart.

> If all of these things come to pass - along with the (very needed) AI
> and physics changes - then there is NOTHING left of the original game.

That's not true.

The original artwork and 3d models are not the greatest and designed for
computers as they were 4-5 years ago (few polys, limited textures).
Part of the whole GotM TODO was to improve upon them (by updating them
or replacing them).

Other than the GUI, I fail to see what your gripe is.  You wanted more
characters and more tracks.  People start the process of providing that
and you are complaining that we are doing what you wanted - renewing and
updating the artwork.  Crazy!

> You might as well leave TuxKart alone and write an entirely new game
> from scratch.   This is fine by me - but there is no chance in hell
> you'll get it finished in two months.

No, because we want to improve upon the codebase, not rewrite it from
scratch.  Just some nice new characters and tracks, some nice new
gameplay features, and plausibly a GUI overhaul.  And you're complaining
about that?  *shakes head*

> IMHO, GoTM has to go back to the original ToDo list that was voted
> on - and confine themselves to improving what's there rather than
> tossing everything out and starting again.

*sighs*

Perhaps you should withdraw TuxKart from GotM because you don't want
your precious work being improved in something that differs very, very
slightly from the way in which you imagined.  It's not like we're here
to break the game, we're here to improve it.

> One of GoTM's bullet items when choosing a game to work on is the
> cooperation of the original author/maintainer.   I can tell you that,
> my cooperation level is plunging - you guys are doing a fine job
> of pissing off the person who single-handedly got the game to the
> point where people liked it enough to overwhelmingly vote for it.
> 
> All of those people didn't vote for your private visions of the
> game - because those visions were never expressed prior to the
> vote.  They voted to improve what they already saw and liked.

We _are_ all those people.  We _all_ voted.  We _expressed_ our desires
and visions prior to voting, and are continuing to evolve them.  I
honestly see no deviation from the forums in the conversations that have
continued on the mailing list, other than you becoming weirdly hostile.

Private visions... opinions... that's what GotM is all about.  We're not
slaves.  We're not here to do your bidding.  We all have ideas and
imaginations and the whole concept of GotM is to utilize that
consolidated creativity.  You cannot control or limit it.  If you wanted
such fine grained control then wtf did you agree to GotM in the first
place?  You seem an intelligent guy.  Did you really think we were a
group of people who would just do what you told us?

> Well, let's do exactly that - and not toss it all out and start
> again from zero.

Nobody said do that.  We can't use the original karts as they're all the
same and too simple.  We're adding new characters that the group all
liked.  I'm sure people will use the existing tracks as a base for
building both improved tracks and new ones.  The GUI... well, just let
other people come up with something before deciding that everybody but
you is wrong.
-- 
- Charlie

Charles Goodwin <ch...@ve...>
Online @ www.charlietech.com