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Keeping the smart alive?

Posted: 26 May 2013, 18:48
by zombare
first i have to say, i love smart. its the best plugin there was. i havent seen smart plugin anymore on any server, so i assume it dont work anymore with current versions?

if the developers dont have anymore interest keeping the smart alive, could it be passed on to somebody who is actively involved in SM and make smart alive again? or just give permission to someones to make it compatitible with the incoming version as they come?
im sure someone could take good care of it and ofcourse give all credits to guys who originally developed it, so all the previous hard work wont be just in vain and admins who loves it can use it again..

i would really love to see smart again!

Re: Keeping the smart alive?

Posted: 26 May 2013, 18:53
by Xymph
Read the existing topic instead of starting a new one. :roll:

Re: Keeping the smart alive?

Posted: 26 May 2013, 19:02
by zombare
well yes, the topic might look like same, but the inside message is different, my friend :)

what i mean is, instead of waiting for the developer to update it (which havent been done for over 4months), im suggesting to give it partially for somebody who can actively update it to work with newest versions and keep the smart alive and running, so admins can use it and dont have to wait for the day that might never come.

Re: Keeping the smart alive?

Posted: 26 May 2013, 19:09
by steeffeen
exactly, i would like to see opening it up to the community as well ;)

Re: Keeping the smart alive?

Posted: 27 May 2013, 08:46
by insomnia-yamyam
Hi all!

First of all thanks for the compliments zombare, i agree with you :thumbsup:

Currently SMART is dead and it is not looking like it will be reduxed sometime.
(Xymph linked you the correct thread and informations already)


About your idea to make SMART "open source" available to the community:

Basically a very good idea, this could at least bring back SMART to some kind of "usable" state again.
But i sadly have to say that i do not think that anyone can really continue or is able to continue SMART.
SMART is very complex and vni (the main developer and founder) and the rest of us invested hundreds and thousands of hours into SMART and he is a "master" of programing and very ... you guessed it .. SMART :D

So this is just my opinion, but even if vni would agree to make it "open source" or to give someone the "licence" to develop smart further, then i sadly guess this would not end good and at the end a bunch of more or less good programers which would struggle around with SMART and it would end up in a nonsatisfying mess like seen on other controllers. (means not really good, but also not really bad but kinda choatic and non structured).

Again: This is only my valuation!

But before making a mess out of SMART and a more or less smooth working controller it may be better to keep it dead :|

But i will talk about this option and your idea with vni as soon as i get in touch with him again.

So thanks for your thoughts, idea and compliments!

Re: Keeping the smart alive?

Posted: 30 May 2013, 09:48
by zombare
hmm, i wish i had skills to do it. i dont have the license.txt on my computer, but is it allowed for someone to make working update version, put zip somewhere and people can use it?

I also think it dont need to be updated all the time, but more of one update to make it work with current version. the older one worked fine to the day of release, that included lots of shootmania versions during beta before.

so if not to make the project completely alive, just one update to make it work atleast could be enough for the start?

i also wish vni himself could do this, or give permission for someone, as now when shootmania is becoming more stable and the new version could carry on long time without need for updates.

Re: Keeping the smart alive?

Posted: 30 May 2013, 11:48
by insomnia-yamyam
zombare wrote:i also wish vni himself could do this
Sorry to tell you, but i've just talked with him extensively about this and there is currently NO CHANCE AT ALL that he will bring SMART back to live again!

Nadeo just made to much fails, wrong decisions, bullshit, crap and massive bugs in the ridiculous amount of betas, patches and release-time displacements and he and the whole team just invested too much free-time in this project without having any benefit from it at all.

Our own approaches towards quality regarding SMART would cost and require too much motivation, too much time and too much money to bring SMART back to live with the whole "original developer team" that there is no chance that this will happen again.

Nadeo just lost too much credibility and reputation to bring people like us back to "work for them" on a game some of us already and even lost the hope that it will have success or even make fun. Nadeo not even really supports server controller developer like us! So we do all on our own just to have them nice and smooth server controllers for the community?! no way. I think we have asked for several months or even years to bring nadeo finally to implement RPC-Callbacks into their game mode scripts which we hardly needed, nothing ... the did not, never. (Just to bring one example)

Sorry for this bad news.

zombare wrote:i also wish vni himself could do this, or give permission for someone, as now when shootmania is becoming more stable and the new version could carry on long time without need for updates.
First of all that is not possible and it is just wrong to think that any version will carry long time without needed updates. Let me tell you, as part of the dev-team, that nearly ALL updates from nadeo, every single patch of shootmania (if not just a small hotfix) and of course every new game mode or script changements will NEED and FORCE smart to be updated and adjusted. This is one of the reasons why we do not want and have time to keep smart alive.

But no matter to the license we have published SMART (as ManiacTwister is right), it is a matter of common decency to ask us or at least vni for approval if someone wants to start the development of SMART in future.

I have talked with him about this too and if there is someone who is SERIOUSLY interested and SERIUOSLY able and got enough programer abilities, he can contact me by PM and/or just start to do so.

So the only chance to bring SMART back to live and frequently updated is that there will be someone out there who got enough skill, time and motivation. Then i may be ready to help and support him as my time and motivation will let me.

Greetings
yamyam

Re: Keeping the smart alive?

Posted: 30 May 2013, 12:09
by magnetik
You started your work on a the dedicated while the server was in early beta stage and change were numerous to support each new features.

We (on ManiaLive) have supported every patch of dedicated server and it didn't take more than a few minutes on each update.


PS:Callbacks are now included in each official titles.

Re: Keeping the smart alive?

Posted: 30 May 2013, 13:04
by The_Big_Boo
insomnia-yamyam wrote:Nadeo not even really supports server controller developer like us!
Yeah, it really lacks of RPC features and customizations compared to any other game :roll:
insomnia-yamyam wrote:he and the whole team just invested too much free-time in this project without having any benefit from it at all.
I'm sure you spent as much free-time as people like Slig, Xymph, aseco and others who are working on server controllers for free. They never asked server hosters to pay a licence for using their work whereas you did.
More generally, a lot of people invested, are investing and will invest more time and more money that you'll ever do (Dedimania, Maniapark, ManiaXchange, ET, etc.) You shouldn't talk about investing free-time when you clearly don't have the passion all these guys have.
insomnia-yamyam wrote:every single patch of shootmania (if not just a small hotfix) and of course every new game mode or script changements will NEED and FORCE smart to be updated and adjusted
Maybe you should ask yourself about the programming skills of vni you were talking about in your previous post. If SMART can't be maintained easily, then there are serious problems in its conception. As magnetik said, it takes only a few minutes to update ManiaLive when needed, why isn't it the same for SMART if it's done by a "master of programming"?