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OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
Just wondering how Shrapnel is doing. I mean, you host this web site, and forum, and aside from the 30 or so posters (and I hope customers) we seldom see any other posters.
I was just wondering if business is good? I would hate to see this site go down. I know that I reqularly recommend SEIV and other Shrapnel titles to PC Gamers, and for the most part, I hope, they check out the site and buy some games. |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
It's called "playing it smart." Shrapnel knows not to overextend itself and when it sees a good prize. Look at Space Empires IV!
Many companies over extended themselves and look at where they are now. In my job of telemarketing for Home Improvement products, I all to often meet laid off dot-com workers who founded a company, or was involved in the founding, and now have NO JOB. Shrapnel was smart and kept themselves below the radar. ------------------ ------------------------------------ HADRIAN AVENTINE pacea@solar-outpost.com http://www.hyperionbase.com |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
You have to remember that less than 1% of folks who buy a game stop by the forums ever. Actually SE:IV is a fairly active forum for a gaming site. If you go to the big boys web sites you will rarely find more than that number of hard core posters...
------------------ Sarge is coming... Richard Arnesen Director of Covert Ops Shrapnel Games http://www.shrapnelgames.com |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
Plus, what Richard failed to mention because he is so humble, is that Shrapnel is pretty much a one-man operation...HIM!
(And he is probably ridiculously underpaid for the amount of work he does, so that helps to keep the overhead low. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif ) Geo Edit: Richard must have liked the nice things I said about him. I got promoted to Major with that post. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif [This message has been edited by geoschmo (edited 31 July 2001).] |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
There's an old rule of thumb that goes all the way back to the days of FidoNet, at least. For every person who Posts to a message board, there are about ten "lurkers" who read the Boards but rarely if ever post.
------------------ Cap'n Q The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu" |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
I was a lurker for 3 months before I finally posted. Richard, is SE IV a good selling game? For that matter, what is your top selling game right now?
What are your future plans for more games? |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
Shrapnel won't release actual sales figures, (at least they wouldn't in the past when we asked them) but Richard has said that Space Empires IV is far and away the largest seller Shrapnel has had.
But even at that it doesn't comepare to the sales a "Major" game publisher would have. Geoschmo |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
Well we're actually a two man team with many volunteers and contract (ie do some side sound and art work for us) employees http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif.
Have you heard of the other underground hit Combat Mission? Well SE:IV is starting to get not too far from their projected sales (from the sources I have) if that gives you a clue. SE:IV has done VERY well for Aaron and us, and it is by far our largest seller (around 5 times our other previous highest seller to date). ------------------ Sarge is coming... Richard Arnesen Director of Covert Ops Shrapnel Games http://www.shrapnelgames.com |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
Good, Hope SE5 is coming along well then? http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif
------------------ I'm an Idiot? Well if that's not the kettle smelling the pot's back! |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
Yes, lurkers, like me, who drop in a post only every so often, make up a large chunk. But, for statistics: PBW has 750 registered and perhaps 200 active Users. I also play Black and White, a bazillion-copy seller--and their forums have probably about the same number of actives, maybe 200. I think _that_ says a chunk. Perhaps more about the community, but any game that can create such a large community following is bound to be doing well.
LL http://seiv.pbw.cc/ |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
Hi Richard!
May I ask you how many pieces of SE4 Shrapnel has sold? Or is this number a secret? Thanks very much for the info. bye KlausD |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
read this forum all days and post only one or two times a month.....
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Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
Kinda silly that a simple figure like number of games sold would be a secret, isn't it? I wonder what advantage the companies think they get by concealing this? After all, with music and books it's a point of pride to count how many units are sold and be ranked in the industry lists.
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Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
you forget people like me who check out the forum but seldom post
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Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
We are here,
I look & listen...as a SEII Veteran I hear what is going on. Everyday I check in on these Boards & follow the concerns, gripes & such. The ELDERS are listening.... 'He who says the least says the most' |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
MM made a tongue-in-cheek reference to an RPG they are planning and a few hints at an SE4 Expansion Pack.
Hey Richard, What ever happen to my application with you guys? ------------------ ------------------------------------ HADRIAN AVENTINE pacea@solar-outpost.com http://www.hyperionbase.com |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
We don't have any contract art work available right now.
Our work comes and goes as games come and go.. ------------------ Sarge is coming... Richard Arnesen Director of Covert Ops Shrapnel Games http://www.shrapnelgames.com |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
Shrapnel does a wonderful job, in my opinion. They've been really supportive, with a lot of stuff. They give feedback if necessary, which is better than some other companies (It took me WEEKS to get any kind of answer from Blizzard, about my CD key that was for junk, making my copy of StarCraft worthless)
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Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
Something similar happened to me too with StarCraft. I could not play SC for nearly 6 weeks until Blizzard sent me a new game. I had to send them my old copy though before they would send me a replacement. (The disk was chipped, and the store would not take it back.)
Yes, Shrapnel has done a great job keeping the customers happy, even the rude "one" a few months ago. I must admit, SE IV has proven to be quite the addiction. I do sincerely hope that an expansion pack (free or not) comes out soon. Or for that matter, info on SEV. Aaron has his foot in the gaming world’s door now, and getting support ($) to develop other games should not be a problem for him. (Should not be) The only other site that I have ever stayed this long at, was a trek site devoted to BOTF, that kinda sorta got off topic and became a all in one trek site. It fell apart in June of Last year shortly after Armada was released. The guy that owned the forum could not keep up with the cost of running it, and had to shut it down. That is why I asked about Shrapnel. I would hate to see that happen here, and would hope that I am not alone in that feeling. (Good to know that I am not http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif ) Again, thanks Richard for the feed back and Aaron for such an addictive game. ------------------ "We've made too many compromises already, too many retreats! They invade our space and we fall back -- they assimilate entire worlds and we fall back! Not again! The line must be drawn here -- this far, no further! And I will make them pay for what they've done!" -- Captain Picard STNG New Age Ship Yards |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
A few months back there was a article in PC Gamer called “Where does your gaming buck go” or something like that. It broke down all the costs of a game and why we pay what we pay. One of Shrapnel’s secrets is that they don’t pay a lot of those costs. For example, I paid about the same for SE4 and Armies of Armageddon that I would pay for two games in a game shop. However, Shrapnel didn’t spend big bucks on advertisements or stands at that big gaming convention. 3D accelerated graphics are not something one associates with Shrapnel, which is another production cost cutting. Also, they don’t pay distribution costs, those get covered by the shipping fee we paid getting the games.
All this means that they can survive doing the good work they do on much lower volumes of sales than Blizzard does. Given that they share the same philosophy of games that I do and that they have playable games, I think it is a good model of business and one I am happy to support. PS I get the British and American Versions of PC games and I don’t remember which one the article was in. Sorry. |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Something similar happened to me too with StarCraft. I could not play SC for nearly 6 weeks until Blizzard sent me a new game...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>I couldn't play Starcraft when I opened the box, either.
My problem was that I didn't have the right OS on my PC, and the laptop didn't have a CD drive http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Saxon:
A few months back there was a article in PC Gamer called “Where does your gaming buck go” or something like that. It broke down all the costs of a game and why we pay what we pay. One of Shrapnel’s secrets is that they don’t pay a lot of those costs.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> They can not possibly be paying those costs and feed Aaron. Back in 92 the breakdown went like this : 1) Retailer marks up from distributer by 50-100%. 2) Distributer marks up from marketer by 50-100%. 3) Marketer pays developer a "very generous" 5-10% of what they get. The rest goes for manufacturing, advertising, and paying the staff overhead. So a $40 game at the store gets the distributer maybe AT MOST $26.50, the marketer maybe AT MOST $17.50, and the developer AT MOST $1.75 BUT ONLY FOR THE UNITS ACTUALLY SOLD. A game was considered to do extremely well if half the units manufactured were sold, with the distributer and marketer eating the returns from retailers. How that split broke out varied, typically the retailer would get half what they paid back and the distributer would get half what they paid back. The developer got a "generous" say $2000 when the first manufacturing run occurred (5000 units). Then if the game sold well he would get a check for the latest run's sales just before the next run. But if a run was a bust the game would be closed out and all his effort would go down the drain. Back in 92 I was told that for my effort my game would be considered a HUGE success if it sold 20,000 units and the retail price would be up to me, but not to expect more than maybe $5000 in the first year. I said **** THAT, and quit working on it right then and there. One thing to remember is that the number of computers has increased by a factor of 100 in the Last ten years alone. So instead of $5000 I bet Aaron is getting $50,000. But that still SUCKS because at a real job he could get $50-75 an hour if he is a decent programmer, which he probably is even though his engine seems to be optimized for memory rather than execution time..... |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
Well I can't get specific but needless to say we pay a LOT better than your 92 figures http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif. Actually we pay our developers monthly based on previous months sales.
This really is the wave of the future and if we can get just a little more success this will start to wake other developers up to the fact that there is a LEGITIMATE alternative to retail. And if you have a decent game it is can be a lucrative alternative to retail. Just depends on the game... So if you know any developers http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif. ------------------ Sarge is coming... Richard Arnesen Director of Covert Ops Shrapnel Games http://www.shrapnelgames.com |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Richard:
So if you know any developers http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I have not written any code since 93, but in a year or so I might develop a new 5th generation strategy game concept which takes advantage of the capabilities of 1Ghz 256 megabyte memory machines. By the time the engines are written that size machine should be in most households. It would use text files like SE IV for all the data so that players could mod it. Back in 92 there was just not the processor speed OR memory to support run time text parsing, but the better machines have changed the landscape as much as going from teletypes and punch cards in the 70s to video monitors changed things back then. It will be 3d galactic and lower level maps with 32bit coordinates, zoom in to see particular stellar sectors, star systems, planets, and cities, which will have astronomically and geographically correct features. Research trees can be very deep and very broad, generated from seed categories and cost curves by a configuration engine. Abilities, Resources, Rates, Facilities and Components to match will be generated by the same engine using cost, size, and ability curves. So a player could modify the seeds to be shallow and narrow, or as wide and deep as he can stand on his particular machine. Instead of going to a particular level (galactic, sector, system, planet, city) and specifying what task he wants done, the player's job will be managing his AI managers to develop broad strategy rules of his own or to vary the defaults where they are tactically incorrect for the local situation. In other words, he gets to play general/emperor instead of footsoldier the way you must in SE IV and the other current generation games. Economics would be modeled as aggregates at each zoom level based on various factors, with the possibility of localized booms and crashes.... I estimate somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,000 lines of code, same as before but at a higher level of direction. IE what is written will be code to write code, not what actually executes. The generated code would be the engines to parse the text files produced by the configuration engine....... Edit : I will not even START work on a project like that until I can be sure of 250,000 SALES by the time it is written. Once burned TWICE shy.... [This message has been edited by LCC (edited 01 August 2001).] |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
Uh, as long as it has a good beat and I can dance to it I'll be happy. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon10.gif
Geo |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by geoschmo:
Uh, as long as it has a good beat and I can dance to it I'll be happy. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon10.gif Geo<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL! It was a secret, but I guess that I may as well reveal what I thought was the neatest idea of all before somebody else mentions it and I cannot get credit for being the first to think of it. I find all the tables of numbers to be boring and require too much time to evaluate. So my idea was to have brief - perhaps 2-3 seconds of musical tones looked up and played as you move the mouse across the map at the current zoom level. Coupled with texturing, color, and pattern it would allow four factors you consider to be the most revealing of how well your managers are doing to be available for evaluation without going to a menu. As an example you might be interested only in the red pebbly triangles that play a fart when the mouse is over them.... |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
LCC, large chunks of your description sound like what the developers of Master of Orion III are working towards, according to their Web site.
Personally, your audio status indicators idea sounds like interface Hell to me. I've seen people describe Black & White as unplayable because of the scarcity of numeric status reports, among other things. ------------------ Cap'n Q The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu" [This message has been edited by capnq (edited 02 August 2001).] |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by capnq:
LCC, large chunks of your description sound like what the developers of Master of Orion III are working towards, according to their Web site. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I will have to check that out! I certainly do NOT want to waste my time reinventing the wheel... <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by capnq: Personally, your audio status indicators idea sounds like interface Hell to me. I've seen people describe Black & White as unplayable because of the scarcity of numeric status reports, among other things. [/b]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I suppose I was not clear. As an OPTION to get a FEEL for how things are going with your managers and also to visually check for problem CLUSTERS on the map, you COULD specify association of four different values NORMALLY presented as tabular alphanumeric data, bar graphs, or charts to be displayed as color, texture, pattern, and sound. Each of the variables would have several possible values. Depending on the value of the variable, you get something different displayed on the map. For example : 1) Color : Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Cyan Magenta, anything else in the color chart, whatever you LIKE to move the color selection bars to create... 2) Texture : None, pebbly (dot grid), line grid, crosshatch, whatever you LIKE. 3) Pattern : any set of icon masks you like : such as plain old vanilla triangle, square, 5 point star, 6 point star, pentagon, octagon, circle, nested targeting circles, whatever in the world you LIKE. 4) Any sound file of appropriate length, Bach to Wagner, farts, screams, laughs, applause, whatever you LIKE. And of course there is the old filter standby, STROBE whatever lies in the specified Category.... |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
Well, after 8+ hours of imprisonment behind Sprintnet's f*ed-up services I can finally access Shrapnel again & what do I find? Development of new games starting in the open forums? http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif (BTW, anyone got some good terms of abuse for Sprintnet? http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif )
LCC, you are smoking something pretty strong if you think a game like you are describing can be done in 50,000 lines. Back before MS Windozer plowed all the competition under I was writing relatively simple things in Turbo Pascal like usenet news readers. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif And my simple MS-DOS newsreader ran to 20,000 lines if you include the supporting units as well as the main code. (I tended to think "object oriented" even back then before it was a buzz word and kept compartmentalizing stuff into units to make it manageable.) Anyway, this was a single-user program designed for immediate user input and output. No multi-player, no PBEM, no AI, no 'simulations' of planetary or stellar events, no combat between ships with various settable attributes.... you get the picture. I would bet SE IV or even SE III are over 100,000 lines. MOO III will probably be a quarter million or more. The latest Versions of Windozer are supposed to be several million lines. You are WAY behind the times and had better take a refresher course on programming in Windozer environments, or *IX, before you get too far along in your estimates of how much work it will be. Aaron should be back from vacation soon. I wonder if we can get him to tell us how many lines of code are in SE IV? [This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 02 August 2001).] |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
spirit net, your only on in the after life.
Ditched them a long time ago. Now have qwest DSL. AT&T @ home is just as bad. |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Atrocities:
spirit net, your only on in the after life. Ditched them a long time ago. Now have qwest DSL. AT&T @ home is just as bad.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Unfortunately I have no choice. It's not 'DSL' for me, it's the uplink for my ISP. So, unless they change providers there's not much I can do. The other ISPs in town are much more expensive than this one. [This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 02 August 2001).] |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by capnq:
LCC, large chunks of your description sound like what the developers of Master of Orion III are working towards, according to their Web site. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Okay, I checked out the Official site by Quicksilver Software. IMHO this is just a bigger Version of the SOS PHD they put out before, and while that was okay 3-7 years ago, it will NOT compete 3-5 years from now. I bet their AI still has to cheat and not use the same rules as the player just to survive.... Aaron has the right idea for the future, let the players/modders decide what they want the game to be. I propose taking Aarons concept further, but he was by NO means the first to think of this, nor was I of course. The General Purpose Simulator notion has been kicking around for a couple of decades ever since typical machines passed the Megabyte memory stage. (BTW that was thanks to the DEC VAX when they dropped the price of memory from $500,000 per Mb by IBM to $20,000 by DEC - BIG TIME OUCH FOR BIG BLUE!) But you need close to a Gigabyte and a mutiple GigaHertz processor to make it a usable notion. I propose writing the engines of a primitive GPS and providing seed data for a typical "game" along with all the interface required to make it playable. If I do it right, then the engine could be used with the appropriate data to simulate our world economy, or that of a nation, or a city, or a company, or whatever the heck you wanted. I just do not think that there is a market for it yet except as a game, because target specific simulations/ modeling would be MUCH MUCH faster and probably get MUCH MUCH more detailed than the interpretive engine would support on a PC. Of course the supercomputer of today is the pocket pc of next decade. Read John Varly "Marooned in Realtime" IIRC. My SF books have been packed since 89 for lack of shelf space..... |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
LCC, you are smoking something pretty strong if you think a game like you are describing can be done in 50,000 lines. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The power company just taught me once again - NEVER EVER try to type a long post Online - ******* power glitch. Okay, I will be brief. Way back in 82 I worked for a (long dead) company called NL McCullough Wireline Logging. They had a BIG TIME problem. Their customers all had a different notion of how to interpret the data coming up out of their oil wells. Although it paid BIG BUCKS ON BIG TRUCKS to service those customers, it was no where NEAR enough to support writing a customer specific realtime program for each one. Also, they had to support requests from geologists to change the formula used to generate the graphs in the next FIVE MINUTES. The data had to be done right and done NOW because the decision to take more depended on what they saw, and it cost $2-20 MILLION PER DAY for downtime on those wells. So the guy I worked for (Mike Smith, still out there somewhere?) had a BRILLIANT notion. (Those of you who are software developers will recognize his notion as similar to later Versions of Basic, but THIS WAS 82!) He developed a macrocommand interpreter engine (MIE) and a runtime engine (RE) to use its output. Basically a macrocommand was an assembler language function with just one call parameter - the address of an address/data block (ADB). The ADB size varied but contained just one kind of parameter, the address of an input/output parameter for the function. So with a little indirection it looks the same as any multiple argument function call. What the MIE did was parse the macrocommand language (TDS-11) file line extracting the function name, and text argument list. If the function had not already been loaded into memory then its name would be used to open the relocatable file and overlay load it into memory (the PDP-11 used was 64kbytes ADDRESS space) The list of arguments was translated into the adresses of standard data storage blocks with offsets for the specific variables. Then the function address was added to a chain of function calls along with the address of the ADB into which the variable addresses had been placed. When the file had been completely interpreted you would run the RE to execute the chain of function calls, passing the ADB pointer to each function. It was up to each macrocommand to correctly process its input list, calculate the outputs, and place them at the proper addresses. If the customer wanted to change the TDS-11 instructions, then all the MIE had to do was remove changed links and insert the new ones into the proper point in the list of function calls. The TDS-11 language was so simple that even the customer geologists could write and maintain their own custom programs. All of this was done in 82 on a miserable PDP-11 with less than 10000 lines of source code for the engines. So having seen it done, I KNOW HOW TO DO IT, AND ANY REASONABLY INTELLIGENT COLLEGE FRESHMAN COULD DO THE SAME USING THE DESCRIPTION I JUST PROVIDED. Okay, so much for the language engine at 10000 lines. The other tricks lie in system and user interface of course. I estimate that at 20000 lines, as generic and data driven as possible, based on my experience with the Amiga. The final Category is the macrocommands to be interpreted by the engine and which in turn use the data files to either generate more macrocommands or to process the game data. What I plan is generic black box functions to do a variety of data manipulations, but NONE OF THEM HAS TO KNOW WHAT THE DATA MEANS. That's why I feel confident that 20000 lines will be sufficient... So having spent a year or two writing that stuff I will still face the problem of game data - which could take another year just to create the tens of thousands of lines of names and numbers for the seeds to be used by the configuration generator. Plus all the audio and video files too of course, never forget that! But that can be done by OTHER people, and probably will be.... |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>I estimate that at 20000 lines, as generic and data driven as possible, based on my experience with the Amiga.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>And this is why the younger programmers who've never wrestled with anything but Windows APIs think you're hallucinating. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif Bloatware breeds bloatware, and modern hardware capacity allows the majority of programmers to hardly care about resource usage.
I can believe you're capable of writing tight enough code to meet your estimate, but I don't believe such code can be written for any flavor of Windows OS. Also, I strongly recommend that anyone with unreliable power invest in an uninterruptable power supply. ------------------ Cap'n Q The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu" [This message has been edited by capnq (edited 02 August 2001).] |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
QUOTE:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I estimate that at 20000 lines, as generic and data driven as possible, based on my experience with the Amiga. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <snip> ...but I don't believe such code can be written for any flavor of Windows OS. /QUOTE Write it for the Amiga then. I'll buy it=-) Better yet, get everyone on the forum to go over to Linux (either by emulation or by pestering Aaron into porting SE4 - see parallel thread=-) and then when you code your game for Linux you'll have a whole market ready and waiting... ------------------ "Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?" "I think so Brain but, if you replace the P with an O, my name would be Oinky, wouldn't it?" [This message has been edited by dogscoff (edited 02 August 2001).] |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
I wonder what SE V will hold? I wonder if Aaron will bite the bullet and decide to, not that it matters to me I like the game the way it is, to incorperate 3d battle senerios?
Imagine the code that will take. |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
I don't know. With the success of SEIV and the amount of work invested in it, I imagine SEV will be a looooooooooong way off. I'd be interested to know just how far Aaron envisages taking SEIV in it's lifespan though.
The demo was SE4.0.99, right? We're now on SE4.1.41 What about SE4.2.00? I know Version numbering on software is fairly arbitrary, but normally "milestone" Version numbers represent a _major_ update. Is SEIV even planned to go that far? Does Aaron have a finite list of bugfixes and features to patch, and then SEIV will be complete, or will he just keep adding to it forever? There's certainly scope to add to SEIV indefinitely, there are just so many ideas. Does anyone remember how it worked with SEIII? Did that Version reach a plateau, where Aaron just said "that's it finished then", or was he improving right up until he started on SEIV? ------------------ "Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?" "I think so Brain but, if you replace the P with an O, my name would be Oinky, wouldn't it?" |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by LCC:
Okay, I will be brief. Way back in 82 I worked for a (long dead) company called NL McCullough Wireline Logging. They had a BIG TIME problem. Their customers all had a different notion of how to interpret the data coming up out of their oil wells. Although it paid BIG BUCKS ON BIG TRUCKS to service those customers, it was no where NEAR enough to support writing a customer specific realtime program for each one. Also, they had to support requests from geologists to change the formula used to generate the graphs in the next FIVE MINUTES. The data had to be done right and done NOW because the decision to take more depended on what they saw, and it cost $2-20 MILLION PER DAY for downtime on those wells. So the guy I worked for (Mike Smith, still out there somewhere?) had a BRILLIANT notion. (Those of you who are software developers will recognize his notion as similar to later Versions of Basic, but THIS WAS 82!) He developed a macrocommand interpreter engine (MIE) and a runtime engine (RE) to use its output. Basically a macrocommand was an assembler language function with just one call parameter - the address of an address/data block (ADB). The ADB size varied but contained just one kind of parameter, the address of an input/output parameter for the function. So with a little indirection it looks the same as any multiple argument function call. What the MIE did was parse the macrocommand language (TDS-11) file line extracting the function name, and text argument list. If the function had not already been loaded into memory then its name would be used to open the relocatable file and overlay load it into memory (the PDP-11 used was 64kbytes ADDRESS space) The list of arguments was translated into the adresses of standard data storage blocks with offsets for the specific variables. Then the function address was added to a chain of function calls along with the address of the ADB into which the variable addresses had been placed. When the file had been completely interpreted you would run the RE to execute the chain of function calls, passing the ADB pointer to each function. It was up to each macrocommand to correctly process its input list, calculate the outputs, and place them at the proper addresses. If the customer wanted to change the TDS-11 instructions, then all the MIE had to do was remove changed links and insert the new ones into the proper point in the list of function calls. The TDS-11 language was so simple that even the customer geologists could write and maintain their own custom programs. All of this was done in 82 on a miserable PDP-11 with less than 10000 lines of source code for the engines. So having seen it done, I KNOW HOW TO DO IT, AND ANY REASONABLY INTELLIGENT COLLEGE FRESHMAN COULD DO THE SAME USING THE DESCRIPTION I JUST PROVIDED. Okay, so much for the language engine at 10000 lines. The other tricks lie in system and user interface of course. I estimate that at 20000 lines, as generic and data driven as possible, based on my experience with the Amiga. The final Category is the macrocommands to be interpreted by the engine and which in turn use the data files to either generate more macrocommands or to process the game data. What I plan is generic black box functions to do a variety of data manipulations, but NONE OF THEM HAS TO KNOW WHAT THE DATA MEANS. That's why I feel confident that 20000 lines will be sufficient... So having spent a year or two writing that stuff I will still face the problem of game data - which could take another year just to create the tens of thousands of lines of names and numbers for the seeds to be used by the configuration generator. Plus all the audio and video files too of course, never forget that! But that can be done by OTHER people, and probably will be....<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> This sounds fine for the 'old school' wargame that uses ascii graphics to represent the planets and ships! http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif I can believe that very elaborate games can be designed with relatively little code if all you are doing is the simulation mechanics of the game itself. What will kill you is making the GUI interface to all the various aspects of the game so people can play the way they expect with the mouse/trackball/whatever. Displaying all the fancy dialog boxes and adding all the 'mouse events' will take several times the code of the game engine itself, I think. Maybe you could make a client/server system like VGA Planets? Or maybe the latest VGA Planets is already everything you had in mind for this project? http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif It is somehwat annoying to think of how much of our computer power gets eaten by these fancy doodads. Do you realize that the old way of even measuring computer power, MIPS (Million Instructions Per Second) is now obsolete? An AT-20Mhz would do something like 1 MIPS. A relatively standard desktop now does something like 100 MIPS. The number has gotten so huge that it doesn't tell you anything anymore about the real abilities of the computer to run current software. Then there's the gigantic leaps in RAM and HD capacity. Think of the incredible things that could have been done in the 1980s with this kind of power! But it's being eaten by these stupid GUI systems and all the kewl 'multimedia' thingamajigs tacked onto our WinDOS systems. |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Think of the incredible things that could have been done in the 1980s with this kind of power! But it's being eaten by these stupid GUI systems and all the kewl 'multimedia' thingamajigs tacked onto our WinDOS systems.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I can understand your frustration coming from the perspective of a programmer as you do. But don't forget it's all "thingamajigs" that give us a market for all the lines of code to begin with. As much as some computer nuts (an I count myself in this group, although I am by no means a programmer) hate to admit it, if it weren't for Windows, or something else like it, computers would have never had the mainstream appeal that they do. Without the GUI interface your typical non-techie, the vast majority or the population, would not see the need for having a computer to begin with. They certainly wouldn't plunk down hard earned cash for a game program that's just a series of columns of numbers and text Messages. Not to mention the fact that you would never have the monster processors and bottomless memory storage that we have today. It's been the added complexity in the programming that has produced the need for the advancments in processing power and memory size and speed. Geo [This message has been edited by geoschmo (edited 02 August 2001).] |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
This sounds fine for the 'old school' wargame that uses ascii graphics to represent the planets and ships! http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif I can believe that very elaborate games can be designed with relatively little code if all you are doing is the simulation mechanics of the game itself. What will kill you is making the GUI interface to all the various aspects of the game so people can play the way they expect with the mouse/trackball/whatever. Displaying all the fancy dialog boxes and adding all the 'mouse events' will take several times the code of the game engine itself, I think. Maybe you could make a client/server system like VGA Planets? Or maybe the latest VGA Planets is already everything you had in mind for this project? http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Actually, if you are smart about how you set it up, the GUI doesn't have to require that much code. It does require a lot of planning and design, but the right tools can supply most of the handlers you need. If you don't properly design it, however.... http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/shock.gif |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
I know that if you are convinced something can't be done you are beaten. I believe anything is possible, especially if you don't know any better.
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Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Nitram Draw:
I know that if you are convinced something can't be done you are beaten. I believe anything is possible, especially if you don't know any better.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> A perfect straight line available when I came back to post! Thanks! I know about UPS but never needed one before. The problem is a circuit breaker that trips in the new house. I have been informed that the problem will go away in the next few weeks as microfuzz causing heating on the contacts wears down. Since my bank account is seriously depleted by the move, I would have to wait till next month to spring for a 2 hour battery backup UPS anyway, because it costs $200. Just out of curiousity since there seems to be some interest, I did a web search using Hotbot with the following results : 1) general purpose simulator -44,200 2) same +macro -5900 3) same +parse -1200 4) same +relocatable -56 5) same +overlay -43 6) same + macrocommand -1 So it looks like there is probably action going on, but most of it is not posted where the public can see it. The searches at level 4+ mostly hit on dictionaries. "What we have here is a lack of communication." Basically a macrocommand is an instruction in a LANGUAGE INVENTED ON THE FLY. As an example TDS-11 had over 300 macrocommands of varying length written in assembler. Assembler was used because it was a 1982 PDP-11 under RT-11 in a 64k byte address space. So both time and memory were critical. Nowadays a macrocommand would be written in any language at all so long as the MIE and RE working together know how to call and pass a single address to it - the address of its ADB. You invoke a macrocommand in the macrocommand language instruction files by simply giving the name of the relocatable code file as a command name, followed by the list of calling arguments referencing macrocommand variables. Each relocatable file has a function in it labeled the same as the file name, which is the entry point function. The functions in the macrocommand file are allowed to call any function library routine by invoking the engine function calldown with the (engine designer defined) index number of the function to be called and a pointer to a structure containing the required calling arguments of the invoked function. A macrocommand function in one relocatable file is NOT allowed to call macrocommand functions in other relocatable files, because it would not know the address. If you want to do that you do it as a macrocommand language instruction to be parsed. The most powerful macrocommands are CALLU/RETU the universal call/return and FORKU the universal fork. They are provided by the engine designer. Basically CALLU must make sure the invoked macrocommand language instruction file has been loaded into memory, if not load it. Then point to the next line to be parsed in the current file in the macrocommand call stack and start parsing at the line label in the new file's stream of macrocommands. RETU simply pops the stack and resumes parsing there. With FORKU you provide a macrocommand variable name containing an index and a list of macrocommand line labels in the current file being parsed. It works just like a computed goto. So basically you see that the GPS engine is an interface to an operating system(s) that makes it possible to mix Languages in the same application and to add new functions to an application without having the language specific source code for existing functions - programmers paradise. It does not have to be a linker for labels found in the relocatable files except for the one entry point function in each file because all other labels are resolved locally by the compiler used by the macrocommand author. The TDS-11 engines had to be overlay loaders because of the 64kbyte address space and I see no reason to skip that because I can see this engine being used in applications which exceed a Gigabyte very easily. While at Datapoint in 83-86 I had to write my own overlay loader and overlay manager because the 8600 also had a 64kbyte address space and the Manufacturing Automated Test System I wrote (91000 lines source and still going strong when I left) exceeded the physical (2 megabytes) memory space of the machine as well. With a rich library of macrocommands available for gaming applications, the player can mod his purchased game to be something very different if he so desires by changing the macrocommand language instruction streams, in effect becoming another game author. If that looks too complicated, the player can experient with the configuration generator and the seed data files to create very different game universes, becoming a scenario designer. If the player finds that too complicated, he can just be an emperor using the game AI managers to do the grunt work, with occasional changes to their priorities. If he still does not like what he sees then he can get down and dirty and look at the data being manipulated by the managers to develop his own management rules, becoming an AI designer. So far as my estimate of source lines goes, you will note that (if I do it at all) I plan to generate a macrocommand library that has only the basics in it. For elaborate games or simulations the designer of the game must invent his own macrocommands and use them with the existing library to generate new macrocommand language instruction files specific to his enhanced game. Seeds and other data needed by the configuration generator would probably also be tailored for new games. I do not drink or use drugs, so my mind is not fantasizing. I have written over 5000 pages of software from 73-93. I know what I am talking about and am not just blowing smoke. Most of it has been done before, so I have two major concerns : 1) I do not want to re-invent the wheel if somebody else is already doing it. 2) I want TO GET PAID WHAT IT IS WORTH IF I DO IT. Economics, politics, or warfare it makes no difference, because the interaction between game items is just another black box transfer function based on abilities, dependencies, and derivatives. I am an engineer and design for functionality, when possible also optimizing for time and memory, ie COST. Programmers often do things differently so they look like they are doing a lot of work. As an example of the way engineers see things differently, I can say in one line what Ayn Rand said in 800 pages : I can do it. You can't, stupid. So PAY me what it is worth. I suppose that if she had been paid for clarity of thought rather than by the word, she would have written a shorter "Atlas Shrugged"........... |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>1) I do not want to re-invent the wheel if somebody else is already doing it.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>1) If somebody is working on inventing a wheel, they aren't going to advertise the fact until they have a marketable product. At least they will keep the details protected so noone can come along and "reinvent" it and get it to market faster. <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>2) I want TO GET PAID WHAT IT IS WORTH IF I DO IT.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>It isn't worth anything until after you do it. "If you build it, they will come" Not "Announce that you can build it, and they will come and wait while you build it, and pay you so they can wait." Of course you could get a job at an established software development house, and be a wage slave writing code that someone else will make the money off of and get the credit for. But if you want to be the guy who gets the praise, and the jack, you are going to have to write it, and then sell it. It's called "entrepreneurialism". http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif Geo [This message has been edited by geoschmo (edited 02 August 2001).] |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by dogscoff:
Hmm. Nested quotes loses the comment in the quote ? IIRC it was "If you write it for the Amiga, I will buy it. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Amiga.com ANNOUNCEMENT Amiga concepts I will be careful what I say - do not want to get flamed. I read other Posts but you can get the links yourself off the first one if you are interested. 1) I bought an Amiga 1000 in 86 and had very high hopes for it. As an open OS it was exactly what I wanted. 2) Things were okay for a couple years but poor marketing/ distribution/ financial management outweighed superb concept and revolutionary design. 3) They were systematically crushed in the marketplace by Windows/PC manufacturers and went bankrupt three times. 4) Their current incarnation started in Jan 2000 with a new even more flexible concept and strategy. 5) They give committed applications as of 9/14/00 and no update since then. 6) item 5) says it all, they are going down the tubes yet again, and this in spite of millions of Users who love them and thousands of developers who are using them. 7) Fighting the MS behemoth is a losing proposition until the government steps in and busts its butt the way Ma Bell was taught not to strangle other long distance carriers. Which is precisely what the govt SAYS it is trying to do, but it will probably take 10 years unless the priority and funding of that antitrust lawsuit goes WAY UP. 8) Amiga may be tolerated and allowed to survive only if they scale back and follow Apple's survival strategy - pick a niche and do NOT aggravate the monster. 9) I would be delighted to develop my software in Amiga's Digital Environment but the question is whether the company would be alive long enough to see the code written, let alone the first game sold..... [This message has been edited by LCC (edited 02 August 2001).] |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by geoschmo:
But if you want to be the guy who gets the praise, and the jack, you are going to have to write it, and then sell it. It's called "entrepreneurialism". http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I could not sell a gallon of water to a person dying of thirst for one dollar, even if they had a million dollars in their pockets. I know this for a fact and accept it. I am just posting because I am bored and frustrated. I know better ways to do things and COULD do them, but I am NOT going to actually do the work then get as you say just a "wage slaves" compensation. People like those at Microsoft could be given a two year head start and $100 million to do it, and I could still come out with a better product ***working alone*** in the fourth year. No brag just fact. One good engineer = 10 outstanding programmers. As a matter of fact the same one good engineer still = 1000 programmers working as a team because they spend so much time fighting for turf and shuffling specs that they do squat about getting the product out the door.... [This message has been edited by LCC (edited 02 August 2001).] |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
Or maybe the latest VGA Planets is already everything you had in mind for this project? http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I never bought it but have seen their websites. So I do not feel qualified to comment except a little, LOL LOL LOL.... |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
What will kill you is making the GUI interface to all the various aspects of the game so people can play the way they expect with the mouse/trackball/whatever. Displaying all the fancy dialog boxes and adding all the 'mouse events' will take several times the code of the game engine itself, I think. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> That stuff would be done by macrocommands invoking system functions through the engine interface "calldown". Depending on the relative address range of a processor, a macrocommand file can be as big as you like and have as many functions in it as needed. Just one of the functions needs to link up to the chain - the one named after the file and the same as the command name that invoked the file. Shared data storage space is obtained off calls (through calldown) to system functions for memory at runtime, then the address of the data obtained is stored in data structures defined by the macrocommand designer. The address of the structures is placed in ADB entries and pulled out by the ones who need to share data pointed to. Do I really need to explain trivial stuff like this? |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by geoschmo:
if it weren't for Windows, or something else like it, computers would have never had the mainstream appeal that they do. Without the GUI interface your typical non-techie, the vast majority or the population, would not see the need for having a computer to begin with<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> How little does the latest generation know anyway ? In the beginning there was Xerox PARC, then came Apple and close on their heels Atari and Amiga. But then along came a blundering not yet behemoth Microsoft, who worked closely with IBM and Intel to CRUSH LIKE ANTS anybody who threatened the IBM PC. But little did they know that people like Dell, Compaq, and the other cloners would whip big blues butt in the home markets. This allowed the survival of alternative microprocessor manufacturers, who have steadily begun to regain the ground they lost. The monopolistic triad is finally starting to lose, and by **** it is not a DAY TOO SOON. **** WITHOUT THOSE THREE WE WOULD BE TEN YEARS INTO THE NEXT GENERATION ALREADY **** |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
... Back before MS Windozer plowed all the competition under I was writing relatively simple things in Turbo Pascal like usenet news readers. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif And my simple MS-DOS newsreader ran to 20,000 lines if you include the supporting units as well as the main code...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> By any chance, was that the 'Trumpet' newsreader? Miles |
Re: OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>How little does the latest generation know anyway ?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
ROFL! http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon10.gif Oh I wish I was part of the "latest generation". To know what I know now and to have the Last twenty years back... I hope you didn't perceive my comments as some sort of flame. What you are describing sounds like a great game. And I have no doubt in your abilities to pull it off. I am simply saying if you are waiting for someone to hand you a check up front, you'll be waiting a while. I am not in anyway a programming whiz. In fact except for a little playing with BASIC programs as a kid on a trash-80 and Vic-20 (I'm dating myself now http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif ) I have never had the patience to do anything close to what you are talking about. As far as my comments regarding Windows, I am by no means an appologist for "The Bill". You missed my point I think when I said "Windows, or something like it". Gates did nothing extordinary except take advantage when he saw an opportunity. If he hadn't, someone else would have. I think the term is "Zeitgeist". My point was simply that without making computers more attractive and accesable to the unwashed masses, you would still be tinkering around on your 8Mhz, 512K ram, 20 MB hard drive computer(Heck my first three computers didn't even have hard drives. Anybody remember casette tapes? http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/shock.gif ) writing incrededibly efficient 20K code-line programs with which to amaze your other computer nerd friends. But would never even be considering writing a program to sell to casual gamers. I am not a programmer, but I am a history buff, and I know a little about economics. It's all supply and demand. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif Geo |
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