[SUGGESTION] A Simple Pre-release?

I was thinking it might be nice to just have a nice, simple pre-release for users to pick up from the site. This would basically just be the original game, except with the bugs fixed.

I was just looking through the dev tracker page, and while you all are doing a great job, it seems like in many cases you've "got the cart before the horse".

I'm in full support of making the changes and improving the game, I just think a good start would be not necessarily making it look pretty, but making it work. That was obviously a huge complaint for the other project, and I'd rather not see this fall prey to the same fate.

Maybe I'm weird, but even a release of the original project, just with the bugs fixed would be enough to hold me over for a while. maybe a ".5"-er?

I'd just rather make sure the engine is running before I start worrying about gold rims and tinted windows.

before moving on to other features?

Too late now, the game has moved quite far from what Nexuiz was.

I'd say we aren't all too far from releasing a pre-release now though, and as was discussed in this thread: http://forums.xonotic.org/showthread.php?tid=632 we could maybe start building nightlies soon.

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I'd just rather make sure the engine is running

But it's not (if we're talking about the DarkPlaces engine)
It has had several problems introduced and discovered lately, and things aren't getting better when the engine's author is rewriting half of it to make it run on DirectX (thus apparently slowing down OpenGL). Even drawing the HUD seems dreaded slow, compare to performance you get with r_letterbox 1

By "engine" he means "metaphorical car engine", I think.

I think the developers are pulling for a release that will really shine.

No offense, but if you want to be held over for a little longer I'd keep playing Nexuiz.

By "engine" he means "metaphorical car engine", I think.

Yeah, you can ignore my lame joke there :p

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I think the developers are pulling for a release that will really shine.

No offense, but if you want to be held over for a little longer I'd keep playing Nexuiz.

First impressions will either give the game a good reputation or a bad reputation. A pre release will likely be taken as the first impression. Reason enough to tweak it until it shines

A git clone-compile is probably considered as some sort of dev sandbox, where you can expect 0%-100% breakage, so it shouldn't affect first impressions of the real game that much. But a release in any form will.

I think that before we release the first version of xonotic, we should make sure that it is different enough from nexuiz to stand apart from it. To me, this involves redoing all of the weapons. I am aware that this is a fairly unrealistic goal, and probably won't happen by the initial release, but I hope that we will get there eventually (I am doing my part to contribute to that goal.)

But that just means we will have to find other ways to make xonotic unique.

Just all-new playermodels and retextured maps and better HUD should go a long way in terms of separating xonotic from nexuiz. And hey, we've already got a replacement nex model.

I'd like to see the id software way:

"It's done when it's done"

No need to rush anything. The media on the site is constantly updated to keep peoples attention up, and for the more curious there's git.xonotic.org.
Nexuiz was very unfinished when released as 1.0, and it never could recover from that ("I've played it years ago, it sucked.")
We won't make the same mistake again.

Please, don't mistake this as a gripe thread, I'm just looking at this as what is necessary, and what isn't. My perspective is that even something bare-bones hidden away somewhere deep in the bowels of the forums that will give community mappers, modelers, etc. something to look at and work on, would be nice. Admittedly there is the git repository, but at least for me it's been a thorn in my side to even get downloaded (internet has been cutting out due to storms, which forces me to start over if it doesn't finish). That's obviously not a problem for everyone, but even releasing something with just the engine, a single, generic model, a small example map, basic features in general (by basic, I mean VERY basic), and calling it a "Map/model dev kit" would be nice. It doesn't even have to show up on the main page-- just a forum entry.

It's not a release at all, just a mapping/modeling medium. Also since they're trying to unify art styles, that would give people something to look at, and the devs will end up with some maps that they, themselves won't have to spend time building because the community will have come up with something for them.

Again, don't mistake this for a rant.

Problem is that the repo is CONSTANTLY changing, and a static "Ma"Map/model dev kit"p/model dev kit" simply won't work.

that's true if they don't focus on the essentials first-- ie. fixing bugs before moving on to the more superfluous features. Things like lighting could change there-after, but at least having working models that only require a hair-sized amount of editing to update, i'm sure would be appealing. The dev kit doesn't even have to be updated precisely with the repo anyway because it seems like most of the bugs are gameplay bugs, and not bugs in the mapping (at least from what I've seen) an people will keep copies of their map source files in case some change to the mapping is made, and they end up having to redo some textures or whatever.

With the understanding that when they begin adding new features later, some new bugs will crop up, my understanding is that this shouldn't normally affect mapping much, if at all (I could of course be wrong).

The official release date is:

WHEN IT'S DONE

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-See post below-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Well, nobody will stop you from doing it It will become obsolete faster than you can say "recompile" though.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-See post below-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

See below for file link

This should work. I'll finish up testing it (hopefully) tonight.

Anyway, you'll just unzip the contents to wherever, like your desktop. Then:

Run: "1.bat"
"2.bat" should run itself (it's separate in case something happens somewhere along the way and you need to start over, but obviously don't want to go to the very beginning
Then you'll need to run "3.bat"

They're simple batch files, you can check them if you're suspicious... >_>

Instructions will be given throughout at times when necessary
This happens when you install msysgit, and when you actually use msys. This is because I wasn't sure how to input arguments for these two in order to stream-line it more. The instructions will either come in the form of a text file, or if you look in the cli, it should tell you exactly what to do there (Instruction sets should be right above\before what you are working on. If you have any questions, please ask.

So far they've worked for me, I just need to make sure I didn't leave anything out.

Keep in mind that you will need upwards of 5 or 6 gigs to complete the download and compile.

If I find anything I missed, I'll simply reload the zip file

This will ONLY work for window (in case you missed that we're dealing with batch files)

Hopefully this works for you too! It's much better than me trying to upload 4.47 GB of data per day =P

Oh yeah, to update the game from the repo's, you'll just need to run "3.bat"

Notes: If you get cut off partway-through on the second batch file (when it clones the repo server), you'll have to delete the Xonotic folder in Program files in order for it to let you try cloning again (not my fault).

If anyone here who knows better what they're doing, wants to make some changes, FEEL WELCOME. There are definitely some parts that could use a little more stream-lining.

Also, I might end up having to move this part of the thread else-where because of its nature, but at least for the time, if you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to comment.

IMHO, that was a completely wrong idea and step.
We want its first impression to be as good as possible.
for people who r so curious, they should use git, and come to the forums.
for mappers/modellers/developers who want to see something so they can contribute, then why the hell do we have git.

what u did, will most likely fail, and it's wrong, I think the developers ofthe game didn't reply only because they know that nobody will actually use the torrent.

I know u want to contribute something, but I think there r other things u can do other than that torrent.

anyway, that was IMHO

This is the git... I just simplified the process... And told them where to find maps that the devs have already built. All of those things, a basic member can get ahold of. I just consolidated information.

And there's no torrent involved... Why would I put a torrent file in a zip archive? As if they aren't small enough already >_>

Download the archive and see what is inside it OR read all posts before trying to slam me. Thanks!

PS. Devs don't really look at this part anyway, except FrutieX does, and he handles game code, level designing, and 2D art. I think they call those developers, don't they? (see below) Nice try though.

http://www.xonotic.org/team/blog/

This sounds similar to the svn build system div0 made for nexuiz for windows users. Ill give it a test when I get home.

I made a wiki article, Compiling Xonotic in Windows

Fossiltalk, I'll have a look at your scripts this week

This sounds similar to the svn build system div0 made for nexuiz for windows users. Ill give it a test when I get home.

No, it isn't. div's solution was a portable package that already contained all the necessary tools to download and build. This requires you to install the tools.
Of course it would be nice to improve this to use a pre-packaged toolset. Actually, basing this off div's svn nexuiz and adding msysgit to it would not be too hard, I think...

FINALLY! Give this a shot! =)

Tested it last night, and worked perfectly! Again, start with 1.bat. It will take care of all its business, and then you will open 2.bat. 2.bat will then open 3.bat for you.

The biggest change is that I set it up to download a precompiled version of msysgit from mediafire (I uploaded it), instead of trying to download one of the installers of portable versions that won't seem to work properly. I just downloaded the net install, ran it, and then re-packaged it in a 7z file.

Download in link below!

  xonotic_repo_kit.zip (Size: 427.72 KB / Downloads: 7)

This one is ready for testing! =)

Thanks to Mr. Bougo for his article, which simplified the process for me!

If the current git is even remotely considered close to a Pre-Release, I can say without a doubt that anyone serious about FPS gaming is going to look elsewhere to spend their playtime.

Fossiltalk, what is download.exe, and why does it download stuff from mediafire? Does that site even allow direct linking?

Fossiltalk, what is download.exe, and why does it download stuff from mediafire? Does that site even allow direct linking?

It's a command-line downloader. That's its sole purpose. It's downloading a precompiled/downloaded/updated version of msysgit, containing everything needed to compile xonotic. I couldn't get the net installer or the portable version to work correctly, so I compiled it myself and compressed it into 7z format. As far as I know, it does. At the very least, the download location has worked for the last 3 or 4 days or so. I'll check it again in a sec. If you know a site that is free and supports direct linking, please tell me and I can make the changes if it becomes a problem

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If the current git is even remotely considered close to a Pre-Release, I can say without a doubt that anyone serious about FPS gaming is going to look elsewhere to spend their playtime.

The thread focus has kind of shifted a little, but I'm waiting to repost until I'm sure all the kinks are worked out of my scripts

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As far as I know, it does. At the very least, the download location has worked for the last 3 or 4 days or so. I'll check it again in a sec. If you know a site that is free and supports direct linking, please tell me and I can make the changes if it becomes a problem

Just checked again, and it doesn't. If you know of any sites that do, please let me know!

Fossiltalk, what is download.exe, and why does it download stuff from mediafire? Does that site even allow direct linking?

It's a command-line downloader. That's its sole purpose. It's downloading a precompiled/downloaded/updated version of msysgit, containing everything needed to compile xonotic. I couldn't get the net installer or the portable version to work correctly, so I compiled it myself and compressed it into 7z format. As far as I know, it does. At the very least, the download location has worked for the last 3 or 4 days or so. I'll check it again in a sec. If you know a site that is free and supports direct linking, please tell me and I can make the changes if it becomes a problem

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If the current git is even remotely considered close to a Pre-Release, I can say without a doubt that anyone serious about FPS gaming is going to look elsewhere to spend their playtime.

The thread focus has kind of shifted a little, but I'm waiting to repost until I'm sure all the kinks are worked out of my scripts

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As far as I know, it does. At the very least, the download location has worked for the last 3 or 4 days or so. I'll check it again in a sec. If you know a site that is free and supports direct linking, please tell me and I can make the changes if it becomes a problem

Just checked again, and it doesn't. If you know of any sites that do, please let me know!

DropBox is free (for 2GB, or 8GB if you recommend people), and supports direct linking.