To GPL or not to GPL

[charlieg]

XWT is a project.  Adam is the author and owner of it.  It is open source, and I am a contributing developer.

You can see my name on this page and in the wiki.

[copycat]

Maybe this helps:
but the short answer is that Wiki Wiki is Hawaiian for "Quick.

Found on http://c2.com/cgi/wiki.

[Oldbushie]

Yeah, I tried one once, it's sorta like a manual forum and you edit the web page by hand. (Or is it append? I can't remember) At any rate, it's kind of interesting and very easy to manage / build, but not always as nice looking as these forums.

[Oldbushie]

Thank you for the calm, rational comments you made, Beetle B., and welcome to the forums. I agree with much of what you say; while Linux is an excellent system (and once I get two hard drives on my system I'll probably make it the main OS), there is no need to port an excellent game to it right away when it could be released much sooner on just one OS. I certainly don't want to see undue delay, and it would be painful if the team tried to port to both OS's, failed, and eventually the project faded or at least slowed down by a good couple years. It's better to get it right on one system first, with someone keeping an eye on the possibility on other ports.

So is Gentoo really the best? Maybe I'll try it. I've used Redhat before, got it working fine and had fun with it, maybe something with more power would be nice.

[beernutts]

Beetle B., that's a good post.  You made the your point, and it is a good point.  You didn't offend anyone, and it doesn't sound like you have an ego.

And there's nothing in Windows that makes it better suited for games. The reason people make games in it is because more people use Windows, not because you can make better games in it.

Well, I've been out of the *nix loop for a while, but I know in years past there were reasons Windows was better suited for games.  Video, audio, and input drivers were often hard to come by, and sometimes very buggy.  I'm assuming it's not nearly as bad anymore, but I can only guess that when new hardware comes out, it take the Lnux community longer to get a driver, and make it available than it does for Windows.  I could be off base though.

Regardless, it's still not a reason not to keep your code architecture portable, and away from any specific OS calls.  Especially with all the libraries that are inheriently cross-platform.

[copycat]

Having a HD of a mere 4 Gb,  I do not wish to expose its limited space to two OS's.  However, you can't blame me for inquiring about a future pc with a much higher HD-capacity, thus allowing for multi-booting.

Since I'll be a complete newby at Linux, I think I'll start with Red Hat. I find I learn best when I take things slowly, not too much fuss right from the start. So if Gentoo does not fit in that picture, I'll go for Red Hat. Maybe i'll swith to gentoo as time passes, but not from the start.

Just name what you use, and I'll let you know what software is like it in Linux.

I know Open/StarOffice is a substitute for the M$ Office family, but I have tried StarOffice (be it for Windows ofcourse) once (some time ago now) but it couldn't handle my seriously interlinked Excel file-combo. Do the current Linux-versions handle complicated Excel-files any better?

[charlieg]

Originally posted by copycat
[StarOffice] couldn't handle my seriously interlinked Excel file-combo. Do the current Linux-versions handle complicated Excel-files any better?

My only suggestion is to download the latest //OpenOffice.org (1.1 beta 2) and see if it works.  If it doesn't, sadly it is going to be the same in linux.

[Oldbushie]

Originally posted by Beetle B.
Yes, Gentoo is great. But you have been warned, it does take a lot of work to get it the way you want it.

I'd suggest the Alternative install - have Mandrake/Red Hat/whatever on a small amount of your HD. Then install Gentoo while logged into Mandrake/Red Hat (in a chroot environment). This way, if you mess up, you can easily connect to the Internet and get help.

Also, it helps if you have access to a broadband connection. If not at home, then at work/school to download the software.

Fortunately, we have five computers at home, and I can use the old computer (not too old, just semi) and I'll experiment with Gentoo on that to see how it works. Then, if I like it and know how to install it w/out problems, I'll use it on my mainstream computer. To get Gentoo, I'll just ask my friend (who has DSL) to download it for me.

The only reason we have so many computers is because my dad keeps more computers than he gives away to friends, and us kids get his old computers. Besides, it's really hard to sell obsolete computer parts for profit these days.

I'll keep you posted.

[charlieg]

Originally posted by oldbushie
Fortunately, we have five computers at home, and I can use the old computer (not too old, just semi) and I'll experiment with Gentoo on that to see how it works. Then, if I like it and know how to install it w/out problems, I'll use it on my mainstream computer. To get Gentoo, I'll just ask my friend (who has DSL) to download it for me.

Ah... Gentoo is a distro that pretty much needs an internet connection.  If you want to install something, it's trivial when you are online, but very non-trivial off-line.

I'd recommend going with something else if you do not have an open-ended interenet connection which can be on whenever you like, for as long as you like..

[joeschmo9991]

The porting situation is comparable to broadband service in my area- I had to wait 6 months for my Cable provider to setup a fiber-optic network in my neighborhood for cable modem service. My friend, who lived close by, though wasn't in my neighborhood, got his service in 1 month, as everything was setup. Demand was higher in his neighborhood than in my, so they made that a priority. You can't make everyone happy at once- you must make an effort to go with what is most effective and makes the majority of clientell pleased.

[Oldbushie]

I'll just wait until I'm back on the college broadband before I install Gentoo, that's all.

[Yonkey]

Originally posted by copycat
As an outsider, I think the publicity is as one would expect from a fan-game. The Inventory has featured an article about it, which means a lot of Just Adventure-visitors can have read it, several visitors of other forums have links to this site in their profiles, in order to make people aware of this site, but in a covert manner. So as far as publicity for an unreleased game goes, I think it's just fine.

Oh yeah, I took care of most of the publicity for The Inventory issue.  Dimidimidimi of course did some  And don't forget that Say did the flash promo and banners for it too!

I'm not sure how many more visitors to OUR site it got (we did get a few new forum members ), but I know Dimitri's gonna have a lot more readers drooling for his next issue.  

[charlieg]

Nothing beats a playable demo of a good game for publicity, because then people who might not be die hard adventure gamers will get ahold of it through word of mouth and major linkage.

I'd never heard of The Inventory, and I was quite into my gaming at one point and do try to keep up to date even though I don't play much these days.  Had I not stumbled across the kq9.org website in one of those random paths you sometimes follow whilst browsing, I'd be none-the-wiser and you guys would be a lot less... er... ruffled (?).

[Yonkey]

I fully agree.  A playable demo would be the second biggest form of publicity for the game (the biggest being the game itself ).  Once we have something tangable for people to get their hands on, I plan on distributing (or distributing the link) to many websites.  A few obvious ones come to mind, but as far as gaming-related websites I'll have to do some research.

I've never heard of The Inventory either, and this website I did stumble upon from a google search based on Roberta Williams!  The first thing I saw here was the Four Winds Newsletter, then the forums!  Anyway, we're already working on something to... fix this.  Hehe, that's all I can say for now.

[joeschmo9991]

There's always the problem convincing people about things like fan games. It's like file sharing servers, where it's usually a toss-up on the quality of the file. I've seen some pretty bad fan games...stuff like that sets bad stereotypes.  If you want to be really effective in advertisment, you need to shove it in people's faces. So far, using the //www.kq9.org address was brilliant- a lot of people will accidentely come upon the website.

[Say]

Of course to have a playable demo for everyone would be great!! lol, but the problem is since the game is not completed, it would be a huge spoiler as well (I mean right now), is not like we could practically go and say, ok a demo now, and a solid release date, lol, as I said also in order to get to consider that we should get done some other things first (in production stage anyways) so thats why the idea of the release of a demo is not been considered as a publicity approach perhaps?, besides as we all know here lol, how jealous we've been about the core plot of the game, and even some stuff about the development of it , thats why I think it might be a spoiler too cause we cant give you the final product yet.

We may get to that approach if time is appropiate to it and if the team consider to release it, lol, the more we could love that idea we cant make the demo ourselves (PR team), in the meantime all we can do is other promotional ways and such, its not like we would call it only browse it all over the net but yeah Inventory was quite nice, they are the magazine of just adventure, and from all hits just adventure gets monthly I think some people knew from us alright!;), but believe it or not, that would drag more people to get attention to the project (those others alternatives), I bet there is -a lot- other more that got no clue we even exist at all!!

AND like Joe said briefly there also, yeah kq9.org is actually like the window of the project, we work apart from this site in a web group thing, with our mailing stuff and so on, this is mostly like the main conection the kq9 team got with you, and as to prove we do exist.

But yeah a demo would be nice alright, lol, Im kinda eager to play it myself

[copycat]

Jeez, it's been so long since I first ventured into the KQ-world, actually it was when they were still on their previous server, so excuse me if I don't remember how I found out about it. Probably got linked here by someone else on the Sierra-forums. And then, it took so long until I got a Four Winds-newsletter (and I don't think there was a forum yet, or not as sophisticated/crowded as this one) so as time passed I stumbled on the site again, and being unaware of my previous visit, I subscribed to the newsletter again. And then, some more time later, I got two issues of the Newsletter.

And besides, the publicity has to grow as time passes. After all, it's not like the game is being to be released in the next few weeks is it? So the effect has to be perfectly timed, in order to achieve maximum effect. If you bring out 'the big guns' now, people will have forgotten about it when the game is actually released, same about a playable demo now. It's much too soon. But I have every confidence in the PR Assistant Director and her team.