Clean-up

[Leland]

"Shut it down! Shut it down forever!"

The forum hasn't had much active discussion for a long, long LONG time, and the whole project is all but pronounced dead. I hate loose ends, which is why I believe we should gracefully admit our defeat and close the project down officially. This means archiving the forums (in case someone changes his mind in the future) as well as terminating the two sourceforge projects. So if any of the old civ3 sourceforge admins are present, please let me know.

The poll is open indefinitely, and of course we're not in any hurry. Let's see in about a month or so what the situation is, and make the decision then.

[Maniac]

I wonder if the old contributors will even visit the forum to vote.

[S. Kroeze]

I do not understand this eager desire to close this Forum as soon as possible.
I voted NO, though I do not care that much.

Yes, I agree that GGS is dead, and to be honest I am rather sad about it.
It also saddens me to have lost all contact with Joker and Amjayee in particular. I will probably send them an e-mail to relieve my sadness.

But what will we win when this Forum is closed and archived?
I still think we have had some interesting discussions here and I will certainly visit the Forum as long as it still exists. I have the experience that archiving a Forum on Apolyton usually results in the loss of about half its contents. So I do not understand what will be the advantage of archiving it.

When our last experience -playing Diplomacy- would have stirred up more enthusiasm, I would have tried to organise other games, like 'Kremlin'. It seems my gaming enthusiasm is not generally shared, which is a pity.

My best wishes to all members of GGS!

[Maniac]

But what will we win when this Forum is closed and archived?

Now I have the feeling we're abusing the goodwill and precious memory space of MarkG. For what? Because we, a very small group compared to the rest of Apolyton, feel we had some nice moments and interesting discussions here.

It seems my gaming enthusiasm is not generally shared, which is a pity.

But it is! For which my thanks! In your L'ennemi game I'm currently trying to figure out whether France and Austria have become my enemies or still my allies. I guess you couldn't give me a hint. j/k

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Leland
The poll is open indefinitely, and of course we're not in any hurry. Let's see in about a month or so what the situation is, and make the decision then.

If the project's progress is any indication of how fast we'll get this place closed down, then it may never die.

We should probably talk to Markos or Dan about it... if it's not too much trouble then they could allow us to keep it open for discussion and old times' sake. If not, then we can lay the forum to rest, along with the project.

[Apocalypse]

Keep in mind the Dinos forum is still open.

[Mark_Everson]

Why not just put a post at the top that says clearly that "the project is dead but the ideas live on" and leave it at that. If Markos and Dan think its not worth the freight to keep the forum up, I'm sure they'll say so.

Good luck to the former GGSers in your current interests.

[S. Kroeze]

Originally posted by Mark_Everson
Why not just put a post at the top that says clearly that "the project is dead but the ideas live on" and leave it at that. If Markos and Dan think its not worth the freight to keep the forum up, I'm sure they'll say so.

Good luck to the former GGSers in your current interests.

Thank you very much, Mark_Everson!
You are most kind.

I hope 'The Clash of Civilisations' is developing better?
I promise to visit Your Forum regularly.
Unfortunately I get usually lost on the 'Clash' Forum.

When I can be of use with some information about 'Historical Realism' you can always contact me.
I do not pretend to be knowledgeable about ALL fields of History, but I am quite good at looking up reliable information in a short period of time.

Sincerely,

S.Kroeze

[Mark_Everson]

Originally posted by S. Kroeze

I hope 'The Clash of Civilisations' is developing better?
I promise to visit Your Forum regularly.
Unfortunately I get usually lost on the 'Clash' Forum.

Hi S.Kroeze, yes we're making steady progress. Although it's never as rapid as I'd like! I am sorry we lose you! Have you tried Demo 7? It has a tutorial that fairly painlessly introduces most of the existing models. It's a bit of Fun too!

Thanks for your kind offer, I'm sure I'll take you up on it in the future

In case its of interest to you... I was just commenting on the Clash forum not ten minutes ago that we need someone to work on a model of naval transport and warfare. We have ships in the game (they will be more prominent in the next demo) but its at the level of the cheezy civ model of naval transport. Men can be moved across the world in triremes with no attrition, etc. If you would like to summarize what you think are the most important real-world effects that we need to get right, it would be of significant value. If you were interested in roughing out a game model for it, it would be even better!

We are in a similar position on city-related issues like sieges, and that would be an alternative valuable thing for you to organize facts on.

Hope we can rope you in . The more people working, the faster the progress will be!

[VetLegion]

The forum hasn't had much active discussion for a long, long LONG time, and the whole project is all but pronounced dead. I hate loose ends, which is why I believe we should gracefully admit our defeat and close the project down officially

'loose ends' are bad, but I dont like defeat, and closing this project would in a way be a defeat

To me 'civ' has, over the years, become more then a computer game, actually I would say it is a hobby by now - I played most variants, I always eagerly expect new official sequels, I try to keep up with what is going on the alternative scene, and not the least important - visiting Apolyton forums regularly has become a habit I also cant shake (or want for that matter ). This is because I have met many people here who's opinions I highly appreciate and enjoy reading or discussing - GGS team leading the bunch ofcourse

I have to be realistic and admit that we are at an alltime low of activity, this is true. We have discussed most stuff to death in theory so lack of forum noise at this phase is understandable. But we are also stopped in programming area.

I feel responsible that this exceptional project is at the virtual stop. That is because I enlisted as a programmer and I accepted the task of constructing the multiplayer engine, which is very important part of the 'core' of the game engine. I havent been able to finish it since I started, and lately I am not able even to work on it.

Just so you know who to blame . I am sorry especialy for the guys who contributed lot of ideas and dont know any programming to 'materialize' them (a position that must suck) because they expected visible results, and didnt get them, apart from UI Chris made.

In conclusion, I am not going anywhere. I think contributing to make a civ-like game is a 'peak' of my expirience as a civer and I intend to keep trying. I am irrepairable optimist about GGS. So,

I think sourceforge projects should not be closed.
I think our apolyton forum should not be closed. If the administration decises to close it, I ask at least to preserve full archive. The archive of mirc logs, which are also valuable, are safe on my HDD.

I m glad to hear Clash is still kickin', even jealous a bit
Keep it up Mark

You have seen these cycles of activity and nonactivity, of ecstasy and despair on your own project before.. this is also happening here. Apart from java, these projects are amazingly simmilar, and have same troubles, mainly - lack of capable, reliable and skillfull coders.

Off to vote 'No', but I am glad you started the topic Leland. We have to look truth in the eyes and see where we are.

And then make peace with it, or tell it to **** off
In hope of better times, I ll do the latter.

[VetLegion]

well, the poll seems in favor of closing/disbanding

I urge more people to vote + mods if you make any decisions let us know before that *knocks on wood*

I spent too much time discussing in these threads not to feel attached to them

[Nath]

Seems a waste to throw it away. I will, as I've said before, be rather busy for a while, but I hope we can sort of restart this project in April or so.

[MattyBoy]

Even if 60% of people in this forum wanted it closed, that wouldn't justify closing it as those who want it closed can always just walk away.

[Rasbelin]

I voted "I don't know" as I haven't heard anything about the status of the project as the old website hasn't been updated and the domain the project seems to have had also is outdated, so I can't really make up my mind.

If someone has the contact information of the admins of this project, I ask you to contact me with the contact information so that I could try to get an answer from them (and hopefully post it here). In the case the project really is dead, then IMHO there's no good reasons to keep this forum.

[Leland]

Originally posted by Rasbelin
If someone has the contact information of the admins of this project, I ask you to contact me with the contact information so that I could try to get an answer from them (and hopefully post it here). In the case the project really is dead, then IMHO there's no good reasons to keep this forum.

Well I'm an admin of the other sourceforge project, and I guess I know as much about the status of GGS as anyone. That's why I started this thread.

The website hasn't been updated since last year I think. Not to even mention the old website.

[Rasbelin]

Well, thanks for the update, Leland, but I still need the contact information of the GGS project administration.

[Leland]

Originally posted by Rasbelin
Well, thanks for the update, Leland, but I still need the contact information of the GGS project administration.

Uh, what project administration? We never had any official administration, and besides the sourceforge projects there is no official team. So I am the person whom you are looking for, if anyone is.

[Rasbelin]

So what's the real status of Guns, Germs & Steel? Have you decided to end the project or are you going to continue it (in that case you're apparently only in a state of hibernation)? At least I would suggest that you would terminate the project/s, in the case there's no plans for further action and it's all deserted. I don't mean that I would try to put on end on your fine project, but if nobody is doing anything, why not just end it? These are just thoughts that I have been thinking about when I have been wondering what the worst scenarios for StP could be.

[Leland]

Personally, I'd prefer to see the project closed down but that's just my own aesthetics, and because like VetLegion I feel I'm personally responsible for the failure... the poll is divided 50-50 and from the above posts I can see that even if the project never materialized, keeping it in stasis does have some merit. I know I'll be sticking around in the sense that if anyone ever gets interested, I can serve as a contact person (though I doubt I'll take any initiative myself anymore), and if keeping the forums open doesn't pose a problem then I don't see much of a dilemma.

Anyway, here's breakdown of pros and cons for closing the project

Pros:

• No loose ends or ambiguity.
• Doesn't waste space at poly/sourceforge.
• Uh, what else?

Cons:

• Risk of loosing posts in archiving the forum (if it can be archived at all)
• Old contributors have emotional attachment to the project.
• Tossing out the concept altogether (I do think we might have had a genuinely novel game idea in our hands, closest equivalent being maybe Clash)
• ..and maybe something else.

(Okay that wasn't much of a breakdown... )

[The_Newbie]

Oops I accidently voted yes when I wanted to vote no.