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Re: Don't Let the Stars Fade Away Sun, 28 January 2007 06:39 Go to previous messageGo to previous message
ken-reed is currently offline ken-reed

 
Senior Chief Petty Officer

Messages: 92
Registered: December 2006
Location: Oxfordshire, UK
An excellent post! You have have captured all of the key points. To take them in turn ...

Quote:

There are close to a dozen different clone attempts. Am I right about these things?


Close, some people did, indeed, start out creating a Stars! clone. As far as Nova is concerned (I can only speak for myself) I just wanted to learn about modern technology C#, .Net, ASP, XHTML, etc.) and, because I'm very fond of Stars!, implementing some of its features seemed a good way of learning how things have changed since the 16-bit world Stars! was built in and today's technology. Mission accomplished!

Quote:

the Stars! community is just kind of fading away.

Yes, very true.
Quote:

So what are we going to do about it?

Well, that is up to us.
Quote:

Stars! is the greatest strategy game ever created

Well, some people might argue about the rating but it's certainly amongst the best. I, personally, find the end-game a bit weak but, as I said, that's just my personal opinion.

Quote:

I'm not saying that Stars! is just going to disappear overnight. It will take years, maybe twenty or thirty or forty

I'll give it 5.
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I just don't want to see this game go down. I love it

So do I. This is why I'm continuing with Nova which was meant to be a short, personal, test platform for trying out some ideas. It has suddenly turned out to be a Stars! clone. Smile

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I think a clone or sequel that does everything Stars! did and adds upon all its strengths would be fantastic. Perhaps it would bring new energy to what, in my eyes, seems to be a dying Stars! community.

I fully agree. Making it happen, though, seems near impossible.

Quote:

I think we need to answer three questions:

1. Where is Stars! right now, and where is it going? Specifically, is it dying?
2. If it is dying, what can we do to prevent that?
3. What can we learn from the past to prevent the mistakes, disagreements, and other problems that contributed to disunity?



1 - As far as the commercial Stars! is concerned I believe it is dead.

2 - Nothing (as long as we are talking about the commercial version). Sad

3 - This is what this thread is about. Read more.

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Don't let the Stars! fade away.

An excellent motto for e-mail signatures (or, tongue-in-cheek here, a "mission statement"). Smile

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From what I know though, the Jeffs have encouraged the idea of a Freestars effort. With that in mind, shouldn't we be able to succeed with the original creators behind us?

OK, I'm willing to set up Nova as a SourceForge project so that anyone can contribute and, what was meant as a personal educational project, can become an Open Source Stars! clone.

The question is ... who is interested in working on it. Can I have a "show of hands" please. Various skills would be required. For example:

  • Graphic designers to create things like proper icons and generally make things look professional (Force User has some fantastic ideas for the ship designer dialog).

  • C# programmers (Craig?) to implement features such as battle visualisation, mine fields, etc.

  • General "hands-on" help such as creating all of the design components using the existing tools (e.g. creating all of the bomb types).

  • Documentation experts. This would be a complex project, someone will have to nag people about what they are doing and write it down. Nova uses XHTML as its documentation scheme so that would require web skills.

  • User guide writer. Again, XHTML skills would be required.


Me? I'd take on the role of quality control and reviewer. I'd leave the coding to other people but I'd still like to keep control of the "design" (someone has to).

OK, I've outlined the problem, does anyone want to tackle it or do the "Stars fade away"?


[Updated on: Sun, 28 January 2007 07:12]

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