Oolite Bulletins

drew wrote:

Now, if Mr. Braben would like to commission a Novella, that's something else.

Cheers,

Drew.

I think he should get you to do a novella Drew, I loved your previous novellas and I think Roberts Holdstock's legacy would be very safe in your hands Maybe a future reach goal? You should bump your thread on the Frontier forum!

http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1940

Well said Disembodied.

I've just written a report for the MOD on the very subject of realism (for CGFs (Computer Generated Forces) specifically) and spent a long time looking at best practice and state-of-the-art from GOTS, Industry specialists (in behaviour, cognitive processing, AI, "learning", "adaptive") and the gaming/entertainment industry and what is absolutely clear is that you do not want realism, because realism is ultimately not controllable and, for a (military) training environment, not repeatable.

Using unclassified data and scenarios we have even investigated allowing external 3rd parties to play "the bad guys" in a scenario - i.e. actually playing terrorists and/or insurgents and, despite agreeing to the basic rule set and having a brief of their own, what quickly becomes obvious is that there is no normal, realistic behaviour, you do not really die, there are no real consequences to foolish behaviour and the whole thing quickly deteriorates into absolute chaos.

I've yet to play any MMO where the base behaviour of the game doesn't dissolve into the lowest common denominators of pettiness, meanness, power-tripping and generally unpleasant behaviour - those who have little control, power in their real lives will often exorcise their demons by alternative methods...

That's fine, but I don't want them in any game that requires my long-term investment in time, energy and, ultimately, cash...

I need to be quick as I'm going out in 15min...

Personally I can't see this getting off the ground, even though a rebooted Elite written for today's hardware would be awesome.

Multiplayer concerns me - you can't avoid the dickheads. While it would be good to join forces with other like minded players to take out the Jameson killers, ultimately, you're never going to be rid of them. Limited multiplayer co-op vs AI, or deathmatches is viable...

I also question the viability of getting enough players to populate enough systems simultaneously to give players a sense of an 'alive' universe. the only recourse would be to make up any shortfall with AI players. We'd be going up against an established player like Eve Online.

Ok, I'm getting looks now...signing off.

Does anyone know if David Braben is aware of Oolite or in fact has anyone ever had any contact with him ?

Shipbuilder wrote:

Does anyone know if David Braben is aware of Oolite or in fact has anyone ever had any contact with him ?

1. Almost certainly yes.
2. Not as far as we know.

Cheers,

Dre.w

Shipbuilder wrote:

Does anyone know if David Braben is aware of Oolite or in fact has anyone ever had any contact with him ?

I'd be surprised if he was unaware: there are plenty of mentions of Oolite on the Frontier official forums, and I'm sure he can work a search engine ... he found out about Elite: TNK quickly enough.

There are probably good reasons though why he'd want to avoid "official" contact or recognition. To some extent we are like squatters on his (and Ian Bell's) intellectual property*: by acknowledging us, that might potentially allow other people to use us as an example of how he fails to closely guard said intellectual property and therefore claim that it's fair game to rip him off. By not publicly acknowledging us, though, he can leave us free to do what we want as long as we don't wake the sleeping lawyers by e.g. charging money ...


*Albeit ones who have maintained it lovingly, painted it and cut the grass etc.

I sat up into the early hours last night reading the comments pages on the E:D kickstarter site and there are a few mentions of Oolite dotted around amogst the posts, some really close to where David Braben has posted so he's bound to have spotted it as he seems to be reading posts and answering queries that people are having

Shipbuilder wrote:

Does anyone know if David Braben is aware of Oolite or in fact has anyone ever had any contact with him ?

Yes he is aware of Oolite, Oolite has been mentioned on the Frontier forums many times. About contact, don't know. Given that Oolite operates in a grey zone, I would prefer that it stayed below the radar. I think the general consensus here is that Frontier Dev tolerates Oolite as long as Oolite is strictly non commercial and open source. Stray away from that track and they can, and probably will, shut Oolite down. For that reason I believe they won't endorse or even acknowledge the existence of Oolite in any way. That might limit their options in the future if they felt the need to protect their rights.

Edit: Partly Ninja'd by Disembodied.

As Ahruman has pointed out several times, getting DB to acknowledge Oolite is like kicking a dragon that has decided to ignore us.

We have done far more to bridge the gap between original Elite and his current re-imagining over the last 20 years than he has. Let's just presume he's silently grateful that we have sustained his fanbase for him.

The pledges have just passed the 400K mark i.e. £402,009 and counting

Other than pledging more cash am I right in assuming there's no difference between £15, £20 and £30 pledges?

I can pledge £15, hoping to have £40 "spare" by pay day (although Christmas is looming large and we've been living on my salary for 2 months with my wife only just recovering from her cancer and only just going back to work) - so spare is a very loose concept at the moment.

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Other than pledging more cash am I right in assuming there's no difference between £15, £20 and £30 pledges?

I can pledge £15, hoping to have £40 "spare" by pay day (although Christmas is looming large and we've been living on my salary for 2 months with my wife only just recovering from her cancer and only just going back to work) - so spare is a very loose concept at the moment.

From your above post I'm unsure if you are aware of this. (If you are, it's good info for anyone else who is considering to pledge) So just in case. When you pledge you give them CC details. The money is then taken from the card when and if the funding of the project is successful, in this case on the 4th of January.

Slightly OT, but must read...

http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2248



Cheers,

Drew.

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Other than pledging more cash am I right in assuming there's no difference between £15, £20 and £30 pledges?

As far as I understand there is indeed no difference between £20 and £30 (except the £20-pledge being limited). However, there is a big difference between these two and the £15 pledge: For at least £20, you get the game as soon as it's published. For £15, you don't. You have your reserved commander name, but you need to buy the game in order to use it.

Ah, a subtly I hadn't spotted... Thank-you! (shakes loose change jar)