The Future of TT from GG!

[stinkfingers]

this is really quite stupid. i'm not going to sit down and do a bunch of damn work to get onto that site. i'm a "client" remember? if they can't make it anymore client friendly than this, they can shove it some place warm and smelly.

[Gromit]

All I'm getting is a blank screen, can somebody plzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz HELP ME.........

[wOOt]

OMG it took Limey to finally ban Rogue, the mouth that speaks before it thinks!! I can't even begin to relay how hard I am laughing right now....

[Feathers McGraw]

OMG it took Limey to finally ban Rogue the mouth that speaks before it thinks!! I can't even begin to relay how hard I am laughing right now....

I think I love Dazzle now.
... methinks I hear a rope bridge calling my name from the land of TGE ...

[Mighty Mouse]

Now maybe we can get back to how we can help joe bring TT along and help the mac users overcome the apparent Gates bias instead of questioning his business sense. He may or may not have good business model, but the flux that digital entertainment is in, I'm sure we do not represent the marketplace.

Plus at the rate we are going, with much of the inactivity, something new had to be done. Even the top 5 armies are in dormancy. You have PSL coming along nicely with Rx's guidance, but really it's essentially the same small group of players. TBML running into a rough patch. Maybe IA is it.

Moral of the Dazzle/Rogue saga. It's ok to have an opinion, positive or negative. Know when others want to hear it.

[joemaruschak]

The Mac version of Instant Action is in a semi closed state at the moment. Full open beta is scheduled for mid -Julyish.. we have bugs to fix and issues to address. I will try to post when I have more information as to when we will have a fully non-buggy version up and running. For those getting 'black screen' behavior, please let me know your system configurations.

[Napalm]

Joe,
I have to say it looks promising but really inconvenient for the average user. Especially the kids or younger members of the community. This just may be because we have early access to it, and is not yet ready for prime time. Hopefully those issues will be ironed out.
Guessing when it recognizes the new version of Safari, all will be fine in that regard.

Are there any plans to be able to max screen your playing/browser window. Maybe a popup that's just for playing without all the outside items tagged to the window?

One of the big issues for me and several other who have tuned in is that it feels sightly removed because it's windowed and all of the elements seem smaller.

Kind of like your watching the game rather than playing it.

In any event I'll keep checking it out and let you know what I run into. Kind of a circus act to get it to go the first time but I think I've got a handle on it now.

I'd like to really know the guts of what's where on the Mac. Any insight or help from you to me is welcome.

Please let me know what I can do.

Napalm

[joemaruschak]

when it is ready for prime time, the mac version should behave like the windows version.. go to the site, install the plugin, and hit 'play'.. it should just launch. it is not there 'yet'. For fullscreen, that is something we want to get working seamlessly, but work on just getting the game/web integration is a higher priority. Fullscreen has a bunch of issues related to display driver de-bugging, and we want to focus on the backend connectivity first.. the idea is to get that core solid so that we can offer up more interesting web features (assemble a party out of game, challenge another party and have that 'pop' into a game is one example.. possibly being able to remote configure a Dedicated Server from a web page and then 'launch' it from the web and auto join, along with sending invites to friends to join is another).. we also wantto do cool things like have the games be aware of your team/army affiliation and update web content according to this (the idea of belonging to different 'groups' would be the best example). The backend for all this connectivity is quite an effort.. the idea is to add all that 'stuff' and make scalable, accessible, and invisible. The plugin allows for us to 'push' updates, and right now, this prevents modding, but the idea (which is a ways out) would be that the same 'push' will work as publish once we get modding tools in there.. so you mod and 'publish' and that gets pushed. No more having people install mods and hack scripts. that is the idea anyway.. as you might imagine, this is quite complex, as the dream state of being able to mod, publish,and have that mod 'pushed' to a server you can configure on a webpage... well, suffice to say that a state of seamless integration of all that is quite the undertaking.

the big 'thing' here is to take games and make them accessible, and to somehow 'flip' the business model where we are financially incentivized to add features and support for existing 'attached' customers and not in a position where we need to focus on upselling more new users in order to fund the development of community features. the business model of up front sales only forces us to 'eat our young' so to speak.. we need to 'eat' demos in order to fund ongoing development, and this is not sustainable, as it forces us to make decisions that keep us from dividing the community (which mods do) and 'dumbing down' the process of understanding what the heck is going on when you first play (which mods and complex admin controls tend to complicate)

so this is all dreamy stuff.. we are still in the 'get it working' phase, which is why we are in beta. The more involved you are in it, the better it will be, and the more likely you will have a say in how it goes. In terms of Mods and addtional game types.. send me an email. we are not at a point where we can allow modding seamlessly without creating a huge mess, but if anyone here wants to contribute to the game, have us add new game modes, or have some awesome maps that you think would be great in the new version, send me an email. I might not get back to you right away, but we are interested in taking the 'cream' of what has been developed and getting that into the game. and this is not to say.. hey, develop it for us.. it is purely a way to say, hey, if there is something you really want in the new game, and it exists (we don't have to rebuild it) we are actually really open to getting it and figuring out a way to get it in.

In some ways, this request may be premature, but if you gots 'stuff' and want to see it in instantaction, let me know, send me the stuff, and I will send it to the right people, get it vetted, and see if we can get it in the new version.

ok, gotta run.. hope this helps..and please keep asking questions. For general instant action questions and bug reports, I would post on the instant action forums.. Dr. Wiley and Ian Tornay over there are quite responsive, and they are more likely to correctly report issues than I am.. (I honestly and unfortunately don't have the time to be browsing this forum and looking for issues and logging bugs based on them)

[Reagent X]

^ nice post - thanks Joe!

[stinkfingers]

total BS. you can't eat 22 waffles. it's maddening.

thanks for the update joe. i will patiently wait, and i will give it a spin when ready for mac. i assumed that it was ready...and i just aint that handy with puters. i need it to be ez. like this game. this game is ez, which is why i like it.