The Future of TT from GG!

[paisano]

After learning about the sad news of Rooster retiring from hosting Scrumodz I decided to contact Joe from GarageGames just to see what the latest news was regarding the future of the game that we all love so much. I've done that in the past and shared it on here but it's been almost a year since the last official word so I wanted to see what their plans were now (if indeed they had any). The good news is that they do in fact have big plans for TT! Here's what I wrote and two detailed and exciting replies that Joe gave me permission to share with the gang on here.

***from me to GG***
Joe,
hello. Long time. How are you? After three plus years of playing ThinkTanks I finally stepped away for about six months.
I had a death in the family and others reasons why I had to take a break but now I am back and love TT more than ever.
However, I read some sad news today on their forum http://forums.planetthinktanks2.com/Thi ... =18&t=4024
Rooster is closing one of the last servers after 5 years of dedicated service! he has created hundreds of maps/mods too!
The community is in shock and very sad. First, because we enjoyed his servers and maps. Second, we know this brings the death of TT
even closer to reality.

I was wondering if there was anything you or your company can do for all of us diehard loyal fans?
Can you provide more servers or some new updates or maps? Anything?

By the way, during my absence from the game I've become a well-known blogger and very connected in the web 2.0 social media/social networking world.
I have tons of connections now all over the world. I would love to help GG and TT especially gain a greater fan base/audience. I can bring a lot of attention to things now. Are there any plans for TT's future? Please don't let it die. I think it's an amazing experience that can only get better with the new technologies that exist today. For example, we can bring the chat in-game to the world wide web chat and allow players to communicate with friends on other im platforms (meebo).

I hope to hear back from you. Old friend. Don't forget about all of us loyal fans.
--
Paisano®

***First reply from Joe @ GG***
Paisano,

Long time. To make a long story short, BraveTree was purchased by GarageGames, and now I am actually the General Manager of the Game Studio (which produces our internal games). We did a newer version of ThinkTanks for instantaction.com.

The instant action version is in the web, and while it is not 'open' right now, the plan with the web platform is to add in all the back end features we wanted to add into thinktanks (on demand dedicated servers, team support, etc..)

What we do need is a way to manage ongoing development of it.. Mod support is in the future (as in, one of the things we want to do).

What we need is for more people to be coming over to play the instant action version. If it gets traction, it might be a testbed for putting the 'new' web features in that game.

Note that Mark McCoy (LagMan) is the designer of the instant action website, and that I am going to be hiring Dan MacDonald as well..

If there is interest, we definitely want community support for the new version on ia.com, and we want to get the best community maps and figure how to do good modding support (with hopefully Digg style ratings and whatnot)..

So, not forgotten, but the future of TT is at instant action. If the community wants support, help make instant action be all it can be.

Joe

***my reply***
Joe,

Thanks for the swift and informative reply! I truly appreciate it. I understand your situation and I like the sound of it too!
May I have permission to share your info with the rest of the gang? I know that I can bring a lot of member to IA!
By the way, I think you should consider communicating with many other members who've developed some amazing mods for your game.
Besides Rooster there was Napalm who generated amazing packs we still download to enhance our experience.

I await your permission to spread the word.

thanks again!

Pai

my blog is called American Pai (http://thepaisano.wordpress.com)

***Joe's other reply***
Pai,

I would communicate if I have the time.. I am just actually super busy. Two kids, plus managing the game studio and overseeing external games (many)... feel free to communicate it. What we are doing is making a website that makes games accessible.. they launch in a browser, and the idea is that we eventually will be able to make it widgetized and 'mashup'-able (that is a long way out).. some of the stuff we are dreaming about is little game 'twitters' and team 'twittter'.. stat tracking.. leagues with seasons (with stats), baseball card style viewing, community tools for the community to self manage, and all of it accessible.. that is the key.. so yeah, let people know, gather up the stuff, and if anyone is interested in doing 3rd party ongoing development (like, actually different game types, new levels, etc..) let me know.. as we actually want to find some external folks to keep the content 'alive'.. right now it will be a manual process, but we need help in finding out the best way to support the community, and there is no better way then trying to actually make it happen.

sounds like your skills and some of the stuff you have been working on might be appropriate to what we are working on.

Joe

Note from Pai: Some of you will not like the decision to go with a browser based TT and I can understand the complaints but if learn more about the details you will understand why they've made this decision. The future of online games appears to be within the browser. I know personally because I pay monthly for several games for my kids! They play Clubpunguin, PiratesOnline and ToonTown. All have live chat (monitored of course) and they enjoy playing other people online (sounds like TT, huh?). Virtual Worlds such as SecondLife and WorldOfWarcraft have become extremely popular and financially successful so look for all online surfing and gaming to continue to go virtual. Here's a post I did for my blog called American Pai: http://thepaisano.wordpress.com/2008/01/23/web-3d/

[Napalm]

That simply means the game is dead. I'm not going to play action games via the web.

[DJ Wings]

And I'm literally not, since it doesn't have Linux support.

[TMG Leader]

monitored chat? Booooo. That's no fun what so ever.

[paisano]

That simply means the game is dead. I'm not going to play action games via the web.

I understand how you feel Nap cause I thought the same thing for years. However, recent breakthroughs in technology have changed the game (literally).
I posed this question to GG to get their response on the negative perception that still exists for web-based games and this was their reply.

**From GG***
My response to that is to have some try the current downloadable version of ThinkTanks and then the one on Instant Action. The instant action one is graphically more advanced.. if they take a look at Legions (on the same site) and go fullscreen, it is bascailly the same thing as a standalone.. in fact, what we are doing is sticking a game executable in a 'web' window. The tech is NO difference. What differentiates the games are what we can do around it.. with the game now communicating directly with the web, the score reporting, chat, and just about any other 'hook' can be used more effectively by an online community (we are working on a community API for this purpose as well)..

The other advantage is the updating.. we can update all end users more effectively this way.. in effect, we can 'push' any patches to the game, and when we get there, mod content, additional items, etc..

for those that say it can never be as good, I would suggest that they sell their horse buggy-whip stock now. If someone has convinced themselves that what exists right now can never possibly exist, there is not much that can be done.

The version of ThinkTanks on InstantAction is the same game built on the same engine from the same codebase with updated graphics. The only difference is that the connection speeds are as if one was playing a locally hosted game (as if you clicked create game) and not a game on dedicated servers (although those will come soon).

[NUTS!]

I have played the IA TT a few times. I am also part of their mac beta. From what I can tell they do not plan to have linux version for a while if at all. Which I find surprising since the trend seems to be smaller computers that run linux.

The few times that I have played it was pretty laggy. I know that they are constantly doing updates all the time so it is getting better. I think it a great idea and I hope it takes off.

If I were to make the switch to IA I don't think I would play TT all that much. Not when they have games like RockitBall and Legions.

Sadly, I would have to concur with nappy. Each time a decent server goes off line it gets harder to find decent games. Right now for scrum it leaves dashes. Which always seems full.

[paisano]

Great feedback Nuts. I just started playing tt on instantaction and it was indeed more laggy than the old version that we still play.
Still, the graphics are impressive, even the little things like arrow pads and jump pads and when your tanks starts smoking it shows flames before you die.
Explosions and shooting are better too.

I'm surprised by the linux decision but I think that can change at any time from what I know.
They are always working on the performance issue so look for that to improve as well.

I think it's worth keeping an eye on anyway if you love TT. Ultimately, we have no choice. They won't do anymore updates to the old game so we need to keep trying to get into a crowded ts server or hope the new online version evolves to the point where it can be as good or better than the original.

[CB]

What part of Think Tanks on IA sucks don't you understand pai? I couldn't stand to be in a IA Think Tanks game for longer than 2 minutes. Plain and simple it sucks. We tried it and we don't like it. We are not a community that is going to support a version of Think Tanks that will surely mean the end to them running the master so we can play the game the way it was meant. Please leave well enough alone. I also spoke with one of the gg employees to let him know the master was down and that was a Friday and he had it up within a hour.He also told me since IA there were more people buying the stand alone version. If you really want to help us and Think Tanks, let IA Think Tanks die and spread the word for people to buy our version.

[paisano]

@CB
I guess we just don't agree. How is there a future for a game that its creators have decided to stop developing for? The best we can ever do has been done for years now. We can create different mods/maps and skins but that's it. There is a hard limit to where the old game can go without access to the source code and guts of the game. Obviously, I wish we could just upgrade our old game but it doesn't look like that's ever going to happen. Sure, the IA TT has performance issues but I think it will only get better with time...especially if it gains traction. Who knows.... maybe they will change their tune? Maybe someone will buy the source code and the game itself and bring it into the new mellinium for a standalone version? Not sure. I merely wanted to learn what the creators and owners of the game have planned for our beloved game.

[DJ Wings]

we can 'push' any patches to the game,

Am I the only one who doesn't like the sound of that? Maybe it's just that, as an open-source user, I'm used to being able to update software when, and if, I want to, and being able to see what, exactly, is in those patches, but I don't like the sound of that at all. Plus, how hard can a Linux version of TT (and the other GG titles on IA) be, after all? The Mac and Linux setups that IA uses are very similar (both use SDL and OpenAL, for instance), and there are already Linux versions of most GG titles. So what's the holdup? I'd be perfectly happy with only the games from GG being available for Linux on IA, and they've had months.