FOnline Development > General Discussion

Q&A - The development of FOnline: 2238

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Lexx:
Inspired by a different thread I am opening this one:

If you have any questions about the old FOnline: 2238 and its development, origins, thoughts or ideas, then ask away. I (or other original devs strolling by) will try to answer them and provide insight, if possible.

fonliner:
Thank you, I have few questions.

1. When did you hear about FOnline for first time? What were your reaction?

2. How did you get access to FOnline source which you used for creating 2238?

3. Who were early developers and what they were resposible for? (example: Dev1 - combat system programmer, Dev2 - mapping)

4. Did you have any secret ideas which you wanted to introduce but never told about that?

5. Can you shortly (or more detailed) write about launch day of 2238? What were your reactions, how did you prepare for it?

And the last one question (but not the last) right now:

6. Were you playing the game in your spare time when you don't develop the game? If yes write how and when, if not tell why you weren't playing.


So that's at the moment. Thank you all 2238 devs for your amazing work.

Lexx:
Keep in mind, it's quite some time since, but I try to remember as best as I can.


1. When did you hear about FOnline for first time? What were your reaction?
Don't really remember, but it was a few years before the first open beta. Never made much of it, because "it was just another Fallout mod" at that time. Everyone was skeptical about this ever getting a real release anyway... People were working on other Fallout-like engines ever since and none ever finished (IanOut, FIFE, etc).

2. How did you get access to FOnline source which you used for creating 2238?
I wasn't really involved at that time, so I am not 100% sure- someone else from us back then (before I joined) asked cvet about it and he agreed. Maybe scypior or ghosthack can share some more details on this.

3. Who were early developers and what they were resposible for? (example: Dev1 - combat system programmer, Dev2 - mapping)
Again, probably not going to get all the details right, but what I can say right away:
- Atom was reverse engineering lots of stuff from Fallout 2 and scripted new combat.fos, hit calculations, etc.
- Ghosthack and scypior wrote many scripts as well (scypior made the famous junk clutters in random encounters \o/ ... he scripted it and I've tested + checked the maps while we were at work... woops. :>)
- Ghosthack and Atom also worked on our tools, with the Worldmap Editor mainly being Ghosts thing. Honestly, without that tool, fiddleing with the worldmap and encounters was a god damn mess.
- Lisac did quest stuff, some mapping and dialogue as well.
- In the early days, I worked mostly on maps and ported dialogues from Fo1/2 (I ported many maps, but not all- don't know who did the first batch, as I wasn't around yet). Later I did some quest design and stuff like that, when working on maps became a bit less important (till the end I kept fixing holes in walls, though). Oh, and Lisac and me both were nazis about the Fallout lore. Whatever we did somehow had to fit into the lore... else I'd consider it shit.
- Slim Charles worked on dialogues the most at the early times, I guess. He wrote famous Metzger... and with all the different nodes and options, etc. everyone who looks at that dialogue in the editor will die a horrible death. :>
- Prefontaine and / or Lazlo(?) had been working on map and dialogue stuff too.

I think that's everyone who was there at the very beginning. Could be that I missed someone, though...

Fun Fact: Our project leader, AHS-9, never existed. He was a joke.

4. Did you have any secret ideas which you wanted to introduce but never told about that?
Me personally: I totally wanted a hot air balloon as vehicle (like the vertibird, but cooler). Graphics etc. exist since years, but they were originally made for my Fallout 2 mod, which is not yet released- never wanted to release the graphics before my mod was done, because then vultures would have ripped and used it without ever giving credits. :> Hey, maybe my Fo2 mod will be released some day, then this thing can hit FOnline too (the vehicle was already in 2238 & working. I just removed the graphics). Junktown was to have a workshop for them, inclusive quest to get one, keep it repaired, etc.

5. Can you shortly (or more detailed) write about launch day of 2238? What were your reactions, how did you prepare for it?
We were 110% stressed, every one of us. The weeks before were spend on full crunch mode. Wasn't sleeping much, because when I wasn't at my real workplace, I did nothing but working on 2238 and occasionally eating. The past days were also spend on writing the manual, which was even more stressing... (and kinda a waste of time. It didn't took long till it was completely outdated and we never worked on it again. Making a wiki would have been a wiser decision).

Launch day was awesome. We had like 1.000 players and counting. Server was running hot and lag was big. Have to say, the interest was way bigger than I've (and probably anyone else) expected. Thought we'd get like what... 100 people or so at max?

6. Were you playing the game in your spare time when you don't develop the game? If yes write how and when, if not tell why you weren't playing.
Me personally not that much anymore after launch. We constantly had to fix bugs and exploits and people wanted more content of any kind. It was just impossible to get it all under one hat while at the same time having a real job or school or kids.
I know that some from us were playing it every once in a while. Especially Solar later on, to test the economy balance and stuff like that.

fonliner:
Thanks, nice answers.

The question which I ask now isn't mainly related to early development... but what was happen with rest of devs? I can recognize only few which sometimes visit this forum. Would you like to still develop or contribute in some fonline projects?

Ghosthack:

--- Quote from: fonliner on October 29, 2016, 03:49:49 pm ---Thanks, nice answers.

The question which I ask now isn't mainly related to early development... but what was happen with rest of devs? I can recognize only few which sometimes visit this forum. Would you like to still develop or contribute in some fonline projects?

--- End quote ---

A lot of us still lurk on IRC and few of us are semi-active on this forum.

As for the state of FOnline in general, unless the engine is open sourced (by cvet) or someone creates a new engine that is open for the whole community, I don't think that much will happen to FOnline. From what I've seen, all the current projects are stuck on certain versions of the server/client and can't do any big changes without complicated hacks of the binaries.

I hope that there will be some more collaboration, but it looks like everyone is doing their own thing for now mostly. But I could be wrong, I don't have any contact with current projects except via this forum.

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