Warzone 2100 Liberation Day

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rush2049
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Warzone 2100 Liberation Day

Post by rush2049 »

Hello All,

I thought I would take the time to stop by and see how Warzone is coming along. For those that remember me, hello how's it going. For those that don't, glad to meet you.

I remember back in the day working on 1.11 it was such a struggle to balance new technologies, when for every technology we added one had to be removed. Those were the days, working with the latest build of pie slicer dx to come up with new interesting models and textures. Then came release day, 1.11 was heralded as the greatest thing since sliced bread and all was good in the world. Of course we had our grumblers and complainers, but playing online with gamespy was more than enough fun to ignore them. But then we had a few people leave the team, actually quite a lot. So NEWEST was no more and Pumpkin-2 was created from the ashes of various warzone communities in an effort to keep the game alive through literally no support from EIDOS. And so work on 1.12 began. We had quite the dev team, coming up with new stuff like jump-jet soldiers (boy were they cool). We had emp-mortars and radar jammers, those were the days. Sure it was unbalanced, but thats what testing was for. We had two-three new armour types in development and a few secret stuff we weren't going to show till release day. But ahhhh, calamity, our FTP was shutdown due to a copyright claim. Oh woe is the warzone community, beaten and turned away at every effort. And so the various sites that had been acrued, newest, pumpkin-2, the backup of the warzone website, and even the warzone link turret, fell into disrepair. But from the ashes a small petition was born. This petition even now sits at 1607 signatures. And eventually through our contact at Pivatol Games we were able to bring the petition to EIDOS and gain the release of the source code!

So I take this time to thank each and every developer, player, and community member, past and present. For a job well done. For this small game to stay alive even when the original developers lost support of their publishing company is truly remarkable.

So from an old NEWEST member, and a Pumpkin-2 founding member, I want to wish all those a happy Warzone 2100 Liberation Day when the clock strikes midnight at whatever timezone you live. Let December 6th be a day of cheer and beer (or wine if you prefer), for this is the day Warzone 2100 was truely released upon the world, and all knew of Dr. Reed and his evil plot to rule mankind.

Sincerely,
Benjamin G Raush
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Last edited by rush2049 on 09 Dec 2010, 19:36, edited 1 time in total.
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lav_coyote25
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Re: Warzone 2100 Liberation Day

Post by lav_coyote25 »

hello old friend. glad to see your still functioning. XD
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Re: Warzone 2100 Liberation Day

Post by coppercore »

Wow rush, good to see you again. I haven't seen that name in a loooooong time.

I actually feel kind of bad, I forgot that 12/6 was the liberation day! Has it really been that long?

We worked so damn hard back in the day on that. We sent the petition to tech sites, news sites and everywhere we could think of.

It's just amazing to me to look now and see how far things have really come since back in the p-2 days. I feel like I helped to do something really special. To some it may not seem like that big of a deal, but it is to me. The near-impossible happened, the source code to a commercial game was released.

http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/ ... pkin2&1601
For those who want to take a look at it. I'm #2 on the signature list, after helping 4nik8r put the petition together so very long ago. (My handle then was stonecoldah1 way back then)

PS Sorry if this seems disjointed and such, its 1:30am here and I'm really tired. I'm gonna try to start being active, but who know's how that'll work out.
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lav_coyote25
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Re: Warzone 2100 Liberation Day

Post by lav_coyote25 »

ah shoot!!!! :stressed: :annoyed: :oops: i was going to wish everyone here a HAPPY WARZONE 2100 Source Release day, but i am too late. :x maybe next year.... :3 :)
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Re: Warzone 2100 Liberation Day

Post by coppercore »

Ohhh sh*t, is that a Cowboy I see? And hell, he went super oldskool on us too!

Look out, I'm gonna get people posting again. Hee-haw!
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Re: Warzone 2100 Liberation Day

Post by kevin »

Hello everybody, I was a member near the end of the newst days, beta tester for 1.12, and a webmaster for the pumpkin-2 and realtimestrategies.net sites. number 14 on the poll. I've been a bit inactive with the new cross-platform development though, which is somewhat ironic as I'm a heavy linux user, and was one of the first to fiddle with the code release. I have run the game a few times though, it's nice to see things continuing :)

Either me or coppercore should have a dump of various versions of the previous forum systems, from conversions and backups. As I recall it's been done before somewhere, but he expressed some interest in putting them up for viewing.
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lav_coyote25
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Re: Warzone 2100 Liberation Day

Post by lav_coyote25 »

omg , omg, omg, its old community members day, geezlooweez. hello you old boots, how the heck are you???? glad to see your all in one piece!!! :lol2:
rush2049
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Re: Warzone 2100 Liberation Day

Post by rush2049 »

Howdy everyone, its like a blast from the past!

I am pretty sure there are archives of various forums from long ago floating around. Glad to see some people that have them are still around. Don't know what use they would be.... but I am sure it would bring back a bit of nostalgia. XD

@cowboy, I think that list is a bit outdated, or it never was updated near the end of newst.... but nice use of the WayBackMachine!



For me, I am still in school... looking to transfer universities this year as my current one is screwing me over financially....
But after I transfer I am looking at 1.5 more years, for a total of 5.75 years in college, then I will graduate with a Software Engineering degree!!! I have had two internships already one with Mars (the candy company) and the other as a contractor to Thomson Reuters.

Perhaps in the future I will get back into the swing of things and take a look at the code base we worked so hard to get released, (I never did look at it).

What up with you all?
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Re: Warzone 2100 Liberation Day

Post by Rman Virgil »

.

Greets old-timers... good to see those nicks again. :D Usually it's just Lav and me from the old days still active regularly. :hmm:

Would be nice to have a place for Pumpkin's Official WZ MPlayer BBs, especially from 1999-2000. And of 'course the NEWST bbs from 1999 -2001 in particular. Then Pumpkin-2 and RTS.net... Course that would make for upwards of some 500,000 postings, I would guess. :shock:

But you know, I have come to feel that most who have come to WZ Post Liberation don't give a chit about any of that history, really. :stare:

Then there is the fact that Pumpkin-2 has been hosted for years by Cowboy and has some very key history right there in black and white and those who recount it still can't get it right. O_o

'Course many peeps total immersion in the Net's expanding ecology of interruption technologies has been shown scientifically to have significantly eroded, over years surfing, those cognitive abilities in the area defined as deep-focused reading and perception-comprehension skills. Scary when combined with gross dependencies on the hyper-fragmented NEWS media scape that allows for facts to count for little (if not be TOTALLY disregarded), minds to be readily manipulated, and the search for truth and appropriate action based on such often a sham. :3

Ah chit, enough opining. :P

- Cheers, Rman. 8)
.
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Re: Warzone 2100 Liberation Day

Post by Mysteryem »

It's good to see more from the NEWST era appearing. I can't say I took a part in the community back then, but very much appreciated the work that was done. After buying the millenium edition, leaving warzone for a while and then discovering NEWST, it was a pleasant suprise. Though, I didn't know you lead the project Rman, I knew you were a key member, but...wow.
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The glory of this has collapsed on its self so far, that even the neutrons have collapsed."
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Re: Warzone 2100 Liberation Day

Post by Rman Virgil »

.

Well, Mysteryem, it was a remarkable convergence of extraordinary peeps, events, opportunities and personal realationships. In many ways, once in a lifetime.

That NEWST Team page link Cowboy posted only scartches the surface.

The History page here - http://web.archive.org/web/200212140322 ... story.html - and the Acknowledgments page here - http://web.archive.org/web/200302040224 ... owldg.html - flesh it out some more in very important ways - important in reflecting the very different culture we came out of and which we candidly fostered with all due honor and respect.

All the names mentioned were (& are) extraordinary individuals - in their gifts and achievments, as well their character and effective ability to communicate. The names you see as core to the NEWST Team were also essential to both Pumpkin-2 and RTS.net. The work of some is even to this day part of, or relevant to, this project and the creative goings on.

Here's just a wee more of insider history.

"NEWST" stands for "New Enhanced Working Solutions Team". Why ? Because what we proposed to do was unprecidented without the source or developer tools. It was the name I created to make the direct proposal to the Pumpkin Studios Team, which they accepted (in writing and in public) and later, out of the spotlight, when they were no more and becoming Pivotal Studios, gave us some fundamental, crucial support to make possible many of the things that were achieved over the years - and are to this day still of use, truth be told and even part of the Distro.

Now, a last bit of fleshing out..

After I got the go ahead from Pumpkin's Software Engineering Lead, I nominated Carver to be Project Leader because, besides having absolutely monster codeing skills, he also was a superb communicator and had a bodacious natural charisma to boot. He said no - YOU need to do it. Thus was I nominated and unanimously approved by both team and community. That is what has special meaning for me still - NOT the title itself (I have had many in real life and none I took for glamorous - all meant the buck stopped with me, no matter who fracked chit-up.)

Now let me tell you that I went nearly bonkers after close to a couple years with the organizing, administrating, specific collaboration commitments & daily leadership that went with doing what NEWST publically commited to do for the WZ fan community and WZ Creators. For I had a full time RL job, was taking Uni classes as well at the time, had family, friends, a social life, etc., etc., and was still putting 40 hours a week into WZ stuff for that period. Normally, I can do with just 28 hours of sleep a week leaving me with 140 hours a week to work with - which is lots of time to accomplish many things. Though that type schedule does take its toll over time.... and it did me as it also concided with a sudden catastrophic illness - from which I eventually made a full recovery.

Once in a lifetime, like I said. Don't have that type stamina anymore. Plus, I did it not just for the game, the community or my relationship with Pumpkin Devs, but for my teamates - a group of exceptionally gifted folks whose individual abilites I am still, to this day, in awe of (some I hold to be towering giants in the history of the game - like Troman and Stratadrake - aka Richard Player - to name but 2). I learned much from them all and we also had tons of laughs & fun amidst all the challenging work. I have spoken to a few in recent years and, not suppringly, they have gone on to do some amazing things with their lives - and, in many cases directly inspired by their experience with the game and community. That too I find very special. :3

That said, the future is always now. :wink:

- Regards, Rman. :hmm:
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rush2049
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Re: Warzone 2100 Liberation Day

Post by rush2049 »

Very well put Rman!

I was always a sidelines in the back closet kind of team member and was always encouraged with the amount of work that was going into the game. It inspired me to put in my all when working on the new stuff and testing the heck out of it.

Even to this day my experience with all of the above mentioned people is what spurned my desire to learn to code and seek to become a Software Engineer in college. Which is what I am doing right now.

Even now re-reading some of what I had forgotten of the history makes me proud to have been a part of it all.

Perhaps I don't have the best of memories, but ah those were the days...

Well, as I have said I am college right now and this happens to be finals week! You all have brought some light back into my step, time for me to buckle down and finish these projects....

Until I can find some time to better express my thoughts,
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Re: Warzone 2100 Liberation Day

Post by cowboy »

NICE.
RMAN is here!
Kevin,
LAV!,
rush,
coppercore

awesome. glad a few of us are still around! :)

Sorry about disabling the P2 forums. I'd like to get them back up on DG, but they've been hacked way too many times via SQL injection. I've patched the P2 PHP many times but h4x0rs keep finding new ways to exploit invison board running the P2 forums.

As of right now, the P2 forums were hosted on one of our production machines with live business apps running on it so I had no choice to disable PHP on the machine for the time being.

I will; however, be going to the datacenter within the next few weeks to upgrade one of our machines w/ 32GB RAM.

Then, I'll be able to setup a dedicated DG (and sandboxed VM) server without the sensitive biz apps on it. I'll re-enable PHP & P2 forums after I get it running.

promise.

-cowboy

And... a little more history & evolution to contribute...

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DG v3.00
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DG v4.14
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DG v4.22
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DG v5.00
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:)


*facepalm* :stressed: ..
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Re: Warzone 2100 Liberation Day

Post by macuser »

Nice to see all these faces :) It only makes me wish i had joined the community earlier :(
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