Does Blue Nebula have discord and github discussions?

[t3r6]

I'm sorry. That's probably the wrong place to write this question. But seriously, where do you communicate? The forums seem to be silent. IRC is very unpopular nowadays. Red Eclipse moved to Discord and github discussions. Do you guys have a discord channel? I think discord and github discussions are must-have nowadays because there is very little info about your project and is difficult to find ppl online because there is no good communication channel. Most niche projects organize game events via Discord and at least ppl can gather to play online.

[TheAssassin]

I'm sorry. That's probably the wrong place to write this question.

It's fine. Thanks for bringing this up.

Discord

is one of the worst ever places for any kind of community. It's a walled garden (you must sign up and log into their system). Their software sucks (they have a history of security fails and data leaks and don't seem to care much about privacy or data protection, you basically can't use their software legally in the EU). Even worse, moderation doesn't appear to exist at all (there are huge problems with abusive behavior and bullying; also they tolerate all kinds of extremism, just like Steam by the way). It's not a place I'd want to be at, let alone endorse through this project.

Also, it'd be a shame for an open-source project to depend completely on a closed-source software product for communication, especially if it's such a bad one. Open-source communities should use open-source software as much as possible.

We are going to stay away from Discord (and Steam) as far as possible.

IRC is very unpopular nowadays.

I disagree. We have had an IRC channel since the beginning, which is still the most active place for discussions. User counts have not exploded in the past years, but neither diminished in the past few years.

You can join easily from Matrix if you dislike using IRC directly. This gives users the modern look and feel they are looking for.

You also need to take into account that our community consists mostly of old players who came from RE 1.x who still know IRC.

(Honestly, in the long run, Matrix will likely replace IRC. The Matrix community, however, will have to develop clients these people can use, too. Essential features, e.g., multi-account support, are still missing in most projects...)

The forums seem to be silent.

The main reason why the forum seems quiet is because there's not much going on in the community at the moment. I recently suggested moving from the existing forum to GitHub's discussions feature mainly to keep things together. We should discuss that idea with the team.

[t3r6]

Thanks for the reply. As for the promotion, I'd suggest you use at least YouTube. Many ppl enjoy watching trickjumping games and the race mode in this game is amazing.

It would also be helpful if you have a comprehensive documentation. How to compile a game, how to use console commands, variables, the full list of all variables, their usage examples, how to configure HUD (add speedometer, see pressed buttons), how to bind keys (like multiple keys for one action), how to add, kick bots, increase their difficulty, how to vote on servers using console (check all server maps, modes), how to record-watch demo, capture in-game video using imbedded features, simple mapping tutorials, etc. At least some basic features. Most fast paced FPS players come from Quake and are not familiar with the Cube engine, its commands and behaviour. The new players will not understand a thing except GUI which is not great in terms of functionality. This doc almost has nothing: https://docs.blue-nebula.org/ This one is mostly a roadmap: https://github.com/blue-nebula/base/wiki

I'd help with the docs but I've started to play RE Race just recently and know very little about the game. Now I've got like 200+ old Race maps and most of them are not fully compatible with 1.6.

[ghost]

I agree on the points about Discord vs IRC. I'm not against using GH discussions, though, as they could probably be sent as updates to the IRC channel. To me, those things are different: IRC (or discord or matrix or ...) are for quick chatting, while forums or GH discussions are for more elaborate text about specific topics.

Many ppl enjoy watching trickjumping games and the race mode in this game is amazing.

You can find such videos if you search for red-eclipse 1.6 as blue-nebula is basically it's continuation, red-eclipse 2 being a very different game that even breaks compatibility with old maps on purpose.

It would also be helpful if you have a comprehensive documentation.

Agreed, but a full doc of the stuff would be quite time consuming considering the number of contributors. Maybe we could improve GH wiki for that though. On my own servers, I've split the monolithic config file into a bunch of files. That's still a lot of files with many entries though and last time I needed to tweak something in that stuff I was completely lost (after only few years not touching it).

But allow me to answer on some of the points you asked for:

the full list of all variables

this is available in "options"->"advanced". It's like windows' regedit or firefox's about:config though, very rough.

how to configure HUD (add speedometer, see pressed buttons),

"options"->"user interface"->"stats"

how to bind keys (like multiple keys for one action),

there's a poor's man interface for this in "options"->"controls"->"advanced", but yeah, you can't really see all the bound actions (and their various keys) with this.

Now I've got like 200+ old Race maps and most of them are not fully compatible with 1.6

Now, this is interesting. In theory, RE 1.6 (and thus BN) should be compatible with all old maps. Would be helpful if you could point at some example? Maybe this can be fixed (but don't expect much from me).

[t3r6]

Now, this is interesting. In theory, RE 1.6 (and thus BN) should be compatible with all old maps. Would be helpful if you could point at some example? Maybe this can be fixed (but don't expect much from me).

You can find those in my repository. This mappack was initially made by TristamK. I just added a few maps to it. It is in the alpha stage because I didn't have much time to sort the things. I'll add more maps there, quick-test them, resort everything, and describe which maps are compatible with 1.6 and which are not. So don't surprise if I rewrite commits or anything. I think I'll try to complete this work in about a month and then, if you wish, you can send PRs with the ported maps.

This mappack is from the RE 1.3 era. TristamK does not have interest in porting and fixing it. Some maps have errors in console, some checkpoints are broken in 1.6, some maps cannot be run in 1.6 race - the game won't allow to start the match, maps with custom physics feel too weird like even impossible to play.

The goal of the mappack is to have all maps compatible with 1.6. But, yeah, as of now, I don't have experience in RE mapping at all and don't know the difference between 1.3 and 1.6. I can't even download 1.3 binaries anywhere nowadays so I test them on 1.4 where the maps kinda work.

Btw, since you might be willing to help with those maps, can I contact you somehow?

[TheAssassin]

can I contact you somehow

We are just discussing your latest posts on IRC.

[ghost]

libera.chat network, #blue-nebula channel to be exact

[edit] for some reason I forgot the correct domain name, updated post.