Simple Question: How can I help?

[[K4H]Perpetual]

Backstory (skip if you don't care):
Battlezone II is a game that I knew when it came out was going to be like nothing else I've ever played. I loved the game and was one of the lucky few that had access to a cable modem, so that when net play did start working, it did in fact work well, which at the time was a very rare thing. Since then, I have never forgotten it and have every few years re-installed, figured out what mods everyone was playing and gotten back into it, but I've never really done much with the community. Hell, this is the first forum account for BZ2 that I've created if that says anything after 11 years or more hehe. I know very little about the history, politics, community ties, drama, etc. about the community despite my long interest in the game other than we all get to continue our playing of it mainly thanks to two of the original devs who worked on their own accord to give us this gift.

My Outsider's View (skip if you don't care):
In trying to get into this game again and this time convince some friends to play with me, I find myself reading stories of dramatic BS plaguing community sites and destroying them, almost no real descriptions of how to get up and running, and fighting my own urge to not mess with it due to the mess it appears to be. I did however just get everything working and played a few games and remembered why it was worth the trouble and find myself overall very thankful at all the fighting the community has done to make this game available to everyone.

My Main Question:
To put it simply, I don't do drama, I don't play sides, and I am interested in this game for the purpose of having fun as I would think anyone is. I believe modder's and developers also enjoy the game as a way to expand their mind, be creative, etc. Hell, I'm a application architect for a living, so I can fully appreciate that. Without going much further, I'll just say that I have a good set of resources at my disposal with my job at a tech / web company. I'd like to start off simple, but I'm thinking I might be able to donate a place and domain to help organize downloads of complete installs (maybe an S3 bucket), as well as patches, and host installation instructions for people getting into the game and maybe more if that goes well and I'll happily pay for it. IF that is something you would all find useful, please let me know where the best place to start would be and if not, how can I help?

Currently, I have zips of the following created and uploaded to my own storage (these include full install of the game, patches, and mods ready to play):
Plain BZ II install with no mods, etc.
BZ II install after 1.3.6.1 patch (which is wicked good btw)
BZ II install after G66 3.0 is installed EDIT: (also wicked good and now done)

Also, I'd love it if someone could answer some questions for me about the state of things so I can try to learn what some of our problems / needs are, like what developments are active and not, etc. but I don't want to trouble anyone too much.

Thanks for reading my first, albeit long post in this community.

Mike.

[Nielk1]

Please note that at this time and for the foreseeable future, distributing BZ2 as unofficial copies (not giving the official disk away or selling it along with destroying any copy you have) is illegal. While seemingly no one with legal authority in this matter cares, we still cannot distribute the game as such. The best we can do is make really easy to use mod installers and patches and point people to where to buy the official disk. This says nothing about what occurs in private, however we cannot and will not condone piracy. It's a legal thing.

We currently have a website called BZScrap.org that lists many mostly old files (90% of which are recovered from the old BZScrap.com that was run under BZUniverse.com's server). It is badly in need of organization and I am sure could do well to have some mirrors as well.

I would be glad to organize something with you but at the moment I have scaled back my involvement with the community for the purpose of keeping myself sane. I can however try to give you any information you need, be it about files, mods, modding, playing (calm and casual, not rabid competitive), the community, file availability, or something else reasonably related.

[[K4H]Perpetual]

Thanks so much for the response. I'll think on it a little and try to gather some more ideas / questions so I don't eat too much of your time with one off questions.

I was however under the impression that the code was open-sourced or proved to others at some point, so I must have been incorrect on that. I apologize and wasn't trying to encourage a legality issue. On the other hand, do we have a means to contact the devs that still work on the project or EA / Pandemic / Activision to discuss a release of rights on Battlezone II distribution or some other arrangement? I can't imagine they make anything from it anymore the way it is now and I would be happy to do the leg-work on that. I'm just interested in an easier way to get people on it, be that free or paid. If only you could get this baby on Steam or something for a few bucks, you know?

Mike.

[MrTwosheds]

Our community is blessed with having one of the original developers, who has made improving BZ2 his hobby.
I am sure everyone who plays the game agrees that it would a great benefit if it was more widely available to new players. But I suspect that those who would have control over its legal status do not care at all about the game or the survival of its community.

[Psychedelic Rhino]

But I suspect that those who would have control over its legal status do not care at all about the game or the survival of its community.

That is almost certainly true.

But we over in the BZ1 world, learned very quickly there are those who purport to love the game, but will. . .and have, actively gone out of their way to report to anybody with even the remotest legal claim to the game, that individuals are making no-CD modifications because they found the mod not to their liking. Sort of the same sensibility that brought BZU down.

[GSH]

I'd love it if gog.com or Steam or a similar legit site picked up BZ1/2. Due to the more complicated Activision/Atari licensing involved with those titles, and some lawyer (probably - this is just a guess) not nailing down future digital distribution rights, it'd probably take some lawyers and $$$ to get both Activision/Atari to ammend the original contract. That's my gut feeling, though I've never seen the original contracts or anything else at that level.

-- GSH

[Ded10c]

BZ2 on Steam would be fantastic. Problem would be with which patch is used - whichever one Steam takes, there would be uproar from the other side

[MrTwosheds]

Any provider would need to provide the original bz2, patching is up to users, providing pre patched versions is just unhelpful as doing so causes compatibility issues with all the existing/future patches and mods.

[Iron Maiden]

Hey Perpetual! Good to see another person joining back into the community.

I'd love it if someone could answer some questions for me about the state of things so I can try to learn what some of our problems / needs are, like what developments are active and not, etc. but I don't want to trouble anyone too much.

The top priority at the moment is with the latest patch, 1.3.6.1, which has been having some problems. Things are getting back on track, but another hand couldn't hurt.

After that, it's the 1.3 Community Project, which is kind of in Limbo as far as I know following the demise of BZU and the concentration of work we had there. Architects are great for base building.

Also, I'm sure that Red Devil would appreciate help with Forgotten Enemies, which is in teh middle of a final conversion to 1.3.6.

I hope this doesn't sound like a work list, its really just the top priorities in the community, at least that I can think of.

Again, welcome.

[[K4H]Perpetual]

Thanks Iron Maiden,

Work list is cool, I kind of asked for it (see thread title) haha. I would be happy to see where I can help on code for the patch and mods where appropriate though admittedly my time is usually limited to the code I do for my company hehe. I have a lot of development experience in web and software level technologies, but jumped out of C / C++ coding as soon as I could after my college days writing memory managers and such (thank god for Eclipse and CDT). While rusty, I can jump back in pretty quickly and probably help with some of the more mundane tasks initially if need be. Since I last did C / C++, I've worked with ColdFusion, Java (across desktop, blackberry, and android), .Net, PHP, Flex / AIR, Objective-C, et al. so I've gotten pretty good at dealing with language jumping, but I know when to follow so point me to the person who will show me the way and I will help as I can. Nowadays, I do a lot of architecture / API design, and general technology planning for clients with a team of great people that have the more professional titles of developers, UI/UX, etc. I'm slowly conning all of them back into this game as well hehe.

Aside from that, I'll try to get a page together with the latest versions of mods, etc. organized in a fairly straightforward manner, though I will need some help with that. Also, I know I mentioned creating a site for this, but if there is a place that the community would prefer this stuff be, I'll happily make something for that location. The difference is that I can use a couple tools and build something more dynamic on my side in addition to hosting some of the files on a cdn if I need to, so it just makes it easier for me. Again, I don't mind molding the plan to fit the cause.

Mike.

[Zax]

Any provider would need to provide the original bz2, patching is up to users, providing pre patched versions is just unhelpful as doing so causes compatibility issues with all the existing/future patches and mods.

It would be the most recent patch GSH released. Digital distribution does not ship broken games that do not run on the majority of PCs hassle-free. They also tend to automatically keep the install patched to the most recent at any time.

Might make it weird for private testing. And speaking of which


@thread: By being part of the beta team, that's the best way I can think of. NEED active testers; we're in short supply heh.
Try out the 1.3 public builds in the 1.3 section below- that's a chance for the public to be private testers...publicly, if just because of urgency. If you like it, we'll see from there

[[K4H]Perpetual]

Good points Zax,

I am already on the b89 patch and played a bit with it last night, (death match and MPI were only games online so I played both) and will send in my logs tonight since I did have some lagouts in the MPI game.

[PCG-Oldfart]

I've also offered space for files and or space for a permanent site. I bought a lifetime subscription to the envision forums and just have to pay 20 bucks a year for the gallery and they do all the updates and its very secure. I tried the free free forums and had nothing but problems. The offer still stands for file space and I can even setup sub forums for BZ if you like.