I just read the above Death Notice recently. It is very difficult to say when life actually leaves a body. Our EAW community as a social group has almost totally stopped functioning. There are twitches and gasps and rales but these are not indications of reviving vigor. That day has passed, that hope has ended.
I mourn the passing of our community. I have many pleasant memories of different people and events. All the brilliant achievements by talented contributors posed exciting challenges for me to try and follow in their footsteps. Those were wonderful times. They brought out qualities in me that I didn’t know that I possessed. I became a better person because of my involvement. We sat at tables and feasted on ambrosia and nectar and never realized that it would end. All that is left are stale crumbs and bitter dregs.
I will stand at attention and sorrowfully watch the interment take place, a little dirge keeps gliding through my mind

Where have all the fliers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the posters gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the modders gone?
Zealots have slain almost every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where has all the comradery gone?
Long time passing
Where has all the courtesy gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the decent guys gone?
Left in disgust almost every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?


I posted the following about 9 years ago





Here is a link to the posting quoted above

What brings this on Jack ... Don't understand ... Sorry

I misread a thread by Neal and MarkEAW.

Jelly PMed me that I was wrong, but I do not receive Email notifications of PM in a timely manor as SimHQ has an old Email for me that can not be updated by me. I reacted in a defensive manor and things degraded. I gave my honest opinion and others others assumed the thread was about what I had commented about. I regret that I misread the original posts, but I do not regret the opinions I posted.

I was wrong. I take the blame. I apologized and offered my help to anyone willing to take on the project of porting EAW to DX9, providing they work within the source code agreement obtained with Atari.

Given the long time line of EAW, it was a storm under glass. Given the active members in the mod community, it can be an excuse / reason to abandon EAW.

My opinion of what happened.

Jacksprat,
The EAW struggle is not lost. The war with VBH was ugly but contained lessons about modding and personalities. Jelly continues to make modding EAW easier for non coders. I think the last of any war is with moders and agents of the copwrite owners who believe there is some value left in the original code. Yes, I believe in that conspiracy theory. This belief was the cause for my misread of the other thread.

Thanks for the link. That was shortly after I joined the coders group and about the time I signed a NDA for my preferred game of PE.

The cause of war with VBH was simple.
He had worked on the FXExe and his release was named "All flyable bombers".
However, the bombers were not selectable in single mission play.
The first working exe that I compiled made all flyable planes selectable in single mission mode.
A version was compiled, and members of the code group were requested to test it ahead of a public release. VBH was a member but did not test the exe.
If he had done so then he could have rightly objected to my use of the term "All flyable", and I would have changed it to "All selectable".
When the exe was publicly released for testing by the SimHQ community VBH objected strongly to my use of "All flyable", and the war started.

If he had tested the exe as a code group member, or if I had used the term "All selectable" it would never have happened

Sorry, Jel, but it would have happened anyhow, just over some other imagined slight.

On a completely different footing the history of the SimHQ EAW community shows that it has been a modders' forum for many years. There are occasional questions from players about issues with various exes, announcements of online sessions, and occasional screenshots, but that is just about it.
Currently very few people are modding, and as far as I know that is down to two people, Ray and Moggy. A few others, such as Iron Mike are doing work for them. I am convinced that many modders never learned how to properly get their creations to work in theatres, and long gone are the days when teams of people would get together and create a new theatre in the way that Spanish Air War was created.

As a positive small groups of people are still flying EAW online after all these years, and that there have been 100s of downloads of EAW 140, 150 and 160 installations from my MediaFire pages, plus 559 downloads of my full 1.29 installation which is much better than the Mickey Mouse version that I made following a request from Col Gibbon.

That reminds me of another unfortunate area of conflict. Col Gibbon asked me to make a basic 1.29 installation- default ETO, no theatres so he could drop stuff in the root folder. I did and it was clearly understood to be a private release. So what happens next is that he makes a public release of it at MediaFire, with a link to it in his signature. Should I sit back and do nothing? The least I can do is to ask him to remove it, and make people aware that they may be wasting their time downloading a very basic version, and nothing like the real 1.29 release. Because of its limitations that version may well give a user the impression that 1.29 is a heap of rubbish, which is certainly not the case when the full version is used.

Yeah, good luck with that.

I think we should spend more time touting the 1.6 series benefits and ease of use.

Ray,
You are correct that a rift would have formed from any spat, but that is only because EAW was blessed to be one of the first popular games to have the source code legally released to a skilled mod group.

Jelly,
(not directly pointed at you)
My major concern with open source ideals (your example is a good one) continues to be that some poser (we have had them) would request access to the combined work and use it to port the work to smart phones, where EAW would still be the perfect app. ( my work at the EAW code was / is to show my respect to that community , I do not regret it, and I side with the majority of the code group in 95+ % of all opinions). I still work another skill to put food in my mouth.

Moogy,
( just wanting to be honest, not trying to draw you into this thread )
Thank you for respecting my request to be removed from the group when my hobby time become complicated with a NDA. Your forum is top notch and you have shown yourself to be one of the wisest modders I have meet. I have learned from your example.

I saw the above post on an email notification, as I try to stay away from the SimHQ board these days. I'd just like to thank Aldo for his kind words.

As it happens I am continuing to work on a 1.6 version of Dunkirk (started as a 1.29 version) and I think making good progress. Others are helping with planes and skins. In due course I will hand something over to Mr, Jelly to put with the other 1.6 theatres.

Actually the problem precedes the source code acquisition. We've been infested with swelled head, ego driven characters from the very beginning. Not to mention a couple of mentally imbalanced individuals.

The record is stunningly clear. All of the arguments began with the same few members making outrageous claims about playability, hard drive crashes, corruption of operating systems, complexity of installation, demands to use their work only as they deemed appropriate and my favorite, stolen work.

All of these claims are refuted quite easily but the problem is, those few of us who've fought back have been unfairly painted with the same brush.

It seems that, much like the real world, tolerance is a one way street around here.

Ray,
By default, a modder has an ego and is unbalanced for thinking they can and will put forth the effort to improve a product without monetary compensation. At the base level, someone has to pay the electric bill and why most people do not have the time or desire to become modders.

You are correct that you have, many times, been persecuted for standing on your beliefs of what EAW should be, yet, you continue to work at the hobby you enjoy. By default that is egotistical and imbalanced. I hope any change that life brings to your personality is minimal. Heck, you were the one who made me realize that I post idiot things late at night after my usual drinking. I owe you one for changing my perception of 'my little world'.

You do not need to defend yourself as aggressively as you do ( my opinion ). I hope you continue to defend EAW with the same fire as DX6 games are prime IP targets for unscrupulous mobile developers.

we should all get back together and port EAW to android, we be rich LOL.

Thanks, Brit.

If you go back through the history here you'll see that I've become more outspoken as time went on about defending my work as well as other good guys like Moggy and Jel.

The reason is, I got tired of watching the bad guys divide us up into camps.

The big one of course is VBH.

He was welcomed into the Coder community and promptly began accusations of persecution. It didn't take long for him to get banned from the private forum.

The Col is another one. Took a lot longer but in the end the result was the same. Banned from the private forum.

It was amazing to watch the very guys who were guilty of intolerance and had a complete lack of ability to work with others throw around those accusations at other members.

That's what I mean by mental imbalance.

Ray,
Don't read this wrong. There is a person in my modding history that I despise and would happily fight another mod war with. Heck, he could probably provoke me to deleting the entire PE modding archives a third time.
But this is a wake, so we should all tell our stories. I do have many positive ones if this thread lasts long enough.

I either joined the coders group shortly after VBH was banned or left shortly before he joined. I think it was the previous but I never noticed the flame wars with VBH until after I left. That could be failing memory and nostalgia. I could be totally wrong as it is almost 10 years and many beers ago. I did have the opportunity to exchange PMs with VBH. I still admire his skill with hex editing and assembly language. .As strictly an observer ( I may have been defensive at the start of the war. Which was how many years ago), I was surprised by the vitriol exchanged by both sides ( like I started with, there is one I would still do the same with). Mod wars happen. I was encouraged a few months back (it may be longer then months) when VBH and Jelly were discussing learning the others version of the game engine. I do not remember how that discussion ended as I have my own hobby mod to worry about. I still have respect for VBH's skills and still have my doubts of who was on the wrong end of that flame war.

The Col is the Col. I wish him the best that his life will give him. He is not a part of my life. I thought he was easy to read and just a modder who enjoyed making 3D models and did not have the desire or time to learn what he desired from EAW. I was fortunate to have been under a NDA that gave me an easy out when he PMed me about a splinter group of the coders that was going to make there own version of the code. ( I may have failed to mention that)] He dropped Peters name, so I reminded him about the NDA and told him to have Peter email me as I would consider working with Peter. That was the last I heard from Col until he posted to this forum a while back and I took a defensive posture ( I may have insulted him ).

Ralf, Peter and Tony. Now that is a crew I would be willing to start a new game engine with.

Edit:
Woody! It would not be perfect without Woody. I pray he is well. I have not talked to him since I left the code group. Woody was/is a modders modder.

All this time my major concern has been fighting the concept that both sides were culpable in the flame wars. This is a falsehood that has permeated the EAW world.

It would take a dedicated person a long time to go back though all the many threads which isn't going to happen so you will have to take my word for it.

Here is a prime example and the one that made me realize that we were never going to be a peaceful group.

After the release of SPAW, in which the MODSquad ( Skylark, Iron Mike, MadProff and I ) spent a year porting EAW over to the Pacific, VBH criticized it because we used the existing New Guinea terrain rather than a new one and the fact that we usurped the concept of his Pacific Tide scenario.

It was rather shocking to be subjected to that kind of attack when all we were doing was presenting a completely new world for EAW players to enjoy.

All four of us jumped into the fray to defend our work and the community supported us. In fact, SPAW is still one of the most played scenarios which is a source of pride for the MODSquad.

But the attack left a mark.

There was another similar issue with Col. Gibbons over at the GEN but I don't feel free to go into it here as it is still a private forum. All I will say is that it had to do with who gets to decide how to use a 3dz model after it is released to the general public.

Same thing happened. After two years of work my target upgrade was released and wouldn't you know, it Col. Gibbon started an argument right here over the same model use issue which we'd put to rest in the private forum.

Suffice to say that EVERY SINGLE ONE of the many arguments that have erupted here were started by either of these two members. And of course I would be remiss if I didn't remind everyone that both of them have been banned from EAW forums. VBH here and Col. Gibbon over at the GEN.

This is why I've become more outspoken over time.

It is teeth grindingly frustrating to have one of these two start with their usual antics only to have some other member jump in and give a lecture on how both sides are equally wrong.

Bulls*it.

There were a couple of bad apples in the barrel and though they're both gone now they did a great job spreading their rot to the rest of the group.

I'm not that easy to get rid of Rotton. I haven't got anything to say to your tirade then what's already been said but it's funny to see how you manage to turn things in this and other threads into more fingerpointing as if it's an explanation for what happened and what should happen. Your terminology hasn't changed much in 10 years and you call it outspoken, I just call it rude and destructive.

The FXEXE's devellopment will continue and a newer version is currently available at my FTP

http://rabartel.home.xs4all.nl

It should work on a clean install of v1.2 or a previous install. I can't vouch for the OAW version.

VonBeerhofen

Better take cover M8 I'll stand with you

I gone through each of the remaining posts in the archive, took me a few months of time. I can say its not all there and there was deliberate attacks on VBH and his work, because you pissed him off and you couldn't take what he dished at you. So you belittled him.
Yes there where problems with some tools and yes with some exe's that didn't work quite right, but VBH told you that, but again you belittle him. Yes Rotton you used others peoples work to make what there is now. But I don't see too much of a problem with that except I don't even remember seeing credit text for anything you modified or used in archives, such as "Based on such and such, and modified by me, Rotton," etc....Col. Gibbon and others are right about you, and you can't see it.

I think for all me personal research I credited you to one post, thats how much your really a helpful guy.

Are you a grown man Rotton or some kid or still learning life. I see it here in this thread the kind of person you are, and it sucks.
Rotton your truly a Rotton person. Unaware of your own actions, and constantly needing self verification. Your mental Rotten. You can't learn from your mistakes, that's what I mean by mental.
All you huffing and puffing doesn't mean a damn thing in the end, I tried to teach you that. But you just go on and on with the same old Rotton stories.

Anyway live in your only world you have, EAW. and stay the rotton thing you are instead of learning from your mistakes and not having any morale ground or empathy for anyone, or care for your actions.



BTW, So when can we see an open source code project of EAW, if not the current source, then from the provided source v1.2x (yes) that the Entire SimHQ members deserve and where granted by the now defunct agreement.
The new owners of EAW, Tommo Inc and the publisher Retroism want the v1.2x code, so they can do what you guys can't. No offence intended, just that they have more people and resources to do what needs to be done.

VBH, I can't see your posts as I have you on ignore. Good luck with your future EAW endeavors. I mean it and of course as always feel free to pick and chose from my work as you see fit.

Mark, my behavior on this board and on the back board at the GEN speak for me. I've never attacked anyone unless they've attacked me or another contributing member first.

Ever.

So you are now in the position of taking sides with the guys who have been banned for bad behavior. Seriously, does that sound like a viable path forward for you?

Teaming up with the trouble makers?

Questioning the very essence of the EAW development world by suggesting the we don't have the rights to the source code?

And you think I'm the problem?

No, if this all goes down the drain it will have been your fault.

It is my opinion that 3D models, source and maps are the same. You should obtain the blessing of the original creator (or copyright owner) or start from scratch. If you mod someone else's work without permission, you are pissing on there artistic vision and/or livelihood.

I would never dream of tweaking my nemesis's Eastern front AI scripts, even though I A, find them arcadish and B, diminish the knowledge of how detailed the game engine can be.



Mark,
Several points to address in that paragraph.
#1 What makes you think anyone "deserves" any thing from EAW? The community did not negotiate with Atari and the "community " was not granted access to the code. The only value to EAW is the mass of mods made by the community. Realy, you want a DX6 sorce code that was patched together from Win95 code? The name is the only thing of value and that is because of the modders.
#2 I have never been shown a clean line of succession for the IP, only you and some other poster saying 'we own this, so give us what is on your HDD'.
#3 ( this one reads cheesy) If you buy a car that does not have the floor mats, is the person who the previous owner gave the floor mats too responsible to give the new owner the specs for said floor mats so the new owner can reproduce said floor mats?
#4 There are DLLs missing that were recreated by members of the code group. Without these files, it is impossible to build the code. These files are not EAW IP and I will not turn them over.
#5 Have Tommo Inc's laywers sue me for withholding access to there rightfully, owned IP and we can start the process of determining what they own and what the "community" deserves.
I'll be your huckelberry.