forums.ps2dev.org

There has been some discussions about getting a PSP wiki setup to help collect useful information about the new platform. While the ps2dev.org web site is a wiki of sorts; maybe better described as a content management system, it probably isn't going to cater for all our needs into the future.

The PSP is obviously bringing a lot of new people to the site and especially the forums. We need forums, better news system, a single version control system, a content management system, wiki, ???

Is it time we split the site into pspdev.org and ps2dev.org and duplicate functionality and make each site completely different? Or do we attempt to merge the requirements of both into the one site? My preference is only one site as I don't want to visit two each day. :)

However if we keep things merged, what changes need to happen? There has been talk of moving CVS to Subversion. It's obvious the method of adding news to ps2dev.org needs to be updated.

In short, is it time for a major re-organisation? And if it is, what's the new site going to contain and how are we going to get there? Or am I getting ahead of myself, and people are happy as things are? Do we wait until ps3 next year and reshuffle then? Am I asking too many questions?

The site currently uses, phpBB forums, knowledge base written in Java, CVS, viewcvs.cgi, links to IRC quotes, docs and bugzilla (rarely used).

Any thoughts, ideas, examples of other similar sites?

Oobles.

I am in favor of keeping everything on the same site. Wasn't there talk a little while back of renaming the site to a moniker which reflected the more broad topic range? Trolldev was my personal favorite of the ideas brought forth...

While the coding behind ps2dev.org is quite an amazing piece of work (I almost wish I was using it for my site right now instead of mambo) I think our needs would be much better filled with a more robust solution.

IMO the way to go is to make a change to the name to reflect the wider content focus, use a new CMS (such as mambo, which many seem to like) to handle the collaborative news and files, a wiki (preferably that integrates well with the CMS) for the knowledge base, keep the phpBB forums, and handle the quotes page however people want, but keep it around one way or another.

As for bugzilla... I hate bugzilla. I hate bugzilla with an unending passion. I have no idea why I hate it, but something about it and how it's setup I just hate. That being said, it's a bit sad (albeit a bit predictable) that no one is using it. We need a bug tracking system and bugzilla seems to the best (only?) choice, so maybe someone who like it can come up with some way to get the masses and the stuborn among us (i.e. me) to start using it.

I know that seems like a lot of major changes and I'm sure at least some people disagree with them, but its what I personally see as the way to go.

I second Drakonites sentiment.

I have two cents:

Since becoming interested in developing a game for the PS2 and finding the excellent resources you guys have put together, and, not finding any other web site of equal stature, I would like to describe who I think you are in terms of another similar industry.

The film industry had been an exclusive shareholder of entertainment. Like Sony, only large, well-funded production companies were allowed to participate and enjoy the profits. The film industry held on to this position by limiting the availability of the tools and talent needed to participate. This exclusivity is being broken down with the growth of the Independent Film and its acceptance by the film industry as a resource of talent and innovation.

In much the same way, I see ps2dev as a leader in Independent Game Development with similar ‘growing pains’ from the existing industry, and the potential to one day be recognized as having provided the turning point that enabled our society to stand on the value of the individual and their contributions of worth.

Okay, that seems a bit thick I suppose but in that theme, I like the idea of ps2dev growing into a platform independent resource for game development. Although I would hate to lose the historic ‘ps2’ part of ps2dev, it might be a good strategic move from ‘homebrew’ to ‘independent development’. I checked the DNS name ‘www.igdev.org’ for ‘Independent Game Development’ and it doesn’t exist (yet). You can have ‘ps2dev’, ‘pspdev’, ‘ps3dev’, and any others that come along, all point to the igdev web site.

I would also like to request a new forum topic. ‘Game Development’ where we can discuss data storage formats of game objects, supervisory control of game elements, player user interfaces, physics systems, etc.. This is a good time to expand the goals and reach of what you guys started.

Thanks for letting me share, Steve F

I'm not so sure I like the idea of turning into a general gaming site. There's plenty of other places out there for that kind of information.

We should focus on what we do best.

I wouldn't want it to be a general gaming site either. There are lots of those. I was thinking along the lines that you are making development tools. If you only want to make development tools for the sake of making tools that's cool.

I personally have to be careful I don't get sidetracked into just tool development (it's so easy for that to happen). I want to stay focused on using the tools to make games. Maybe a sister website could carry the usage topics better. I can see a down side to having game development members consuming tool development resources that are better spent on tool development. I was one of those members when I was trying to figure out the basics of loaders. I can see how much time has been spent by, i.e., yourselves answering the same questions over and over again by new users of the tools who didn't research or didn't understand what they reading.

In any case I would like to contribute no matter what direction is decided on. I hope I brought to the table some interesting discussion ideas.

I have basically the same feeling as the others.

This site was well served by its original configurations. Continued growth does what it normally does - it causes stresses and cracks in that original infrastructure. Time to look at supporting the next stage of growth.

There are many CMS systems out there that might help manage and facilitate even more function and usage of this site. It would be nice if all of the main features could be integrated under one system, but thats not likely. I, like others have heard and seen much favoriable of the "mambo" CMS system. I have also seen goodness in "postnuke" et al. Even better if these systems already have good wiki and bbs components, but we shouldn't try too hard at integration of components if the end result isn't as good as before.

There is always discussion and suggestion at increasing the scope of what is covered at this site. Steve, you aren't the first one to suggest and you won't be the last. :) My own personal feeling is that sites/groups that stray too far from their roots often lose a large part of what made them great in the first place as a result of the inevitable compromises that had to be made.

If scope must increase, it really should make clear sense. Good examples are newly introduced console platforms from Sony. Controversial examples are non-Sony platforms or generic industry coverage. Future growth may, of course, change the formula of what makes good sense and what doesn't. But right now, IMHO, the current formula still says "Sony console homebrew dev tools and libraries".

Oh, the 'platform independent' reference could sound like I'm talking about all the platforms out there. I was trying to convey Sony platforms starting with PS2 and their future platforms. We now have PSP and PS3 is coming. In time there will be a PS? The important part of my idea is not ps2 development but independent development of ps2 tools and games. The development of ps2 tools is well represented here. The development of ps2 games is not so well represented. And, there are few sites that deal with game development issues on ps2. I remember reading Thanhda's question about model storage formats. The answer he got was 'you have to write your own'. Although technically a correct answer, there is a lot more that can be said and shared about how to use the libraries to create the game managment layer. And, 'news flash', ps2 is not exactly a programmer friendly environment for any kind of application. The other web sites that host game development articles and forums can talk all they want about LOD algorythms, deformable mesh calculations, and alpha channel tricks, but I haven't found any web site that talks about how to implement those things for ps2 using the ps2dev libraries (except ps2dev).

I feel good about the idea of the 'independent development' moniker. You have earned the right to present your work in this respectable manner.

I would like to have a ps2dev forum 'Game Development Discussion' where we can talk about using packed or unpacked GIF tags, Pre packet generation and storage or build on the fly, how to manage objects, actions and plot using ps2lib. Is it unrealistic to think that there is a place in the ps2sdk for a basic game engine? (Boy, am I going to be the fool if there already is one).

I don't really want a seperate web site for ps2sdk game development, but one area that may benefit is bugzilla. I can imagine the game development site drawing all the users of the libraries. As bugs are discovered, the senior members would reproduce the bugs and then describe them to the sdk development group. Bugzilla may find a home as that channel. But, I don't want a seperate web site for game development because I think it will kill ps2dev if you guys were 'out of the loop' where usage of your tools is concerned. Please stay, grow, help us show that independent development is real. The real mark of your work will be when a major successful game is released that was developed independently and with ps2sdk. (Boy, am I going to be the fool if there already is one).

Er.. Lemme clarify my earlier statement.

I didn't mean we should become a generic gaming site, in fact I would never want that to happen, I just meant we are already broadening out to include psp and before too long ps3 and roping all of that under the name 'ps2dev' just seems a bit confusing to me.