An open letter to GeneRally community from James and Rich

General discussion about your experience with the game.
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TuomoH
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An open letter to GeneRally community from James and Rich

Post by TuomoH »

I've been in contact with James Burgess and he wanted me to post this letter for you guys to read:
Dear GeneRally Community,

For the past several months, the 'official' future of GeneRally and its community has been up in the air. During this period, several people have stepped forward, most notably those behind http://www.gene-rally.com, to plug the gap - at least for the time being.

Shortly after the demise of RaceSimCentral, we (Rich & James) got in contact with Hannu (and, by extension, Jukka) in order to try and work out what the next step for GeneRally would be. These discussions led to Hannu turning responsibility for the community over to us, something which we consider a great privilege, with both of us having been active members of the community since its first few days.

In addition to the community discussions, significant progress was made to facilitate the continuation of the development of GeneRally itself. Hannu was in the process of bug-fixing and finalising a port of GeneRally to the SDL multimedia libraries, and was willing to release the source-code to us, for further development, when it was completed.

So where does that leave us today? Well, at the present time, the SDL port is feature-complete, but has been undergoing bugfixing (at Hannu's pace, which is his own prerogative) - we have had an opportunity to test the SDL port, and it is certain that progress has been made. As far as the community goes, we are very much interested in developing the official GeneRally community once again, but little progress has been made towards this for two reasons: firstly, we are both very busy men, with far more on our plates than we'd perhaps like at the moment; secondly, we are interested in waiting to see how we can gear the community around any potential development of GeneRally itself.

We hope that this 'open-letter' has explained something of our desires and intentions to the GeneRally community. Whilst you wait for any further developments, we recommend that you participate in the Unofficial GeneRally Forum at http://www.gene-rally.com.

Rich & James
So, that's the current situation.

As you notice, Hannu and Jukka don't want to be responsible for GR anymore, which means that you should not contact either of them about GR, the source code, or the community.
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Re: An open letter to GeneRally community from James and Ric

Post by thegreatfalcon »

Hum... Interesting... I mean, the SDL is great, portable on Mac/Linux and quite light enough to make the game still go on really small USB keys... However, I expect the main game to be made out of DirectX environement and DLLs so it is not possible yet to run it onto Linux/Mac since this library is Microsoft's proprety and all the crap...

So I think it's looking good overall forward the game's development and I expect them porting the game into OpenGL environement...
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Re: An open letter to GeneRally community from James and Ric

Post by Trigger Happy »

Do I understand it well, that 1.05-bugfix-SDL is close as step to 1.06 with updates? :) But still no news about deadline, at least quarter would be cool. But at least some news.

BTW What precisely the mentioned SDL offers for options for future, guys?

Good job, Tuomo. :bg:
Thanks, James & Rich. :up:
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Re: An open letter to GeneRally community from James and Ric

Post by thegreatfalcon »

Ivo Porč wrote:BTW What precisely the mentioned SDL offers for options for future, guys?
The SDL (Simple DirectMedia Layer) is a library (.DLL) that offers the capabilities of creating 2D scenes and manipulating them. In the present case, the SDL would be used for the menu and the Players HUD in the bottom of the screen when racing... It can combined with OpenGL which is the 3D library and which can generate the Tracks and cars itself...

(Note that it is possible to create 3D objects out of the SDL library but it`s just useless since you HAVE TO create your own 3D displaying system... SDL can only create lines, dots, rectangles, surfaces and few more...)

Hope it helps you!

EDIT: Oh, and it can also be used for Sound, Joysticks and others... More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_DirectMedia_Layer
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Re: An open letter to GeneRally community from James and Ric

Post by Sunoco »

This is fantastic news. An SDL port means that there's a possibility the game could become cross platform, and that's a big deal. Considering that I mainly use Linux both at home and at school, having GeneRally run natively on Linux would be awesome. SDL 's also easier to work with than DirectX in my opinion, so that's a plus.

Looking forward to the source code being released.
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Re: An open letter to GeneRally community from James and Ric

Post by thegreatfalcon »

Sunoco wrote:SDL 's also easier to work with than DirectX in my opinion, so that's a plus.
SDL is for 2D only! :shhh: DirectX is for both 3D and 2D...
But, yeah, well, I expect OpenGL to be easy to handle with

(Don't forget guys that the SDL dll weights ~1.2Mb which will increase the compressed game up to ~2.3MB! :shock: :rofl: )
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Re: An open letter to GeneRally community from James and Ric

Post by Sunoco »

SDL can use OpenGl, so that won't be an issue. OpenGl's also arguable easier to work with than DirectX.
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Re: An open letter to GeneRally community from James and Ric

Post by LongBow »

Im really happy that things are moving....slowly maybe, but still moving :bg:

Good luck Rich and James, you have all our support :wave:
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Re: An open letter to GeneRally community from James and Ric

Post by ZeroCool »

My english is not so good, so can someone simply answer me by yes/no:
Will there be any updates from Rabina brothers?
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Re: An open letter to GeneRally community from James and Ric

Post by Paw »

Well, yes.
Technical update, not concerning gameplay from Bros, then the code will be given to James&Rich, and they will be able to do gameplay modifications.
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Re: An open letter to GeneRally community from James and Ric

Post by Hiken17 »

and when will be updates? :yummy:
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Re: An open letter to GeneRally community from James and Ric

Post by TuomoH »

maxi17 wrote:and when will be updates? :yummy:
There's no set schedule and people involved are busy with other stuff as well so don't hold your breath. ;)
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Re: An open letter to GeneRally community from James and Ric

Post by Jim451 »

Any news about this?
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Re: An open letter to GeneRally community from James and Ric

Post by i386 »

Hello, I was a member on RSC, but I guess I'm a new member here again. :)

I enjoy GeneRally very much, it has lots of fun it in, the tracks are interesting and the effects are remarkable (like skid marks, damage, smoke, underwater etc. Too much to count! :) ).

I mean no offense, but why not releasing the source code to the public - as if making it open source? Then others can help improving the code.

You can refer to a transport game called OpenTTD, its code is public and anyone who is interested can offer help.

I think GeneRally can work in a similar way, as both uses C++, which is a very common programming code.
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Re: An open letter to GeneRally community from James and Ric

Post by Trigger Happy »

i386 wrote:I mean no offense, but why not releasing the source code to the public - as if making it open source? Then others can help improving the code.
Sadly very simple answer is on this: Räbinäs refused it and they don't want the code to be open source. Each of us has his own opinion on this decision, but that's all, what we can do/have. :kickcan: It's their legitimate right, we must respect the decision. :shrug:
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Re: An open letter to GeneRally community from James and Ric

Post by i386 »

I see. I didn't know that. I agree that their decisions have to be respected.

But this would imply that the speed of development will be unlikely to be fast, since the Räbinäs retired from the project (did they?) and 'Rich & James' said that he is busy with work in the reality. :(

I really hope they didn't forget about GeneRally and can allocate some time to do some more coding, for interests of players.

Well, at least the current game is good and fun enough! :)
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Re: An open letter to GeneRally community from James and Ric

Post by Alonsomania »

We've had this version since, what, 2005?

Waiting another year wouldn't make a difference.
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Re: An open letter to GeneRally community from James and Ric

Post by Alex »

2003 actually. It's so old that some people may not want to upgrade due to it being the latest version for 7 years. Things that i would like to see in v1.06 (if it ever gets made)

In game Car folders (like track folders but for cars)
Race more than 6 cars (even 10 would be better than 6.)
Online mode
More track items
Higher limit for tracks and cars.
In game link to gene-rally.com
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Re: An open letter to GeneRally community from James and Ric

Post by Mr.J »

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Re: An open letter to GeneRally community from James and Ric

Post by Lukeno94 »

I think the majority of us will have seen that thread, apart from those who joined after the 15th of August. ;)
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Re: An open letter to GeneRally community from James and Ric

Post by Mr.J »

Apparently not Alex as he wrote his ideas here. :kickcan:
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Re: An open letter to GeneRally community from James and Ric

Post by Garbre »

I think I see why the Rabina brothers didn't want to hand out their source code and rights of GeneRally. Just look at it what we all are doing here for ages! GeneRally is so huge, I don't know but I think they must have seen what was going on on RSC and what's going on here. I'll always be grateful to them for this game :bowdown:. But, to tell you the truth the more I longing to have a new GR, the more I'm afraid it will lose his charm.
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Re: An open letter to GeneRally community from James and Ric

Post by numanair »

:eyes: <--my face upon seeing this letter
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