Silver Network Veterans part 2

[Al Staffieri]

What he's done is no different or any more special than what others did in the past.
 
America Online held the torch in the beginning. Rod Whitten was the guy running the show there. From 1998 or so until AOL policy changes around 2002, AOL provided free hosting for all games, message boards, etc. You paid a monthly fee but nothing said they had to run a GM SIG, so it was something special, an extra.
 
Dark Dragon Software kind of had the torch simultaneously with AOL, except on the Internet side. They were the first hosts of the GMG and the first guys to give out free web space. But the top guy there, FX Wzrd, he kind of faded off.
 
SilverNetworks came in with free hosting for the GMG, better forums, etc. MacSpace/MacDevs had free hosting for games. Like Dark Dragon, the whole thing kind of faded out.
 
And now we're in the "Ghost" area. Our 4th sugar daddy, per se. Guess what? In a few years, none of this will likely be here anymore, they'll either be nothing or someone else will have the show. That's because, in my opinion, nobody holding the torch (including me) did so for the right reasons. History will keep repeating it's self.
 
The only "era" that I think had any chance of surviving was AOL. Had it not been for those policy changes (and the uptake in broadband), I think we could still have that today. Rod's management of the community was mature and impartial and far above anything anyone else did.
 
That's just my take on the past 10 or so years. The only person who has been here longer (and is still around) is Al, or perhaps Ghost (if he was on the EZBoards in 1999).
 
The only constant has been Al. He's the one you should be thankful for. He's the one who has put in more hours than anybody else. Lord knows he's not doing it for the paltry registration fees.
 
I'm pretty much done discussing this. I'll be over on the Plaza discussing the future of SilverCreator. You can join me if that interests you.

Sorry to start this up again. The other topic was locked, but I found this on my Mac and thought it fits here. It's an old iMedia movie that explains it a bit.

http://www.alstaffieri.com/movies/gm_wars_intro.mov

[GMG Mike]

What's interesting is that the four game characters you see attacking each other near the end of the movie are all from GM games. SilverCreator had no actual games at that point.

[Telstar5]

That was an awesome video say, does anyone know where I can get Second Terror Protocol? I recognise the character from that video.

[EqwanoX]

What's interesting is that the four game characters you see attacking each other near the end of the movie are all from GM games. SilverCreator had no actual games at that point.

lol, yea accept dude2000, but now sc has more characters than gm i think

actually the war was between characters that stay loyal to gm and characters that wish to be ported to sc, and i already ported NEO with better graphics and coding. but gm has silverwind keeping it alive


(lol, disco-man)

[GMG Mike]

lol, yea accept dude2000, but now sc has more characters than gm i think

actually the war was between characters that stay loyal to gm and characters that wish to be ported to sc, and i already ported NEO with better graphics and coding. but gm has silverwind keeping it alive


(lol, disco-man)

Dude was made in GM Lite and later ported to full GM. It was never ported to SC.

[Connors]

I'm still trying to figure out how these two programs are different. They both have arrays, sprites, variables and all that basic stuff. And they can both save and edit specific files.

Unless GM can't play video files so far all I have is SC can compile for windows, it's got global scripting/methods and it doesn't have an equivalent of GM's built in inventory or status bar and you can't paste an image from one card onto the current card. Aside from that they essentially do the same thing.

[Gan]

GM has arrays?
Sc I believe is faster, mush faster. (Plus is free)

[Connors]

 My bad, do you have to us a string instead of an official array?

[WarHampster]

I wish I was around back when the video was made. Does anyone have the full movie?

[GMG Mike]

SilverCreator is a bit more modern right now compared to GameMaker - which is not a native Intel program yet. (anyone remember when GM was still 68K?)

GM 4 will have a lot of potential, since it will be compiled using the new FBtoC system which uses Apple's Xcode tools and everything.

[x]

I don't understand why you guys write these tools in FutureBASIC and RealBasic. Why don't you just code them natively in C++, or at the very least the scripting engine..?

[GMG Mike]

I don't understand why you guys write these tools in FutureBASIC and RealBasic. Why don't you just code them natively in C++, or at the very least the scripting engine..?

I can't speak for Al, but SilverCreator wouldn't exist without REALbasic.