Message from UA Member

[Nova]

Read this guys, this is what Drek from UA sent me:

Hello, my bot name is Drek. I work as a coordinator, tester, waypointer, etc. etc. with Marine Bot, a bot based on Botman's template for Firearms.

We're quite young, we've been around for about a year or so, but we've already got four releases under our belt, and we have all the prerequisite stuff like a website, and forums etc. etc.

We are also a project sponsored by United Admins, and as such, part of our mandate is to move beyond Firearms, to other mods. Now our lead coder, Frank McNeil, and most of the team, are really only interested in working with Firearms at this time, however, one way I thought that we might be able to do this, is if we became affiliated with Bots United in some way.

I've been aware of Bots United for awhile, as you were kind enough to send me the birth announcement. But, as we were involved with United Admins, I didn't really consider the potential for us working together, or becoming affiliated in some way, at first.

However, I have always liked the idea of being a part of a larger community, the move to become part of United Admins was in part motivated by this desire. And somehow bringing these two communities together might, once again, expand the reach of both communities, and open up the potential for sharing resources, ideas, and in general supporting each other.

Now at this point I am not a member of the board at United Admins, so any ideas we might come up with would have to move beyond me, if they were to be implimented, but I would, at the very least, be in a position to present any ideas we had, to people who would be in a position to act on them.

So at this point you are probably wondering what exactly it is I have in mind. Well my first thought is, if you are willing, perhaps Marine Bot could become a part of Bots United. We wouldn't need any forum or web space, but it would be cool if we had a link to our forums in your forums, if that is possible, and we could link up to your forums through our forums. Links on your website to our website, and vice versa, would also be cool.

Anyway, just let me know what you think, if you are interested at all in this, and especially if you have any other ideas.

Cheers, Drek

[botmeister]

Sounds cool to me. Our mandate is to bring together all the bot authors under one roof, so lets hook him up. Only a link for now, but that's a step in the right direction.

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

Exactly my call !
Gimme the name of the guy, the name of his bot and an URL to his forum and I'll add them to the "third party bots" list at the bottom of the forums.
It would be great if some day he wanted to move his forums to Bots United.

And it's nice to get in touch with United Admins. We've got LOTS to learn from these guys. They're doing serious stuff and they're already taken seriously by the game development companies.

*edited* wouldn't this thread have been better in the Agora ?

[stefanhendriks]

Yes lets get this one hooked up! And yes, i think this is also better in the Agora.

[Austin]

Originally Posted by Pierre-Marie Baty

Exactly my call !
Gimme the name of the guy, the name of his bot and an URL to his forum and I'll add them to the "third party bots" list at the bottom of the forums.

At the United Admin site:
http://forums.unitedadmins.com/

there is a link to marine bot:
http://www.hybridchill.com/mb_snitz/

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

that's okay, I added the link

[Drek]

Hey hello. Just thought I'd check in and say, thanks for the super positive response. Links are a good place to start, I've already got a link to the Bots United forum on the Marine Bot forums, and a link to Bots United on the UA Marine Bot page, and on the official Marine Bot web site is in the works as well.

If you are interested in the official Marine Bot website, this is the url for that:

http://www.marinebot.tk/

(currently down... > oh well, as they say, "stuff happens" )

Links are a good place to start, but I would like to see if we can get something more out of this relationship eventually. Honestly I don't know what, I have some ideas, but they are just ideas at this point and I'd like to hear other ideas. No stress on this one, and I'm in no big hurry, I just want you to know that if you think of something tangible that UA/Marine Bot can do for you, or vice versa, let me know and hopefully, if we have good ideas, we can all do something to implement them.

On the brainstorming/dreaming side, the community here would be the ideal place to start once HL2 is finally released, to pull together a team to create a bot template, like Botman's HPBot, for HL2. That is, of course, if it isn't released with its own bot template. And if HL2 is released with a bot template, then this community would be the ideal place to start looking for teams to code bots for new HL2 mods.

Alot of "ifs" and "maybes" in there I know, but this is the sort of thing I am thinking of right now. There is a great pool of experienced coders here that could potentially move on to create some great bot mods for HL2, or other platforms, providing of course that HL2 is as mod friendly as HL is, and if it isn't, then I am sure there will be other game platforms that are also mod friendly... or maybe HL will continue to be the modding king for some time to come...

Anyway, as I was saying above, I'm just brainstorming...

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

yes, this is a perfect echo of our current brainstorming sessions

Our current priorities are, first, that each individual bot/MOD maker drives his project to a satisfying level of completion, but THEN, teaming up and starting doing something big really takes part of our plan.

It doesn't prevent anyone who wishes so to drop ideas around and people who want to comment them to do so

But since we're not professional coders, most of us having either a job or being occupied by studies, the time span for starting to do something really exciting stretches quite much. We obviously can't put as much time investment in our project as we'd like to.

So don't desperate, be patient, drop ideas around and hack your bot in the meanwhile, and hopefully in a middle future we'll start working on things that may interest you. You will be of course welcome to join, as anybody is.

[Drek]

I have a better url for Marine Bot here:

http://www.marinebot.eu.tt/

This one seems to have alot fewer problems than the "tk" url...

/me waves

im on the MB team too, ive jsut added a link to Bots United main page to our website (drek had already added it to the forums)