Re: robowiki are down now

> 2000's.  What I don't understand is why the game itself wasn't expanded.
> You could do a lot to alter the game but still keep the feel.  Incorporate
> 3D, varried terrain heights, obstacles, secondary weapon types.  There is a
> lot that could be added.

One big reason is that ANY change at all to the gameplay would break
existing bots. (Even subtle changes have broken bots along the way.)
Robocode would be like every other game in the genre: modern gameplay
and nobody playing it. :-) Stuff like terrain, obstacles, and new
weapons belong in a new game. And those things ARE in other/new games
- games which very few Robocoders even care to try.

There have been expansions to the gameplay, though. Some links:
* ~2009, Joshua Gilecki was working on a big branch with custom
battlefields, which was never finished:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/robocode-developers/YtikqLGiEK0/YHT41Q5x37EJ
* Also ~2009, we had a "Robocode 2 Brainstorm" that might be of
interest to you: http://robowiki.net/wiki/Robocode_2_Brainstorm
* Virtual Combat (http://robowiki.net/wiki/Virtual_Combat) was a
one-off competition using CTF style gameplay with walls on the field.
A RoboWiki patron (KID) won first prize.
* Naval Robocode was recently released. Anybody tried it? Sounds
pretty neat. http://robo-code.blogspot.dk/2015/03/naval-robocode-092-has-been-released.html

I dunno... Robocode is awesome. It's natural to want more more more.
It's easy to fantasize about DrussGT 4.0 climbing hills and lobbing
grenades at hoardes of Phoenixes, while still ousting Diamond in
vanilla 1v1. But if gameplay changes had ever been made to Robocode,
I'm not convinced anyone would still be playing it. With a fixed rule
set and an ever growing archive of bots, bot authors have continued to
innovate way past a thousand cries of "nothing left to innovate".
We've had bullet shadows and bullet shielding integrated into the top
bots in the last few years. And we now have 1,100 bots in RoboRumble
General 1v1. Insane!

If you ask me, kids these days don't want a clunky Java desktop app.
Or a desktop app at all. They want their code on the web. They want
Javascript. They want to write in any language. They want to not even
think about it. They want sleek web UIs and to send replays to their
friends when their new version kicks butt. FightCodeGame did a lot of
things right in this regard, IMO.

Sorry to rant, but you caught me in the mood. :-)

PS - Putting gameplay changes aside, Robocode has been expanded in a
number of ways since ~2005 when Fnl took over. Fnl and Pavel have
updated Robocode with tons of awesome stuff. Bug fixes, UI
enhancements, RoboRumble integration, graphical debugging, .NET
robots, Java 7. Quite a long list! If you tried Robocode 1.07 (before
Fnl) now, you'd probably laugh.


On Sat, Jul 18, 2015 at 2:16 PM, Mike Oliver <[email protected]> wrote:
> Thanks for the update Patrick,
> As a new person to Robocode it is apparent that there isn't a lot of active
> community left, except for this google group, which is a shame.
>
> For me Robocode gives an opportunity to improve my Java programming in a fun
> and interesting way. It would be more enjoyable if we did have a more active
> community(robowiki/google groups) with access to bots (robocoderepository),
> but I can understand why since innovation reached its peak in the early
> 2000's.  What I don't understand is why the game itself wasn't expanded.
> You could do a lot to alter the game but still keep the feel.  Incorporate
> 3D, varried terrain heights, obstacles, secondary weapon types.  There is a
> lot that could be added.
>
> Anyway, my $0.02.  I still enjoy working away on my robot, even if it will
> never be a perfect wavesurfer
>
>
>
>
> On Saturday, 18 July 2015 11:04:23 UTC-7, Patrick Cupka wrote:
>>
>> Hey guys - late to the dialogue, but a few things to mention. (Beware:
>> wall of text incoming.)
>>
>> The wiki mostly runs itself and is hosted at VPSLink, which is pretty
>> reliable. The problem during downtime is that neither myself, who "owns" the
>> wiki (i.e., from PEZ), nor David Alves, who actually pays for hosting,
>> actually care so much about Robocode anymore. When your heart's not in it,
>> there are plenty of other things that take precedence.
>>
>> I believe MediaWiki has a facility to export all the pages to an XML
>> format. We could make the full archive available somewhere (eg, someone's
>> Dropbox) every so often, if it's something people are interested in. Then
>> you can do whatever you want with it. It strikes me as the kind of thing
>> people say they want, then nobody would actually download it. :-) But we
>> could try.
>>
>> There's certainly nobody acting as a gatekeeper here to keep it single
>> sourced. There are no ads. PEZ and I gave a dump of the old wiki to someone
>> upon request a while back. The RoboWiki is all about sharing Robocode
>> knowledge.
>>
>> There are plenty of other programming games, but nothing in the same
>> league as Robocode as far as number of bots or active competitions. Then
>> again, people also complain that there is nothing new to be innovated in
>> Robocode, so it's a double-edged sword. I like to joke that it's the "Google
>> Reader of programming games" – it got a huge corporate push from IBM, it
>> smothers the rest of the market (tons of bots, history, Java, name
>> recognition), and might need to die off before all these other games can
>> blossom - hopefully with some kind of common community, as well as
>> communities of their own.
>>
>> I have my own offering: BerryBots (http://berrybots.com). You can read a
>> comparison to Robocode gameplay here:
>> http://berrybots.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17 ... Or even try it in a
>> browser: http://playberrybots.com. Primarily, it features programmable
>> stages, walls on the playing field, and a secondary weapon (grenade-like).
>> It also has a pretty sweet automation API with built-in multithreading,
>> (optional) graphical form inputs, and the ability to save HTML5 replays of
>> matches. There are only a few bots, but I'd be hella impressed if you can
>> beat Sanic (from Frohman).
>>
>> The other games that have caught my eye are FightCodeGame.com, a fully web
>> based Robocode-inspired game; and NodeWar.com, which might be the only truly
>> inspiring / innovative gameplay I've seen. I'd also check out
>> http://programminggames.org, which seems to be gaining steam.
>>
>> I sympathize with the desire to join a large, active community. But the
>> RoboWiki might make the Robocode community seem a lot more active than it
>> is. Good luck catching me and Skilgannon while we never update our bots. ;)
>> At some point, we have to make something new. I suspect even "Robocode 2"
>> will have the same problems as the rest of the new entrants into the genre.
>>
>> Hope that's enlightening! Best of luck,
>>
>> -- Patrick
>>
>> Sent from mobile
>>
>> On May 4, 2015, at 4:32 PM, Jesse Clark <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> I'll raise my hand.  I just don't know what would need to be done though
>> since I've never done this before.  Would a service such as
>> http://www.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page suffice?  Can anyone provide some
>> other guidance on a good way to host that is minimal cost?  Also, how would
>> one obtain the current wiki content?
>>
>> Question.  Is robocode still viable or are there other better, widely
>> used, supported platforms along the same vein?  Please advise.  I'm looking
>> to work with a platform like robocode to ultimately compete against others..
>>
>>
>> On Sun, May 3, 2015 at 5:57 PM, ramn.se ‘¸ <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>> How do we get hold of the database?
>>>
>>> On Sun, May 3, 2015 at 8:31 PM, Pavel Šavara <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi everybody,
>>>>
>>>> it would be perhaps good idea if all people who think robowiki is
>>>> important would try to help.
>>>> Somebody may try to run mirror, or perhaps somebody would organize and
>>>> run it on more stable hosting ?
>>>> Perhaps people would donate some cash needed to pay for the hosting ?
>>>> Just suggestions, in the end it's community project, right ?
>>>>
>>>> Anybody at all ? Raise your hands !
>>>>
>>>> Pavel
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, May 3, 2015 at 11:48 AM, <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Yeah, I hope they fix it soon... It's really important for many people!
>>>>>
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-- 
Patrick Cupka, [email protected]
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