Put the source code of ARK Survival Evolved on Github

[darkradeon]

ASE will get no more updates basically, except maybe super critical patches. Putting the code on Github (or another similar platform) will allow to get a lot of more fixes in a faster and cheaper way. Those fixes may probably also impact for good the development of ASA, for both client and server side.

This doesn't mean ASE will become open source/ GNU/GPL like at all. Copyright will still apply as well intellectual property and forbid commercial usage (this is actually already happening with the dev kit!).

Code control will be still in Wildcard hands.

Code contribution models like that are already real and successful for big project like the Unreal Engine itself (anyone can ask Epic to access the Unreal Engine and other stuff code repository, however copyright and intellectual property still apply).

Yes, there will be for sure some limitations about 3rd party code and binaries, like console SDK, this cannot be public for sure due Microsoft/Sony NDA licenses.

[SarahMonette]

I don't mean to be a dummy here but wouldn't that cause the cheaters to get ahold of it?

Also,

ASE depends on new players to $support the game as this is box to play.  No one is buying the game now because a big flying bug is not enough to entice new players.  Everyone except two people have left my unofficial server.  There might be at this time four more that are just logging in to keep their bases from decaying.  That wont last much longer.  My server is getting very lonely.

There is no reason to buy the old game when the remastered game for the same price is in the immediate works.  I'm not complaining just making observations don't feel like starting new topic for each.  

I am curious how many servers the official remaster intends to have?  I would keep a frugal budget at the start if I was Wildcard.  I would also set aside a few that wiped regularly on pve.  Perhaps maybe replace beginner servers with wipe servers?  Just a thought.  Pve.  Idc about pvp never bothered to think about or talk bout pvp but I forget to say that.

Most important and on topic please Wildcard consider your pve players and allow people to download their dinos to single player mode.  This is the biggest rug burn to pve.  Playing multiplayer but not being allowed to save your pets.

 

 

[darkradeon]

fixes also get faster.  I bet some cheats works thanks to unpatched UE 4.5 network issues.Fixing bugs faster on ASE will help also ASA (for those really wanna buy it) both games will get advantages and so players. IF server side is too critical they could just put the client side code (or the opposite).

[GrumpyBear]

considering they are just porting over the game to UE5, much of the existing code would be relevant to hackers on ASA.  I don't think this is a good idea.

[TimeBomb2003]

3 hours ago, SarahMonette said:

I don't mean to be a dummy here but wouldn't that cause the cheaters to get ahold of it?

If the official servers are shutting down, it probably wouldn't matter (as much) if cheaters could use it. Since that's the place they typically inhabit.

[GrumpyBear]

9 minutes ago, TimeBomb2003 said:

If the official servers are shutting down, it probably wouldn't matter (as much) if cheaters could use it. Since that's the place they typically inhabit.

cheaters can do the same thing wc is doing with the code, run it through a UE5 converter and they would have a significant start on reverse engineering ASA.

[Pipinghot]

9 hours ago, darkradeon said:

...

Code control will be still in Wildcard hands.

...

What other games are you aware of that have done this (for a currently active game that they're still selling copies of) if any?

 

[darkradeon]

1 hour ago, Pipinghot said:

What other games are you aware of that have done this (for a currently active game that they're still selling copies of) if any?

 

just because some source code is shared in some way doesn't mean you can ignore the license. Try to public a game using unreal engine without paying royalties to Epic XD https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealEngine

Anyway the last Unreal Tournament source code is on github too, it was there before Epic decided to stop basically its development in favour of Fortnite. https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealTournament

Nobody uses Unreal Tournament code at all (and it's a working game).

Yes to access the code you need first a github account and apply an agreement with Epic.

[darkradeon]

3 hours ago, GrumpyBear said:

considering they are just porting over the game to UE5, much of the existing code would be relevant to hackers on ASA.  I don't think this is a good idea.

another reason to fix the code asap. And as I said, there is no need to public both server code and client code. Client code would be enough to fix 50% of ARK issues, especially now that they decided to kill unofficial a lot of people will play just single player, which is full of bugs and issues (creatures and item spawn, crashes, corrupted saves, deleted saves etc).

[Pipinghot]

14 hours ago, darkradeon said:

just because some source code is shared in some way doesn't mean you can ignore the license. Try to public a game using unreal engine without paying royalties to Epic XD https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealEngine

Anyway the last Unreal Tournament source code is on github too, it was there before Epic decided to stop basically its development in favour of Fortnite. https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealTournament

Nobody uses Unreal Tournament code at all (and it's a working game).

Yes to access the code you need first a github account and apply an agreement with Epic.

So, just to make sure I understand your answer - as far as you know there's only one case of a developer doing what you're suggesting, making their source code available while the game is still in active production. I'm not trying to poke you in the eye or start a flame war, I genuinely don't know if this has been done before and, if so, how often, and how it worked out for the other games.

I understand your hypothetical arguments, and they sound good on paper, but I don't know of any real world examples of this being done nor how it worked out.

It's hard to judge the merits of the idea if there aren't existing example to look at and learn from. Just because you say it's a good idea doesn't make it so, there may be additional considerations and "gotcha" problems that you're not thinking of, and it would be educational to look at any existing examples rather than just discussing a hypothetical.

[darkradeon]

1 hour ago, Pipinghot said:

So, just to make sure I understand your answer - as far as you know there's only one case of a developer doing what you're suggesting, making their source code available while the game is still in active production. I'm not trying to poke you in the eye or start a flame war, I genuinely don't know if this has been done before and, if so, how often, and how it worked out for the other games.

I understand your hypothetical arguments, and they sound good on paper, but I don't know of any real world examples of this being done nor how it worked out.

It's hard to judge the merits of the idea if there aren't existing example to look at and learn from. Just because you say it's a good idea doesn't make it so, there may be additional considerations and "gotcha" problems that you're not thinking of, and it would be educational to look at any existing examples rather than just discussing a hypothetical.

Here it's not about continue the development of ASE but to fix it.

If you don't understand how external contributions work:

you request and gain repository access (a remote software storage location for the code with backtrack history and other features)

you can download than the code, inspect it, change it.

If you find something wrong you can open an issue (like a ticket) on the remote repository explain what you think is wrong or the problems you found.

If you did some code change/addition and you find them useful you can open a "pull request" to the remote repository. The repository owner can accept the changes, reject, postpone them, etc or just use those change suggestions to make themself any changes needed. You don't get any rights on the code.

Just because it's a game code doesn't mean the process is different from any other software. Assets (models, textures, sounds, maps data etc) are not included in the source code (actually they are already distributed with the devkit).

Third party code or compiled bits if necessary can be just be excluded from being online (eg: Xbox and Playstation SDKs).

While github by default offers a set of open source licenses to add, the code owner can put ad hoc license that don't need to be at all open source. A lot of organisation have their own license models that you have to follow or you get in legal troubles (like the devkit: just because you can download it doesn't mean your are allowed to use ARK assets for your own game).

The fact ARK is based on Unreal Engine (PC is ~4.5)  means a lot of people may understand the code and it's changes pretty quickly: the Epic Games organisation on Github has over 471.6K members having access the code of different repositories (Unreal Engine is the main but not the only one, it has over 47.3K forks and over 332K accepted code changes). You can actually find any version of the Unreal Engine, so also the older version (like the 4.5 that ARK for PC is based)

[Pipinghot]

1 hour ago, darkradeon said:

Here it's not about continue the development of ASE but to fix it.

Maybe this is true for you, but it's not not for WildCard and it's not true for the questions I've asked.

What's becoming readily apparent is that companies don't do this for games they still want to sell more copies of, which means you're suggesting that WC do something they definitely won't do as long as they're still making money from ARK. They might do this in the future, when they no longer care about ASE as something they sell to make money, but I don't see any reason why they would do this now or even in the near future.

Continuing development and selling more copies are two separate issues. Even if they're not actively developing the game they're not going to make the source code public as long as they're still selling copies of the game, and probably not even then.

1 hour ago, darkradeon said:

If you don't understand how external contributions work:

How they work has nothing at all to do with the questions I've asked. The "how" doesn't matter if they "why would they do it" hasn't been answered.

1 hour ago, darkradeon said:

The fact ARK is based on Unreal Engine (PC is ~4.5)  means a lot of people may understand the code and it's changes pretty quickly: the Epic Games organisation on Github has over 471.6K members having access the code of different repositories (Unreal Engine is the main but not the only one, it has over 47.3K forks and over 332K accepted code changes). You can actually find any version of the Unreal Engine, so also the older version (like the 4.5 that ARK for PC is based)

Yeah, there are plenty of game-related projects on github... and all of the ones I'm aware of are for games that the publisher is no longer selling copies of. So far the only example you've given (Unreal Tournament) is basically just abandonware.

Having said that, there's lots of stuff in the world I'm not aware of - so what I'm asking you is how many projects like this exist for games that the owner is still actively selling copies of.

[Frack]

35 minutes ago, Pipinghot said:

that the owner is still actively selling copies of.

and not telling the buyers it is closing official servers in Aug, and will not support it with 'fixes' or 'updates' after June

[darkradeon]

I don't get what's the problem if the game is still on sale or not, that's not related to put or not the code on a online platform to fix it. Fix the game they are killing it's the matter. For devs, this will help also ASA development too. Everyone would win: those (who?) buying ASA and those remaining with ASE.

[Pipinghot]

5 minutes ago, Frack said:

and not telling the buyers it is closing official servers in Aug, and will not support it with 'fixes' or 'updates' after June

True, the circumstances might change if/when they actually decide to abandon ASE-UE4, but that hasn't happened yet.

[Pipinghot]

3 minutes ago, darkradeon said:

I don't get what's the problem if the game is still on sale or not, that's not related to put or not the code on a online platform to fix it.

It's completely related, and the fact that other companies don't do this should show you that it's related. Game companies don't publish their source code on games they're still selling copies of, or otherwise making money from, they only do it for games that are basically abandonware.

Whether that decision makes sense to you or not, it should be obvious that there are reasons for it. Or, at least they believe there are reasons for it, and they are going to make decisions based on what they believe, not whether it seems like a problem to you. My guess would be that there are issues of copyright ownership that get exposed when a company publishes the source code for a game, but of course that's only a guess.

Regardless of whether I'm right about the reasons, or whether it's something else entirely, the point that you need to remember is that game companies don't do this when they're still making money from a game. You don't need to "get what's the problem", you only need to have a realistic understanding of the fact that they don't do it.

3 minutes ago, darkradeon said:

Fix the game they are killing it's the matter. For devs, this will help also ASA development too.

That's actually a pretty good reason why they would not do it. If ASA is re-using code from ASE then they would not want to risk exposing that code (whether it's for copyright or some other reason) by publishing that code with ASE. As long as all or part of the intellectual property that is part of ASE is also part of ASA, they're not going to publish the code.