Indexing the Network Node factions

[Sigma]

Just the txt end. I was writing those factions probably 11 or 12 years ago, and I had no knowledge of photoshop or GIMP or anything. Nowadays I know a lot more and can put together my own pcxs, but I'm not that that great. I'm hoping that with the modding project I'm starting I'll be able to improve my skills.

[Buster's Uncle]

You find a lot of help with that here.

[JarlWolf]

Yes, don't be afraid to ask help. Myself, Kilkakon, BUncle and others are all able graphics designers, and as for text Rymdolov, myself, BUncle, Kilk can help too.

If you need some serious coding or need to know the effects of different things in game, like what does what and where and when, Yitzi is one of your best bets. Yitzi is probably one of the more knowledgeable folks and wizards of coding we have on the forum.

[Kilkakon]

Oh Children's Alliance! I remember those~

[Buster's Uncle]

ete, a thought - I could point you at a number of instances of unfinished community faction projects - The Strategist, for instance, that might be worth looking at with an eye towards including in your project to whip incomplete/broken factions into shape.

Community factions are a fun way to stir up activity, and it's fun to kick it around with anyone who wanders in, but for reasons mostly of bad luck, I've never seen one complete.  I can point you at about five, some of which ALMOST completed before all the tech guys disappeared.  We're talking I did all or most of the primary faction .pcx already - so we're not talking about starting out in the middle of nowhere.

For the first time, I find myself in a community with a deep enough bench that I think we could do it.

And for that matter, there's the Deadlock factions on my faction page - only art, because Darsnan dropped dead retired on me before we finished.  In that case, I think I have (proposed) stats for all of them in old (late 2009) emails, but never found the time and tech inclination to dig all that up and finish the things.  I wouldn't mind help on that a bit, as I'll probably NEVER get around to it on my own - knowledge of the Deadlock games would be a big plus in a collaborator, of course.

I daresay The Strategist, in particular, has a ferociously strong hook, both visually, and conceptually...

[Green1]

Yeah, BU, a few AARs and a custom faction frenzy has gotten activity on the boards up as late. I like. I used to be a purist who though custom factions would not be fun. But, this stuff has actually breathed new life into the game. Too bad it is a SP only thing. Not that I have a problem with sandbox SP, but I would love to see what a decent player would do with say, Antimind.

Then again, you are at a lull time for games. Not much being released right now. The AAA MMOs are between expansions, and other releases are being delayed on the 4x front. Alpha Centauri is one of those games folks always go to during lull times.

[Buster's Uncle]

I note as an aside that I bumped this thread in preference to a lot of custom faction talk going OT in the AC2 Wiki thread.

Here http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=1252.0 attached to the last post, is an alt. official faction art set I did for a new Muslim who wanted to get right with the 'no graven images' thing.  That's the SMAC factions, intended to be run with unaltered .txts and this art replacing the standard - the leaderheads are replaced with designs.  I suppose this would be right for extra-observant orthodox Jews for exactly the same reason.

(Now, a certain hater/bigot of my acquaintance badmouthed me behind my back for humoring a "crazy" person {and because he thinks Muslims aren't a lot better than Nazis}.  -And I say screw that noise!  Millions of followers of the Prophet out there, millions of hardcore Jews, some of whom wouldn't dream of playing with the standard version of SMAC(X) because of the pictures of people in it - and there's something wrong with me wanting to make SMAC available to more people?  Shut the heck up, fool.)

What caused me to think of this is that one of those community faction projects I was talking about was a Latin American faction, and another was Scottish.  I did some art for the former, and you know what?  I'd really like it if that one got completed; there's a continent plus worth of people in the Spanish world - and some of them can get by in English well enough that I'd like to recruit them into our community.  (The same reason we have folders here  en Español and en Français.) 

We were talking about how to index, a bit teeny bit dismissively, some national factions this morning in the Wiki thread; and I do want to point out that just maybe, the Canadian faction and the Finnish faction might have an appeal to certain demographics.  If you don't believe me, google Lt. Uhura, Martin Luther King, and Whoopie Goldberg together; King was right that what Nichols was doing was important, and what it meant to Whoopie as a child bears him out.  National factions can matter in the same way for the same reasons, which is worthwhile enough by itself, but also make for potential recruiting bait.

So, there's that...

[Green1]

I note as an aside that I bumped this thread in preference to a lot of custom faction talk going OT in the AC2 Wiki thread.

Here http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=1252.0 attached to the last post, is an alt. official faction art set I did for a new Muslim who wanted to get right with the 'no graven images' thing.  That's the SMAC factions, intended to be run with unaltered .txts and this art replacing the standard - the leaderheads are replaced with designs.  I suppose this would be right for extra-observant orthodox Jews for exactly the same reason.

(Now, a certain hater/bigot of my acquaintance badmouthed me behind my back for humoring a "crazy" person {and because he thinks Muslims aren't a lot better than Nazis}.  -And I say screw that noise!  Millions of followers of the Prophet out there, millions of hardcore Jews, some of whom wouldn't dream of playing with the standard version of SMAC(X) because of the pictures of people in it - and there's something wrong with me wanting to make SMAC available to more people?  Shut the heck up, fool.)

What caused me to think of this is that one of those community faction projects I was talking about was a Latin American faction, and another was Scottish.  I did some art for the former, and you know what?  I'd really like it if that one got completed; there's a continent plus worth of people in the Spanish world - and some of them can get by in English well enough that I'd like to recruit them into our community.  (The same reason we have folders here  en Español and en Français.) 

We were talking about how to index, a bit teeny bit dismissively, some national factions this morning in the Wiki thread; and I do want to point out that just maybe, the Canadian faction and the Finnish faction might have an appeal to certain demographics.  If you don't believe me, google Lt. Uhura, Martin Luther King, and Whoopie Goldberg together; King was right that what Nichols was doing was important, and what it meant to Whoopie as a child bears him out.  National factions can matter in the same way for the same reasons, which is worthwhile enough by itself, but also make for potential recruiting bait.

So, there's that...

There are zealots in any religion BU. Just best not to entertain them or you give them power.

I have seen:
Militant Atheists
Born again Wiccans
Book burning Christians

Thing is , behind zealotry is a closemindedness. There is also a hint of selfishness. If only they realized that all religions (or lack of belief) has some positive points to it and get over all the hysteria designed only to recruit and keep money in the tithe/donation box.

[Buster's Uncle]

Zealotry?  Hater-Lad is just being an Angry Young White Man - I used to be one; it's very common affliction among us nerdz.  People who keep thinking and observing carefully and searching for The Truth can grow out of that pernicious brand of only-right-so-far-as-they-go ethnocentrism, as I eventually did, so I have hope for him someday...

[ete]

Noted about community factions being useful sources. My feeling is that it's easy enough for one person to make a good faction in a few hours, then get feedback from the community, and spreading it out makes it harder to make decisions, plus you'll usually have one person calling the shots anyway. They're cool as projects, but maybe better to go "here is this neat idea for a faction, feedback of how to make it work well appreciated" if you want a good faction without waiting forever.

[Buster's Uncle]

Well, I do hope you'll have a look at the link above and index the halal/kosher SMAC alternate faction art in the wiki.

The rest, I'm content to talk up in hopes of getting more help.  [shrugs]  I ain't done a faction project by myself since early 2009, because collaborating is more fun.

[ete]

Alternate faction art would be a nice thing to have as a download pack linked from somewhere, but I'm not sure the wiki is the right place for it?

[Buster's Uncle]

I don't see why not.  Useful custom faction stuff is useful custom faction stuff, and the point of the indexing project is to make finding what the user wants easier, and the definition of useful is not limited to what you or I personally find it to be.

Does that leave off the alt. gender set, too?  The entire difference is that most of them need a name altered in the .txt (I did do that for some I played a novelty game with, so those have .txts included.)  I'm not sure drawing a line on either side of that is a good idea.

[ete]

hm, but I'm not sure how it would fit into the category structure, would they be listed as separate factions? I'd think a link from the wiki pages to a download would be more useful to those who want that kind of modification, do they particularly need to see the png version first?

[Kilkakon]

Don't forget my Acolytes. Yet to see anybody play them :O

Doesn't help their main power won't work until Scient gets his act together.