Quick Question

[iViscosity]

I'm a pretty impatient person and I lose interest and attention pretty quickly. So I was wondering, how long did it take to make ULib and/or ulx, and how did you guys keep yourself motivated?

[MrPresident]

You would need to ask Megiddo for specific timeframes, but I've been here since 2005... so it has taken at least >12 years to make ULX.

[iViscosity]

I meant more specifically your like... first version. Not to the extent of what it is now, but like from concept to your first release. 12 years is a long time though

[MrPresident]

Yeah, then you'll have to wait for Megiddo to chime in. None of us (that I know of) were around when he released his first version.

[Stickly Man!]

Yeah, then you'll have to wait for Megiddo to chime in. None of us (that I know of) were around when he released his first version.

I was always around, even for the first AI mod, even though I wasn't involved or contributing.

This brief history lesson can help answer your question. Garry's Mod v9 (the first that supported Lua scripting) was released on Oct 28, 2005- ULX beta was released 3 days later on Oct. 31 (very barebones), and an official v1.0 release was released just under 2 months later.

Now, we've completely rewritten ULX v3 from scratch for Gmod 10, and it's a lot more complex- but you can look at the timeline to see how long it took. Megiddo would definitely have more personal insight and more details.

As for motivation... well, back in the day, we had lots of free time (sans school), and it was a fun project with a good community. Nowadays, we have full time jobs, families, etc., and the community is a bit more toxic. Plus the whole advent of people making lumps of money over relatively small and simple addons, while we get little/no donations-- it's rather difficult to stay motivated. But, we still are passionate about the project- we just don't have a whole lot of available time to work on it.

[MrPresident]

... and the community is a bit more toxic.

Understatement of the century award goes to.....

[JamminR]

I think 1.1 something was just released when I started.
I'd been hanging around the forums and tinkered with the AI mods *UGM* in Gmod v7 before Megiddo's colleagues went to the dark side with it long before I joined the team though.

Oh. wow, I still have the email that the forum sent me when I first messaged Megiddo notifying I'd like to beta test.
I should add this to the history archive.

Things went downhill quickly from there! (we could joke for both of us)

Quote from: JamminR on July 05, 2006, 12:57:05 pm

Hi Megiddo.

 I wanted to introduce myself.

My name is <my name here>, a general pc geek (aren't we all? ) and Gmod fan.

 Though no great genius builder, I've always enjoyed Legos and other interesting building systems, and Garry's mod allowed me to use my computer for such fun. Thanks for making a product that makes administrating a Gmod server so much easier.

 I'm sure you probably already get too many requests, so I'm not going to ask outright.
However, I wanted to offer my service as a beta tester for any current/future projects you work on.

 I'm (age at time), and have close to 20 years in the pc hardware and software arena. I can follow test plans, though I don't know if your beta programs have such a process involved. If no test plan, I occasionally run a dedicated server for a few days at a time and can have me and a select trusted few, or the public at large, test functionality.

 I'm currently teaching myself LUA, at least in respect to the Gmod implimentation, and working with you and your team would provide a positive experience.

 I look forward to your future projects (ULXv2, and anything else), whether I'm a part of pre-release or not.

I'll be around your forum weekly, as its general population "maturity" seems higher than the facepunch forums, and will help others when I can, while learning from others at the same time.


 Respectfully,

<my name here> aka JamminR

[iViscosity]

while we get little/no donations

Give me a minute


Except I can't find it.

[JamminR]

Well no wonder we don't get much.
I can't find it either.
I thought it used to be on our homepage.
I found one in our private discussion area, but I'm not posting as it's 2+ years old.

[iViscosity]

I found it

[Stickly Man!]

Haha, I wasn't intending to solicit donations with my post, but thanks!

I would argue that our drive is still very much the engineering/completion aspect of it- it's a cool feeling knowing that people are using what you've spent a lot of time working on. But, our days of copious amounts of free time are over- so we have to spend our time a lot more wisely (plus I do full-time software development for my job- usually my brain is too fried to spend my free time doing more software development ).

But, I can't argue that a little side income from donations would garner a little more approval from the missus on spending more time on such things.

[Megiddo]

Thanks for the donation! It used to be on our FP release post at the very top, but we don't bother with FP now, so I guess it is a small wonder no one donates anymore.

It's pretty much everything Stickly Man! said. The first releases of ULX took a span of a few days. I based it off of AMXX initially, so I knew how it needed to function and how the configuration would work, I was an "okay" programmer going through high school at the time (not starting from zero programming knowledge), and I was already familiar with the Source Engine from working on UGM (which was created using console scripts only). If it had taken me much longer than a few days to develop the initial version, I probably would have lost interest. But, once it was released and people seemed to like it, I had the motivation to keep working on it and improving it.

Fast forward to today where I am married and expecting my first child any minute now. I am still motivated by the fact that people are using ULX, the desire to create a great product, and by our awesome team members here, but time is a commodity in short supply.

[iViscosity]

That's nice to hear Megiddo. Funny, I worked with the original developers of the AMX Super plugin a few months back, but we had a falling out. I've always wanted to make a big add-on like ulx, but I never get good ideas, and when I do someone's already done it. I often feel I'm in over my head and get overwhelmed and stop because I can't figure things out. Oh well, though.

Also, don't worry about taking my money Stickly.

[MrPresident]

Off topic a bit, but maybe we should put the donation link on the workshop page or downloads page here. Wouldn't hurt and maybe you'll get a few more pizzas or whatever you use that money on.

[Megiddo]

Good idea on the links! I'll look into it. I wish I could claim the donations went to something as fun as pizza. Instead, they just go towards paying the hosting costs of the site and forums. Not a sound business plan, I know.