(P.S. My hopes in posting this is that it might help the present and future VERGErs to learn from the past downfalls of VERGE so as to remember to put down a nice layer of padding before we jump off the cliffs again. "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it", and I, for one, am sick of getting shafted by some jagged pillar of rock everytime the community jumps off the cliffs.)
(P.P.S. The P.S. stood for Pre-Script in this case. Even though it was written after the rest of the message, it preceeds the actual text.)
(P.P.P.S. And the previous one was a Post-Pre-Script since it followed the pre-script which preceeded the text but preceeded the text itself which prevented it from being simply a Post-Script.)
(P.P.P.P.S. Recurse)


I didn't join until just before the birth of V2, but even since then, the community has been in a continual downward slide. The number of "full-length" games actually completed since I joined in '99 can still be counted on half a hand.

What I think is happening is that people are outgrowing VERGE. While I wasn't around during V1's reign, what I've gathered was that V1 was more of a "here's a game, plug in your story and artwork" sort of thing. People took this at face value and were content to use it to make their games. This was easy.

Enter V2.

V2 came along and said, "Here, you can now write your own game. I won't make the game for you like V1 nearly did, but I will make it easier than writing it from scratch." "This is great", thought most people, "Now I can make the game how I want it to be." But little did they realize. They thought that it would be as easy as V1 but give them more flexibility. They were wrong. V2 proved to be flexible, yes, but it also meant that they had to do everything themselves, which most people found too difficult or overwhelming, once they had started.

So then people started writing V1 libs for V2 to make it more like V1. The problem was, people didn't want to DOWNGRADE to a V1-like game, yet they didn't realize that they could modify the V1 libs so that they could keep their flexibility, while still having the easiness that was V1.

And so, the community dwindled under the oppression of actually constructing an entire game. It was occasionally perked up by the entrance of a new fork in the V2 road offering yet another set of cool new features that people claimed that they couldn't make a good game without. However, people still couldn't make a game even after they'd gotten it.

Newbies were discouraged by the plethora of options and the burden of choosing which version of VERGE to download just so they could learn the fucking thing, and many many new faces were lost to us. The few ambitious people left soon grew out of VERGE and moved on to C++, Java/Script, Python, SDL and all those other cool things. (Note, Zara stands relatively alone in being the exception to this case).

And then when the_Speed_Bump, who had taken VERGE when no one else wanted it and had given us a bunch of cool new shit to be too lazy to use, decided to get rid of VergeC, the community had its first serious collapse (note, any catastrophes prior to May '99 are beyond the scope of this historical documentary).
The community was in anarchy. The message boards were filled with flames and the very hub of the community (tVS) was defiled to the point of destruction. Many VERGErs who had stayed through thick and thin now left in disgust. Many have yet to return.

Re-enter vecna.

After a long period of relative ghostliness in the VERGE community, vecna returned to bring VERGE back from the brink and cast out tSB's VC-less engine from VERGE. () tSB's engine soon became Ika. And vecna rewrote V2 and brought it, once again, to those poor souls who were without V2 due to being on a dos-less system (Win2k/XP). WinV2 was a successful flop. While it pretty well put all of the forked versions of V2 to rest into the archives for most people, it still created confusion with its only other competition... v2.6. Yet still... games are not really being produced.

However, this is all to change.

Enter The Verge Olympics!

Okay, so it may not change things all that much, but it still makes for a good time (something that's become rather foreign in the VERGE community, I'm afraid). This two week long competition promises to remind the community what it's like to have games to play that aren't made by Zaratustra (no offense to Zaratustra, his games fucking rule). As this first week of competition draws to a close, I am quite excited by the little sneak peeks here and there I've gotten from the competitors. I wish them all the best of luck, and I hope that no one looses sight of the main purpose of tVO... to make games.

With any luck, the competition will create a spark that may ignite a little tinder here and there, and with a little nurturing might rebuild the flame of creation within the VERGE community that will once again draw new faces and keep old ones like moths, and most importantly, will inspire people to actually make games!

(Applause)
(Fade to Black)

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Let it never be said that it goes without saying!

um... the verge source code has always (until winv2) been GPL. You're not breaking any rules by using it, so long as you GPL your own stuff.

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"Ignorance is its own reward" -- Proverb

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"Ignorance is its own reward" -- Proverb

I'll say what I wanted to say originally. Use V1, it has just as much flexibility to the average verger. As most people cannot use V2 that well because of the knowledge of coding required anyway. SO I think that the best way to deal with this is to edit V1, I say it's simple. Take the V1 source code and make it so that a person can declare and edit their own Global saved variables, maybe make it so that there is a variables txt file that is only for declaring variables, its easy eanough to do and that really was v1's only problem in my eyes. I made a perfectly well working menu system in it using some really simple functions so it's not all that bad. And of course fix some more bugs if you can but that goes without saying. THis is my two cents.. I think I'll go back to using V1, I liked it better and it was much easier to use. VERGE is suppoed to be a game making environment. Not the C compiler with a grafical interface that V2 became. DO NOT BE AFRAID OF V1! Thats my two cents, well, except for the all important HAVE FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Oops" -Too many people and characters to count...

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The source for V1 was released but not under GPL:

----- LICENSE.TXT -----
The following legal agreement has been directly ripped from the DOOM source release and modified to fit my situation.


LIMITED USE SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT

This Limited Use Software License Agreement (the "Agreement")is a legal agreement between you, the end-user, and Benjamin Eirich, also known as vecna (the "Author").

By downloading or purchasing the software material, which includes source code (the "Source Code"), executable files, and software tools (collectively, the "Software"), you are agreeing to be bound by the terms of this Agreement. If you do not agree to the terms of this Agreement, promptly destroy the Software you may have downloaded or copied.

SOFTWARE LICENSE

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The Software, together with any archive copy thereof, shall be destroyed when no longer used in accordance with this Agreement, or when the right to use the Software is terminated.

You agree that the Software will not be shipped, transferred or exported into any country in violation of the U.S. Export Administration Act (or any other law governing such matters) and that you will not utilize, in any other manner, the Software in violation of any applicable law.

2. Permitted Uses. For educational purposes only, you, the end-user, may use portions of the Source Code, such as particular routines, to develop your own software, but may not duplicate the Source Code, except as noted in paragraph 4. The limited right referenced in the preceding sentence is hereinafter referred to as "Educational Use." By so exercising the Educational Use right you shall not obtain any ownership, copyright, proprietary or other interest in or to the Source Code, or any portion of the Source Code. You may dispose of your own software in your sole discretion. With the exception of the Educational Use right, you may not otherwise use the Software, or an portion of the Software, which includes the Source Code, for commercial gain.

3. Prohibited Uses: Under no circumstances shall you, the end-user, be permitted, allowed or authorized to commercially exploit the Software. Neither you nor anyone at your direction shall do any of the following acts with regard to the Software, or any portion thereof:

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Notwithstanding the foregoing prohibitions, you may commercially exploit the software you develop by exercising the Educational Use right, referenced in paragraph 2. hereinabove.

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