Topic: The future of AGS (MonoAGS, XAGE, AGS 4.0)

[cat]

Sooner or later, a new version of AGS will be needed. I want to start a discussion because I want to see the general vibe of the community about this.

Several people started projects for this, to my mind come

• AGS 4.0 which is a cleanup of the existing AGS engine
• MonoAGS, created by tzachs as AGS successor
• XAGE by Clarvalon

The question is, how should we, as AGS community, treat those projects? I started this topic because of Monsieur OUXX's thread. He suggested that MonoAGS should be allowed for MAGS. How much space do we want to give it in the forum already? He also suggested to make topics about it in the technical boards.

Some advantages I see in giving MonoAGS or XAGE more attention:

• Make it more visible, spread the knowledge
• The sooner people use it, the sooner there is feedback for the developer(s)
• Prepare for a smooth transition to a new tool

Some disadvantages

• It is in a very early stage and probably only useable to a few hardcore game developers, not the majority here.
• There is no official successor of AGS
• It could be confusing, especially for the technical boards, especially with more different engines

Do we want to define an official AGS successor? Shall we wait and see how projects develop? Maybe it is time to have a separate board for MonoAGS where all technical stuff can be discussed? Shall it be allowed for MAGS?

What are the thoughts of the engine developers, game deveopers, the community?

[[delete}]

The even older text adventure community on the Intfiction forums handles different engines and approaches (CYOA, parser) historically open. Their loosely connection is the element of having text of some sort.

And since we always respected and cherished non-adventures made with AGS already, we should be fine too with a broader community forum allowing other tools.

Maybe a problem with that late change might be that many members already moved away to other places (Discord only, dedicated forums e.g. for Adventure Creator, Godot, Love2D, etc.). So idk what' better, opening AGS forums for all tools or only very few chosen ones (AGS3, MonoAGS and XAGE).

/* Personally, I'm settling on a small CYOA tool ibispi and now qptain_Nemo are coding just for me. */

[Gilbert]

The problem though, is that, this is not a general adventure game community, but in fact the AGS community, so it's just natural to allow non-adventure games made with AGS in competitions. If we allow "other" tools in creating adventure games we should allow also engines other than MonoAGS and XAGE, like Godot, etc., this beats the purpose of here being the AGS community. However, since there may not be further "official" successors of AGS (apart from AGS4), IMO MonoAGS and XAGE could be considered acceptable since they inherit a number of stuff from the original AGS and are in some way spiritual sucessors of AGS, so they're not that foreign and may not count as "other" tools.

[Snarky]

My 2¢:

1. Allow limited discussion of any other adventure game engine (e.g. a dedicated thread), as we've always done.

2. Engines that have some sort of tie to AGS or this community, as "spiritual successor" or whatever, can be accepted on par with AGS e.g. for Games in Production, as long as:
-the engine is freely available to anyone (non-commercial), ideally open-source
-it is mature enough to be a viable choice for completing an actual game, and has developer commitment for ongoing improvement
-there is actual interest in using it from someone apart from the developer (so ruling out engines custom-built for a single game)

3. For now, we stick with only allowing actual AGS games in the AGS database.

4. The rules for MAGS should be up to the organizers, maybe after a poll of participants.

[[delete}]

ibispi just told me he won't work on the super-nice CYOA template anymore. And qptain_Nemo is busy with his secret commercial project.

So please forget what I just said above.

[Monsieur OUXX]

XAGE and even less MonoAGS are not random engines. They are meant to be pseudo-AGS engines, so much so that MonoAGS might one day become AGS. Therefore it's not the same thing to say "let's open the forums to Godot" and "let's open the forums to MonoAGS". I wouldn't want to open the AGS forums to Visionaire-made games, or Unity-made engines, etc. But I certainly do want to open them for MonoAGS games. XAGE is more of a gray area, as Clarvalon has his own plans for it.

I think there should be a subforum for MonoAGS, and a subforum for XAGE. Imagine something similar to the Reality on the norm forum, but for (AGS-related) engines.

I'm comparing with RoN because if we're lucky we'll have those two little communities (the MonoAGS community and the XAGE community) growing inside the AGS community, gaining experience, and when the time comes, maybe one of them will have grown enough that it could start blending into the legacy AGS forums.
The comparison doesn't stop there: just like RoN, forum visitors who have no idea what MonoAGS and XAGE are will never set foot into these subforums. But then one day maybe they'l get curious and dive in (and hopefully thrive there).

I agree with the 3 pre-requisites that Snarky listed, though. To avoid some abuse. But still, on top of being able to post in (some) existing AGS forums, a new subforum would be nice for hard core, MonoAGS-centered or XAGE-centered posts.

[Clarvalon]

While it's nice to be involved in the conversation, I don't think a subforum for XAGE can be justified at the moment.  Maybe when it is publicly available and if there is sufficient interest.  I can see a case being made for MonoAGS however.

[tzachs]

Yes, a sub-forum for MonoAGS will be useful.