Stendhal Developers Meeting 2012-05-29

Agenda

Update on current development activity, and where feedback or input is required from other developers or contributors, time to ask questions

Summary

Stendhal 1.00

Was released, yay!

Thank you everyone!

Need help promoting it still, please look for sites which need updating or lists where you can submit the game or a review.

And now onto Stendhal 1.01 development ...

madmetzger

working on magic - trying to make modified attributes visible to the client

needs help from someone to reproduce recent testserver errors locally (add to testing page)

kiheru is helping with gui changes but the problems need fixing server side

the code has deep changes and is a big project. it needs more of an external review. we need volunteers

the testing npc won't be in next release so there shouldn't be problems for 1.01

kymara

added 4 quest hint npcs

needs a map area for Calla and testing

kiheru

reordering items in bag/other slots - spells needs more work

legacy code from e.g bank slots is causing issues

waiting feedback on chat tabs (probably no news is good news!)

agreed to separate out private messages from players and server private messages

Bluelads4

Will at Semos Road to help newbies, needs help with logic

other changes to fado hotel and semos wall/city should be ok

work on constantines villa is still progressing but not ready for 1.01

hendrik

worked on spreading announcements for release and updating sites - help needed (as above)

login with facebook works but we need 'achievement support' #3487518 and character privacy settings

the request about Will at Semos Road was to help make Stendhal easier in the first 2 hours. thinks there is more to do. (suggestions?)

omero (not attending)

multiproducer works needs review

check Olmo as an example?

MealForGroongo quest has some TODOs, maybe disable for 1.01?

other work

durkham - fixing bugs by way of re-acquainting with code. happy to help revew magic.

dust - has done some map work to add creatures but it's not been suvbmitted anywhere. advised to submit it for feedback before doing any more, as a common problem is to add way too many creatures

Nobun (not attending) - made a wiki page on his work on Ados Gym, needs feedback and encouragement to submit patch for initial work

other topics

Should we require Java 6?

Should we change to GPL v3 or later?

Full log

20:01 <player>kymara</player> Hi :)

20:01 <player>kymara</player> Can we start with the meeting?

20:01 <player>martinf</player> hello together

20:01 <player>madmetzger</player> hi

20:02 <player>hendrik</player> hello

20:02 dust hi

20:02 <player>kymara</player> I think we should start with celebrating the Stendhal 1.00 release :)

20:02 <player>madmetzger</player> yay!

20:02 <player>kymara</player> I'd like to thank all of you, all contributors and developers, who have worked to make it what it is now

20:03 <player>Bluelads4</player> hi

20:03 <player>kymara</player> It's *really* awesome. I meet a lot of people who are very impressed with anyone involved in open source development

20:03 <player>kymara</player> People who play the game say lovely things

20:03 <player>kymara</player> Players return who first made an account *five years* ago, and they still enjoy playing

20:03 <player>Bluelads4</player> :)

20:03 <player>kymara</player> So thank you :D

20:04 <player>kymara</player> Before that release we spent some time thinking how to market Stendhal and I ended up rewriting a lot of the descriptions of the game that you see around the place

20:04 <player>kymara</player> If any are still the out of date 'Stendhal is a fully fledged mmporg built using the Arianne system...' then please change them or let me know

20:05 <player>kymara</player> I think there are still some sites which need a release announcement too?

20:05 <player>kymara</player> hendrik, is there a list?

20:05 <player>hendrik</player> there is one on the support page (e. g. softpedia, happy penguin comment.

20:06 <player>hendrik</player> Or just search for website that cover games.

20:06 <player>hendrik</player> and post announcement or reviews there.

20:06 <player>kymara</player> if anyone can help with that, it would be good to check we got maximum coverage

20:07 <player>kymara</player> okay, so shall we start the Stendhal 1.01 discussion?

20:07 <player>hendrik</player> there are lists, too: https://metacritic.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1508/session/L3RpbWUvMTMzODMxNDgwNi9zaWQvV21DZWhsWms%3D

20:07 <player>hendrik</player> We need to do a release in June to update the signatures.

20:08 <player>hendrik</player> Multiproducer and magic needs review.

20:08 <player>kymara</player> hendrik, can we do the usual format?

20:08 <player>hendrik</player> the later one even if disabled.

20:08 <player>hendrik</player> yes.

20:08 <player>kymara</player> Thanks. Lets have a look at what we're working on for Stendhal 1.01 and we can assess when we can release too, afterwards

20:09 <player>kymara</player> The usual format is: one dev at a time says what they are working on, what they need help with, and then answers any questions from the rest of us? max about 5 minutes per developer so we don't spend too long

20:09 <player>kymara</player> madmetzger: could you start?

20:09 <player>madmetzger</player> sure

20:10 <player>madmetzger</player> I am not working very much on sth atm, I implement sth from time to time related to magic

20:11 <player>madmetzger</player> recently I added an NPC to allow testing on testserver, this revealed some problems

20:11 <player>madmetzger</player> both gui related and server side

20:11 <player>madmetzger</player> atm I am starting again a try to make the modified attributes visible to the client

20:12 <player>madmetzger</player> this approach would enable clients to see those modifications without depending on a certain client version

20:13 <player>madmetzger</player> basically this is, what I am doing atm

20:13 <player>madmetzger</player> I didn't find time yet to look into the exceptions from testserver, some of them don't occur on my localhost

20:14 <player>kymara</player> You're already working with kiheru on some client stuff, I think? Is there other help needed?

20:14 <player>madmetzger</player> maybe someone could try to reproduce it locally

20:14 <player>kymara</player> Do we know what triggers the errors on testserver? we could try ask the tester players what they were doing?

20:15 <player>madmetzger</player> basically there are still some graphics I'd need for a wizard's equipment

20:15 <player>kiheru</player> some of the exceptions may depend on older client version. newest test client tries a bit to filter objects based on their type

20:15 <player>madmetzger</player> I think it is related to the slow down spell, but I don't know the reason why it is breaking on test but not locally

20:16 <player>madmetzger</player> kiheru is right, those gui changes by him should help prevent some of the problems

20:16 <player>hendrik</player> they need to be fixed serverside.

20:17 <player>madmetzger</player> sure, but assisting client side is of no harm

20:18 <player>madmetzger</player> I think it might help if someone else could try to reproduce the errors related to speed modifications

20:18 <player>kymara</player> could you add it to the testing page but as a section for people with a localhost

20:18 <player>kymara</player> and explain who to talk to etc

20:18 <player>madmetzger</player> sure, I will add that.

20:19 <player>kymara</player> thank you. then we can point people there, who might be able to help (I will help)

20:19 <player>kymara</player> But, what about the next release, should anything be disabled before the next release, and we continue the magic project later?

20:19 <player>hendrik</player> It might be a good idea, if someone reviews the code. It does a lot of deep changes and is hard to understand.

20:20 <player>madmetzger</player> the testing NPC will not appear on main, the problems with speed won't occur without spell casting as far as I can see

20:21 <player>madmetzger</player> without the testing npc no player would gain the abilities to cast spells

20:21 <player>kymara</player> is anything new yet saved in the player?

20:22 <player>madmetzger</player> nothing really new, the spells slot was already there before I started. same for mana/base_mana

20:22 <player>madmetzger</player> the new introduced attributes for modified_atk etc are volatile

20:24 <player>kymara</player> hendrik, you proposed someone review the code because it is hard to understand and has deep changes

20:24 <player>kymara</player> can you talk to madmetzger about the changes or nominate that someone reviews it with you? i guess you must have already looked at it?

20:24 <player>kymara</player> can anyone help here? I'm thinking maybe durkham or martinf or kiheru ? :)

20:27 <player>kymara</player> okay, lets move on then.

20:27 <player>kymara</player> mine is quick. I've made a change which is nearly ready for the next release and I'd like it included :)

20:28 <player>kymara</player> I've added some 'quest hint' NPCs. The hint is which quests you should start (not ongoing quests, that is in the travel log).

20:28 <player>kymara</player> I need help testing: Zinnia, Calla, Periwinkle, Lobelia (I will add this to the testing page)

20:28 <player>kymara</player> and I need a nice environment for Calla (the one near Ados) to walk around in

20:29 <player>kymara</player> otherwise, i'm happy with them, but feedback is welcomed

20:30 <player>kymara</player> I guess there are no questions?

20:30 <player>kymara</player> who can go next? kiheru?

20:30 <player>kiheru</player> ok

20:31 <player>kiheru</player> atm I'm working on reordering stuff in bag etc. it's working for items, but ordering spells needs some more work

20:32 <player>kiheru</player> the issue is some old code that is not apparently needed anymore (it was added for bank slots, but they do not use it anymore)

20:33 <player>hendrik</player> What does it do?

20:33 <player>kiheru</player> then I need a bit prettier indicator for forbidden drops, but that should be easy

20:33 <player>kiheru</player> 17:53 <kiheru> does does Slot.getWriteableSlot() have a reason to exist? the only implementation is at EntitySlot which returns "this". there are several casts to EntitySlot because of that

20:33 <player>hendrik</player> sorry, i missed that.

20:33 <player>hendrik</player> it was never used.

20:34 <player>kiheru</player> oh

20:34 <player>kiheru</player> I suppose it's safe to remove then

20:34 <player>hendrik</player> yes

20:34 <player>hendrik</player> there are thinks like BankAccess which are not used either.

20:36 <player>kiheru</player> for other things, the chat tabs do not have any user visible way to configure, but I'm tempted to not provide one

20:37 <player>kiheru</player> otherwise I don't have recently started projects

20:37 <player>hendrik</player> I think player will appriciate both of them.

20:38 <player>kymara</player> :) thanks kiheru

20:38 <player>kymara</player> i guess you still woudl like more testing and feedback on chat tabs?

20:39 <player>kymara</player> they're on the testing page, already, though

20:39 <player>kiheru</player> yes. the chat tabs are apparently mentioned at the testing page, but I haven't received much feedback

20:39 * Bluelads4 likes them

20:39 <player>hendrik</player> That's usually a good sign for user visible features.

20:39 <player>Bluelads4</player> but I haven't done any deeper testing so far

20:39 <player>kiheru</player> the server sends a lot of stuff as private messages that are not distinguishable from player conversation. is separating those needed?

20:40 <player>kymara</player> kiheru: i'll add that to the testing page

20:40 <player>hendrik</player> yes, i think that would be a good idea.

20:40 <player>hendrik</player> at least the current way feels like a hack.

20:41 dust kiheru yes that would be great if it its separated

20:42 <player>kiheru</player> that's the only thing that annoys myself about the tabs. the private tab gets "new messages" sign all the time

20:43 <player>kiheru</player> ok. that needs splitting PRIVMSG type (ie. some good name for the private messages from server)

20:44 <player>kymara</player> can that go in, in june do you think?

20:44 <player>martinf</player> SRVMSG?

20:44 <player>kymara</player> so that it's there for 1.01 when we need to do the next release?

20:45 <player>kiheru</player> should be a simple change. just changing most things but keeping the privmsg for messages from players (and appropriate npc messages, like taxman)

20:46 <player>kymara</player> okay

20:46 <player>kymara</player> we better move on if that's okay

20:46 <player>kymara</player> can Bluelads4 go next?

20:46 <player>Bluelads4</player> yes :)

20:46 <player>hendrik</player> might need a client version check

20:46 <player>Bluelads4</player> well there aren't many projects either on my list at the moment, but these which are on there are huge ones

20:46 <player>Bluelads4</player> so the whole constantines villa idea is in a working process but not finished so far

20:46 <player>Bluelads4</player> and I unfortunately think that I'll not be ready with it for 1.01

20:47 <player>Bluelads4</player> what I have done so far (and what's on since the last release) are the interiors and one quest which needs testing

20:47 <player>Bluelads4</player> and I added a few more things recently like the books and stuff which is in the orril.xml file

20:47 <player>Bluelads4</player> but the rest is still open (means guards for example, the whole idea is in the wiki)

20:48 <player>kymara</player> can you close the doors before the next release?

20:48 <player>Bluelads4</player> I think I commited them out already for 1.0

20:48 <player>Bluelads4</player> but I'll take a look at that again :)

20:48 schurig kiheru: I knwo chat tabs from Deliantra, they are much more useful there than the chat/*private* in the 1.00.5 client. I'm happy to talk about this once you're finished with your discussions.

20:49 <player>Bluelads4</player> what I have done for 1.01 is implementing Will at semos road after the feature request entry by hendrik, Will needs testing too (some issues named here earlier and he doesn't take a look at the shield slot so far)

20:49 <player>Bluelads4</player> and reworking fado hotel restaurant which was just a small thing

20:50 <player>Bluelads4</player> and reworking semos city a bit and the wall :D (wow I forgot lots of things I have done during the last weeks :D)

20:50 <player>kymara</player> :D

20:50 <player>Bluelads4</player> ehm yes, and I think that was all from my side :)

20:50 <player>Bluelads4</player> (I think :D)

20:50 <player>kymara</player> okay, and we will have a look at will (I said I'd look :) )

20:50 <player>Bluelads4</player> thanks :)

20:51 <player>kymara</player> if you don't hear anything then maybe make a bug report?

20:51 <player>Bluelads4</player> hope he isn't too buggy

20:51 <player>kymara</player> so it doesn't get forgotten?

20:51 <player>Bluelads4</player> yes, I'll open one about him :)

20:51 <player>kymara</player> thank you

20:51 <player>kymara</player> okay, who else?

20:51 <player>hendrik</player> I have spent a lot of time with PR stuff.

20:52 <player>hendrik</player> Getting sites updated, removing old ugly images, etc.

20:52 <player>hendrik</player> That's something I could need help with.

20:52 <player>hendrik</player> Especially publishing announcements about 1.0.

20:52 <player>hendrik</player> Login with Facebook works technically. But before that can go live, we need need Achievement support.

20:53 <player>hendrik</player> The short version: We need that for legal reasons.

20:53 <player>hendrik</player> Having that, we need character privacy settings.

20:54 <player>hendrik</player> There is a feature request about adding facebook score to achievments.

20:54 <player>hendrik</player> Another project is making Stendhal easier for new players. The first two hours are extremely difficult.

20:55 <player>hendrik</player> Especially if the Beginners Guide is not found.

20:55 <player>hendrik</player> Bluelads4's work will help a bit with that, but there is more we should do.

20:55 <player>kymara</player> i've been enjoyng making voiceovers for videos

20:56 <player>kymara</player> i could attempt to have a go at talking to the new player, but without preparation i'd just be 'myself'

20:56 <player>kymara</player> with a script i could try do something more in theme, but i don't have much time to prepare anything

20:56 <player>kymara</player> the videos have all been done without preparation (and they still tak ea long time to process, once made_

20:56 <player>kymara</player> )

20:57 <player>hendrik</player> reworking the tutorial message could outline the script (with a bit of luck)

20:58 <player>kymara</player> if it's just the tutroial messages then i can record clips as i see them with a new player

20:58 <player>kymara</player> i dont' mind rewording them on-the-fly

20:59 <player>kymara</player> shall we talk about multiproducer/omero's work?

20:59 <player>hendrik</player> yes

21:00 <player>hendrik</player> That's another area, in which I guees nobody has looked at the code.

21:00 <player>kymara</player> i haven't, but i remember discussion approaches with him a very long time ago

21:00 <player>hendrik</player> It's not as risky as magic.

21:00 <player>kymara</player> is it supposed to be complete now?

21:00 <player>kymara</player> not as risky, but i guess the quest slot storage should be checked

21:01 <player>hendrik</player> I think it is. But we should ask omeroff.

21:01 <player>hendrik</player> yes.

21:01 <player>kymara</player> does anyone know if any npcs are already using it?

21:01 <player>kymara</player> it isnt mentioned in the testing page

21:02 <player>Bluelads4</player> I think he talked about adding a new npc for testing it but he hasn't so far as I remember

21:02 <player>Bluelads4</player> he made the new quest then in fado hotel

21:02 <player>hendrik</player> There was something about a bad behaving customers at a bar. But I don't know if that is related.

21:03 <player>madmetzger</player> MealForGroongo or sth like that is the quest iirc

21:04 <player>Bluelads4</player> yes

21:04 <player>Bluelads4</player> but that doesn't contain his new producer action as far as I know

21:06 <player>kymara</player> okay, it's difficult to disucss much more without omero here

21:06 <player>kymara</player> but we know we need to lok at it

21:07 <player>Bluelads4</player> oh there is a npc

21:07 <player>Bluelads4</player> which uses it

21:07 <player>Bluelads4</player> MeatAndFishSmokerNPC

21:07 <player>Bluelads4</player> it's added at 0_fado_forest_s

21:08 <player>Bluelads4</player> name Olmo

21:10 <player>durkham</player> there are in code a few TODOs for MealForGroongo

21:10 <player>durkham</player> mark as improtant

21:10 <player>durkham</player> marked sorry

21:10 <player>kymara</player> so we can decide if we should disable it before 1.01 or if omero wants to finish it

21:11 <player>hendrik</player> yes, we don't need to make the decision now.

21:11 <player>kymara</player> is there anyone else who wants to explain what they work on?

21:11 <player>kymara</player> or ask for help?

21:12 <player>kymara</player> I wanted to point out Nobun's work

21:12 * durkham does bug fixing to become familiar again with cod ebase, if that counts

21:12 <player>kymara</player> that sounds good :) thank you

21:12 <player>Bluelads4</player> there are quite strong killer bees as well... which should be added for testing

21:12 <player>kymara</player> if you can help with reviewing any recent code that would be great durkham

21:13 <player>durkham</player> to your service :-)

21:13 <player>hendrik</player> I am concerned about projects that we have not seen anything about. But people have already spend a lot of time with.

21:13 <player>kymara</player> nobun has also been doing some development

21:13 <player>kymara</player> he has got a page at http://stendhalgame.org/wiki/Stendhal_Quest_Ideas/Ados_Gym

21:13 <player>kymara</player> and aske for feedback

21:14 <player>kymara</player> only bluelads4 had made any (i added some now)

21:14 <player>kymara</player> lets make sure that nobun feels free to commit his early work for more concrete feedback

21:14 <player>kymara</player> and if anyone has feedback on the idea, please do add it

21:15 <player>kymara</player> hendrik: is that the kind of thing you meant? (I was about to say it anyway)

21:15 <player>hendrik</player> yes, but at least nobun has put up the wiki page, which is a very good start.

21:15 <player>hendrik</player> I think dust has done things too.

21:15 <player>kymara</player> yep, and he made a sign to ask players for feedback

21:16 dust yes at some maps i added monsters

21:16 dust more to come

21:16 dust now at semos mountains

21:16 <player>hendrik</player> did you put them on the patch tracker?

21:16 dust no... just showed it blue for now

21:16 <player>kymara</player> have you had any feedback on what you did, before you add more?

21:17 <player>Bluelads4</player> (who asked him to add it on the patches tracker :D)

21:17 * hendrik stops glaring at Bluelads4

21:17 <player>Bluelads4</player> some weeks ago

21:17 <player>Bluelads4</player> :D

21:17 <player>Bluelads4</player> I already felt your glares in my neck :D

21:18 * hendrik giggles.

21:18 <player>martinf</player> :)

21:18 dust well the ppl i did show did like it a lot :)

21:18 <player>Bluelads4</player> cough...

21:18 <player>martinf</player> hendrik: i have a little question about the IQtest interface

21:18 <player>Bluelads4</player> :P

21:19 <player>Bluelads4</player> he got some feedback from me that there might be too many monsters and too high level ones for the mountains ;)

21:19 <player>Bluelads4</player> but thats also why I asked to upload it on the patches tracker directly :)

21:19 <player>hendrik</player> Too many monsters is *the* standard issues, for people who are new to tiled.

21:20 <player>Bluelads4</player> hehe

21:20 <player>kymara</player> martinf: just ask :)

21:20 <player>martinf</player> i changed the functions getHistory() and getHint() to return a Collection<String> instead of the more specific type List<String> some time (months, years, whatever ;) ago in my local source copy

21:20 <player>martinf</player> what do you think about this change?

21:21 <player>martinf</player> shall i commit it or rollback it?

21:21 <player>kymara</player> do you mean IQuest not IQtest ?

21:21 <player>hendrik</player> dust, i strongly suggest not to spend any more time on it, unless parts of your changes have been accept. It is extremely likely that fixing issues will take more time than doing the modifications again from scratch.

21:21 <player>kymara</player> I read it as IQ-test - like mensa :)

21:21 dust hendrik k

21:21 martinf its the Quest interface

21:21 <player>hendrik</player> martinf, is there a reason for that change?

21:22 martinf nothing special - only because its more general

21:23 <player>hendrik</player> I have found myself to go exactly the other way lately: Returning ImmutableXxxx instead.

21:23 <player>hendrik</player> That is for projects that use guava.

21:24 <player>hendrik</player> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeO_J2OcHYM

21:24 <player>hendrik</player> General parameters are good, i am not sure about general return types.

21:25 <player>hendrik</player> We can discuss that after the meeting.

21:25 <player>martinf</player> sure

21:26 <player>kymara</player> hendrik, is there a specific date in june to release with the new certificates, by?

21:28 <player>hendrik</player> The deadline is within the first week of july.

21:29 <player>kymara</player> Okay, then I think we can make it a 1.01 release in June and not a stop-gap

21:29 <player>Bluelads4</player> (just a little add to constantines villa: checked all portals and npcs, all commited out so nothing should appear for the next release)

21:29 <player>hendrik</player> So we should do the release in June so that we have a little time for things going wrong.

21:29 <player>kymara</player> thanks blue

21:30 <player>kymara</player> I think that's all, then? Thanks all for coming

21:30 <player>hendrik</player> I have two more topics.

21:30 <player>kymara</player> Oh, okay, sorry

21:30 <player>hendrik</player> I don't think we should get to a decision on any of them right now, but I like to raise them.

21:30 <player>hendrik</player> One is: Should we require Java 6?

21:31 <player>hendrik</player> The other is should we change to GPL v3 or later?

21:32 <player>hendrik</player> It's too short notice to reach a decision right now, but something to think about during the next days.

21:32 <player>kiheru</player>java 6 would remove some headache. I don't know gpl3 enough to comment about advantages or disadvantages

21:33 <player>hendrik</player> an advantage is that it allows linking against Apache licensed code.

21:34 <player>hendrik</player> The apache license has some requirements about not abusing patents that the GPL 2 did not have.

21:35 <player>madmetzger</player> does it have other consequences?

21:35 <player>hendrik</player> incompatible to GPL2 without "or later".

21:37 <player>madmetzger</player> okay, this is mainly a consequence that affects forks etc?

21:37 <player>hendrik</player> Marauroa and Stendhal are already GPLv2 or later, so people can pick GPLv3.

21:38 <player>hendrik</player> The change is not urgent, just something that we might want to adresse sometime in the future to get completely clear with the apache stuff.

21:39 <player>madmetzger</player> okay, I am just trying to understand what that licence change would mean

21:40 <player>madmetzger</player> requiring java 6 could be good, might prevent some common mistakes like <(a)>Override for interface methods

21:40 <player>hendrik</player> https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html, http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060118155841115

21:41 <player>hendrik</player> kymara, that's all from me.

21:43 <player>kymara</player> Okay. Thanks all for coming. I can put notes on the wiki

21:43 <player>kymara</player> maybe even a summary :) remember to add to the change log and testing page so we can get ready for the next release

21:45 <player>madmetzger</player> thank you for organizing kymara

21:45 * Bluelads4 claps her hands

21:45 <player>Bluelads4</player> thanks for the meeting :)

21:45 <player>hendrik</player> Thank you, kymara

21:45 <player>martinf</player> :-)

21:45 <player>martinf</player> thanks