Stendhal Developers Meeting 2011-01-12: Difference between revisions

* 20:01 < kymara> --------------------------------------------------

* 20:01 < kymara> ---Meeting, agenda at https://sourceforge.net/projects/arianne/forums/forum/3192/topic/4045009 --

* 20:01 < kymara> --------------------------------------------------

* 20:01 < kymara> First item is 'Updates on developer activity and goals '

* 20:02 < kymara> madmetzger: would you start?

* 20:02 < madmetzger> okay

* 20:03 < madmetzger> recently i wasn't working that much. achievements seem to be more or less stable on the server side

* 20:03 < hendrik> this basicall means: What are you planning to do? What are you working on now? Have you given up working of something, becaues you lost intersted or because there were difficulties? Which?

* 20:04 < madmetzger> i started to implement a prototype for displaying the event of reaching an event in the client

* 20:04 < madmetzger> struggling there a bit with drawing and placing it

* 20:04 < madmetzger> maybe kiheru could give me some advice on it

* 20:04 < madmetzger> an early start is in cvs

* 20:05 < kymara> what about spells? I kind of saw some commits again recently

* 20:05 < madmetzger> and i also started again to work a bit on spells and connecting that to the client side

* 20:05 < madmetzger> there's some uncommited work but my first example isn't working atm.

* 20:06 < madmetzger> i didn't find the time yet to figure out where the reason is

* 20:06 < kiheru> displaying a notification a bit like the mockup should not be too hard (except for the translucency which is not really an option)

* 20:07 < madmetzger> but i'd appreciate some help there for the client side as it seems quite new for the client to me to have actions that need clicks to two objects

* 20:07 < madmetzger> i have a client side command to cast a spell as slash action to test it. i think i'll commit that soon

* 20:08 < kymara> madmetzger: that sounds good, thank you. is there anything else from you?

* 20:08 < hendrik> We have the content side of achievements as seperate entry on the agenda later.

* 20:08 < madmetzger> no, that's all

* 20:09 < kymara> ok, who next, kiheru?

* 20:10 < kiheru> lately I have been just trying to fix known and potential bugs in the client

* 20:10 < kiheru> I think I'm about done with those I can reproduce

* 20:10 < kiheru> so I'm available for other projects if needed

* 20:12 < hendrik> any plans on what you want to do?

* 20:12 < kymara> perhaps the group GUI?

* 20:12 < kiheru> not, really. whatever is needed

* 20:13 < kiheru> for the groups I really don't have a good idea what it should look like

* 20:13 < storyteller> maybe we can bring up some ideas?

* 20:13 < kymara> maybe we can try brainstorm that a bit?

* 20:13 < hendrik> later, please.

* 20:13 < kymara> after tryng out the feature in the test server

* 20:13 < kymara> yes

* 20:13 < kymara> okay, hendrik next?

* 20:14 < hendrik> okay.

* 20:14 < martinf> perhaps look at the multi chat features of messengers like skype for the group gui?

* 20:14 < hendrik> I have be doing smaller things recently.

* 20:14 < hendrik> some profiling and performance optimazion that are pending.

* 20:15 < hendrik> And lots of projects i have started to think about but then postponed.

* 20:15 < hendrik> Like rewriting the perception calculation and serialization which takes about 60% of turn times nowadays.

* 20:16 < hendrik> In the far future i'd like to have a web client, but i am scared about that.

* 20:16 < hendrik> It will be a lot of work, probably for more than a year, and maintaining two clients would be very stressful for us.

* 20:16 < hendrik> the technology is not ripe and we have no experiance on that.

* 20:17 < hendrik> What I might do is porting the text client to a web page.

* 20:17 < hendrik> The curses client is too instable for my tastes.

* 20:18 < kymara> agreed, i went back to textclient

* 20:18 < hendrik> Short turn, i think achievements and groups/chat channels are important.

* 20:18 < hendrik> because they give motivation to players.

* 20:18 < hendrik> and i like to help with the content side.

* 20:19 < hendrik> that's basically from me.

* 20:19 < kymara> okay, who else wants to give an update? martinf?

* 20:19 < martinf> sure

* 20:19 < martinf> My last bigger thing was the refactoring and improvement of producer / merchandizer code.

* 20:19 < martinf> After that I solved some bugs here and there.

* 20:20 < martinf> That one regarding website not searching for substrings is too complex for me as beginner in apache rewrite rules.

* 20:20 < martinf> thats it :)

* 20:20 < kymara> any plans for future?

* 20:20 < martinf> nothing special

* 20:20 < kymara> can we suggest you things to help with, do you think you'll have time?

* 20:21 < martinf> yes, some time is always available

* 20:21 < hendrik> I can help with the apache stuff.

* 20:21 < martinf> very good:)

* 20:21 < kymara> yes it might be good to have someone other than me and hend understand the website

* 20:22 < kymara> who else wants to give an update on their activities and plans?

* 20:22 < Bluelads4> hmm I can go on if noone else wants :)

* 20:23 < kymara> sure

* 20:23 < Bluelads4> I made some npcs and quests and my first tiled map (wohoo) earlier and I currently plan another quest which grows in my mind at the moment

* 20:23 < Bluelads4> ehm yes that is mainly everything :D

* 20:24 < kymara> is there anything (in general) you need support in?

* 20:25 < Bluelads4> not at the moment, I wrote some notes down for the quest idea and wanted to start with writing the quest soon, I'm not sure about the last quest which I made, there are some errors I bet :D

* 20:26 < kymara> ok, we can help test, and please add it to the testing page if you didn't already

* 20:26 < kymara> anyone else got an update for us or shall i finish up?

* 20:27 < storyteller> well, maybe I could say my current project idea?

* 20:27 < kymara> yes

* 20:27 -!- monsterdhal [~monsterdh<(a)>brsg-4dbba367.pool.mediaWays.net] has joined #arianne

* 20:27 < storyteller> Well, there already were some questions about what I plan and what I want to do.

* 20:27 < storyteller> So I'd like to give a short summary here

* 20:29 < storyteller> Currently I plan some quests, which are based on each other. So there is a little quest- row which is build in a story

* 20:30 < storyteller> the basical thing is to introduce sneaking and well, let's say tactical playing

* 20:31 < storyteller> so these quests are not based on only killing creatures, but also not been attacked by others

* 20:32 < storyteller> I heard about ideas for guilds and also a thief guild

* 20:32 < kymara> we don't have any plans in place for the near future regarding guilds

* 20:32 < kymara> so please dont rely on that

* 20:33 < storyteller> yes

* 20:33 < kymara> okay, sounds interesting and ambitious. do you have an idea how to break down the ideas into manageable chunks?

* 20:35 < storyteller> well, I planned a building where this should take place

* 20:35 < storyteller> there are also some beside- quests, which I wrote on the quest ideas page

* 20:36 < hendrik> with such a huge project, i think it is important to do it in small steps and commit them for other tosee.

* 20:36 < kymara> yes, and to see the results :)

* 20:36 < hendrik> to see*

* 20:36 < kymara> let us know when you need help, storyteller

* 20:36 < storyteller> okay :)

* 20:36 < kymara> anything or anyone else in this section?

* 20:36 < storyteller> so, well, this project is basically what I plan for the near future

* 20:37 < storyteller> so thats it for now :)

* 20:37 < kymara> okay, so me then.

* 20:37 < kymara> Now that the quest history is finished I am not sure what to do! Other than my normal project activity.

* 20:38 < hendrik> may I suggest you look at the content side of achievements?

* 20:38 < kymara> I'll help with achievements, because the code is stable but I can help on the design side.

* 20:38 < kymara> yes, hendrik.

* 20:38 * hendrik smiles.

* 20:38 < kymara> as an older player who doesn't play so much now I'm also concerned about back-calculation.

* 20:38 < kymara> that would need some intensive database work and may not even be possible ... we'll see.

* 20:39 < kymara> I'm a bit concerned by the number of patches with chatlogs ready to write junit tests on

* 20:40 < kymara> i wrote up a little guide on junit testing for quests so it should be easy. i would rather not do all those myself as i think that its the kind of thing other people can pick up too .. so if anyone likes to help with that I'd be grateful

* 20:40 < kymara> i put all the patches under the same category: chatlog

* 20:40 < martinf> i may help a bit here

* 20:42 < kymara> okay thank you

* 20:42 < kymara> So, I think if anyone else wanted to update us they'd have said by now, lets move on, to:

* 20:42 < kymara> 'Client stability, maintenance and Stendhal 1.0'

* 20:43 < kymara> We have achieved some great things in 2010, some long standing feature requests which make me start to believe Stendhal is ready for 1.0

* 20:44 < kymara> They include the new sound system, rewritten client with windows off game screen, trade NPC and trade GUI, quest history, and more.

* 20:44 < hendrik> Yes, last year was very good.

* 20:44 < kymara> We still lack client stability across all platforms, and I think we'd all want to feel comfortable in the client before we announce it stable

* 20:45 < hendrik> I think we need to define "stability".

* 20:45 < kymara> Testing is really, really hard ... so what we need is enough time

* 20:45 < kymara> hendrik: acceptable CPU, memory usage, would be a start

* 20:46 < kymara> but yes, it is probably a good idea to have some criteria, and some way to measure them, that we can feel confident the client is stable

* 20:46 < hendrik> When i hear that term, i think of two things:

* 20:46 < kiheru> memory should be fairly good by now. performance is a problem as it's very system dependent

* 20:46 < hendrik> a) it does not crash

* 20:47 < hendrik> b) it does not require many changes.

* 20:47 < kymara> hendrik, i'll get onto b) in a moment.

* 20:47 < hendrik> I think it does not crash often, but i am not a hard core player.

* 20:47 < kymara> anyway, for the performance part, as we lack in ability to test thoroughly across all platforms, I just wanted to flag up that we may need some quiet time without too many new features in a release

* 20:48 < kymara> what hendrik puts as point b) there is what I meant by 'maintenance' in this section - hendrik, do you want to explain?

* 20:49 < hendrik> Currently we need to update the client on every new release.

* 20:49 < hendrik> It is obvious that the client need updates when we add new gui elements like the quest log.

* 20:50 < hendrik> But it needs updates when we add new images, and it needs updates when we add new kinds of items or entities.

* 20:50 < hendrik> My goal for 1.0 is that we have a client that will be compatible with the server for a year, despite us adding new content.

* 20:51 < hendrik> that is without updates, think of it being included in Debian/Ubuntu, policy would not accept our updater.

* 20:51 < hendrik> i think this are basically two tasks

* 20:52 < hendrik> - find a way to get new images

* 20:52 < hendrik> - make the client less smart in the Entity, Entity2DView area.

* 20:52 < hendrik> It does not need to know about well_source, fish_source for example, that just something a player can click with some animation and some special cursor.

* 20:53 < hendrik> Or stackable/useable items, it should get that information from the server.

* 20:53 < kiheru> for quite a few things it needs to know just the available operations

* 20:54 * hendrik nods.

* 20:55 < kymara> Could you write something about this on the wiki maybe?

* 20:55 < hendrik> okay

* 20:55 < kymara> quite a few future concepts have something to refer to .. that might be good? or tracker tasks if its already broken down in some way?

* 20:57 < kymara> I forgot to say that I'd still hope for certain other features for Stendhal 1.0 ..

* 20:57 < kymara> That's achievements, groups, and a solution to player's perceived storage problem

* 20:57 < hendrik> it's about a year if we keep doing a release every 4-6 weeks.

* 20:58 < kymara> eheh, and we dont' even have to go from 0.99 to 1.0

* 20:58 < kymara> I dont think we should let arithmetic bother us

* 20:58 < martinf> what is the perceived storage problem?

* 20:58 < hendrik> bag too small.

* 20:59 < kymara> players collect too much junk

* 20:59 < kiheru> it's never been decimal. we just don't release patch versions often

* 20:59 < kymara> and chect too small

* 20:59 < martinf> ok, i know this problem as player;)

* 20:59 < kymara> they make clones to just have extra chests in semos bank, instead of using city banks say

* 20:59 < kymara> okay

* 20:59 < kymara> so shall we move onto Containers?

* 21:00 < kymara> How can we consolidate the existing work and get containers in game? A lot of work is already done - kiheru may you summarise that?

* 21:02 < kiheru> hmm. I don't know if much works has really been done. Mainly I have thought that a container from a side panel slot would be opened in the side panel (and kept open during zone changes), and those opened from the game screen should be opened like corpses and chests are done now

* 21:03 < kiheru> Saving and restoring an item with a slot containing other items works (nothing about that in cvs, but it's a fairly small change)

* 21:05 < kymara> I tended to get the sense that theres just one last piece of cooperation until they'd work in game

* 21:05 < kymara> is that totally wrong?

* 21:05 < kymara> as per https://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=2933768&group_id=1111&atid=973767

* 21:06 < kiheru> two major pieces, really

* 21:06 < kiheru> that one, and equip depending on slot names

* 21:07 < kiheru> I haven't tested the gui for containers for a good while, because I have been trying to figure out the backend problems first

* 21:08 < kymara> Should we think of another solution to the storage poblem?

* 21:08 < kymara> *problem

* 21:09 < kiheru> slot names are important unless we want to have different rpclasses for all different types of containers

* 21:09 < hendrik> the equipment code could be smarter.

* 21:09 < hendrik> well, that is a long standing todo.

* 21:10 < kymara> should we move on?

* 21:10 < kymara> I'm conscious that the achievements discussion could take some time

* 21:10 < kiheru> having "content" for all would work fine, as long the equip code can figure out forbidden moves

* 21:11 < hendrik> yes.

* 21:12 < kiheru> and would help keeping the client dumb when someone wants to add a special container for flowers

* 21:12 < hendrik> yes

* 21:14 < kiheru> I could make something based on the assumption the slot will be always called "content". it does not need to go in the game before equip is smarter

* 21:15 < kiheru> we can move on now, maybe

* 21:16 < kymara> Okay. Thank you

* 21:16 < kymara> The last part of this meeting is to discuss achievements in some detail

* 21:17 < kymara> Here's a list of implemented achievements: http://stendhalgame.org/wiki/Stendhal_Achievements

* 21:17 < kymara> do we want them all?

* 21:17 < kymara> It's helpful to consider, how many players will really have reached these achievements, and consider your own player

* 21:18 < kymara> hendrik has already done some work to integreate achievements into the website

* 21:18 < kymara> https://stendhalgame.org/?id=content/scripts/character&test=beta&name=kymara

* 21:19 < kymara> replace kymara with your character name, you can see what achievements you reached

* 21:19 < kymara> https://stendhalgame.org/?id=content/game/achievement gives an overview

* 21:19 < kymara> for all players

* 21:20 < kymara> As you can see they are split into categories, but some categories have many achievements and some very few

* 21:20 < hendrik> This needs work on the content side.

* 21:21 < hendrik> Some re-categorisations.

* 21:21 < hendrik> adding some others, removing some.

* 21:21 < kymara> Yes.For example id like to change that age achievement

* 21:21 < kymara> by using instead a real time value and not time spent (idling?) in game

* 21:21 < hendrik> for each achievement, we have to think what the most effective way is to get it, and if that is bad.

* 21:22 < hendrik> yes, we don't want people to idle arround all day and night.

* 21:22 < Bluelads4> :D

* 21:22 < martinf> <- greenhorn :)

* 21:22 < kymara> I am not sure if its in the scope of this meeting to go through each achievement in that way

* 21:23 < hendrik> no, but it would be good if people volunteered to work on it.

* 21:23 < kymara> but would anyone be willing to help think about it?

* 21:23 < storyteller> who idles around all night and day? ;D

* 21:23 < kymara> and maybe we can use the wiki or something to track that

* 21:23 < kymara> to help balance out the categories, we can recategorise, remove, but also add new ones from http://stendhalgame.org/wiki/Stendhal_Achievement_Ideas

* 21:24 < kymara> so if you see interesting achievements there in a category that is a little low, and you can add them, go ahead.

* 21:24 < madmetzger> i can try helping then adding them to the game

* 21:24 < kymara> You already added all of them to the game madmetzger :D

* 21:24 < madmetzger> nope

* 21:24 < kymara> or do you mean the client side event?

* 21:25 < kymara> I mean all so far .. was you

* 21:25 < madmetzger> there are still some achievements that are not added from the ideas page

* 21:25 < kymara> yes, I said that )

* 21:25 < kymara> and I invte people to add new ones, but i think you did add all the existing ones?

* 21:25 < madmetzger> some are not yet possible to add yet like the martial arts achievement

* 21:26 < madmetzger> i wanted to offer my help for adding those new ones

* 21:28 < hendrik> anyone interested on the content side?

* 21:32 < martinf> what is still missing for the database migration, as you said kymara? the webpage you should already seems to work so far

* 21:32 < kymara> Well, my character has clearly already collected over 1000000 money from corpses

* 21:33 < kymara> But the achievements logging hasn't been in place that long.

* 21:33 < kymara> So I meant, calculating achievements from the database, which happened before the logging was in place.

* 21:33 < kymara> E.g. I know I collected a full set of black armor, and the itemlog could probably tell me that.

* 21:33 < martinf> any ideas how thsi would be possible?

* 21:34 < kymara> Yes, some crazy queries ...

* 21:34 < kymara> The itemlog knows when an item is registered and the first person to take from the corpse)

* 21:34 < kymara> Likewise fight deathmatch 25 times

* 21:35 < kymara> I mean, my DM points and fact that my helmet is at 124 shows that I must have done it, well, 122 times at least? (I forget what def it started at )

* 21:36 < martinf> i understand - that are many special cases to think about

* 21:36 < kymara> kills recording didn't use to record the number .. but the database still knows that

* 21:36 < kymara> Yes. And is it worth the effort?

* 21:36 < kiheru> dm counting is not working correctly even now, btw

* 21:37 < kymara> yes kiheru I saw your bug report, I'm not sure what the achievement is using

* 21:37 < kymara> You can already see why they'll encourage players to play, though? Why they're a good thing?

* 21:37 < kymara> I see that it claims I didn't loot 1000000 money from creatures yet, and I go out to hunt :P even though I don't get xp ..

* 21:38 < Bluelads4> :D

* 21:39 < kymara> In terms of motivation, is the webiste view of per-character, and a total summary, enough?

* 21:39 < madmetzger> i think a kind of hall of fame part could also be good

* 21:40 < madmetzger> recent events is also a good point to show it, maybe?

* 21:40 < martinf> ar a side-by-side view of 2 players

* 21:40 < martinf> *or

* 21:42 < kiheru> some sort of raking for them would be good. an achievement reached by 2 players could be more valuable than one reached by 1000

* 21:43 < martinf> i you sum op all this percentage numbers, you can calculate a over all achievement score

* 21:44 < kymara> martinf: can you explain in a bit more detail?

* 21:44 < martinf> well, if an i am one of the players, that got an achievement, only two got at all -> i get 50 %

* 21:44 < martinf> if i am one of 100 i get 1 %

* 21:45 < martinf> looking at the other achievements, we can build the average of this percent numbers

* 21:45 < martinf> thats the over all achievement

* 21:45 < martinf> for most players it will be in the 1/1000 range however

* 21:46 < martinf> but building a hall of fame is always interesting

* 21:46 < kymara> i wondered about an overall achievement score for the player, when you said that

* 21:47 < martinf> for the example above with only 2 different achievement categories i get 25.5 %

* 21:47 < kymara> although the individual ones are something to work towards its still meaningful to be able to compare a single number (and much easier)

* 21:47 < kymara> ok

* 21:47 < martinf> to explain the calculation

* 21:48 < madmetzger> but it means your score can fall which might cause confusion

* 21:48 < kymara> hehe

* 21:48 < martinf> yes, like the score at ohloh.org

* 21:49 < kiheru> it's sort of fame rating. players who does not do anything noteworthy for a while, should not be surprised when his fame fades

* 21:50 < madmetzger> maybe yes, if we don't declare that as absolute points just a kind of rating and explain what is considered like it is done in the hall of fame part

* 21:50 < madmetzger> not necessarily the whole formula of course

* 21:50 < kymara> thats how the best and strongest etc is too

* 21:50 < kymara> that can change if you don't play

* 21:51 < kiheru> sum(1/n) style rank has the advantage that we do not need so much effor for trying to judge the wort of various achievements

* 21:51 < kiheru> *worth

* 21:51 < kymara> yes its a bit more dynamic

* 21:52 < kymara> and is it okay now to show achievements in the client when they are achieved?

* 21:53 < kymara> at first it seemed that had to be done on login.. i like instantaneous better though

* 21:56 < madmetzger> my approach was showing reached achievement at both times

* 21:56 < madmetzger> to avoid getting spammed with a lot of messages on login after they were introduced

* 21:57 < madmetzger> and to avoid confusion to get the rat hunter achievement for killing 15 rats when killing a bear

* 21:59 < kiheru> should we skip showing old achievements at login anyway, and just give a message with a pointer to the player's web page

* 21:59 < kiheru> an old player will get a massive amount of achievements at the first login

* 22:00 < madmetzger> atm it should do just that. it gives a summarizing message with a hint to the web page (could be easily changed to the player's page)

* 22:00 < storyteller> can there be an symbol in the menu panel?

* 22:01 < madmetzger> that was the point, old players will get a massive amount of achievements on login

* 22:01 < madmetzger> okay, the message is disabled unless you have a system property set

* 22:05 < kymara> So, some will help on content?I'll try coordinate that

* 22:05 < kymara> the client needs work, kiheru will help mad

* 22:06 < kymara> any new ones to be written, mad will help with

* 22:06 < kymara> and there are some more ideas for website..

* 22:06 < kymara> Martin would you make a tracker entry on your score idea please?

* 22:06 < martinf> ok

* 22:07 < kymara> and no decision on back calculating them?

* 22:08 < martinf> who are the long-time-players? :)

* 22:08 < kymara> you can see 'eldest' on hall of fame

* 22:08 < martinf> as its in their interest

* 22:08 < kymara> but that doesn't tell you who played most

* 22:08 < kymara> maybe look at the most xp, then

* 22:09 < martinf> ... to have an accurate back calculation

* 22:09 < kymara> yes, like me :)

* 22:09 < martinf> well i meant which of the people here in this channel :)

* 22:10 < martinf> i am not *g

* 22:11 < kiheru> some are easier than others (for dm you can do an educated guess by the helmet). dunno if all achievements are worth the trouble

* 22:12 < kymara> maybe we can capture that too

* 22:12 < kiheru> those that look reasonably doable should be probably done. we should not annoy players who have been around for years

* 22:13 < martinf> in which category should i write the achievements tracker entry?

* 22:13 < kymara> none, if none fit

* 22:14 < martinf> ok

* 22:14 < kymara> it could be calculated by website but I guess we shouldn't assume?

* 22:15 < madmetzger> a fast idea could be using the halloffame table

* 22:16 < madmetzger> but that is maybe not the best idea, but it would mayb allow an easier adding to the hall of fame section

* 22:17 < kymara> we can think about that from the tracker

* 22:18 < kymara> okay, I think that's all for now as I don't want to tire everyone on a work night?

* 22:18 < kymara> any other issues related to achievement or anything else?

* 22:21 < kymara> ----------- end of meeting then! ---------------