Arianne

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" not found> Hi :)
20:01 <player "kymara" not found> Can we start with the meeting?
20:01 <player "martinf" not found> hello together
20:01 <player "madmetzger" not found> hi
20:02 <player "hendrik" not found> hello
20:02 dust hi
20:02 <player "kymara" not found> I think we should start with celebrating the Stendhal 1.00 release :)
20:02 <player "madmetzger" not found> yay!
20:02 <player "kymara" not found> 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" not found> hi
20:03 <player "kymara" not found> 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" not found> People who play the game say lovely things
20:03 <player "kymara" not found> Players return who first made an account *five years* ago, and they still enjoy playing
20:03 <player "bluelads4" not found> :)
20:03 <player "kymara" not found> So thank you :D
20:04 <player "kymara" not found> 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" not found> 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" not found> I think there are still some sites which need a release announcement too?
20:05 <player "kymara" not found> hendrik, is there a list?
20:05 <player "hendrik" not found> there is one on the support page (e. g. softpedia, happy penguin comment.
20:06 <player "hendrik" not found> Or just search for website that cover games.
20:06 <player "hendrik" not found> and post announcement or reviews there.
20:06 <player "kymara" not found> if anyone can help with that, it would be good to check we got maximum coverage
20:07 <player "kymara" not found> okay, so shall we start the Stendhal 1.01 discussion?
20:07 <player "hendrik" not found> there are lists, too: https://metacritic.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1508/session/L3RpbWUvMTMzODMxNDgwNi9zaWQvV21DZWhsWms%3D
20:07 <player "hendrik" not found> We need to do a release in June to update the signatures.
20:08 <player "hendrik" not found> Multiproducer and magic needs review.
20:08 <player "kymara" not found> hendrik, can we do the usual format?
20:08 <player "hendrik" not found> the later one even if disabled.
20:08 <player "hendrik" not found> yes.
20:08 <player "kymara" not found> 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" not found> 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" not found> madmetzger: could you start?
20:09 <player "madmetzger" not found> sure
20:10 <player "madmetzger" not found> I am not working very much on sth atm, I implement sth from time to time related to magic
20:11 <player "madmetzger" not found> recently I added an NPC to allow testing on testserver, this revealed some problems
20:11 <player "madmetzger" not found> both gui related and server side
20:11 <player "madmetzger" not found> atm I am starting again a try to make the modified attributes visible to the client
20:12 <player "madmetzger" not found> this approach would enable clients to see those modifications without depending on a certain client version
20:13 <player "madmetzger" not found> basically this is, what I am doing atm
20:13 <player "madmetzger" not found> 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" not found> You're already working with kiheru on some client stuff, I think? Is there other help needed?
20:14 <player "madmetzger" not found> maybe someone could try to reproduce it locally
20:14 <player "kymara" not found> Do we know what triggers the errors on testserver? we could try ask the tester players what they were doing?
20:15 <player "madmetzger" not found> basically there are still some graphics I'd need for a wizard's equipment
20:15 <player "kiheru" not found> 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" not found> 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" not found> kiheru is right, those gui changes by him should help prevent some of the problems
20:16 <player "hendrik" not found> they need to be fixed serverside.
20:17 <player "madmetzger" not found> sure, but assisting client side is of no harm
20:18 <player "madmetzger" not found> I think it might help if someone else could try to reproduce the errors related to speed modifications
20:18 <player "kymara" not found> could you add it to the testing page but as a section for people with a localhost
20:18 <player "kymara" not found> and explain who to talk to etc
20:18 <player "madmetzger" not found> sure, I will add that.
20:19 <player "kymara" not found> thank you. then we can point people there, who might be able to help (I will help)
20:19 <player "kymara" not found> 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" not found> 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" not found> 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" not found> without the testing npc no player would gain the abilities to cast spells
20:21 <player "kymara" not found> is anything new yet saved in the player?
20:22 <player "madmetzger" not found> nothing really new, the spells slot was already there before I started. same for mana/base_mana
20:22 <player "madmetzger" not found> the new introduced attributes for modified_atk etc are volatile
20:24 <player "kymara" not found> hendrik, you proposed someone review the code because it is hard to understand and has deep changes
20:24 <player "kymara" not found> 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" not found> can anyone help here? I'm thinking maybe durkham or martinf or kiheru ? :)
20:27 <player "kymara" not found> okay, lets move on then.
20:27 <player "kymara" not found> 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" not found> 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" not found> I need help testing: Zinnia, Calla, Periwinkle, Lobelia (I will add this to the testing page)
20:28 <player "kymara" not found> and I need a nice environment for Calla (the one near Ados) to walk around in
20:29 <player "kymara" not found> otherwise, i'm happy with them, but feedback is welcomed
20:30 <player "kymara" not found> I guess there are no questions?
20:30 <player "kymara" not found> who can go next? kiheru?
20:30 <player "kiheru" not found> ok
20:31 <player "kiheru" not found> 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" not found> 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" not found> What does it do?
20:33 <player "kiheru" not found> then I need a bit prettier indicator for forbidden drops, but that should be easy
20:33 <player "kiheru" not found> 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" not found> sorry, i missed that.
20:33 <player "hendrik" not found> it was never used.
20:34 <player "kiheru" not found> oh
20:34 <player "kiheru" not found> I suppose it's safe to remove then
20:34 <player "hendrik" not found> yes
20:34 <player "hendrik" not found> there are thinks like BankAccess which are not used either.
20:36 <player "kiheru" not found> 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" not found> otherwise I don't have recently started projects
20:37 <player "hendrik" not found> I think player will appriciate both of them.
20:38 <player "kymara" not found> :) thanks kiheru
20:38 <player "kymara" not found> i guess you still woudl like more testing and feedback on chat tabs?
20:39 <player "kymara" not found> they're on the testing page, already, though
20:39 <player "kiheru" not found> 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" not found> That's usually a good sign for user visible features.
20:39 <player "bluelads4" not found> but I haven't done any deeper testing so far
20:39 <player "kiheru" not found> 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" not found> kiheru: i'll add that to the testing page
20:40 <player "hendrik" not found> yes, i think that would be a good idea.
20:40 <player "hendrik" not found> 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" not found> 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" not found> ok. that needs splitting PRIVMSG type (ie. some good name for the private messages from server)
20:44 <player "kymara" not found> can that go in, in june do you think?
20:44 <player "martinf" not found> SRVMSG?
20:44 <player "kymara" not found> so that it's there for 1.01 when we need to do the next release?
20:45 <player "kiheru" not found> 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" not found> okay
20:46 <player "kymara" not found> we better move on if that's okay
20:46 <player "kymara" not found> can Bluelads4 go next?
20:46 <player "bluelads4" not found> yes :)
20:46 <player "hendrik" not found> might need a client version check
20:46 <player "bluelads4" not found> 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" not found> so the whole constantines villa idea is in a working process but not finished so far
20:46 <player "bluelads4" not found> and I unfortunately think that I'll not be ready with it for 1.01
20:47 <player "bluelads4" not found> 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" not found> and I added a few more things recently like the books and stuff which is in the orril.xml file
20:47 <player "bluelads4" not found> but the rest is still open (means guards for example, the whole idea is in the wiki)
20:48 <player "kymara" not found> can you close the doors before the next release?
20:48 <player "bluelads4" not found> I think I commited them out already for 1.0
20:48 <player "bluelads4" not found> 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" not found> 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" not found> and reworking fado hotel restaurant which was just a small thing
20:50 <player "bluelads4" not found> 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" not found> :D
20:50 <player "bluelads4" not found> ehm yes, and I think that was all from my side :)
20:50 <player "bluelads4" not found> (I think :D)
20:50 <player "kymara" not found> okay, and we will have a look at will (I said I'd look :) )
20:50 <player "bluelads4" not found> thanks :)
20:51 <player "kymara" not found> if you don't hear anything then maybe make a bug report?
20:51 <player "bluelads4" not found> hope he isn't too buggy
20:51 <player "kymara" not found> so it doesn't get forgotten?
20:51 <player "bluelads4" not found> yes, I'll open one about him :)
20:51 <player "kymara" not found> thank you
20:51 <player "kymara" not found> okay, who else?
20:51 <player "hendrik" not found> I have spent a lot of time with PR stuff.
20:52 <player "hendrik" not found> Getting sites updated, removing old ugly images, etc.
20:52 <player "hendrik" not found> That's something I could need help with.
20:52 <player "hendrik" not found> Especially publishing announcements about 1.0.
20:52 <player "hendrik" not found> Login with Facebook works technically. But before that can go live, we need need Achievement support.
20:53 <player "hendrik" not found> The short version: We need that for legal reasons.
20:53 <player "hendrik" not found> Having that, we need character privacy settings.
20:54 <player "hendrik" not found> There is a feature request about adding facebook score to achievments.
20:54 <player "hendrik" not found> Another project is making Stendhal easier for new players. The first two hours are extremely difficult.
20:55 <player "hendrik" not found> Especially if the Beginners Guide is not found.
20:55 <player "hendrik" not found> Bluelads4's work will help a bit with that, but there is more we should do.
20:55 <player "kymara" not found> i've been enjoyng making voiceovers for videos
20:56 <player "kymara" not found> 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" not found> 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" not found> the videos have all been done without preparation (and they still tak ea long time to process, once made_
20:56 <player "kymara" not found> )
20:57 <player "hendrik" not found> reworking the tutorial message could outline the script (with a bit of luck)
20:58 <player "kymara" not found> if it's just the tutroial messages then i can record clips as i see them with a new player
20:58 <player "kymara" not found> i dont' mind rewording them on-the-fly
20:59 <player "kymara" not found> shall we talk about multiproducer/omero's work?
20:59 <player "hendrik" not found> yes
21:00 <player "hendrik" not found> That's another area, in which I guees nobody has looked at the code.
21:00 <player "kymara" not found> i haven't, but i remember discussion approaches with him a very long time ago
21:00 <player "hendrik" not found> It's not as risky as magic.
21:00 <player "kymara" not found> is it supposed to be complete now?
21:00 <player "kymara" not found> not as risky, but i guess the quest slot storage should be checked
21:01 <player "hendrik" not found> I think it is. But we should ask omeroff.
21:01 <player "hendrik" not found> yes.
21:01 <player "kymara" not found> does anyone know if any npcs are already using it?
21:01 <player "kymara" not found> it isnt mentioned in the testing page
21:02 <player "bluelads4" not found> 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" not found> he made the new quest then in fado hotel
21:02 <player "hendrik" not found> There was something about a bad behaving customers at a bar. But I don't know if that is related.
21:03 <player "madmetzger" not found> MealForGroongo or sth like that is the quest iirc
21:04 <player "bluelads4" not found> yes
21:04 <player "bluelads4" not found> but that doesn't contain his new producer action as far as I know
21:06 <player "kymara" not found> okay, it's difficult to disucss much more without omero here
21:06 <player "kymara" not found> but we know we need to lok at it
21:07 <player "bluelads4" not found> oh there is a npc
21:07 <player "bluelads4" not found> which uses it
21:07 <player "bluelads4" not found> MeatAndFishSmokerNPC
21:07 <player "bluelads4" not found> it's added at 0_fado_forest_s
21:08 <player "bluelads4" not found> name Olmo
21:10 <player "durkham" not found> there are in code a few TODOs for MealForGroongo
21:10 <player "durkham" not found> mark as improtant
21:10 <player "durkham" not found> marked sorry
21:10 <player "kymara" not found> so we can decide if we should disable it before 1.01 or if omero wants to finish it
21:11 <player "hendrik" not found> yes, we don't need to make the decision now.
21:11 <player "kymara" not found> is there anyone else who wants to explain what they work on?
21:11 <player "kymara" not found> or ask for help?
21:12 <player "kymara" not found> 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" not found> that sounds good :) thank you
21:12 <player "bluelads4" not found> there are quite strong killer bees as well... which should be added for testing
21:12 <player "kymara" not found> if you can help with reviewing any recent code that would be great durkham
21:13 <player "durkham" not found> to your service :-)
21:13 <player "hendrik" not found> 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" not found> nobun has also been doing some development
21:13 <player "kymara" not found> he has got a page at http://stendhalgame.org/wiki/Stendhal_Quest_Ideas/Ados_Gym
21:13 <player "kymara" not found> and aske for feedback
21:14 <player "kymara" not found> only bluelads4 had made any (i added some now)
21:14 <player "kymara" not found> lets make sure that nobun feels free to commit his early work for more concrete feedback
21:14 <player "kymara" not found> and if anyone has feedback on the idea, please do add it
21:15 <player "kymara" not found> hendrik: is that the kind of thing you meant? (I was about to say it anyway)
21:15 <player "hendrik" not found> yes, but at least nobun has put up the wiki page, which is a very good start.
21:15 <player "hendrik" not found> I think dust has done things too.
21:15 <player "kymara" not found> 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" not found> did you put them on the patch tracker?
21:16 dust no... just showed it blue for now
21:16 <player "kymara" not found> have you had any feedback on what you did, before you add more?
21:17 <player "bluelads4" not found> (who asked him to add it on the patches tracker :D)
21:17 * hendrik stops glaring at Bluelads4
21:17 <player "bluelads4" not found> some weeks ago
21:17 <player "bluelads4" not found> :D
21:17 <player "bluelads4" not found> I already felt your glares in my neck :D
21:18 * hendrik giggles.
21:18 <player "martinf" not found> :)
21:18 dust well the ppl i did show did like it a lot :)
21:18 <player "bluelads4" not found> cough...
21:18 <player "martinf" not found> hendrik: i have a little question about the IQtest interface
21:18 <player "bluelads4" not found> :P
21:19 <player "bluelads4" not found> 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" not found> but thats also why I asked to upload it on the patches tracker directly :)
21:19 <player "hendrik" not found> Too many monsters is *the* standard issues, for people who are new to tiled.
21:20 <player "bluelads4" not found> hehe
21:20 <player "kymara" not found> martinf: just ask :)
21:20 <player "martinf" not found> 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" not found> what do you think about this change?
21:21 <player "martinf" not found> shall i commit it or rollback it?
21:21 <player "kymara" not found> do you mean IQuest not IQtest ?
21:21 <player "hendrik" not found> 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" not found> I read it as IQ-test - like mensa :)
21:21 dust hendrik k
21:21 martinf its the Quest interface
21:21 <player "hendrik" not found> martinf, is there a reason for that change?
21:22 martinf nothing special - only because its more general
21:23 <player "hendrik" not found> I have found myself to go exactly the other way lately: Returning ImmutableXxxx instead.
21:23 <player "hendrik" not found> That is for projects that use guava.
21:24 <player "hendrik" not found> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeO_J2OcHYM
21:24 <player "hendrik" not found> General parameters are good, i am not sure about general return types.
21:25 <player "hendrik" not found> We can discuss that after the meeting.
21:25 <player "martinf" not found> sure
21:26 <player "kymara" not found> hendrik, is there a specific date in june to release with the new certificates, by?
21:28 <player "hendrik" not found> The deadline is within the first week of july.
21:29 <player "kymara" not found> Okay, then I think we can make it a 1.01 release in June and not a stop-gap
21:29 <player "bluelads4" not found> (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" not found> So we should do the release in June so that we have a little time for things going wrong.
21:29 <player "kymara" not found> thanks blue
21:30 <player "kymara" not found> I think that's all, then? Thanks all for coming
21:30 <player "hendrik" not found> I have two more topics.
21:30 <player "kymara" not found> Oh, okay, sorry
21:30 <player "hendrik" not found> 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" not found> One is: Should we require Java 6?
21:31 <player "hendrik" not found> The other is should we change to GPL v3 or later?
21:32 <player "hendrik" not found> It's too short notice to reach a decision right now, but something to think about during the next days.
21:32 <player "kiheru" not found>java 6 would remove some headache. I don't know gpl3 enough to comment about advantages or disadvantages
21:33 <player "hendrik" not found> an advantage is that it allows linking against Apache licensed code.
21:34 <player "hendrik" not found> The apache license has some requirements about not abusing patents that the GPL 2 did not have.
21:35 <player "madmetzger" not found> does it have other consequences?
21:35 <player "hendrik" not found> incompatible to GPL2 without "or later".
21:37 <player "madmetzger" not found> okay, this is mainly a consequence that affects forks etc?
21:37 <player "hendrik" not found> Marauroa and Stendhal are already GPLv2 or later, so people can pick GPLv3.
21:38 <player "hendrik" not found> 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" not found> okay, I am just trying to understand what that licence change would mean
21:40 <player "madmetzger" not found> requiring java 6 could be good, might prevent some common mistakes like <(a)>Override for interface methods
21:40 <player "hendrik" not found> https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html, http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060118155841115
21:41 <player "hendrik" not found> kymara, that's all from me.
21:43 <player "kymara" not found> Okay. Thanks all for coming. I can put notes on the wiki
21:43 <player "kymara" not found> 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" not found> thank you for organizing kymara
21:45 * Bluelads4 claps her hands
21:45 <player "bluelads4" not found> thanks for the meeting :)
21:45 <player "hendrik" not found> Thank you, kymara
21:45 <player "martinf" not found> :-)
21:45 <player "martinf" not found> thanks
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