Stendhal Developers Meeting 2010-08-03

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At this meeting in #arianne, each developer and contributor listed what they:

• are currently working on
• plan to work on in the short future
• have postponed because of difficulties or other priorities
• need help with

It was attended by hendrik, kiheru, madmetzger, yoriy, plassy, storyteller, Laguz, kymara and Bluelads4, as well as anyone else in #arianne.

19:30 -!- kymara changed the topic of #arianne to: Developer's Meeting in progress, please see http://sourceforge.net/projects/arianne/forums/forum/3192/topic/3785798 for details
19:31 <@kymara> Hi all. Lets start the developer's meeting.
19:31 -!- mode/#arianne [-o kymara] by kymara
19:32 < kymara> I'd like to discuss plans for Stendhal 0.87 and perhaps a bit beyond. At http://sourceforge.net/projects/arianne/forums/forum/3192/topic/3785798 I asked all those who plan to work on 0.87 or are currently working on Stendhal code to attend
19:33 < kymara> I'd like us to each share, in turn, a summary of what we are working on currently. Also what you plan to work on, and anything you had been working on but dropped because of difficulties, limitations or other priorities.
19:34 < kymara> We can ask questions but it might be an idea to wait until the developer whose 'turn' it is has finished talking, and let them invite questions when they are ready for them (they can choose at which stage to do this).
19:35 < kymara> Is everyone okay with this plan?
19:35 < storyteller> yes, I am
19:35 < plassy> sure
19:35 < kiheru> ok
19:35 < madmetzger> sounds good
19:35 < hendrik> yes
19:36 < kymara> Okay. I think there are 8? of us to get through, so lets keep that in mind and try to spend 10 minutes maximum per person. more detailed discussions can be postponed.
19:36 < kymara> Hendrik, would you begin, please?
19:36 < hendrik> okay
19:37 < hendrik> I am currently working on profiling performance issues and need to fix the Harold Twitter code because Twitter will change their API in less than two weeks
19:37 < hendrik> the twitter thing is driving me crazy.
19:37 < hendrik> in general I am trying to improve the Stendhal website:
19:38 < hendrik> It should be possible to create account and character using the website and link them to openidconnect.
19:38 < hendrik> kymara is working on postman integration.
19:38 < hendrik> I have postponed making the parts of the hall of fame expandable and to show own characters in context
19:38 < hendrik> Mostly because the other things are more important.
19:39 < hendrik> The website stuff is going rather slowly because my experiance in PHP is limited.
19:39 < hendrik> And I have postponed adding a progress bar after character selection on login in the client because the gui stuff is not easy.
19:40 < hendrik> Luckily madmetzger adopted the achievement stuff which i dropped.
19:40 < hendrik> that's abot it, i think.
19:41 < kymara> arilib/sound ?
19:41 < hendrik> oups, yes that is dropped, too
19:42 < hendrik> it did not get the latest round of bugfixes
19:43 < hendrik> and it is hard to understand the code because it does not stick to the style (formating, naming, structuring) of the rest of the project.
19:43 < kymara> okay. So, about twitter. That was initially a rather 'easy' win for us, I think?
19:44 < kymara> And now it is looking less easy, in fact we might not have even looked into it if the auth was then, as it's going to become
19:44 < hendrik> yes
19:44 < kymara> So I'm wondering if you really have to fix it, or if we just discontinue that. It's another option, anyway.
19:45 < hendrik> it is currently 11 lines of code, using no external library at all. And now it gets really, really complicated.
19:45 < hendrik> yes.
19:45 < hendrik> it would be easier to use an rss feed instead.
19:45 < hendrik> and the twitter documentation is outdated.
19:45 < kymara> And the time limit seems a bit pressured. Waiting might mean others have to try it and we can learn from them
19:45 < hendrik> i am currently hoping that they will offer a command line tool that we can call.
19:46 < hendrik> the profiling / performance optimization is going very well.
19:46 < hendrik> so i will focus on that for the next week and then hope that twitter is solved somehow.
19:47 < hendrik> I guess my time is up now.
19:47 < kymara> Okay, but does anyone have questions?
19:47 < kymara> (quick ones :) )
19:47 < kymara> If not, who would like to go next? Kiheru?
19:48 < kiheru> ok
19:48 < kymara> (no special order, I am just picking on people)
19:48 < kiheru> I'm currently working on trying to do the item drag and drop in swing (very initial stages)
19:49 < yoriy> java.swing, kih?
19:49 < kiheru> that was the reason for doing the gamescreen in swing as well. the real objecttive is being able to drag items outside the game screen
19:50 < kiheru> for being able to move bag etc outside
19:50 < kiheru> no real dropped projects right now (this one used to be, until I picked it up some time ago)
19:51 < kymara> containers?
19:51 < kymara> or was this the last thing that relied on?
19:52 < kiheru> I have postponed real containers until the gui work is done, as I think they'll need less hacks for keeping the bags open at map switches if they're already outside
19:53 < kiheru> it may be that i should stop at the dnd-done stage before next release, because any gui work tends to hit a lot of platform dependencies. so it might be a good idea to get wider testing before contiuing
19:54 < kymara> okay, so one thing that would really help you is more testing
19:54 < kymara> is there anything else that could help you?
19:55 < hendrik> I think those containers might need changes to the equipping code.
19:55 < kiheru> right now I think I have most things clear for a while
19:56 < kiheru> containers will need changes to actions in how contained items are passed to the server
19:57 < kiheru> possibly equip code too, I don't remember too well
19:58 < kiheru> anyway, I'm busy working on the gui, but occasionally doing quick side projects
19:58 < hendrik> It may be a good idea to have a mindmapping session about the requirements and ideas how to improve it. (this is related to bankchests, swapping slot contents, and Harold, too)
19:58 < hendrik> now now, of course.
19:58 < hendrik> not now, of course.
19:58 < kymara> sure. okay, thanks kiheru. Does anyone have any more questions? And who wants to go next?
19:59 < kiheru> sounds good
19:59 < yoriy> can i continue? :-)
19:59 < kymara> please do, yoriy
20:00 < yoriy> well, i have several tasks, mostly in quests. The main ones is to improve kills quests, bound creatures-to-kill to their zones
20:01 < yoriy> it is 3 quests, CleanStoreSpace, ClubOfThorns, and KillDhohrNuggetcutter
20:02 < yoriy> 2 more quests, KillDarkElves and KillSpiders, already using proper code but they can be cleaned from support of old-style code
20:02 < yoriy> it is other task
20:03 < yoriy> i have to write also several parts of ThePiedPiper quest, currently i need image of pied piper npc
20:04 < yoriy> minor tasks is to overview KillsRecording code to have separate counting solo and shared kills, and to create command for marking empty scrolls with description
20:05 < yoriy> i tryed to complete first one yesterday, but probably i forget something - i didnt found any problems, so i will test it more hardly next days
20:06 < kymara> Okay, can we ask questions?
20:07 < yoriy> and finally in my plans to create quest for killing blordroughs only, because i want to let players a chance to be part of Deniran war
20:08 < yoriy> please kym, guys
20:08 < hendrik> yoriy, did you run into problems for which you need help?
20:09 < kymara> I'd suggest not to delay working on the pied piper quest because of waiting for an image, because the code shouldn't depend on this.
20:09 < kymara> Equally it does not have to be a priority, of course.
20:09 < yoriy> i know kym, but without image i cant release this part
20:09 < kymara> Hvaing teh code and veerything ready except for a placeholder image can be a good incentive to get someone to draw one.
20:10 < kymara> meh sorry
20:10 < kymara> Having the code and veerything ready except for a placeholder image can be a good incentive to get someone to draw one.
20:10 < yoriy> hend, i need to make good quest string format for killing quests,
20:11 < hendrik> yoriy, we can talk about it if you like
20:12 < yoriy> for such quests where you need to kill one creature of each kind, i can use creature names in quest string indexes, like "kill_spiders;spider;poisonous spider;giant spider" - in this string player have either creature name if he killed it or empty string if not
20:13 < yoriy> but in several quests player have to kill several creatures; so it must be string like "kill_spiders;spider:1;poisonous spider:1;giant spider:1", where numbers show how much creatures player killed
20:14 < hendrik> or the number of kills at quest start?
20:14 < hendrik> I'd like to think about this a bit.
20:14 < madmetzger> could it be maybe similar to the items collection quests? (just an idea)
20:14 < hendrik> It may be a good idea idea to continue the meating.
20:14 < yoriy> no, in these quests you dont need to know how much creatures you killed before quest
20:15 < yoriy> because these creatures bound to zones, and it is zones who count events
20:15 < hendrik> yoriy, lets talk about this in detail tomorrow.
20:15 < hendrik> okay?
20:15 < yoriy> ok.
20:15 < kymara> madmetzger: woudl you like to continue now with your plans?
20:15 < madmetzger> okay
20:15 < madmetzger> atm i am working on achievements
20:16 < madmetzger> i started with the ones that have already data tracked we can check for
20:17 < madmetzger> this means for killing like achievements and quest achievements the code is there
20:17 < madmetzger> also for experience related achievements
20:17 < madmetzger> those ones are already working and logged to the database
20:18 < madmetzger> my next step is to implement meta achievements that can be reached by reaching other achievements
20:19 < madmetzger> still unclear it is how to check for item achievements like "loot a complete black equipment set" as we do not track data for that yet
20:19 < madmetzger> my first idea there is to store looted items in a map where we count the number for each item
20:20 < hendrik> what about equiping it instead of looting?
20:20 < kymara> we'd have to be careful of abuse.
20:20 < hendrik> oups, yes.
20:20 < kymara> something about first loot from the corpse. otherwise you could just let all your friends and clones pick up your black stuff/pick it up out of a corpse
20:21 < madmetzger> another not yet started category of achievements is the zone related one where achievements are awarded for visiting zones
20:21 < kymara> perhaps first person to equip it after it was registered.
20:21 < madmetzger> yes, that's another issue to consider
20:21 < hendrik> zone visits are tracked alrady.
20:21 < kymara> they shoudl be easier, madmetzger, as there are already examples for the tutorial
20:21 < yoriy> mad, about corpses - probably you can use OnDeath method for that?
20:22 < madmetzger> yes, i know that, but i don't like the idea of hard coded lists of zones to visit for an achievement
20:22 < kymara> we talked a bit about how to flag them, perhaps in zones.xml
20:23 < madmetzger> yes, there are some ideas there, but it means a bit more work so i started with the easy ones
20:23 < hendrik> good.
20:23 < hendrik> any dropped or postponed projects?
20:23 < kymara> so achievement development ideas and issues can still be summarised and discussed in more detail on the wiki page
20:23 < hendrik> you can blame postpoing spells on me.
20:23 < madmetzger> i postponed spell stuff for the achievements
20:24 < kymara> probably a quicker 'win'
20:24 < madmetzger> yes
20:24 < madmetzger> and achievements could track more people to the website if we have some nice contents there on achievements
20:24 < kymara> perhaps once we have a first wave of new achievements we can review
20:25 < hendrik> and motivate players
20:25 < kymara> and see if there is anything else to work on or go back to before tackling the harder ones
20:25 < hendrik> yes.
20:25 < madmetzger> but that's a point where i definitely would need help
20:25 < hendrik> sure.
20:25 < kymara> woudl you like the existed ideas also 'rated'
20:26 < madmetzger> sure, items are the complicated ones, so after meta i'll try to tackle the zones
20:26 < kymara> because i guess some of them i look at and think 'hmmm.......' and others 'yeah!'
20:26 < madmetzger> yes, another point where anyone can help is do fill in the todos on the both achievement pages
20:26 < kymara> you can be proactive and get some of the more keen players to look too.
20:27 < madmetzger> especially for titles and the difficulty
20:27 < madmetzger> yes, maybe some advertising would help there
20:27 < kymara> difficulty needs to be explained clearly or some examples given but after that i think they'd have a go.
20:28 < kymara> if they don't respond to you asking i can try :D
20:28 < madmetzger> one thing i dropped on achievements for the moment is maybe a configuration via xml, but that's not important
20:28 < madmetzger> hehe
20:29 < madmetzger> difficulty is not easy for me to determine, but it would maybe help to get the opinions of experienced players
20:29 < madmetzger> i think that's all so far on achievements
20:29 < kiheru> that may have a bit of the same problem as npcs in xml. if it's flexible enough then it starts to be easier to do it in java...
20:30 < kymara> and at least some must be done in java
20:30 < madmetzger> yes, atm i think i'd drop it completely
20:30 < kymara> so having two places to maintain can be confusing
20:30 < kymara> okay, thank you madmetzger for that summary, let's move on as we're half way through now.
20:30 < kymara> left are: storyteller, me, plassy and laguz, i think.
20:31 < plassy> should i?
20:31 < kymara> please
20:31 < plassy> ok.. im working an a "map editor"
20:31 < plassy> but is's actually multi purpose
20:32 < plassy> http://imagebin.ca/view/IzrAOQWC.html
20:32 < plassy> the idea was basically that we are able to handle the whole#
20:32 < plassy> world at one
20:32 < plassy> with pathfinding... AI... sound
20:33 < plassy> and so on...
20:33 < plassy> i am at the point, that i can import a zone file
20:33 < plassy> and convert it to the shown map format
20:34 < plassy> i am now doing the stuff for editing the map (setting boundaries)
20:34 < plassy> i want to use NURBS for this
20:34 < plassy> http://imagebin.ca/view/ZZtcH-cC.html
20:35 < plassy> i've implemented basic editing capabilities
20:35 < plassy> a yes... what the editor has to is a shell
20:37 < plassy> in order to keep grapical code and logic code seperates, i implemented a unix like shell, so that the functionality is seperatet in subprocesses that can be executed in the shell
20:37 < plassy> and the GUI is an backend to the shell
20:37 < plassy> so it has not match logical code in it
20:38 < hendrik> frontend?
20:38 < plassy> yes frontend
20:38 < plassy> sorry
20:38 < kiheru> hmm. global pathfinding is certainly neat, but I'm curios about short term goals
20:38 < kymara> It looks very interesting and impressive. For me it is hard to comprehend and comment on it without seeing code, building it myself and trying it.
20:39 < yoriy> useful for PizzaDelivery quest :-)
20:39 < hendrik> i am afraid it is a miguel style project.
20:39 < plassy> you can't do much yet anyway... the most functionality has no graphical or shell frontend
20:39 < kiheru> marauroa is very much zone based, so there are a lot of problems on the way
20:40 < plassy> thats it
20:41 < plassy> i know that marauroa is zone based, but this can be changed... because everythinh can be changed
20:41 < kymara> I'm not sure how you know what is needed from a map editor without asking
20:41 < kymara> I mean, from a Stendhal map editor.
20:41 < kymara> There's a lot of feature requests for things 'configurable with tiled'
20:42 -!- nobun [5238b15d@gateway/web/freenode/ip.82.56.177.93] has quit [Quit: Page closed]
20:42 < kymara> and I'm sure the developers could think of a longer list
20:42 < plassy> i know the map format, i know the zone files...
20:42 < plassy> and first it is multipurpose
20:42 < kymara> You asked storyteller to come up with the sound wish list for example - I was just wondering about the rest
20:42 < kymara> okay.
20:43 < plassy> what would be the restr?
20:43 < plassy> *rest?
20:43 < kymara> Other wish lists
20:43 < plassy> i cannot do anything at once. i've set me goals
20:44 < plassy> first map -> map editing -> pathfinding -> sound editing
20:44 < kymara> do you plan to release the code?
20:44 < kiheru> it worries that this seems somewhat wrong order to solve the problems to me. there are a lot of zone continuity issues that could be solved first without the need to handle the whole world at once
20:44 < plassy> i do other stuff if this works
20:45 < hendrik> Shall we continue?
20:45 < plassy> what issues are these?
20:46 < plassy> i don't really see a problem with a continuos world
20:46 < kymara> perhaps we can come back to this at another time, because the details may be out of the scope of this meeting.
20:46 < kiheru> switching maps smoothly, for instance
20:46 < kiheru> ok
20:46 < kymara> thanks for the update plassy.
20:46 < hendrik> it may be a good idea to look at the old meeting logs where this was discussed in great detail.
20:47 < kymara> storyteller and Laguz, we're interested to hear from you both.
20:47 < Laguz> ok
20:47 < storyteller> Okay, shall I continue?
20:47 * hendrik giggles: one of the other, please.
20:47 < kiheru> (I certainly don't oppose having a continuous world. It just looks to me that you're trying to do too much at once)
20:47 < Laguz> story continue
20:47 < storyteller> Okay :)
20:48 < storyteller> So, well... I was mainly involved in the sounds and music in the last time
20:49 < storyteller> I created some background music tracks for different places and added them to some zones
20:50 < storyteller> I also added different sounds to the maps
20:51 < storyteller> also recorded some own sounds which could be used in future
20:51 < storyteller> for example with turning a book page
20:52 < storyteller> But with adding the sounds and music to the world I encountered some problems
20:52 < storyteller> A music file can only be added to a zone one time
20:53 < storyteller> so if there are areas where this music shouldn't be, but the rest of the zone should have this music, there is a problem
20:53 < storyteller> I thought of some different things which could be done to the sound system to make it better a little bit
20:54 < hendrik> is the book page sound committed?
20:55 < storyteller> yes
20:55 < storyteller> there are two different, but similar sounds: book-1.ogg and book-2.ogg
20:55 < kymara> Could the ideas be added to feature requests (one per idea) ?
20:55 < storyteller> the ideas for the sound system?
20:55 < kymara> Yes
20:56 < storyteller> well, I told Plassy
20:56 < plassy> yes he told me
20:56 < kymara> Please make feature requests for them also as perhaps they can already be done on the existing system without you having to wait for the map editor work to finish?
20:56 < storyteller> but I could also add them to the tracker
20:56 < storyteller> okay
20:56 < plassy> i would hardly doubt this
20:57 < kymara> We've seen no code for the map editor so it may never happen.
20:57 < storyteller> well, another thing: What about a "Sound and music ideas"- page on the wiki sound page?
20:57 < plassy> ok, i understand
20:57 < storyteller> people could add their ideas there what could be added
20:58 < kymara> Depends, if we think they can be crossed off one by one as they are implemented then I prefer tracker.
20:58 < kymara> But we could add a sound/music category if there is not already one.
20:58 < kymara> What do others think?
20:58 < storyteller> as I like to know where to add music, what kind of music, what sounds could be nice (I've read somewhere about bee- sounds near Aldrin, for example)
20:58 < hendrik> I was about to type: storyteller, okay if those are complex things that are composed of several small steps (for which tracker items should be made)
20:59 < hendrik> a "how to add sounds" would be nice.
20:59 < madmetzger> not sure, i think the idea is not bad, because you can try to suggest a structure there which information is helpful and so on
20:59 < Laguz> i like wiki for better clarity
21:00 < yoriy> i prefer tracker
21:00 < hendrik> it depends on the goal.
21:00 < hendrik> "please add book sounds to books" would be good for the tracker.
21:00 < storyteller> Hmm...
21:01 < madmetzger> adding first ideas for a sound might be better placed on the wiki, like "sound: waterfall possible locations: zone, coords"
21:01 < hendrik> But collecting ideas about how to make ados market a living experiance with a lots of sounds that make sense, would be better on wiki.
21:01 < storyteller> yes
21:01 < storyteller> Well, I thought of jsut collecting ideas first...#
21:01 < hendrik> tracker is very good for items that can be ticked off. Wiki is good for collecting ideas.
21:01 < kymara> you can also refer to specific tracker items from the wiki. so if you collect ideas and one gets moved to the tracker you can link to it.
21:02 < kymara> storyteller: if you need help with creating the page, a name for it, or anything else, please ask us, when you come to it
21:02 < storyteller> Okay
21:02 < kymara> and as hendrik notes, as well as a sounds and music ideas page, it would be nice to have a 'how to' guide
21:03 < kymara> if you would have time to do that it would be great too
21:03 < storyteller> Okay
21:03 < kymara> Is it okay to move to Laguz now?
21:03 < storyteller> Yes, that's okay :)
21:04 < Laguz> ok then, its not much
21:04 < Laguz> i still need reject message for gates
21:04 < Laguz> for teh quests
21:04 < Laguz> and then this point
21:04 < Laguz> http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3023271&group_id=1111&atid=351111
21:05 < Laguz> i still dont know whats the best way to do this
21:05 < Laguz> i want some suggestions
21:05 < Laguz> im not the coder so^^
21:05 < storyteller> Just make him a "friendly enemy" ;) He is an enemy but doesnt attack you
21:06 < Laguz> this for the quests
21:06 < yoriy> easy for me! lol
21:06 < storyteller> just after telling the keyword
21:06 < Laguz> maybe you have better ideas
21:06 < storyteller> but I don't know either... ;)
21:06 < Laguz> ok and the other thing is still the min-levels-list for items
21:07 < Laguz> if we want to add it, we should take a look together
21:07 < Laguz> i just made suggestions
21:07 < kymara> http://stendhalgame.org/wiki/Stendhal_Item_Ideas
21:07 < Laguz> ok thats all from me
21:08 < kymara> Laguz: I have been reviewing the min levels and they look okay to me, but shall I review again and let you know which groups to add?
21:08 < kiheru> the min levels is something normal players can contribute with, just in case someone is reading
21:08 < kymara> (hint for people looking at those tables: you can sort them, for armor click the little arrow box on the def column, for attack weapons click it on the effectiveness)
21:08 < Laguz> kymara, yes
21:09 < storyteller> Ah, nice :)
21:09 < kymara> I did not understand the ones with slash in
21:10 < Laguz> ah yes
21:10 < kymara> If you have another type of suggestion (e..g use def level instead xp level) i'd like an extra column
21:10 < kymara> so we can still sort the min level column independently and so it's less confusing
21:11 < Laguz> for example teh plate armor and iron cuirass
21:11 < Laguz> i prefer to change the def
21:12 < Laguz> and quest items are especialy too
21:13 < Laguz> club of thorns is a very stron item
21:13 < kymara> For the reject message on gates, could you make a tracker request? I guess you have mentioned it before but it must have been forgotten
21:13 < Laguz> the min level should very high, but its still a quest item
21:13 < kymara> a request means it is less likely to get forgotten again
21:13 < Laguz> im not sure, ill check this
21:13 < Bluelads4> I think having minimum levels for quest items is some kind of a bad punishment for the guy who made the quest
21:13 < Laguz> if not ill make q request
21:14 < kymara> maybe the quest should be made harder :)
21:14 < Laguz> bluelads4 thats the problem
21:14 < kiheru> club of thorns also hurts the user; that's why you don't see it used much despite the excellent atk
21:14 < yoriy> twin swords already have min level
21:15 < Laguz> fact is, these quest items destroy the system a bit
21:15 < Bluelads4> but that is a harder quest in my eyes (the twin sword one)
21:15 < yoriy> obsidian knife too
21:15 < Bluelads4> you can get the club of thorns with some potions also when you are having a smaller level
21:15 < hendrik> we can put min level on quests.
21:15 < kymara> and perhaps some quests should be made harder if they seem not to match the reward
21:15 < Bluelads4> that could take the tension for some players of trying to fight a bit more for gaining something at a quest
21:16 < Bluelads4> (in relation to hendriks idea)
21:16 < kymara> i'm happy if they're made more interesting, anyway
21:17 < kymara> getting something you can't use too well yet is also a bit of an incentive to level up, so long as you are not way too far off it
21:17 < storyteller> There just came a new idea to my mind:
21:17 < Laguz> making the quest harder sounds like the best way
21:18 < storyteller> Triggered actions and sudden things whithin a quest
21:18 < kymara> e.g the obsidian knife suggestion was 60, and the min level for the quest is 50, and that seems okay to me.
21:18 < Laguz> it makes no sense to be able to do the quest with lvl 30 and the item needs lvl 120
21:18 < kymara> yes Laguz. would you be able to put some thought into it?
21:19 < Laguz> the quests?
21:19 < kymara> yes, specifically the club of thorns one.
21:19 < Laguz> yes
21:19 < kymara> I did want to ask you more generally about quests.
21:19 < kymara> If you could help think of quests ideas for dungeons
21:19 < Laguz> sure
21:19 < kymara> To help lure new players into the dungeons, perhaps one per level
21:20 < kymara> It seemed to be to be good timing to do something else for a while, as madmetzger has postponed work on spells
21:20 < kymara> and so your related work on magic may be better to way a little incase it can utilise, and help shape, the spell system.
21:20 < kiheru> I think the club of thorns is not a huge problem. it has high atk, but since players rarely use it it's not something we need to restrict much
21:20 < kymara> So you may need to postpone more work on the wizards' towers
21:22 < Laguz> just tell me what u need
21:22 < Bluelads4> I would agree with kiheru
21:22 < Laguz> ill stop making the wizards quest meanwhile
21:22 < Bluelads4> and it takes HP already when you are using it
21:22 < kymara> Okay, thank you Laguz.
21:23 < kymara> I guess this leaves me
21:23 < kymara> I've been working on integrating postman with the website now that he stores messages in a database.
21:24 < kymara> There's already something out but there's more to do like being able to leave a postman message for another player.
21:25 < kymara> yoriy did a lot of work porting the quest history system from the old one using xml, it's now all in java, which is very nice
21:25 < yoriy> not all kym
21:25 < kymara> There are a lot of quests which didn't ever have a history filled in because the old system was very hard to understand
21:25 < yoriy> hints left
21:25 < kymara> I want to help with filling in the histories, or at least coordinating how non technical contributors can help fill them in
21:25 < kymara> yoriy: yes
21:26 < yoriy> it can be an example of my dropped work :-)
21:26 < kymara> As well as filling in the histories I'd like to spend some time reviewing the other methods around quest information (including hints)
21:26 * hendrik giggles.
21:26 < kymara> So that there is something quite robust and gui-ready.
21:27 < kymara> I might do: smart bank areas with portals that can tell if one player is inside the little zone (or two players, for the table)
21:28 < kymara> I'm not doing: pets refactoring as I have no idea where to start, but it would be nice to ...
21:28 < yoriy> are we still loosing pets on server restarts?
21:28 < kiheru> yes
21:29 < kymara> yes but that would be easy
21:29 < kymara> that's not what i meant. I meant allowing them to level up for example, which keeps beign requested.
21:29 < kymara> I tried to add some new functionality to equipment - swapping items in slots, a right click equip method. But it is all very messy, and really needs a complete review before any new stuff gets added.
21:29 < yoriy> ah..
21:30 < kymara> I have a feeling kiheru would be good on the pets.
21:30 < kiheru> equip code is very complicated
21:30 < kymara> But he is really busy with gui, still, maybe I could use him as a consultant.
21:30 < hendrik> we should collect requirements for it before trying to refactor it.
21:30 < kymara> for equipment?
21:31 < hendrik> yes.
21:31 < kymara> okay
21:31 < hendrik> there are hidden things like Harold should not destroy items he stores a second later and hands out.
21:31 < hendrik> bank chest copying.
21:31 < hendrik> copying from slot to chest, not abusable item duplication
21:32 < hendrik> address slots in items that are in slots in items.
21:32 < hendrik> addressing empty slots spaces.
21:32 < hendrik> and i guess there is more.
21:32 < kiheru> I actually thought about a method for non copying bank chests recently whan tracking a buglet with the swing gamescreen
21:33 < hendrik> i think we need some kind of "redirecting" actings.
21:33 < hendrik> not sure if that should be done client or server side or how at all.
21:34 < yoriy> im sorry guys i have to disconnect - after a hot period of time finally i have a storm here, with lightnings. Im afraid this can destroy my router
21:34 < yoriy> will read logs tomorrow
21:34 < hendrik> okay.
21:34 < yoriy> bye now, hugs all :-)
21:34 < kiheru> bye yoriy. it was nice you could attend
21:34 < hendrik> I hope the rain will help with the smoke and remaining fires.
21:34 < storyteller> Oh... Bye yoriy
21:34 < madmetzger> see you yoriy
21:34 < kymara> Thanks yoriy
21:34 < Laguz> gn8 yoriy
21:34 < yoriy> thanx hend
21:34 < storyteller> Good luck and stay safe :)
21:35 -!- yoriy [~yoriy@62.182.51.174] has quit [Remote host closed the connection]
21:35 < kymara> hendrik, kiheru, do you want to talk about the bank chests now?
21:36 < hendrik> no, i need time to think about all that.
21:36 < kymara> Otherwise, I would lke to finish with a summary of unused but potentially nice or useful code in the project.
21:36 < hendrik> well, i like to hear kiheru idea.
21:36 < hendrik> okay
21:36 < kymara> By no an means exhaustive summary.
21:36 < kymara> By no means an exhaustive summary.
21:36 < hendrik> Bluelads4, do you have any plans?
21:36 < hendrik> (Otherwise i have a task i would like to ask you)
21:37 < Bluelads4> ehm no, no plans at the moment... I've heard of someone who wants to install eclipse on my laptop ^^
21:37 < storyteller> ;D
21:37 < Bluelads4> but that is all at the moment
21:37 < hendrik> Bluelads4, i like to have a slide show of stendhal images on the website.
21:37 < kiheru> I thought about redirecting PersonalChestSlot to the player bank slot in question (the iterator etc). ie make it a wrapper rather than a real slot
21:38 < hendrik> it is low priority.
21:38 < hendrik> Bluelads4, but it needs information on which images to display.
21:38 < hendrik> my idea was to use images uploaded to the wiki.
21:39 < Bluelads4> okay like the screenshots given there for dungeons and areas?
21:39 < hendrik> Bluelads4, anything that looks nice.
21:39 < hendrik> if you want to help, could you add a line like this to the image information page: [[Category:Stendhal Slideshow|some description of the image]]
21:40 < hendrik> I can then write some code to read those from the database and display a random one with the subtitle.
21:40 < Bluelads4> sure, I can do that
21:41 < hendrik> thank you.
21:41 < hendrik> kymara, sorry for interrupting you.
21:41 < kymara> thats okay, and kiheru replied too but I think those are codey details and we shoudl wrap up the meeting soon
21:42 < kymara> So, just a little list of unused things which I thought worth mentioning
21:42 < kymara> - Herald NPC (Patrick) is working nicely but the image is not good enough quality
21:43 < kymara> - madmetzger's clever text filter, a very early thing he contributed. No, I don't think we should try to filter spoken text but I think it could be worth applying to character names, pet names and sentences for example.
21:44 < kymara> - the ados ship maps which we used for 'finding susi' and then closed. they need pirates and a quest.
21:45 < kymara> - durkham's food mill, I'm not sure about using it to make apple juice (unless players are keen on that idea) but it's certainly an idea we should generalise and try to use it for combining / processing other items manually.
21:45 < storyteller> (there is already a pirate's hook image hidden on the patches tracker, by the way ;) )
21:46 < kymara> - gates got their first use now in the spire of the wizard's tower, but i think they could be used elsewhere too to good effect
21:46 < kymara> - presents (got mentioned earlier today, that a wrap action was written and then not used for players because of too many other things to check)
21:47 < kymara> thanks storyteller. and we had some pirates for teh raid but these did not use custom images, rather mainly they were 'lutin' images which were an old creature set for wooland folk made by tari.
21:47 < storyteller> Ah :)
21:48 < storyteller> Yes, I think I can remember them on that raid :)
21:48 < kymara> another unused creature set are the truskulls made by freakuser.
21:48 < kymara> okay, so that is all, if people want to comment.
21:48 < kymara> oh one more:
21:49 < kymara> - arianne website improvements to make it as good as the stendhal website (less of a unused code, more of a postponed project)
21:49 < kymara> just mentioning that incase any php fans are out there
21:51 < kymara> Okay, thanks all for coming
21:52 < kiheru> there used to be several uses for the food mill type item, but I don't know if they ever got listed in one place
21:52 < hendrik> thanks for listing them.
21:52 < storyteller> You're welcome :)
21:53 < kymara> Lets close the meeting now and let codey chat commence again