Stendhal Developers Meeting 2012-05-29

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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 kymara Hi :)
20:01 kymara Can we start with the meeting?
20:01 martinf hello together
20:01 madmetzger hi
20:02 hendrik hello
20:02 dust hi
20:02 kymara I think we should start with celebrating the Stendhal 1.00 release :)
20:02 madmetzger yay!
20:02 kymara I'd like to thank all of you, all contributors and developers, who have worked to make it what it is now
20:03 Bluelads4 hi
20:03 kymara It's *really* awesome. I meet a lot of people who are very impressed with anyone involved in open source development
20:03 kymara People who play the game say lovely things
20:03 kymara Players return who first made an account *five years* ago, and they still enjoy playing
20:03 Bluelads4 :)
20:03 kymara So thank you :D
20:04 kymara 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 kymara 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 kymara I think there are still some sites which need a release announcement too?
20:05 kymara hendrik, is there a list?
20:05 hendrik there is one on the support page (e. g. softpedia, happy penguin comment.
20:06 hendrik Or just search for website that cover games.
20:06 hendrik and post announcement or reviews there.
20:06 kymara if anyone can help with that, it would be good to check we got maximum coverage
20:07 kymara okay, so shall we start the Stendhal 1.01 discussion?
20:07 hendrik there are lists, too: https://metacritic.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1508/session/L3RpbWUvMTMzODMxNDgwNi9zaWQvV21DZWhsWms%3D
20:07 hendrik We need to do a release in June to update the signatures.
20:08 hendrik Multiproducer and magic needs review.
20:08 kymara hendrik, can we do the usual format?
20:08 hendrik the later one even if disabled.
20:08 hendrik yes.
20:08 kymara 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 kymara 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 kymara madmetzger: could you start?
20:09 madmetzger sure
20:10 madmetzger I am not working very much on sth atm, I implement sth from time to time related to magic
20:11 madmetzger recently I added an NPC to allow testing on testserver, this revealed some problems
20:11 madmetzger both gui related and server side
20:11 madmetzger atm I am starting again a try to make the modified attributes visible to the client
20:12 madmetzger this approach would enable clients to see those modifications without depending on a certain client version
20:13 madmetzger basically this is, what I am doing atm
20:13 madmetzger I didn't find time yet to look into the exceptions from testserver, some of them don't occur on my localhost
20:14 kymara You're already working with kiheru on some client stuff, I think? Is there other help needed?
20:14 madmetzger maybe someone could try to reproduce it locally
20:14 kymara Do we know what triggers the errors on testserver? we could try ask the tester players what they were doing?
20:15 madmetzger basically there are still some graphics I'd need for a wizard's equipment
20:15 kiheru 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 madmetzger 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 madmetzger kiheru is right, those gui changes by him should help prevent some of the problems
20:16 hendrik they need to be fixed serverside.
20:17 madmetzger sure, but assisting client side is of no harm
20:18 madmetzger I think it might help if someone else could try to reproduce the errors related to speed modifications
20:18 kymara could you add it to the testing page but as a section for people with a localhost
20:18 kymara and explain who to talk to etc
20:18 madmetzger sure, I will add that.
20:19 kymara thank you. then we can point people there, who might be able to help (I will help)
20:19 kymara But, what about the next release, should anything be disabled before the next release, and we continue the magic project later?
20:19 hendrik 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 madmetzger 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 madmetzger without the testing npc no player would gain the abilities to cast spells
20:21 kymara is anything new yet saved in the player?
20:22 madmetzger nothing really new, the spells slot was already there before I started. same for mana/base_mana
20:22 madmetzger the new introduced attributes for modified_atk etc are volatile
20:24 kymara hendrik, you proposed someone review the code because it is hard to understand and has deep changes
20:24 kymara 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 kymara can anyone help here? I'm thinking maybe durkham or martinf or kiheru ? :)
20:27 kymara okay, lets move on then.
20:27 kymara mine is quick. I've made a change which is nearly ready for the next release and I'd like it included :)
20:28 kymara 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 kymara I need help testing: Zinnia, Calla, Periwinkle, Lobelia (I will add this to the testing page)
20:28 kymara and I need a nice environment for Calla (the one near Ados) to walk around in
20:29 kymara otherwise, i'm happy with them, but feedback is welcomed
20:30 kymara I guess there are no questions?
20:30 kymara who can go next? kiheru?
20:30 kiheru ok
20:31 kiheru atm I'm working on reordering stuff in bag etc. it's working for items, but ordering spells needs some more work
20:32 kiheru 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 hendrik What does it do?
20:33 kiheru then I need a bit prettier indicator for forbidden drops, but that should be easy
20:33 kiheru 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 hendrik sorry, i missed that.
20:33 hendrik it was never used.
20:34 kiheru oh
20:34 kiheru I suppose it's safe to remove then
20:34 hendrik yes
20:34 hendrik there are thinks like BankAccess which are not used either.
20:36 kiheru 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 kiheru otherwise I don't have recently started projects
20:37 hendrik I think player will appriciate both of them.
20:38 kymara :) thanks kiheru
20:38 kymara i guess you still woudl like more testing and feedback on chat tabs?
20:39 kymara they're on the testing page, already, though
20:39 kiheru 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 hendrik That's usually a good sign for user visible features.
20:39 Bluelads4 but I haven't done any deeper testing so far
20:39 kiheru the server sends a lot of stuff as private messages that are not distinguishable from player conversation. is separating those needed?
20:40 kymara kiheru: i'll add that to the testing page
20:40 hendrik yes, i think that would be a good idea.
20:40 hendrik at least the current way feels like a hack.
20:41 dust kiheru yes that would be great if it its separated
20:42 kiheru that's the only thing that annoys myself about the tabs. the private tab gets "new messages" sign all the time
20:43 kiheru ok. that needs splitting PRIVMSG type (ie. some good name for the private messages from server)
20:44 kymara can that go in, in june do you think?
20:44 martinf SRVMSG?
20:44 kymara so that it's there for 1.01 when we need to do the next release?
20:45 kiheru 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 kymara okay
20:46 kymara we better move on if that's okay
20:46 kymara can Bluelads4 go next?
20:46 Bluelads4 yes :)
20:46 hendrik might need a client version check
20:46 Bluelads4 well there aren't many projects either on my list at the moment, but these which are on there are huge ones
20:46 Bluelads4 so the whole constantines villa idea is in a working process but not finished so far
20:46 Bluelads4 and I unfortunately think that I'll not be ready with it for 1.01
20:47 Bluelads4 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 Bluelads4 and I added a few more things recently like the books and stuff which is in the orril.xml file
20:47 Bluelads4 but the rest is still open (means guards for example, the whole idea is in the wiki)
20:48 kymara can you close the doors before the next release?
20:48 Bluelads4 I think I commited them out already for 1.0
20:48 Bluelads4 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 Bluelads4 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 Bluelads4 and reworking fado hotel restaurant which was just a small thing
20:50 Bluelads4 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 kymara :D
20:50 Bluelads4 ehm yes, and I think that was all from my side :)
20:50 Bluelads4 (I think :D)
20:50 kymara okay, and we will have a look at will (I said I'd look :) )
20:50 Bluelads4 thanks :)
20:51 kymara if you don't hear anything then maybe make a bug report?
20:51 Bluelads4 hope he isn't too buggy
20:51 kymara so it doesn't get forgotten?
20:51 Bluelads4 yes, I'll open one about him :)
20:51 kymara thank you
20:51 kymara okay, who else?
20:51 hendrik I have spent a lot of time with PR stuff.
20:52 hendrik Getting sites updated, removing old ugly images, etc.
20:52 hendrik That's something I could need help with.
20:52 hendrik Especially publishing announcements about 1.0.
20:52 hendrik Login with Facebook works technically. But before that can go live, we need need Achievement support.
20:53 hendrik The short version: We need that for legal reasons.
20:53 hendrik Having that, we need character privacy settings.
20:54 hendrik There is a feature request about adding facebook score to achievments.
20:54 hendrik Another project is making Stendhal easier for new players. The first two hours are extremely difficult.
20:55 hendrik Especially if the Beginners Guide is not found.
20:55 hendrik Bluelads4's work will help a bit with that, but there is more we should do.
20:55 kymara i've been enjoyng making voiceovers for videos
20:56 kymara i could attempt to have a go at talking to the new player, but without preparation i'd just be 'myself'
20:56 kymara with a script i could try do something more in theme, but i don't have much time to prepare anything
20:56 kymara the videos have all been done without preparation (and they still tak ea long time to process, once made_
20:56 kymara )
20:57 hendrik reworking the tutorial message could outline the script (with a bit of luck)
20:58 kymara if it's just the tutroial messages then i can record clips as i see them with a new player
20:58 kymara i dont' mind rewording them on-the-fly
20:59 kymara shall we talk about multiproducer/omero's work?
20:59 hendrik yes
21:00 hendrik That's another area, in which I guees nobody has looked at the code.
21:00 kymara i haven't, but i remember discussion approaches with him a very long time ago
21:00 hendrik It's not as risky as magic.
21:00 kymara is it supposed to be complete now?
21:00 kymara not as risky, but i guess the quest slot storage should be checked
21:01 hendrik I think it is. But we should ask omeroff.
21:01 hendrik yes.
21:01 kymara does anyone know if any npcs are already using it?
21:01 kymara it isnt mentioned in the testing page
21:02 Bluelads4 I think he talked about adding a new npc for testing it but he hasn't so far as I remember
21:02 Bluelads4 he made the new quest then in fado hotel
21:02 hendrik There was something about a bad behaving customers at a bar. But I don't know if that is related.
21:03 madmetzger MealForGroongo or sth like that is the quest iirc
21:04 Bluelads4 yes
21:04 Bluelads4 but that doesn't contain his new producer action as far as I know
21:06 kymara okay, it's difficult to disucss much more without omero here
21:06 kymara but we know we need to lok at it
21:07 Bluelads4 oh there is a npc
21:07 Bluelads4 which uses it
21:07 Bluelads4 MeatAndFishSmokerNPC
21:07 Bluelads4 it's added at 0_fado_forest_s
21:08 Bluelads4 name Olmo
21:10 durkham there are in code a few TODOs for MealForGroongo
21:10 durkham mark as improtant
21:10 durkham marked sorry
21:10 kymara so we can decide if we should disable it before 1.01 or if omero wants to finish it
21:11 hendrik yes, we don't need to make the decision now.
21:11 kymara is there anyone else who wants to explain what they work on?
21:11 kymara or ask for help?
21:12 kymara 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 kymara that sounds good :) thank you
21:12 Bluelads4 there are quite strong killer bees as well... which should be added for testing
21:12 kymara if you can help with reviewing any recent code that would be great durkham
21:13 durkham to your service :-)
21:13 hendrik I am concerned about projects that we have not seen anything about. But people have already spend a lot of time with.
21:13 kymara nobun has also been doing some development
21:13 kymara he has got a page at http://stendhalgame.org/wiki/Stendhal_Quest_Ideas/Ados_Gym
21:13 kymara and aske for feedback
21:14 kymara only bluelads4 had made any (i added some now)
21:14 kymara lets make sure that nobun feels free to commit his early work for more concrete feedback
21:14 kymara and if anyone has feedback on the idea, please do add it
21:15 kymara hendrik: is that the kind of thing you meant? (I was about to say it anyway)
21:15 hendrik yes, but at least nobun has put up the wiki page, which is a very good start.
21:15 hendrik I think dust has done things too.
21:15 kymara 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 hendrik did you put them on the patch tracker?
21:16 dust no... just showed it blue for now
21:16 kymara have you had any feedback on what you did, before you add more?
21:17 Bluelads4 (who asked him to add it on the patches tracker :D)
21:17 * hendrik stops glaring at Bluelads4
21:17 Bluelads4 some weeks ago
21:17 Bluelads4 :D
21:17 Bluelads4 I already felt your glares in my neck :D
21:18 * hendrik giggles.
21:18 martinf :)
21:18 dust well the ppl i did show did like it a lot :)
21:18 Bluelads4 cough...
21:18 martinf hendrik: i have a little question about the IQtest interface
21:18 Bluelads4 :P
21:19 Bluelads4 he got some feedback from me that there might be too many monsters and too high level ones for the mountains ;)
21:19 Bluelads4 but thats also why I asked to upload it on the patches tracker directly :)
21:19 hendrik Too many monsters is *the* standard issues, for people who are new to tiled.
21:20 Bluelads4 hehe
21:20 kymara martinf: just ask :)
21:20 martinf 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 martinf what do you think about this change?
21:21 martinf shall i commit it or rollback it?
21:21 kymara do you mean IQuest not IQtest ?
21:21 hendrik 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 kymara I read it as IQ-test - like mensa :)
21:21 dust hendrik k
21:21 martinf its the Quest interface
21:21 hendrik martinf, is there a reason for that change?
21:22 martinf nothing special - only because its more general
21:23 hendrik I have found myself to go exactly the other way lately: Returning ImmutableXxxx instead.
21:23 hendrik That is for projects that use guava.
21:24 hendrik http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeO_J2OcHYM
21:24 hendrik General parameters are good, i am not sure about general return types.
21:25 hendrik We can discuss that after the meeting.
21:25 martinf sure
21:26 kymara hendrik, is there a specific date in june to release with the new certificates, by?
21:28 hendrik The deadline is within the first week of july.
21:29 kymara Okay, then I think we can make it a 1.01 release in June and not a stop-gap
21:29 Bluelads4 (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 hendrik So we should do the release in June so that we have a little time for things going wrong.
21:29 kymara thanks blue
21:30 kymara I think that's all, then? Thanks all for coming
21:30 hendrik I have two more topics.
21:30 kymara Oh, okay, sorry
21:30 hendrik I don't think we should get to a decision on any of them right now, but I like to raise them.
21:30 hendrik One is: Should we require Java 6?
21:31 hendrik The other is should we change to GPL v3 or later?
21:32 hendrik It's too short notice to reach a decision right now, but something to think about during the next days.
21:32 kiherujava 6 would remove some headache. I don't know gpl3 enough to comment about advantages or disadvantages
21:33 hendrik an advantage is that it allows linking against Apache licensed code.
21:34 hendrik The apache license has some requirements about not abusing patents that the GPL 2 did not have.
21:35 madmetzger does it have other consequences?
21:35 hendrik incompatible to GPL2 without "or later".
21:37 madmetzger okay, this is mainly a consequence that affects forks etc?
21:37 hendrik Marauroa and Stendhal are already GPLv2 or later, so people can pick GPLv3.
21:38 hendrik 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 madmetzger okay, I am just trying to understand what that licence change would mean
21:40 madmetzger requiring java 6 could be good, might prevent some common mistakes like <(a)>Override for interface methods
21:40 hendrik https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html, http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060118155841115
21:41 hendrik kymara, that's all from me.
21:43 kymara Okay. Thanks all for coming. I can put notes on the wiki
21:43 kymara 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 madmetzger thank you for organizing kymara
21:45 * Bluelads4 claps her hands
21:45 Bluelads4 thanks for the meeting :)
21:45 hendrik Thank you, kymara
21:45 martinf :-)
21:45 martinf thanks
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