Our Client

[PoLiX]

If discretion was completed, which I really hope it some day will be would you use it?

 

Or what if Snrrrub completed Snrrrubspace, would you use it?

 

Again, or what if we hacked the continuum client up, and hacked the subgame server for more features and security, would you use it?

 

On a side note: As with all my recent topics, these are real discussions being taken on, and after months of it being discussed in private between a few, I (and I know Snrrrub also) feel the public has a right to opinion in all of this. Your guy's ideas will be heard, trust me. And on that, keep them realistic and within possibility. Remember, we still have a slightly stubborn community, but one who is crying for a new client, or atleast one updated and supported.

[RiiStar]

If it was a working and viable alternative to Continuum sure....

[»Purge]

If it can compete with the current client then of course.

[Hakaku]

I would support any of the three clients: Bak's Discretion, Pyxlz's PSpace, or Snrrrub's client. Though I have a preference for Discretion rather than the latter two - and it's one of the few reasons why I pushed to have Devastation move away from Subgame. And my beef with Snrrrub's client will be that he's most likely going to keep it closed sourced, meaning that we'll be making another leep into a client we can't be sure will remain actively developped.

 

Would I use a hacked up Subgame? No, I really wouldn't. Even if you bloated your old copy with new features, I think it's best to stick with ASSS.

Would I use a hacked up Continuum? Depends, what exactly are you advancing that's different than in the current client?

[L.C.]

AS3 is going to kill the game if it isn't made easy enough for newbies like me to use it as is to Subgame.

[Samapico]

AS3 is going to kill the game if it isn't made easy enough for newbies like me to use it as is to Subgame.

Should be fairly easy to make a ready-to-play ASSS setup, if it's not done already... With most standard modules included by default. 90% of the time when someone has a problem with his ASSS zone, it's because he forgot to include a module, even if it's pretty standard (flags, directory server, ...)

[Sketter]

AS3 is going to kill the game if it isn't made easy enough for newbies like me to use it as is to Subgame.

Should be fairly easy to make a ready-to-play ASSS setup, if it's not done already... With most standard modules included by default. 90% of the time when someone has a problem with his ASSS zone, it's because he forgot to include a module, even if it's pretty standard (flags, directory server, ...)

 

 

Last i heard from Snrrrub is that As3 needs a lot of work still.

 

And for shanky.com/server would be nice to have a "how-to-Asss" like it does with subgame.

 

Some my find my next point useless, but the command lines have changed quite a bit, that the use of a bot is useless in a As3 zone.

 

Yes as3 can do everything a bot can do and more, but not everyone can code.

There are many zones that relied on preexisting bots and plugins for their zone. Now their even limited and will have to find a coder to implant any idea then looking for a pluing for a bot that may already exist, and that as we all know it is even more scares.

 

 

As for the topic.

You need a new client. You can only go as far as a game will let you.

It isn't even just about bug fixes and making setting work better. With being able to update the game you can perhaps allow new features into the game to create different type of game playing other then turf, flagging, and balling.

 

I would prefer Snrrrub's client, (since he stepped back into the picture and i trust him on a personal level) however any client that is adequate, and kept up to date is a go.

[Hakaku]

AS3 is going to kill the game if it isn't made easy enough for newbies like me to use it as is to Subgame.

I started off as a newbie and managed to figure out how to easily port from Subgame to ASSS and run a zone within a few days (it would have been a day if it weren't for a specific modification I had to make to get it to run on Windows 98SE). Honestly, I don't think you've ever even tried to make the effort to learn any of how it works; it's really not as complicated as you always make it sound. The only complicated part is learning how to write modules; but if you don't need to, or if you prefer using bots then there's not much to complain about. Otherwise it's just knowing where to put settings, staff info, and how to configure the server. But all the files are conveniently named after their purpose (so place staff in staff.conf, global server information in global.conf, etc.).

 

If you run into trouble, just ask questions. If you never ask, you'll never get an answer. But seriously, if the notorious Mage+ can learn its basic functionality and ask questions, then there's absolutely no excuse that no other newb can learn it.

 

Last i heard from Snrrrub is that As3 needs a lot of work still.

When Snrrrub first offered to host Devastation he had the misconception that ASSS could do pretty much anything. One of the problems was that he wanted me to rewrite all of our modules into Python, but I had to point out that the use of Python is limited in quite a number of aspects. ASSS isn't perfect, but in comparison to Subgame it already offers a lot more possibilies. It could easily be argued that Subgame needs a lot of work if not much more (it can be far more easily hacked from my experience working with both).

 

Some my find my next point useless, but the command lines have changed quite a bit, that the use of a bot is useless in a As3 zone.

False, bots can be just as useful as the server itself. One advantage of using a bot within an ASSS zone is that even if the plugin is buggy, at worse you'll just crash the bot, and not the entire zone. In Deva, we also use the bot as a means for the server to communicate on chat channels. Other zones use bots for other purposes, so it's false to assume that bots are entirely useless in ASSS zones.

 

If your bot sends specific commands such as *arena hi, then all it requires is the addition of the module entitled sgcompat (subgame compatibility), which you just have to uncomment from the modules.conf file, and it allows subgame-specific commands to work. Otherwise, it takes two seconds to modify the plugin and recompile it so that it sends ?aa rather than *arena.

 

There are many zones that relied on preexisting bots and plugins for their zone. Now their even limited and will have to find a coder to implant any idea then looking for a pluing for a bot that may already exist, and that as we all know it is even more scares.

No one's forcing pre-existing zones to switch over to ASSS, they can keep their bots and plugins and run them on either subgame or ASSS. But you keep coming back to the idea that no one will code, blah blah blah. That's just an excuse for not bothering to try; and it's often these same people that rely on absolutely everyone else to do all their work for them. Not just mods/plugins, but settings, maps, updates, websites, etc. Somewhere down the line you've got to learn to take your own responsibility.

 

If there was no future for new zones to emerge, then you wouldn't have a single SSA, SSXA, SSCA zone out there. Just because you're not willing to learn anything because you're phobic, doesn't necessarily mean that absolutely everyone else thinks like you. How often do you ever visit other zones? Because from what I've seen, people are definitely willing to learn and do what they can with what they have for their own zones. And there still are a number of people willing to help you with modules: as an example, tcsoccerman, smong, myself, Dr Brain, D1st0rt, among others have at least helped one other person who asked for help with their zone and/or modules. So this idea that no one helps anymore is completely unfounded and untrue.

 

I don't even consider myself even a half-ass coder, I never learnt C before I eventually leaped into the world of writing modules. I simply looked at how other people wrote theirs, started off by modifying stuff here and there, read tutorials on the wiki, and now I can write basic modules myself.

 

[Samapico]

You can make bots run on ASSS servers... But again, you just need to include the right modules so it can recognize the standard *commands

[CRe]

I wouldn't really use the hacked up Continuum client but use another client where there is an active coder. Subgame is easy but ASSS you can do much more. I wouldn't use subgame but rather ASSS. It isn't that hard to learn.

[Bak]

I WOULD USE DISCRETION

[»doc flabby]

I would use STF for my client

 

There are a number of issues with ASSS that do need resolving however in the short-long term...or at least from my point of view

 

- Process separation - a dodgy plug-in shouldnt crash the zone, all the plugins should be wriitten in scripted languages like python or lua or javascript (we should add lua support)....we shouldn't be writing any plug-in in C this is just hard and unnecessary work...C is a slow and difficult language to develop in.

 

- High population support (never really been tested for over 100 users)

- High amount of Subspace specific code in ASSS (this is the biggie way to much stuff is very subspace specific...theres a lack of generalisability to the server..its very hard to adapt it to work with a new protocol system)

Edited March 24, 2009 by doc flabby

[Dr Brain]

ASSS stands for A Small SubSpace server. The subspace specific stuff goes with the title. Take out the subspace code and you're left with a loadable module framework, and not much else.

 

As for the population stuff... Hyperspace has had peaks of 90-100 players before. I'm pretty sure HZ has run 150 players for events and such. There's really no reason stability would change at higher populations. All the code is present to deal with pids exceeding 255, so that's not an issue.

[PoLiX]

That and EG is still wanting to make the move to ASSS. I think they'll be the really proof of a large zone running stable on it.

[»doc flabby]

I would still like to see better server side scripting intregration and less reliance "C" modules. Writing game logic in C is stupid, and highers the barrier to entry and just add unnecessery workload. The pattern alot modern games follow is to write the game engine in C/C++ but code the game logic in a scripting language.

 

ASSS stands for A Small SubSpace server. The subspace specific stuff goes with the title. Take out the subspace code and you're left with a loadable module framework, and not much else.

My problem is that the game code and subspace code are very much interlinked...theres very little separation between game logic and network logic. This makes it difficult to extend the protocol. I'm not talking rewriting the whole thing just for example adding an additional action to the login sequence or adding a new packet type, these kind of changes should be relaitivly easy to do and its not...unless im missing an easy way of doing this. I don't know what Bak's thoughts are on this but i'm sure hes run into the same problem (or maybe its just me...)

Edited March 24, 2009 by doc flabby

[Dr Brain]

A lot of the core modules are tightly interlinked, but there are only a few that deal with the login sequence. I wouldn't imagine that it'd be too difficult to add an extra step. I thought you were trying to write an entirely new protocol, which would be pretty much impossible. Extending isn't too bad.

[Dav]

I would yuse an alternative.

 

I think this game needs scope for regular updates to keep it going and these clients look like the way to do that.

[rootbear75]

If it was a working and viable alternative to Continuum sure....

 

 

If it can compete with the current client then of course.