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Blades Chat ASAP


Niemand

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We've discussed many times before asking Jeff to release the BoA source code, and with Avadon out and Jeff working on his rewrite of the original Avernum Trilogy now looks like a good time to tackle this seriously. I propose that we meet on AIM to organize and discuss our plans.

 

People whose involvement would be particularly valuable (in my estimation):

  • People who have had significant involvement in open-source development based on other code released by Jeff, such as Celtic Minstrel and Tridash.
  • People who have done a lot of designing, like Lazarus, Kelandon, and Ephesos.
  • As many users of the game, particularly designers, as possible.

With regards to scheduling:

I would very much like to be present, but I realize that my contribution isn't strictly necessary. Unfortunately, I have work until 6 p.m. (Central Time) on week days, and from September 17-24 I will be traveling for work, and will almost certainly be unable to be around online for any substantial period of time.

 

One possibility would be to do this tonight or tomorrow, despite the short notice. This isn't totally crazy, since we may very well need to discuss multiple times, and we can deal with not everyone being able to attend every chat.

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Any ideas for future features would be welcome, but if OBoE is any indication, the bulk of the early work will be devoted to setting up a stable build, fixing pre-existing bugs, and ensuring that the game works on modern machines.

 

Actually, what I should do is go through the BoE forum and read up on the pitfalls that were encountered when BoE was first opened. Some of the issues were due to differing ideas of where OBoE was headed, but a lot of the other issues were basic things that could easily have been avoided, like licence incompatibility.

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Maybe I will, but what's been happening is people have been getting spam (which I didn't send) from my account, and shutting it down was the only way to go.

 

I'm not sure I could add much if all we're discussing is source code, though. However, if we want to discuss the contest too, I could contribute there.

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Also I think we were in the meantime going to try and prove to Jeff that the community is still alive by releasing as many new scenarios as possible and finishing the two contests we have going on.

Indeed, this is a very important aspect.

 

I will also make an effort to tidy up the editor website and get the documentation up to date. (So if I don't show progress on this, you guys need to yell at me.) Related to this, at some point in the past I wrote up a carefully researched history of the editor, which I can now no longer find. Since it is now much harder to recreate the research, if anyone could locate that and point me to it I would be very gratefully.

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Also I think we were in the meantime going to try and prove to Jeff that the community is still alive by releasing as many new scenarios as possible and finishing the two contests we have going on.
I'd have finished my contest scenario by now if it didn't keep running into bugs that are the game's problem and not mine. Meanwhile, I got bored and started making something else.
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I didn't attend the chat, and I'm not really a member of the BoA community, but I have watched and observed most of what's gone on with BoE, OBoE, and BoA for some years now. After speaking with Tyranicus, I'd like to make the following suggestion:

 

RELEASE AND ADVERTISE PLATFORM-SPECIFIC, READY-TO-USE, COMPILED VERSIONS OF OBOE FIRST, OR YOUR REQUEST IS DOOMED TO FAILURE.

 

Great work has been done on OBoE and it sounds super functional, but for some reason, it hasn't been released in an easy-to-use form; or if it has been, the advertising has been so atrocious that I haven't even noticed despite reading the Blades forums and sometimes wanting to play BoE.

 

If I were Jeff, and I had to weigh the down sides:

(1) very unlikely but nonetheless possible negative publicity coming from some unforeseen consequence of the release

(2) definitely losing whatever tiny trickle of money BoA purchases bring in each year

 

versus the up side:

(1) hopefully leading to an updated, augmented, more widely compatible release of BoA

 

...then I would probably look to BoE to weigh these criteria. And though the down sides for releasing BoE's code have been essentially nonexistant, the up sides have been nonexistant too.

 

Now, I am well aware that BoA has more life to it than BoE did at the time of that code base's release, and in particular, the work done with the BoA editor code base is very promising. But given Jeff's general and overwhelming conservatism when it comes to making decisions about his business, you will really need to make a case for the benefits of such a release: and it will be hard to do that with the unconscious body of OBoE attached to the wheels of your chariot. Wake it up and publish it, for goodness's sake!

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RELEASE AND ADVERTISE PLATFORM-SPECIFIC, READY-TO-USE, COMPILED VERSIONS OF OBOE FIRST, OR YOUR REQUEST IS DOOMED TO FAILURE.

THESE ARE IN FACT ALREADY AVAILABLE. They could be better advertised, however. We will need Celtic Minstrel to deal with some aspects of this.

 

Your analysis of Jeff's considerations seems cogent; we'll have to keep this in mind.

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RELEASE AND ADVERTISE PLATFORM-SPECIFIC, READY-TO-USE, COMPILED VERSIONS OF OBOE FIRST, OR YOUR REQUEST IS DOOMED TO FAILURE.

THESE ARE IN FACT ALREADY AVAILABLE. They could be better advertised, however. We will need Celtic Minstrel to deal with some aspects of this.

 

Your analysis of Jeff's considerations seems cogent; we'll have to keep this in mind.

Where? The Google Code page appears to have only CBoE.
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Originally Posted By: Slartucker
But if there are ready-to-use, compiled versions even of CBoE available, I've never heard of them nor seen them. Does somebody have a link?


I didn't post a link, but I did describe where to find them in response to one of your posts yesterday. Here's a link form of the same thing.

There are somethings that could be improved, as Tyranicus noted in that other thread, and maybe we can rework the BoE Forum header to make them easier to locate from there.
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I mentioned this in the chat, but I'm doubtful about BoA being opened in the near future because there isn't a current need to maintain it the way BoE needed maintenance. The primary reason BoE was opened was because it needed Carbonization and Universalization, and that isn't the case with BoA (correct me if I'm wrong, Mac users).

 

Another thing I forgot to mention in the chat was other resources that were made free to distribute when BoE was opened, like graphics and sounds. Jeff probably wouldn't want to completely open BoA until all three of the Avernums have been uplifted.

 

We can ask for the source earlier, but I think we'll be most likely to succeed once BoA hits the old products page. Every game on that list has either been upgraded or uplifted or opened.

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Originally Posted By: Excalibur
BoA no longer works on OS Lion, since Lion no longer supports PPC apps. You can run it with WineBottler but that's rather inconvenient.

It actually annoys me to the point of playing it on my Windows partition.
The version of BoA on Spiderweb's site is universal and runs in Lion. Also, I stopped using WineBottler for running Windows apps. The fact that it creates a complete copy of the app in the user Library without giving an option not to do this is absolutely ridiculous. Wineskin works much better for making standalone apps using Wine.
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  • 3 weeks later...

There's a Windows version of OBoE (or CBoE) that's released and functioning, but unfortunately there isn't a Mac version. However, if the merging codebases work is completed (not sure if he committed it to the svn), a Mac CBoE may be releasable from that.

 

I think I should mention that I don't use AIM; however, remember the IRC channel I started that never really caught on? I never bothered to drop it, so it's still there and I can usually be found there. Alternatively there's Skype.

 

Is there a log of the meeting from the 12th or did it not end up happening?

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Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel
I think I should mention that I don't use AIM; however, remember the IRC channel I started that never really caught on? I never bothered to drop it, so it's still there and I can usually be found there. Alternatively there's Skype.
No offense, but most people here do not use IRC and do use AIM. I'm not going to bother downloading and configuring a client just because one person doesn't want to use AIM. As to a chat log, PM me your email address, and I will send it to you.
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No offense, but most people here do not use IRC and do use AIM. I'm not going to bother downloading and configuring a client just because one person doesn't want to use AIM. As to a chat log, PM me your email address, and I will send it to you.
I was merely mentioning where I could be found. Besides, you don't need to download and configure a client to use IRC.
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It is technically possible to bridge an AIM room and an IRC channel. The effort involved is a multiple of that required to install a client, though, so it's not really worth it.

 

For what it's worth, if we decided to switch I wouldn't miss AIM one bit.

Neither would I, but for some reason the internet at my house blocks IRC D:

 

Of course it's quite possibly the worse ISP known to mankind, but that's another story.

Edited by Aᴙᴛʏᴀᴐᴎᴀᴀᴙ
The crap dish has fried five routers and two LAN cards...and it
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Originally Posted By: Tyranicus
Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel
Besides, you don't need to download and configure a client to use IRC.
You don't need to download a client to use AIM either.
But, if I'm not mistaken, you do need an account, which is not the case for IRC. Still, I'm not trying to convince anyone to move, merely noting that the channel exists and that I'm generally to be found there.
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Quote:
Neither would I, but for some reason the internet at my house blocks IRC D:
"Only criminals use IRC."

(Really wish I was making that line up.)

Anyway, I would also prefer IRC to AIM (heck, I hadn't heard of AIM before coming here), but the bulk of people here use it, signing up for AIM is pretty easy, and once you use something like Pidgin the differences pretty much go away.
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Originally Posted By: Tyranicus
Originally Posted By: The Turtle Stays
The crap dish has fried five routers and two LAN cards...and it's limited to 256kbps down...AND behind a NAT.
You can fix the NAT problem by bridging your modem, if that is possible. If not, you can bridge your router.
It's...he ends up putting a whole bunch of clients behind one IP. According to my router, my external IP is 172.22.1.106, while from the internet's side I am 206.127.77.126.

Meanwhile, I'd really like to have my server box at 192.168.1.8 contactable from outside my LAN. I figure the only way to do that is to have a middleman proxy that my machine gets stuff from...but then i'm paying for a server which rather defeats the purpose.
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Originally Posted By: Goldenqueen
It's...he ends up putting a whole bunch of clients behind one IP. According to my router, my external IP is 172.22.1.106, while from the internet's side I am 206.127.77.126.
172.x is a local subnet. Your modem is creating a local network. This is very common with DSL and satellite connections. If you are able to login to your modem, you may be able to bridge it, so that it is just sending traffic and not creating a network. This will result in your router pulling a WAN IP from your ISP's server. If you are unable to do this, you can bridge your router, so that it is not creating a a local network. Then your computers would all pull addresses from the modem. Then you'll have a single NAT. You would still have to set up port forwarding in your router if you bridge your modem, or in your modem if you bridge your router, if you want to connect to your server over the WAN.

If, however, your ISP really is using the same WAN IP for multiple clients, then I would say that you should leave rural Montana and get a decent ISP. tongue
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Originally Posted By: Goldenqueen
Originally Posted By: Tyranicus
Originally Posted By: The Turtle Stays
The crap dish has fried five routers and two LAN cards...and it's limited to 256kbps down...AND behind a NAT.
You can fix the NAT problem by bridging your modem, if that is possible. If not, you can bridge your router.
It's...he ends up putting a whole bunch of clients behind one IP. According to my router, my external IP is 172.22.1.106, while from the internet's side I am 206.127.77.126.

Meanwhile, I'd really like to have my server box at 192.168.1.8 contactable from outside my LAN. I figure the only way to do that is to have a middleman proxy that my machine gets stuff from...but then i'm paying for a server which rather defeats the purpose.


It might be easier than you think. I have been logging onto my home computer (and hosting a small webserver, with more flexibility than Dreamhost) for a long time now by forwarding ports from the router to the computer. While the external IP is dynamically assigned, I use a dynamic DNS service to make sure it always resolves correctly.

@Celtic Minstrel: Where is the IRC channel? I've trawled through the boards but not found earlier mentions.
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Originally Posted By: Tyranicus
If, however, your ISP really is using the same WAN IP for multiple clients, then I would say that you should leave rural Montana and get a decent ISP. tongue
This. My neighbor/"friend"/person who i bullied into registering on calref has the exact same IP as me.

Thing is, if i plug a machine directly into the modem/antenna, other client's computers (who are directly plugged in on their side) will show up in Windows. In one case I was able to print "I AM WATCHING YOU" to some random person's printer. It's a very secure system.
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Originally Posted By: Polaran
@Celtic Minstrel: Where is the IRC channel? I've trawled through the boards but not found earlier mentions.
There was a topic somewhere that was pinned briefly. Maybe it got pruned, I dunno. Anyway, it's #spidweb on irc.nightstar.net.
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  • 5 months later...

This is what I said back in September, and I still think it's the case:

Originally Posted By: Dintiradan
I mentioned this in the chat, but I'm doubtful about BoA being opened in the near future because there isn't a current need to maintain it the way BoE needed maintenance. The primary reason BoE was opened was because it needed Carbonization and Universalization, and that isn't the case with BoA (correct me if I'm wrong, Mac users).

 

Another thing I forgot to mention in the chat was other resources that were made free to distribute when BoE was opened, like graphics and sounds. Jeff probably wouldn't want to completely open BoA until all three of the Avernums have been uplifted.

 

We can ask for the source earlier, but I think we'll be most likely to succeed once BoA hits the old products page. Every game on that list has either been upgraded or uplifted or opened.

It would be cool if JV opens it earlier, but I don't see him doing so, since BoA still runs fine.
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