Post: #11

(08-24-2012 10:56 AM)Rayvolution Wrote:  This forum is very SEO unfriendly.

For example, on this forum, this thread is:

Code:

http://forum.spherecommunity.net/showthread.php?tid=1692&pid=4990#pid4990

on my forum, a thread looks like this:

Code:

http://aetharia.com/index.php?/topic/22-what-would-you-like-to-see-in-aetharia/#entry33

What has more keywords for the search engine to pickup?

That is true Ray, it's our major weakness right now. I will point this out to Ben.

@Everyone else
Sphere does support the current .uop format files and most of the latest changes up to the version 7.0.24 and probably higher. If there is something not supported at the moment I'm sure it will be available in the near future. If you go to the topsites and dig inside the websites from different servers running on other emulators like RunUO you'll notice that mostly all of them provides a full copy of the game to their clients and that is because none of these servers can keep updated to the top with the constant modifications made by EA.

We are aware of some bugs that must be corrected directly from core but the most important engines that we are missing can be softcoded. It's our fault as a community not to have them scripted yet and the lack of organization to team up to get the best results.

If you give me the chance to coordinate this new project called SCP2 we'll improve the current scriptpack together, I just need a couple days more to finish relocating scripts and applying some of my code to it. I have been preparing the scenario for all of you to work more organized as a team from now on based on what Shiryux, khaos, Ranxerox and some other members did with the first community pack. Later I can update my tools and develop others.

You should give a chance also to the new dev team to work and get used to the code, I'm sure they are reading all your suggestions, maybe they can't spend too much time on it as you may want but remember that Cube and Torfo can still hire more people in the future if we require them.

Post: #12

I never said sphere doesn't support the .uop map files, I said that a fully patched copy of UO the asked to run an older client results in corrupted maps. That's not a case of keeping up with EA, it's a case of backwards compatibility being lost.
I also pointed out that the official sphereserver site being taken down has pretty much devastated what community there was leaving only a handful of regular members that can help others with problems and submit the scripts needed for SCP2, I am not counting myself in this group btw as my scripting knowledge is so rusty as to be practically useless, and I've had enough trouble trying to get some of my old scripts to run on the newer version.

The "nightly" builds don't seem to change that much night to night, because people have others life things going on, would this not be better changed to a weekly or even monthly release so that more people were running the same version to aid bug testing e.t.c...?

Post: #13

When it comes to SEO, we have already done quite a bit on this forum... The way the links are displayed is beyond my controle unless I write my own forum code or change forum software... very unlikely... Using IPB is not gonna happen unless someone other then me wants to pay for it!!!

There is only so much we can do, specially when there are many other sites on the same subject that have been established long before this one... Ppl should read and understand more about SEO before complaining that we didn't do our job. Google just doesn't work the way most ppl think!

btw... to have a stable release of sphereserver... it needs to be stable, which no one can seem to agree on any build being stable.

Post: #14

If no changes have been made to the server, then the build number stays the same internally, just the date changes. So what's the diff if it gets compiled nightly or weekly?

Post: #15

Crashes are usually caused by poorly written scripts in sphere. But only crash i get without writing any script is network threads. It is pretty buggy, someone has written and put it in sources like a spaghetti code. Till that time, I had no crashes except infinite loops caused by me.

Sphereserver doesn't need advertisement, almost everyone in uo knows sphere. There are billions of platforms for it. but as i know in my country, nobody uses last nightly builds. Because they are nightly builds, so simple. almost until 5 years ago, everyone was using 0.55i in turkey. Because it was simply stable. the people i know, ran 100-150 player shards with 2009 release.

Devs usually want us to code our own features but It is not "healthy" to code vital, core things using sphere scripting. Because it is not something compiled to binary, it is simply interpreted by sphereserver. That's why i always report those. For example, osi-like stamina check system. I had created an item with timerd=1 to make it a global timer, so every second, every player is checked 10 times. It is not something wise to do with sphere scripting. Another example that I wanted to code osi-like item stack system. But hardcoded LOS checks blocked me in @dropon, @pickup triggers, i directly edited drop pickup packets but that really costed so expensive in performance. Another example, I tried to code custom Notoriety flags. But we can't override them. I wanted some people to be seen "orange". Yeah I would make those people join some enemy guilds but what about other players ? Not wise. Another example, I wanted to make osi-like criminal system. "Attacking is a crime". I personally suggested this to shiryux, and he added, thanks to him. But It has magically disappeared in some builds ?! I don't want to code this with sphere scripting because there may be some hardcoded checks, memory flags etc. I didn't want to deal with bugs. Another, still present bug is Walkcheck code. You can get stuck in shores or can't pass many areas in t2a lands, which are normally past. Since we can't code a walkcheck system..

It is always to make core things in binary. Emulators usually provide options for it, I mean sphere.ini. Because you can't compile your sphere scripts, unlike in c# - runuo. If you can't, then it is wiser to add things internally then provide options for it. Scripting is only needed when the system is too much flexible that you can't provide options for each, like guildstone system.


----

I once wanted to help fixing those things 2 years ago, by sending developer application. Because i had adressed many bug fixes using my old 0.99f sphere sources, which still present. so i thought i could fix them easily. I was accepted but i was 16 and couldn't sign that thing, so shiryux was accepted, thanks to god someone was finally hired to development staff after years. I am now on my "legal" age and I can sign that contract but development staff doesn't seem to have empty slot. poor luck I will send application again as soon as there is an empty slot. Even i criticize many things, Sphereserver is vital for my programming education like every uo emulators are, for me.

Post: #16

I'm so new in this but... I can think something about this topics
I guess RUN UO has more market becuase it's PRE-MADE.
Run UO have's NPC's pre-mades, decorations too, and some others custom things that are more simple to make...

And I belive that, the spherecommunity packs, just take more space between the old servers and the most new servers... Becuase it's difficult to mold the scripts to the old database [or nightly pack]. [But... it's REALLY great scriptpack, really! but.. it's difficult to include on your old server.]


This should be like the Apple product updates They can update all databases of all cellphones, tablets, and others things with one only SO...
That's inclusion!
[... Im a Rly Android FAN, but.. Apple updates are more great and works in the 100% of apple new products]

Should you had can understand me I suck in english.
and... I rly love this forum, you guys had help me soooo many times... Now I have a shard with 35 approx. players [to my country Argentina it's a LOT] and it's thanks to you too.

^_^

Lazarus.

Post: #17

No doubt we need more devs because:

Without ef_walkcheck lot of places are not passable and players fall into sea with update. If we enable new walkcheck npcs go into mountains, upper floors etc so its not an option.

Aos custom housing is not usable on live shards. (causing memory leak in client) Only usable with some trick (making house parts invisible to the players which is not entered it but it really looks bad):



Networkthreads is not working, even we disable it sometimes sphere cannot parse packets (like target packets) and give debug on console.

10:19:DEBUG:__ thread (173288) __ | # | _____ function _____________ | ticks passed from previous function start ______
10:19:DEBUG:>> 173288 | 0 | NetworkManager::processAllInput | +0
10:19:DEBUG:>> 173288 | 1 | NetworkInput::processInput | +0
10:19:DEBUG:>> 173288 | 2 | NetworkInput::processData | +0
10:19:DEBUG:>> 173288 | 3 | NetworkInput::processData | +0
10:19:DEBUG:>> 173288 | 4 | NetworkInput::processGameClientData | +0 <-- exception catch point (below is guessed and could be incorrect!)
10:19:DEBUG:>> 173288 | 5 | PacketTarget::onReceive | +0
10:19:DEBUG:>> 173288 | 6 | CClient::Event_Target | +0
10:19:DEBUG:>> 173288 | 7 | CClient::OnTarg_Use_Item | +0
10:19:DEBUG:>> 173288 | 8 | CVarDefMap::Empty | +110
10:19:CRITICAL:"Access Violation" (0x9636b), in SUB: NetworkInput::Message::ProcessMessage()
10:19:DEBUG:139:Parsing Packet len=19 id=0x6c [2012/08/24 10:19:02]
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
0000 6c 00 00 00 01 ed 00 40 2c f5 df 05 15 04 cf ff l......@,.......
0010 a7 10 61 ..a

We cannot make osi-like ghost player cannot see living, of course it can imitated with remove object packet but its not working well.

Pets can removed on worldsaves, its possible to fix that with some tricks but there are no real solution to that.

We have not outgoing packet filter so lot of things are not customizable.

And im sure some others have other problems, they are just mine. Sphere have great potential but its not used. Scripting is very easy and fast, i just wrote necromancy in 3-4 hours (with using base scrolls and spell bases from SCP of course). We can edit all scripts when server is running. I changed whole pet shrink system and existing pets when server running and have 70 players in. I don't think they are possible in other emulators. But development its not going anywhere and lot of things cannot be changed by scripts. Since open-source is not an option we need more devs...

Post: #18

Mordaunt my friend, sorry if I misunderstood you the first time. It's true that the old site was a huge lost but we're still standing and things can always get better
If you're kinda rusty that doesn't matter, remember that someone else can fix what is wrong in your code and you can get up-to-date very quickly. Not everything is 100% technical, there is another percent for creativity.

@Everyone else:
Remember to document these issues on the tracker also