Devlog update (2012-02-19) Bugfixes, new features, new dev member

[Shoozza]

Hi there,

well it was an active week for me and at least a few day where really productive.
As de Espada and zakath helped with the maps and I did add a few features and fixed some bugs.

A few old unused textures got deleted (!Lolimbob.bmp, 0023.bmp), As de Espada cleaned up maps (removed unused textures from them) and we figured out why the ctf_Laos map was being redownloaded by a lot of players.
The reason was that there are different versions of the map in the full and patch version of soldatserver (the patch has the old one). If you installed the patch you probably want to update the map with a less buggy one.

Ok, lets talk about new features.
Switching the team in deathmatch, rambomatch and whatever the third non team based mode is, will be possible. No need to rejoin to get in spectator or player 'team'.
This also means that when you join as spectator you will be able to join the game now without leaving and unchecking the spectator checkbox in all game modes.
On top of that teamchat will work for spectators also in all game modes.

If you haven't visited the bugtracker this week:, There a few older bugs got fixed!
The alt+r bug which was actually really easy to reproduce (just use the right alt key) was fixed and a couple of updater issues which will sadly still appear in the 1.6.2 to 1.6.3 update but not after that.
Freezing of Soldat after clicking on update, the too large update popup and the buggy Soldat connection issue (thanks to Mr for giving me access to his windows vm to fix this) got fixed.

You remember when I told you we will have a build server? This week Also FliesLikeABrick helped me to get access to the Soldat build server he setup for me (thanks!).
It will hopefully get used in providing up to date executables for the soon to be activated testing team (yep, I didn't forget about you people!).
But before that happens the build scripts need some attention...

While we are talking about attention. You probably didn't notice that we have a new devteam member, did you
Skoskav joined the dev team a few days ago! He knows how to handle ugly code so I guess he's a good choice.

And now let's talk about the next version of Soldat.
I hope the Moonsonix bug isn't too annoying because decided to release a full version instead of the patch. The main reason is that we want to get as many things out as possible.

There will be no new release in the next 7 days however.
I will be busy till next Friday but after that I can work more on Soldat so hold in there.

[Furai]

Nice.

[McWise]

Hell yeah!
Good to hear this news, keep it up

[themangokid2]

How nice Can't wait! Keep up the good work!

[Illuminatus]

GJ dev-team!

Is adding your chatMod stuff to Soldat's core (aka "recoding it from scratch in delphi") too much for the next version?

[duz]

I don't care about these bugs and I think that many of other players too. It will not change anything, ANYTHING. It's the same problems since ever and it will not turn again the best game we ever played. You and the other guys are just practicing your code skills. Why you don't back with your "Soldat clone" project? It's much more promising than waste your  little time fixing little bugs, and the worst, eluding players that love this game (and spent much time on it) and hope that one day, doesn't matter (sometimes it will matter) how far is this day, the Soldat will back as a good game.

Another point: Fixing these bugs will not stop the retirement of some players and call the attention for new players.

It's sad to see some communities losing many players and no one do anything effective to stop it. In my country (Brazil - The biggest Soldat community ever) no one cares anymore, just newbies, cheaters and 1% of the good players (national team playing the swc are bored, they just play gathers for practice and here we go to the swc!) still playing.

Good luck and ignore my opinion if you think that will save this game.

[jrgp]

I don't care about these bugs and I think that many of other players too. It will not change anything, ANYTHING. It's the same problems since ever and it will not turn again the best game we ever played. You and the other guys are just practicing your code skills. Why you don't back with your "Soldat clone" project? It's much more promising than waste your  little time fixing little bugs, and the worst, eluding players that love this game (and spent much time on it) and hope that one day, doesn't matter (sometimes it will matter) how far is this day, the Soldat will back as a good game.

Another point: Fixing these bugs will not stop the retirement of some players and call the attention for new players.

It's sad to see some communities losing many players and no one do anything effective to stop it. In my country (Brazil - The biggest Soldat community ever) no one cares anymore, just newbies, cheaters and 1% of the good players (national team playing the swc are bored, they just play gathers for practice and here we go to the swc!) still playing.

Good luck and ignore my opinion if you think that will save this game.

What would help is if you would instead tell us which bugs are important enough to fix instead of just telling us to stop fixing useless ones.

[Dusty]

which bugs are important enough to fix instead of just telling us to stop fixing useless ones.

you can't be serious... eats? it's been the main problem of soldat since the very first versions and you still act like you don't know what he's talking about.

[DutchFlame]

seems like a one day work for me. Anyway as stated before, work on stuff people want, not some old crap we've never even mentioned or isnt that much of an issue..comeon if you want to save this game then dont come with random useless fixes everyweek none cares about them.

[DutchFlame]

which bugs are important enough to fix instead of just telling us to stop fixing useless ones.

you can't be serious... eats? it's been the main problem of soldat since the very first versions and you still act like you don't know what he's talking about.

[Bonecrusher]

like your whining could change anything, actually get these people to post bugs on bugs.soldat.pl so as many can get fixed instead of posting useless stuff on soldatforums. Plus soldat is still a good game, there are bugs in each game released annually[horses psychics in skyrim] and dont compare skyrims dev team to soldats dev team cause skyrim guys actually get PAID


Looking forward for the new release, also if eats were so easy to be fixed they'd be fixed throughout the version history, obviously its more complicated than we think and requires whole net protocol recoding which i suspect is a lot of work

also

(Brazil - The biggest Soldat community ever)

wat

[Shoozza]

you can't be serious... eats? it's been the main problem of soldat since the very first versions and you still act like you don't know what he's talking about.

Sadly fixing the hit/eat bug at this point in time isn't a good idea as the server and client network code is still not in sync.
We need to get them cleaned up  first which takes time.

Also for some reason people are not adding bugs they know to the bugtracker.
If you want to get the hit/eat bug fixed well then add it.
I don't play Soldat as often as our loyal players do, so you cannot expect me to know how to reproduce every common bug.

Lets say: If the bug isn't on the bugtracker then i don't know about it. Which means it wont get fixed.

seems like a one day work for me. Anyway as stated before, work on stuff people want, not some old crap we've never even mentioned or isnt that much of an issue..comeon if you want to save this game then dont come with random useless fixes everyweek none cares about them.

Well fixing and adding features to Soldat isn't that easy. Even a small fix can eat up hours of time.

The devlog is there to keep you people up to date and what you read is what I did last week. If it isn't impressive for you, well, then it isn't. I don't have to tell lies here to make you feel exited.
The sad truth is that the last week there was the most active week this year.


One point about retirement of old players: People move on, thats how it is, there are new players too - I saw a few the other day.
Your view is very negative though. There are still people working on Soldat which imho is good. Also Painting a bad future isn't helpful.

[DutchFlame]

its quite simple, you step on a grenade and in 5 of the 10 times when in a server ofcourse you fucking eat the grenade. This is also the same with bullets and alot of other crap.

Also if there is any mapfixing then I do not understand how things happen for example in Ash at some random moment the flag decides to just slide on the wall and end up being mid. how is that supposed to happen. Also being able to throw nades through walls is something that should already been gone, at some part in 1.4.2 or something it was gone and after that version it came back.. get rid of these old shitty bugs :! Its not that im not satisfied or anything about your updates, I mean we've had multiple updates and so far good job, but there should be a time those big troubles needs to get worked on. And this so called ''eating'' thing has been here from the start of the game, so that should be the main problem being worked with? And even I know as not even a developer that its just part of having a badly written netcode..

[Shoozza]

I guess the map bugs which were reported on the bugtracker got a fix.

If there are more bugs add them please.

[Tehbugerz0r]

Good to hear progress is being made, although I hope you (and to clarify, by "you" I mean Soldat Development) give some attention to script core too before the next release, it gets very limited very quickly and is an important part of Soldat servers.

[Shoozza]

Good to hear progress is being made, although I hope you (and to clarify, by "you" I mean Soldat Development) give some attention to script core too before the next release, it gets very limited very quickly and is an important part of Soldat servers.

Your request isn't very clear as to what needs to change.
You mind linking to scriptcore suggestions/idea post or bugreports that you think should get the our attention?

[CurryWurst]

Really now, you hire new developers almost day after day and most of them retire after a short period without having left any significant impact on Soldat's code (at least nothing that is apparent to us through updates).

I really don't intend any offence, but it is about time to get not only capable and interested people, but people who are highly motivated and passionated to work on the mess MM left. Developers who can devote more than just a single day per week to fix stuff that really concerns us. One of them being the scriptcore, whose impact on Soldat's life cycle has almost been neglected entirely in my opinion. Customization has been the key for a long product life cycle for many games and has yield highly eligible developers who produce new valuable content that keeps a game interesting. You could mention outstanding games like Quake, Half-Life, Doom and Mount & Blade here, which are unprecedented when it comes to modding.

What I suggest is a developer taken from the community who only cares about the scriptcore. There are three member who have vigorously shown their ambition to improve the scriptcore in many ways: DorkeyDear, FalconPL and Mr. Give Soldat another chance and engage at least one of them!

[Bonecrusher]

yea scriptcore update would be good, also few additional functions may come in handy lets hope they actually pick someone to fulfill this task

[Falcon`]

scriptcore needs polishing first. It's a bloody mess, even if you know what to expect from it.

[Tehbugerz0r]

What I suggest is a developer taken from the community who only cares about the scriptcore. There are three member who have vigorously shown their ambition to improve the scriptcore in many ways: DorkeyDear, FalconPL and Mr. Give Soldat another chance and engage at least one of them!

I don't know much about the other two(No offence), but I certainly don't know why DorkeyDear isn't a developer, I thought he just didn't want to be. He's shown to be a trustworthy, helpful, dedicated and skilled programmer.
Vote DorkeyDear for SoldatServer Dev! After years of use, he probably knows Script Core better than the people who made it.

...Now I think about it though, I don't think the developers are chosen by community opinion.