Author Topic: Devlog update (2015-07-25) New gui theme, urraka joins team, landing page mockup  (Read 13671 times)

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Offline Shoozza

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Hello everyone,

it has been a long time since the last devlog... Time to start posting again!



We have a new devteam member: urraka!
He joined a few weeks ago and is working on some soldat 1.6.10/1.7 related stuff.

The rest of the team is basically gone. I haven't heard from anyone except once from ExHunter.
I was also idle for some time and only helped urraka when he had questions, but that changed recently.

The SCTFL banner in the nagcreen is now integrated. The banner system needed to be rewritten as we used some old framework and it was easier to remove it than to invest more time fixing.

The soldat gui will get a new theme. I tweaked the colors a bit. I like the new look. Let me know what you think about it ;)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2394029/Screenshots/2015-07-25%2015_19_23-Soldat.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2394029/Screenshots/2015-07-25%2015_19_46-Soldat.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2394029/Screenshots/2015-07-25%2015_20_08-Soldat.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2394029/Screenshots/2015-07-25%2015_20_28-Soldat.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2394029/Screenshots/2015-07-25%2015_20_40-Soldat.png

Furai helped with the soldat website. We finally have the reg.exe in the download section of the site. He also add the missing 1.6.8 patch link and
added an automatic redirect from the site the client points to when you click on the register button.

That inspired me start to work on a new landing page design.

For Soldat 1.6.9 to be released we need to fix 4 more bugs (see http://bugs.soldat.pl/view_all_bug_page.php)

And that's it for now.
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Offline CheeSeMan.

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Thanks for the update =) good to see a new dev member, I hope he can inspire some new activity in the dev team.

Good luck urraka!
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Offline Furai

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Wow, am I famous now?
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Offline urraka

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Good luck urraka!

Thanks! I'm urraka by the way.
urraka

DarkCrusade

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Kudos for the update! And a warm welcome to urraka, it is nice to see a new face on the team.

I am following the progress. :)

Offline homerofgods

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About the new gui theme, I agree it was good to get rid of the sharp red color, but now there's no logic in difference between white text and gray text.

Example:

 

Here you see that ''Bot Team:'' has white text, and it looks good.
But ''Random Bots:'' should also have white text don't you think?

Also, it looks stupid for ''Maps'' as a headline to be grayed out as a headline, while ''Loop'' is white and is standing out too much compared to the headline.

Perhaps you need to make everything white text, not gray?

Offline DutchFlame

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holy shit a darker theme

sure as hell ready for steam now

l m f a o

Offline L[0ne]R

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Quite a few readability issues with the new theme unfortunately. The [^][v] buttons are very dark (though I understand those are default colors). Text in general is also too dark, especially section headers which really blend with the background. Team colors look very washed out.

My suggestions:

« Last Edit: July 26, 2015, 09:46:58 pm by L[0ne]R »

Offline Shoozza

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I don't use #FFFFFF because it's too light.
The Header text could be bit lighter, i agree.
The Button color cannot be changed in this way.
For me your Alpha, Bravo, etc text has a few issues: alpha is hardly readable, delta is too saturated.
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Offline Ussocom

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holy shit a darker theme

sure as hell ready for steam now

l m f a o

LOOOOOOOL

Offline Bistoufly

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FFFFFF is just too harsh. Let's find a middle ground.

Oh and can Dutchflame shut the hell up already?


Offline duz

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Questions:

No engine updates coming? A "fix" for the streched graphics etc?
What Urraka is doing?
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Offline L[0ne]R

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For me your Alpha, Bravo, etc text has a few issues: alpha is hardly readable, delta is too saturated.

Yeah, I'm noticing that too now. Not sure why I didn't notice that earlier, maybe because I had different display color settings.

Normal text should still be bright enough though. If not pure white - at least something very close to it. If Soldat had thicker fonts and was designed for larger resolutions from the start - that'd be fine. But if you want to keep supporting 640x480 with current UI - it's very important to keep good contrast for all text because of how small it is on low resolutions.

Anyway, here's a new version, with tweaked team colors and normal text:


Offline Shoozza

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@Bistofly:
Please don't give them the attention they cry for.
If there is something valuable I should read however, point me to it.

@DutchFlame:
I have to remove you from the beta team, as your behavior might make people think it is ok to act this way in this community.

@duz
Can you please point me to a bugtracker entry for this streched graphics bug? I'm not sure I know it ;)
I will reveal what urraka is working on once it is done, sorry.

@L[0ne]R
I'll apply the lighter color for the fonts. I still think the team text colors I chose are better though so I'll probably keep them for now.
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Offline Ussocom

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welcome urraka


Please don't give them the attention they cry for.
If there is something valuable I should read however, point me to it.

lots of trolling at sctfl.net yes, but also home of the most active players.  Many people agree and mention irc integration is a must.



Offline Shoozza

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I can understand that irc integration is very popular for the sctfl players as they use it a lot, but im not sure how the integration should look like and how it would be better than using your irc client.
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Offline homerofgods

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Isn't the issue that young kids today doesn't even know what irc is? They just want to chat through the game itself.

I suggest making an account system with chat and stats as part of it. Also, if people use cheats they will get their account banned, so they would loose stats, friends and registration connected to thir account.

Offline Ussocom

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I can understand that irc integration is very popular for the sctfl players as they use it a lot, but im not sure how the integration should look like and how it would be better than using your irc client.

It wouldn't be for the sctfl players actually since like you said we already use mIRC or something similar, it's to bridge the gap between public players and gather players- having a more user friendly way to see the competitive activity.  90% or more of public players today don't even know what a 'gather' is, better yet IRC.  With our flawed system of IRC/Gathers basically being isolated from the rest of soldat with no new players replacing the old retired ones it has dwindled down over the years.  And on the flip side of that experienced public players having nothing to improve for/ or challenge gets boring fast.

In my opinion I think it should be on the tab that shows all of the servers available to join (maybe an expanded section on the right side) with the most popular channel (#gather.eu) pre-loaded.  People would see players talking in the channel and be able to talk, add/join ask questions, get info w/e.  It could always be on a separate tab if that was easier.

 

Offline DutchFlame

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nobody cares anymore shoozza.. the beta team was dead 3 years ago, many people tried

game is dead anytime soon

nobody listened to anyone.. look where we're at. i suggest you get a red interface in the next 5 years that might attract players
im done watching people ruin a game by working on it as their hobby.

just stop embarassing yourself. goodbye


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Goodbye DutchFlame, 'twas nice mifriend.

Offline Zakumy

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Good to see u guys are back, god it's been so long.
The new UI is flat-design inspired tho, I like it. ;D
My love to Soldat is eternal, forever and always

Offline CheeSeMan.

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daed gaem?
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Offline aint`bazz

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soldat is losing its path to light, needs its rewrite/port to newer tech,
its just being ducktaped ..

..in a world where game engines as Unreal and Unity have become free and indie games whit graphics
..that are so far from here, would take to the moon and back...

i would support rewrite.. just affraid that could be too much effort.. what gives .. go open source

i mean how could you find light, if you are here, it means that path of light is blocked, the link to the past,
you have to return back to the Source. Change the essence of what the soldat is ,  spark the life of light.

Spark the life of light!

Offline %%%%%%%

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soldat is losing its path to light, needs its rewrite/port to newer tech,
its just being ducktaped ..

..in a world where game engines as Unreal and Unity have become free and indie games whit graphics
..that are so far from here, would take to the moon and back...

i would support rewrite.. just affraid that could be too much effort.. what gives .. go open source

i mean how could you find light, if you are here, it means that path of light is blocked, the link to the past,
you have to return back to the Source. Change the essence of what the soldat is ,  spark the life of light.

Spark the life of light!
Got a little corny with that metaphor at the end, but agree 100%.

Go open source. That's all y'all need to do.

After, someone is bound to rewrite/port to a more modern code/engine and give this game a breath of life (and maybe put it on Steam).

Offline homerofgods

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I don't see how open source would make any difference. If someone is genuinly interrested in improving soldat they can just ask Shoozza and start working.

Offline aint`bazz

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There is difference..this game belongs to MM.
You are asking that we should put our highest efforts developing game for him,
 if we talk about something more that "just improving".

Open source atleast protects you work.

idk, i see problem in people.


Offline Furai

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Like Shoozza has explained many times in the past - Soldat can't be open sourced until the code gets cleaned from some proprietary libraries it uses. So at the moment we need developers who want to work on that.
"My senses are so powerful that I can hear the blood pumping through your veins."

Offline aint`bazz

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So..thats it..i believe i should PM Shoozza.  ::)


Offline nouefexe

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Like Shoozza has explained many times in the past - Soldat can't be open sourced until the code gets cleaned from some proprietary libraries it uses. So at the moment we need developers who want to work on that.
that does not make sense ! MM's libraries ? how cant u release your own proprietary libraries?

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He used commercial libraries not his own. Pretty simple

Offline jrgp

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Like Shoozza has explained many times in the past - Soldat can't be open sourced until the code gets cleaned from some proprietary libraries it uses. So at the moment we need developers who want to work on that.
He used commercial libraries not his own. Pretty simple

I call bullshit a little bit on this claim.

Propriety libraries don't mean shit if the rest of Soldat's code is released under public domain or a non restrictive license such as BSD.

It isn't like Shoozza would be leaking the sources to the proprietary libraries; Soldat is just linking to them.

Personally, I'd love to see Soldat put up on GitHub along with working build instructions.That way anyone can pick it up and submit pull requests. Having Shoozza and his team of inactive devs be the bottleneck isn't ideal.
« Last Edit: October 15, 2015, 04:12:48 am by jrgp »
There are other worlds than these

Offline aint`bazz

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Whit parts that is "yours" you can do whatever you want.

You could simply  release code not including libraries themselves.
Even if there is some licensed proprietary code in soldat code base itself,
you could simply delete it, replace whit empty placeholder and put description on it.
..and continue work from there, when is open source.

In case if the goal was to not wait any longer and publish code.



« Last Edit: October 15, 2015, 06:02:47 am by aint`bazz »

Offline CheeSeMan.

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Yes just get it on github already
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Offline Shoozza

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We are very open when it comes to people joining the dev team and helping us.
If you want to help you can. We help you to setup the everything you need to start.
I did this several times for jrgp for example.

I don't want to open source soldat at this point as would harm our players, we already have issues with cheaters and this would make it even worse.

* It would make it easier for Hack developers to write cheats.
* We don't have an anticheat so people could modify soldats code and implement their own cheats.
* Netcode changes are required to avoid packet based cheats.
* Someone could build malicious versions of the game and distribute them (happened to Paint.Net that's why it is closed source again).
* Someone could try to sell the game on app stores (happened to wolfire games http://blog.wolfire.com/2011/02/Counterfeit-Lugaru-on-Apple-s-App-Store-developing).

Some of the commercial library part is already resolved. You have to remove a few hundred lines of code in several files and it would compile with missing features.
Releasing a non working build is sub optimal. You don't want to burn potential contributors like that.
It is unnecessary work to have two versions of the game in two repositories which you need to sync.
That's why you want to replace or wrap all the commercial libraries.

That said Github is no magic bullet. You need exposure as well. People who really care are already part of the team.

I understand that people are unhappy with the progress and I'll have to get stuff moving again.
« Last Edit: October 16, 2015, 08:48:11 am by Shoozza »
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Offline aint`bazz

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Just arguing....

paint.net story seems to be about is credit stealing ,
author got sick than others try to misrepresent his work , and thats 2007!
(http://blog.getpaint.net/2007/12/04/freeware-authors-beware-of-%E2%80%9Cbackspaceware%E2%80%9D/)


about wolfire.. it was good opportunity for thiefs  as they could sold cheaper alternative,,
 in this case it would be free anyway...why bother for low chances to earn

well funny enough the author on same page says

How could releasing the source code affect your game in any way but positively?

haha

just arguing...


Ehhh..feels like i turn spirits down...maybe i just argue too much.
« Last Edit: October 18, 2015, 06:28:22 am by aint`bazz »