Game Development: In Otter News

[KwonChiMin]

Pls make so those otters eat spawned clams... Cause now they are just another boring fuckers on water.

[DaniAngione]

they are just another boring fuckers on water.

(in otter unrelated news, I love the idea of them eating clams!)

[Tanchist]

Custom clients did their work. Custom or official, all clients require current data from the game server to operate. And all of them receive it, if they know how to ask. Well, the names or paths to that data were changed overnight. Official client knows the new names of the same old stuff while the custom clients ask for the old names and receive errors.

If the changing of names/paths was not made to F custom clients, was made for, say, optimising something, shortening names, something like that, then why did they not warn the custom client makers a few days before doing it? 24 hours, or maybe even less if it was an emergency. But why not say you will make changes that will render all of them unusable before doing it, so that they can be prepared and post their own new client version almost as soon as the new official version hits? Because that is the very purpose of the names and path changes, maybe? Who knows?

[Redlaw]

beavers should cut down trees as otters should mash open claim with rocks (cause they do they do love that tasty seafood).

[KwonChiMin]

If the changing of names/paths was not made to F custom clients, was made for, say, optimising something, shortening names, something like that, then why did they not warn the custom client makers a few days before doing it? 24 hours, or maybe even less if it was an emergency. But why not say you will make changes that will render all of them unusable before doing it, so that they can be prepared and post their own new client version almost as soon as the new official new version hits? Because that is the very purpose of the names and path changes, maybe? Who knows?

That`s one is angry tinfoil hat customer. Pls make a hat for him to buy next patch.

[loftar]

Pls make so those otters eat spawned clams...

I strongly considered that, but never got around to it.

But why not say you will make changes that will render all of them unusable before doing it

I can't know every little detail that they've made themselves dependent on. When I know I'm breaking something I do indeed tend to issue warnings, and often even provide for periods of forward compatibility so that both old and new clients can be used simultaneously. This may also be a good time to stop and consider that not all games -- rather few, in fact -- have open-source clients at all, and also that there are people on the forum who argue that I should close the client down and prevent custom clients from existing.

[Artemiswhb]

Custom clients did their work. Custom or official, all clients require current data from the game server to operate. And all of them receive it, if they know how to ask. Well, the names or paths to that data were changed overnight. Official client knows the new names of the same old stuff while the custom clients ask for the old names and receive errors.

If the changing of names/paths was not made to F custom clients, was made for, say, optimising something, shortening names, something like that, then why did they not warn the custom client makers a few days before doing it? 24 hours, or maybe even less if it was an emergency. But why not say you will make changes that will render all of them unusable before doing it, so that they can be prepared and post their own new client version almost as soon as the new official version hits? Because that is the very purpose of the names and path changes, maybe? Who knows?

You could also, perhaps, look into what's causing it?
Some custom clients made the dynamic code inside resources static, so it crashes when loftar adds a new method or adds new data to said DYNAMIC code, which does not exist in the static code inside the client.
You can't blame loftar for this, it's impossible to know what every custom client does.

Stop crying.

[MagicManICT]

@Tanchist: you do realise that loftar has made the client open source for a lot of reasons, one of those being that "professional modders" will often provide a better user interface than a systems and server programmer will, which is what loftar is. (From what I've gathered from conversations around the forums... the client coding is something he's done out of necessity, skillfully, but not with the panache of an expert user interface designer. There's a reason people specialize in this stuff.)

Look at games like World of Warcraft, other major MMOs, and even single player games. Quite frequently when the chance to legitimately mod the game comes around, the players come up with better stuff than the original developers. Sometimes the developers co-opt the mods and make their own versions to improve things (loftar has done this on many occassions), and other times they just let the modders keep plugging away at updates and such. "Launch day compatibility" is an issue they all have, too, because of last second tweaks and bug fixes.

In other words, get over the rant. If you're using Amber, romovs is exceptional at getting updates out for his modded client, even if it's a bunch of small things. Either learn to use the standard client for playing and be thankful that you have mods to make life easier, or just log in and do what is necessary to keep the cows from dying and the steel from going out until the update is pushed.

[ChildhoodObesity]

its youre

smooth

GREAT UPDATE LOVING THE NEW HATS AND STUFF!!!!

[Astarisk]

Best update yet, not that I'm biased or anything.