Roadmap part 1

[Johnny Warren]

Way to go man!

[MagicUser]

Love the setup. When are you getting the fourth screen? Full emersion experience .

Dictionaries are an awesome way to modularize code while maintaining human readability. Love to see it.

Also love to hear that you are implementing some unit testing. I wish you luck for that, especially if there are no current unit tests. I suppose it will be a good opportunity to comb through the code and find things you didn't realize were there. Hopefully there aren't too many monsters lurking in the dark.

[Alamiester]

lol tests are as is in game...for sure, id love alot of things thows...

[Alamiester]

combineing thre code is what nobody wants to do....pretty obvious...

[+Colibri]

Just looking back, yes I did indeed miss the mark
Well, there was still a lot of random non-UO responsibilities to be done, I guess in late November I was off the hook. And I was quite productive since then, minus the 2 weeks around the holidays and an occasional week where a bunch of errands ruin my plans for getting into the zone and getting stuff done.

I'm currently focusing on wrapping up the gist of this system. With 2 notable usable systems to be somewhat presentable.
- Idea prioritization system, so we can dump it all in and then you all can vote on what you'd like to see first.
- "Scoped gamemastery" aka "contextual commands", for example ability for a group of players to have access to gamemaster functions in a specific area, but also specific to which kinds of items can be created there, what item graphics can be used, etc...
I've tried to remove all distractions and my mark for this is March 15th.


All parts of the system I'm currently working on, or touching up, or integrating together:
- Database caching, so that some piece of configuration or in-game-object definition, or document (e.g. AFK penalty) stays cached on the server and can be shared between different pieces of the game/code/system.
- Modular code, so that when some functionality is added (or a bug is fixed) I just hot-swap the module with the newer version, while the old remains active on the server. If the new one has problems, i can quickly switch back. (for example with Contextual Commands, it's possible to set which version which which command you want to use... so when i make an improvment to something, i can use that improved version for a week (or a few beta-testers), and then if it all works good it gets set as the default one).
- Built-in unit testing... basically I just hit CTRL+S in the editor, the server recompiles that file and runs unit tests, and replaces the existing code with the new one.
- Contextual commands... basically being able to be a GM but in a specified area, and using specificed access to what kinds of objects one can create/spawn, what properties can be read or written to. This includes some GM interfaces like the [props gump.
- Proper parsing of commands, where parts can be reused and is unit-testable, instead of just using argString.Split(' ');
- Permissions... abstract definitions of what is allowed, this is then used in Contextual Commands and GM menus.
- Some cool new way to design gumps.
- CSS-like stacking of configuration "documents", like i described here: viewtopic.php?p=83270#p83270
Hmm, I counted something like 15 "parts" of this system but right now this is what I have in my mind.


Anyway, working on this as hard and fast as I can. Looking forward when this "scoped gamemastery" it's usable to the point where I can grant a few people access, because I know a lot of you would like to be part of it, or help out either by building new stuff in the world or just help out with AFK checks and GM errands. And for the idea system so we can dump all of it in and have a structured discussion/input/feedback about the various aspects of the ideas that we all have. Will update again when there's something to update about.

[Praise]

Sounds wonderful! Keep up the great work!

[Johnny Warren]

Cheers for the update, most of that made little sense to me (the coding part). I must admit I like the idea of the "Scoped Gamemastery" thing, but, have reservations about how it is implemented. Ability to abuse it, be vengeful etc seems high. Then there's the feel bad moment when certain players are given some pretty serious privileges and others are deemed unworthy. I know I personally would love the ability to conduct AFK and dual client checks on players. I am often very active when you are not and see some highly suspicious stuff.

[arrow]

Tapping the creativity of players is an excellent look forward to development and I believe everyone will be surprised at the extent to which people will rise to the challenge. Greatly looking forward to this addition!

[Cerrera]

Humm, i guess there will be needed also some help gump/list of tools , which will show available commands, only thing i messed with is sphereserver many years ago , perhaps there can be some additions from than to now, and [ instead of . etc... some players maybe didn't tried such at all. And sounds exciting

[Eremite]

I'm also pretty excited about the scoped GM abilities and the idea of getting some more creative types to fill in some of the emptier areas, re-work some of the abandoned dungeons, etc. There's of course risk to it, but with proper audit logs of commands/etc and the scoped context (and the threat of dire consequences for cheating), I'm sure he'll be able to find some trustworthy people to work on stuff.

Another suggestion on a similar vein that I think I've mentioned before - it would probably be nice to have an audit of non-static items that could be frozen to the .mul files to improve lag when going into certain areas and reduce server networking overhead (Town Center, that big fort in Felucca, a lot of places come to mind). It can be a bit awkward at first as you freeze items to static and they go invisible until patched, but patching system/launcher can get around this. I've set this up before and could probably make some suggestions if needed.

On a similar vein - how would you feel about accepting UO Architect submissions to be placed as statics in the world as long as they're appropriately themed, etc? It might be a neat way to build out a new dungeon offline, freeze it to a UO Architect build file, then have it placed in-world.

Also @Cerrera : There's a tool for that already that's super nice until you get a good grasp of the commands (and even after then in some cases) called Pandora's Box : https://uo.wzk.cz/pandoras-box3/

[Wil]

Looking forward when this "scoped gamemastery" it's usable to the point where I can grant a few people access, because I know a lot of you would like to be part of it, or help out either by building new stuff in the world or just help out with AFK checks and GM errands.

Hi +C,

Speaking of scoped gamemastery, what's the hold up on getting editors back on the wiki? The information there is getting pretty dated and I know there are folks like me who'd be happy to help.

Regards,
Wil

[MagicUser]

I also would love to help with the wiki. Or at least finish the The Karate Quest edit. I got to write "I like to eat pie." (a 15+ character phrase) to prove that I could edit the wiki during the authorization glitch and then correct it to something that was actually appropriate for the wiki right before I lost access.

editors back on the wiki

[Geriatric]

yes, editors back on the wiki would be very handy
alot of that information is out of date, its a rough guide at best

[+Colibri]

Just a quick update, I had some computer problems which took a week to figure out, and another few days of just RL stuff getting in the way, some random stuff in the shard too, so I'm basically 2 weeks behind schedule. Got my computer all fixed up, so continuing on... Currently making the [props gump to work with the new permissions, I'm not upgrading the old gump but I'm just making the whole code from scratch. Quite far ahead with it.

[Praise]

Carry on!