Coding for credits.

[OldManAlewar]

For my bachelors minor of Open Source and Open Content i have to "find a community and contribute code to it"

i guess you guys can figure where my code is going.

my question is: what features would people like that are total gravy (ie: nothing worldshattering)

i have 9 slots of 8 hours to fill/code, so i'd like to hear what luxury features you people would like to see...

Colibri (and staff) this is your moment to chime in, if you guys just wanna "assign" a task, im open to it.

currently i'm working on a (rather expensive) armor upgrade system (working proof-of-concept)

[+Colibri]

Good good... well from the staff side, both +Zandor and +Osiris are learning coding, and +Zandor is on a roll and just yesterday glued together his first not-so-simple script.

The big news here is that i plan on making a "SDK" for UOEx... it will be a very old version of the scripts, just with the tokens, special ores, and a few of the custom mobiles... but I'll trim it a little bit so it wont contain everything we have in at the moment. Not sure whether to make this SDK available to the public or just to individuals (on request).

Maybe I should make a forum and give a few of you moderator access and when you get something done you email it and then a GM spawns it. There's just the problem of server crashes that will occur if someone unexperienced made an advanced script... O btw, all of the felucca dungeons are still default, and I think that would be a good place to put the customs... start with one dungeon and continue on to the next one. Well one or two dungeons could also be customized in trammel.

[Rote]

Maybe I should make a forum and give a few of you moderator access and when you get something done you email it and then a GM spawns it. There's just the problem of server crashes that will occur if someone unexperienced made an advanced script... O btw, all of the felucca dungeons are still default, and I think that would be a good place to put the customs... start with one dungeon and continue on to the next one. Well one or two dungeons could also be customized in trammel.

But that would be what one of your test shards would be good for Coli. That way, you could give the forum you were talking about, a link to start or restart the test server, and a script to restore a certain point if it repeatedly crashes on load. And it would not affect the 'published' shard...

[+Colibri]

Hmm that gives me an idea... a separate Virtual Private Server, with just the basic stuff on it, and all the scripts would be locked away (NTFS perms), except for one folder where people could put their stuff in. Well it wouldn't be accessible to all, just those who need it. Or i could cook up something with PHP and a web-based console but i think that's too complicated.

Then we form a "board of developers" and if a script is verified by at least 2 people it's good to go.

Btw i was just working on the existing garden script, ugh how did this author gather the courage to sign his name on this piece of confusion

Does anyone maybe know of a "command prompt -thru- php" script? I've googled a litte but nothing showed up. The web based thing would be the best because it would be accessible to everybody.

[+Rayne]

But that would be what one of your test shards would be good for Coli. That way, you could give the forum you were talking about, a link to start or restart the test server, and a script to restore a certain point if it repeatedly crashes on load. And it would not affect the 'published' shard

I believe a reason that Colibri would not neccesarily want to use the test server for such 'freelance' scripting is because:

It is a dedicated test server, meaning, it is only used for testing things that will become part of Excelsior, after much conversation about it. Basically, the scripts go onto the test server right before the real server, and have already been approved, but simply need a test run. (Yes, we are even 'clean' with the test server. )

A 'playground' type test server could be a place where, scripts are loaded, but will not neccesarily end up on Excelsior. It would moreso be a place where total experimentation could occur.

This does not mean there would be lack of discussion before scripts would be loaded (as server crashes are not exactly fun to deal with, and will be avoided as much as possible), but it would be a place to simply create random ideas and concepts and see them come to life.

I can't speak for Colibri, but this would be my reasoning for avoiding the use of the Excelsior test server for this purpose.

+Rayne

[+Colibri]

Well there's currently 3 servers:
- The main one
- The development one (on my personal computer)
- The test one that runs on the same computer as the server, but isn't online all the time

Of course, if i did this "sandbox" one, it wouldn't be related to any of those.

But maybe i'd make another completely separate one and give access... I'll think about it...

[OldManAlewar]

i can has cvs ?

[+Colibri]

Hehe will you be needing a letter of recommendation from the project manager?

CVS or SVN, hmm might be a good thing to have.... Which did they teach you was better?

In any way, a script suppository would be a good thing to have

[OldManAlewar]

yes, i will.

or at least verifiable cred' for stuff i made. (lets say, in the dev update post)

they dont teach the practical side of project management, hehe. SVN is newer.

[+Colibri]

Ok then... you need this by the end of this study year (june '09) or in a month?
I will make this but it might not be available till the end of the month...

[OldManAlewar]

i need to spend 8 hours per week for the next 8-9 weeks, log it, and have it confirmed by whoever i turn the code in to. (you)

[+Colibri]

Ok then i guess i can make the installing of the SVN and getting the thing running a priority, but still I can't do it in the next few days. Maybe next weekend it will be up.

[OldManAlewar]

thats fine, +zandor had some stuff for me to do wich i can do on my devbox, and i still have the armor upgrade system in que (should take about 3/9 timeslots i have)

[+Colibri]

Hehe, if you want some from my todo list, here are some things that don't require changing the distro files.

- Ethereal person shroud (when equipping, it saves hues of all your clothes, and sets them to Movable=false. It sets all your clothes to hue 22222 and your skin too. When taking it off, it reverses the actions).
- Enhance the cooking menu with items that restore hp,stam,mana, or give temp bonus str dex int
- Stat scrolls for individual stats (on doubleclick if your current stat is lower than the one it would give you, it displays a gump and if you confirm it proceeds. The gump should be the same as with the regular stat scrolls from the harrower)
- Bag for combining powerscrolls. When you put 7 powerscrolls of the same type in that bag, it deletes them and adds 1 powerscroll with +5 limit. So, 7x110 gives 1x115, ... etc. The max can be 120, except with fighting skills, where one can combine 7x120 to get a 125 (this i think will be 5x120 coz getting 7 120s is a bit too much for just +5 skill)
- A robe that changes colors as you walk. The colors shouldn't change too noticably, which means you should use the hues from the south side of the hue room.

[OldManAlewar]

that first shroud migth be atricky one, dont wanna get the hartwood 'feature' hehehe

as for the cooking menu: my idea is as follows
baked 'special fish' with gingseng and other regs, that will give 4x the effect of thein uncooked cousins
(and also, affect trhe resulting hp/stam/mana in stead of their respective base stats)


as for the rest, it looks doable

p.s. classnames for mithral were mithralIngot, mithralIngot3, mithralIngot5 ... right ?