oidin
31.10.2007, 15:20
Happy Halloween Everyone!
This week we decided to do a Q&A style newsletter. So we asked our supporting communities to send us each 4 questions. These are some really good questions and with out further delay lets dive into them.
TG's questions:
Q1: We were told crafting was mostly completed many months ago (as per the video published and released by SWGANH) and even without experimentation, nothing has appeared on the Quality Assurance Testing Center. Is SWGANH intending on initializing the Public Preview with nothing to craft?
A: Yes crafting is fully reversed and the video is from our dummy core. Sorry but crafting will not be in the preview. There are many other systems that need to be added before we move to that part of the code.
Q2: Has sharing information become "less popular" among the other emulator teams (such as SWGPreCU and OpenSWG) as it has among the general community and non-emulator (but related) projects, as your data collection continues to grow? In other words, have previously-opened doors been recently shut for any reason in particular?
A: Nope, ANH is still up for the sharing aspect between teams, we haven’t really had any official requests from any of the teams lately. There’s also a drive now to sort out all of our documentation, which will most likely become public once the project has been released. The current wiki features over 5000 pages worth of SWG related information covering anything from the low level packet layer documentation all the way to stuff like spawn locations, spawn details, profession details, …
Q3: It seems as though ANH representatives are always running from site-to-site with a ball chained to their ankles. What can the supporting server communities do to help streamline intermediation and help SWGANH focus more on technical development?
A: Well we try our best to ensure that all the relevant communities are kept up to date on what is going on with both the team and the project alike, within the next few weeks the new website should be up offering both news as well as contact info for potential newcomers to the team.
Q4: Might SWGANH be able to identify the major and minor segments of the game, by features or functionality, and form a comprehensive list of such items, and use status indicators for each to perhaps help the lingering community know what's being worked on, what's next, and what hasn't even been touched? Doing so may help reduce questions and confusion.
A: Not a bad suggestion, we’ll discuss this internally and see if we can come up with some sort of system that would offer this type of service with the new swganh.com redesign…
SWGEMods questions:
Q1: Which of those tools mentioned are fully finished and how far are the others estimated completed?
A: Tools are rather open ended in many cases - they can usually be refined, as things are often learned in the process of making them, but time constraints may not allow for an immediate rewrite to improve the UI, add elements.
The other aspect - "done" for our purposes means "functional"; versions for production use will likely benefit from some more effort.
.trn editor - Reads .trn files and displays information graphically, but does not save new files yet; currently tabled in favor of other development
.tre maker - Progressing nicely
.ws editor - Done
.stf editor - Done
.iff editor - Done
.ilF editor - Done
Dashboard - In Development
ViewCap - In Development (An automated packet analyzer)
Schematic Tool - Done (used for easy database entry on the thousands of schematics)
DataTable Editor - Done (used for editing/reading the data tables)
Q2: Are most of the schematics in place with proper resources required?
A: About 1/3 of the schematics are in with full requirements for crafting them. All the starter professions are in. Rouse just put them on hold for a bit as he has been working long hours, but will be ready by the time crafting is in.
Q3: Is the sampling system full functional and totally randomized?
A: Yes, it’s fully randomized, resources are created in a dynamic fashion, and are controllable via the db templates. One thing remains to be done and that is the actual checks that will ‘replace’ a de-spawned resource, this will come at a later time…
Q4: Also one more thing how far are you guys in getting harvesters in, close, are they already in and functional, or are they a long way off from getting in the system?
A: All harvester stuff has been reversed by Schmunzel quite a long time ago, unfortunately they require a number of subsystems to be complete before they’ll be in line for implementation on the core.
Extreme Galaxies questions
Q1: Are there any new features/surprises the ANH team are going to
implement that are new to the Pre-CU world itself? If so, will there
be any in the preview?
A: Well the surprises we wont go into ;)
As far as new features that 'should' be available for the preview, you can expect to see all of the
Q2: Do you plan on releasing patches after you are done making and
distributing the game?
A: Yes. There are plans to keep on supporting the game once it's been released.
Q3: What feature have you yet to put in / make and what are your
priorities for the features you put in?
A: Some major work still remains to be done, mainly combat / crafting, looking from the game systems side.
Q4: Have you worked on or even thought about implementing the space
portion of the game?
A: Honestly, we haven’t even looked at JTL over the last 10 months or so, the last time we looked was when the spatial indexing was being discussed, and it was decided that JTL would be pushed out until after the official release due to major differences in spatial planning. The plan is to make the ground game fully functional and then introduce JTL.
Bria's Forsaken questions
Q1: What exactly will we be able to "do" in the preview?
A: Well, you can expect to see NPC populated planets, planetary travel, fully working bazaar, player trading, badge system to name a few things…
We wont go into the full list here, and will leave a few things as a surprise for when it actually does start…
Q2: Will we be able to use vehicles, gm created-not crafted? e.g.. (Will a gm be able to spawn one for us that’s useable?)
A: The preview will most likely not feature vehicles, bear in mind that anything that you see or hear about as being in the core is the final implementation, there’s no hard coding being done just for the sake of adding a feature in. This saves us time in the long run, and is more beneficial to the community, as it doesn’t require fixes / patches to be properly implemented.
Q3: Is JTL “Possibly” in the big release or still sometime after?
A: This will come in after the ground game is completed and ready.
Q4: Has scripting been implemented yet?
A: The basic framework has been designed and it’s currently being implemented. There are two sides to scripting here, there’s the internal scripting engine which is being done as we release this, along with an external scripting engine, which will allow communities to script game events amongst other things.
Galaxies Reborn questions
Q1: Can you describe the level of customization that ANH offers with regard to common attributes like the number of lots per character and the number of items within structures?
A: Customization is added as we progress, the two that you mention aren’t.
Q2: Will all wearable items have the color palette as was the case with composite armor?
A: We’re not sure at this time, as color changing hasn’t been implemented yet.
Q3: How is your relationship with other emulators? Are you on friendly terms? Do you share things?
A: Nothing has really changed on ANH’s perspective on the other teams.
Q4: Are mission MOBs spawning correctly? That was one of the worst bugs in SWG.
A: Not at this time, there are no missions or live mobs spawning at the moment. The only spawns are the static population spawns throughout the cities / POIs.
Euro Chimera questions
Q1: You've been working on it for a while now, was it harder than you thought?
A: Yes, SWG is a very complex game, it took a lot of reading and research as well as a lot of hard work to get where we are now, but on the other hand, it’s been a fun ride, we’ve met some great people within the growing swg community, over the year that we’ve been at this I can safely say that the team is a group of friends now, rather then just a bunch of people that come in, code for a few hrs and then disappear. All in all it’s hard but it’s a fun project to run with…
Q2: Do you think that the finished product will be true to the original?
A: We really aim to get everything in as it once was, but this part lies partly on the QA folks as well, and these folks have been amazing in tracking down bugs, as well as pointing out the details about how something functioned.
Q3: Have you started reversing combat, and do you have everything needed for that?
A: Combat has been fully documented, so it’s at a point now where it’s waiting for a few more systems to fall into place as well as scripting before it will be implemented…
Q4: Do you have any hint on an ETA?
A: “The dark side clouds everything. Impossible to see the future is.”
Thanks to all the communities for the questions it was fun answering them and we hope that this helps answer your questions.
Once again, thank you for your continued support from all of us here at SWGANH.
This week we decided to do a Q&A style newsletter. So we asked our supporting communities to send us each 4 questions. These are some really good questions and with out further delay lets dive into them.
TG's questions:
Q1: We were told crafting was mostly completed many months ago (as per the video published and released by SWGANH) and even without experimentation, nothing has appeared on the Quality Assurance Testing Center. Is SWGANH intending on initializing the Public Preview with nothing to craft?
A: Yes crafting is fully reversed and the video is from our dummy core. Sorry but crafting will not be in the preview. There are many other systems that need to be added before we move to that part of the code.
Q2: Has sharing information become "less popular" among the other emulator teams (such as SWGPreCU and OpenSWG) as it has among the general community and non-emulator (but related) projects, as your data collection continues to grow? In other words, have previously-opened doors been recently shut for any reason in particular?
A: Nope, ANH is still up for the sharing aspect between teams, we haven’t really had any official requests from any of the teams lately. There’s also a drive now to sort out all of our documentation, which will most likely become public once the project has been released. The current wiki features over 5000 pages worth of SWG related information covering anything from the low level packet layer documentation all the way to stuff like spawn locations, spawn details, profession details, …
Q3: It seems as though ANH representatives are always running from site-to-site with a ball chained to their ankles. What can the supporting server communities do to help streamline intermediation and help SWGANH focus more on technical development?
A: Well we try our best to ensure that all the relevant communities are kept up to date on what is going on with both the team and the project alike, within the next few weeks the new website should be up offering both news as well as contact info for potential newcomers to the team.
Q4: Might SWGANH be able to identify the major and minor segments of the game, by features or functionality, and form a comprehensive list of such items, and use status indicators for each to perhaps help the lingering community know what's being worked on, what's next, and what hasn't even been touched? Doing so may help reduce questions and confusion.
A: Not a bad suggestion, we’ll discuss this internally and see if we can come up with some sort of system that would offer this type of service with the new swganh.com redesign…
SWGEMods questions:
Q1: Which of those tools mentioned are fully finished and how far are the others estimated completed?
A: Tools are rather open ended in many cases - they can usually be refined, as things are often learned in the process of making them, but time constraints may not allow for an immediate rewrite to improve the UI, add elements.
The other aspect - "done" for our purposes means "functional"; versions for production use will likely benefit from some more effort.
.trn editor - Reads .trn files and displays information graphically, but does not save new files yet; currently tabled in favor of other development
.tre maker - Progressing nicely
.ws editor - Done
.stf editor - Done
.iff editor - Done
.ilF editor - Done
Dashboard - In Development
ViewCap - In Development (An automated packet analyzer)
Schematic Tool - Done (used for easy database entry on the thousands of schematics)
DataTable Editor - Done (used for editing/reading the data tables)
Q2: Are most of the schematics in place with proper resources required?
A: About 1/3 of the schematics are in with full requirements for crafting them. All the starter professions are in. Rouse just put them on hold for a bit as he has been working long hours, but will be ready by the time crafting is in.
Q3: Is the sampling system full functional and totally randomized?
A: Yes, it’s fully randomized, resources are created in a dynamic fashion, and are controllable via the db templates. One thing remains to be done and that is the actual checks that will ‘replace’ a de-spawned resource, this will come at a later time…
Q4: Also one more thing how far are you guys in getting harvesters in, close, are they already in and functional, or are they a long way off from getting in the system?
A: All harvester stuff has been reversed by Schmunzel quite a long time ago, unfortunately they require a number of subsystems to be complete before they’ll be in line for implementation on the core.
Extreme Galaxies questions
Q1: Are there any new features/surprises the ANH team are going to
implement that are new to the Pre-CU world itself? If so, will there
be any in the preview?
A: Well the surprises we wont go into ;)
As far as new features that 'should' be available for the preview, you can expect to see all of the
Q2: Do you plan on releasing patches after you are done making and
distributing the game?
A: Yes. There are plans to keep on supporting the game once it's been released.
Q3: What feature have you yet to put in / make and what are your
priorities for the features you put in?
A: Some major work still remains to be done, mainly combat / crafting, looking from the game systems side.
Q4: Have you worked on or even thought about implementing the space
portion of the game?
A: Honestly, we haven’t even looked at JTL over the last 10 months or so, the last time we looked was when the spatial indexing was being discussed, and it was decided that JTL would be pushed out until after the official release due to major differences in spatial planning. The plan is to make the ground game fully functional and then introduce JTL.
Bria's Forsaken questions
Q1: What exactly will we be able to "do" in the preview?
A: Well, you can expect to see NPC populated planets, planetary travel, fully working bazaar, player trading, badge system to name a few things…
We wont go into the full list here, and will leave a few things as a surprise for when it actually does start…
Q2: Will we be able to use vehicles, gm created-not crafted? e.g.. (Will a gm be able to spawn one for us that’s useable?)
A: The preview will most likely not feature vehicles, bear in mind that anything that you see or hear about as being in the core is the final implementation, there’s no hard coding being done just for the sake of adding a feature in. This saves us time in the long run, and is more beneficial to the community, as it doesn’t require fixes / patches to be properly implemented.
Q3: Is JTL “Possibly” in the big release or still sometime after?
A: This will come in after the ground game is completed and ready.
Q4: Has scripting been implemented yet?
A: The basic framework has been designed and it’s currently being implemented. There are two sides to scripting here, there’s the internal scripting engine which is being done as we release this, along with an external scripting engine, which will allow communities to script game events amongst other things.
Galaxies Reborn questions
Q1: Can you describe the level of customization that ANH offers with regard to common attributes like the number of lots per character and the number of items within structures?
A: Customization is added as we progress, the two that you mention aren’t.
Q2: Will all wearable items have the color palette as was the case with composite armor?
A: We’re not sure at this time, as color changing hasn’t been implemented yet.
Q3: How is your relationship with other emulators? Are you on friendly terms? Do you share things?
A: Nothing has really changed on ANH’s perspective on the other teams.
Q4: Are mission MOBs spawning correctly? That was one of the worst bugs in SWG.
A: Not at this time, there are no missions or live mobs spawning at the moment. The only spawns are the static population spawns throughout the cities / POIs.
Euro Chimera questions
Q1: You've been working on it for a while now, was it harder than you thought?
A: Yes, SWG is a very complex game, it took a lot of reading and research as well as a lot of hard work to get where we are now, but on the other hand, it’s been a fun ride, we’ve met some great people within the growing swg community, over the year that we’ve been at this I can safely say that the team is a group of friends now, rather then just a bunch of people that come in, code for a few hrs and then disappear. All in all it’s hard but it’s a fun project to run with…
Q2: Do you think that the finished product will be true to the original?
A: We really aim to get everything in as it once was, but this part lies partly on the QA folks as well, and these folks have been amazing in tracking down bugs, as well as pointing out the details about how something functioned.
Q3: Have you started reversing combat, and do you have everything needed for that?
A: Combat has been fully documented, so it’s at a point now where it’s waiting for a few more systems to fall into place as well as scripting before it will be implemented…
Q4: Do you have any hint on an ETA?
A: “The dark side clouds everything. Impossible to see the future is.”
Thanks to all the communities for the questions it was fun answering them and we hope that this helps answer your questions.
Once again, thank you for your continued support from all of us here at SWGANH.