Karyfars
03.03.2011, 23:49
The last couple of weeks at ANH have been very eventful, a number of events have come together, not to create a perfect storm, but to create what amounts to perfect weather for finishing a SWG server emulator!
The ANH team has been working for a few months now, on taking the lessons we learned from the current server code and apply them to the next major revision, and have been hard at work making those designs into functional code, and the results of those efforts are here. To make it even better, the team has gained some very experienced devs who are quite familiar with SWG development who have helped hasten this phase of the project.
A while back, the team realized that Lua was not going to give us the flexibility desired, especially when it came to implementing game features. The goal was to be able to write many of the game features via scripting as opposed to putting them in the server core. The performance difference was minimal and implementation of new features would be far less likely to impact other game systems if added via scripting, as well as it would then be possible to get more features added faster by people scripting as opposed to having lots of people in the core learning C++ at the same time.
So a new, Python scripting engine was developed for ANH and is complete.
That effort will be bringing us a Python scripting API, a toolkit for feature and content developers to embark on their development tasks, and in some cases the API can even be used to override some settings in the core (useful for those who wish to create highly customized server rulesets), not to mention those who wish to develop custom content, like scripted events, quests, etc
Now before the dev team can integrate this new scripting engine, the next major revision of the server code has to undergo some changes to support it, so that it can properly support the scripting engine and API. This part is called 'SOFI', which stands for Structured Object Focus Initiative, where the dev team will be going through and making the necessary changes to the core to ready it for the script engine and API.
This new revision of the server code will start in its own repository on Github located here;
https://github.com/anhstudios/swganh
Be aware the first checkins of this code will NOT be playable, not even able to log in. The early part of SOFI will be on the build process and other foundational work. Work on this is progressing at a rapid clip, and it will not be long before the new revision of the server code will be back to a state where logins are working again. Stay tuned as this phase is moving along rapidly.
Other major features of this new revision
Use of client/TRE loaded objects on the server side. In a major change from the current implementation, the server will begin using key objects from the client, on the server side, such as;
1. Height and water data from the original TRN (terrain files) instead of from heightmaps
2. Reducing the amount of data stored in the database (like quest data, and other object data
3. Being able to sync data between the client and the server (a major aid in combating cheating)
4. Only one set of objects to mod/create when creating custom content making it unnecessary to mod both server and client files.
The current PingServer functionality will be integrated into the Connection Services
Current timing issues between the server components will be resolved under SOFI
The ANH team will also placing many of its tools into the public repositories, such as;
* The ANH Client Launcher, which is a full featured SWG client launcher app.
* A fully functional TRE packer application for server admins to use for pushing modifications to their clients
* We will also be hosting a repository for the popular modding app, TRE Explorer. As many know it was made open source sometime back and is THE tool for SWG client modding.
Quality Assurance Testing
QA enters a new phase with these efforts. For the near term, testing will be a mostly 'white-box' affair, meaning that game features are not the focus of test, but things like the build system, the scripting API, and the server core are the focus. There will also be a clean Mantis bug database to be used for this next phase of development.
There will be a official ANH test center however, two in fact. These will not be 'play centers', one will serve as a development sandbox, and for the ANH QA team to test as needed, the other will serve as a place to validate/recreate bugs submitted by the server communities. Both will be subject to frequent wipes.
There will be 'play centers' before long hosted by the various server communities where player may go about the daily business of play testing. The ANH TC will remain a private server used by members of the ANH QA team (of course we are accepting applications for the QA team, as we need more tested, it is assured that more and more testers will be required).
Community Servers
The last, but most important piece of all this are the Community servers, as part of this I want to reach out to all the various communities waiting for usable code, and keep them informed of whats going on, as part of a lasting effort to maintain communications and to enlist their aid in the testing efforts. In this I ask all community leaders to PM me with their contact info so they can be kept directly appraised of happenings that directly impact them.
Weiterlesen... (http://www.swganh.com/anh_community/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=803&p=3547#p3547)
The ANH team has been working for a few months now, on taking the lessons we learned from the current server code and apply them to the next major revision, and have been hard at work making those designs into functional code, and the results of those efforts are here. To make it even better, the team has gained some very experienced devs who are quite familiar with SWG development who have helped hasten this phase of the project.
A while back, the team realized that Lua was not going to give us the flexibility desired, especially when it came to implementing game features. The goal was to be able to write many of the game features via scripting as opposed to putting them in the server core. The performance difference was minimal and implementation of new features would be far less likely to impact other game systems if added via scripting, as well as it would then be possible to get more features added faster by people scripting as opposed to having lots of people in the core learning C++ at the same time.
So a new, Python scripting engine was developed for ANH and is complete.
That effort will be bringing us a Python scripting API, a toolkit for feature and content developers to embark on their development tasks, and in some cases the API can even be used to override some settings in the core (useful for those who wish to create highly customized server rulesets), not to mention those who wish to develop custom content, like scripted events, quests, etc
Now before the dev team can integrate this new scripting engine, the next major revision of the server code has to undergo some changes to support it, so that it can properly support the scripting engine and API. This part is called 'SOFI', which stands for Structured Object Focus Initiative, where the dev team will be going through and making the necessary changes to the core to ready it for the script engine and API.
This new revision of the server code will start in its own repository on Github located here;
https://github.com/anhstudios/swganh
Be aware the first checkins of this code will NOT be playable, not even able to log in. The early part of SOFI will be on the build process and other foundational work. Work on this is progressing at a rapid clip, and it will not be long before the new revision of the server code will be back to a state where logins are working again. Stay tuned as this phase is moving along rapidly.
Other major features of this new revision
Use of client/TRE loaded objects on the server side. In a major change from the current implementation, the server will begin using key objects from the client, on the server side, such as;
1. Height and water data from the original TRN (terrain files) instead of from heightmaps
2. Reducing the amount of data stored in the database (like quest data, and other object data
3. Being able to sync data between the client and the server (a major aid in combating cheating)
4. Only one set of objects to mod/create when creating custom content making it unnecessary to mod both server and client files.
The current PingServer functionality will be integrated into the Connection Services
Current timing issues between the server components will be resolved under SOFI
The ANH team will also placing many of its tools into the public repositories, such as;
* The ANH Client Launcher, which is a full featured SWG client launcher app.
* A fully functional TRE packer application for server admins to use for pushing modifications to their clients
* We will also be hosting a repository for the popular modding app, TRE Explorer. As many know it was made open source sometime back and is THE tool for SWG client modding.
Quality Assurance Testing
QA enters a new phase with these efforts. For the near term, testing will be a mostly 'white-box' affair, meaning that game features are not the focus of test, but things like the build system, the scripting API, and the server core are the focus. There will also be a clean Mantis bug database to be used for this next phase of development.
There will be a official ANH test center however, two in fact. These will not be 'play centers', one will serve as a development sandbox, and for the ANH QA team to test as needed, the other will serve as a place to validate/recreate bugs submitted by the server communities. Both will be subject to frequent wipes.
There will be 'play centers' before long hosted by the various server communities where player may go about the daily business of play testing. The ANH TC will remain a private server used by members of the ANH QA team (of course we are accepting applications for the QA team, as we need more tested, it is assured that more and more testers will be required).
Community Servers
The last, but most important piece of all this are the Community servers, as part of this I want to reach out to all the various communities waiting for usable code, and keep them informed of whats going on, as part of a lasting effort to maintain communications and to enlist their aid in the testing efforts. In this I ask all community leaders to PM me with their contact info so they can be kept directly appraised of happenings that directly impact them.
Weiterlesen... (http://www.swganh.com/anh_community/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=803&p=3547#p3547)