Chewett

Concepts? Models? Plans? Ha! How is development organised? - It isnt, not until recently. During the early days, Mur had a number of core features he code and such. things like combat, messages and such. Features that were tested by the beta testers before you could register and play normally. This was planned and such. Then before we had additional coders in the game Mur just worked on a general plan and moved forward with it. Sometimes items would be left, sometimes unfinished or broken, but he would work on something else. Little plans were written but Mur kept an idea of what he wanted to do. Over the past years Mur experienced a number of computer related issues and some plans that were made originally have been lost. In addition as Mur is spending less time in MD now, he has to rely on others to remind him of his plans, and has given others reign to create and move MD forward. He is consulted on general concept ideas, and then lets others implement the finer details. Example: AUTUMN2050 has a general plan for how it is going to work however the finer details of where to place items and such have been left up to us. These plans are written down since Mur is working with a couple of us, and we demanded (yes, how rude of us!) that we need written plans of whats going to happen before we could work on it. You need to remember that Mur is, first and foremost, a creative and not a programmer. He finds ways to express what he wants to do programatically and doesn't necessarily follow the normal procedures and design patterns. Much of codebase is archaic and not structured as well as it could be which then makes adding more code trickier. When Rendril was let onto the team he did a lot of work rewriting the combat system so that it was easier to modify, he also wrote a lot of unit tests to ensure that its working correctly. However it was primarily a rebase of how the old code worked, meaning that while it was massively changed for the better it did not function too differently. As I work on sections of the game I spend extra time converting older code to a newer and easier to manage format. Since January much of this has been in the form of database changes and optimisations. Boring stuff for you guys because you dont see a difference since "It looks the same" but massive changes under the hood. The idea is that making the database work better (aka like it should have been designed if it were planned and had not evolved) shouldn't change anything as far as you see. Its not just that Mur is not an experienced programmer for he is very qualified now, Its that the game has evolved over 9+ years and some of the code back from the very start still exists. As an example, only until last year we had two different ways to log yourself out. One of them would work and one wouldnt. Both were used in the code and by pressing a different button it would fail to log you out properly. This is because the two pages were written at different times and the older one was not changed to use the new system and therefore broke. This is common for older systems but since there was only one person working on it, he could keep in mind how everything worked. This pattern of generally coding what people feel like and whatever you want still exists, but now whenever I and Dude2 work on code we have plans, document things and ensure that code is left in a better state than it originally started in. This does make things slower, but makes it easier to add things next time. Recently a "coder manual" was started by myself and provides some information to Dude2 and Murry to ensure that they know how to do things "right". So, for anything old there are no plans, but anything new will have a lot more structure. We are aware of the issues but any software project has these, and are resolving to put measures in place to improve the situation. Further Questions?

email the council detailing what happened and they should be able to further advise you. Describe what happened, what text messages you recieved, what didnt work, including screenshots if possible and they should be able to resolve it :) They can be reached by emailing contact@magicduel.com

This discussion is highly interesting as the combat system does need some changes. Currently you need to remember that tokens and auras were bolted onto the original system and not designed with it. So they are applied in waves and are not nesscarily logically designed. There is a school of thought that says their application should be merged rather than how they work now. This will require some more unit combat tests to be written and will be summers work too. I want to be able to write bots that can attack and report back information in more coder friendly way. The bot works as a proof of concept and will be integrated into MD. This does not mean we will have more NPC's although there is a possibility once coded in, they will be used for testing.

I like MB shop, Sadly im not a member of MB since there were issues with the king and therefore will post it in my forum section (aka tribunal).

Then you don't have to try and help. Others can and I applaud them and will help them do so. Much has changed since then Phantom, Have you? As for "Please stop trolling" I'm being deadly serious, I will give the badges and alliance back myself if I see some effort and it looks like this time it will actually happen. Just because you failed to appease the previous rulers doesn't mean it will not change. Previously council and now I have set out specific guidelines to reclaim it. You didn't get involved with this previously and as mya said, they talked to CoE members but no one actually got back to them.

Whats the difference between not trying, for fear or failing, and failing? Nothing at all. But in actuality if you dont try, you never have the chance to succeed. By all means follow Phantoms logic, but that is the reason she will never accomplish anything else in MD. She reasons that because she will probably fail, she shouldn't try. This is the attitude that will kill MD. Not people like Aeo trying things. For that I salute Aeo. He has my greatest respect.

Due to the low population of the game at the moment and also due to the fact that I idle all the time, it is terribly difficult to progress. While I am in no position to make demands, I would like to ask for the help of MD. Again, I hope I don't come across as needy or rude, but I figured if there's anyone I may ask for such a service, then it's the people of MD. If possible, please confirm if you are willing to help me out. While I could, theoretically, train just with anyone, it would go a lot faster if I had the support of more people. The training location will be outside MB Shop, People are free to be around, help each other, set rituals to help and such. Anyone want to do some training? No specific rules, just to gather at points and actively do some learning of the combat mechanic. (Maybe even help out with some new changes to it on OMEGA). Thank you Chewett

Done loads of forum work.

Added thanks guys :)

They would need to do more than that to get the alliance back with a badge :)

As a note, "Active" members means that they are actually in MD doing things. Not members that have just popped into MD for a week or so and will quickly disappear. Any members that "come back" and actually do stuff, are of course ok. But there were issues last time where CoE claimed they had a large number of active members, many of the names I had not seen in months.

Yes The Loreroot council was previously given the option to recreate the alliance. For this they were required to produce a list of (active) members that would join the alliance, demonstrate some knowledge of what the alliance was and will be, and have some plan for it to continue. This plan should include events and other things that reflect what the alliance is and will be. Successfully showing that the alliance can function without being officially ingame (aka without a badge) will then mean that a social convention can turn into an official one. The alliance would need to function for a period of time without it being official. This is the same set of requirements as given to the Loreroot Council and they decided they would not follow through with this plan, So I would talk to them first Aeo.

Probably will be doing this.

I dislike the toolbar and would remove it. I wont be doing any changes to that code, I didnt write it and its hacky and nasty.

DD, as a word of advice, Nim isnt breaking the rules. She is stating she will break a social convention. What If I made a rule for no LHO to speak in my precense (a social rule note) would then breaking that be breaking rules? This is how the reputation system should be used, as I used it too. I agree that I dislike GGG style rules being imposed and voted accordingly. As someone who inadvertently hurt nim, Yes she can be quite sensitive. Luckily she is also quite forgiving :)

Alliance attack cooldown is the same nowadays.

Confirmed bug. Need to see what causes it.

This is the conclusion I reached and was considering scripting something at the armour smith place however I still need to discuss this further with Council.

Its not the one month of the calender because I get the issue in chrome. And now opera since they use the same rendering engine. Its confirmed as a thing.

The MP transition hasnt been discussed by Murry and I yet. Stats would be given during the quest as would principles I think. I have some ideas by having differnt "quests" to attain different principles and thusly you pick which one you want to go and learn of. This could later then involve you having the ability to change the principles.

Yes, I prefere forum PM's since I lose them easily ingame since I get a lot.

SIdenote: Dont send me ingame PM's for important stuff Less side note: Can you make a bug report on forum then I will link it?

Added more things

Added, thanks Ary

Things have been moved onto: http://magicduel.invisionzone.com/topic/15477-chews-public-work-list/ If your item hasnt been moved onto that list, PM me.