Archive for the 'Tibia' Category
There’s been ages since we last saw or heard any news on Remere’s online mapeditor, but I suspect it might be closer to (beta?) release than most people might think. In the latest release of RME (1.1.10) there was some cryptic phrasing used when explaining why the editor is no longer released under GPL:
and because I’d prefer some of the futures planned for 1.2.0 to be closed-source (for security reasons).
Now, what security reasons might this be? A standard map editor doesn’t do much other than change OTBM files, which is an open-source format. Sure, there could simply be a neat new feature that allows you toread your email in the editor and that it’s only a beta, thus making sure that nobody abuses potential bugs, but I don’t find that likely.
What I do find likely is a scenario where there’s a RME Live Beta around and it might have bugs which could potentially do things on the mapserver that it ain’t supposed to.
Either way, I got my hopes up today. And I know for sure what I want for Christmas now.
I always suspected this day would come. I mean, there’s only so many customers that will purchase your free-upgrades-for-a-lifetime product before it stops being profitable.
For the uninitiated reader; Tibiabot.com has for the past few years been selling bots for Tibia for a one-time fee of $10, but recently they decided to simply terminate all communication with the world, leaving a lot of customers pissed.
I see GrizZm0 finally decided to be true to his word when he said that a webserver shouldn’t use any processing power.
This time I don’t have this huge story to tell or anything, I just wanted to point out that after being inactive on Otfans for a while I decided to check out the Lounge - more specifically the Computer and Internet section (Yes, I’m a nerd. Isn’t it obvious?) - and I found a couple of threads that seemed interesting.
Anyhow, this guy Anco has a problem so I try to help him out with it, and of course it only took a few minutes before I got flamed for telling him to google processes he weren’t sure what they did. The response was pretty much “Don’t tell him to use google, be constructive!“. Since I’m such a nice guy I clarified my message with how to proceed and why (as detailed as I could), but I’d like to offer my sincerest apologies to the jackass who gave me a lesson in Cocksmoking because I think I forgot how to explain how to type the URL in the addressfield.
Sorry Scottie, but in the future perhaps you should consider being constructive yourself. :-)
There are two types of OT Server owners, the ones who maintain a server for fun, to obtain all the items and achieve all the goals he or she never could in regular Tibia for varying reasons. Then there’s the people who want to create the server for the community to use, either as a free alternative to ordinary Tibia or as a partially seperate game with custom content such as using a different map.
When we look at free alternatives to other games, such as EVEmulator or the EVERLAST Server for EVE Online who together barely have 1600 members we quickly realize that there are far less people interested in making their own EVE servers. Even WCell for World of Warcraft with their 600 registered members is a relatively small community. Sure, there are bigger ones out there such as Emupedia but they host a wide variety of projects for various games, so measuring their membercount (62000) wouldn’t be accurate. Digging deeper into the “private server” sphere we can find the Battlenet emulator PvPGN with it’s 1094 members.
No matter how you look at it, you’ll end up with the same conclusion as me. OpenTibia is rather unique. I’m going to assume that all the members on Otland were at some point registered on Otfans when I measure OpenTibia’s followers in the tens of thousands (10,495 members have visited Otfans in the past 14 days, they have over 39000 registered members). I have never encountered a larger and more concentrated “private server” community than the one of OpenTibia.
I can imagine it’s hard being the administrator of a website such as Otfans, you have to make tough decisions that affect thousands of users and set a good example not only for your followers, but also for colleagues in the same field. Even though I appreciate most of the changes made on Otfans while I’ve been a member I can’t help to think that some things could’ve been handled smoother.
From what I’ve read, the initial dispute between Otfans and Otland was surprisingly enough based on an immature brawl between staff members on respective sites. Although I can understand the tension between the parties I do think it’s about time they start a dialogue about cooperation rather than censoring the other’s name on their forums. An everlasting dispute will reflect negatively on both communities in terms of members, development progress, and general welfare.
Being a newbie is never easy, you have all these questions and no clue where to start looking for answers. When it comes to OpenTibia it’s even worse! The populus resents their former selves as if they are the plague, and not just any plague, the one of curiousity!
It’s time to start thinking about what we really want. Do we want Otservlist filled with servers of all kinds - like we all remember it was - or do we need to divide it into the two categories it currently seems to consist of? I vote no for an Otservlist with Elite and Newbie categories. It’s come to the point where it is nearly impossible for a newcomer to find answers and to evolve as an OTserver administrator.
Clean up the Tutorials section on Otfans, encourage and reward users who collaborate with real guides and not flimsy rantings about how to post. Nobody gains from telling people where to ask questions rather than answering them and then, for future reference, explaining where questions on the subject should be asked.
Another hot topic is the XML format which alot of users resent. I don’t see why people wouldn’t be allowed to choose other than the developers lacking time or being plain lazy. It’s easy for new users to understand and edit, it doesn’t decrease performance for the average user who - admittedly - only use the server to connect by himself or perhaps show some friends on a LAN party.
Should the user be advanced enough, or gain the skills required to run a database, good for him. Should he decide to run a popular server online with the XML format, too bad for the users, but the fact remains that performance is not everything.
From my point of view (Note that I don’t actually have statistics on this) there has been a notable decrease in user growth within the whole community the last year or so. And if you ask me it’s because of both the hate against our less knowing members and the constant battle between Otfans and Otland.
To round this entry off I would like to reach out to the staffs of the involved sites and urge you to come to your senses, nobody gains from this. Where did the fun times go when it was all about making a server just like (and now with the additional goal of being better!) Tibia? Remember that we do have a common enemy of sorts.
There, I got it off my chest.
All too often I see communities maintained and updated by a single person. This phenomena is very common especially in the world of OpenTibia and appears for several reasons, the most common one is that the server itself is very easy to setup and maintain, and to let others help you with the server usually means to trust what makes your server unique in the hands of an unknown associate whom you only know over the internet.
But trust me when I say that this does not have to apply to you! There are several tools that will allow you not only to get things done faster by dividing the work, but also to make sure that only the files that are essential for your associate’s progress are at risk of theft.
To make sure neither of the staff members have an outdated copy of their working directory you will want to use the SVN protocol. And of course you only want them to access the files or directories in which they are working.
It is with these reasons in mind that I recommend the VisualSVN Server (It’s free, dont worry), it is based on an Apache but stripped down to the very core and equipped with a nifty graphical interface using the Windows Management Console. You can set up usergroups, users and folder/file permissions as you please.
Personally I have set it up so that there is one usergroup for each folder (One for Actions, one for Creaturescripts, and so on) and then I simply add my users to the usergroups (folders) that they will need to modify in order to do their work.
An essential tool when working in team is somewhere to communicate and coordinate the work, for this I recommend a forum (phpBB is free) where you either discuss all projects/tasks in one board, or one board for each category of work. It may seem very serious to label all threads with a hint of what kind of task(s) it relates to, but it is in fact very helpful for all users, so this is a recommended practise.
Using the SVN in the mentioned manner and perhaps making the discussion board public will allow you to outsource your work and still stay safe as long as your most essential files are safe (I dont recommend giving anyone access to admin.xml, config.lua, or the main .otbm file). Your end-users get the chance to improve their favourite server and you get more time to watch pr0n, it’s a win-win situation!
If all this seems too advanced for you it doesn’t bother me. Feel free to keep doing all the work by yourself and let the project consume all your free time.
If it on the other hand seems helpful and you decide to consider using any of these strategies in your project, good for you! Let me know if you have any questions about making the work more efficient.
Shutting down or resetting a community to make way for updates and new content is never easy nor fun. You will always hear the tiny voice in the midst of your head screaming “Dont do it! You are destroying everything you hold dear!”.
But no matter what people say, living in the past is never a good idea.
Sure, some of your customers may prefer the comfortable feeling of something they know inside out, they know where to find everything. The unknown that lies behind the hills scares them, because they cannot control everything that happens from there on.
But what about the other 90% of your userbase? The ones who get tired of the stuff they so eagerly explored and revisited so many times. They will eventually stop using your service and go somewhere else.
Even though the new update may bring you something to do for a long time into the future, some users still want their fair share of attention. And as far as attentionwhores goes, I think the whinging ones are pretty much worst. They can be amusing from time to time though. For example, first you recieve angry letters about how you are destroying the community by allowing it to evolve into something better and removing the “oldschool” feeling. Then you recieve several letters, from the same conservatist, proposing several changes that wouldn’t even have made it to the dustbin back in the day.
Speaking of old times, do you remember the Columbus fellow? The guy who took a piece of wood and floated all the way to the Big Apple? Yeah, him.
I’m willing to bet my last pringles that there were whingers back then too. Like say, this jolly fellow! (Yes. I am aware that he remained stupid long after Columbus died and had already proven the world was not flat.)
“Don’t do it Christoffer! You will fall over the border that nobody has even proven to exist!”
“Okay, let’s go back to church.”
Yes, Im talking about you and everyone else you know.
Since I started with OpenTibia back in 2005 the core structure of the server has gone through major changes. It is now capable of not only triggering events as you use an item, but also as you walk above it, when you talk, when you level up, gain a skill, login, logout, use a weapon, when you equip an item, and of course when you greet an NPC.
But nonetheless, the core developers are still only trying to mimic Tibia. Of course this is the sole purpose of OpenTibia so that makes perfectly good sense. But when we look around and see how everyone wants to be unique with their servers it amazes me to see that noone uses anything that is just that, unique.
Personally I have since 2006 been using a backbone on my servers, it runs whenever the server is restarted (Back in 2006 you could rely on unintentional crashes, so that was no problem. Nowadays we have daily serversaves instead) and executes the code that - I like to think - makes my servers special.
Through the backbone we have the possibility to build unique features such as auctions on the website, mayor elections, and much, much more. It is truly amazing, the things that you can accomplish when you think that nothing is impossible.
The people of OpenTibia (In the future referred to as OT) have grand plans of huge maps for their players to explore, level, and battle upon. Their quests number in the hundreds, although most of them introduce nothing new. The majority are simple ones where you slay the monsters on your way to the chest which contains your reward.
But how many of them focus on their community? And how many do really shape their updates to enhance that very community? The optional forum is a great way to start, but it can only take you so far. Somewhere during the lifespan of the server you will notice that the gameplay starts to get dull and the growth of the server starts to level out. And when that happens, what do you do?
Once a server has existed for a while you have had alot of players pass through the server in search of the best one (in their opinion). If they did not like the server the first time they visited it, they are unlikely to come back.
Of course, you cannot satisfy all your visitors, but I think alot of the potential players are left playing on a random server because it was the last one they tried on their list of servers, and none of them were truly unique.
I beg of you, the community, to encourage your most wicked ideas and craziest proposals.
Because nothing is impossible when you have the power of a website at your fingertips.
