Suggestion More TFS Developers

[BeniS]

The Forgotten Servers Future!

I was thinking about TFS project today in comparison to another project I have seen to do with another online game and realized how much TFS would benefit if it recruited more developers. It seems that the TFS project is slowly dieing due to lack of development. I understand that it's a free project that people are doing from their spare time, but I know that there will be some people out there that would like to help develop.

If someone could put together a strict requirement list and what-not I think that TFS development would start to bloom with more devs and more progress. I love the devs at the moment but it just seems like its stian, elf(not so much lately), and occasionally I see shawak that does development for 0.4. Then there is Tala with his 0.2 series.

If we can get a new wave of developers to work on the project with the current devs it would increase the projects progress a lot

It is just a suggestion, but I think it would be really great for TFS project.

Regards,
Mav

It's not easy to find new developers with potential to develop The Forgotten Server further that actually has any free time, to help for free. I've recently recruited Fallen and Holix as developers for 0.2, and I'm not into recruiting more developers because I don't want to create a mess and development of 0.2 is working fine as it is.

There is no need for a new project manager to 0.4 (I assume you mean 0.3 though, because 0.4 development hasn't started) either, it's just going to create a pressure which won't help anything. It's going to be released when it's ready and if it doesn't satisfy you, go create your own server or help us address all the known issues. It's unfortunate that elf is inactive these days, but he will still be around to release the server when it's ready to be released.



That's not true. I'm not making any money from The Forgotten Server (except for people who pay me for support, but that's completely unrelated to this), and I have been keeping a distance from 0.3 since it's development started because I didn't like the changes that were being made to it. If I recall correctly, 0.3 development even started before it was possible to donate to OtLand, so no, I'm not choosing to not project manage it because OtLand is receiving more donations while 0.3.7 hasn't been released. In fact, I was the one to suggest releasing 0.3.7 back in August without talking to elf first, which appeared to be a mistake and that is why it was withdrawn.

 

[Paxton]

The problem is we don't have enough strong developers on otland that are willing to join.

 

[_Arthur]

The problem is we don't have enough strong developers on otland that are willing to join.

and slackers?

 

[BeniS]

The problem is we don't have enough strong developers on otland that are willing to join.

Well I think that there would be more than you think. Obviously not a lot, due to the age range of people being like 12 - 18.

What I think is, you can't grow if you don't search. Maybe make a way for people to apply for it?

 

[Kanakashy]

Im a good Developer, but I was kicked out of the proyect long time ago.

 

[BeniS]

Im a good Developer, but I was kicked out of the proyect long time ago.

Well a degree of maturity would be required for a developers position.

 

[JDB]

I disagree completely. More developer's will only lead to more chaos and problems amongst them. I think there should be a five to ten member team and that's that. Look at CipSoft, a lot of people don't like "real tibia" but at least they have a smart group of people who aren't always slacking, leaving, disappearing, arguing, etc... Hire two or three main developer's who contribute the most, and hire three to five other member's who contribute some on a regular basis COLLECTIVELY on both branches of TFS.

Organization is KEY.

 

[BeniS]

Yes you hit the nail on the head organization is the key, but that doesn't mean make the team ridiculously small that nothing gets done. There is more than one job for members in a dev team. For example management, document control, etc. The reason TFS is getting very little done in terms of stability is because there simply is not enough developers working on the project and no real project manager (as far as I know, correct me if I am wrong).

If a team doesn't have strong project leader with a vision and strong sense of direction and control then the project will just keep driving into the ground. Using the 0.4 distribution for example, the description given out to the public of 0.4 was this:

The Forgotten Server version 0.2 currently has the best stability. 0.3 has the new features. In version 0.4 we plan to focus on performance, it will be our highest priority. Besides performance, the graphical user interface will be rewritten using the crossplatform GUI library wxWidgets.

This is how our TODO list looks for 0.4 so far:

• As mentioned above, the graphical user interface will be rewritten using wxWidgets. It will also be possible to communicate with players through the GUI. Elf: It won't be anymore.
• Since it takes ages to save houseitems we will use live queries to update housetiles, this means that serversaves shouldn't take longer than 5 seconds. [100% done other way]
• Another server intensive process is map clean, we will store the position of all trashed tiles and parse them instead of parsing the entire map. Yes, this will cost more memory resources but it will perform map cleans faster. Incase you don't use map clean it will be possible to disable this so the server doesn't store trashed tiles for no reason. [100% done]
• The config file will be changed to XML, so it will be config.xml instead of config.lua. We will also write a configmanager application with wxWidgets which will make it easier to configure the file.
• Also customability for more item attributes (known from /attr command), so it will be possible to change almost all of them. We are considering new, custom storage for them. [60% done other way]
• Ability to reload items, outfits and weapons.
• The guild management system will be rewritten, because the current code is hardcoded, heavy, ugly and hard to edit piece of unnecessary code.
• Account manager code will also be rewritten, for the same reason as above.

If you believe that there is any other code we should improve, please post about it in this thread and we'll see if it's possible for us. Other suggestions can be posted in the project tools.

Talaturen posted that as the initial plans for 0.4 but now it seems from what I know that there are no longer more plans in place to progress 0.4 stability or performance testing. You are saying that a team from 5 to 10 people would be ideal and I completely agree, but at the moment there are barely 3 people doing major development, and no idea what the rest of the people do, if there are any (this is based off what I see in the subversion.) If there was 5 people all doing solid development work, that all know how to organize themselves, meaning they have a degree of maturity and team skills, then the progress would jump significantly.

The key is not to throttle the amount of workers, but instead to enforce some standards to the project development. This also means that someone like Talaturen should step in as a project manager for 0.4 again

 

[hodleo]

It is a good initiative, but as explained, there are not strong and committed developers to rely on from OTLand.

 

[Elexonic]

Organization is KEY.

x99
Yes!

 

[XxShallowxX]

Developers will work on their own time.

 

[Wodian]

@ XxshallowxX
Thats true..

@ Topic
Its true that the organization is KEY but beleve me you need more then only organization to make a project work. If you have read the story of the so called linux distro "Ubuntu" you should know how to become powerfull. Ubuntu is slowly dying because the lack of money. So if there is no income there wont be huge steps to take forward for developing. You can see the differance of Windows and Linux. Mac OSX has made alot of money of their Linux distro so far. Now they are putting money into developing modern hardware to make it better then common Windows pc's. Thats why people choosing MacOSX because it is fancy and making the daily life easier.

I beleve if you make enough money and "hiring" professional engineers maybe then you can make a project work.

Regards,
Wodian

 

[BeniS]

@ XxshallowxX
Thats true..

@ Topic
Its true that the organization is KEY but beleve me you need more then only organization to make a project work. If you have read the story of the so called linux distro "Ubuntu" you should know how to become powerfull. Ubuntu is slowly dying because the lack of money. So if there is no income there wont be huge steps to take forward for developing. You can see the differance of Windows and Linux. Mac OSX has made alot of money of their Linux distro so far. Now they are putting money into developing modern hardware to make it better then common Windows pc's. Thats why people choosing MacOSX because it is fancy and making the daily life easier.

I beleve if you make enough money and "hiring" professional engineers maybe then you can make a project work.

Regards,
Wodian

Well yea that's the other option, but of course its not realistic. TFS is a free project, I think that as soon as Talaturen started making tones of money off donations due to 0.4 he decided not to project manage it (that's my guess). Should appoint a new project manager! Someone passionate and dedicated

 

[XxShallowxX]

Well yea that's the other option, but of course its not realistic. TFS is a free project, I think that as soon as Talaturen started making tones of money off donations due to 0.4 he decided not to project manage it (that's my guess). Should appoint a new project manager! Someone passionate and dedicated

Like Elf? o.0

 

[BeniS]

Like Elf? o.0

I would say like Elf, but is he still alive? xD

 

[XxShallowxX]

I would say like Elf, but is he still alive? xD

yeaaa... He is coming back from vacation soon, or thats what i've heard.
Anyways, he has to be still active, 0.3.7 is being updated soon, right?

 

[BeniS]

yeaaa... He is coming back from vacation soon, or thats what i've heard.
Anyways, he has to be still active, 0.3.7 is being updated soon, right?

I don't know, I hope he doesn't update 0.3 series. Would be best to stick to the 0.4 development.

 

[MartyX]

Emm...
0.2.9: 8.7 support, with partly extended 0.3 compatibility in 0.2! - Blogs - OtLand

 

[Mark]

It's not easy to find new developers with potential to develop The Forgotten Server further that actually has any free time, to help for free. I've recently recruited Fallen and Holix as developers for 0.2, and I'm not into recruiting more developers because I don't want to create a mess and development of 0.2 is working fine as it is.

There is no need for a new project manager to 0.4 (I assume you mean 0.3 though, because 0.4 development hasn't started) either, it's just going to create a pressure which won't help anything. It's going to be released when it's ready and if it doesn't satisfy you, go create your own server or help us address all the known issues. It's unfortunate that elf is inactive these days, but he will still be around to release the server when it's ready to be released.

Well yea that's the other option, but of course its not realistic. TFS is a free project, I think that as soon as Talaturen started making tones of money off donations due to 0.4 he decided not to project manage it (that's my guess).

That's not true. I'm not making any money from The Forgotten Server (except for people who pay me for support, but that's completely unrelated to this), and I have been keeping a distance from 0.3 since it's development started because I didn't like the changes that were being made to it. If I recall correctly, 0.3 development even started before it was possible to donate to OtLand, so no, I'm not choosing to not project manage it because OtLand is receiving more donations while 0.3.7 hasn't been released. In fact, I was the one to suggest releasing 0.3.7 back in August without talking to elf first, which appeared to be a mistake and that is why it was withdrawn.

 

[soul4soul]

im glad two new developers where recruited it will help with the work load. thanks for the all news over the past week or so, its nice to know whats going on with my favorite distro.

btw what happened to the thread for recruiting people to help maintain the scripts, monsters, spells and items? i know there are a few people around otland who wouldnt mind helping with that. even i wouldnt mind trying to help keep items.xml up to date.