About Learning & This Community - Wikia Added to Project

I think we need to grab the best minds possible on this forum to get together and write an A-Z tutorial that teaches every aspect possibly from the languages required & how they relate to each distro to the tools & configuration needed to build an entire server, aac, sprites, mapping, graphic design etc..

As it stands now there are tutorials, but most are incomplete, outdated or just don't make any sense what so ever.

Currently anyone that does write a tutorial for x aspect mostly does it alone although they get feedback on the subject there isn't a way for an individual to update the information and people being lazy tend to overlook this info especially when the thread has 5+ pages where this information is buried in 1 of them.

I'm sure we could use github or some other collaboration website to tackle this massive task and then when near completion post it here on a thread for all to benefit.

A well educated community is a healthy community...

What are your thoughts and or who would like to get involved?

Edit: Don't just like this thread or vote, give your feedback I/we want to hear from all of you.

Edit: I've setup a wikia page, (otland was taken )
http://otland-net-tutorials.wikia.com/wiki/Otland.net_Tutorials_Wikia

So far we have for tutorial sections:

@Shadowsong -- Custom Sprites / Import Object Builder
@Codex NG -- Lua / Framework 0.x / 1.x
@whitevo -- Lua / Framework 1.x
@beastn -- Basics of setting up Linux & Compiling

I'd probably be interested in making a tutorial or two about spriting and/or importing custom sprites via objectbuilder.

That would be awesome @Shadowsong

Since scripting is my strong point I would work on the lua / framework aspect of the tutorial of course I am no master of the language I would need some assistance

Index what is available and update some shit is a good idea, but go to deep in it trying to spoon feed people that actually don't care at all to learn seems a worthless effort to me. Maybe the start is to rough because information is too spread, but people that cross the entry barrier have a lot of resources to learn from.

Relevant, 46 minutes of Znote sexy voice:
https://otland.net/threads/video-tu...ing-ot-server-website-and-shop-system.166818/

Peonso said:

Index what is available and update some shit is a good idea, but go to deep in it trying to spoon feed people that actually don't care at all to learn seems a worthless effort to me. Maybe the start is to rough because information is too spread, but people that cross the entry barrier have a lot of resources to learn from.

Relevant, 46 minutes of Znote sexy voice:
https://otland.net/threads/video-tu...ing-ot-server-website-and-shop-system.166818/

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Yeah man, we can learn alot with this video tutorial but we need some stuff updated, this tutorial is old e.e 3 years alot of things change, I want to put a server online but I don't know use VPS and don't know what is this :/
dedicated server with linux, how to install the all stuff, how buy a ip to the otserver ... if someone post one video updated about it i'll appreciate

Peonso said:

Index what is available and update some shit is a good idea, but go to deep in it trying to spoon feed people that actually don't care at all to learn seems a worthless effort to me. Maybe the start is to rough because information is too spread, but people that cross the entry barrier have a lot of resources to learn from.

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This is why it is important to properly structure documentation people can learn from, things shouldn't be done half ass either, if you want this community to grow then we the veteran members must step up and provide something for the next generation of developers.

The thread @J.Dre created some time ago addresses this issue, however no solution came of it, I believe education is the solution.

Will 100% of the people utilize this? No they won't but for those that do will see it as an invaluable tool a centralize hub of information one which can be referenced or linked to or updated with new information.

silveralol said:

Yeah man, we can learn alot with this video tutorial but we need some stuff updated, this tutorial is old e.e 3 years alot of things change, I want to put a server online but I don't know use VPS and don't know what is this :/
dedicated server with linux, how to install the all stuff, how buy a ip to the otserver ... if someone post one video updated about it i'll appreciate

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Video tutorials are nice for some things but not everything, people need to learn that reading is important too, watching someone else work on something doesn't always provide enough information to get/explain the point and since almost any language / protocol you will learn is in text, people need to get accustom to reading plus its easier to translate text to another language then it is speech for those who don't speak/understand english.

I prolly will be horrible at teaching LUA, but I could try help with it if we deal with TFS 1.x

This sounds like a great idea!

Can do simple tutorials for setting up linux and compiling.

nice idea! Hope it takes off

Would be good to do an offsite wiki though to keep it all at one place and not messy in various threads which will at some rate will vanish :] Anyway good idea!

Just a thought if you wanted to do video tutorials, We could make a youtube channel?

beastn said:

Just a thought if you wanted to do video tutorials, We could make a youtube channel?

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Good idea though additionally uploading them to a wiki would be nice^^

Damon said:

Good idea though additionally uploading them to a wiki would be nice^^

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I took your advice and made a wikia
Main post updated.

I think this is a great idea! I would however warn against going in too heavy on non-OT related content for fear of wasting your time.
Please understand and keep in mind that not everyone wants to learn, for example, LUA from the ground up as a programming language - no matter how beneficial it would be (Frowns at @Codex NG )

All I am trying to say here is please remember your target audience. The majority of the community do not aspire to be programmers.
A good example of this advice in practice is pretty much any VB[A] help forum.

xoxo

thatmichaelguy said:

I think this is a great idea! I would however warn against going in too heavy on non-OT related content for fear of wasting your time.
Please understand and keep in mind that not everyone wants to learn, for example, LUA from the ground up as a programming language - no matter how beneficial it would be (Frowns at @Codex NG )

All I am trying to say here is please remember your target audience. The majority of the community do not aspire to be programmers.
A good example of this advice in practice is pretty much any VB[A] help forum.

xoxo

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I don't consider going into depth about learning any language as heavy or over doing it.

I don't understand what you mean by non-OT related content?

Since my portion of the tutorial will be Lua / Framework 0.x / 1.x, I am going to do an introduction into Lua the core language and then move into how what you just learned can be applied to the 0.x / 1.x framework, to be an efficient programmer or scripter you need to understand at least the basics there is just no way around it.

If I were to go by your or @Peonso's advice I might as well not write anything at all, have you looked at requests, support or resources lately? Everyone is either having trouble with same existing script, issues or conflicts or request/releases the same things over and over.

This is because they have limited knowledge of the languages / frameworks or protocols.. The point of these tutorials is to provide them & the next generation with the necessary tools & foundation to start thinking & working like a developer would, this will allow them to move mountains so to speak instead of pushing the same shared dirt.

You can choose to skip what you feel is non-OT related content, I can't stop you from doing that but just because a small handful of people decided that learning the core language is unimportant or unrelated won't stop me helping those that do think it is related.

On a final note, if you can do better please do, contribute your time and knowledge to this project.

Our thoughts on the matter differ, and that's okay - I don't really want to start an argument about it. I'll answer your queries into what I wrote though.

By non-OT related content, I meant for example, functional programming foundations and even 'an introduction into Lua the core language' as you put it.
To elaborate as to why I feel this way: the target audience of tutorials is primarily the 'hobby community'. The hobby community at large does not need to know 'why' or 'how' it works - only that it works.
The aspiring programmers among us will actively seek further learning themselves.

I mentioned VB[A] help forums in my original post - I did this because I find VB v.s. VBA as a good 'analogy' for Lua programming v.s. OT Lua Scripting. They also provide some great examples of how Microsoft's 'MVP's tackle the same situation we find ourselves in here. They understand that the majority of users have no aspirations to be programmers. As a result of this understanding, they provide their support and tutorials tailored to the needs of their target audience. They do this knowing that the additional resources are available if individuals want to learn more about the core language VB.

I can understand the frustration though, you wish that they would just spend a few hours learning the foundations and everything would become so much more clear, and then they would be able to create and contribute at a much higher level! What could possibly go wrong! Let me be the bearer of bad news - if they won't use the search function... they're not going learn the foundations of a language. Unfortunately that is the majority of people.

I guess there is a school of thought that if you provide the bridge, the hobby-scripters might cross it to become fully fledged programmers. There is even a solid argument for this if you ask the community how many of them went into IT fields of work as a direct result of OT. The counterargument here would be that they found their way anyway.
I'm not against there being bridging tutorials designed to achieve this, but I think that there is a bigger gap in available resource for things like 'NPC scripting', 'Raid scripting', 'Spell scripting'.

Just to clarify my position though - I think this is a great idea and a good step forward for the community regardless of my comments being taken on board.

I haven't forgotten about the tutorial, just been a hectic week at work and just got a new system to write everything in which will make it much easier loading / accessing the wiki.

I am not going to bother with it, I don't see how it will be useful to anyone on here and as someone above mention this isn't that type of community at least not any more.

Also based on the votes/feedback we received from this thread leads me to believe I am wasting what little time i have to 'help' people who just don't want to help themselves except to something they can exploit for their own financial gain especially when they have to do none of the work themselves.

The only person who did/started any work was @Shadowsong

This is just how I feel and if you don't like it or agree with my point of view, you don't have to.

RIP Project, I wanted to contribute more and finish that one extra article I started writing but I got demotivated by the fact that a week later, the only activity on the wiki was: you creating the project and me writing 1 and a half article.
There's plenty knowledgeable people around here, and with all the positive votes on the poll, figured someone else would start contributing with something but nope. I might finish the ObjectBuilder tutorial anyway, just when I get some free time, for the sake of not leaving work unfinished.

Sad times. :|

I'm still editing the compiling videos i'll upload them anyone aswell.