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Some thoughts on the community openness direction

@Night Wolf I dont have anything about you either but to me, you just seem that you want free stuff that you cant do yourself, and i've read all your posts on this matter in case you are wondering. It's a shame OTCv8 is not free, but i didnt expect it to be. I know you are frustrated and swaped your pain into the openess of the community, and even if we appreciate your effort, that wont make it free. ²

@Night Wolf you are part of the "extreme people" which edubart was talking, belive me, you will never reach success if you still acting like that, if you just want to be criticizing others your whole life, stop acting like the lord of justice when you didn't even did something relevant to the community, try to study, acquire more knowledge and then try to really make a difference by contributing directly to these projects instead of just wanting others to do and share things for free because you cannot do it, just complaining will take you nowhere ...
 
I'm not going to position myself here because I think both sides have their pros and cons but I think there has been a fundamental issue since v8 was born.

I believe that many would be more positive about v8 if the paywall were put after features such as the bot, login server, or just any extra module/feature, newer protocols... but instead basic features like animation fixes, walking or performance issues were put after that paywall.

Problem? The day Kondra stops developing this, which according to recent updates it may come very soon - we will be stuck with a half baked client just like we were with OTC that still have a bunch of issues according to its own github... and they'll sit there for eternity.
 
There are those who realize time is $$ and those who dont.

do not use unity imo
.. any reputable game company moves away from unity when weighing all aspects. Unity is a good starter engine to get into game development but not many high profile games use it and those who do use it realize its capabilities and know if it would be suited to their project or not.

Build from OTC and import more graphical libraries dx11 etc.

Otland has a premium function? what is that money used for? I would gladly pay for premium knowing it would go towards improvements of OTC and a distribution that would be stable for everyone.

The bounty system can be a bit flawed because unequal funding.

A while back there were only TFS revs available to donates and I thought that system worked.. I donated back in the day just to download 0.4 3884 rev.

Make a repo of OTC only available to those who donate to the repo, make 4 stages for those who can afford to support the project more and maybe some kind of incentive to higher donations..( a special title idk)
put someone in charge who knows what their doing on the repo to hire developers out to start pumping out issues.

dont even need Otland for this tbh

just an example V
Standard $5
Silver $10/m
Platinum $15/m
Gold $20/m

Just 10 silver premium members a month could put forth $100/m to improve the client.. I would easily pay 20/m and many developers would as well if they knew their money was going toward the right place developing the OTC further.

You could even make a standard entrance donation of $50-$100 to get the ball rolling?


if youd stop donating then youd just lose your ability to download the latest version.
Then all your leechers who never support the project wont be able to use it, while those contribute will have access. (make it password protected)

Hell maybe there would even be enough money to hire Kondra and just release his client in this premium repo if everyone contributed to the donation pool.

just my idea...
 
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do not use unity.. any reputable game company moves away from unity once big enough. Unity is a good starter engine to get into game development but not many high profile games use it.
Source, because this couldn't be more false.
  • Legends of Runeterra (card game from Riot Games)
  • League of Legends: Wild Rift (upcoming mobile version of League of Legends)
  • Subnautica
  • Call of Duty: Mobile
  • Temtem
  • Boneworks
 
Source, because this couldn't be more false.
  • Legends of Runeterra (card game from Riot Games)
  • League of Legends: Wild Rift (upcoming mobile version of League of Legends)
  • Subnautica
  • Call of Duty: Mobile
  • Temtem
  • Boneworks
I could list the games who started in Unity... im not saying its not a good engine.. im just saying its not the standard in the industry. Just weigh all the options, pros and cons before making a decision.. many do not use unity for specific reasons and that might apply to the OTS situation.

What do I mean? Why would Riot Games decide to use C++ Unreal engine.. over Unity c# engine for Valorant.. where as their mobile game and a card game they said Unity is ok? Performance is an important thing to think about.

but theres no right answer. Alternatives are great.
 
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I could list the games who started in Unity and moved away but I wont... im not saying its not a good engine.. im just saying its not the standard in the industry.

I highly agree that games should avoid engines that tries to conquer the world, such ones like Unity. Developers must know that they are paying a high price to use a engine that tries to be too flexible. Any game who uses such engines will be bloated and have efficiency issues due to the engine unused stuff and unneeded flexibility and in some cases higher complexity due to the engine flexibility and style. Developers who uses popular engines hidden themselves of too much valuable knowledge and access to the engine parts, this leads to games where have undesired consequences and issues that the developers can't handle well and becomes much harder to adapt such a complex engine to its goals. I can see why many game makers move away from them, its better to use something polished for your specific needs and just having things you use. Unity are good to prototype games fast and to introduce to the concept of game making, but in my opinion should not be used in end products. Developers need to learn how things work under the hood, that's is the best way to have software that can work without bugs, issues and efficiency. Anyone trying to make a game while skip learning how things work will always be at risk of ending up with undesired issues that can't be fixed by themselves because they never learned how things worked in first place, or even if they do learned the engine will take away some control.

Everyday I see a new game released in Unity I feel bad for seeing programmers potential being underdeveloped because they opted to use a ready engine so they could work faster. Really good games and game studios will always have an engine polished for themselves. If a developer really wants to use an engine I suggest him to always search for one that just have what is needed and being smaller the better, because with time he will have to dive in its sources to make improvements, changes and fixes.

Otclient for example at first I did implement using Qt, but did throw away the code in just a few weeks, with Qt the thing was turning in something with unwanted complexity, odd code style and heavy that made the coding experience not fun for me. So I implemented its own engine with just the piece it needed. Today Tibia itself implemented their own client with Qt and I find that funny. I don't think it's a good ideia, looks like for me they were just trying to rush or were out of good developers.

If every developer today start using engine like Unity, the developers of the future will be full of morons, and the games full of issues and limitations because morons will be unable to do anything better. For me is always better to pay the price of learning more how things work with more time, than to trying to rush and skip to end up with issues and limitations you can't handle.
 
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I highly agree that games should avoid engines that tries to conquer the world, such ones like Unity. Developers must know that they are paying a high price to use a engine that tries too bee to flexible. Any game who uses such engines will be bloated and have efficiency issues due to the engine unused stuff and unneeded flexibility and in some cases higher complexity due to the engine flexibility and style. Developers who uses popular engines hidden themselves of too much valuable knowledge and access to the engine parts, this leads to games where have undesired consequences and issues that the developers can't handle well and becomes much harder to adapt such a complex engine to its goals. I can see why many game makers move away from them, its better to use something polished for your specific needs and just having things you use. Unity are good to prototype games fast and to introduce to the concept of game making, but in my opinion should not be used in end products. Developers need to learn how things work under the hood, that's is the best way to have software that can work without bugs, issues and efficiency. Anyone trying to make a game while skip learning how things work will always be at risk of ending up with undesired issues that can't be fixed by themselves because they never learned how things worked in first place, or even if they do learned the engine will take away some control.

Everyday I see a new game released in Unity I feel bad for seeing programmers potential being under developed because they opted to use a ready engine so they could work faster. Really good games and game studios will always have an engine polished for themselves. If a developer really wants to use an engine I suggest him to always search for one that just have what is needed and being smaller the better, because with time he will have to dive in its sources to make improvements, changes and fixes.

Otclient for example at first I did implement using Qt, but did throw away the code in just a few weeks, with Qt the thing was turning in something with unwanted complexity, odd code style and heavy that made the coding experience not fun for me. So I implemented its own engine with just the piece it needed. Today Tibia itself implemented their own client with Qt and I find that funny. I don't think it's a good ideia, looks like for me they were just trying to rush or were out of good developers.

If every developer today start using engine like Unity, the developers of the future will be full of morons, and the games full of issues and limitations because morons will be unable to do anything better. For me is always better to pay the price of learning more how things work with more time, than to trying to rush and skip to end up with issues and limitations you can't handle.
You are expecting way too much from others. You wanted to make it from scratch and look how it ended :)
Btw. there's LOTS of great games made with Unity, UE4 and other game engines. Do you really think they would be made if not these engines?
 
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I highly agree that games should avoid engines that tries to conquer the world, such ones like Unity. Developers must know that they are paying a high price to use a engine that tries to be too flexible. Any game who uses such engines will be bloated and have efficiency issues due to the engine unused stuff and unneeded flexibility and in some cases higher complexity due to the engine flexibility and style. Developers who uses popular engines hidden themselves of too much valuable knowledge and access to the engine parts, this leads to games where have undesired consequences and issues that the developers can't handle well and becomes much harder to adapt such a complex engine to its goals. I can see why many game makers move away from them, its better to use something polished for your specific needs and just having things you use. Unity are good to prototype games fast and to introduce to the concept of game making, but in my opinion should not be used in end products. Developers need to learn how things work under the hood, that's is the best way to have software that can work without bugs, issues and efficiency. Anyone trying to make a game while skip learning how things work will always be at risk of ending up with undesired issues that can't be fixed by themselves because they never learned how things worked in first place, or even if they do learned the engine will take away some control.

Everyday I see a new game released in Unity I feel bad for seeing programmers potential being underdeveloped because they opted to use a ready engine so they could work faster. Really good games and game studios will always have an engine polished for themselves. If a developer really wants to use an engine I suggest him to always search for one that just have what is needed and being smaller the better, because with time he will have to dive in its sources to make improvements, changes and fixes.

Otclient for example at first I did implement using Qt, but did throw away the code in just a few weeks, with Qt the thing was turning in something with unwanted complexity, odd code style and heavy that made the coding experience not fun for me. So I implemented its own engine with just the piece it needed. Today Tibia itself implemented their own client with Qt and I find that funny. I don't think it's a good ideia, looks like for me they were just trying to rush or were out of good developers.

If every developer today start using engine like Unity, the developers of the future will be full of morons, and the games full of issues and limitations because morons will be unable to do anything better. For me is always better to pay the price of learning more how things work with more time, than to trying to rush and skip to end up with issues and limitations you can't handle.
There is already very few people that try to really learn stuff. The majority of this community is not interested in developing skills, they want the easy things. Unity will make it easier and customizations will be more acessible to those people.
And those who want to learn might be discouraged when faced with a client like OTC, where some knowledge is necessary to do anything.
And I think this is why Kondra was able to do his version and earn money from it, one of the few that actually knows stuff and is able to do something with it.
I don't think we should focus on forming/creating new developers.
 
Anyway, this discussion / publication is already a milestone for the community.
We must know how to retain what is good about all of this. The question we must ask ourselves is: how to act from now on?
Should we change the way we contribute to the community so that we have OTClient open sources and that the entire community can use and contribute in some way?
Do we set up some kind of incentive and invest time and money in this beautiful Slavi's project?
To what extent can Unity be unviable? Just because it makes "lazy" developers? I think not.
Unfortunately, OTClient depended essentially on Edubart's contribution, and it was not at all legal when he had to withdraw from the project. The only thing left are commits and more commits to be analyzed.
The same thing tends to happen when Kondra stagnates with his project, and has no one else to sell it to. Will it continue development? What if he leaves? What is going to happen?
Unity is a mechanism used by large games, it has an even bigger community than Tibia, and consequently, the support becomes greater.
It is a technology that we want or not, it will always be subject to updates and improvements. I still think we need to include some potentially better things in the community ... and unity could help us, after all, it is developed by Microsoft itself, and that should count for something.
 
Just 10 silver premium members a month could put forth $100/m to improve the client.. I would easily pay 20/m and many developers would as well if they knew their money was going toward the right place developing the OTC further.

remember 0.4 problem? Either:
- (otland premium model) developers are funded, but less people have access to develop a server (which requires a lot of dedication from the devs btw) and you have less testers. Also leakers gonna leak. 5 people will pay, one will leak, everyone will use.
or
- (github model) you do changes for free on github but nobody gains money

returning to what 0.4 repo access was like is unlikely to happen because admins already decided about this forum being fully about open source. Selling access to repo (or discussing specific resources accessible this way) is against otland rules btw so starting a similar service to what otland premium was like would also be not welcome here.
I don't know how many times I've repeated myself saying that it is strictly forbidden to talk about sales of OpenTibia resources on OTLand. Just by mentioning it yourself, you're advertising his offer.
 
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remember 0.4 problem? Either:
- (otland premium model) developers are funded, but less people have access to develop a server (which requires a lot of dedication from the devs btw) and you have less testers. Also leakers gonna leak. 5 people will pay, one will leak, everyone will use.
or
- (github model) you do changes for free on github but nobody gains money

returning to what 0.4 repo access was like is unlikely to happen because admins already decided about this forum being fully about open source. Selling access to repo (or discussing specific resources accessible this way) is against otland rules btw so starting a similar service to what otland premium was like would also be not welcome here.
I agree with your points, I was just trying to think of ideas to further development because the open source idea is whats in place now, and it obviously isnt working to further the client at a decent pace.

To counter your point tho, back when they had the donation board I had the opportunity to try and obtain the 0.4 source without paying, but I did donate to get access to the distro instead of trying to leech because I understood that the money might be used to create a function I might need in the future. ( such as guild wars)

While there will be people that leech yes, the overrall goal isnt really stopping leechers its to continue development of the OTC. I would donate regardless if there were leechers or not as long as development happened. I guess the question would be would you have enough donations to make this worth it..? would more people try to leech than support? Probably xD

Maybe 2 repos so we keep the open source idea?
Open source OTC - 1-3 months behind premium board
Premium Donation OTC - Current rev

Was development happening more on repos when the donation idea happened? I dont know the answer just asking the question. and that answer might be more related to the activity on Otland rather than a donation system going away.
 
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You are expecting way too much from others. You wanted to make it from scratch and look how it ended :)
Btw. there's LOTS of great games made with Unity, UE4 and other game engines. Do you really think they would be made if not these engines?

Ended well for me because the knowledge I have accumulated I have used in other pursuits in life. The thing I was earning the most when I was younger and did start otclient project have always been knowledge and experience and at some point that lead me to somewhere else, just like happened with many OT developers. I think developers always need to seek knowledge, specially when they are beginning their careers, because with more of it you will be capable of doing more later. Just because the open client project still had some issues to sort for some people of the community, doesn't mean it failed, the issues people complain are trivial in my view and many developers already dealt with but didn't share, but that's a problem more of the community sharing spirit, which was the topic discussion and like said above that people shouldn't expect others developers to share like I did.

About engines sure one should always be considered, specially if you want to do a 3D game. But any 3D game programmer must do his homework first and develop his own simple 3D game engine from scratch once in his life before using other one. So he can understand all the concepts, understand what he will need, then move on to some 3D engine that fits the requirements. However when making 2D games people should consider not using an engine if possible in my view, because rendering 2D is very simple, and that can pay off later. Also I find an overkill people using 3D engines to make 2D games, like trying to shoot an ant with a bazooka, sure it will kill but you have to carry the whole weight. At least find an engine simple enough to just be 2D and the needed stuff, and consider doing a 2D engine from scratch before also just to learn.

There is already very few people that try to really learn stuff. The majority of this community is not interested in developing skills, they want the easy things. Unity will make it easier and customizations will be more acessible to those people.
And those who want to learn might be discouraged when faced with a client like OTC, where some knowledge is necessary to do anything.
And I think this is why Kondra was able to do his version and earn money from it, one of the few that actually knows stuff and is able to do something with it.
I don't think we should focus on forming/creating new developers.

That's just sad, we should always be learning while applying everyday, only this leads to great achievements, also learning and applying is the fun part. Taking that away is unhealthy.
 
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Ended well for me because the knowledge I have accumulated I have used in other pursuits in life. The thing I was earning the most when I was younger and did start otclient project have always been knowledge and experience and at some point that lead me to somewhere else, just like happened with many OT developers.
You have gained experience, great, that's why I'm here too, haven't been working with C++ before, not to mention Lua. Working with TFS and OTC allowed me to learn new skills, partialy thanks to you so I'm grateful.

Also I find an overkill people using 3D engines to make 2D games, like trying to shot an ant with a bazooka. At least find an engine simple enough to just be 2D and the needed stuff, and consider doing a 2D engine from scratch before also just to learn.
Unity isn't one of them. UE4, yes, CryEngine, yes but Unity? No. Unity has the best 2D support of all the engines out there.

After all these years, it's time to move on, don't you think? OTC isn't getting better, why should we wait for a miracle when we can work on a better alternative instead?
 
After all these years, it's time to move on, don't you think? OTC isn't getting better, why should we wait for a miracle when we can work on a better alternative instead?
This is a great point, Slavi is doing something new and open that is actively getting better. We should support it regardless.
 
After all these years, it's time to move on, don't you think? OTC isn't getting better, why should we wait for a miracle when we can work on a better alternative instead?

Indeed, people here should move on using whatever direction they find the best. I did not promote any client or anything here, even the one made by myself because it's an inactive project and I don't recommend anyone using inactive stuff. Programmers should use whatever engine, language or tool is most comfortable with, that's the path to be successful in any project. Any path using tools you are not satisfied will be harder. As an experienced developer just wanted share some thoughts that I found it would be useful for others. Just like I shared code in the past that turned to be useful for many, ideias and thoughts could also be useful to others.
 
OTClient has been essential for all server creators to date. And at least for me, it carries a huge affective memory, above all. But maybe, this whole situation will help us to realize that we need alternatives ... Maybe now is a great time for us to bet on Slavi and his project.
We could all contribute with improvements, and those who are not able to do, contribute financially, so that we have a great and optimized client, and we don't depend on 5,000 $ to have quality materials ...
I suggest that Slavi update us on OTU conditions, and tell us what can be done going forward.
If we mobilize the community, perhaps we can make a breakthrough. There are several people who are unaware of the existence of the OTU and who would certainly contribute to its development. So I think it should be further explored ...
 
OTClient foi essencial para todos os criadores de servidor até o momento. E pelo menos para mim, carrega uma enorme memória afetiva, acima de tudo. Mas talvez, toda essa situação nos ajude a perceber que precisamos de alternativas ... Talvez agora seja um ótimo momento para apostar em Slavi e seu projeto.
Todos nós poderíamos contribuir com melhorias, e aqueles que não são capazes de fazê-lo, contribuem financeiramente, para que tenhamos um cliente ótimo e otimizado e não dependemos de US $ 5.000 para ter materiais de qualidade ...
Sugiro que o Slavi nos atualize nas condições da OTU e nos diga o que pode ser feito daqui para frente.
Se mobilizarmos a comunidade, talvez possamos avançar. Existem várias pessoas que desconhecem a existência da OTU e que certamente contribuiriam para o seu desenvolvimento. Então eu acho que deveria ser mais explorado ...
English.
 
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