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The state of this community

If I would host a retro server, I would definitely be interested in a downported version of TFS, that has cool stuff like Revscriptsys and other engine features. No matter which protocol, I'm sure stuff like proper guildhall support, Asynchronous HTTP API with lua bindings, Parse packet in Lua, yelling behavior would be beneficial, along with tons of other stuff we have in our pending pull request queue.

If I was you, I would spin up a test server and help review and test pull requests, so it gets merged, so it later can be downported and adapted to the server you are interested in. Even if the main repo is not specifically targeted for your use-case, it will benefit you in the end. (unless you are forcing yourself to be stuck on an old obsolete distribution).

if there are pull requests you arent interested in (like protocol specific ones), then just ignore them, and help solve the ones you do care about. The advantage of open source is the ripple effect, once code gets released, it can be ported and adapted to specific use-cases, and will in the end benefit you more than one might think.



This would just make things slower and harder for us developers. We would need more testers, and developers who are actually interested in those protocols. Old protocol developers come and go, and when they do they tend to make a downport. Nostalrius has done that, Nekiro has done that. But most of otland dev team isn't interested in maintaining 3 separate repos.

But nothing is stopping you from doing that. And I will happily encourage anyone to set up and maintain a downported version of TFS, especially when done properly. @Nekiro did this, but I imagine it is challenging to constantly keep up with a master branch. I'm sure when TFS 1.4 is released, people are going to downport it, so the more updates you can contribute to TFS now, the more features will be available when the next big downport happens.

Nekiro maintained a clean downport of 7.72 and 8.6 actively for 4 months, any retro dev could have forked and continued this. I guess they were too busy keeping their modifications private and let it die. I think perhaps this is a challenge within the retro community, many devs here argue with each other and compete against each other when what they should be doing is collaborating (for the sake of their dev scene).

But its not too late, 1.4 will most likely bring a new attempt at a retro repo. It won't be official, but it will probably be recommended for that scene.

But unless retro developers change their mindset and embrace the open source, its going to become another short period one-shot that dwindles into obsolescence. (Then again, obsolescene is kindof the charm for retro devs? :p)
Your points are valid, but I think you may be underestimating the amount of developers and users that are still loyal to old school. I'd argue its as many as 8.6/10.98+.

Just the most recent page 1 of "Server Gaga"
7.4-8.0 x 7
8.54-8.6 x4
10.0+ x5
Custom x 1
a9ynor.jpg


Then you have medivia. tibiantis. wearetibia.. retrocores.. etc etc the list goes on. scroll Discussion and see how many are about 7.4-7.72.. its a lot.
Example: Which is the best distribution out there for 7.72 (https://otland.net/threads/which-is-the-best-distribution-out-there-for-7-72.273318/)
I myself used OTHire for years and helped countless users with that distro rather than the 1.3 downport.. I simply was just too busy to make the swap to 1.3 or familiarize myself with the changes... I finally did that due to how obsolete the distro was becoming. The issue was/is OTHire is not very compatable at all with OTC or OTCv8

Just lately have been working with the Nekiro downgrade for 7.72 in the last year, however there are many changes such as revscripts you mentioned that would be great to have, so thats why I have never committed to that repo yet, and currently why I dont have any server out. I have been lookin into how hard it would be to import the latest commits/PR from the latest official repo, and some do look to be a little complicated to merge. I cant tell if its more worth starting from scratch, or importing commits onto Nekiros latest downgrade. Then there's Nostalri~ which has its advantages & disadvantages. As to your point about otland PR, I have no motivation to download any tibia 10.~ on my computer. Later tibia versions depress me xD Thats the issue im describing.. if there were an updated official retro repo.. I would be testing many PRs.

Nekiro has mentioned he is waiting for 1.4 to do this 7.72 downgrade. I think the main issue for many developers is the time is money factor..

I agree to your point it doesn't need to be official, just needs some push to standardize. Stock OTC and retro clients take a lot of work to put together. Now that OTCv8 is presenting a good solution for the client side, a comprehensive retro repo is probably the most enticing thing to a lot of people in my opinion.

Look at world of warcraft.. they went back to their roots and admitted the Vanilla version was just too good. They made WoW Classic for a reason.
ovTK1O.jpg


Im not trying to say OTS are like Wow but im just trying to say nostalgia is very important for some.. look at how many posts alone on this forum are about Medivia sprite changes...

I think there are some out there that lack the knowledge but have the money for advertisement, if there were pretty easy solutions to be able to launch servers users wanted to launch, such as how counterstrike or minecraft servers are easily deployable, you probably would see a lot more activity around here.

Closest thing ive seen to that is Don's service, but its hard to find and not catered towards different versions.
If you want to launch a Retro server in 2021 on the latest stuff, you actually have to put in quite a considerable amount of work. (im not complaining im just trying to think of things to increase the amount of servers / keep servers alive)

What ive always envisioned is a system, such as a web panel.. where a user can upload his/her map files and optional data pack files or go with the default datapack supplied.. click the version number, choose ram usage and launch the server with the IP address. It would not be difficult to make this if the distribution was there. You can deploy minecraft servers in 60 seconds many places. <- I would help work on this if anyone were interested..
 
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@xKrazyx Maintaining single version helps to improve code, new features, API's... instead of compatibility. A downgrade is easy to do, especially using OTC, what makes it difficult is datapack.
I think weak point of TFS is want to maintain compatibility with XML, sometimes it is necessary to break to improve. Unlike compat.lua which is amazing.
 
Bought the distro and decided there is no point looking elsewhere fixed up the datapack and it works perfectly + its a downgrade too and I prefer 0.4 luascript than 1.x
so mostly comfort i guess
 
aslong it works perfect why not
peoples saying 0.4 is shit but I still see many peoples using them without "any" crash
and ye I know they prob fixed alot to make it stable :D
 
aslong it works perfect why not
peoples saying 0.4 is shit but I still see many peoples using them without "any" crash
and ye I know they prob fixed alot to make it stable :D
the only thing that can crash it is memory leak in .lua :D
 
Real answer?

The state of this community is dogwater right now. Everyone's a liar. Everyone only thinks of themselves, RIP those who weren't like the current.
 
Real answer?

The state of this community is dogwater right now. Everyone's a liar. Everyone only thinks of themselves, RIP those who weren't like the current.

A bit catastrophic there. Theres a bunch of awesome users out there.. just that some may move in the shadows and just show when needed. I've never met so many users like I did during the last years here and none turned down when asked for help just like I did when they needed it from me.

Its the noisy ones or those solely driven by economical interests the ones leveling down the community quality.
 
You weren't the guy that was selling the ravendawn map and sprites? Aka screech?
There was MULTIPLE people behind the Ravendawn map situation that I wont even bother talking about because I do not care to harm anyone elses image today. Got photo proof of it too, just like all the Madara crap, AND more. And I definitely wasn't selling shit, especially not Sprites..I was scammed buying sprites twice now from Lexarr and Madara/Dan.
 
There was MULTIPLE people behind the Ravendawn map situation that I wont even bother talking about because I do not care to harm anyone elses image today. Got photo proof of it too, just like all the Madara crap, AND more. And I definitely wasn't selling shit, especially not Sprites..I was scammed buying sprites twice now from Lexarr and Madara/Dan.
If you really cared about cleaning up this "dogwater community" you would out those involved so others are aware, and less likely to 1. Do business with them and 2. Understand if you act "dogwater" you will get shamed for it, not protected. But you dont :) Just blowing smoke, like most the community.
 
If you really cared about cleaning up this "dogwater community" you would out those involved so others are aware, and less likely to 1. Do business with them and 2. Understand if you act "dogwater" you will get shamed for it, not protected. But you dont :) Just blowing smoke, like most the community.
Please, don't make me post your convos with Elo and others trying to give out Beta Keys to get info for shit.
Sad you treat your own project like that, just like how you lie on other websites because you know your project isn't worth a real IP for shit. You're far from a saint yourself, and many know it.
 
There was MULTIPLE people behind the Ravendawn map situation that I wont even bother talking about because I do not care to harm anyone elses image today. Got photo proof of it too, just like all the Madara crap, AND more. And I definitely wasn't selling shit, especially not Sprites..I was scammed buying sprites twice now from Lexarr and Madara/Dan.
But you weren't known for selling also other projects sprites? I don't know which ones, but thats the image that you got around
 
But you weren't known for selling also other projects sprites? I don't know which ones, but thats the image that you got around
200% no. I have never sold a sprite in my life, I'm trying to GAIN sprites not LOSE them.
 
Please, don't make me post your convos with Elo and others trying to give out Beta Keys to get info for shit.
Sad you treat your own project like that, just like how you lie on other websites because you know your project isn't worth a real IP for shit. You're far from a saint yourself, and many know it.
It was an alpha key, get it right.
 
This, bro. This hits me, I remember the day when people would comment over a map piece or something for a decent amount of posts. It was genuinely nice to see feedback and what people thought of the map etc. Now you don't get any feedback and all you're told is 'x user reacted to your post with like' It's one of the reasons I stepped back from mapping.

@Ziker I agree with you in the fact that the community is not what it once was and Blackstone is 100% correct, I hope you don't think this about the veteran users who have actually stayed through the decade and are still here today, I am one of them and it's a sad thing that's happened but such is life. People move on and people get new priorities, I have no doubt some of the people who were here are parents now, way too busy with their children's lives to worry about "giving back" to a next to dead community, I myself am way too focused on work and real life to devote so much time to Open-Tibia. I do hope one day it makes a massive U-turn and is booming again, perhaps, hopefully.

When it comes to releasing content I tend to stay away from that because of how many leechers there are that don't give back so perhaps I'm part of the problem when it comes to that side of things
I pretty much agree with what @Peroxide said and @Blackstone said. A lot has changed over the years and, although some of us veteran users are not that active anymore (me included), I really hope you don't see us the way you described it. Many of us have been on Otland for a decade and even longer in the OT community. That's a long time where a lot can happen in life. Priorities, circumstances and hobbies change. Time tends to get scarce the older you get (fk I am 24 and already talking like Davy Jones) as the liabilities in life accumulate. Although I am still playing OTS casually, the little free time that remains goes into spending time with the gf, my friends, family and working out. If apart from that some time remains, I usually spend it brain afk such as gaming for an hour or two, or watching an episode of Netflix. I am studying at University, working a minijob and run a Webdesign small bussiness. Compared to 10 years ago I have a lot on my plate these days.. I am checking on Otland every now and then but it's become a rare luxury. It's time for someone else to carry on the torch.
Another thing, similar to what @Peroxide mentioned, there seems way less feedback/contributions these days. I published a Linux Auto-Install script for TFS a while ago and someone has reported an error in the thread that seems to occur now. I am sure it is not a big thing to fix it but instead of someone stepping up and forking my GitHub Code or submitting a fix, everyone seems to just be waiting for me to fix it one day. Sure, nit everyone knows how to do this. But you can always learn and look at the old code for inspiration.

Kind regards,
Damon

Much love to my boys @Peroxide @Blackstone <3
 
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