tldr at the bottom
I get what you're saying with it being more complicated to get into than it was back then, but with that it makes what you can customize with very little programming/scripting knowledge vastly better in my opinion. And really.... the whole "get tfs up and running" is not all that complicated. If you don't have the motivation to learn how to do that with one of the pre-compiled releases, odds are you do not have the motivation to deliver any kind of fun project for the community to play on. Having said that though:
I think the 2 main stems of frustration that steers people away is the lack of tools, and OTclient.
As far as tools go.. yea, they exist. You can get an object builder and item editor that "works" with the latest TFS if you look hard enough. RME is pretty easy to get into.... but, for instance, there is not even an official object builder that has full functionality with 10.98 (which is what TFS uses!) that is released to the community. (If there is I have never ran across it in all my searches).
OTclient took a ton of effort from I have no idea how many people, and it is in pretty good shape nowadays really. Kudos to all those who have contributed to it, but the lack of documentation on how to use that daggon thing would run off even experienced programmers that didn't want to pull their hair out and beat their face on the keyboard for 3 years trying to figure out how it all works for even simple changes/additions.
So, what you're left with as a new user, is that you naturally use THE advertised, official, "The Forgotten Server" in conjunction with the CIP client.
Here is what this looks like for a new user:
At this point your options are literally 10.98 only, unless you start doing some heavy reading, and digging around for some downgraded version which may or may not be really crappy and have game-breaking bugs that you discover 6 months into a project that forces you to either learn programming and spend LOADS of time researching how all of it was built........... or move on to a different distribution and start over.
So then you've got the official TFS going and you're really excited, and decide you want to go the custom route. Ok great. Now... how do I change the sprites around to my custom ones? Through some quick research you find "Object Builder". You download object builder and run it to discover that it doesn't even work with the official TFS. What a buzzkill... so you search and search and download 2-3 different files that claim to work great with 10.98... the first couple don't at all, and then you finally find one that does. All well and good for a bit, but then you learn that some of the functionality that exists in Object Builder doesn't work with 10.98. Oh well.. I guess i'll just do what I can with it and hope nothing breaks.
So now you want to get away from CIP client and use OTclient for customizability. It takes a rocket scientist to compile it, so you give up on it after trying it 50 different ways, and download the latest precompiled version. Oh great, it has bot flags off so anyone can bot on it easily...... back to trying to compile it yourself 50 times with bot flags on (assuming you can even figure out how to do that with NO documentation)..... If you've stuck around this long then you are RAPIDLY approaching burn out already, and you havent even STARTED really building your server.
Fact: If you are coming into the OT world this late into it, you would be better off going to your address bar and typing in unity3d.com, and learning that. In the time it takes you to really get to grasp with all these complicated pieces you've got to put together to make a truly custom Open Tibia Server(A.k.a. Your own game), you could just about have something very similar made in unity with some of their assets like "UMMORPG".
I believe this is why that this community doesn't grow anymore.
Mark my words: The
only way that this community will ever grow, is:
- some people on here with the skill set to do so would make much more user-friendly tools that actually work out of the box with the current TFS. Just making the existing tools work out of the box with current TFS would go a long way, but being able to map edit, add items, and change sprites in the same program without having to use 3 different ones that don't always play nice with each other would be a game changer.
- More customization options with TFS to mimic older Tibia versions. You can argue this all you want, but a great majority of people here just want to make a private server that acts like tibia, but to be able to easily add their own custom quests, systems, sprites, etc. Unless you are a decent programmer you are stuck with Tibia how it was played in 10.98, and 10.98 only. It would be GREAT if we could get actual support on the official TFS, maybe even just starting with some config options like "heighstackblock", so that you could choose whether a couple parcels on top of each other would block the player. Not everyone here wants to be some elitist programmer. Alot of people just want to be able to make a cool custom Tibia Private Server without having to spend 5 years learning to program first.
- A better, stable OTclient with actual documentation on how the thing works
Tldr: It is way too unapproachable for a new user to come in and make anything out of what we have as it stands. You have to do an incredible amount of research and trial and error, and spend a vast amount of time just to learn how to make a private server for an existing MMORPG, yet alone make anything that is 100% custom.
The only way to move forward with growth in my opinion:
- Better toolset that actually works with current TFS
- Official customization options for downward compatibility in TFS
- A client that is not buggy as crap with basically NO documentation on how to work with it
I just want to add this also:
Don't take my opinions above as me bashing anyone or anything. At this point I personally have no problems with any of the above things, but it was very hard learned, and therein lies the problem if you want to grow the community. This community has been incredible over the years, and there have been (and still exists) some amazingly talented people from all walks of our nerdy little world, from artists to scripters to programmers to website devs to map designers and everything in between. It is AWESOME that this much code is out there freely available for anyone to pick up and learn..... and for free! This community has taught me a treasure trove of skills that I will probably continue using and growing on for the rest of my life, and I am very thankful for that.
My opinions above are solely in regards to a new user experience, and growing the community!