AC 1.3 or AC 2, Your Expectations and Estimations

[G1gantuan]

you're assuming that he would actually implement the feature. from what i've observed in such a demeanor, we'd need all persons even considering the existence of this game to convince him to make a pause feature in the game. instead of acting like a nazi and forcing opinions down everyone's throats, instead actually try to argue in a rational manner and to actually concern oneself with the needs of the varied groups within this community.

dodging is easy, just strafe left and right. my master taught me well

EDIT:

two invisible users are watching me masterbate from the ceiling. this makes me feel at unease

EDIT 2:

woah they disappeared instantly after i posted this. hmm. now they're actually invisible

EDIT 3:

yeah. nice invisibility, you're so invisible that i can see you monitoring my posts. hehehe

[Huntsman]

^This guy. lol

Stop trying to be Undead, you fail

[G1gantuan]

stop trying to be a nazi. oh and if i'm gonna get suspended or something for pointing out problems then yeah go ahead. afs

EDIT:

actually i changed my mind. i don't want to be suspended from school. please don't, i will go in-game and convince everyone that a pause future is detrimental to the life of AC. please

[Marti]

Didnt larry already code the pause function? Correct me if im wrong

So it would be fairly easy to implement it no?

[Nightmare]

@ le Marti: Yes, and yes. But the nazis are trying to stop the progress! *runs away before getting banshot*

[Hellspell]

If the developers reading this had the man power, would some of the features being suggested be implemented? Perhaps there are some very clever people posting in this thread who would like to become part time developers.
How hard can it be to learn to code for AC? How did you developers learn? What do we need to know to begin to contribute in this way, rather than by just suggesting ideas that will not get implemented otherwise.

[stef]

Hellspell, contributing code is fairly easy: create a fork on github and get going. However, just because code exists, does not mean, that it will be merged. It still has to fit the game.

"How hard can it be to learn to code for AC?" - let's say it this way: you can easily count the number of people, who fully understand every aspect of the code on one hand (and you'll probably still have fingers left over).

[Honor]

He's playing ac since 1week and he's already banned. good guy

[PhaNtom]

How hard can it be to learn to code for AC? How did you developers learn? What do we need to know to begin to contribute in this way, rather than by just suggesting ideas that will not get implemented otherwise.

Considering the code quality of the AC codebase (or lack thereof), you would need about 1-2 years C++ experience minimum (though some of this time could be mitigated a bit if you already know another coding language...). The AC code is a perfect picture of bad coding practices, spaghetti code, and etc. Not the easiest thing for a beginner to read.

[Cemer]

why was g banned lol

[SKB]

The AC code is a perfect picture of bad coding practices, spaghetti code, and etc. Not the easiest thing for a beginner to read.

A beginner also doesn't work on game engines.

Code's not that bad, but there's room for improvement. Documentation is what's missing the most. If you (or anyone else) aren't happy, start a project to document ac code and your contributions will most likely be accepted (you'll also understand the codebase more.)

[Hellspell]

"How hard can it be to learn to code for AC?" - let's say it this way: you can easily count the number of people, who fully understand every aspect of the code on one hand (and you'll probably still have fingers left over).

Is that because there is so much? There must be at least one person in the world who understands a given part of it, specifically the person who wrote it in the first place. Of course, you don't need to understand the entire thing to begin contributing anyway, or the game wouldn't exist in the first place.

Anyway, I wanted to see what this code thing looked like so I thought I'd see what ac_client is 'made of'. Bear in mind I don't understand any code. What the hell is this?
Vè ‹5Œ¢M ht€ ÿÖhv€ ÿÖhx€ ÿÖ‹5`¤P FPjh jÿˆ¢M NQjh
 jÿ„¢M Vjh jÿ€¢M ^ÃÌVW‹ðƒÏÿƒ~ ~I
That was just a sample of what I found. Have I done something messed up, or is that something that someone understands?

[ExodusS]

Did you just open ac_client.exe with a notepad?

[Hellspell]

Did you just open ac_client.exe with a notepad?

I did. I thought that code was a bunch of text, and that opening it with notepad would let me see that text. What should I have done?

[Million]

Follow this http://forum.cubers.net/thread-166.html

And there should be a source folder or something like this in the new AC folder downloaded.

[TheNihilanth]

... start a project to document ac code ...

I'd say it's more healthy to f*ck interchange fluids with a girl who has ebola.

[ExodusS]

What should I have done?

Because the game is open-source, it means you can download the source because you'll never get something revelant from the compiled client itself (I'm not sure if we can "decompile" the client like that but what I'm sure is that, the rendering of this would not be as clean as the source-code for sure).

I think you can find the source-code on SourceForge or GitHub (I don't know if they moved to GitHub since the SourceForge's "incident") then look at it by yourself, and this time, your notepad should print something that is readable by humans, (but humans who have the capability to read this language witch is the C++).

You also can compile your own client from the binaries you downloaded and then get instantly spoted by the paranoid guardians of the masterserver, or Jamz. But it should be ok as long as you don't cheat.

[Vanquish]

In addition to the above, get Notepad++ since it also supports unix line endings and that way you'll actually be able to read lines of code as lines of code instead of having everything as one huge paragraph.

And btw the fastest way to get the source code is here.

[Nightmare]

The only good pub server got locked into a meh default map/mode because half of the server was noobs trying to vote in kitchenzz and camper(which aren't supposed to be possible in 1.2 but are), then F2'ing shine-des3-depot. Then gradually all the good players left the server.

---

Ban custom maps from pubs & remove one-weapon modes.

Cons

- The one mapper left(Felix) will have to test his maps offline or on a match server(not a problem).

Pros

- No bs like the above scenario that just occurred.
- A legit looking masterserver full of top quality maps and modes(and players).
- New players play the game the way it's designed to be played, and add to the good population.

[stef]

Thing is, we want to encourage playing on custom maps. Just not those crappy shit maps.

The problem is the defunct attempt on automatically weeding out crap maps, called "map restrictions". Doesn't work - and somehow suggests, that all maps that pass it are "good enough".

[Nightmare]

Could just make good custom maps official and it'd still work out. :D
Not saying my idea is the only way, but it's pretty hardcore, just hoping it brings discussion into some kind of fix.

[Alien]

these players dont have motivation because they get smashed by "pro" players, this is not about maps but about coo players, you dont care much what map there is if you see Shadow online ...
some ideas:
- "player of server": the best player of current day showing in the server info
- "top ten players": top ten list sending by Master Server as result from some tournament
- sorting list of server from official - custom - crappy or tablist of servers
- only 10 servers per page
- bigger of server info with list of players in, where i can see ratio of them at least

etc.

[Nightmare]

More secondary and melee weapons. A few classes with different health, speed, and a special perk for each.

*runs away*

[PhaNtom]

More secondary and melee weapons. A few classes with different health, speed, and a special perk for each.

*runs away*

Inb4 people compare to ACR.

[Nightmare]

ACR has any of those?

[PhaNtom]

ACR has any of those?

Perks and classes iirc. Not exactly like you said but similar.

[Waffles]

What was wrong with larry's pause code?

[Andrez]

- remove ALL map restrictions
- remove some bad maps like ac_cavern and ac_rattrap

AND that abortion called ac_aqueous.

[Vanquish]

What was wrong with larry's pause code?

Absolutely nothing.

[Mr.Floppy]

To be honest, while I assume good intentions, this thread was potentially misleading from the start.

You ask whether the next version should be named 1.3 or 2, which put down as this really is rather pointless. The actual question is, do you wish the game to stay close to where it came from (1.3), or would you really want it to be pushed onto something new (2), like porting it to another engine or undergo massive changes.

I personally do not want AC's core mechanics to be changed, nor do I want it to be ported to another engine. In fact, I do agree with Stef that advanced mapping abilities would most likely kill the current gameplay and it's the game's simplicity and straight forward style which keeps me coming back every so often.

Don't get me wrong, if a group of enthusiasts comes together and creates something like AC on cube2/tesseract/unreal/source/...-engine, I'd definitly give it a shot. Yet, I wouldn't want it to replace the 'classic' AC, which is implied in your either/or-way of asking.

The second question is also tricky, since it suggests that there have to be new/more features added. Why so, in first place?

Has it ever come to mind, that AC might just be trimmed down to a more userfriendly _arcade_ game, what it is actually advertised to be? There is so much functionality hidden in the back, stuff only being accessible through cube script. Those menus are a mess. The server browser itself feels like a weird management simulation game. I'd say we'd clean up that before adding even more to it.

Finally that third question is in fact provoking, rather than encouraging a dialog between developers and community, which is yet really the direction given by the title already. Expectations? Estimations?
It's this customer-damand mind set, which is not going to make any spare time dev listen.

No, we should be talking about what do we really like about the game in it's current state. What keeps us old guys playing? What did the later newbies make stay? Of course, we also have to adress what feels broken or problematic, in order to enhance the gaming experience, yet there's no reason to 'discuss' it over and over again, without giving reasonable alternatives.

However, I'm not intending to defend the devs here. I only want to encourage a more constructive way of discussing. Of course, there're always two sides to it and yes there should be more information on what current developement is going on or what is planned. Devs, don't expect us to hang around on IRC all day to catch up everything going on. Just share your submits compiled into a handy list and your overall vision here on the forum every now and then.