Wiki: Development part

[Nard]

I read many questions here on forum, which topic were on development. Their answers should be included in wiki.. I also saw some remarks saying that wiki was outdated on some points.

This topic is to list where are the problems and try to solve them. Though a huge work has been made by Alige, there is still a lot to do. and I'd like to help newcomers and veterans as well to find their way in wiki

This is the actual organization of the development part of the wiki . It can certainly be improved.

2.1 Development General information

You want to join the DEV team but don't know where to start? Well look at these pages to know on what you would like to focus on first. You might also want to talk with other devs on IRC. irc.themanaworld.org and the Developers' channel is #tmw-dev.

Joining the project
Reporting Bugs
Git repository
Testing Server
How to Develop
Scripting Basics
Projects and Teams

2.2 Game Content - Guidelines

Graphics: Art in Development - Animations - Particle engine - Image dyeing
Mapping: Tileset development - Map development - Mapping Tutorial
Sound and music: Sound effects - Music
Other: Translations - Game systems - Weapons

2.3 Programming Information

EA Related: eAthena Scripting Standards- Dependencies- Ports
Miscellanous: Bug tracker-Source code documentation (Doxygen)
RFCs: Rendering - Action layers - Collision system - Movement system - Logging
Reference: Server development - Realtime combat - Monster Database
Releases: Making a new release - How to release an update

In this topic I would like to get:

• First of all the wiki guidelines should be approved (and improved?). Please have a look on Crush's proposal; comment them either in the comment paragraph or on discussion page.
  http://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php/Wiki_Guidelines
• Suggestions about organization of development part of the wiki. (for example I think that this wiki should include something about the client(s) and their development, the website and it's development, the wiki itself, a Tools page)
• A list of articles which are outdated so we can categorize them and update them when necessary
• A list of the tools (both local and online that you find useful for your work and that you would recommend (pastebin, dropbox, trello, doodle, Gimp, tiled, IDEs, Rosegarden, MySQL...)
• A View as clear as possible of the medium and long term working method of the various teams: I found for example links to content on googlecode, gitorious and git hub, with a lot of redirects which make a synthetic view of the project somewhat difficult to acquire. There is no reference document to track the history of the project and the choices which were made and their reasons. (except a patchwork on forum)

[Crush]

First of all the wiki guidelines should be approved (and improved?). Please have a look on Crush's proposal; comment them either in the comment paragraph or on discussion page.
http://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php/Wiki_Guidelines

Note that this page was from a different time. Back when I came up with that, we were in a general conceptualization phase about the backstory and the gameplay on Manaserv. There were a lot of good (and less good) concepts for both, but most of them were conflicting with each other. I made that page to make it more clear which concepts are backed by whom.

In the end the Manaserv programmers formed Manasource.org and decided to postpone these discussions by making Manaserv as flexible as possible so that server administrators can implement any backstory and game sub-systems they want. That was also the moment when I stopped to participate.

[Nard]

Wiki needs guidelines for both player information (quest, items, general information) and development part (concepts, graphic development,...) and on wiki itself (files & pics naming conventions...)
Your draft is a bit obsolete? np, let's improve it agree it then.
Alige began that (hard) work and did it quite well. Some the rules he set are still virtual since they are not written somewhere.

[Jenalya]

A View as clear as possible of the medium and long term working method of the various teams: I found for example links to content on googlecode, gitorious and git hub, with a lot of redirects which make a synthetic view of the project somewhat difficult to acquire.

I think this page http://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php/Git_repository could be transformed into something that gives an overview of the different parts of the project. It could list the various repositories used, together with a short description of what aspect of the project is contained in the repositories.
The lower part of that page should eventually be merged together with the tutorial of how to use git for developing tmw that Kandiman wrote http://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php/Working_With_Git.

As for the repositories:
https://github.com/themanaworld Here are all the tmw repositories beside the server sources, which are still on gitorious.
https://github.com/mana Here are the repositories of manasource, of which mainly the client is relevant.
https://gitorious.org/tmw-eathena/mainline This is the repository with the server sources.

[o11c]

https://gitorious.org/tmw-eathena/mainline This is the repository with the server sources.

Hm, maybe I should switch the client to gitorious now that I've got a working C++ version. If I try to wait for everything I want it'll never get done.

[Nard]

Here is the TMW project as I see it. I do not pretend to anything. I post it as a first proposition to your reflection. Complete wiki reorganization is a long work that I will not be able to do alone. I will try to do the modifications you suggest first, so it can work better in the actual form.

1. First steps inside TMW
   • History, awards, external references; TMW and manasource. Main forks (?)
   • Customize your client, play with data
   • script Basics
   • Graphics Basics (where to find graphics, customize)
   • Sound Basics (where to find music and sounds, customize)
   • How to?/FAQ (selected content from forum?)
2. The TMW project:
   • Project state (Yearly reports?)
   • Team(s?)
   • The GHP
   1. TMW eAthena (include global working information)
      • Content (each page includes actual working information, state of the art, actual plans)
      • client (s?) (where to find binaries complilation information)
      • server
   2. Manaserv (idem)
      • content
      • client (s?)
      • Server
   3. Bugs and issues tracking
      1. TMW eAthena test server
      2. Bugreporting
   4. Game concepts (all pages concerning concepts and story, approved or not, rather tricky to sort )
   5. Graphics Design
      1. player and mob sets, items (equipment), Other items, NPCs),guidelines and conventions
      2. Maps and mapping, guidelines and conventions
   6. Music and sound
   7. The website
      1. website (git...)
      2. Wiki guidelines, development, conventions ...
      3. Forum
3. Tools reference and reference tools:
   1. Git (working with git)
   2. Tiled
   3. Eathena script
   4. lua
   5. IDEs
   6. Interactive web tools Pastebin, team editors, filesharing...
   7. Graphic tools: GIMP....
   8. Sound and Music tools; Rosegarden, Audacity, Ardour, lilypond...

[Nard]

I updated Map development page, #Existing_maps to include the maps reserved in the Projects and Teams pages.

The EAthena_Map_Names is obsolete, I suggest to include the useful content into Map development page,.

Nard

[tux9th]

I think it is going to be confusing if we put the maps which are reserved in there.
For starters we now have to edit two pages to reserve a mapname and second some of these projects won't be realized in the next time.
I would rather keep the list clean to what's released on the mainserver and keep the rest to the Teams and Project site.

eg. Barbarian Village is on hold. One map is nearly finished but the tileset isn't. If no tileset artist picks that up and finishes it, it will never be released.

greets

[Nard]

This page is intended for development and included already unreleased maps in the past. I plan to develop a user part dedicated to in game geography too so there will be no confusion.

On the occasion, I think it may be necessary to update the original world geography http://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php/Geography, because the actual maps do not fit that well to the original plans, especially with Tulimshar in Tonori:http://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php/Tonori.

Also new 055-1 and 056-1 have to be compatible with : Argaes' map, or the world has to be modified there too.

It would be nice to know where we are supposed to include the Kaizei maps too.

Nard

[tux9th]

I think 055 and 056 still fit into that concept.

If we use this and how to develop under this is not sure yet.
I talked to Jen about that yesterday we didn't find a consensus yet because I had to go. Maybe I can pick this discussion up some other day when I got more time publicly and we can come up with a solution.

I'm not sure if that many wiki pages having a very similar content are necessary. Because it is hard to maintain every of these pages. That's my opinion. If you keep doing all of that then you're very wellcome.
Do your work and concept and maybe you can convince me with your finished work!

greets

[Crush]

I'm not sure if that many wiki pages having a very similar content are necessary. Because it is hard to maintain every of these pages.

Any wiki pages with information overlap should either be merged into one or differentiated so that every information is in one and only one article. Redundant information in documentation is a nightmare to maintain.

[Nard]

I think it is going to be confusing if we put the maps which are reserved in there.
For starters we now have to edit two pages to reserve a mapname and second some of these projects won't be realized in the next time.
I would rather keep the list clean to what's released on the mainserver and keep the rest to the Teams and Project site.

eg. Barbarian Village is on hold. One map is nearly finished but the tileset isn't. If no tileset artist picks that up and finishes it, it will never be released.

greets

I understand your point of view (and thanks for the update btw). I'd like to remark that this page had to be updated anyway, and that it had not been done for 2 1/2 years, except a few details. I can go on maintaining it as long as I have the info .
I keep only the map development page as it is at the moment. My update was made with the intention that devs who would like to reserve a map could do it with watching a single page maybe some maps will not be released, thus they will stay marked "unreleased" as some items are (we could use colors).
Other related obsolete pages' useful content will be included in this one, kept for a while (?) and linked to this one.
I plan to reorganize it this way:

1. What is a map: Client side, Server side... any information that could fit here to help understanding how it works (globally).
2. existing and planned maps
3. How to Map: includes guidelines , Map naming conventions, references to special pages on Mapping Tutorial page and/or Tiled

Edit:
New Map development draft page can be watched and discussed at: Map development draft
I don't know if the "new system" page at: http://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php/Map_naming has any current interest.
Nard

[Crush]

Nard, when you want things to happen on the wiki, don't suggest. Just do and ask for feedback afterwards.

[Nard]

Nard, when you want things to happen on the wiki, don't suggest. Just do and ask for feedback afterwards.

I will do, but I prefer not to have to do the job twice.I make enough errors myself and am far to be the best skilled on these subjects (I am not a dev here ). As I know that only interested persons will contribute on the topic I prefer to listen to them before and try to go faster to the result and fit better to the needs after.

Nard

[Nard]

first draft on Main page updated content can be found on my wiki subpage: http://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php/ ... brouillon4
Please comment here, post missing or new links here or on discussion page: http://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php? ... brouillon4