Urban Terror Forums: Urban Terror 4.3 - Urban Terror Forums

Solitary, on 05 April 2016 - 04:07 AM, said:

With the benefit of hind sight there is no arguing that 4.2 was a bumpy ride but the way things were done was a case of there really was no other option of having to get a lot of stuff fixed due to the current state that 4.1 had become with cross over problems between code and content.

With idtech3 there is no difference in code as to content so the tendency was a fix in one area would cause a ripple creating bugs in unexpected areas that at first glance had no connection with one another that really did not show up until after release.

Going with a rapid release format did solve a lot of the accountable problems but what we did not take into account was the problems and issues created by [cough cough] members of the community out to create problems as a lets say the hate factor with the intention of creating problems with each release adding to the ongoing improvements as to required bug fixes.

Along with FS out to fix problems was individuals creating problems like telling others it was fine to install 4.2 over 4.1 or the questionable torrents being released hours before the official released or mirrors being provided outside the official channels and cfg files posted promising an increase in 4.2 performance.

With that being said I'm not trying to deflect the problems that we created but with in the scope of our releases things went as planned as to being able to correct the problems in short order but as an effort to be a bit more transparent with the future release of 4.3 it's strongly advised to stick with how to's and where to get from official members from the FS team and be careful as to who you trust.

In the mean time.

Anything relating to content addition, fixes, have been cleared off of the back log of things to do so any future releases will be code related only and I'm sure the coders will be happy to have content out of the way which was usually the root of all problems in the past.

Well there has never been a strong argument against Open Sourcing the game code but it has never been “that” discussion if we should or should not OS the code.

As an opinion though with out oversight from a stewardship group like Frozen Sand it would not take long before UrT/idtech3 would become a victim of obsolesce by design and would no longer even install under say Windows 20.

See

The problem with the code base is it's not all that bad and would benefit from an overhaul but to harp on it once again both code and content are entwined to the point that there is no separation of the two and are not exclusive from one another that if you excluded the demands of content you/we will create unintended bugs in the process.

The server crashing in .002 for example was caused by the collision mesh collapsing on a single frame discovered by Bladekiller, a member of the content team, that I fixed using tools that no longer work under Windows 10 that could not be fixed in code.

In large part this is why there will no longer be any new content as the now 16 year old tools no longer installs under Windows 10.

Being on the content side of things I can not speak for our coders but I've seen the frustration they had to go through as to the requirement that the coding had to be done based on the demands of the content that was created over time. Fixing the collision problems in 4.1 makes for a good example as from the technical side things were done 3 or 4 different ways in content that could have been done under a single channel solution if the rule code first content second was followed.

The fact that the game even still runs and has community support says more about the overall community effort of being able to play the game, even with it's limitations and faults, than what Frozen Sand can do to get back to the glory days when Quake 3 was king.

As a personal opinion I feel UrT/idtech3 deserves better than being dumped into the OS bucket as Frozen Sand as an organization takes on the responsibility of trying to keep the old girl going for another year.

In the mean time as long as there is a single FS member on the team wishing to continue to work on UrT/idtec3 the policy is to support their efforts as to a possible release

Solitary, on 05 April 2016 - 04:07 AM, said:

The damage in 4.1 as to weapon specs “did not” change but rather the broken collision mesh was fixed and made to work the way it was suppose to.

The root problem, content once again, was the collision mesh in 4.1 was on a separate animation channel that would hitch from time to time, I suspect prediction code catching up, and the ray trace shot would pass through the mesh at a rate of about 15% of the time.

In 4.2 with the correction hits, collision, now occurs 100% of the time that increases hits by the once lost 15% but at the same time increases the player being hit 15% more times than they did in 4.1

The broken collision in 4.1 is in fact an artificial specification as to result.