[SilverFoxZ]

jerrybeansman, on 04 April 2013 - 08:55 PM, said:

Where did these comments come from? These are real issues. I don't see any flaming or personal attacks occuring. This is really valuable feedback for Frozen Sand, at least I certainly hope it is perceived that way. Please don't confuse constructive criticism with baseless trolling.

Im just saying that you should re-read what you post after you wrote it and make sure it doesnt sounds so impolite. Not saying that there should be no criticism, just dont do it like "its all your fault and you are stupid because you dont do this" because thats what it sounded like. Anyways i dont wanna derail the topic anymore than neccercary.

[JerryBeansMan]

Thanks for explaining, Silver Fox. That is indeed good advice for anyone posting on the internet, in general.
Sometimes it happens that something not intended to be rude, comes off that way. It is therefore important to be specific when you take offense at something, as the poster might not know why you are taking offense.
I am a proponent of explicit communication. It's not enough to say "don't be rude or you get banned" as that only covers posters that are actually trying to be rude, rather than inadvertantly.

I don't mean to make such a big deal of this but these forums have a reputation for being very hostile to any criticism. I'm not saying it's true or not but it is something the mods and regular members can work to improve.

This post has been edited by jerrybeansman: 05 April 2013 - 12:16 AM

[|HSO|havok]

Just got back to this after a few days, there is a lot that has gone on in the thread, so I will try to cover most things.

Quote

I don't mean to make such a big deal of this but these forums have a reputation for being very hostile to any criticism. I'm not saying it's true or not but it is something the mods and regular members can work to improve.

Not the case with me at least and I am sure that this also stands for all other FS members who actually get constructive criticism, I am passionate about getting things working and supporting the community, I do this for my job at a large mobile games company.
I understand that language is sometimes a barrier, which is why I always read a post at least twice to make sure that I have not interpreted it incorrectly. Looking at this for the 20'th time maybe and the original post was not 'constructive' in any possible way and I thank SilverFoxZ for explaining this. The post was trolling but had truth behind it which I wanted to uncover.

Back to the actual issues....

For the updater - it is in development so I am unable to comment on it's future features at this time (anyone who flames me for this, or the fact that we are actively developing WILL get a warning as it is not constructive criticism to question us spending time on something you do not understand)

Quote

I did see the full install zip.
I imagine that contains the necessary files for packaging - Is that correct, hasufell, all?

Yes, that is correct I would have thought. The .zip file should be enough in order for packages to be created.

Quote

Also I have to remind you, that your updater is and will never be compatible with linux package managers. Are you aware of that? Are you aware that this is the same reason why steam is incompatible with package managers?

This is something that I would love to get resolved. There is a reason that Steam does things that way, which is the system behind the platform, steam works off user authentication which is essential in today's gaming environment as it means they can sync settings, account details, etc, etc. Something that could be quite interesting though is a hybrid solution that utilises the package managers AND the updater.

Quote

Quote

havok, on 04 April 2013 - 02:04 AM, said:
Using a closed source updater gives a lot of advantages, but we are aware of a number of issues which is why a full .zip file of the game content is provided as well.

How about trust?

I do not see what this has to do with trust, trust is only relevant if we 100% trust everyone who plays urban terror. Based on the number of people that hack in 4.1 how could we even think to trust them with the source code to the updater? That is the reason that it is closed source will remain that way.

Quote

So you are wasting time on the updater again instead of working on the game?

No, the slowdown of the updater was not due to what is inside it. You also have to remember that although there is a large active linux community within urban terror, they are still a minority. The updater is very useful for windows and mac users. This is something that you need to take into account with every response, the fact that when the updater is working efficiently then it will work for everyone on every platform.

I think that covers everything that was mentioned.

What I personally would like to see, is the updater being the core of the game and different ways of distributing the data initially.
I am a windows user primarily, so I want to see everything moving away from the old fashioned 'download a zip, extract it to a folder, edit a load of config files, manually type in auth' only to find that you downloaded the old version of the game and need to repeat it all.

Hasufell - you obviously know a lot more than me about linux and how packages are managed. How about writing a post of exactly how to give you a file that can be used across all distributions of linux, what to include on it and how you think it can be integrated with the updater for us to add more features on top.

[hasufell]

havok, on 05 April 2013 - 01:15 PM, said:

The post was trolling but had truth behind it which I wanted to uncover.

The first post already covered the main problem very bluntly. So there was nothing to uncover. I don't want to start a politeness contest here, but I was not rude either.

havok, on 05 April 2013 - 01:15 PM, said:

For the updater - it is in development so I am unable to comment on it's future features at this time

Well, you did and it was vague and confusing.

havok, on 05 April 2013 - 01:15 PM, said:

This is something that I would love to get resolved. There is a reason that Steam does things that way, which is the system behind the platform, steam works off user authentication which is essential in today's gaming environment as it means they can sync settings, account details, etc, etc. Something that could be quite interesting though is a hybrid solution that utilises the package managers AND the updater.

No, that is not possible. At least not without completely breaking the purpose of package managers and how they handle, verify, install and set permissions on files.

havok, on 05 April 2013 - 01:15 PM, said:

I do not see what this has to do with trust, trust is only relevant if we 100% trust everyone who plays urban terror. Based on the number of people that hack in 4.1 how could we even think to trust them with the source code to the updater? That is the reason that it is closed source will remain that way.

Does not compute. When someone hacks opensource, then it's time to improve the source. Guess why the most important parts of server software (or rather all) is always opensource. And besides... closed source does not mean people will not hack it. Windows, any1? Nvidia driver hacks... and whatnot.
And even if I am wrong here (which is very well possible since I am not a game developer), we are still talking about an updater, not something like punkbuster.

havok, on 05 April 2013 - 01:15 PM, said:

No, the slowdown of the updater was not due to what is inside it. You also have to remember that although there is a large active linux community within urban terror, they are still a minority. The updater is very useful for windows and mac users. This is something that you need to take into account with every response, the fact that when the updater is working efficiently then it will work for everyone on every platform.

Given the case that people want to use it. It has a lot of disadvantages too, including precompiled binaries.

havok, on 05 April 2013 - 01:15 PM, said:

What I personally would like to see, is the updater being the core of the game and different ways of distributing the data initially.
I am a windows user primarily, so I want to see everything moving away from the old fashioned 'download a zip, extract it to a folder, edit a load of config files, manually type in auth' only to find that you downloaded the old version of the game and need to repeat it all.

Hasufell - you obviously know a lot more than me about linux and how packages are managed. How about writing a post of exactly how to give you a file that can be used across all distributions of linux, what to include on it and how you think it can be integrated with the updater for us to add more features on top.

That is simple: write a cmake based build system that compiles ioq3-for-UrbanTerror-4 and _optionally_ fetches the data files during BUILD, otherwise the user has to set a folder/zip file location where the data is assumed to be. Desurium does that for example.
That will work for windows, mac and all linux distros.

You have to understand that the updater will _never_ be compatible with package managers.
Binary package managers assume specially packaged tarballs (i.e. deb, rpm, pkg) that just contain files in a directory structure and additional meta information. These tarballs are created by the distributor, there is no to little gain for them with your updater. It rather makes the procedure for them more annoying.
Source package managers (e.g. portage or pacman) need the original upstream files present and available BEFORE it starts doing anything (like compiling). Those files have to be static and must not be fetched during build-time, because that breaks many features and usecases (including Manifests, offline installation and secure fetching) and is banned.
In both cases the installed files are static and are not allowed to change except by root/the package manager.

You cannot satisfy linux distros with your updater. Just let the distributors handle it. We know how to do that. Provide tarballs on time, non-broken and reliable and people will be happy to check on UT when they hear about a version bump.

[hasufell]

havok, on 05 April 2013 - 01:15 PM, said:

You also have to remember that although there is a large active linux community within urban terror, they are still a minority.

How do you figure that out? Do you gather ingame statistics of the used platform?

Download statistics say nothing.

[FS BladeKiller]

hasufell,
Please try to remember you are not dealing with a paid professional team here. We do this in our spare time and sometimes there is no one available to do some things and they get done when someone has time. We do not work on UrT as a full time job so if something is a few days late you will have to wait for it. Getting upset and angry due to us not being able to do things instantly doesn't get you anywhere. You still come across as hostile even after Havok asked for your help to accommodate you better. You could have gotten the update from a Windows user or someone else who had it. This wouldn't be ideal but would be a work around until we could fix it.

Also, the person who was risking a walk in the park has received a time out. We take a lot of abuse from some people in this community and quite frankly I am sick of it, so the rules for our forums will be tightened up and less of the trash talk will be tolerated from now on. I've had over 12 years of being treated like I'm some people's little slave. "Get this done or else" attitudes aren't going to get you anywhere and we sure as heck don't owe you or anyone else in this community anything because you lower yourselves to play our game (as some people have said in the past). Some of you are spoiled little brats. You know who you are.

[hasufell]

The situation has considerably improved.