Future of EOL development

Feature requests and ideas for the new unofficial versions of Elma and general talk related to those.

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Smibu
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Future of EOL development

Post by Smibu »

I think the following should be discussed a lot more.

I've been thinking the possibilities of how EOL development might continue in the future, regarding the client/server source code.

1) The sources (both client and server) won't be shared to anyone.
2) All the sources are shared to the public.
3) All the sources are shared only to certain people that are trusted and have at least some sort of coding skills.
4) The sources are shared only partially to the public.
5) The sources are shared only partially to certain people.

I'm sure there are other combinations too, but these are the most common. Now, for the pros and cons:

1)
Pros:
-Cheating is not easy.
-One person codes and therefore he has good knowledge about the sources, even if code wasn't commented.
Cons:
-Single point of failure. Development is completely up to mila's motivation and time.
-Cheating is not impossible nevertheless.

2)
Pros:
-Everyone is able to contribute - coding/refactoring/fixing bugs -> faster development.
Cons:
-Cheating may be easy.
-Synchronizing changes to the code might be difficult with many coders.

3)
Pros:
-More contributors, better motivation -> faster development.
Cons:
-Someone may leak the sources, either intentionally or unintentionally.

4)
Pros:
-Everyone is able to contribute - coding/refactoring/fixing bugs -> faster development.
-Cheating does not become any easier because the critical parts of the sources are not shared.
Cons:
-Not being able to see all sources may cause some problems.
-Synchronizing changes to the code might be difficult with many coders.

5)
Pros:
-More contributors, better motivation -> faster development.
Cons:
-Someone may leak the sources, either intentionally or unintentionally.
-Not being able to see all sources may cause some problems.

The leakage of sources is of course not a bad thing in itself, but because someone may start abusing them. I've been also thinking whether publishing sources necessarily implies easier cheating (in the main EOL server). Could there be a system where this were not true?
milagros wrote:i won't give my c++ code to anyone and asm code is right there..
Ok, the only reason for this (that I can think of) is that sharing the sources would imply ez cheating. But as you said - the asm code is right there (for the client). If someone really wants to cheat, he will learn asm from tutorials all over the net and do it that way. What about the anticheat? Well, I cracked it, back in July. Yes, I admit it right now, because it doesn't really matter, except that I just wanted to point out that the sources being closed does not imply that it's impsy to cheat.

For options 3) and 5), it may be hard to determine whether someone is trusted or not. In this context, "trusted" means obviously someone who will neither leak the sources nor abuse them. To my experience, at least most of the Elma programmers seem to be trusted (mila, jon, Domovoy, me, ...). I mean, for example, they could use their skills for doing some evil patches/progs, but they don't.
[20:53:44] (Max) mila should open the server code.
[20:53:52] (Max) so I can make patches to fix this stuff.
I'm sure Max is not the only one who would like to contribute. At least jonharkulsykkel and me would surely be interested, although I haven't explicitly asked jon anything about this.

I wanted to write this post because I think it's bad to have only one demotivated developer in EOL coding project, while there could be more. Mila's work is, of course, invaluable, but he has admitted he's no longer interested. Would it not be time for a change?

For the EOL website, jon (at least) has been added to the development team. That's a step forward, but I think we need a similar step for EOL, too.

Share your thoughts. Which of the five options would be the best, and why?
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Re: Future of EOL development

Post by Igge »

Milagros has done a fantastic job on EOL. Without the work and time he put into elma the scene would surely be nowhere near as alive and thriving as it is today. However, I think it's time he accepted help from others. I know there's a certain amount of pride when you undertake such a huge project like this on your own, and you want it to stay that way. You want it to be your own; you wouldn't want someone telling you how to raise your own child. However, I really do think EOL could only benefit if, perhaps not all, but a select few were able to have their input into the game. If a handful of people who have expressed an interest, and have the skill, could help develop EOL, I don't see how that could have any negative effects. This could all be done under Milagros' supervision as well.

I really do understand why mila wouldn't want anyone else to fiddle with his creation, but you have to be realistic. If you really love what you've made, you have to let it go!

PS. I have no idea if this is what's actually up. Perhaps he's not releasing it for completely different purposes, I don't know. This is just the impression I get.
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Re: Future of EOL development

Post by Zweq »

I don't think discussion is needed because mila's stance has been very clear, your only chance is to clone elma or go asm like mila did. Or actually, I'd want to hear what kind of changes or updates, beside bugfixes EOL in your opinion needs?
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Re: Future of EOL development

Post by jonsykkel »

was time someone made this topic! very nice smibu,. mila has definitly put a lot of work into eol and changed the way mans play elma forever. and he has to my understanding no motivation for eol left, as anyone woudl have after working so long on such a project. eol is awsome and it would be sad to se it end here. im thought something similar to 3) ("All the sources are shared only to certain people that are trusted and have at least some sort of coding skills.") would be the best idea because: obviously, not anyone would be able to get their hands on the code and any eventual future developer could improve on the anti-xiit systems that are already implemented which would be hard if the source was partially closed.

also something related: i havent done very much on the eolsite yet, mainly because the sql structure needs some changes to improve performance in certain places (you might have noticed some pages load a bit slow) and that would require changes in the eol server, so the site could be made a lot faster too by changing some stuff on the server.

and in case mila should decide to let a couple of trusted mans work on eol, i think it would be best to discuss all ideas and pasibel changes and let him decide if stuff should be done or nat and so on, its his program and it would still be, ofc ))
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Smibu
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Re: Future of EOL development

Post by Smibu »

Zweq wrote:I don't think discussion is needed because mila's stance has been very clear, your only chance is to clone elma or go asm like mila did. Or actually, I'd want to hear what kind of changes or updates, beside bugfixes EOL in your opinion needs?
As for new updates, I'm not necessarily talking about any "very big" updates/new features. And I'm not sure if there's any "definitely-must-to-have" features, usually they're "would-be-nice" features. To give a few examples off the top of my head:

-Ingame battlelev rating system. Most people don't bother to go to the site to vote for each battle, especially if it's not particularly good.
-Ingame best time tables for each level also in other modes (speed, no-volt, ...).
-Column "date/time driven" in best time tables.

I'm aware of mila's current stance. I'd still also like to hear all his arguments for not sharing sources.
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Re: Future of EOL development

Post by milagros »

4) and 5) are impossible, I can't imagine how would that work. Because there is no full control over the code (or asm has to be used) there are many workaround ehre and there and it just has to be compiled together.

2) 3) cons - EOL is definitely the worst looking code I've written in last 8 years. I feel ashamed of it:)

Any more complicated update (not bug fixes) requires asm coding as well, even if the code was spread, it would not be very easy to do some of the updates people suggested. Other problem is that whole project works only with borland builder compiler 5 for various reasons. I didn't manage to do a DLL elsewhere which would be automatically working with EOL without non-trivial update in EXE after each compilation. Don't assume fixing other bugs except the ones I fixed in 5 minutes (wasn't spread yet) is easy. There are quite complicated dependencies about how messsages could come and leave every now and then and not having full control over the code (EXE part) makes some of the bug fixes or debugging really hard.

Cheating becomes much easier. Autoplay is really trivial, proper save-load needs several updates in EXE though. Believe me, option 2) can completely ruin the whole scene. the only possible option besides 1) may be 3).
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Re: Future of EOL development

Post by Memphis »

Off topic but, I'd like to learn more about coding. My current job is with Information Technology so I think it would be useful to learn. Someone got a good link or place to start?

Thanks,
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Re: Future of EOL development

Post by Zweq »

Memphis wrote:Off topic but, I'd like to learn more about coding. My current job is with Information Technology so I think it would be useful to learn. Someone got a good link or place to start?

Thanks,
choose a language and google for it. I personally recommend python or C and C is a must at some point anyway to understand how comps work
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Re: Future of EOL development

Post by ribot »

something I wonder is why to create such a complicated process for eol using the original elma.exe... as mila has stated how easy it is to get the physics from elma, easily a new engine could be written with a better graphics engine, and better stability of the game... even the editor could have been copied from the code then... in the long run it would probably be much easier to code object oriented than in such a backwards way...

and for memphis, i'd recommend python too... i'd say it makes you more wise when coding
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Re: Future of EOL development

Post by klisse »

I think the only future for elma would be to make it open.
- Maybe ask for source?
- Start changing modules bit by bit, Inspired by http://www.openttd.org/.
- If someone can extract the physic bit, the rest is not that hard.
- Mila maybe could start with uploading server code to github/other place (take away anticheat part?)
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Re: Future of EOL development

Post by milagros »

it's not that easy, if i did that, this would happen :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfJ-f6w5t5Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izSBT7uo78U
anyone would be able to cheat wrs (maybe not that good, but at least it would be easy to beat current wrs)

if you meant only server, then it's kinda useless
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Re: Future of EOL development

Post by Memphis »

I think if u got free time on your hands Mila, it would be nice for FF battles if you could push a button just before the time runs out to set a replay where ur at and put you on the standings without dieing. That way people wouldn't die right before the time runs out and still finish the FF after the battle is over. Let me know what you think.
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Re: Future of EOL development

Post by milagros »

i'm not doing anything anymore, i may give it to someone (smibu, jon or/and max?) one day to play with it
i haven't touched it for half a year, i forgot how did things work, didn't do any notes:)
i remember how do xiits work though:)
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Re: Future of EOL development

Post by J-sim »

shouldn't milas lauta status be changed by now? :D

the other day i chuckled a bit after thinking about darmoed. damn he sucked at cheating it turns out ahahahaha.
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Re: Future of EOL development

Post by Igge »

J-sim wrote:the other day i chuckled a bit after thinking about darmoed. damn he sucked at cheating it turns out ahahahaha.
: D

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Re: Future of EOL development

Post by niN »

I just had a thought and wanted to share my thought: I hope mila never spreads his code to anyone. Getting the code spread (if mila spreads once who is to say next person won't spread also?) will easily result in some idiaths trying to come up with ways to get around the system and cheat. I have no idea whether this is ez, possible or not etc to actually make a undetective cheat tool. but if mila says it may ruin the entire scene if this leaks, I take his work for it.

Some of you may feel that sharing his work to one trusted person is the obvious thing to do if mila doesn't want to carry on coding the eol, but there's a chinese saying that goes something like "don't expect someone to keep a secret you can't keep yourself". Actually there are many sayings, here's another one: "Two can keep a secret, if one is dead" and another one is "Whoever wishes to keep a secret must hide the fact that he possesses one". My point is that I believe that if you share to one you might aswell share to all.

ofc these are just my thoughts and wishes. I don't care if mila spreads or not, I will still play elma.
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Re: Future of EOL development

Post by Igge »

If mila doesn't spread the code, EOL will become stagnant and remain the way it is for a long time. This would be a bad thing, as it would turn off both old and new players from playing the game.
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Re: Future of EOL development

Post by niN »

You have a point, the best thing would be for mila to never stop working on eol.

I don't know which would be best... I just wish elma was impsy to cheat.
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Re: Future of EOL development

Post by Tigro »

but it ofc never happen.
if mila spreads -> cheating.
if doesnt -> stagnation.
as you said niN, best if mila still worked on eol. until he dies.
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Re: Future of EOL development

Post by Lousku »

I don't see why mila couldn't trust a select few skilled and active coders. He's already expressed that he would be willing to do that.
then again i don't know anything
maybe easier not to think abouut alöl things thought than not things thought ... or something..=?
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Re: Future of EOL development

Post by umiz »

im gonna take a talk with mila
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Re: Future of EOL development

Post by Benjamin »

It's a waste to keep the source private. There are many things to add like statistics, in-game replay sharing/downloading (maybe with zworqy.com) and some bug fixes (like the game freezes when F1+enter-ing a replay). Also replay mode improvements like 3+ replay's merging and centering map etc. Most elma-scene coders are very reliable and well known with long elma experience...
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Re: Future of EOL development

Post by Ropelli »

Benjamin wrote:and some bug fixes (like the game freezes when F1+enter-ing a replay)
yeah, freeze...
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Re: Future of EOL development

Post by pawq »

Benjamin wrote:Most elma-scene coders are very reliable and well known with long elma experience...
but not all, so even if those most of the people, those reliable ones, got the code - it would still be closedsource no? we can't afford to give the code away to any berh (no offence berh but you're the best example) to fuck up the game shortly afterwards.
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Re: Future of EOL development

Post by Igge »

No need to give people the code if theyre not gonna use it anyway. As few as possible should have the code.
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Re: Future of EOL development

Post by Benjamin »

Pawq wrote:
Benjamin wrote:Most elma-scene coders are very reliable and well known with long elma experience...
but not all, so even if those most of the people, those reliable ones, got the code - it would still be closedsource no? we can't afford to give the code away to any berh (no offence berh but you're the best example) to fuck up the game shortly afterwards.
Yes, but you can add the interesting coders to a project (git). If they try to cheat/fuck-up codes etc. then ez restore or ez tracking in EOL.
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Re: Future of EOL development

Post by ville_j »

I'm quite sure this is not happening since we are already talking about developing new elma from scratch.
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