[RELEASE] "Better" Procedural Water 3.3.5a

[Amaroth]

I heard something about working on WoD modding tools. Would be far better than Cata/MoP. But well, this is starting to be a lil' OT.

[phantomx]

I've been working on some tools to ease mass amounts of work for WoD as well as making some of the current tools more compatible so we breake less things :p was also working on WoD water looking pretty nice so far.

P.S

Mind my typing not on the computer.

[Steff]

The client is not the problem.
The server is.

[Milly]

It'd be pretty great if the community as a whole moved to Cata or MoP. WotLK is getting long on the tooth and the Cata/MoP clients have some pretty useful features that are absent from older versions.

My goal for a while was to help try and move the community into the direction of upgrading to Cata, and then to MoP, etc. Yet ultimately, almost a year later I decided to return to WotLK. Only true reason I left was because of graphics and maps. But almost all of these things can be ported back. And there are so many complications with the later expansions.

I'd agree that a move up to WoD would be healthy for the community provided that there are enough software programmers interested in making tools. And I don't see that as a viable reality. Blizzard has covered their tracks several times since WotLK, and hardly anyone has even made any effort towards Cata yet. We're a dying breed as modders, who make mods for a dying game.

i'd love to program my own tools and make some steps forward but I don't have the discipline to learn.

[Steff]

The problems of the community is not the software.
I realy have problems with the people.
Promisses over and over but noone finish hiw work.

And sadly I know that you can´t finish an mmo alone.

Thanks good there are some people you can count on, but the mass just wast your time to get them in and setup all the stuff. And if it goes to finish a job.... Nothing.

[iindigo]

The problems of the community is not the software.
I realy have problems with the people.
Promisses over and over but noone finish hiw work.

I think it has everything to do with tools. What I've seen is:

Project is started with enthusiasm —> work begins, some progress is made —> difficulty and frustrations of using tools compounds with already labor intensive creation process, slowing it to a crawl —> team members become demoralized and the project falls apart.

In other words, because the tools are difficult and frustrating, the results don't even come close to matching the effort invested and people lose hope. The only way serious mod projects can get anywhere is if the team is large, extremely dedicated, and has implemented workarounds for the hundreds of quirks and bugs present in the tools. No small, casually-run project has as much as a chance at seeing the light of day.

Contrast this to, say, the WCIII or SCII custom game scene where the tools are very solid. There, a single person can feasibly create a monstrous map with piles of custom scripting, custom map work, and custom art assets within a reasonable amount of time. Naturally a dedicated team can then do some very impressive work. Admittedly, the complexity of a RTS map is reduced compared to MMO development, but the point still stands.

And that's not even getting into the barrier to entry issue. WoW modding is a pain in the ass to get into which ends up scaring away lots of people who could've been prolific modders. You can't expect the scene to prosper when you spend more time trying to coerce crappy tools into working than you do actually creating something.

[Amaroth]

And that's not even getting into the barrier to entry issue. WoW modding is a pain in the ass to get into which ends up scaring away lots of people who could've been prolific modders. You can't expect the scene to prosper when you spend more time trying to coerce crappy tools into working than you do actually creating something.

I will sign under this, trying to make something work and than realizing that its f****g buggy/difficult made me a lot of times really demoralized. I never stopped though, but I am not common "material", I always in the end return and work again. A lot of people I know don't.

[Milly]

All three of you bring up good points. The tools for the most part are what made me give up on a lot of the things I've had planned. Many things just started bugging out and a fix wasn't worth my time. And as iindigo said WoW modding is about tons of work with very little, incremental results. It is so demoralizing. The fact that Maruum still stands is a miracle in and of itself. I've probably cycled through 20 different projects since I joined the scene but that's probably mostly my own inability to finish anything I start.

[phantomx]

I feel the same way I tend to work on a lot of different things at once so I don't really focus on one thing at a time  :cry:  but I do finish what I start never the less because no matter how taxing it is it's what I enjoy doing I only do what I do because it's my hobby.

[Skarn]

Guys, the problem is actually really simple. It is not caused by lazy people. No one really finish anything because our tools are bugged as crap. I don't blame anyone in that, all the developers has done a great work but it is still not enough. Noggit is full of duplication, terraforming and even texturing bugs and that is a real reason almost nobody finishes the job. You just start doing smth, face some difficulties which are hard or even impossible to fix and you just give it up.
 The software should be improved otherwise the community is going to die. Moreover, we got some guys here who have some skills in programming as far as I know. It would be much more productive if they came together on the development.

Sorry for my english, I am on tablet.

[Steff]

Hmm and why do my maps work just fine. I have not realy a problem with the tools.
Yes they are bugged but I was able to do anything I wanted till now without big problems.

And even if it where the tools. People join project.. tell its cool and take a job... and thats it. You never here again any word. They leave chat .... and simple dont answer questions.

Thats realy no decent. You spend houres in bringen them online, help to setup environment and often show them content ingame personal and then they dont have a second to just tell.

Hey I have no fun in it anymore, no time or even the tools dont work for me.... There is just silence.

Counted rough over it, I had around 40 such people running trough the team the last year.
And chats with other team leaders tell me I am not the only one...

I say people are lazy and disrespectful.

I have also some people in the team that dont fit into this big group. And they get stuff done. And if they hang we help each other. If I stuck and work for a project.. asking the supporter for my team would be a good point.

[schlumpf]

The software should be improved otherwise the community is going to die. Moreover, we got some guys here who have some skills in programming as far as I know. It would be much more productive if they came together on the development.

Software development is not a trivial task.
Also, this whole thing lacks a huge amount of knowledge about pretty much everything. Just because someone can code, it doesn't mean that throwing that person at some code base, even if you throw ten of them at the same, will ever result in anything less bugged and more usable.

People request a task which normally pays, preferable pretty much every free minute invested as well. Also, this whole reverse engineering thing is done by less than 5 persons, of which at least two don't document what they find. In fact, most reversing happens behind closed doors and is sold.

Either, let those people reverse stuff, which will not result in any new, better tools, or let them improve tools, which will result in hacky hack hacks and shitty UX as they neither know how to do UX nor how to do the data stuff, as nobody reverses it.

For me, it is pure reversing of stuff now. I haven't touched a tool in months and don't even have file extraction tools around. Even less, source code of stuff like Noggit.

Redoing everything from scratch is a nice thought but a waste of time. Every time someone decides to do so, that person will just waste a few months, then stop, having produced nothing.

If there is a point of this post except for me being drunk: Better tools won't happen. Likely not even tools or emulators for 6.* ever will. This forum has been copying files from WoD to WotLK the last months. It won't get any better.

[Selaya]

There will be a 6.x (wld) emulator, I`m beyond certain of this.
The emulation/private server, well scene is sizable and well beyond the modding scene here at modcraft, however most of them are interested in either running straight 'blizzlike' servers or slightly 'modified' LOL255level IONESHOTEVERYTHING funservers, not into solid modding. Question is, whether those emulator will support any advanced modding
Heck, I wouldn`t consider myself a ([hard-]core) modder, I`m not really interested in worldbuilding or anything like that.
Modding`s just a little pastime of mine (purely client-side, like editing the login screens) while playing on a private server, and I just happen to play on a 3.35a one, so I`m interested in, well goodies for 335a.

Additionally, it`d make much more sense to stay at 3.35a where everything`s pretty much known, and downport if necessary instead of upgrading, which will most likely result into wasting all your previously done work (tools plus mods).

<3, Sela

[Milly]

If there is a point of this post except for me being drunk: Better tools won't happen. Likely not even tools or emulators for 6.* ever will. This forum has been copying files from WoD to WotLK the last months. It won't get any better.

I was drunk last night too xD Think I still am. Cheers!

Anyway, yeah I think sticking to WotLK is probably our best bet. Cumulatively there are years worth of work put into the tools that we have for 3.3.5a and making them all over again for a different expansion would take a lot longer than simply backporting everything.

The one thing I would like to see though is an all-inclusive World Editor for WoW. A development program that contains all the tools and programs that we use for WoW modding on a daily basis all put into one, with a nicely organized user interface that doesn't look like a Hello World program. Something that feels comfortable and easy to work with when modding. That would at least help encourage people to stick with it and quicken the modding process tenfold.

Obviously that's a lot of work. But still. It'd be cool. As shit.

I'm almost tempted to make one myself. It'd be a pretty neat introduction to programming. Easier than making a game engine at least. Entirely experimental of course.

[Krang Stonehoof]

Too lazy to read all the off-topic comments, but coming in like a wrecking ball, I have a question, anyone have found a way to fix the shore for this? I would love to help if possible.