From gameplay to gamedev

There is a discussion on Discord – why TomeNET doesn’t have public git? I’ll try to explain my vision on it.

I do not know for sure. I heard that devs got private git. Why is it private? Because devs decided like this. I believe that they got clear picture how game has to be and this picture is very hardcore. Most of other players (who also wanna contribute code) do not understand this concept clearly, so it’s easier for devs to fully control development than having debates – which stuff is good and which is bad. That’s why I suggested to have very strict rules in terms of new commits.. So devs wouldn’t need to spend a lot of time in debates and explaining (please note, that it’s all just my thoughts, I do not know really).

So for now, we (community) could suggest our help and kindly ask for allowing us to help. We ask because dev’s are not obliged to us to change something; actually I believe it’s another big reason for private development – reduce obligations to community and other people.

That’s why we have to suggest such concept of public git – which would preserve core-devs control over project and there wouldn’t be need for them to spend time over explaining why they refused that or this idea. I’ve noticed that if I suggest any idea – devs most of the time do not reply on email/message, but if they like the idea – it appears in time; if they do not like – it doesn’t. So I just suggest all the stuff and do not expect for devs to react somehow. They work on project in their free time and they are not obliged to explain their ‘moves’. So if we wanna to suggest our help in frames of public git – we have to ask for it with presentation of the concept in which nobody wouldn’t be offenced if he didn’t receive an explanation for a refuse of commit or something. They do not want conflicts and they do not want to explain (again it’s all my speculations).

Just imagine this example: one guy suggested (and commited) to add new monsters. He spend a lot of time on it. But right now game it perfectly balanced and there is not need for it, so devs refused commit. Guy is angry. He ask for explanations. And devs has to spend emotions and time for explaining. And it’s not one guy, but 10 guys. And not 1 time, but 100 times. I supposes – it’s the reason why devs do not want to make git public. So the only way to get to it – have concept when devs do not have obligations (and all know it) to explain their decisions.

Would coders accept such concept? Not all. Coders are proud ‘1337’ folks, everyone (almost) got his own strong opinion and think that it’s the only right one; they want explanations and demand answers. That’s why I suppose devs even didn’t try to propose public git; too much ’empty’ fuss. We have to propose it on favorable terms for them, so devs would have the same feeling of ‘no obligations to anyone’.

p.s.
All what you’ve read about – just my guesses. Maybe the reasons are different or there are no reasons at all.

In the past I though about roadmap of development as quite important thing.. Hell to it!

But what would be great to have – public git repository so TomeNET’s community could contribute to the project. I believe there are several people around who are willing to contribute to the game.. Some of them are pretty able to do so.

The problem
We all know high standarts of TomeNET development and very strict policy for accepting /rfes. All this years devs made really amazing job in terms of preserving game very good balanced, there are no imba-classes.. when I start new character I could think about which race to take for it _for hours_; it’s all because it so brilliant balanced. At the same time TomeNET become better and better with every new update; enhanced with new gameplay systems (like new spell system), new features, classes, abilities..

It’s essential to keep such high standarts of game development. Thats why TomeNET git repo should have very strict policy in terms of accepting new commits. People who contribute to the code should understand that and do not take offense if their commits would be refused sometimes. There has to be no emotions, but trust to ‘core dev team’ who work at TomeNET for 17+ years and know what is good for TomeNET and what is bad.

Concept
1) It’s time to create formalized way to contribute to the project for TomeNET community.
2) Lets ‘core dev team’ (current dev team) would take full control over new commits and would preserve very strict policy of game development. 
3) not_TomeNETish/raw/broken/stupid stuff should be refused without regret; nobody has to take offence about it. No drama -> Win. Everyone should finish their ideas to perfection and only after that send it to the core-git-repo.

Such a rigorous concept will prevent the counterproductive consequences that can arise in the environment of creative people working on such unusual (the most complex online game, eh?) open source project. And at the same moment, it’s time for TomeNET to open its doors to new developers. I really hope that the best online game in the World will be even better if development become truly open.

Currently there is absolutely no sense in using poison when you play runie: monsters do not care about poison

It would be fun to have some monsters who would be if not susp_poison (but why not actually!?), but at least would be protected from other elements, so poison would be a choice. I would suggest give one of ‘U’ protection (at least resistances) from all major elements except poison.

My favorite thing atm – meet iron ‘L’ and hit him with 1200dmg with acid bolt 😀 It would be fun to make such gameplay opportunities happen more often VS different monsters

Recently devs made very important update with new runemaster features, such as (from /motd):

– Swapped glyph and sigil, surge has a new effect.
– Renamed sigil to seal (res), boon to sigil.
– Enhanced mod no longer requires holding a rune.
– Sign/seal, glyph/sigil now has a chance to fail.
– Glyphs may not be recovered nor consume runes.

Let’s make a feedback there and brainstorm any other ideas about runie!

My 5 cents: Continue reading →

It’s been a couple of months since my past ‘review’ of TomeNET; Life in the game boils and beats with the key! What’s new:

1) In TomeNET an interesting update of the runemaster class! Details can be found by going into the game (in / motd).

2) I released a new version of my addon for TomeNET – now you can assign macros to numlock, capslock, winkey and numpad + 5. Hooray! Download there: http://igroglaz.com/en/t/addon/

3) Finally I made the decoding of my tileset for TomeNET: http://igroglaz.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/tomenet-tileset.png

4) I wrote small article on “What TomeNET taught me”:
http://igroglaz.com/gamer/mmorpg-strah/ will be continued …

5) In our disc drive, come, read the stories of the adventures of our heroes and share your 🙂 Please join it by the link – https://discordapp.com/invite/rASkhCg  We will help you to understand the game (btw you can use Discord from web-browser, without installing anything, very comfortble)

And of course, I invite you to my daily streams 😀 Links to my stream channels at right side on this page!