- Feb 14, 2018
- 755
- 1,641
This would clear up questions about week 3's patch being named Day 20-21.If its a naming issue I can talk with Redcat on how to properly name files for update to update yez.
This would clear up questions about week 3's patch being named Day 20-21.If its a naming issue I can talk with Redcat on how to properly name files for update to update yez.
Much appreciated.Rando I'm not quite sure what you mean by cleaning up, if you mean removing every other patch that isn't just Month 1 then maybe? If its a naming issue I can talk with Redcat on how to properly name files for update to update yez.
Even back in the day the confusion caused by the patch naming scheme was well known. I got the impression Latecomer was responsible for the naming, because he responded with a refusal to do anything about it. So unless someone else has usurped that responsibility I wouldn't hold out much hope for change.When the merge jobs, and we get back to regular updates, what are the chances of "RedCat" cleaning up the patch page to avoid further confusion? I don't mind helping people asking about what to do, but when there's an obvious fix, I don't see why that shouldn't be used.
IIRC Bluecat writes the script in German though, so even if he's written several game weeks of script it will still effectively need to be completely rewritten.but to me it seems that it should be mostly a copy and paste job by now.
Hire a translator then. That‘s not an excuse, in my opinion. So yeah, as was said: Updates won’t be faster because apparently nothing was done in the downtime to speed up future updates.IIRC Bluecat writes the script in German though, so even if he's written several game weeks of script it will still effectively need to be completely rewritten.
From what I can tell based on conversations I had seen on Discord, I believe Latecomer is the lead programmer and the one who was out sick. I can't say much on his behavior, but if he wouldn't budge on the naming, then I could see why he was adamant about no one else taking over the lead programmer spot. Even for just a temporary time period until he got better. Maybe he knows that someone else can do a better job than him, and then he will be replaced? Mind you, these are all just speculations, because I don't know any of these people personally. Regardless, there are massive failures on multiple levels, hence a shitshow. Alright, back to the shadows I go.Even back in the day the confusion caused by the patch naming scheme was well known. I got the impression Latecomer was responsible for the naming, because he responded with a refusal to do anything about it. So unless someone else has usurped that responsibility I wouldn't hold out much hope for change.
Actually this reminds me of some of Latecomer's other behaviour at the time, and I lately got the impression somewhere that he is the lead developer. If this is correct, all the development struggles suddenly make sense to me, and I find myself much more sympathetic towards BC.
IIRC Bluecat writes the script in German though, so even if he's written several game weeks of script it will still effectively need to be completely rewritten.
Not to be that asshole (I'm definitely gonna be that guy) if he cant get the jobs done I hope he's replacedFrom what I can tell based on conversations I had seen on Discord, I believe Latecomer is the lead programmer and the one who was out sick. I can't say much on his behavior, but if he wouldn't budge on the naming, then I could see why he was adamant about no one else taking over the lead programmer spot. Even for just a temporary time period until he got better. Maybe he knows that someone else can do a better job than him, and then he will be replaced? Mind you, these are all just speculations, because I don't know any of these people personally. Regardless, there are massive failures on multiple levels, hence a shitshow. Alright, back to the shadows I go.
This is good too see and was very much needed so I'm glad that's becoming a reality. I still do worry though for the future because the current coding required won't be as difficult as future systems so if it's had this many rewrites already how will he manage the stuff in the future? Here I'm specifically referring to the game apparently becoming a more sandbox experience beyond month one and while we don't know how this will end up specifically I don't think it's a stretch to say the code required will be more complex than what has been done so far. Hopefully the lessoned learned on smarter coding carries forward and we don't end up with a bunch of new coding problems.Month 1 will be smaller than week 1 uncompressed
This is because a revision to stop using hardcode and instead using better coding methods to reference data instead of pinging for it every time you want to execute an action. Basically unfucking a massive amount of early game code, which itself was unfucked twice now...
That and everything will be light compressed, it has minimal drops in quality.
It wouldn't surprise me if you saved some patrons and that's all well in good, but I think in general and this isn't directed at you by any means since I think you're more neutral / have insider info but I think people need to understand that these creators (or companies) are capable and should be defending themselves when needed because they are effectively selling you a product and it's their job to sell you on that product - fans/supporters/etc shouldn't be doing that job on behalf of them.As for why I'm still here doing this job? Simple, I don't owe anyone jack shit, but since I believe in Bluecat I want to at least protect the integrity of his work, even if he's not good at managing it. Beyond protecting that, I feel people are owed answers because not all of you are pirates, but you're here hoping that there's more info than on official channels. Therefore I'm doing what I can to provide those answers when I have them, and to sooth things over when I don't (I'm really bad at that cause I get mad easily :3).
That's pretty much it, protect Bluecat's integrity as a creator and inform you guys to the best of my ability since blue can't seem to formulate a way to do that-maybe I'm codling him and protecting him from having to? I unno. I might very well have saved him some patrons frankly, I'll never know.
As a coder myself I can clarify what he's saying in those posts a bit (just for the sake of those who aren't) because he's talking out of his ass a little bit. So, he's right that having a variable for every single choice is a little much and reducing the number of variables makes for better workflow but that's about all it accomplishes. Each variable only takes up a miniscule amount of space (24 bytes for any regular variable) so it doesn't actually have much impact on the size of saves (nor on the size of the game). The two things he says that are total bullshit (and truly show him to be an amateur) are saying that using a list rather than a series of varibles will make the saves even smaller and that this is what's causing the saves to not port over. In python, even an empty list is 64 bytes, then each element in the list adds the same 24 bytes that you would use if you'd just used a variable instead. So overall, using a list actually makes the saves larger, not smaller (granted it's easier to access for the programmer, my issue isn't with him using lists but about him lying about what they accomplish).So I was searching through the Discord when I stumbled upon aYou must be registered to see the links(the link is to the first post, there are five in total) by Latecomer on June 29. Given that Latecomer is the project manager and lead programmer, I think the posts provide a very clear look into the current state of development.
FWIW, they definitely back up the claims Skummy Ecchi made about amateurism. But more to the point, they indicate a programmer who's more concerned with "playing around with the code" than producing a release, which is what I was alluding to in a previous post. They also suggest to me that development is (edit: rather, was at the time) still in a very experimental state rather than being anywhere near release. And finally, based on Latecomer's description of the codebase as "kind of janky", it's abundantly clear that those of us who believed that the W1 merge delay would result in a stable codebase for the long term were sorely mistaken.
I think I know.I don't know why they use it when there is an easier solution.
I feel that's a problem with Ren'Py and bigger projects / newbie developers in general. The more ambitious the dev(s) get, the more the fact they chose existing platform and try to force stuff on top of it without really knowing what they're doing starts biting them in the ass.As a coder myself I can clarify what he's saying in those posts a bit (just for the sake of those who aren't) because he's talking out of his ass a little bit. So, he's right that having a variable for every single choice is a little much and reducing the number of variables makes for better workflow but that's about all it accomplishes. Each variable only takes up a miniscule amount of space (24 bytes for any regular variable) so it doesn't actually have much impact on the size of saves (nor on the size of the game). The two things he says that are total bullshit (and truly show him to be an amateur) are saying that using a list rather than a series of varibles will make the saves even smaller and that this is what's causing the saves to not port over. In python, even an empty list is 64 bytes, then each element in the list adds the same 24 bytes that you would use if you'd just used a variable instead. So overall, using a list actually makes the saves larger, not smaller (granted it's easier to access for the programmer, my issue isn't with him using lists but about him lying about what they accomplish).
As for the saves not porting over, this has absolutely nothing to do with the variable types or how many there are. Given they are using lists now, the easiest solution would be to useYou must be registered to see the links. Instead (looking at the save directory in appdata), it seems what they actually did was rename for the save folder for each week to the same name so that the next week sees the save data in folder and loads it. In theory I think this would actually work (though I'd need to ask someone who knows more to be sure) but obviously this method has caused problems and I don't know why they use it when there is an easier solution.
If they weren't trying to make money, they wouldn't have a patreon page, and wouldn't complain about early leaks to pirates.. The whole idea was to make money, I think everyone has to admit that...Well everyone has to admit that they are not trying to take money.
As Eku7 points out their revenue has shrunk to almost 1/3 whereas if they left the buggy shit as is and just slapped new content together they would very much have made A LOT more money.
So as Skummy says this is NOT evil intent or malicious profiteering, it is incompetence.
At this point it is best to just wait for them to clear this reprogram hurdle with the one benefit being that all new content will be on better framework and easier to merge. So then they can go back to production (which was pretty good levels if I recall correctly).
The other big unanswered question is how big will it be at the end of the merge? If it is too big you will need to torrent the content. Do they want to merge the next full 30 day month into one month or one merge total? Because well.... I would hope their Subs/Patrons vote no on merging anything that big. Again leading to the how the hell do you host something that big?
My random thoughts
PEACE
They're saying that the dev are obviously not withholding updates to milk money, not that the devs don't want to make money period.If they weren't trying to make money, they wouldn't have a patreon page, and wouldn't complain about early leaks to pirates.. The whole idea was to make money, I think everyone has to admit that...
The way I see it, they are neither motivated by the money nor feel particularly obligated to patrons in exchange for accepting it. On the one hand this is the reason I'm sceptical of the platforms (Patreon, etc), but on the other hand it's the reason I can't pass judgement on them.If they weren't trying to make money, they wouldn't have a patreon page, and wouldn't complain about early leaks to pirates.. The whole idea was to make money, I think everyone has to admit that...
It's in development hell.So the game can be considered dead now?