Forged Alliance Forever

Re: Patch 3680 file structure and rename changes

2017-05-29T17:27:59+02:00

Anihilnine wrote:
Hi Sheeo.

I think the real problem is we deliberately broke mods because pretty code > 10 years of backwards compatibility.

It's not about pretty code -- the file structure in question was misguided and a source of a lot of subtle bugs and misunderstandings.

There's not been 10 years of backwards compatibility for UI mods in the development of this game. As I mentioned previously: UI mods relying on this nonsensical file structure do not work with older versions of the game (That is, they will not work with older replays). Patch 3623 was released in 2013.

Statistics: Posted by Sheeo — 29 May 2017, 17:27

Re: Patch 3680 file structure and rename changes

2017-05-29T16:25:34+02:00

Why this is even a discussion? They are just UI mods after all and any improvement in code can ease things to the future, this game is here Forever after all, we will have enough replays to see next weeks. If so much people want certain UI mods to work, just try to fix them.

Statistics: Posted by NapSpan — 29 May 2017, 16:25

Re: Patch 3680 file structure and rename changes

2017-05-29T16:04:55+02:00

Hi Sheeo.

I think the real problem is we deliberately broke mods because pretty code > 10 years of backwards compatibility.

Statistics: Posted by nine2 — 29 May 2017, 16:04

Re: Patch 3680 file structure and rename changes

2017-05-29T15:45:09+02:00

Hi,

Let's be clear that the real problem isn't the patch breaking compatibility with UI mods: This has happened on many occasions both by accident and intentionally. If we were to restrict the development of FAF to maintain compatibility with all UI mods ever made we can't make any code changes at all.

The real problem is the lack of dependency ranges for UI-mods -- they cannot specify which version of FAF / the game they are compatible with, and thus we have no clue when loading replays whether the current set of active UI mods will work.

Case in point: Any UI mod that uses the files that have been moved from /modules cannot be used to view replays from patches prior to the introduction of this folder, around patch 3623 or so. There are numerous other non-intentional breakages of UI mods in the patch history.

This is a hard problem, and the bulletproof solution of just not loading UI mods unless they specifically state they are compatible with the version of the game being used will cause an equal amount of frustration when players complain that they cannot see their fancy scoreboard mod on games played with 3630.

A warning when watching replays with UI-mods activated should suffice, as well as a way of easily disabling UI mods temporarily for a given replay session. We could try and use http://semver.org/ for the base game and allow UI-mods to specify compatible version ranges, but there will still be mistakes made and broken UI mods.

Statistics: Posted by Sheeo — 29 May 2017, 15:45

Re: Patch 3680 file structure and rename changes

2017-05-29T05:48:39+02:00

no reply from ice... lame

Statistics: Posted by nine2 — 29 May 2017, 05:48

Re: Patch 3680 file structure and rename changes

2017-05-28T13:50:28+02:00

There are less modders than "back in the days". And they won't come back, this game is old.
Didn't we loose enough functionality already?
And we have more than 3 million replays. Yes many of them are broken. But that's not an excuse the flush the rest down the toilet, if we can find a more compatible solution.

Statistics: Posted by Brutus5000 — 28 May 2017, 13:50

Re: Patch 3680 file structure and rename changes

2017-05-28T13:31:36+02:00

tatsu wrote:
I really really fail to see how and why people consistently omit to take a step back and observe the bigger picture

you can say 'look at the big picture' about anything - doesn't make it a well balanced idea

Statistics: Posted by nine2 — 28 May 2017, 13:31

Re: Patch 3680 file structure and rename changes

2017-05-28T12:47:33+02:00

I really really fail to see how and why people consistently omit to take a step back and observe the bigger picture : one bigger than the "big" they think is big. (I'm thinking of @keyser @viba @Anihilnine @cookienoob here)

this is definitely a worthwhile change. sitting back and hoping things are going to solve themselves is just not going to cut it.

Whether you like it or not and regardless of if FAF player count is up or down it looks as though FAF is INDEED here to stay FOREVER.

and that's both GREAT and FASCINATING. Fascinating because if you consider it's ramifications you'll understand that the future does indeed hold new players and among those new caster mapmakers modders and even coders. for all of these there's incredible benefit and gain of time from having the changes we have today.

also and this is just me personally (and I know cookie noob and anihilnine won't feel this really applies to them and rightly so but regardless) I don't claim to be able to do a better job then experts in their domain.

Statistics: Posted by tatsu — 28 May 2017, 12:47

Re: Patch 3680 file structure and rename changes

2017-05-28T12:07:53+02:00

which mods? i can watch old replays with notify v5/ecomanager v8 just fine
we should probably blacklist the older version of notify to force ppl to update in case they haven't already

Statistics: Posted by PhilipJFry — 28 May 2017, 12:07

Re: Patch 3680 file structure and rename changes

2017-05-28T11:55:36+02:00

@Icedreamer: Is this true: "Unable to watch pre-3680 replay, with 3680 compliant UI mods" ?

If yes then I strongly suggest to revert the change. The replay files do not contain information about ui mods, only about sim mods. There is absolutetly no chance, that the UI mods will be downloaded automcatically. This information is just missing.

It is completely incomprehensible to me, why such a hot topic was not discussed in a dev conference before. We might have found solutions to prevent parts of the problem.

Statistics: Posted by Brutus5000 — 28 May 2017, 11:55

Re: Patch 3680 file structure and rename changes

2017-05-27T14:07:38+02:00

Notifications V5.2 V5 stopped working for me since this patch I think. Anyone else having this problem?

Statistics: Posted by EcoNoob — 27 May 2017, 14:07

Re: Patch 3680 file structure and rename changes

2017-05-27T12:35:22+02:00

Fis:
i'll try v5 right now
[JEW]PhilipJFry:
no v4 is broken and kills hotbuild
Fis:
oh it works!
20:28

innocent people are still complaining that their FAF is broken due to the refactor.

Statistics: Posted by nine2 — 27 May 2017, 12:35

Re: Patch 3680 file structure and rename changes

2017-05-13T15:23:23+02:00

Viba wrote:
Take a step back, deep breath, look at the big picture. Were the changes really worth it?
If I can't get this change reverted, I hope this might cause other changes of similar caliber to be considered in more detail in the future. They might not be file structure changes but something else.

Yes, I think they were.

It's the honest truth that I can't think of any future change that could cause anything like this again. There are no more files that could be logically moved. A few people wanted to heavily refactor unit.lua in the past (Which would break most sim mods) but it's just too much work. You all seem to think this decision was taken without thought, or consideration for the backlash. It wasn't. I took into account the negatives, and came to the conclusion that doing it sooner rather than later would get it right out of the way. You don't agree, and that's OK, but I'd like to move forwards.

The one thing I can think of that might cause a similar confusion is if we integrate things. So moving forwards, Notify in particular is a brilliant, brilliant mod. I am thinking very hard about how to make it main-game, easy to use, easy to customise. Naturally once a mod is integrated properly, it gets blacklisted, which might cause confusion.

R_Charger wrote:
Snip

This... This, I should have done. My apologies.

Statistics: Posted by IceDreamer — 13 May 2017, 15:23

Re: Patch 3680 file structure and rename changes

2017-05-13T13:26:29+02:00

I think UI party just needed some changes to zoompopper.lua and hotbuild.lua.

BTW whats the UI-Party.vshost.exe in UI party do?

Statistics: Posted by R_Charger — 13 May 2017, 13:26

Re: Patch 3680 file structure and rename changes

2017-05-13T11:32:59+02:00

Thanks, that's what I needed

Statistics: Posted by nine2 — 13 May 2017, 11:32