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Author Topic: MAKiNG MORE FUN: Mod for Dominion Online 2.0  (Read 170998 times)

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Awaclus

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Re: MAKiNG MORE FUN: Patch for Dominion Online 2.0 (Win Only)
« Reply #25 on: October 12, 2015, 10:20:21 am »
+1

I'm streaming on this patch now.

http://www.twitch.tv/awaclus_
« Last Edit: October 12, 2015, 12:29:16 pm by Awaclus »
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AdamH

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Re: MAKiNG MORE FUN: Patch for Dominion Online 2.0 (Win Only)
« Reply #26 on: October 12, 2015, 10:22:59 am »
0

It can't be that hard to implement, considering SCSN did it in a say. Also I really think you should need a video to understand "option to turn off animations".

Developing software is hard. I don't know what their code looks like, but depending on their design/implementation, it might be difficult to do this. I don't know the details of SCSN's patch, but maybe he just turned off their display pixels or something -- the point is, coming up with a solution that works well with their design may be more complicated than adding in a check box and changing 3 lines of code. The fact that many people here, who aren't software engineers, think that they know how to develop code they've never seen before better than the people who actually wrote the code and who are software engineers, shows a lack of respect.

Many people here think they don't deserve respect. OK, it's OK to think that. I don't. But if someone shows that they don't have respect for me, I'm not going to make their complaints the top priority just to shut them up.

As for the video, I was hoping to see that to satisfy my curiosity for what this thing actually does, since I'm not willing to put it on my computer. Based on my previous experience, it seems that videos are a great way to communicate other animation-related issues that I've helped with in the past, but that's a separate thing, more related to my desperate attempt to try and find some actual value in this.

Sorry if I was unclear about that.

I don't agree with you at all.

OK, actually I agree with a good chunk of what you said. I addressed most of it up there and the rest I feel like we can just agree to disagree. Cool.

I don't think it's really up to f.ds to explain to Making Fun what they're doing wrong.

You're right here. I'm bringing that up because there seems to be this attitude around here that we can all be jerks to them and complain about stuff in a non-constructive way (I'm not saying you ever did that, I'm pretty sure you didn't) and then expect to have our complaints be their highest priority. As long as we still have Goko to play on I really don't see what the rush is.

I'm streaming on this patch now.

http://www.twitch.tv/awaclus_

Crap, I can't watch that right now. Please highlight?
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Watno

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Re: MAKiNG MORE FUN: Patch for Dominion Online 2.0 (Win Only)
« Reply #27 on: October 12, 2015, 10:57:09 am »
0

It can't be that hard to implement, considering SCSN did it in a say. Also I really think you should need a video to understand "option to turn off animations".

Developing software is hard. I don't know what their code looks like, but depending on their design/implementation, it might be difficult to do this. I don't know the details of SCSN's patch, but maybe he just turned off their display pixels or something -- the point is, coming up with a solution that works well with their design may be more complicated than adding in a check box and changing 3 lines of code. The fact that many people here, who aren't software engineers, think that they know how to develop code they've never seen before better than the people who actually wrote the code and who are software engineers, shows a lack of respect.

If they cared about nice code, it shouldn't be hard to turn off the animations. If they don't, why would they mind doing it whatever way SCSN did it?
I don't claim I would be able to write a better Dominion Online. What I'm saying is that MF should be able to do it better, since they're software engineers and I'm not.
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popsofctown

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Re: MAKiNG MORE FUN: Patch for Dominion Online 2.0 (Win Only)
« Reply #28 on: October 12, 2015, 11:04:29 am »
+2

This patch isn't really grounds for criticism that adding this feature should have been easy.  Removing the animation content from the game entirely isn't a proper software engineering solution.  You don't tell one of your software engineers to compose a different source file with some of its contents missing, and add an option to use that instead.  You make an option in your code to set up a "animations on" global variable, and add "if" statements in front of animation playback that check the global variable throught your code.  There might be various different logics for playing an animation, and if the code is bad and messy it might be more complicated than just one "if" statement to stop the playback.  This is a one click answer that uses a bad coding practice to make a quick change.


It still totally shouldn't take more than a week, but don't relate the patch to the feature.  The patch can be done in O(1) man hours, or O(2) if there's a couple places where the animation was stored.  A proper fix is more like O(n) where n is the number of animation calls.  There's not a relationship between those two things, adding an animation call wouldn't make SCSN's fix easier and storing three more animations in a different section of that DLL file wouldn't make MF's solution harder.
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AdamH

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Re: MAKiNG MORE FUN: Patch for Dominion Online 2.0 (Win Only)
« Reply #29 on: October 12, 2015, 11:11:30 am »
+1

What I'm saying is that MF should be able to do it better, since they're software engineers and I'm not.

Not knowing anything about their code, I can't say whether or not I think they should be doing a better job because I don't actually know. This (which I believe is the sentiment of many other people here) just assumes they should be doing better because we wish they were. It's just speculation and disrespect.

Whether or not you're right (maybe you are), I don't think this is a constructive thing to think, so I don't think it.
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sc0UT

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Re: MAKiNG MORE FUN: Patch for Dominion Online 2.0 (Win Only)
« Reply #30 on: October 12, 2015, 11:14:01 am »
+1

I'm streaming on this patch now.

http://www.twitch.tv/awaclus_

Still watching. Nice work SCSN! Thumbs up!
 :)
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Re: MAKiNG MORE FUN: Patch for Dominion Online 2.0 (Win Only)
« Reply #31 on: October 12, 2015, 11:19:35 am »
+2

What I'm saying is that MF should be able to do it better, since they're software engineers and I'm not.

Not knowing anything about their code.
Well you know that they wrote it. It's not like they got given some code that they had to work with, they're completely responsible themselves for their code.
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AdamH

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Re: MAKiNG MORE FUN: Patch for Dominion Online 2.0 (Win Only)
« Reply #32 on: October 12, 2015, 11:21:55 am »
0

What I'm saying is that MF should be able to do it better, since they're software engineers and I'm not.

Not knowing anything about their code.
Well you know that they wrote it. It's not like they got given some code that they had to work with, they're completely responsible themselves for their code.

I can think of reasonable designs for games with animations where it would be difficult to add a switch to just turn them completely off, especially if they want to support taking other actions while animations are still resolving.
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SCSN

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Re: MAKiNG MORE FUN: Patch for Dominion Online 2.0 (Win Only)
« Reply #33 on: October 12, 2015, 11:25:49 am »
+1

This patch isn't really grounds for criticism that adding this feature should have been easy.

Except that it is, because there is in fact the equivalent of a global variable controlling these things and implementing a fix would be as simple as creating a GUI element somewhere that controls its value.

The fact that they haven't done it so far is evidence of either sheer unwillingness or utter incompetence (possibly both).

Removing the animation content from the game entirely isn't a proper software engineering solution. 

I haven't removed any animation content.

It still totally shouldn't take more than a week, but don't relate the patch to the feature.  The patch can be done in O(1) man hours, or O(2) if there's a couple places where the animation was stored.  A proper fix is more like O(n) where n is the number of animation calls.

It's the other way around. If I had access to the entire source code rather than just a partially decompiled version of it, a proper fix would have taken me 30 minutes max rather than the ~10 hours I've spend on it so far (including hours of trying to repair decompiled gibberish).
« Last Edit: October 12, 2015, 11:30:06 am by SheCantSayNo »
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Watno

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Re: MAKiNG MORE FUN: Patch for Dominion Online 2.0 (Win Only)
« Reply #34 on: October 12, 2015, 11:37:24 am »
0

It still totally shouldn't take more than a week, but don't relate the patch to the feature.  The patch can be done in O(1) man hours, or O(2) if there's a couple places where the animation was stored.  A proper fix is more like O(n) where n is the number of animation calls.  There's not a relationship between those two things, adding an animation call wouldn't make SCSN's fix easier and storing three more animations in a different section of that DLL file wouldn't make MF's solution harder.

O(1)=O(2).
A proper fix might need O(n), but it shouldn't.
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Re: MAKiNG MORE FUN: Patch for Dominion Online 2.0 (Win Only)
« Reply #35 on: October 12, 2015, 11:38:30 am »
0

But you didn't use the global variable?
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Re: MAKiNG MORE FUN: Patch for Dominion Online 2.0 (Win Only)
« Reply #36 on: October 12, 2015, 11:43:55 am »
0

It still totally shouldn't take more than a week, but don't relate the patch to the feature.  The patch can be done in O(1) man hours, or O(2) if there's a couple places where the animation was stored.  A proper fix is more like O(n) where n is the number of animation calls.  There's not a relationship between those two things, adding an animation call wouldn't make SCSN's fix easier and storing three more animations in a different section of that DLL file wouldn't make MF's solution harder.

O(1)=O(2).
A proper fix might need O(n), but it shouldn't.
Yeah if the code is written right, there is a "Play animation" master funciton that can just check the global variable at the start to decide if it should do anything at all.  But there's ways to write it poorly enough that you'd need to check at every separate possible way you can call for the animations.

I presumed that without the source code SCNS had to remove the animations or break something in the pipe that allowed animations to be played back in general, like killing the function that calls animations.  If he did enough reverse engineering to do something more proper than I'd have to retract.
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AdamH

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Re: MAKiNG MORE FUN: Patch for Dominion Online 2.0 (Win Only)
« Reply #37 on: October 12, 2015, 11:46:15 am »
0

This patch isn't really grounds for criticism that adding this feature should have been easy.

Except that it is, because there is in fact the equivalent of a global variable controlling these things and implementing a fix would be as simple as creating a GUI element somewhere that controls its value.

If you are that sure, show me some evidence and I might believe you. Like, I'm actually interested in everything you believe you've learned throughout this process. I found AI's write-ups that were posted a couple of years ago about the leaderboard or something really fascinating.

But even if that's the case, and let's say you even prove that it's something they can easily change and it has no adverse side effects that you just haven't come across yet, I don't think that's grounds to say that they're incompetent or even that you could do better. I mean, they are the ones that get to decide what the priorities are.
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Watno

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Re: MAKiNG MORE FUN: Patch for Dominion Online 2.0 (Win Only)
« Reply #38 on: October 12, 2015, 11:49:50 am »
+8

I don't get where all this mistrust comes from. Why would SCSN lie about this?
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AdamH

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Re: MAKiNG MORE FUN: Patch for Dominion Online 2.0 (Win Only)
« Reply #39 on: October 12, 2015, 11:53:21 am »
0

I don't get where all this mistrust comes from. Why would SCSN lie about this?

RE is really hard, something that looks like a global flag could be something that the compiler added or ten other things.

I also have unrelated issues with SCSN but I feel like I've been doing a good job keeping that separate.
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SCSN

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Re: MAKiNG MORE FUN: Patch for Dominion Online 2.0 (Win Only)
« Reply #40 on: October 12, 2015, 11:57:35 am »
+5

I don't get where all this mistrust comes from. Why would SCSN lie about this?

I think it's just that Adam hates me for some reason. I don't understand why, I've always considered him a great guy and until recently we've always been on good terms. I still have nothing against him but I am getting a bit tired of his interference with this thread.

To be clear: I made this patch for my personal use and decided to release it for the benefit of others. If you like to use it: you're welcome and I'll continue to provice you updates for as long as I'm capable. If you're not interested: you're equally welcome, but please leave this thread alone.
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AdamH

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Re: MAKiNG MORE FUN: Patch for Dominion Online 2.0 (Win Only)
« Reply #41 on: October 12, 2015, 12:14:31 pm »
+1

I saw you encouraging some people to do something that is of questionable legal status and computer security, so I posted here to warn people about that. Sorry if you find that annoying, but you aren't going to convince me that I shouldn't have done that.

Then I'm trying to get enough of an idea about what people like about the way this looks to present something meaningful to MF for the benefit of everyone involved, but most importantly linux and mac users and even you (so you don't have to patch every future release).

And I'm the bad guy here? All of this is interference? On top of that stuff, because of the discussion I brought up, there's (hopefully) going to be a video of what your thing does so people can watch it before downloading it. Excuse me for trying to help.

You want me to stop posting here? Well I wanted you to stop posting in other threads when you had absolutely nothing positive to add, and you were just trolling and you didn't really comply, but fine. I'm not helping you anymore, and I'm not reading any more replies to this thread.
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Voltaire

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Re: MAKiNG MORE FUN: Patch for Dominion Online 2.0 (Win Only)
« Reply #42 on: October 12, 2015, 12:28:39 pm »
+1

Not knowing anything about their code, I can't say whether or not I think they should be doing a better job because I don't actually know. This (which I believe is the sentiment of many other people here) just assumes they should be doing better because we wish they were. It's just speculation and disrespect.

Whether or not you're right (maybe you are), I don't think this is a constructive thing to think, so I don't think it.

It's not disrespectful to expect a client we enjoy, and be disappointed, frustrated, or even angry when they fail to deliver.

I've certainly seen plenty of bad-faith interactions with MF. David certainly was disrespected plenty of times when he was posting here. That's a shame and reflects badly on fds. However, plenty of other people were polite and mature about things.

The fact is, the fundamental fault lies with a company that inherited a bad program, made the correct decision to take a long time to re-code everything from scratch, and has just committed unforced error after unforced error ever since. Pointing out that fact is not disrespectful, even if you aren't a programmer.
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Awaclus

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Re: MAKiNG MORE FUN: Patch for Dominion Online 2.0 (Win Only)
« Reply #43 on: October 12, 2015, 12:29:06 pm »
+1

It can't be that hard to implement, considering SCSN did it in a say. Also I really think you should need a video to understand "option to turn off animations".

Developing software is hard. I don't know what their code looks like, but depending on their design/implementation, it might be difficult to do this. I don't know the details of SCSN's patch, but maybe he just turned off their display pixels or something -- the point is, coming up with a solution that works well with their design may be more complicated than adding in a check box and changing 3 lines of code. The fact that many people here, who aren't software engineers, think that they know how to develop code they've never seen before better than the people who actually wrote the code and who are software engineers, shows a lack of respect.

Many people here think they don't deserve respect. OK, it's OK to think that. I don't. But if someone shows that they don't have respect for me, I'm not going to make their complaints the top priority just to shut them up.

As for the video, I was hoping to see that to satisfy my curiosity for what this thing actually does, since I'm not willing to put it on my computer. Based on my previous experience, it seems that videos are a great way to communicate other animation-related issues that I've helped with in the past, but that's a separate thing, more related to my desperate attempt to try and find some actual value in this.

Sorry if I was unclear about that.

I don't agree with you at all.

OK, actually I agree with a good chunk of what you said. I addressed most of it up there and the rest I feel like we can just agree to disagree. Cool.

I don't think it's really up to f.ds to explain to Making Fun what they're doing wrong.

You're right here. I'm bringing that up because there seems to be this attitude around here that we can all be jerks to them and complain about stuff in a non-constructive way (I'm not saying you ever did that, I'm pretty sure you didn't) and then expect to have our complaints be their highest priority. As long as we still have Goko to play on I really don't see what the rush is.

I'm streaming on this patch now.

http://www.twitch.tv/awaclus_

Crap, I can't watch that right now. Please highlight?

Done.
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popsofctown

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Re: MAKiNG MORE FUN: Patch for Dominion Online 2.0 (Win Only)
« Reply #44 on: October 12, 2015, 12:38:29 pm »
0

There's not really any reason to be worried about legality here. 

  • No judge in his right mind would ever even waste some of his time with a lawsuit based on this infraction of law
  • It doesn't become morally wrong by getting something free you're supposed to pay for
  • It isn't harmful towards other users
  • It doesn't give you an unfair advantage in competing with other users.


Once I've checked all those boxes I click the download button on anything, like Super Mario World rom hacks since I've bought that game from Nintendo like 3 times. (cept maybe it gives me an unfair advantage just in general because after riding a rocket Yoshi I'm a baller at lyfe)
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Re: MAKiNG MORE FUN: Patch for Dominion Online 2.0 (Win Only)
« Reply #45 on: October 12, 2015, 12:39:52 pm »
0

Those were supposed to be brackets with X's in them.

Theory your forum is governmental overreaching into my posts wtf

Theory I threaten to hack my copy of Mozilla so that my posts are not animated to contain bullets, ban me pls.
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Re: MAKiNG MORE FUN: Patch for Dominion Online 2.0 (Win Only)
« Reply #46 on: October 12, 2015, 12:55:41 pm »
+3

  • It isn't harmful towards other users
  • It doesn't give you an unfair advantage in competing with other users.
Importantly, these two aren't even grounds for legal action.  I played WoW for eight years; Blizzard closed accounts for this sort of thing, but never really took legal action because there were no damages to recover and no laws broken.

The worst that can come of doing this is to get your account closed.  But Blizzard could afford to close 1% of its WoW accounts because WoW brings in money hand over fist--and the other 99% actively wanted the botting jerks closed.  If MF decides to close accounts because a user provided a service that a majority of people want... they can't afford that sort of bad publicity.
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Re: MAKiNG MORE FUN: Patch for Dominion Online 2.0 (Win Only)
« Reply #47 on: October 12, 2015, 01:21:28 pm »
0

  • It isn't harmful towards other users
  • It doesn't give you an unfair advantage in competing with other users.
Importantly, these two aren't even grounds for legal action.  I played WoW for eight years; Blizzard closed accounts for this sort of thing, but never really took legal action because there were no damages to recover and no laws broken.

The worst that can come of doing this is to get your account closed.  But Blizzard could afford to close 1% of its WoW accounts because WoW brings in money hand over fist--and the other 99% actively wanted the botting jerks closed.  If MF decides to close accounts because a user provided a service that a majority of people want... they can't afford that sort of bad publicity.

And even Blizzard isn't really putting in a huge amount of effort to prevent botting in their games.
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Re: MAKiNG MORE FUN: Patch for Dominion Online 2.0 (Win Only)
« Reply #48 on: October 12, 2015, 02:04:21 pm »
+1

Those last two are things that I am simply unwilling to do as an individual because I'm not a douche, not things I expect reprisals for or expect to be legally relevant.

I do things that are a) moral + b) unlikely to get me in trouble due to illegality.  Many forms of piracy fail A but not B.  Putting money into other people's parking meters in certain cities passes A but not B.
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Re: MAKiNG MORE FUN: Patch for Dominion Online 2.0 (Win Only)
« Reply #49 on: October 12, 2015, 02:09:13 pm »
+3

Fun story guys, a couple weeks ago I played me some Pokemon Red version, an 8 bit game published in 1996 that also fought with the struggles of developing software for portable platforms!

The first thing I did was disable animations! Fascinatingly I did not need to wait for "patch" in yellow version or any other sequel for that.  The feature was just already there.  For an 8 bit black and white children's game controlled with three buttons and a control pad it was still considered a bare bones minimum necessary function for the animations to be removable since, while flavorful (oops, I ruined my metaphor because Dominion animations aren't even remotely flavorful), they were not necessary to communicate the facts of gameplay.
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