questions

[Wounded_Lion]

First, why was this thread locked? Interesting things were being said all around, despite some bickering/snapping-of-the-jaws (some of which, I'll admit, I participated in). Good things seem to have come of it (the hotfixes were probably prompted by the discussion of stability; ideas and thought-provoking criticisms/defenses were given voice; etc). Yeah, I know this gripe comes a bit late, but until tonight I haven't had the time to read new posts here.

 

Second, is there a list of Fixpack fixes that have been reliably tested? I'm thinking that a team of beta-testers (possibly including myself if I'm able to wrap up a certain RL matter soon) could leisurely verify fixes (there'd be no rush as we would essentially be doing the Fixpack a vital service out of the goodness of our black hearts - or maybe out of our desire to see the Fixpack actually "dominate through superiority" as many of its supporters have implied) and log them into a central list of sorts (to avoid duplication of effort). The Fixpack team would need to provide a master list of every fix in the Fixpack for verification.

 

The main issue I'm predicting here is reliability of testing (in other words, the focus would need to be on solid tests of each fix rather than quick tests of large numbers of fixes - as I said, no hurry; quality trumps quantity). Thoughts?

 

Third, why is closing game exploits considered a bug fix when things such as summons turning themselves hostile considered out-of-scope? I don't get how you're defining fixes; it seems very haphazard and inconsistent to me (but that might be because I'm not familiar with your base philosophy on the matter).

 

Note: I might be a while in responding, as I've been very busy lately, so please don't construe lack of immediate response as disinterest on my part.

 

aWL

[Bearwere]

i think fixes that have been reliably tested are in the core part

[Wounded_Lion]

i think fixes that have been reliably tested are in the core part

 

The Deva/Fallen-Deva bug was a Core Fix.

 

"Core Fixes" means "no one has complained", not "reliably tested".

 

aWL

[temujin]

Good things seem to have come of it (the hotfixes were probably prompted by the discussion of stability; ideas and thought-provoking criticisms/defenses were given voice; etc).

I know you like giving yourself credit for something you didn't do, Simba, but you're wrong here. The hotfixes were more likely a result of Salk's 'why don't modders bother with hotfixes' over in the general mod forum rather than your 'thought-provoking criticisms'. Nice try though.

 

And you know goddamn well why it was locked. If you or that annoying idiot crabjuice woulda said your piece and just left it at that instead of luring me and others into a useless pissing match, it could've all been avoided. Something tells me you're inclined to do the same to this thread.

[icelus]

Good things seem to have come of it (the hotfixes were probably prompted by the discussion of stability; ideas and thought-provoking criticisms/defenses were given voice; etc).

I know you like giving yourself credit for something you didn't do, Simba, but you're wrong here. The hotfixes were more likely a result of Salk's 'why don't modders bother with hotfixes' over in the general mod forum rather than your 'thought-provoking criticisms'. Nice try though.

 

And you know goddamn well why it was locked. If you or that annoying idiot crabjuice woulda said your piece and just left it at that instead of luring me and others into a useless pissing match, it could've all been avoided. Something tells me you're inclined to do the same to this thread.

Pot, kettle, etc.

 

Nevertheless, aWL has brought up some valid points that should be examined in the course of discussion. Let's not turn this thread into another penis measuring contest.

[temujin]

As long as he sticks to the topic at hand, and keeps his responses without making some smartass comment involving me (directly or indirectly)... then fine.

[Wounded_Lion]

I know you like giving yourself credit for something you didn't do, Simba, but you're wrong here. The hotfixes were more likely a result of Salk's 'why don't modders bother with hotfixes' over in the general mod forum rather than your 'thought-provoking criticisms'. Nice try though.

 

I doubt that, but the hotfixes are a good thing regardless of what spurred them. Again, you're mistaking a general statement about everyone's contributions to the topic as some kind of special claim on my part.

 

And you know goddamn well why it was locked. If you or that annoying idiot crabjuice woulda said your piece and just left it at that instead of luring me and others into a useless pissing match, it could've all been avoided. Something tells me you're inclined to do the same to this thread.

 

I'm trying to be proactve here (suggesting a way to better the Fixpack and offering to participate in it). I think you've taken our fun in the other thread too personally, temujin. I don't bear you any ill will, hold a grudge, etc. Let's drop the games for the sake of being taken seriously.

 

Some more general remarks:

 

The master list that I referenced above would be most useful if categorized. Items fixes, spell fixes, area fixes, etc. Quest fixes could be grouped by area/chapter.

 

The list would also need to specify why a fix was needed (we can't test/verify a fix if we don't understand exactly what was wrong).

 

I'll take another look at the docs soon and try to determine if I'd be able to put some this together myself. I doubt it, however, as even the detailed docs were vague and very generalized when I last checked. For now, tis back to real work for the rest of day for me.

 

aWL

 

EDIT: grammar

[temujin]

I'm trying to be proactve here (suggesting a way to better the Fixpack and offering to participate in it).

LOL, ok. Whatever. Judging from your past, I wouldn't trust this statement. But ok, I'll play along and give you the benefit of the doubt. Let's see exactly how serious you really are.

[Wounded_Lion]

@temujin: Cool.

 

A quick lunchtime update:

 

As I've been chewing on this tasty toasted sub, I've been reading the detailed docs on the website. They're a bit better than I recall (back in the day there was almost nothing in the way of docs; now it's better but still a far cry from optimal).

 

What I could really use (as I've expressed before) is a downloadable copy of the detailed docs so that I can read them offiline and cut/paste/rearrange/notate/organize/etc bits until I have something workable. Any chance of getting something like that? I coud save each page individualy and cut and paste into Open Office, reformat it by hand, etc, but I'm hoping that you might already have the info in a friendly format.

 

aWL

[Nythrun]

At around one hundred twenty-seven printed pages, the Fixpack documentation is rather better than the documentation for BGII itself, and vastly in excess of other mods.

 

What's available on the website is what there is and won't be reformatted in any gross, systematic way. If a complete list of files altered by each patch does not meet your needs then you'll have to meet those needs yourself; no one has time to write an encyclopedia set.

 

Feel free to use the website's search function to look for more information on any particular fix.

[devSin]

Additionally, you won't be getting a per-file list of what has been changed and why (almost every patch or patch group in the TP2 should have some sort of comment), and there is no way to provide you with a list of "this fix is guaranteed to work."

 

Testing happens when we browse the TP2 and check the code, when one of the team decides to play through the game for some reason, and when our awesome players submit issues for consideration or have questions. It is not a case of "this patch will always work, even when you're playing with a paladin and have only done the first stronghold quest and do have Anomen and Nalia in the party and are playing the evil path by helping Bodhi and have killed Neb for great justice"; the game isn't written in such a way that we could ever account for all possible cases, so the only thing I could tell you about any particular fix is that "we haven't found any issue with it."

 

Obviously, testing resources is a simple matter of casting the spell or equipping or using the item and such, but you shouldn't need any direction for that (load up the ToB priest CHR, cheat up to 8M XP, and start memorizing and casting the spells (or just hack one of the player scripts with a big block of ForceSpell() calls); same for wizards, and you can cheat in the complex items to see if something bad happens). I'm not sure what else you would plan on testing, but for a "true" test, the best I can recommend is to play through the game in a way you normally wouldn't (choose a class you've never played, switch genders and alignment, and generally try to be silly when running through to see if any bugs crop up).

[Wounded_Lion]

At around one hundred twenty-seven printed pages, the Fixpack documentation is rather better than the documentation for BGII itself, and vastly in excess of other mods.

 

What's available on the website is what there is and won't be reformatted in any gross, systematic way. If a complete list of files altered by each patch does not meet your needs then you'll have to meet those needs yourself; no one has time to write an encyclopedia set.

 

Feel free to use the website's search function to look for more information on any particular fix.

 

*sigh* Okay. If you'd read my last post a bit more carefully, then you'd see that I was hoping that you had the Fixpack docs in .doc or some such format that would make it easier for me to try to organize testing. Surely you don't keep them soley in .html format? I'd think that'd be a bitch for you to edit.

 

As for systematic organization, I don't see why you think its a bad thing, but again, as I thought I made clear, I'd be the one doing the organizing.

 

If you'd rather me not attempt to put this kind of thing together, which is the feeling I'm getting, then I won't; I withdraw the offer, and you'll hear nothing more from me on the Fixpack forums (unless a Fixpack bugs affects one of my mods, in which case I'll report it for the sake of whoever reported it to me).

 

aWL

[devSin]

*sigh* Okay. If you'd read my last post a bit more carefully, then you'd see that I was hoping that you had the Fixpack docs in .doc or some such format that would make it easier for me to try to organize testing. Surely you don't keep them soley in .html format? I'd think that'd be a bitch for you to edit.

As far as I know, they do exist solely in html. There is no official "document" other than the few web pages thrown together and maintained by Cam.

 

As for systematic organization, I don't see why you think its a bad thing, but again, as I thought I made clear, I'd be the one doing the organizing.

She's saying that nobody here really has the time or inclination to put that kind of effort into the documentation (already very cumbersome; without Cam, we wouldn't even have any docs beyond the simple read me), not that alternate organization wouldn't be desirable.

 

If you could and would do it and got something together that Cam approved of, then yes, it would be appreciated. If it's just a bullet list of areas for concentrated testing, then any effort should be welcome, but without some apparatus for assigning areas to volunteers (of which I suspect there would be few), I'm not sure how long it would stay relevant (although there aren't any really significant changes expected going forward, so it probably wouldn't become totally obsolete for a fairly long while).

[Miloch]

First, why was this thread locked?

Seems a bit reactionary to me. If someone was going to do it, they should've done it long ago, not when they did. The flaming had pretty much worn itself out by that time, so all locking does is preserve the thread in its sloppy, trashy form. But as the bigg said, an admin would have to go through and sort out the crap from the non-crap, and there's no reason they'd want to do that.

What I could really use (as I've expressed before) is a downloadable copy of the detailed docs so that I can read them offiline and cut/paste/rearrange/notate/organize/etc bits until I have something workable.

I've suggested the detailed docs should be added to the readme, which isn't that informative without the details. Or maybe just a separate technical document.

[frabjous]

*sigh* Okay. If you'd read my last post a bit more carefully, then you'd see that I was hoping that you had the Fixpack docs in .doc or some such format that would make it easier for me to try to organize testing. Surely you don't keep them soley in .html format? I'd think that'd be a bitch for you to edit.

 

Any modern word processor would have the ability to open (and edit and save in) .html format just as easily as .doc format (as well as convert in between). I guess I'm not seeing the difference, or why one would be easier to edit or use than another. If you'd like, just save the .html files, open them in your word processor; just and paste them into one document and save as a .doc file.