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TomeNET 4.7.3

Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2020 9:49 pm
by jezek
Hello.

I've been working on some new code for TomeNET in my free time, tested out some ideas, etc. I used official sources from TomeNET download page (v4.7.2). Then I changed some packet transfer strings, so I needed to bump up version and do checks, to ensure backward compatibility. So I've chosen version 4.8.0 for my experiment, cause it is a good practice to raise at least minor version, if you "break" client/server communication standart. Everything went smooth and after some time both clients (original 4.7.2 & my client v4.8.0) worked with both servers (original v4.7.2 & my 4.8.0) on my localhost. A small success for me.

Until I tried my new client on live TomeNET (europe.tomenet.eu). On game enter (town of Bree) the client reported unknown packets. Where did I made mistake, what went wrong? After some time of despair and debugging I've come to a conclusion that this is not my fault (cause on localhost everything worked) and the official server has to be different. So I've done some more research and figured it out.

The official TomeNET server (europe.tomenet.eu) is currently 4.7.3! Apart from that, that they changed client/server communication and only raised patch version number, to user the server presents itself as 4.7.2 (info screen after login, before game starts), but to client it presents itself as 4.7.3. A schizophrenic trait, I think.

And where are the source codes? Isn't this an open source project? If you run a new version "in production", isn't the best practice for FOSS projects to release the sources. Isn't the best practice for FOSS projects to release all sources, even the test ones? How can the community make bug fixes and test ideas, if they don't have latest codes? And what about the players? All have to use "old" client, only the chosen ones get to use "new"? If you argument, that the server is in testing phase and you will release the codes after that, than my question is, why do you test in production? Isn't a test-server the best practice, with call out to community to test the new version before going "to production"?

I've also tried to PM some admins on this forum (C. Blue namely), but with no success. Also no one from developer people (do we know who they are?) reacts to forum posts. Is this project even alive? Who do I need to contact (who is willing to communicate) with some development questions and discussions?

Thank you for your time and Im looking forward to answers and explanations.

Re: TomeNET 4.7.3

Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:49 am
by tangar
considering contacts to admins: if could be done via email or in-game or in IRC. just be calm and patient and devs will reply to you (if they are interested in your suggestion). if they are not - they won't reply back. I had loads of my emails ignored, it's alright; but if devs feels that it's an interesting topic - they will eventually reply. I suppose that rate of getting reply to your email is 1/4 (out of 4 emails, one will get a reply). I suppose such policy choosen because devs don't have enough time to spend to reply about on ideas which they are not interesting in. Also sometimes devs could reply to your email in-game in /note

game is alive and developing. you could follow the progress by changes in the guide: https://github.com/Tokariew/tomenet-gui ... its/master

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link updated

Re: TomeNET 4.7.3

Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2020 11:30 am
by mikaelh
europe.tomenet.eu is running the latest development version. So it has a bunch of unreleased changes. Those changes will eventually be released as version 4.7.3. If a client claims to be newer than 4.7.2, our server assumes it's running with our unreleased 4.7.3 changes.

Jumping to version 4.8.0 is probably not a good idea because we are going to do at least one more release in the 4.7.x series. One option would be to use the 'branch' field in the version number. The version comparison logic allows each branch to have separate build numbers.

We have a private git repository that is currently not public. I would personally like it to be public but C. Blue has some objections. Still, we can probably give a you snapshot of the latest code.

I don't really read the forums much. Best way to reach me is via e-mail. C. Blue doesn't read the forums much either. You can try e-mailing him too. Addresses are on the "About TomeNET" page. C. Blue is also sometimes active in the in-game chat.

And yes, we don't follow all the best practices. Reason for that is that it's a small project with a long history.

Re: TomeNET 4.7.3

Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2020 5:28 pm
by jezek
Thank you all for all the answers, I've been searching for.

Just one little comment on versioning. The v4.8.0 was only for my test purposes and mentioned it only to tell the story, how something was discovered. To change the branch number is a way to go. But even if I changed only the branch number I got packet errors. Maybe you shouldn't check if version is older than 4.7.2, but version is older or equal 4.7.3 to do the new packet thing. (And I also think, that every change to packet things should raise more than a patch version, or do you have other versioning standarts?)

And I'm sorry, if I sounded offensive, or impatient,