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Swiftoak
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releases

Post by Swiftoak »

I think it would be a good idea to release everything.

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Sload
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Post by Sload »

anyone who isnt for releasing everything must be living in like 1995. i was for slow rolling the release a bit so that we could generate as much attention with it as possible, but given that TR has absolutely 0 interest in doing any sort of PR activity at all, just release it now.
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Swiftoak
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Post by Swiftoak »

So how about we have a single public release of everything, while continuing the current sectional breakdown of files for internal development. Then say, every so often we throw together the latest versions of all our sections into a public merge. And that's how TR gets updated/released from now on. Perhaps retaining major milestones for significant updates that we can brand "heartland", etc. etc.

We can just merge TR_Mainland and TR_Alpha into a single file, or we can have them remain seperate, but be released simultaneously in a single archive. This means whenever you update TR, one must update both files, but the choice remains open to those players to disable the Alpha if they so choose.
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Post by rot »

For the record-
public releases shouldn't mix playable content (TR_Mainland, as flawed as it may be) and non-playable content (non-NPCed alpha, unlinked doors, mostly buggy exteriors). Won't explicitate the reasons because this is self-evident to anyone who can understand them
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Sload
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Post by Sload »

rot wrote:Won't explicitate the reasons because this is self-evident to anyone who can understand them
hey bra dont do this
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Post by Gnomey »

I think there's a slightly simpler solution to Swiftoak's suggestion:

Edit: simply put, the same system we have now with more regular alphas, which do not necessarily include more than the section files and TR_Mainland. (It would be up to the merger to include additional content like Uld Vraech in the merge). The following post is just me using more words to describe just that.

TR_mainland + section files <- we are here
|
v
work on separate sections
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v
work on separate sections
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v
work on separate sections -> merge all to public alpha (TR_Alpha)
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v
work on separate sections
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v
work on separate sections -> merge all to public alpha (TR_Alpha)
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v
work on separate sections
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v
sections finished
merge finished sections (TR_Mainland) -> 'official' release with much fanfare
if there are concurrent unfinished sections -> merge all to additional alpha release (TR_Alpha)
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v
work on new sections

The alphas are there for testing, advertising and mucking about. They are mutually exclusive to TR_Mainland*, and the download page/post should contain links to the most recent version of both files.**
Modders should never work off of TR_Alpha, only TR_Mainland. (Which would be passed around for fixes etc., as is the case now). Players who do not want to see unfinished content should never download TR_Alpha, only TR_Mainland.
Frankly, I'd prefer if modders didn't work off of the 'official' releases either, as at that point only a single person can work on the file at any one time, but I doubt that would be viable for technical reasons. (Cross-sectional dialogue, quests, bugfixes and the like).

I'd leave it up to the merger whether to include content aside from the section files and TR_Mainland in TR_Alpha, such as the Heartland and Velothis exteriors.

Truth be told, I was originally ambivalent to the idea of publicly releasing alphas, my main concern being that players would spoil themselves on unfinished content and not be able to enjoy the official releases properly when they roll around.
However, I think that alphas might generate some interest in actually helping out with TR, as opposed to simply enjoying what has already been done. Sload brought up another good point in this thread.
Another reason I now think public alphas are a good idea is that it will let people interested in TR have a better idea of our progress. By comparing released and (officially) unreleased content, those people might see the released content in a broader context and could have an easier time accepting changes to released content, or at least might form more coherent and informed arguments against making changes.
As it is now, I feel that there is often a difference of opinion between people who play TR content, who are enthralled by released areas like Telvannis, and people who mod for TR, who are enthralled by the unreleased content being worked on and unimplemented concepts, often to the detriment of older, released content.

*I'd also be fine with keeping TR_Alpha and TR_Mainland separate, as is currently the case. I think the downloads should also remain separate in that case. The only advantage to keeping them separate I can think of is to limit download size. If that's an issue, then by all means.
**By the way, I think the "TR Data" link in the forum header should be changed to a "Downloads" link and should link to either [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/?q=content/downloads]this page[/url] or something very much like it, for (guest) user friendliness.
Last edited by Gnomey on Fri May 23, 2014 7:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Swiftoak
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Post by Swiftoak »

I don't see how my proposal is complicated. Developers would continue to work on section files, much like how it is now. Only public releases would be branded TR_Mainland. Assuming my one-file solution which I prefer, there would only be one ML file for all public releases from now on. No more seperate Heartland/Veloth releases. Updates become streamlined, all content is accessible, and we simply re-merge all the latest versions of all sections every time we update. Updates would be made at more regular intervals, with the caveat that some updates might not be so big, but I think regular updating can be beneficial.

rot's two-file solution would work, though I would prefer if we packaged it in a single archive. This allows some flexibility for players who do not want to play unfinished content to disable the alpha, yet puts everything in a single archive. This is beacuse if we add content to ML and leave the alpha as seperate downloads, we might have issues with people running newer versions of ML that overlap their older Alphas. Not an issue if we provide both files for every update.

In any case, do we have some consensus on releasing everything we have, regardless of distribution methods? I kind of agree with Sload at this point there isn't really much point to space out releases and hold things back because not much is happening. I prefer regular updates of everything over our current situation, even if the stuff in our Alpha isn't ideal. I think players will appreciate it. We can still use the Heartland/Veloth/etc to mark major milestones in our update process.
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Yeti
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Post by Yeti »

I'm fine with releasing everything in regular updates. How often should we do it? Twice a year?
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Post by Swiftoak »

That sounds feasbile, but by no means does it mean we HAVE to stick with regular, timed intervals. But doing it this way means we can release updates more often, and abandon the SE 1.6, 1.7, etc. system, and just release everything in TR as one cumulative update.

Public opinon seems to lean for the two-file solution.
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Post by gro-Dhal »

Just acknowledging here that i've seen this and have no strong opinion on the matter
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Post by Haplo »

Just to make sure I understand what you mean by "let's release everything", you're talking about releasing our latest TR_Mainland and any Alphas we have out in a single .7z archive roughly twice a year? If so, we'd need to make sure we reconcile TR_Data with both the Mainland file and any Alpha we release. In the past the two files have generally required different versions of TR_Data.
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Post by Swiftoak »

arvisrend and I were just talking about this.

Yes we will need to reconcile TR_Data to the two files for optimal results. Every update from now on should always be a single .7z (TamrielRebuilt_YY-MM.7z) Build number obviously being the last two digits of the year and the month. A release made in August of 2014 would be 14.08. This is similar to Ubuntu, and we can continue to use names such as "Heartland", "Veloth" to denote significant updates/milestones. Each release will include:

[spoiler]Readme.txt
Data Files\TR_Data.bsa
Data Files\TR_Data.esm
Data Files\TR_Mainland.esm
Data Files\TR_Alpha.esm[/spoiler]

Those who use the alpha will be recommended to start a new savegame. In any case it's good practice to extract all files, regardless of whether you intend to use the Alpha or not. One can easily untick the Alpha if they do not wish. It will prevent any overlap issues.

As for twice a year, every year, it's not fixed. We can release as much as we want, whenever we want. Though I don't forsee us updating more than 2-4 times a year.

On another note, I think it's pretty dumb that we still have Telvannis and Antidiluvian Secrets files still freely available on public sites. No wonder people are still reporting issues with TR_Map1.esm and TR_Map2.esm. Someone who has access to the nexus should delete these files immediately, no question.
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Post by cookie16 »

Swiftoak Woodwarrior wrote:arvisrend and I were just talking about this.

Yes we will need to reconcile TR_Data to the two files for optimal results. Every update from now on should always be a single .7z (TamrielRebuilt_YY-MM.7z) Build number obviously being the last two digits of the year and the month. A release made in August of 2014 would be 14.08. This is similar to Ubuntu, and we can continue to use names such as "Heartland", "Veloth" to denote significant updates/milestones. Each release will include:

[spoiler]Readme.txt
Data Files\TR_Data.bsa
Data Files\TR_Data.esm
Data Files\TR_Mainland.esm
Data Files\TR_Alpha.esm[/spoiler]

Those who use the alpha will be recommended to start a new savegame. In any case it's good practice to extract all files, regardless of whether you intend to use the Alpha or not. One can easily untick the Alpha if they do not wish. It will prevent any overlap issues.

As for twice a year, every year, it's not fixed. We can release as much as we want, whenever we want. Though I don't forsee us updating more than 2-4 times a year.

On another note, I think it's pretty dumb that we still have Telvannis and Antidiluvian Secrets files still freely available on public sites. No wonder people are still reporting issues with TR_Map1.esm and TR_Map2.esm. Someone who has access to the nexus should delete these files immediately, no question.
This, also we should contact Slartibartfast1 and ask him to remove his Tamriel Rebuilt Texture Fix, since it was included into TR a long time ago.
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Post by Why »

Reporting in to say that I'm all for it. And yes, M1 and M2 need to be made unavailable.
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