The Next Step - Making Everybody Edits Open Source

Zumza · 2017-03-07 21:48:43

The Next Step - Making Everybody Edits Open Source

Premise:

Many have accused that our staff wasn't determined to work on Unity Client lately, thus no progress have made to the update we all wait. This fact was confirmed by some former staff members who said that they've loosen their motivation.
We also know that the staff has been working on this project since November 2015(almost one and a half years back) and we still don't have an approximation date when this project will be completed.
Koya(EE admin) confirmed that even though they have a slightly working EE Unity Client, they haven't tested if the browser version its compatible with PlayerIO.
Some even accused that the staff is giving us fake hopes.
While I totally understand that our staff is working on EE as volunteers I can't see the reason why they don't open source EE Unity Client.

Advantages of making Everybody Edits open source:

Making EE open source would speed up the progress. EE could finally make use of the large community of programmers it has.
More people can oversee the code and check it for bugs.
Everyone would be able to suggest a better more efficient way to do a specific task.

How organisation would be made:

We will be using Git.
There will be a small numbers of people who will be able to commit directly to the main branch(perhaps only staff members).
Other programmers would be able to make pull requests.
Changes would be overseen by anybody but accepted only by the staff.

N1KF, SirJosh3917, mrjawapa, Krosis, Swarth100, 272

LukeM · 2017-03-07 22:35:12

I think your underestimating how big of a job it is to rewrite the client... Especially with a group of people who are only just learning to program (as many people in this community are)

The main problem is that if you just add things whenever someone feels like it, your going to end up with something worse than the original client, Nou knows what he is doing (no matter what most of the forum seems to think), so I would just leave it to him, and if he decides that making EE open-sourced would be a good idea, then he'll do it. Also this means that there would be a competent and experienced person leading the effort, who could probably manage this task better than most of us, even if he is a bit pressed for time.

N1KF · 2017-03-07 22:36:21

I've considered this. While I'm pretty much useless at programming, I could help give advice and graphics. Will this be from scratch? What will be moved over?

destroy123 wrote:

The main problem is that if you just add things whenever someone feels like it, your going to end up with something worse than the original client

That's why you think twice before adding stuff. Often, other clients are made worse because they just pile more junk (like stolen graphics and complex commands) onto what's already a bloated game. If this client proves to be as successful as the actual game, perhaps it would be a sign to Nou to fix the mess we're in.

den3107 · 2017-03-08 01:33:25

My thoughts/tips:

• Use a bit of a Scrum hierarchy
With Scrum hierarchy I mean we have a product owner (a dude that keeps everything organized) (can also be a developer at the same time). The rest are developers. Doesn't mean they're just dumb workers, obviously everybody makes and thinks the product. The product owner just makes sure everything goes smooth and everybody is on the same line after a meeting/discussion.

• Obviously use git
Have the product owner be somebody everybody trusts, make him own the git. Let him make everybody he (or the majority of others) trust direct developers. All the rest who are part of the team would have to make push requests, to prevent somebody who's in a bad mood or an immature developer forcing his way.

• Have meetings
This will probably be terribly hard, but mostly at first: get your tasks and desires straight, if you use stuff like a Trello board, make a backlog. That way people know what's being worked on and what not. You can also use a Trello board for outside suggestion and bug reports (Or use JIRA).

• Everybody Edits is welcome
Take N1KF as an example. Believing his word he's not much good programming, but good constructive advice/ideas are priceless. In case we'd need it (personally doubt it) obviously graphics are welcome too. Maybe he can help with the menu's! You can easily screw those up.

• Get the structure straight
Just like with the meetings, have something like a class diagram, otherwise you'll get massive spaghetti code since everybody uses different styles.

In case of League of Androids, it's focus is BAL's, if I'm right. So it's fairly logical everybody'd use Visual Studio (unless Mac (until 2017 came out)/Linux) and C#.
However if you'd want to remake the game (kinda getting that vibe from the OP...) you'd have to specify what exactly you're going to use (Unity isn't the only option, and if you would choose Unity, what version? Unity generally doesn't support backwards comparability).

I'm fine with joining and writing an application or whatever, but I'm currently uncertain what the exact goal is (and thus where to "apply").

N1KF, sifter, Zumza, 1448, Swarth100

N1KF · 2017-03-08 06:06:33

This suggestion seems to be trending yet there isn't a suggestion topic for it yet. Let's give it the attention it deserves. To quote Zumza's post:

Zumza wrote:

Nou wrote:
While we appreciate everyone wanting to help, we have all bases covered right now. If we need someone, we will approach that person and ask them.
Why won't you go to the people who are willing to help? Why do you prefer keeping busy, unmotivated persons on the spot?
A large number of game clients are open-sourced.
People could propose code changes, and after someone oversees them, they could be committed.
I'm sure that you got an Todo List which can be followed, and that the current admins/devs have enough experience to decide what its good and whats not. Overseeing something, most of the time, takes less than the actual coding process.
Believe me that there a lot of people willing to help, without needing any recognition. Their only satisfaction is helping this game.
Theres a large community of programmers that know about EE and it would be petty not to exploit them.

Perhaps volunteers could even be paid in gems. What do you think about an open-source Everybody Edits?

Onjit, Notcarksss, mrjawapa, Krosis, mutantdevle, Zumza, Swarth100

Zumza · 2017-03-08 07:45:36

@den3107 sumed how I'd like this group to work.
Things like the game engine or the programming patterns we shall
use should be decided after we got at least a hand of developers.

den3107 · 2017-03-08 09:24:34

Zumza wrote:

@den3107 sumed how I'd like this group to work.

Perhaps copy it over in the OP in a spoiler? (So you can potentially add extra stuff like that).

XxAtillaxX · 2017-03-08 09:28:55

Nou is already hiring developers who he knows is competent enough and willing to do it for free.
You're doing him nothing but a favour for no gain and continuing the support of an incompetent leader.

den3107 · 2017-03-08 10:19:16

XxAtillaxX wrote:

You're doing him nothing but a favour for no gain and continuing the support of an incompetent leader.

I'd personally see it more as a rebellion than a favour. As we're doing stuff outside of his book and stuff.

Not saying it's my intention to rebel, I honestly don't care about and don't follow any of the EE drama. I just play the game and make stuff when I feel like it. I'm just on Bots and Programming, and nowhere else.

Zumza, mrjawapa, N1KF

capasha · 2017-03-10 20:36:44

Open Source wouldn't help EE because it's so much based on PlayerIO. What we need is a new beginning because the code right now is messed up.

LukeM, kubapolish, Priddle

LukeM · 2017-03-10 21:27:11

capasha wrote:

Open Source wouldn't help EE because it's so much based on PlayerIO. What we need is a new beginning because the code right now is messed up.

I would say javascript / HTML5 would be a good idea (mostly so the game is accessable to a wider audience as almost every browser supports HTML5), but this would require a major rewrite, along with migration away from PlayerIO, so probably will never happen

Edit: ^ is what they are already doing (Unity can be converted to javascript / HTML5 / WebGL, which means they wouldnt need to move away from PlayerIO)

N1KF · 2017-03-13 04:23:16

den3107 wrote:

In case we'd need it (personally doubt it) obviously graphics are welcome too.

I think remastering the current sprites would be a good idea. There are two reasons I bring this up:

We could have vector graphics that don't look completely horrible when in fullscreen!
Sprites will look consistent, in contrast to the weird gap between the simple graphics and the detailed graphics.

I'm mostly good at simple pixel art, preferably with palettes. While I haven't worked with vector programs much (I tried messing around with one a few days ago, and had no idea what I was doing :/), it might not be such a large step up from pixel art.

den3107 · 2017-03-13 10:59:19

N1KF wrote:

I think remastering the current sprites would be a good idea. There are two reasons I bring this up:
We could have vector graphics that don't look completely horrible when in fullscreen!
Sprites will look consistent, in contrast to the weird gap between the simple graphics and the detailed graphics.
I'm mostly good at simple pixel art, preferably with palettes. While I haven't worked with vector programs much (I tried messing around with one a few days ago, and had no idea what I was doing :/), it might not be such a large step up from pixel art.

Friend/colleague of mine was a bit iffy about pixel graphics in vector (not sure if you were implying on making that), since vectors are pretty large files (mostly compared to pixel art).
A remaster of all the sprites wouldn't be a bad idea though, as you mentioned, though I feel like we'd first need to see if this thing will even take off before we look too deep.

N1KF

rdash · 2017-04-01 10:00:51

Just sayin'

BuzzerBee, Raphe9000, Swarth100

2017-04-01 12:28:30

EE makes money even though it's a small amount, so no.
If they do open-source it, others can make similar games (with different graphics and slightly different mechanics) and EE will lose popularity.
Also, hackers, because EE's a poorly protected (or so I believe) flash game.

Gosha · 2017-04-01 12:43:51

1448 wrote:

If they do open-source it, others can make similar games (with different graphics and slightly different mechanics) and EE will lose popularity.

CopyRight.

1448 wrote:

Also, hackers, because EE's a poorly protected (or so I believe) flash game.

there are too many hackers already. it won't change anything

XxAtillaxX · 2017-04-01 12:52:14

Not going to happen. Just sayin'.

Notcarksss

2017-04-01 14:11:39

Gosha wrote:

1448 wrote:
If they do open-source it, others can make similar games (with different graphics and slightly different mechanics) and EE will lose popularity.
CopyRight.

I added the "with different graphics and slightly different game mechanics" keeping copyrights in mind. If you modify the game enough (and this may not be hard), it might become legal.

Gosha wrote:

1448 wrote:
Also, hackers, because EE's a poorly protected (or so I believe) flash game.
there are too many hackers already. it won't change anything

If EE is open-source, hackers can read its code and execute more hacks more efficiently.

hummerz5 · 2017-04-01 14:17:17

1448 wrote:

If EE is open-source, hackers can read its code and execute more hacks more efficiently.

well I mean
Are you talking about teh server code? You won't find a whole lot of vulnerabilities to exploit in the game code... some days they forget to check if someone actually owns a smiley, so folks stroll around as superman. That's a server issue, not in the client.

Plus, the flash game is already somewhat open in terms of source. I'm not sure the hacked clients are too limited or not by its open-source (or not) nature.

LukeM, kubapolish

2017-04-01 14:21:32

hummerz5 wrote:

1448 wrote:
If EE is open-source, hackers can read its code and execute more hacks more efficiently.
well I mean
Are you talking about teh server code? You won't find a whole lot of vulnerabilities to exploit in the game code... some days they forget to check if someone actually owns a smiley, so folks stroll around as superman. That's a server issue, not in the client.
Plus, the flash game is already somewhat open in terms of source. I'm not sure the hacked clients are too limited or not by its open-source (or not) nature.

(Wow, this topic is turning into a debate.)

Making it open-source helps people how the game (client, at least) works, so that more people can create hacked clients.

LukeM · 2017-04-01 14:24:37

1448 wrote:

▼hummerz5 wrote
1448 wrote:
If EE is open-source, hackers can read its code and execute more hacks more efficiently.
well I mean
Are you talking about teh server code? You won't find a whole lot of vulnerabilities to exploit in the game code... some days they forget to check if someone actually owns a smiley, so folks stroll around as superman. That's a server issue, not in the client.
Plus, the flash game is already somewhat open in terms of source. I'm not sure the hacked clients are too limited or not by its open-source (or not) nature.
(Wow, this topic is turning into a debate.)
Making it open-source helps people how the game (client, at least) works, so that more people can create hacked clients.

It could possibly help people who make bot-like clients (and cant / dont want to decompile the client), but almost all other clients are built from decompiled clients, so they have all the source code anyway

kubapolish, hummerz5, Zumza

den3107 · 2017-04-01 18:30:35

About the hacking:
You can already decompile it and just read the code. It's not/barely obfuscated, so you'd already pretty much have the source code there.

Then still, hacked clients can't do anything more than bots, as the server is the actual limiter.

Then still, there's no use in having an open-source Flash game.
Flash is dieing and it won't take long until all of the big browsers (Firefox, chrome, opera, safari) drop support for it.

If you want the source to copy EE, you'd probably do best to just make it yourself from scratch, since I imagine the code is quite spaghettified.

hummerz5

Latif · 2017-04-01 23:22:47

I don't even know what I would do if I get the source code of EE. The only thing I get in my mind is hacking.

hummerz5 · 2017-04-01 23:31:04

Latif wrote:

I don't even know what I would do if I get the source code of EE. The only thing I get in my mind is hacking.

well, do you know what you would hack? Would you consider yourself knowledgeable in the ways of 'hacking'?

Perhaps I misconstrue, but it appears you're setting up an argument against open-source by injecting what you think would happen and painting that as more realistic because you claimed it. Either way, I think destroyer summed it up well

Latif · 2017-04-02 00:09:28

I don't want EE to get collapsed and people that quits the game because it gets open-sourced. I'm not sure what will happen to the game.

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#1 2017-03-07 21:48:43, last edited by Zumza (2017-04-10 13:21:54)