Author Topic: Mids' Hero & Villain Designer Direction  (Read 5743 times)

Steiner

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Mids' Hero & Villain Designer Direction
« on: March 13, 2010, 06:02:21 PM »

Uncommon Terms You Should Know:

  • MxD — Mids' Hero & Villain Designer (The x being the "unknown" factor to what your use for it is)
    • You'll see the Mids' team using this term a lot; as it was the shorthand "namespace" in the Mids source code and what Matt (Mids) called it himself
  • NSIS — Nullsoft Scriptable Install System; it is the framework in which MxD created it's installation EXEs
  • Test — References the test server(s) Paragon Studio uses for COH's betas and such
  • Live — Reference the live servers... well, I'm just hoping you know that the live servers are because I'm not listing them! lol
  • MBT — MxD Beta Team

Current MxD Team:

  • St0n3y — Does pretty much everything but the programming aspect... that even includes sending me RedBulls for straight-thru morning development and lighting the fires under my... err.... lower back-side(? Is that PG-13?) lol
  • Steiner — Programming and Deployment
  • Energy Aura — Lead Beta Tester

MxD Versioning:

You'll see the version numbers jump around a lot when dealing with Mids'. This is normal and sadly necessary. When the MxD dev team creates a full-fledged installation build and there is an error... we are obligated to go up another increment for the fix to be rebuilt/recompiled. Sadly MxD is just one of those applications that behaves differently between the source debugging tools and an installed standalone version.

Here is some insight to the versioning of the application will take in the NEXT release

1.16.2.1

1 — Signifies the development phase of the application (We're not using the standards)

  • 0 for Beta
  • 1 for Release Candidate (Dubbed "Official Update" by the COH community)

16 — This is the game related issue it was built for (so 16 here would signify it was built for i16)

2 — There was a notable change to the UI(User Interface) or background functionality (which will be stated in the patch notes found in the help menu)

1 — New build, this would be a fat-fingered error being fixed or a database update/change

... Did you notice 0 for beta? I bet a lot of you readers did!

MxD Beta Team (MBT):

Yes it means we will be releasing beta copies of MxD when we have a usable MxD build of relative data from the Test Servers. Meaning a lucky few will be able to test MxD while the new data on Test is still in its beta phase.

I know of the legalities of doing this are less than optimal so there will be a few precautions put in place. To prevent it from being released to the mass public before the game has made the changes to the live servers.

  • You will be required to have an internet connection to use the beta version; as it will be requiring you to login with your Titan Key to verify you are in-fact on the MxD Beta Team
  • In some instances of the beta release to the MBT the test server will be closed to invited players that agreed to a Non-Disclosure Agreement. Assume that the NDA you agreed to for the closed-beta extends to the each closed-beta release of MxD... and you WILL be reported if you attempt to re-distribute the beta builds of MxD

For the most part it will be an honor system, but I will have a few things in-place to verify that once a beta version of MxD has been activated via the respective user's Titan Key, you will NOT be able to initialize another copy. So make sure you install it on the same system the game is. (All this and more will be explained upon the create of the MBT sub-site)

This team will be comprised of at least 10 COH players that have uncanny knowledge of the game and how it works as to compare such knowledge against MxD releases. I have a feeling a small amount of Titans will also be joining this group; as most of them have shown they have the abilities to contrast between the two objectively.

I want to keep this group under 20 players as I really don't want this to become a revolving door team. The guidelines of staying in this group are simple; Don't re-distribute beta releases; and keep participation up. I will drop someone from the team if they haven't contributed for an extended period of time and replace you. However, if you know you're leaving the game for a while, you can simply state that you are leaving and we will gracefully de-activate your MBT status; and in the event you return to the game and want your spot back; I will make the efforts to do so.

The functions of this team will to be test the beta builds like you are trying break it and report your findings. The features and opinions of what MxD should have/be will still be for the entire COH community to discuss on the Titan Forums here.

I have the time, the financial security and drive to get this all done for once (Steiner recently got a job, lol YAY) and we need the support of the community to continue this feeling of need we all have for MxD.

« Last Edit: March 14, 2010, 02:09:23 AM by Steiner »
~Steinerd

Tazhyngarth

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Re: Mids' Hero & Villain Designer Direction
« Reply #1 on: March 15, 2010, 01:05:23 PM »
Grats no the job buddy :P.

Steiner

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Re: Mids' Hero & Villain Designer Direction
« Reply #2 on: March 28, 2010, 01:08:55 PM »
Grats no the job buddy :P.
I'm assuming you meant "on", lol and thank you!

Just to keep everyone informed on the progress being made... I've been in the midst of creating a small separate application (very small actually) that will allow St0n3y to compile new exes and archives of new data and automatically have said compilations be sent to the Titan server; and updates the xml page we use to notify installed copies of Mids' of a new version... all in one button.

In so doing, I've had to manipulate a lot of the mids source code to adhere to the versioning I had stated above and that would a bit more than I thought it would be to change.

However, Progress is being made by the boatloads and hope to have the beta team up and running by the next release!
~Steinerd

Tazhyngarth

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Re: Mids' Hero & Villain Designer Direction
« Reply #3 on: March 29, 2010, 06:58:39 PM »
Yes....yes I did mean "on"....there I go losing my touch on the Spell checks >_<.