[Danukem]

Upvote was supposed to be supportive of you and not supportive the terrible situation you are describing (just saying that in case you see my upvote and think it's strange). Out of curiosity, what would you say are/were your main remaining goals for NetDuke32?

I think some of us who spent a lot of time making build stuff are closer to your situation than we would care to admit. The years do indeed just seem to burn away. However, I do think it's time better spent than on a lot of other things, like gambling or talking with stupid people.

[Striker]

Danukem, on 11 October 2024 - 10:32 PM, said:

Upvote was supposed to be supportive of you and not supportive the terrible situation you are describing (just saying that in case you see my upvote and think it's strange). Out of curiosity, what would you say are/were your main remaining goals for NetDuke32?

I think some of us who spent a lot of time making build stuff are closer to your situation than we would care to admit. The years do indeed just seem to burn away. However, I do think it's time better spent than on a lot of other things, like gambling or talking with stupid people.

Well, my main remaining goals were:

• Figure out the last remaining sync issues (seems to be compiler-specific fuckery going on here with the collision code. No idea why it happens)
  
• Figure out why the netcode breaks down when the player count rises above 6 or so. (This has been the most frustrating thing so far for me)
  
• Move all networking code over to ENet.
  
• Remove all assumptions about there only being one player per client (ie. multiple local players)
  
• Implement rollback netcode and in-game joining.
  
• Fix controller support.
  
• Implement local splitscreen support.
  
• Finish my work on implementing AngelScript support.

I have started a number of these things with varying amounts of progress, but stopped due to burnout. At this point, I don't even remember where I left off with some of these, so it's going to take a lot of effort to pick them back up. Anyone can look at my branches on voidpoint.io and probably get an idea of where I was going with these if they took the time to study them, I suppose.

[NY00123]

I knew something like this could happen, given that most of your last updates to NetDuke32 seem to be close to a year old, along with you having past tasks for Ion Fury: Aftershock, plus your more recent work on TerminalFury. If you feel having a break is (much) better for you, that should be what matters. While the word "burned" was used when referring to 8 years stemming from work on NetDuke32 (and possibly also related projects), it's work that had its use not just for you Striker, but also for other people, mainly for playing multiplayer games. So, you did something benefiting other people.

While obviously not the same situation, I may add the following point. As I also wrote about a different project of mine last September, it might not necessarily imply I won't ever contribute code to the project in question again, but my priorities are basically elsewhere.

[oasiz]

I feel you... <3 For me, Build kind of reached it's peak "mass appeal" potential around polymer era and a second set of really nice things happened few years back with the "source port renaissance" and a bunch of QoL things that made the engine much much better in terms of performance, smoothness (some of where you had direct input) and things like TROR. Fury pushed a bunch of areas but not things like the RE'd stuff.
I do however see the point of diminishing returns and especially when it comes to the audience reach of today.. Even 10 years ago Duke was ancient and the next 10 years kind of flew by since. Cool things will still happen but motivation and let alone justification is harder to come by. "Lameduke" is two months away from being 30 years old now. That's almost 10 years of world tour.
Working on Fury for so many years resulted in thing I can be proud about, while having contributions you are a part of. I got burned out as hell on that but all the more I can respect what you've done over the years with tedium like this. Build is a piece of shit engine where it's always a toxic relationship with a dose of stockholm syndrome. I know I'll always be crawling back for more one day. Thanks for the stuff you've done once again.

[Danukem]

oasiz, on 13 October 2024 - 10:04 AM, said:

Build is a piece of shit engine where it's always a toxic relationship with a dose of stockholm syndrome. I know I'll always be crawling back for more one day.

100% correct

In fact I literally used that expression myself in a discord post when working on AA just 2 days ago:

To me it looks kinda cool, like the chopper is damaged and you get to see inside of it through the battle damage. But that's probably just cope due to build engine stockholm syndrome

[lwc]

I've tried this addon, nice!
But 2 questions:

• Will you make it support Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour? You can utilize Stopgap. Or at least make it natively support the patch as the Atomic version like in regular EDuke32.
  
• When testing Dunebots in E1L1 they get immediately stuck on the roof. In Cooperative mode they even shoot each other despite having no enemies around. Can you fix either or both?

Thanks!

[Striker]

lwc, on 23 October 2024 - 01:44 PM, said:

I've tried this addon, nice!
But 2 questions:

• Will you make it support Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour? You can utilize Stopgap. Or at least make it natively support the patch as the Atomic version like in regular EDuke32.
  
• When testing Dunebots in E1L1 they get immediately stuck on the roof. In Cooperative mode they even shoot each other despite having no enemies around. Can you fix either or both?

Thanks!

While World Tour isn't natively supported yet, you can play World Tour using StrikerDM. There's instructions on how to get it set up here: https://shadowmaveri...s/strikerdm.php

Download StrikerDM-r245.pk3 and the WT_SDM_Builder.zip file, and follow the instructions within.

[lwc]

lwc, on 23 October 2024 - 01:44 PM, said:

When testing Dukebots in E1L1 they get immediately stuck on the roof. In Cooperative mode they even shoot each other despite having no enemies around. Can you fix either or both?

I gave Dukebots another shot in various levels and spotted multiple issues:

• They completely ignore the Cooperative and Survival modes, meaning they always think they're in a deathmatch/team deathmatch.
  
• They completely ignore monsters.
  
• They can't open doors, enter tunnels, etc. so it's not just the roof they get stuck on but practically everywhere.
  
• They tend to stick around their opening locations and that's it.

I really like the DukePlus co-op bot, but DukePlus adds lots of stuff which have nothing to do with bots. But since Duke Plus is open source, would you consider borrowing from how Duke Plus pulled it off?
I realize NetDuke32 is more about netplay, but it's still what EDuke32 recommends for multiplayer in general...

[Striker]

lwc, on 24 October 2024 - 03:23 AM, said:

I gave Dukebots another shot in various levels and spotted multiple issues:

• They completely ignore the Cooperative and Survival modes, meaning they always think they're in a deathmatch/team deathmatch.
  
• They completely ignore monsters.
  
• They can't open doors, enter tunnels, etc. so it's not just the roof they get stuck on but practically everywhere.
  
• They tend to stick around their opening locations and that's it.

I really like the DukePlus co-op bot, but DukePlus adds lots of stuff which have nothing to do with bots. But since Duke Plus is open source, would you consider borrowing from how Duke Plus pulled it off?
I realize NetDuke32 is more about netplay, but it's still what EDuke32 recommends for multiplayer in general...

The Dukebot code is mostly just an extension of the original DOS Atomic Edition Dukebots, and have a lot of the same limitations. They don't work in co-op, and probably never will without a lot of work that I simply don't have time and energy for anymore.

The bots can use doors, just not locked ones. They also use elevators, and can swim. They don't understand silent teleporters however, thus they get stuck on the roof in e1l1.

They don't like concave sectors, so certain maps can trip them up. But, they can usually navigate far better than the Atomic ones. Try movie set, flood zone, and hotel hell, they seem to cope well with those maps.

There's nothing from DukePlus that would apply to this. Different language, for one.

[lwc]

Striker, on 31 October 2024 - 06:10 AM, said:

The Dukebot code is mostly just an extension of the original DOS Atomic Edition Dukebots, and have a lot of the same limitations. They don't work in co-op, and probably never will without a lot of work that I simply don't have time and energy for anymore.

Then I think it should clearly be written in the description.

Quote

There's nothing from DukePlus that would apply to this. Different language, for one.

What do you mean different language? In any case, DukePlus have strictly co-op bots.

[atmavan]

I could not make multiplayer connection in eduke32, so was happy to find netduke32 and multiplayer works as expected, but now I cannot make my xbox gamepad working as it was perfect in eduke32. It is trying to work, but very weird directions stuck always happening. Somehing has definitely changed in this duke version. Unless I am doing something wrong. Appreciate any valuable advice.

[Striker]

atmavan, on 03 November 2024 - 04:59 PM, said:

I could not make multiplayer connection in eduke32, so was happy to find netduke32 and multiplayer works as expected, but now I cannot make my xbox gamepad working as it was perfect in eduke32. It is trying to work, but very weird directions stuck always happening. Somehing has definitely changed in this duke version. Unless I am doing something wrong. Appreciate any valuable advice.

Controller support is not functional at the moment, apologies. You might be able to get something going with something like JoyToKey or some other joystick to keyboard/mouse translator.

[Overfl0w]

I was wondering if saved games were still broken from the v1.2 release? I liked being able to use it for coop and single player. No worries if not, I was just curious.

[Striker]

It's something I want to fix eventually, but no, currently broken. I want to merge in and adapt modern EDuke32's rewritten save code when I'm not feeling like shit and am able to return to this.

[Overfl0w]

Striker, on 01 December 2024 - 02:03 PM, said:

It's something I want to fix eventually, but no, currently broken. I want to merge in and adapt modern EDuke32's rewritten save code when I'm not feeling like shit and am able to return to this.

Well taking care of yourself should be the first order of business, myself and others can wait until you're ready to return to work on the project. Thank you for the reply, though, I am working on a project where I want to use NetDuke32 as the main technology (instead of EDuke32) so players can enjoy both the single player and then have fun with coop or deathmatch in the time in between, NetDuke32 seems like the perfect solution for that.

Just remember to take care of yourself, I wish there was more I could do but please don't stress yourself out over things like this all good things will happen with time. I'm just thankful that you're still working on the project albeit with taking a break for your mental health and to avoid burnout. It just makes me happy knowing eventually things will work themselves out and in the meantime I can continue to use a different build that has working save/load functionality until you've had time to address it.

We love and appreciate the hell out of you and what you're accomplishing with NetDuke32, take care of yourself my friend!