[vini1264]

NightFright, on 08 October 2020 - 01:05 PM, said:

The addon guide is from 2016. I did not update that part of the readme, but after such a long period of time, you can be sure that code-heavy addons such as WGR2 won't work as intended any more if you are running them with recent EDuke32 snapshots. Luckily for you, a new version of WGR2 is in the making which should be more compatible again.

The entire compilation must go through a series of playtestings before a new release is possible, which is why a pre-release is actually not even just a good idea, but a requirement. EDuke32 is an evolving port which means things tend to break over the years. Often it's a painstaking process of backtracking to the origin of certain errors, and considering the large amount of addons and levels included here (yes, also maps can break)... constantly keeping track of everything is a nightmare.

However, I am also to blame for misunderstandings like this. The readme needs to mention a recommended EDuke32 snapshot to use. I would say something between r59xx and r60xx should work fairly well.

Thanks for explaining, I think I'll wait the new big update for WGR2, as for the other addons included i'll use an older version of Eduke32 to play them properly

[NightFright]

Sooner or later I had to do this, so I can just as well do it now:

I am officially looking for playtesters to make sure the upcoming new version of the Addon Compilation (v4.0) will work with recent EDuke32 snapshots - either in order to make adjustments to the addons or to induce changes/code reversions in EDuke32 to guarantee a stable and flawless experience.

There is quite some content to go through, almost 1500 maps by now. In many cases it'd be enough to do a launch test (do the maps start in general), but the code-heavy addons in this pack would need to be checked more thoroughly. Ideally, everything should be played at least to some extent - the more, the better. Ideally, I would like to have people assigned to specific portions of the compilation so that they can focus on that instead of playing stuff randomly, also in order to avoid people playing the same content. Each tester would then get his personal "portion" of the new version (since I want to avoid releasing a premature full version for everybody).

If we get enough people together, I'd release a list with all the included addons here and people can assign themselves to stuff they want to test. We are talking about 135 addons, so if we get 10 people, each of them would have to look at 13-14 entries. If we get 20 guys, it's down to 6-7 and so on. Some addons are rather short since they are mere map packs, but others are much larger (just think of Oblivion - I don't know if anybody is willing to go through all of those maps, geez), so we should try to balance the workload a bit.

[Phredreeke]

I would suggest focusing on any addons with their own CON code.

A map may break due to physics changes, but that is also something more likely to be resolved through future updates to EDuke32, while an addon crashing/misbehaving due to changed CON behaviour more likely has to be fixed in the CON code itself.

[NightFright]

Yeah, that's plausible. Still it'd ofc also be desirable to find maps that are broken due to flawed/incorrectly updated EDuke32 code. Pure map packs will require less attention in general. I will try to place the addons into categories regarding their coding complexity.

[ETPC]

I can volunteer for testing!

[Fernando Marquez]

NightFright, on 06 October 2020 - 03:45 AM, said:

I have decided to make a service release 3.14 to implement proper (or at least better) World Tour support. WT editions are becoming more and more important since it's the last official version of the game people can buy these days. (I have also fixed the FM3X help file with read-only attributes, but that's really minor.)

It basically just works with two batch files now, Atomic users launch addons.bat while World Tour users choose addons_wt.bat.

If you have version 3.13 already installed, you don't have to download the entire thing again since just very small files changed. Unzip the archive below into your EDuke32 dir and you are done.

Didn't I release FM4X a few months ago? I'm confused as to why FM3X is still there. :)
You can just switch from FM3X to FM4X, or are you holding it for a later release of the pack?

[NightFright]

FM4X will be in v4.0. I did not update any content in this small v3.14 service patch, it was just for WT support. The 3.x series is considered deprecated and will not receive any further content, also since I switched entirely to zip archives for everything. Saves like 50% disk space.

I am sorry that your latest work is still not featured in the compilation, but I am working on getting it out of the door at long last. Basically the new version is ready, but I cannot tell how some of the complex addons behave with latest EDuke32 builds (presumably poorly) and the user map packs still don't have the functionality I requested from Hendricks. They may need to be restructured for that purpose.

[December Man]

I wanted to replay Starship Troopers via this compilation, but it bugged like hell. On E1L3 the soldiers were just shooting at each other and in E1L4 every 5th bug became unkillable. Funny thing is, if you go straight to these levels via DNSCOTTY, these glitches will not occur.

[NightFright]

I actually had someone look over SST and also The Gate to sort out these kind of issues (among others). They shouldn't occur any more in the upcoming update. That will comfort you little as long as you are stuck with the flawed 3.x version, though. I put far too little playtesting into this since it were far too many addons for just one guy to do the QA work all by himself. It's a mistake I don't want to repeat again.

[December Man]

NightFright, on 14 October 2020 - 12:11 PM, said:

I actually had someone look over SST and also The Gate to sort out these kind of issues (among others).

I personally never had problems with The Gate, even though I've finished it several times in the past few years, if that's any consolation.

[December Man]

December Man, on 14 October 2020 - 11:30 AM, said:

I wanted to replay Starship Troopers via this compilation, but it bugged like hell. On E1L3 the soldiers were just shooting at each other and in E1L4 every 5th bug became unkillable. Funny thing is, if you go straight to these levels via DNSCOTTY, these glitches will not occur.

I started playing the TC through a regular version and guess what. The first bug still occurred. I think it's somehow related to the fact that, unlike other base-and-NPC maps, in this one your weapons are not taken away i.e. you are not reset.

[NightFright]

You will have fun with the new version, then. Mere_Duke supposedly fixed all problems, already some while ago. I hope he is still around, I might need him for more consultations.

[NightFright]

So, since it will obviously take ages to get enough testers the way I intended, I decided to do this differently.

I will now provide full access to the most recent development branch of the upcoming version 4.0 as it resides on my hard drive at this very moment. Please test anything you want with latest working EDuke32 snapshot (r9257 as of now). In most cases, I have not done anything that goes beyond checking whether the addons show up in the launcher or whether they load in general (without errors).

To make this work, you will have to do the following:
1) Download the base pack (zip, 11.9 MB) and unzip it into your EDuke32 dir.
2) Download any addon you want from this repository and place any downloaded file into your "addons" subdir.
3) Run the compilation with addons.bat (Atomic) or addons_wt.bat (World Tour).

For a detailed changelog and more info about the addons in general, please consult the included addons_readme.txt (in addons/readme subdir) which is up-to-date.

KNOWN ISSUE:
All user map packs (Bolduc Pack, C3PO Pack, Cerovsky Pack, Glavic Pack, Kucera Pack, Pinxten Pack, Quakis Pack, Ruohonen Pack, Space Map Pack, Spiegul Contest, Stranger Pack, Taivo Pack, Urban Map Pack) either don't work as intended or not at all due to the lack of a properly implemented usermaps feature.

IMPORTANT:
Please refrain from requesting any additional addon to be added at this point. The only purpose of this pre-release is to find problems either with the included addons or EDuke32 code.

Code-intense addons which should receive more testing:
Borg Nukem
Chimera
Fusion Redux 2018 (received a lot of fixes)
Grins of Divinity
Infestation in Time
Merc 1+2
Oblivion (that one's gonna hurt for sure)
Platoon
Quest for Al-Qa'eda
Quest for Hussein
Starship Troopers TC (this one was pretty broken)
The Gate (especially the final boss map which was considerably fixed)
WGR2: Knee Deep (includes the outdated Siege Breaker, so it's likely there will be some issues)
WGR2: Demon Throne (well, it should work, it's brand-new)

I don't want to exclude that other addons can show issues in specific maps as well since EDuke32 tends to break some functions over time, so feel free to check any other addon as thoroughly as you can as well.

[ETPC]

I will test out The Gate tonight

[NightFright]

Outstanding. The goal btw is to have everything ready by mid January 2021, so a release at the end of that month is possible.

Primary renderers for testing should be Classic or Polymost (unless explicitly stated otherwise in the readme). I am done with Polymer.

[ETPC]

testing with polymost and the latest eduke32 snapshot. just completed episode 1 on CGS! nothing aside from some minor visual bugs (a small HOM here or there) on e1l3, l4 and l7. also noticing that the weird new slug monsters are hard to hit unless they are right in front of me. onto episode 2!

[NightFright]

Smaller visual glitches are OK. What matters more would be stuff like switches that don't work, doors not opening, scripts not triggering, enemies not dying, crashes or any other kinds of showstoppers.The Gate received an important fix in the end that would make it impossible to destroy the brains that would weaken the boss. You still need to avoid that the boss follows you through one of the gateways, though. There is little we were able to do about that.

[ETPC]

the anti-gravity pad.......i'm not sure *how* it's supposed to work in e3l6 but i managed to just jetpack through it. i'll do episode 4 tommorow!

[ETPC]

and that's episode 4 done! zero issues with the boss, brains all worked as they should (ie. they blew up). i can say in good faith that the gate is 100% ready and encountered zero issues other then small visual bugs here and there. no scripting issues, no crashes.

[Aleks]

NightFright, on 19 October 2020 - 09:30 PM, said:

You still need to avoid that the boss follows you through one of the gateways, though. There is little we were able to do about that.

I have never considered that a bug, but rather a challenge in The Gate - that you had to outmaneuver the boss while he's invincible, so he doesn't follow you into one of the teleporters and make your way much harder this way. On the other hand, one could also use this to his advantage to trap the boss and have easier way around.

[ETPC]

Gonna test out the SST TC over the weekend

[ETPC]

Apologies for double post, but I ran through all of the TC + bonus levels and only encountered one missing ART tile in Before The Storm (in the comm room) that was crucial to the level. Otherwise, it worked perfectly fine! Zero crashes, all the levels worked (though I never once got the hang of the ladders).

[Jimmy]

EDuke32 has different collision than the original game. SST probably uses an exploit of the original behaviour to create ladders. I'd recommend using RedNukem to play larger more advanced old mods like SST and Grins of Divinity.

[NightFright]

Maybe something like compatibility settings should be considered to be added to EDuke32 so that mods explicitly requiring such behavior would work without having to adjust anything.

[Jimmy]

Sounds like bloat and potential for more issues. RedNukem is fine.

[NightFright]

Well, if anybody wants to test all of this on other ports, feel free to do so, but EDuke32 will remain the target port one way or the other. Rednukem and EDuke32 should be close enough to each other code-wise to not require large adjustments (I guess).

[ETPC]

honestly, i remember the ladders being annoying as hell back in 2000 so i won't sweat it

also god im old

oh, i just ran through the ADG episode! zero problems whatsoever, again!

[ETPC]

ran through Crucial Conflict, zero issues!

[NightFright]

That one has practically zero custom code. I would have been surprised if it didn't work properly.

[ETPC]

hey, you never know, right? plus it was only around an hour long, so didn't take much time at all.