Abandoned Add-ons - Need Maintainers - Open to Anyone

[Tron91]

There are still many campaigns which are listed in the v1.9 add-on dir, giving me DEFEAT_CONDITION, and AMLA_TOUGH errors, corrected a few and they work fine now, have not uploaded them yet. Now that you are saying that, to contact authors first, it appears i will not get to upload any of them ever lol.

Thought with the GPL, you had the rights to clean up bugs and upgrade without removing the original authors name.

So now i don't think am uploading them :/

[Crendgrim]

Tron91:
Yes, you are allowed to do so, but it's always nice to ask the original author first.
This is especially a problem if you're only doing bug fixes, as after your upload the same campaign will be twice on the server. Imagine what happens now if you are placing a bug somewhere, and the original author doesn't realize that the bug report isn't even about his campaign.
So, yeah. Asking first is always better.


Crend

[Tron91]

There is a work around for this, the original author might be out for some time and not respond. So while someone does a bug fix, he can append an 'a' to 'z' in the version info. For example. The bugged version is v1.6.5, so i fix a few bugs and add an 'a', so it appears v1.6.5a, that way the author/mantainer can know that something has been fixed. Along with the new upload, the uploader/bugfixer got to put a BUGFIX file, which describes what has been fixed and where. Just a thought, that might speed up things and also the Forum cluttering.

A prescribed format for the BUGFIX file would be needed though.

Here is a sample.

Version of Campaign used to Debug: vX.X.X
Version of Campaign after Debug: vX.X.Xa [a .. z]

Number of bugs fixed: XX

[Bug #1]
Bug Description: ....
Originating File: ....
Bugged Code: ....

Debugged Code: ....
Debugged File: .... [You may fix, it in the same file or another file]

[Bug #2]
....

....



Another way to help the author would be commenting out the Bugged code in th file itself. And put a small note there.
Before inserting the debugged code, make some comments to identify that it is the changed code.

Just a thought, which might need further refining.

Also i have another idea, to identify a Campaign, the version of BfW it belongs to, we can implement a Campaign version scheme.

For example: I have built a campaign for BfW v1.9.8, so my campaigns first version would be like this v1.9.8.001, the next would be v1.9.8.002 and so on.

I don't think you would get a 1000 revision of a particular campaign before it gets to another upgraded version of BfW.

[Crendgrim]

It's still better to contact the original author, I think. I wasn't right, btw, when I said "two campaigns with the same name" — afaik, this isn't possible if you don't have the passphrase. This means that you'd have to rename the campaign folder (and this means: updating all file references) before uploading it. This makes it both hard for you and for the original author; so it probably is still the best to just send him a patch.


Crend

[Anonymissimus]

Tron91: How'd you feel about someone messing around with your addon ? I for one certainly don't want someone fixing "bugs" in my addons. And the addons server is not the right mean for this - the wesnoth UMC dev project suits it much more. With my account I *could* fix things in other addons in case I encounter a bug. Since every change is recorded precisely by the version control system, the original author will be able to see what has been done in any case (and could also easily revert it).

[fabi]

Tron91: How'd you feel about someone messing around with your addon ? I for one certainly don't want someone fixing "bugs" in my addons. And the addons server is not the right mean for this - the wesnoth UMC dev project suits it much more. With my account I *could* fix things in other addons in case I encounter a bug. Since every change is recorded precisely by the version control system, the original author will be able to see what has been done in any case (and could also easily revert it).

On the other hand does the GPL grant you the right to fork away your own version and continue developing from there on.
It is considered polite to ask first but there is no legal way to keep you from forking if you want to.

[Tron91]

Ok i get the general feeling here, "Stay away from my Code!", but then the GPL shouldn't have been placed along with it then.

My problem arose when I updated my BfW version from 1.7 to 1.9, many campaigns which worked there stopped working in 1.9 and i couldn't find updates for them in the add-on server, which means they have definitely not been ported to work in 1.9 probably cause the authors are not having enough time to port them, or they are too busy in content development for other add-ons. I was trying to get them to work in the newer version of BfW keeping everything as is except with coping with the difference between the older and newer version of BfW.

Most issues were missing MACRO Links (AMLA_TOUGH; DEFEAT_CONDITION), which are actually minor bugs. All my intention was to port them to v1.9 since I have fixed most of them to work in v1.9, but as people are getting too touchy about the fixes, so i guess am not uploading them, which I say defeats having the GPL along with the add-ons.

Not gonna bother about any public service I guess; I modify them to work for me, I keep them. None else gets them.

Sorry people for even letting my idea to slip to you. Keep your code to yourself.

[Crendgrim]

No, no. I think you misinterpret it.
It's not that it's a bad thing to port old campaigns, but you should try to contact the original author at least. If he then says that he is planning to do it as well, you may come to a solution (work together? let him do it?); and else there's no one who would care.


Crend

[Tron91]

Missing_Scepter from v1.6 add-on server is ready to be uploaded, to v1.9 add-on server. I have ported it successfully, now am play-testing it, to check for run-time bugs. If anyone else is interested he can pm me and i can mail him the add-on.

[Groggy_Dice]

groggy dice
i liked invasion of arendia can you port that to 1.8 plz
thx Glen

Eeeeeek.... sorry, but that's probably not a campaign I'd port, for a couple of reasons.

First, it's not an abandoned campaign, it has an active developer who's picked it up (not the original developer, as I'd thought before). He just wants to fix existing bugs in 1.6.x first, before porting it to a newer version of Wesnoth. So although the campaign will probably skip the 1.8 series, it will be available for a future Wesnoth.

Second, it uses the Orbivm Imperial Era addon. Although someone has ported it to 1.8, I've never looked at eras, and I don't have confidence in my ability to tell whether a bug is in the campaign or the era.

Third, wmllint did barf on the last scenario or two, so they'd have to be converted manually to 1.8.

Add these reasons up, and Arendia just isn't a likely candidate for me. Look for it in 1.10!

[Groggy_Dice]

It looks like the next campaign I'll port will be from 1.4, The Eight of Cembulad. It's set on the island or continent of Cembulad, and appears to be outside the Wesnoth/Irdya continuity. I'm playing it right now, and so far, it appears to be working fine. Besides running it through wmllint, the only things I think I've done are: a) I had to change the paths from data/campaigns/ to data/add-ons/; and b) I had to change [unit] to [unit_type] in the custom unit files.

I did look at The Undead of Light from 1.2, because I felt bad about turning down Glen's request for Invasion of Arendia, and he'd also mentioned liking that campaign. However, I looked at some of the scenario files, and started it up, and I was just not getting into the story or gameplay. I think whoever wrote it was not a native English speaker. Perhaps Glen could explain some more what he liked about it so much, but it wasn't happening for me.

However, Undead did have the same upload bug I'd been having with Prudence, where image files would be replaced by 5-byte files. So it did help me find the culprit, and get that fixed in my first ported campaign.

Anyway, Eight seemed like a good choice to port for the following reasons. All scenarios are complete (although last word from the original designers said they were still balancing), meaning that players aren't going to be stuck with an incomplete campaign. The story is fairly good, though I can see spots where the prose could be touched up. The artwork is also fairly decent for UMC, though old-style. The fact that I'm on the fourth scenario, and it's still working, is the clincher. It suggests that although it is fairly long, 24 scenarios, it won't be beyond my WML capabilities.

I haven't contacted the original designers yet, however. One, Lintana, I don't know how to get ahold of at all; the other, WYRMY, who also designed Struggle for Freedom, hasn't posted in a while and hasn't made a logged-in visit in a couple of months.

[Max]

if you're looking for another campaign here's one really worth porting:
Sceptre of Life (http://www.wesnoth.org/addons/1.4/)

http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?t=21640

and please consider joining Wesnoth-UMC-Dev

[cdiem]

Also there's the awesome campaign

"By the sword"

which was working fine for 1.6, but doesn't work on 1.8+. It's the only reason I registered at this forum, it was a great campaign with the older version - would be awesome if it worked on the newer version too.

[Groggy_Dice]

Also there's the awesome campaign

"By the sword"

which was working fine for 1.6, but doesn't work on 1.8+. It's the only reason I registered at this forum, it was a great campaign with the older version - would be awesome if it worked on the newer version too.

If only you'd spoken up before I committed to Cembulad, I might have taken your suggestion! But here's what I'll do. I've run By_the_Sword through wmllint, along with several other campaigns (and fixed their binary paths with a line of sed). I'm not going to throw the campaign up on the add-on server, when I'm not prepared to playtest it myself anytime soon. But By_the_Sword shows up as "clean" on wmlscope, so I'm attaching the folder as a zip file. Unzip it in your userdata folder with your other add-ons, and feel free to try it out. When you run into a problem, open up a thread on this subforum (Scenario and Campaign Development), and maybe I or the community will be able to solve it. If we can get everything working, then maybe we can upload it to the server, for the community at large.

(I hope it's the right campaign. The author of "The Stormblade" commented that he'd originally named his campaign "By the Sword," so I glanced at their first scenarios. Although they both involve elves vs. orcs, the characters are all different. Stormblade involves the "son of Anduilas" and his "Northern Guard.")

By_the_Sword.zip

(36.84 KiB) Downloaded 353 times

if you're looking for another campaign here's one really worth porting:
Sceptre of Life (http://www.wesnoth.org/addons/1.4/)

http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?t=21640

I'd looked at that campaign's forum thread earlier, since I wondered why such a fairly well-established campaign hadn't been ported. I found that someone claimed they had done some preliminary work toward porting it to 1.8, in case the original author came back. I saw no reason to duplicate effort, so I "crossed it off my list," so to speak. Perhaps you could contact this Ektheleon about going ahead with a port.

and please consider joining Wesnoth-UMC-Dev

Thanks for pointing out UMC-Dev. I looked at it, and it seems that some campaigns may not be as forgotten as I thought. For instance, I thought that Unrest in Elfland was a weedy relic of the 1.0 days, but I see a version is being developed in trunk by one of the top campaign developers!

However, I think I'll hold off on joining, for the time being. I'd have to install and learn SVN, and right now I feel like I have my hands full learning WML. Many of the advantages of SVN are lost if you are not collaborating, so while I am working alone, UMC-Dev seems to add more overhead.

[cdiem]

If only you'd spoken up before I committed to Cembulad, I might have taken your suggestion! But here's what I'll do. I've run By_the_Sword through wmllint, along with several other campaigns (and fixed their binary paths with a line of sed). I'm not going to throw the campaign up on the add-on server, when I'm not prepared to playtest it myself anytime soon. But By_the_Sword shows up as "clean" on wmlscope, so I'm attaching the folder as a zip file. Unzip it in your userdata folder with your other add-ons, and feel free to try it out. When you run into a problem, open up a thread on this subforum (Scenario and Campaign Development), and maybe I or the community will be able to solve it. If we can get everything working, then maybe we can upload it to the server, for the community at large.

(I hope it's the right campaign. The author of "The Stormblade" commented that he'd originally named his campaign "By the Sword," so I glanced at their first scenarios. Although they both involve elves vs. orcs, the characters are all different. Stormblade involves the "son of Anduilas" and his "Northern Guard.")

Awesome! Thank you very much! This is the right campaign indeed. I'll open a thread on the forum with more information about the error messages received when trying to load it. Thanks very much!