Messages

2596

Modification Help / Re: RTB Development

« on: November 21, 2010, 08:00:34 AM »

Very strange bug...

I've submitted my Blockland on Air client twice in the past month. It disappeared the first time, when the server moved. The second time, just now, I noticed it not being there. No trace of it. Not in Files, and I never got notified if it was fail.

They get deleted if they go unapproved for too long. It's probably not the best place for your add-on anyway.

Personally, the easy-to-use system Ephialtes is proposing sounds great to me. I could understand wanting more control over the server for special mods that require it, but I've yet to see a decent mod that demands that kind of control.

Obviously I can deal with certain requests on a case-by-case basis but allowing people to upload whatever they wanted as part of the setup stages wouldn't be an option.

2597

Modification Help / Re: RTB Development

« on: November 20, 2010, 09:25:21 PM »

True. It's quite different from the RTB system that really benefits all by being exclusive. I just thought it was funny that he suddenly showed an interest in hosting servers right after you announced your own potential future service.

I think he just intends to buy a server and have other people remote desktop in to use it. RTB would be providing something more structured and tamper-proof than that.

2598

Modification Help / Re: RTB Development

« on: November 20, 2010, 07:35:29 PM »

Let's not forget that ATF is a hosting service and it already exists.

But let's not also forget that ATF OFFERS Hosting, at popular servers.

Not entirely sure what any of that has to do with what I said.

2599

Modification Help / Re: RTB Development

« on: November 20, 2010, 05:48:47 PM »

I don't think it really matters if lots of people want to provide a hosting service. It just means more choice for people which is never a bad thing. The RTB service will provide reliability and quality as usual - not everyone will be able to deliver that.

2600

Modification Help / Re: RTB Development

« on: November 20, 2010, 11:42:52 AM »

Nope, that's essentially the same thing as full console access given that no private add-ons get screened. I may re-consider at some point but for now this makes it easy to have a reliable setup that nobody can screw with.

2601

Modification Help / Re: RTB Development

« on: November 19, 2010, 08:12:58 PM »

It's just unnecessary. The vast majority of Blockland users barely know what the console is and there's no expectation or need to use it in order to host a working server. It just presents me with more issues to overcome when someone decides to screw around with it and break things. If people need to use the console, they should find someone else to host for them.

2602

Modification Help / Re: RTB Development

« on: November 19, 2010, 08:02:36 PM »

Wouldn't a user need a secondary key for this, seeing how it may cause authentication failures if they are hosting from a different network?
Or does this not happen with dedicated servers?

You can host dedicated servers from different IPs than the IP you play on.

Also, what harm could be done if a user uploaded their own add-on?

It'd just be more trouble than it's worth. A lot of custom scripts would be loaded onto the server for allowing the web interface control and handling statistics tracking etc. and I just wouldn't want to expose that. Once you allow people to upload their own add-ons, it's safe to assume they have full console access. It just doesn't seem worth the extra contingency planning I'd have to go through. Like I said:

This just caters to mainstream Blockland users who don't want their server to do anything outrageously funky - just to host a build or a deathmatch reliably.

For people who make their own add-ons and want to show them off without releasing them - or before releasing them, this service probably won't be for them.

2603

Modification Help / Re: RTB Development

« on: November 19, 2010, 06:30:17 PM »

I feel kind of bad for asking this, but is there a reason why mods (at least mine) aren't getting approved or even having issues raised with them after a week or more. (I'm referring to my battle classes mod) I realize there's updating going on which would make sense, and/or you guys are just busy and stuff. I'm fine with being patient, I just wanna make sure I'm not getting purposely ignored or anything.

I've just been very busy recently.

So does this mean that people would just get eval access or would actually be able to access the part of the computer that the server is on? Or have you not figured it out to that part yet?

It would be very locked down, you would go through a setup process much like uploading an add-on:

• Enter blockland key
• Pick name/map/players/passwords/length of hosting time (in weeks, i guess)
• Select the add-ons you want installed on it (only add-ons from RTB)
• Edit auto admin lists
• Configure extras like auto saving
• Pay/use RTB credit (haven't spoken about this yet)
• Within 5 minutes, the server would be booted and ready for people to join on a fresh BL install.

You'd have no access to the server itself and no console access either. There would be a web interface so you can close/open/restart your server and change all the settings you configured or swap out some add-ons on the server so it'll be highly customizable. Entering your key is just an acceptable limitation of this kind of thing - if you're not comfortable with entering your key into the RTB website then you'll have to find your hosting elsewhere. This just caters to mainstream Blockland users who don't want their server to do anything outrageously funky - just to host a build or a deathmatch reliably.

I think they'll be called RTB BuildBoxes or RTB BlockBoxes - I can't decide. But yeah, I have lots of neat plans for them and I'll discuss them all in a separate thread or something when I'm done with v4.

2604

General Discussion / Re: Blockland actual server

« on: November 19, 2010, 03:50:13 PM »

I'd encourage you to continue with this anyway. I won't be able to work on whatever I'm going to do for a while yet and I'd be interested to see how things play out for someone else.

2605

Modification Help / Re: RTB Development

« on: November 19, 2010, 03:51:50 AM »

It could be!

Yes, that's exactly what it is. There seems to be lots of new interest in it and I've had some new ideas to take it a couple of steps further both in terms of accessibility for those who have no idea how to manage dedicated servers, and also in terms of how easy it is to go from wanting to have a server to actually playing in one.

2606

Modification Help / Re: RTB Development

« on: November 18, 2010, 04:52:33 AM »

I'll add it into the website when I move the downloads system over to the new website, and next time I re-factor the in-game mod manager I'll add column sorting too. I've got a new idea for a way to speed up the rendering of the mod manager so I'll be looking to re-factor that soon anyway. Obviously these kinds of minor interface changes are pretty low priority at the moment but they'll get done at some point.

Since the development of v4 is wrapping up, I've started planning out v5 which is going to be the save repository and gallery. I'm also thinking through a super secret new RTB project which won't exactly be a feature of RTB but more of a service so there won't be a version release for that, it'll just run asynchronously to the main development of things. I'll discuss that once I know it's definitely something that we can do.

2607

General Discussion / Re: Out of game Server list

« on: November 18, 2010, 02:06:44 AM »

So the code I got from RTB was a fail. Ephi, you may want to look at that again.

That's why you shouldn't be blindly copying people's code then, I guess.

It doesn't matter for RTB because it gets executed before all other add-ons - so this is your problem to solve.

2608

General Discussion / Re: Out of game Server list

« on: November 17, 2010, 06:13:25 PM »

Only the most recently activated package on that function will be used

Wow. No. This is conclusive proof that you should not be messing around with packages - especially those that affect the core parts of RTB.

2609

Modification Help / Re: RTB Development

« on: November 17, 2010, 09:21:21 AM »

One day, yeah. Probably when I re-do the download system for the new website. It wouldn't fit very nicely into the existing code structure.

2610

Modification Help / Re: RTB Development

« on: November 17, 2010, 05:40:11 AM »

Just finished porting the Mod Manager over to v4. I'm going to integrate that into the overlay and then push it out as another alpha. I may have missed a few image references or functions so just trac any issues that come up.