Development Update - 02/24/2012

Mycal

Staff member
These forum permissions are driving me nuts. I keep having to approve/deny posts of registered users but they all forums are set to allow registered users to post without approval, so I don't know what's going on. I think I just need to set some time aside this weekend to wipe out all permissions and reset them from scratch.

Anyway, just want to throw out a quick update blog for you guys that are still following. If you didn't catch the post in the Script Dump topic in the Ody forums, I've been working at converting the code over. Making fairly good progress, but very slow going. I've been rewriting the database and optimizing queries and indexes as much as I can without having to totally rewrite a lot of the games structure. You see, for those that didn't read the topic. I've decided for a mostly 1:1 conversion of all code where possible. This means, Ody will not be using BSGameLib at all for it's first release. It'll have it's own core library called OdyLib which is just trying to modularize as much code as possible so things do not have to be rewritten in both the client and server.

That said, it is not possible (or simply not feasible) to convert over the following things: Database, DirectX, Scripting, Sockets, and the Configuration. I have to rewrite each of those respectively. Configuration is mostly done. I just have to add a few new features to it so you can access configuration files via scripting (so you can store/load settings as needed). Database, is about 40% done. I have all tables created now and have a general idea for all the queries to be used, I just need to test with some data and for that, I am going to write a converter to convert current servers over to the new database to test with. Sockets, I just ripped out of BSGameLib so they should be functional. So what I have left to rewrite is DirectX stuff and Scripting.

DirectX is going to be the largest challenge. I will continue to use XNA, which means I have to finish writing my GUI control library so it can be used here as well. This I know will take the longest of everything planned.

Scripting, that's easy. The hard part here is to convert Ody's scripts to Lua. I'll have to play with that a little, but I think this is what I'll work on this weekend. That way, the database converter can go ahead and convert over the scripts as well.

All in all, things are shaping up nicely, but if anyone is still following this, please stay tuned over the next 2 weeks. I will need some help testing this converter. I can't guarantee it'll work across any computer which is why I need some help with testers.
 

TheCord

New Member
Nice to hear the news. I'm looking forward to everything. I'll try and be around for the next few weeks, I usually check back every two weeks or so.

And its nice to hear that we'll most likely be able to convert scripting. I just downloaded the big script dump so I'm going to be learning some new stuff, its been a while since I've scripted anything.
 

Mycal

Staff member
Fun! It was actually much easier to open the old databases for converting than I was expecting. Fun fact, Odyssey uses Access for its database, Access '95, you know from Office '95. Haha, good stuff. Well, I was expecting it to be a enormous challenge to open that database for reading with native dotNet in Windows 7 and was majorly expecting to have to install some extra library in order to read it. This is also why I was expecting that the database wouldn't just transfer over to the new code.

Turns out, nope. I can open and read it just fine. However, since I already have the new database made, I'll continue and convert it anyway. It'll be much easier to work with the data in the new db (Sqlite), rather than continuing to work with this really old technology.
 

Alpha

New Member
Great to hear this progress, thanks for posting it. I, like ThCh0rd, visit about every week or 2. I'll be happy to test all sorts of things out, just let me know! You can contact me on MSN Messenger or email at: [email protected]

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