Still so unorganized

[scythe000]

I'll do it myself. I'll create my own thread that has only one post at the top. Only 2 links. One to the latest Manalink, one to the latest graphic pack. I've been grabbing the graphic packs, but I can't find a cumulative one, just ones that have a few new cards here and there. Can someone upload a definitive, current CardArtNew folder?

i'm just trying to make this a better experience for everybody, lol.

[Bog Wraith]

While I appreciate your efforts and point of view, please keep these things in mind!

The card art links do not stay on the servers like rapidshare's and the like for very long, thus usually only the latest updates are available.

As for the game files, they are clearly marked by the stickies. The two current are the Vanguard and the Draft 2.0. The older one, in this case the Vanguard update, is kept a few days longer as a sticky to get peoples attention to it. The Vanguard sticky remains so because new posts continue to be added to this thread. As long as it remains fairly active, it will remain for people to post to before it reverts to a regular thread. The latest one can be identified by the date. The Vanguard one is May 6th, while the Draft 2.0 is May 12th, thus the Draft 2.0 is the latest update. And keep in mind, the latest update always incorporates all the updates and bug fixes that came before it, so there is no need to chase any of the older versions.

If you read allot of the prior threads, you will see that Huggy & I have tried numerous times to get people's cooperation to better organize the contents here. I think as far as the game files go, this has been accomplished if you follow the sticky status of the updates. They are easily identifiable as such, especially if you've read the threads in regards to these points.

The biggest problem that faces the new players that arrive here is finding the all in one card artwork folder so they can get up to speed with the rest of us. As I said, Mathy and others have posted them before, and they are large downloads, but the links don't stay active on a permanent basis for us to have a permanent link to them, so each time, this big file needs to be uploaded yet again to one of the servers that are used. So, it isn't easy to keep the main complete folder current or available at all times.

Again, if you've seen any of the other pertinent threads, you would see that we are also in the process of making an all in one CD install for the game. Testing had been going on, but we are still waiting for the project to continue.

Believe me, we are all aware that things still need to be improved and better organized, especially in the card art area. We can't however, always get it as fast as we'd like. This is an all volunteer effort after all and many times, real life gets in the way of everyone's best intentions!

[scythe000]

Thanks for your response. I think I'll put my money where my mouth is. I'll host the card art files on my own web server. I have 3mbs upstream so it shouldn't be a problem.

The problem with the latest game files is that it's not clear which is the newest. We need a versioning system. Look at the stickies . The May 6 update is posted above the Draft 2.0 update, which has no date listed in the title. Why would anyone assume it's the most recent? People can PM me the links to the new updates, I'll download them and up them into my webserver, and update links accordingly. Honestly, as long as people agree to let me know what's going on, since I can't check here every day, it's about the perfect solution. Hell, I'll give FTP access to some mods, if they want.

How about it?

P.S., sorry if I seemed ungrateful or whining, lol. I'm just feeling passionate

[Bog Wraith]

First off, no need to apologize. I love passion. It means you give a Sh*t!

I also agree about the way that the thread moves up and down, which occurs whenever a new post is made in a particular thread. I had the guys posting the date along with the update title in earlier days, but they seemed to have gotten away from doing this.

If you could host the main card art files and the updates as well, it would be outstanding!

I'm so sick and tired of dealing with fu%#ing rapidshare and the like. It's a constant pain in the ass!
Be ready though that the usage of bandwidth that your server will be supplying will likely be formidable!

I am psyched for this opportunity to host everything we need in one place, available anytime and organized as i have envisioned it from the beginning. I can't wait to hear Huggy's thoughts on this as well.

Thanks for your help and your passion!

[scythe000]

No problem. We're still a small community, so I don't forsee any problems yet. If it becomes a problem, I'll just turn it into a torrent and always seed. Feel free to PM me if you want my contact info for discussion AFK.

[Bog Wraith]

That sir is a given, as I am sure you will be PM'd by Huggy and myself in due time! I've got family visiting next week, but in early June, there is much that I intend to do that has been in the planning stages for awhile now, until some free time availed itself somewhat for me. I hope to begin on some of that work then!

[scythe000]

Fantastic, well if there's any way I can help, let me know. You can certainly count on bug reports from me regularly, at least! I have to say two of the things I'm most excited about is more stability, and getting mathusalem's graphics integrated.

[Topdeck]

Good idea to consolidate these changes, especially the card art. I've only been here about 6 weeks or so, and had to grab a ton of updates to get the art together.

As far as the release CD version is concerned, I would suggest that we wait for a bit and get some bugs hammered out. There's still a lot of crashes and AI lockups that need to be fixed, in addition to reaching to the 2,000 card limit (and all its art).

A third point, one that we've mentioned over in the bug thread, is finding a more organized manner to enter, consolidate, and track our bugs. It's a real mess right now, and hard for our coders to tackle bugs (or even chew away at the show-stoppers) without some means of organization.

[scythe000]

Good idea to consolidate these changes, especially the card art. I've only been here about 6 weeks or so, and had to grab a ton of updates to get the art together.

As far as the release CD version is concerned, I would suggest that we wait for a bit and get some bugs hammered out. There's still a lot of crashes and AI lockups that need to be fixed, in addition to reaching to the 2,000 card limit (and all its art).

A third point, one that we've mentioned over in the bug thread, is finding a more organized manner to enter, consolidate, and track our bugs. It's a real mess right now, and hard for our coders to tackle bugs (or even chew away at the show-stoppers) without some means of organization.

Like I mentioned before, Mantis seems to work well. Take a look at what Mediaportal (a crazy awesome piece of open source software) does here:
http://mantis.team-mediaportal.com/road ... oject_id=1

Here's the mantis home page:
http://www.mantisbt.org/

free, uses PHP and MYSQL.

[mathusalem]

Ok : Rant mode.
it's always ennoying when some random new joe comes around to tell you how badly you work. Sorry scythe but the cumulative art link on the graphic sticky still is active and besides the avatars it is pretty much up to date (note that if you've been following all the craze in the Avatar update thread you should have been able to get the avatar pics. The cumulative archive takes about an hour to upload so I don't do it for avery update, not to mention that the last updates were pretty minor.
So in as many words I don't know how you miss so many pics and can't find the arts.
Also, to retort, you had made some very intersting posts regarding your desire to update the game graphics, frankly, I ve been begging for someone with coding knowledge out there in the great universe to take a little time and check out were the game loads its images and make a few changes so that it loads some new images. Now while I appreciate your hosting files, and since you said the changes would be easy, I think a great help to the community would be to use our knowledge into solving this mistery.
I would be very grateful.
as for the endless debate of better organizing the forum ........

[Bog Wraith]

If we can get all the files, especially the main card art folder hosted at this one site, allot of this will be solved. If there is a single depository for all the files needed, then the forum would be an easier place to manage to keep it organized by taking out this part that causes so much confusion.

Mathy, this would make your job easier and for the new visitors to the forum looking for all the images now, it still is a difficult and confusing search. If we have Scythe's site to host all our files, the links here will make it very easy for everyone to find what they need.

I too am interested if scythe has any programming know how, another area that we could use all the help we can get.

So, lets see where this goes and look at it as a great opportunity to get the assets for ManaLink hosted and organized on one server, with all the links necessary to access these files located here at our forum. It is a work in progress and we will of course look for all the input from you guys to help make it work!

Standby and lets work on it!

[jatill]

I forgot to put the date on the update thread once, so sue me
For those that haven't noticed, though, my update link is always the same. Same link in the Vanguard and the Draft thread. I just keep clobbering the old version with the new one.

savefile.com keeps files around forever, as far as I know.

Re: bug thread. That has gotten so bad that I'm basically ignoring it now. We really need a single person verifying and keeping track of the bugs, but right now we don't. Except for Vista, I don't think there are any showstopper bugs currently. As far as I know, the worst bug is Sword of Fire and Ice, and that's not game-ending.

[Bog Wraith]

That is still confusing for new users jatill, it has been stated many times in PM's and the like to me & Huggy!

Again, if we have a single server to host all our files, sites like rapidshare, savefile and the like will no longer matter, and the need for clobbering links on top of the old ones will also no longer matter. No more dead links because the time limit has expired. This is especially true for the main card art folder, that Mathy eludes to into having to re upload and which takes allot of time and bandwidth. Once the files are there, they will continue to be so without these problems occurring anymore. All that will have to be done is post the new upgrades and accompanying card art files.

You all have to try to keep in mind the perspective of the new users and how difficult it is for them to find the assets that they need. I can not stress this enough! You aren't hearing from them as Huggy & I have and continue to.

So again, please look at the big picture. No one is dissing any of the work you guys are doing, this is just an opportunity to better organize the assets here. It will not effect what you do. We'll try to get it so as the upload procedure will make it easy to do so. That is what we will be working on once we get this all set up.

I want to hear from Huggy and then have a pow wow between the three of us and then hopefully get all this in motion, so again, Please Stand By...

[scythe000]

Ok : Rant mode.
it's always ennoying when some random new joe comes around to tell you how badly you work. Sorry scythe but the cumulative art link on the graphic sticky still is active and besides the avatars it is pretty much up to date (note that if you've been following all the craze in the Avatar update thread you should have been able to get the avatar pics. The cumulative archive takes about an hour to upload so I don't do it for avery update, not to mention that the last updates were pretty minor.
So in as many words I don't know how you miss so many pics and can't find the arts.
Also, to retort, you had made some very intersting posts regarding your desire to update the game graphics, frankly, I ve been begging for someone with coding knowledge out there in the great universe to take a little time and check out were the game loads its images and make a few changes so that it loads some new images. Now while I appreciate your hosting files, and since you said the changes would be easy, I think a great help to the community would be to use our knowledge into solving this mistery.
I would be very grateful.
as for the endless debate of better organizing the forum ........

My sincerest apologies if I offended you, mathusalem. You've been doing fantastic work around here!
Try to look at it from a new user's perspective: can we really expect people to have to crawl through all the pages of a thread to grab all the individual art packs, none of which are numbered or named according to their place in the update system?

As far as programming goes, I'm sorry I don't really have any skill in that area, but it's only in C, right? I might be able to help with really, really basic stuff, like adding cards. Seems like that's well documented. I can probably help get the Mantis bug tracking system up, if anybody wants, although it's really easy. I think that would be a great thing to get up asap. We can clear out that bug report thread easily, and there's really good ways to track bug progress.
If you'd be so kind as to send me your cumulative updated folder, then email or pm me a link to each of your releases, I will personally merge them into a cumulative art file and upload it for all to my own server. It shoud be a lot less work for you overall, and there should be lots less complaining

[Snacko]

Mathy already does provide cumulative art download, he stealth updates it so you never know if it's new
viewtopic.php?f=25&t=888#p9764

http://rapidshare.com/files/229587824/CardArtNew1.rar and currently you need to download http://rapidshare.com/files/230706555/CardArtNew_.rar to be fully up to date.