Distro Goals
The Prime Directive of the Distro Team: To look at our work as a labour of love, not a chore. POL is extremely versatile and for that I love working with it. It needs some improvement but as it stands at version 100 it's pretty stable. So if you feel as I do about POL then approach your work with enthusiasm, and at times frustrated consternation, and enjoy the process of making it even better.
Short term goals for the Distro:
1. Map support will be Mondain's Legacy initially. I want to provide support for Time of Legends maps but that, I think, should be a medium term goal. We're going to be busy enough adding functionality and cleaning-up scripts.
2. Work on adding the schools of magic that are not yet implemented: Necromancy, Paladin, Spellweaving, and Mysticism.
3. Add the Imbuing skill.
Note: These schools of magic don't necessarily have to conform exactly to how they function on OSI. To be honest I don't know if it's possible, with POL, to duplicate what OSI does.
4. An easy way to download and install the Distro and Core.
5. Start on proper documentation for downloading, installing, configuring, and using the Distro.
Medium term goals for the Distro:
7. Review the Distro programmes (scripts) and, without changing the basic folder structure too much, see if they can be improved upon, especially the AI.
8. Testing of the current quest tools to determine if they are adequate for creating quests. If they are not then design a quest creation system that is, and try to make it fairly easy to use. This might involve two separate systems, one for simple quests and one for linked quests. It also might require a quest scripting language. I have considered the ways this could be done and one is by using an external programme to create the quest and write it to a config file similar to the way Austin's Crafting Tool works for configuring crafting configs. That way we could take advantage of the more familiar properties interface we all are familiar with in IDE's.
9. Implement as many of the new items that have been added: Runic Atlas, Davies Locker for example. This goal is pretty much accomplished thanks to ThisIsMe.
10. Support for Time of Legends maps. Due to Geographical changes in various parts of Trammel and Felucca this will require options to be added to the package I wrote to decorate the realms.
Long term goals for the Distro:
11. Support for the Galleon class ships.
12. Implement as many of the NPCs supported by OSI as possible.
13. Update the NPCs stats, skills, damages, resistances, and spells they can cast to match with OSI. Many of the NPCs as currently implemented have stats and vitals that are the same but on OSI they can vary. For example an NPC might have a strength of 100 but its hit points might be 55. Also many times these values are expressed as ranges, ie. 45.2 to 56.5. I'm not so concerned about the decimal parts of those values but we could atleast make them ranged integers. As I recall the same rhing applies to skill levels.
14. Currently the Distro lets the Core handle ScriptedAttackChecks. This might be a "Super long term goal" but at some point I would like to have the ScriptedAttackChecks handled by scripts.
Goals that are neither long term or short term:
Custom packages that would be optional that shard developers could add to the Distro if they so choose. Possibly some of the "functionality" I mentioned above should be made optional so as to keep the Distro simple.
A solid small team of Distro developers who can be relied upon to delegate projects to. They don't have to be fast or be particularly advanced coders but they do need to be willing to complete a thing assigned to them or admit if they think it is beyond their skill. There's no shame in admitting a "quest" is too difficult.
Also, some testers and users of the Distro willing to experiment with some of the tools available in the Distro and write How to articles.
If you like a package from another shard's set of scripts consider making it an optional package that can be dropped in by shard developers. Of course give credit to the creator of the package.
Replacements for systems implemented in the Distro should be considered but considered carefully. These would fall under the "Optional add-ons" but would involve more than just "dropping them in the package directory". Presuming that they would have to intertwine with other scripts. If you create or make a replacement system available you should be commited to supporting that system for at least one (1) year from the time you release it to the community. BrainAI is an example
Yukiko
reviewed on 2020-01-25
Short term goals for the Distro:
1. Map support will be Mondain's Legacy initially. I want to provide support for Time of Legends maps but that, I think, should be a medium term goal. We're going to be busy enough adding functionality and cleaning-up scripts.
2. Work on adding the schools of magic that are not yet implemented: Necromancy, Paladin, Spellweaving, and Mysticism.
3. Add the Imbuing skill.
Note: These schools of magic don't necessarily have to conform exactly to how they function on OSI. To be honest I don't know if it's possible, with POL, to duplicate what OSI does.
4. An easy way to download and install the Distro and Core.
5. Start on proper documentation for downloading, installing, configuring, and using the Distro.
Medium term goals for the Distro:
7. Review the Distro programmes (scripts) and, without changing the basic folder structure too much, see if they can be improved upon, especially the AI.
8. Testing of the current quest tools to determine if they are adequate for creating quests. If they are not then design a quest creation system that is, and try to make it fairly easy to use. This might involve two separate systems, one for simple quests and one for linked quests. It also might require a quest scripting language. I have considered the ways this could be done and one is by using an external programme to create the quest and write it to a config file similar to the way Austin's Crafting Tool works for configuring crafting configs. That way we could take advantage of the more familiar properties interface we all are familiar with in IDE's.
9. Implement as many of the new items that have been added: Runic Atlas, Davies Locker for example. This goal is pretty much accomplished thanks to ThisIsMe.
10. Support for Time of Legends maps. Due to Geographical changes in various parts of Trammel and Felucca this will require options to be added to the package I wrote to decorate the realms.
Long term goals for the Distro:
11. Support for the Galleon class ships.
12. Implement as many of the NPCs supported by OSI as possible.
13. Update the NPCs stats, skills, damages, resistances, and spells they can cast to match with OSI. Many of the NPCs as currently implemented have stats and vitals that are the same but on OSI they can vary. For example an NPC might have a strength of 100 but its hit points might be 55. Also many times these values are expressed as ranges, ie. 45.2 to 56.5. I'm not so concerned about the decimal parts of those values but we could atleast make them ranged integers. As I recall the same rhing applies to skill levels.
14. Currently the Distro lets the Core handle ScriptedAttackChecks. This might be a "Super long term goal" but at some point I would like to have the ScriptedAttackChecks handled by scripts.
Goals that are neither long term or short term:
Custom packages that would be optional that shard developers could add to the Distro if they so choose. Possibly some of the "functionality" I mentioned above should be made optional so as to keep the Distro simple.
A solid small team of Distro developers who can be relied upon to delegate projects to. They don't have to be fast or be particularly advanced coders but they do need to be willing to complete a thing assigned to them or admit if they think it is beyond their skill. There's no shame in admitting a "quest" is too difficult.
Also, some testers and users of the Distro willing to experiment with some of the tools available in the Distro and write How to articles.If you like a package from another shard's set of scripts consider making it an optional package that can be dropped in by shard developers. Of course give credit to the creator of the package.
Replacements for systems implemented in the Distro should be considered but considered carefully. These would fall under the "Optional add-ons" but would involve more than just "dropping them in the package directory". Presuming that they would have to intertwine with other scripts. If you create or make a replacement system available you should be commited to supporting that system for at least one (1) year from the time you release it to the community. BrainAI is an example
Yukiko
reviewed on 2020-01-25