AnyOldName3 wrote: ↑21 Jul 2020, 03:06
We're pretty obviously going to have to provide a
Morrowind.omwgame which includes all the stuff that Morrowind relies on that's no longer hardcoded into the engine. Optional stuff, like what's now in the launcher's advanced tab, is less clear, though. Maybe we could provide a bunch of omwaddons that implement what we used to provide, maybe we could let modders take over, or maybe we could let mods have settings a bit like the MCM modders implemented into later games and expose everything we used to provide through that.
This was also implied/alluded to when dealing with distant land (Object Paging) in that there is vanilla content that have an initial state and the scripts are triggered until you entered the cell. The fog of the original engine would keep this hidden to you: horizontal banners, villages that shouldn't exist (yet) and other anomalies.
The correct way to deal with this is have our own Morrowind.omwgame (or omwaddon) that cover these issues. This is something that can be done now and eventually carry over to post 1.0 de-hardcoding when we push Morrowind specific things out of the engine.
When our openmw-lua comes online, we'll have to take a hard look at additional QoL things to see if they can't pushed into omwaddons as well. These are things that OpenMW should provide by default and left up to the user to see if they want. It also means a decision about what is content and what is engine related.
This however is putting the cart in front of the horse; for anyone looking for "Hey, how do we get OpenMW to 1.0" then have a look at the issue tracker. We still have quit a few blockers to tackle first before we can consider making a milestone release. Along the way we'll end up getting more issues being made from concerned and well meaning users: "That's not my Morrowind". We'll have to take care of those in a case-by-case basis. We can't please everyone and we shouldn't because it will end up turning OpenMW into a game of 'wack-a-mole' trying to cover every issue in the short term while introducing subtle bugs in the long time. That also includes well meaning contributors wanting to add something (think MWSE 1.0 extensions or a fix for a Morrowind exploit that we don't want to replicate). We can and should be able to push back and be able to say "no" to users and at minimal to give a reason as to why.
For actual OpenMW regressions and bugs, those will also likely be blockers for 1.0; but there will be others that come up where we have to make a judgement call for inclusion or not.
We've been pretty bad in letting PR and MRs hang around without making a decision to pull in or not; some people have left after not showing interest. I've had to contact some of these people in private to motivate them to continue their work because I see merit in it and it would be a pity to see all that work wasted. I do see that developers are great at helping and guiding other new developers, which is great! However that last extra kilometer seems to fall short like we're waiting for something or even just that it is up to me to hit the merge button when you are also capable of doing so.
How do you guys (developers) feel about the above? Is there something else going on perhaps? Those with merge access, I trust to have the common sense to know what is good for OpenMW and that' we're all pulling on the same rope. Perhaps we should be more explicit about why there is no merge (yet) to MRs of new developers. It also isn't always clear to me when my input is needed unless someone tags/pings me with @psi29a asking for guidance.
What happens sometimes in a MR is a question is asked, it is discussed, then there is no clear indication to the author what the best way forward is. Sometimes they ask for: "what can I do to make my MR better" but we should get into the mindset automatically. That at the end of a technical discussion that a 'best way forward' for the MR's author.
As for TES3MP merging, that is still post 1.0 but the openmw-lua part can go in before that. That is not a blocker but a nice to have and I trust David to also have OpenMW's best interest at heart. We communicate quite a bit and we've also synced with Zini on a few things. The genera idea is to make sure that the single-player experience
does not change even though under the hood it is running a local server and this also means keeping all platforms in mind while doing so, meaning that the overhead of such a setup is minimal. Before this can be undertaken though, we have to bring openmw-lua in first and make sure that it works both single-player as we know it now and in tes3mp, that they are using the same subsystem.
I think we could all do with being nicer to each other. There seems to be quite a bit of frustration when there shouldn't be any and it comes out as aggression or even just perceived aggression because English is the first language. We live in rather stressful times and I think it couldn't hurt to be nicer and more forgiving towards each other and not short. Again, if there are particular issues, bring them up as a new topic to be talked about or perhaps a group chat in private. Burn-out is a real thing. If necessary, perhaps take a step back from OpenMW and focus on something else for awhile might help?