Hello all
Yesterday, I read your posts, but I was too tired to answer (these days, my job is too tiring).
1. I have realized a few posts ago that the Daimonin project consists in open source materials (client, server, map maker,...)
and a server where maps and quests (maybe musics and graphics) are owned by their makers.
2. I have also realized that hosting players that talk using different languages may have a negative impact on the realism.
The metaserver may propose a list of
validated (I do agree that security is a main concern) servers for each language. Each server will have to host its own maps and quests.
Now, that I have written this, I think that I will be answerd to setup my own server and do my own customizations, quests, maps,...
You have to know that when I have started this thread my main objective was not "to fork".
3.
The maps and quests are owned by michtoen and/or their creators, and are used on the main server with permission of those peoples. They stay proprietary because A) they distinguish us from any competing Forks; and B) It would be a shame for players to be able to find out how the quests work/ how to complete the quests without even having attempt them.
I fully agree with you.
4.
However, they may or may not be able to have some of them released by talking with their creators and/or michtoen.
My main goal is not to translate all the quests, I think I will only translate the quests in /maps/planes/human_plane/castle/guildhall and make a tutorial (if one is needed).
5.
The server is plain old C, written for performance. Mostly all Strings (except Text that comes from lua-scripts, like quests, and so on) ar hardcoded in the server, at the point they are needed. Then they are all the object like weapons, items, with its name and description. These informations are stored in external files parsed by the server.
In fact, I wonder if I really need to change so many things from the server side. Maybe I mainly need to translate the lua scripts and I think I have understood what ThePlaneskeeper was suggesting with
i think the best you could hope for will be to have a translation layer in the client to translate the text on-demand, otherwise methinks it is going to be quite a headache for you to track everything down.
6.
The thing is now, to have multilanguage support you would first need the translations (for the server internal strings, and for all objects (im not sure, but i think its more than 1000 objects). The translation alone is only a manpower thing.
I should be able to find an open source solution and create a script that will do the job for me (no problem to share this experience).
I think translating objects is not as complex as translating sentences and the result should be good enough (if not I will just have to make ponctual changes).
7.
The problematic point is that the server must not only held all these different langiages in memory, but also must check for every string that gets send to the client, the language of the player, chose the right string (with fallback to english if translation not exists), and send it. And that language check need much cpu (even with some sort of stringstore and pointer-magic) for the big amount of strings send.
If my point 5. is right the cpu shouldn't be so impacted. But the memory may (I don't know if the quests scripts are loaded and unloaded as necessay).
8.
It will later be possible to translate all the standard messages, because they will be moved client side, but that will be in 2 weeks(TM).
Then all the server would have to do would be to send message number and have the client interpret it. However you'd then need an updater for the language file repository for the client to download... More than 2 weeks I think
Do you mean that someone is working to send message numbers instead of messages (a quite good bandwith improvement especially if you transmit numbers in binary rather than text) ?
