Rotwood Coming to Steam Early Access April 24

Up and Away: Redux (That means a rewrite.)

debugman18
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debugman18

debugman18

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Up and Away is totally dead. Right?

No. Development for Up and Away has been on and off for years, now. There's very good reasons for that. I was overambitious with the mod. When the mod was first started, it was hacky, but steady progress was being made. Eventually, simplex came on board the project. With his skills and knowledge, development of Up and Away sped along at lightspeed. He integrated into the mod an API of sorts, called Wicker.

Wicker was completely and totally Simplex's brainchild. Before the integration, I was asked if I was okay with it, being warned that it would change the way the mod was developed. In my ambition, I said "yes". How could it possibly hurt? Klei had explicitly denied the possibility of multiplayer, and even DLC wasn't anticipated.

So why doesn't it work with [insert mod/DLC/multiplayer here]?

Wicker was (and still is) far too difficult for me to work with. Utilizing it's features is easy. Modifying it's internals? All but impossible for me. Unfortunately, the largest roadblock to general compatibility is also the mod's greatest strength: Wicker.

So why hasn't it been fixed?

I don't have the ability to fix it. Simplex stopped working on the mod shortly after adding Don't Starve Together compatibility, and efforts to pull him back in have been met with silence. Which is perfectly fair. This isn't our job, and Simplex and I both have far more important responsibilities.

To summarize:

I am not a good enough programmer to fix Wicker, and Simplex has "left" the project. Therefor, Wicker is the largest wall between me and Up and Away development.

So what's next for Up and Away? It's dead, right?

In the short term, I'm pushing an update to the Steam workshop and Klei download section versions of the mod that will allow compatibility with the latest vanilla/RoG version of the mod. No DST compatibility, no SW compatibility.

In the long term, I'm refactoring the mod from the ground up, and unplugging Wicker from it.

When will the rewrite be available publicly?

As soon as it is stable. In this case, "stable" means that the mod loads without crashing. It will not be balanced, or feature-complete. It will "work". Once the rewrite is available publicly, it will be available on GitHub alongside the old version of the mod.

Anything else?

I'm looking for modders to collaborate with me to help make this happen. Previously, coders have been pushed far, far away from the mod because of its complexity. The removal of Wicker and the rewrite of the internals makes it far easier for other modders to contribute to development.

We want [insert mod/DLC/multiplayer compatibility here] right now, though!

Currently I have a job, an education, and a relationship. Mod development comes last on that list. It'll be done when it's done. Not a moment sooner.

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debugman18

debugman18

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18 minutes ago, MilleniumCount said:

Well, hello there!

Besides other responsibilities I would love to work again on U&A if I am allowed to.

Of course! Anybody who has done work for the mod, or desires to do work for the mod, is welcome to continue/start doing work for the mod.

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debugman18

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Well, as far as I can tell, these are the largest hurdles (not counting the refactoring of prefabs), ones that Wicker has solved previously:

Custom worldgen screen. I was able to do this without Wicker previously. Same goes for the main screen.

Custom world tiles. Actually, not specifically a Wicker thing, so this should continue to function.

Biome specific weather. Should be solvable with dummy entities. Save the current weather condition from each biome with the dummy entity, then use a biome-specific dummy to change the weather back and forth.

Whirlwinds teleporting the player. Should be solvable. Somehow.

Beanstalk climbing. Should be not only solvable, but easy.

Shopkeeper and his quests. Should be easily solvable.

That's all I can think of off of the top of my head.

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debugman18

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2 hours ago, simplex said:

 

Ouch. That's a bit extreme, isn't it?

It's not malicious. You've done more to bring Up and Away to life than I have.

I just don't understand Wicker well enough to manipulate it when the time inevitably comes that an update breaks it, be it DLC or multiplayer. It always does come. I'm not a terribly experienced programmer, and right now I don't think I have the time to learn all that I need to in order to patch Wicker.

I really, really want to see Up and Away do well. With multiplayer, with Shipwrecked, with whatever DLC Klei releases in the future.

I've tried to contact you, for what its worth. I don't like summoning you just to fix stuff. I know you have a job, and your own life, and Up and Away shouldn't feel like one as well. I want Up and Away to last, without banging my head against something I just don't understand. I have a lot on my plate in real life, so I want the time I spend on the mod to be fruitful, not frustrating.

Without you around to update it, Wicker won't always keep compatibility with the game. I don't have the capability to fix it, presently.

When I don't even hear "I'm just busy, I'll come by later" back from you, I can't count on you showing up and fixing things. You shouldn't have to be an on-call handyman for the mod, either.

I just want this mod to not be dead. Having read my explanation, is that really that extreme of a solution? Compared to the mod being completely dormant "until further notice"?

I want Wicker to be a part of Up and Away. I want you to be a part of Up and Away. However, without knowing when or how Klei will break something, Wicker is and has been a time-bomb for me. I've asked for help on the forums, and gotten some help. Which led right into more problems that I can't fix.

So, where do we stand?

Edited by debugman18
I a word.
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simplex

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@debugman18

I know it's not malicious. I was aiming for a lighthearted opener, but I do get your stance. Originally, wicker was meant as a "plug and play" framework that, while enabling complex mod behavior/structure with relatively simple mod code, wasn't too tightly bound to the mod itself, or even the game. In this original period, not only were mods using it fairly detachable from wicker, but game changes breaking wicker were rare and trivial to fix (by someone who knows how wicker's internals tick). The advent of DST changed things, since, by requiring wicker to become a compatibility layer between the mod and different games, the mod became strongly reliant on it to function, as wicker became reliant on the inner workings of DS and DST. Because of this, without someone to fix wicker when game changes break it, splitting U&A from wicker is not only understandable but a logical necessity; also, due to the level the mod had to become reliant on wicker in order to be cross-compatible with DS and DST, large scale refactoring (if not rewriting) of the mod would be required to make it standalone from wicker, resulting, as you put it, in a redux (since the more complex and ambitious features are unfeasible to reimplement without wicker).

 

Now, what I'd like to see is for U&A to continue its development, with wicker, maintaining DS (with or without RoG and SW) and DST compatibility. I say this not just because I wrote wicker and I believe U&A would be much better off with it, but because I think you seriously underestimate how much work it would take and how many mod features would have to be gutted in order to leave wicker behind. And as I mentioned, I'm fully aware this requires my active presence in developing and adjusting wicker to at least account for game updates.

 

What I want is to, indeed, be here providing support and further developing U&A. I know I set a bad precedent going AWOL twice, in particular the second time since it shortly succeeded a reunion I had mustered myself. Both times, I've fallen into the trap of thinking personal issues preventing me from dedicating my time to U&A would be quickly resolved, except they weren't and things snowballed to the point where I hadn't logged back in here for months. While I can't promise I'll always be available to work on U&A, especially since we don't know how long that will take and for how long new DLC and game updates will keep being released, I'll do my best to at least give status updates and provide basic support when I'm not able to properly invest myself here.

 

So, with that being said, I'm willing to jump back on board to fix what's broken and carry from there.

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debugman18

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4 hours ago, simplex said:

@debugman18

I know it's not malicious. I was aiming for a lighthearted opener, but I do get your stance. Originally, wicker was meant as a "plug and play" framework that, while enabling complex mod behavior/structure with relatively simple mod code, wasn't too tightly bound to the mod itself, or even the game. In this original period, not only were mods using it fairly detachable from wicker, but game changes breaking wicker were rare and trivial to fix (by someone who knows how wicker's internals tick). The advent of DST changed things, since, by requiring wicker to become a compatibility layer between the mod and different games, the mod became strongly reliant on it to function, as wicker became reliant on the inner workings of DS and DST. Because of this, without someone to fix wicker when game changes break it, splitting U&A from wicker is not only understandable but a logical necessity; also, due to the level the mod had to become reliant on wicker in order to be cross-compatible with DS and DST, large scale refactoring (if not rewriting) of the mod would be required to make it standalone from wicker, resulting, as you put it, in a redux (since the more complex and ambitious features are unfeasible to reimplement without wicker).

 

Now, what I'd like to see is for U&A to continue its development, with wicker, maintaining DS (with or without RoG and SW) and DST compatibility. I say this not just because I wrote wicker and I believe U&A would be much better off with it, but because I think you seriously underestimate how much work it would take and how many mod features would have to be gutted in order to leave wicker behind. And as I mentioned, I'm fully aware this requires my active presence in developing and adjusting wicker to at least account for game updates.

 

What I want is to, indeed, be here providing support and further developing U&A. I know I set a bad precedent going AWOL twice, in particular the second time since it shortly succeeded a reunion I had mustered myself. Both times, I've fallen into the trap of thinking personal issues preventing me from dedicating my time to U&A would be quickly resolved, except they weren't and things snowballed to the point where I hadn't logged back in here for months. While I can't promise I'll always be available to work on U&A, especially since we don't know how long that will take and for how long new DLC and game updates will keep being released, I'll do my best to at least give status updates and provide basic support when I'm not able to properly invest myself here.

 

So, with that being said, I'm willing to jump back on board to fix what's broken and carry from there.

Well, I'll keep the redux as a side project, just in case. **** happens, that's fine.

For now, though, we should move discussion to the new forum. We can do all sorts of fun things there.

Edited by debugman18
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debugman18

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25 minutes ago, MilleniumCount said:

  Hmmmmm?

Hmmmm?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=261980676

Mmmmm.

To expand on this, though, the mod isn't being rewritten. It's being developed again, however. With the help of Zarklord, the issues that existed within Wicker have been solved, so now I can start getting everything working with the newest updates (and eventually DST, but single-player is my only priority right now.) Currently, most things that worked before work again. I'm pushing relatively frequent updates to the steam workshop page (and here) in order to minimize the issues people may have with the mod in it's current state.

The mod is in need of artists/animators/writers again!

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ArcticFox789

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Wow this really unlocked some memories coming back on here! Must be all of about seven years since I was on the forums in general now, but nice to see at least some of you gave it another go, not sure how far along you all got with the redux mind, but it was too good a concept to have it just die first time out. 

If any of the old team see this by some coincidence - unlikely on a thread that's been dead for nearly a year but you never know, hope you guys are all doing well! Been a long old pandemic - to the point where I've ended up searching through forums I frequented aged like 13/14 - but this little nostalgia trip has really put a smile on my face (and reminded me just how cringe inducing I was as a teenager :D).

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