First of all, I'm not requesting a new release, lol. I'm a sphere user for about 4~5 years and never requested things like this
I'm here to talk about these dates of new releases. On firsts months of 56b development, we got NIGHTLY releases. Months later, it changed to "month release". Later, it changed to "3 months release". Now (2008/2009) we must wait about 5~6 months for a new release.
And this is really bad for ppl like me (shard admin / scripter). Why? It's simple, I know that there's a new release to come with many fixes and improvements. But I can't use it, I must use the old release without new fixes until the next 4 monts come to finally update the release that my server is running.

There's some important updates to come:

I know many of them since nov/08. But now it's feb/09, and I continue receiving many ingame pages about custom vendors that can't undress equiped itens. The server continue crashing by infinite loops or large dialogs (maybe). I continue waiting for the new IsNearType that check items on multi too (I need this to make a fix for field spells that pass through house walls).
And waiting for the most important update too (EF_UseNetworkMultiVersionMod), that make all clients used on my server to run better and without 'lag' (actually, old clients are quick and new clients are slow, and using NetworkMulti it just change this lag from the new to older clients).

Sure, I love sphere, I love work with these scripts, and I don't wanna blame anyone with this text.
And again, I'm not requesting a new release, I just want request "quickly" release dates (weekly, or montly releases), because wait 6 months for a new release is sux
I know, actually there's a nigtly release every day. But it only for linux releases. My idea is create something similiar (not necessary DAILY releases), something that compile windows releases every weekend or every month.

We (shard creators/developers/admins) just want the best to our servers, and the best to our comunity

Well, like you Coruja, I too wait and wait, but I do not ask or force developers into doing things I seem fit.

I did notice you posted this update in your above thread:



Good idea implemented there. I think I mentioned it too, maybe if it were simple enough to use by using <isneartype t_blah x> to check for types in multis and/or <p.terrain.type>. Third parameter is great, good option to include -- some people like how <isneartype> is now, so that option will allow them to enable/disable the new feature.

But for those who NEED to check if you are near a terrain type. you can use this script:

i think not only is this an issue of functionality... but also of community interest.
if releases were indeed closer together rather than at a time that devs deemed the release to be finished. there would be a greater sense of future for the emulator.

releasing these nightly versions closer together and perhaps even more than once a month will provide people with more interest in the emulator.

this is not a request for a release ASAP, this is my opinion on what might keep people more hopeful and excited.
i know that i would be glad to see more nightly releases.

Alpha Releases.
Nazghul's hinted about them in another thread, unfortunately they must be a well kept secret, since i've not been able to find this mythical alpha page he speaks of.

Two verisons for linux (debian lenny and etch) and 1 for windows that requires the VC2008 libraries. However running them on a production shard would be near suicide without lots of testing beforehand. Although in your case it sounds like they'll fix a lot of problems for ya.

So yeah, if we can get nazghul to tell us where these are, it'd give us something to try out.

imo its a combination of sphere devs not having time and losing interest in the project.

@Dark Hedo: Alpha's are _not_ safe for live shards. And keeping track of what's fixed and what not would be total chaos.

I agree with Shiryu. I use the alphas. I don't think people should be running them on live servers at all. You never know what can get messed up with your script system using them. If there is one error in coding you can be in a heap of trouble and reverting back to nightly releases.

Actually the only use I recommend it for is testing. I just find less time to test on them these days. I am too busy trying to get my server out of alpha state to a live beta testing as soon as I can.

You want releases though? Make suggestions for functionality is all I can say. When there is enough of it... then you can hope for a release.

From what I read, not much gets added unless dev's want it in anyway. So if you want something so bad, get support for it. That way it is a community want. Not 5 people. But only like 10 people post in suggestions as is. So what do you all expect? If you want say a yes or no to suggestions, or offer your own, then you get nothing.

Harsh, yeah. But it is pretty much what was told to me...

Well, lately alphas are not so different from nightlys. And they are quite well documented. Unfortunately, since the sudden death of one of my harddisks, resulting in a freshly installed VS2008's linker unable to find winsock32.dll (this software is a total piece of crap, if you ask me) I wasn't able to build Windows alphas.

The simple reason why alphas' link is not to find at each and every corner is that they are not meant to be a replacement for the prereleases.

I mean, I can keep track with a handful of alpha tester, urge them to use always the most recent build, and address problems they have. I couldn't do with dozens of them. And if you read the forum, looking at "problems" resulting from people unable even to _mention_ what prerelease they use, it indeed would be impossible to give any kind of support here anymore.

Yes, I could install an "alpha forum", but it won't do the trick. I simply don't have the time to support it. Alpha support relies on personal contact. And, relly, I'd rather uninstall my IM then being hammered by jabber or ICQ by all those intelligent and reasonable sphere forum users who are unable to read a tutorial. Look at it as a kind of exam: Making it hard to find the alpha link reduces the mass of tourist groups stomping thru my personal playground

Why there are no prereleases recently: Well, you all know exactly the same about that as I do.

@ShiryuX: I'm running a live shard on alpha. But obviously, if something is going down the drain I can investigate quickly. What I could not do for dozens of shards, of course - and what I definitively _will_ not do if the problems occuring are related to insufficiant admin skills (like insuff. OS or basic network knowledge, "how can I run it on Windows 7" or such)

I tried an Alpha Release. I dropped it in 5 minutes. Just because it shows different errors (the biggest: it closed because of a bad multi, nightly was doing fine with it), I'd fix that, no problem. But I'm too lazy to fix many of those or to start checking 1 by 1 my scripts in search of bugs.

Many people would start screaming and running around the forums because is the end of the world in his servers. I was going to try the automated SVN releases, but again, too lazy to install Debian again (which I don't like that much).