Community Updates: New Discord Icon, Branches on OoTR.com, MW2.0 Update, OoTR v6.1
December 3, 2021 • By: TreZ
It's been a hot minute since the last bigger community update, so here we are. Over the past few months, A LOT changed and many plans and ideas grew behind the scenes. Today, I am thrilled to share some exciting news with you all.
DISCORD UPDATES - NEW ICON & NEW SECRET LOGO ANIMATION
We have a NEW SERVER ICON and we LOVE it. Our very own shiroaeli proved her art skills. The result speaks for itself. Make sure to hover over it in Discord to see the full animation, it is crazy ;)
On top, support team's finest Maple started working on a cool 3D animation of the OoTR logo, which we will be able to use for community announcement videos and maybe restreams? Yours truly created a little jingle, so stay tuned for that!
Both shiro and Maple decided to devote their free time, and I will make sure to come up with a reward for both. For now, both received a special colored role in the Discord. In general, we want to go back and value volunteer work in our community more.
We'll look into handing the Contributor role to more people and have a few more ideas in stock.
DEV BRANCHES ON OOTRANDOMIZER.COM - STARTING WITH DEVR
Starting today, OoTRandomizer.com supports generation for multiple branches, and we start out with the most popular one: devR created by Roman871.
Ever since the OG dev branch made it to the website, more and more people got into testing, trying to bring more, cool new features, and we really enjoy your participation. With this feature, more creators and more devs can make use of OoTRandomizer.com's infrastructure for seed sharing, VC patching, and more. We hope that people use this to get their branches out there. Afterall, we're a community of creative minds, and with this, I am sure many new cool idea will rise to the surface.
For now, check out the latest features on devR on the devR Generator page.
OOTR MULTIWORLD V2.0 - DEVELOPER UPDATE
Long time rumored, work on a completely new version of OoTR multiworld has been ongoing for a long time. Today, our very own dragonbane0 is providing you with an update:
While the whole project has never been formally announced, many of you know that there has been increased efforts to modernize the OoTR MW framework to bring it into the current era and make it more accessible to players without the common struggles such as port forwarding and desyncs. Increasing the synergy with the current online presence and infrastructure that we maintain is another goal, which is why I mostly took it upon myself to design the 2.0 spec.
For a while development progressed quite smoothly and several key components have been fully finished. The scope is large, we are talking supporting 3 different operating systems, at least 4 emulator platforms and complete hardening of all aspects against desyncs and that's not even close to all. That, the required interplay with other existing components and needed core adjustments to the rando code to support this rewrite, especially in regards with some less publicly talked about subjects such as encryption and tournament security, which are nevertheless important, have caused several prolonged stalls so far.
Then there are of course real life commitments that occasionally crop up and prevent work on a project that is, for the most part, still done as a hobby. An issue that affects most of all OoTR developers equally at one point or another.
So where does this leave us? I'm currently on a vacation that lasts for another 3 weeks. My first in a whole year. Thankfully I was able to wrap up quite a few site-tabled items before departing, such as the long requested addition of Roman's branch to the website TreZ detailed above. So once I return my slate is mostly empty and my energy fully restored after a pretty bad year for a lot of us. With that I will re-focus all my efforts into MW 2.0 to get it into a demoable state very soon. It's further along towards that goal than most probably assume.
So I will see you with more updates on this ambitious project very soon this fall.
(TreZ) I know many of you are super eager to see more. You want to play Multiworld in a stable, modern way, long for convenience features like a forfeit option and more. I can assure you: I want those too. Many of us want them.
However, as devs, we and especially db himself want to do this right. When he started, we had no infrastructure in place for this whatsoever, and we started from scratch. That's why it is taking a long time, and I hope you all bear with us while we try to get the best possible solution out in y'alls hands. I have worked with dragonbane for the past 5 years and have been blessed to see what he is capable of and how good he is at what he does. I know that, once he is ready, he will amaze us all. So all I can do now is ask you all for a little more patience. I promise: It will be worth it.
OOTR VERSION 6.1 - COMING SOON!
Multiworld greatness aside - it also has been a while since OoTR version 6.0 dropped. A long enough while to warrant another release. The past year and a half have been challenging for most, if not all of us, and with that, development on the randomizer slowed down increasingly.
However, I am now happy to report that version 6.1 is just around the corner and will drop in the next few weeks. It will feature the latest dev version goodness and a few extra things that are still to be merged. v6.1 will also herald the beginning of Standard season 5, which we will be able to provide details about very soon.
After v6.1, I will take it upon myself to find a few new active maintainers for the randomizer code to push development forward (and try to contribute more myself) - OoTR has not reached its full potential, I strongly believe in this fact, and I want to do my very best to push it forward as a community admin.
A few cool ideas for version 7.0 are already in the pipeline - if you want to join us as a maintainer, on a frequent and regular basis, please let me know. Note that I will need a few examples of your work, as the randomizer code does come with its challenges and quirks that do require a certain routine.
While saying all this, I do NOT want to forget our current maintainers, especially TR, zannick, and also Roman, who beside their extremely busy schedules still try their best to go over the very long list of contributions.
ANYTHING ELSE?
Between all the things going on, the amazing tournaments (Co-Op Season 2 coming VERY soon!), RSL, the League, Scrubs and TSG, Blitz, and everything that's going on, it's hard to NOT forget something. OH!, a new podcast episode featuring the scrubs team aired yesterday, make sure to check it out - the Gossip Stone podcast team has been on fire lately!
Once again I want to thank you all for being a part of this amazing community. Many of you came to me in the past year and told me how they felt at home here, how the community helped them to get through these troubled times, and it fills me with pride to hear that OoTR is more than just a fan mod.
Thinking about everything that is done and that is to come has me thrilled, and I can't wait to talk about all these new things and all the creative ideas you are coming up with yourself in the future.
If you have any feedback for us, or me personally: Know that my doors (read: my dms) are always open. If you don't go forwards, you go backwards, and I am convinced that moving forwards, there is a lot of journey left for all of us.
So remember:
Thank you for your time if you made it this far, stay awesome
TreZ