Since I can no longer post to the Steam community (including forum, patch notes, screenshots, guides…) and due to rejection by Valve on my initial release build of SK, I must fallback on the original system I designed for patching / installation (SKIM – Special KInstall Manager).
This is extremely disruptive to the development roadmap I had rattling around inside my head…
Fortunately I never made any real commitments and can probably duct tape something functional together within a month or so, sans Steamworks-enhanced features (e.g. Workshop user-created mod distribution).
The final Steam build is now available for all to use:
Is the plan to leverage SKIF in some way? In terms of UI, I mean? As it allowed you to more rapidly prototype and release features dependent on the UI.
I’ll try to merge the two things. But I don’t want to re-write the network code, it’s been tested for years to get to the mostly reliable state it’s in now.
SKIM already has fringe problems with some firewalls and anti-virus software, which is why I was so happy to have the opportunity to distribute things through Steam. Since I am a graphics programmer, polishing off the network code to be even a fraction of the reliability of Steam is impossible.
Steam was a perfect fit, I won’t miss the forums, but the architecture as a whole solved everything.
Digital Ocean’s pretty neat, they gave me a dedicated static IP address (which I’m pretty sure IPv4 is running out of =P) in their lowest price tier. Makes mail relaying a lot easier.
I also have support to run a dedicated instance of GitLab and workaround that 10 MiB filesize limit that was causing me to host Special K’s binary releases on GitHub instead of along-side the source code on GitLab.
I don’t know what the bandwidth requirements are going to look like when I have something ready to go, but at least the hosting is on a pay-as-you-go basis and can pull funds directly from the account where Patreon donations are being deposited.
I may stop development on the client side of things for a while to build up some supporting web infrastructure now that Steam’s out of the running.
Just one thing I wanted to check, should we stop using the Steam version and try getting used to SKIF use from the desktop? Or for know it’s fine to use the Steam version? (which seems to be the same version of SKIF and Special K)
They’re the same thing. There probably won’t be any updates of any sort for at least half a month. I have to integrate my old download / install / update system and strip out all references to Steam (aside from the UI tab that makes modifying Steam games easier – that didn’t use SteamAPI in the first place).
Sadly my experience stretches it more to paid professional alternatives (Zendesk, Service Now, etc).
If I am not mistaken though Helpy seems limited to mail communication. For those particular scenarios you always have, if you choose to leverage, the “Service Desk” module of GitLab that serves the same purpose.
There’s also the issue of the thing I originally planned for Steam, config sharing / compatibility databases.
Something a little more detailed than the Wiki page on PCGamingWiki, like test runs pass/fail using different versions of the software against specific games and what config settings were necessary.
There’s probably a better option out there but I don’t know what exactly to search for. This could get you started though. You could also have a wiki like they do and have the list link to more detailed wiki pages.
Awesome, thanks. I’m not a web programmer, so … I either need a fully working solution or a minor miracle The last web programming I did was cgi-bin using C++, kinda before the rise of web programming languages and technologies. I’m a dinosaur
Ah yeah if you can’t maintain it, that’s a problem. I wonder if you could maybe just use an issue tracker, like Bugzilla or GitLab or something. You could create 1 issue per game with whatever compatibility info you want, and tag each issue with [Compatibility] or something like that to make them easy to find.
Other option might literally be to just make a wiki of some kind, whether it’s mediawiki or some other wiki setup, and just have a page per-game.
The forum itself is capable of this. An entire category can be declared a Wiki and then threads can be made within that category per-game. I imagine it will get rather sloppy though, unless users master the forum’s elaborate search function.
Should we make an announcement to everyone following the Steam version of the game at some point that the forums have moved and development on the Steam version has ended?
There are about 5,000 people who will receive this announcement, so it’ll bottleneck the account creation and hit the daily cap no matter when we do this. Somehow it needs to be conveyed that the forums have moved and unless you need to post something immediately creating accounts is going to create a real mess.
The last web programming I did was cgi-bin using C++, kinda before the rise of web programming languages and technologies. I’m a dinosaur 