Will ATMA and 1.13 play nice together

[eborr]

Will ATMA and 1.13 play nice together

According to Bashiok, he is planing to incorporate an expanded stash that would be 12x10 (of course this is not set in stone, so we may never see it) which at first, I thought would be great but once I started to think about it, I realized that ATMA is designed with the 8x6 stash and not a 12x10 stash. I also noticed that the creator hasn't updated his website for some time now so he may not even be supporting the program with updates anymore (which does happen because of a lack of interest or real life priorities come up or what not).

This brings me to my question: Will ATMA be able to support 1.13 and if not is there a way for the Diablo 2 community to update this program in case tenshi is unable/can not update it on his own?

An thoughts?

 

[smips]

Re: Will ATMA and 1.13 play nice together

ATMA will likely not work(I know it doesn't for mods like Median that have an extended stash already), but maybe Silospen will update Gomule to work with the extended stash.

 

[snickersnack]

Re: Will ATMA and 1.13 play nice together

maybe Silospen will update Gomule to work with the extended stash.

If all blizz does is change the size of an array(s), then that's all he should have to do. I'd be surprised if he didn't bother to do it, and further surprised if he tried and found that it simply won't work.

 

[Rabisu]

Re: Will ATMA and 1.13 play nice together

He seems pretty familiar with how character files work, I'm sure he'd be able to figure it out fairly quickly if he put some effort into it.

 

[smips]

Re: Will ATMA and 1.13 play nice together

If all blizz does is change the size of an array(s), then that's all he should have to do. I'd be surprised if he didn't bother to do it, and further surprised if he tried and found that it simply won't work.

Well, if he doesn't do it, then everyone who plays 1.13 has to start from scratch with no items. Hell, I'd try and figure out how to do it if he didn't .

 

[snickersnack]

Re: Will ATMA and 1.13 play nice together

Well, if he doesn't do it, then everyone who plays 1.13 has to start from scratch with no items. Hell, I'd try and figure out how to do it if he didn't .

I'm sure that 1.12 characters will be upgradable to 1.13, so it'd be a nuisance to move item forward, but doable. If not, then will everyone on nonladder have to restart too?

 

[Grisu]

Re: Will ATMA and 1.13 play nice together

Well, if he doesn't do it, then everyone who plays 1.13 has to start from scratch with no items.

Not necessarily. People could create hundreds and thousands of mules and mule on all their stashes before making the switch...but I think it's better to hold silo hostage until he comes up with a solution for GoMule :wink:

EDIT: Beaten to it by SnickerSnack. That's what happens when you browse multiple tabs at one time...

 

[Firvagor]

Re: Will ATMA and 1.13 play nice together

If all blizz does is change the size of an array(s), then that's all he should have to do. I'd be surprised if he didn't bother to do it, and further surprised if he tried and found that it simply won't work.

I've looked at some of the GoMule code and written a bit of my own. IIRC, the inventory, stash, belt, and cube are all in the same "array" of items, or at least they're all read subsequently (merc items just have a different token to signify the beginning of his/her items, this may also apply to corpse items).
In other words, it keeps finding a token/key set of bits, reading whatever is immediately after it, then looking for the next token. If the stash size is increased, I don't think it should affect file reading because it would just mean a few more iterations of the look/read/look/etc process.

So really, the only thing in the way of reading items is simply the visual graphic of the stash. I'm not sure how easy it would be to switch out the current image with a bigger one, and it's probably easier said than done, but I believe (and hope) this would be the only thing needing work. This is also assuming the overall file structure doesn't drastically change, such as moving a section (ie character/item info) to a different location in the file, in which case a bit of code swapping would be needed.

As for the continuation of ATMA, I recently stumbled upon this post, this part in particular:

As far as the source code goes, I will probably not be doing this anytime soon until I'm ready to turn it over to a sucessor. ATMA is over 100,000 lines of code and a lot of work to maintain so anyone taking over would have to know what he/she is doing. It was a major pain to write and it's evolution over the years caused me no end of grief, so I'll hold on to it just a bit longer The major issue is that I don't want people turning it into an editor and causing all sorts of problems like the last forum meltdown.

Of course, this was from 4 years ago, so who knows about the "just a bit longer" part. I would love to at least take a look at it.

 

[silospen1]

Re: Will ATMA and 1.13 play nice together

Displaying the stash isn't a problem, 1.13 playing nicely with muling apps depends on what else they change.

Even now, you can open a classic character in GoMule, then as long as you don't put items in the extended part of the stash, it's still vaguely possible to mule.

 

[Firvagor]

Re: Will ATMA and 1.13 play nice together

Displaying the stash isn't a problem, 1.13 playing nicely with muling apps depends on what else they change.

Even now, you can open a classic character in GoMule, then as long as you don't put items in the extended part of the stash, it's still vaguely possible to mule.

As far as that goes, again assuming that the overall structure doesn't change, I think the file version bits are the same between classic/expansion, but the item version in terms of classic/expansion, as opposed to version number, might be different. Maybe the stash image could be loaded dynamically depending on the version of the first item read, since I think the item version is changed to expansion if the character is converted.

Of course, this is my simple, possibly obvious way of putting it.

.../semi-hijack

 

[silospen1]

Re: Will ATMA and 1.13 play nice together

As far as that goes, again assuming that the overall structure doesn't change, I think the file version bits are the same between classic/expansion, but the item version in terms of classic/expansion, as opposed to version number, might be different. Maybe the stash image could be loaded dynamically depending on the version of the first item read, since I think the item version is changed to expansion if the character is converted.

Of course, this is my simple, possibly obvious way of putting it.

.../semi-hijack

Yeah, it shouldn't be too hard. I doubt they would change the item container, so that shouldn't be a problem either. I really can't see this patch giving us too much past an extended stash (if we even get that!).

Anyways, we're talking about this in the wrong place, so we're gonna get shouted at :whistling:

 

[sorcererbob]

Re: Will ATMA and 1.13 play nice together

Although I have no doubt that the dimensions are hardcoded into ATMA becaues they've been set for too long, it shouldn't be hard to make the program adapt to the version. It requires a dynamic bi-dimensional array; not hard to create for any programmer.

 

[Crono]

Re: Will ATMA and 1.13 play nice together

Did tenshi ever released his source code for ATMA ?

I'd really like to write my own muling app, to better fit how I want to use it (I never liked much the way stashes categorize items in ATMA).

I'm going to use gomule source to save me time from discovering how to read items and characters but atma source would probably be better.

 

[sirpoopsalot]

Re: Will ATMA and 1.13 play nice together

...(I never liked much the way stashes categorize items in ATMA)...

Iirc, you can blame Blizzard for that, since I believe Doc used Blizzard's own (file) structure when laying out the stash structure. I'm not sure of the intricacies or details, but changing it to your own organization-system might be more headache than it's worth if the structure is somehow intimately tied into that (or it might be easy as pie - as I said, I know jack about it). Just FYI.

Not sure if he ever released the source code either - I'm doubtful he did.


Edit: By the way... I don't want to discourage you from this project if it interests you, but I don't want to lead you on either:

I see no need for another muling utility allowed within the community. ATMA and GoMule may not be perfect, but they're plenty adequate for our purposes and what we accept. So we're not going to bother testing/accepting a new application for the community unless the popular demand is overwhelming. And that means that your app. most likely going to be a side-project that will get you banned from MP/trade if you want to actually use it (of course, what you do on your computer is your business - but once your D2 playing starts interacting with other forumites, then it becomes ours).

I hope you don't feel like I'm singling you out, because there are other muling-capable applications that we also don't allow and have no interest in allowing. So it's nothing personal.

 

[Crono]

Re: Will ATMA and 1.13 play nice together

Don't worry, I have no intent on forcing anyone to use my software, I also don't plan on playing/trading with anyone on this (or any other) forum (I never did), I also never thought about even releasing it...

I just don't like ATMA way of doing things too much, and personally I will have some fun making a mule app the way I think it should be, if I ever think that it would be a worth substitution to ATMA/GoMule, I maybe can release it, maybe if ATMA/GoMule go unsupported and nobody else decides to release a muling app for newer versions, at least I'll know I can use mine

I didn't know about GoMule, and personally I don't like java, and didn´t like it too much.
ATMA suffers from lack of proper organization of items, you have to make a lot of stashes to separate uniques from sets from rares etc.

My plan is to make a better system only, cause I like to collect stuff a lot, I even collect every gem/rune that drop, and my gem stash gets a very long list of gems repeating in the list, I want to make something like chipped skull(x35), instead of 35 chipped skulls in the list... and also a better way to search for items within your stashes... like load a character file and find every sword the character can use based on his stats (not very useful I know...)... well, as I said, I plan to do it for me only, just to make my life easier... The main thing I need right now, is a better way to transfer items from my notebook to my home pc without risking of duping them, and without all the trouble of copying stash files from a place to another, and reorganizing stuff...

 

[Hoop76]

Re: Will ATMA and 1.13 play nice together

Would emailing the stash file to yourself, then getting the file on the other pc be an easy way to do it? Guess it would depend on your files.

 

[Crono]

Re: Will ATMA and 1.13 play nice together

Would emailing the stash file to yourself, then getting the file on the other pc be an easy way to do it? Guess it would depend on your files.

Yeah that would be the easiest solution, but then I'd have to open the stash in my PC, separate everything again (I keep diferent d2x files for uniques/sets...), then delete the items from my notebook to avoid dupes...

I want to automate it on a single click a web-like solution maybe so that I can access my stuff anywhere, anytime, as I currently play diablo 2 on 3 computers

It will take a while to get it done tho, I looked at the file structure and it won't be easy reading/writing the savegames...

this is sooo off topic now, sorry for hijacking the thread...

getting back on topic, is tenshi still around, do anyone think he will update atma for the possible increased stash ?

 

[Thyiad1]

Re: Will ATMA and 1.13 play nice together

Personally I have all my stashes on a network. Never saw anything more difficult than making sure the main server was turned on.

Tenshi does fly by sometimes; he often helps with info in the ATMA Stickied thread. But as far as I know, he isn't going to update.

My instinct is any update is going to be silo and GoMule if he has time. Personally, if 1.13 breaks the muling utilities, I won't touch it with a six foot barge pole.

Anyway, I believe that answers your question as best can be until/if Doc pops along. You COULD try sending a PM.

 

[Randall]

Re: Will ATMA and 1.13 play nice together

Personally I have all my stashes on a network. Never saw anything more difficult than making sure the main server was turned on.

Tenshi does fly by sometimes; he often helps with info in the ATMA Stickied thread. But as far as I know, he isn't going to update.

And as far as I know he never released the source.

My instinct is any update is going to be silo and GoMule if he has time. Personally, if 1.13 breaks the muling utilities, I won't touch it with a six foot barge pole.

Actually, if the content of 1.13 is interesting enough, I might be interested in helping Silospen out a bit with any problems he might get. (specially if they become complicated concerning the file system)

Currently Blizzards interest seems to be getting as much people to play the old game again (as warming up of D3). So I doubt/hope they will change to much to the char file as it is. (Unless the online crowd is their primary target)

Anyway, I believe that answers your question as best can be until/if Doc pops along. You COULD try sending a PM.

I don't think he'll thank your for to many PM's asking the same question :wink:

Marco

PS.
Just spotted on bnet they started working on the path again. (had some problems with WoW in between):
http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=18031060417&sid=3000

 

[skiffcz]

Re: Will ATMA and 1.13 play nice together

Ive actually the same problem as crono. I was in too many jobs coding in java not to hate it, so even though I think very high of gomule as an app, I have some personal issues with the platform. I simply wont install jvm on my machine for religious reasons. On the other hand, ATMA could level with gomule in terms of quality, however it gets a bit outdated, and with 1.13 it maybe stops working alltogether. Pity, becouse I believe it would require just few minor fixes to keep it in shape. Of course, I fully respect authors choice to keep it close source.

I have those itches to start working on the muling app myself, but I can imagine the amount of work needed to build it from scratch. Also testing needs userbase, but untested, it wont gain it becouse of illegality on SPF. Its also easy to see how hard it is for new muling app to gain popularity (gomule). So conclusion? While 1.13 may be a great opportunity to start such project (and I promote team work and opened source to prevent issues like indestructible bug and lack of maintenance) the patch should better be at least half as awesome as bashiok is trying to promote at bnet web. Othervise, not much will change I guess