Interview: Fighter

Picking Fighter's brain

Fighter is the brains behind OpenRP mod, an open source role-playing based mod with many unique and easy to use features. He also is the go-to tech guru here on JKHub.

Therfiles:

Thanks for taking the time to answer some questions .

Therfiles:

As the lead developer of OpenRP, could you fill us in on some of the cool things that you've been making for the mod?

Fighter:

OpenRP has an account and character system – You make an account on the server and then are able to create RP characters. These characters have credits, are able to join factions (created by players), and are able to do other things which help improve the RP experience.

Some interesting misc features the mod has are a bounty board – players can add bounties using their character’s credits, and other characters who may be RPing as bounty hunters can use this board to RP hunting for the wanted people, training sabers – players can set their lightsaber to a training mode that only does 1 damage for sparring purposes, and of course emotes.

There is also a skillpoint system in the works, which allows for server admins to have more control over force powers – A random person can’t just join the server and secretly have lightning 3, grip 3, jump 3, etc. Admins are able to check the levels of people’s force powers to ensure their skillpoints are put into the appropriate areas.

Server admins are given various abilities which allow them to improve the RP experience by adding effects, playing sounds and music, making the players’ screens shake, changing the weather (this includes having multiple weather effects at once), and fading players' screens into blackness (or instantly turning screens black).

There is also the option for distance-based chat – chat can only be seen up to a certain distance. This reduces metagaming and creates a more immersive experience.

Therfiles:

What are some of the goals you hope to achieve with OpenRP?

Fighter:

To create the best possible RP experience on JKA is our main goal.

Since it is open source, we hope to get contributions from others.

We also fully welcome feedback and wish to incorporate the suggestions of RPers.

Therfiles:

Can you tell us what inspired you to create a mod like OpenRP?

Fighter:

A year or two ago, I was in an RP community. Around this time I started to get into coding for JKA, as well as coding in general. I suggested that perhaps I could create a private RP mod for the community. It was called “SWBMod”, as the name of the community was SWB. I, and many other members agreed that most other mods were too limiting for RP.

Since I was still rather new to programming, both with C and with JKA, I didn’t end up really getting much done, and eventually all work on the project stopped. The community also ended up being disbanded for various reasons. I still continued some learning about C and the JKA SDK, however, and had the urge to make an RP mod again a few months after that.

This was the beginning of OpenRP. I got permission to rename SWBMod to OpenRP and make it open-source and public, and resumed development upon it. I also began to frequent the #JACoders IRC channel more too, and met various other JKA coders, which helped inspire me to continue development.

Therfiles:

Tell us about your background in RPing. Either about New Age RP, or any other RPing communities that are memorable for you.

Fighter:

I think I started RPing around the time I got JKA, in 2007. In the beginning it was just me and a couple of others I met on JKA RPing our own stories and such as a small group. Since that time I've been through various communities that were mostly semi-serious RP. The most recent community I was in was New Age RPG, which I helped run.

Therfiles:

A question from Eezstreet: What do you think about RPMod, and how will your mod address any sort of shortcomings that RPMod might have?

Fighter:

RPMod is a big inspiration for OpenRP. In fact, if it wasn't for RPMod, OpenRP may never have happened. RPMod showed me that JKA mods could do quite a bit, such as the distance based chat feature it has, the holo-projector feature it has, along with various others.

It's unfortunate that RPMod was originally made for and still is exclusive to the JEDI community. This has limited the reach of the mod in my opinion and also has left RPers with only a few mods such as JA+, which limits creativity in RPs. That's another reason why OpenRP was created - to give RPers another comprehensive option for their mod. Though I do understand that Soh wishes to publicly release RPMod at some point.

As for the addressing of shortcomings, OpenRP will try to make every area of RP as best as possible – whether it is simply a person giving some credits to a friend so they can RP buying food, or it is a server admin setting up an area for an RP event. The introduction of OpenRP to the JKA mod world should not be seen as a rival, or competitor to RPMod. Both OpenRP and RPMod have the goal of improving RP. They do it in some similar ways, some different. I hope that in the future, there can be some sort of cooperation between both mods, rather than competition, so we can improve both of our mods and make RP better for the entire JKA community, not just for a select few.

Therfiles:

From MUG: What is the form of RPing do you use? Tell us what works and what doesn't.

Fighter:

I tend to enjoy semi-serious RP. Semi-serious allows for plot development, character development, and special events, while also permitting occasional joking around. Many RPers/former RPers I know tend to not really like serious RPs as much as semi-serious as the environment felt too restrictive and strict to them.

Therfiles:

From >l KDR Exile l<: Do you plan on keeping this mod just for your clan, or releasing it publicly?

Fighter:

OpenRP will be released publicly. This has been the plan ever since SWBMod was renamed to OpenRP. I would like to give RPers both new and old the ability to experience OpenRP on a multitude of communities' servers - not just one.

Therfiles:

What is the biggest obstacle you have had to overcome in order to create OpenRP? Was it a particularly nasty block of code, or finding someone for a position, whatever.

Fighter:

Doing the code for /amToBlack (makes your screen slowly fade into darkness, then back out when the command is used again) has been (and still is since it's not done yet) rather nasty in order to create a smooth effect of fading in and out. When I come to some nasty/difficult piece of code or feature, I like to draw out my thoughts on a dry-erase board, since it seems to help me quite a bit.

Another obstacle is finding the motivation to work on the mod – There are other various projects that pop up (not just JKA projects) that take up time, new video games that come out and I play can be rather distracting, etc.

Therfiles:

What would you say is your "crowning" achievement? Something you feel users will anticipate most from OpenRP.

Fighter:

I feel users won't anticipate just one feature of the mod. Rather, I feel the "crowning" achievement is the variety of systems the mod provides (accounts, characters, factions, credits, admin, etc) to RPers to enable them to express their RPs in an interesting way that is definitely, in my opinion, less limited than other mods RPers have been using.

Therfiles:

Can you hook us up with some exclusive progress reports or some of the latest development updates?

Fighter:

Linux serverside compatibility is very far along, and has taken a shorter amount of time than I thought it would, which is good news for users who use hosts that use Linux, or want to spend less money on a VPS, as it seems Windows VPSes are typically more expensive than Linux ones.

Thanks to the suggestions and ideas of various people on OpenRP’s Github, a system to invite other players to your faction is being developed, which is a great alternative to the previous system of letting anyone join any faction. Since customizability is an important part of the mod, though, I will be allowing server owners to change the setting to whatever they want – invite system or no invite system.

A few months ago, the decision was made to change the codebase of the mod from Legacy OJP to Razor’s modbase. This will improve OpenRP in several ways, as modbase is open to contributions from anyone, so various security issues, bugs, and other such things can be fixed in modbase and then easily merged into OpenRP. If other coders in the future help out with OpenRP, they’ll probably be more familiar and knowledgeable with base JKA’s code and systems rather than OJP's.

Lastly, the decision was made to make OpenRP a mod that does have a clientside which certain features require you to have. This decision required careful thought, as I understand some players aren’t a big fan of downloading clientsides. However, I don’t really see this as a problem in RP communities, as RPers already download a lot of skins, maps, NPCs, etc, so a clientside shouldn’t really be an issue. I'm more limited in what I can do without a clientside.

Therfiles:

And finally, from Jango40, original pringles, or paprika pringles?

Fighter:

I’d have to say original, as I’ve never had paprika Pringles.

Therfiles:

I agree...paprika just sounds nasty.

Thank you so much for the insight you have given us!