[size=24pt]News (for the week 27/07/2015)[/size]
[size=18pt]MoparScape Official Server[/size]
Sini makes server, crowd cheers! (as sinisoul puts it)
It has been publically announced for a while now so the board has been made public again. Make sure you keep up with it.
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[size=18pt]Game Development[/size]
[size=14pt]Blackwake’s Recent Success (by Frell)[/size]
It seems that since the last update the game has found somewhat of a following. Some big streamers have demoed the game which has helped gain it a little buzz.
If you didn’t catch the streams live you can always watch the VODs on twitch. The links to said streamers is in the thread, you just need to dig a little 
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[size=18pt]Games[/size]
[size=14pt]playrust (by Tom)[/size]
Recently a few MoparScapers decided to give it real good (ayy lmao) to Rust. Tom, Pure and Albi (amongst others) have been playing together for a while now and await any one of you who wishes to join them on their adventures!
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[size=18pt]General Programming[/size]
[size=14pt]Creating a 2d game map? (Brainstorming Ideas) (by my-swagger)[/size]
The community at its finest, brainstorming programming ideas. We love to see threads like this one.
[size=14pt]Introduction to C++ Metaprogramming: Lists, apply, and lambda (by justaguy)[/size]
Justaguy is back with part two of his mini-series of tutorials on C++ meta-programming. If you read the first one you have only seen the tip of the iceberg - enter now into the power of C++!
[size=16pt]Java Programming[/size]
[size=14pt]RS Voice Chat (by Rodgerwilco)[/size]
Some more brainstorming of ideas regarding how voice chat could be implemented within an RS server.
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[size=18pt]Senior Member Feature - Lothy[/size]
This week we have managed to dig up Lothy - an RSC guru and ex-staff member!
The “before” MoparScape?
There wasn’t really a ‘before’ so to speak. I was in high school at the time and addicted to the game. By chance I happened to stumble upon the website after someone mentioned private servers on another forum.
What was the appeal of RuneScape to you?
In hindsight I’m not sure. Probably the illusion of achievement that comes with progression in the game mixed with the social aspect. Having said that I wouldn’t actively participate in another MMORPG nowadays.
Why would you not participate in another MMORPG nowadays?
It’s just a massive time sink.
Sidebar: Was you here when Kaitnieks was a thing?
No, I wasn’t around for kaitnieks. I came across MoparScape and MoparIsTheBest late 2006, so I missed that boat.
What were the first things you did on MoparScape?
The same as every new guy that comes along really. I jumped into developing a server by grabbing one of the “bases” (CheezScape, Project 16, and TestScape IIRC) and hacking together example code.
I think my first “innovation” was to get player immobilisation (for spells like entangle/ice barrage) working. It was through asking this question that I first met javacisnotrecognized (^ on IRC). Except I also saw it as an opportunity to develop my programming skills for the sake of employment, so I studied the language as well.
You mentioned triangle explicitly, why so?
Oh, just because. We had some good times back in the day, with the occasional frivolous kickbannings from IRC. XD But yeah, he did try to help me with that one. It was a case of the blind leading the blind though.
What did you think of the atmosphere in early MSCP, was it friendly, how were the ‘senior’ members, etc?
I always found it fine. Mind you, as a new member it’s often quite impersonal anyway. You join and have a clean slate and that remains the case until you prove your worth. Then you either excel in the community or you make it clear that you’re not really worth having around. Many people over the years have bleated about so-called elitism. But what they don’t realise is that seeing the same questions over and over, and bearing witness to the same pitfalls, is tiring.
A new guy poses a question or something, and to him it’s a novel idea that he has had and trying to resolve. The new guy however doesn’t appreciate the larger context of the community, and the fact that their ideas or problems mightn’t be so unique after all. That invariably frustrates some people, and ultimately leads to what some perceive as mean and unreasonable behaviour. Are they right about some users being mean? Yeah, sometimes. But I can emphasise with people who do get frustrated with new users.
How did you manage to become a staff member, and later an Admin?
Well, good question. If I had to summarise I would say that I was of good character and standing within the community, at least to the extent expected of forum staff. I started as a MoparScape moderator, did good work in that role and was asked to moderate both sites as a global moderator.
At one point there was a guy who went by the alias The Real JDB (or something along those lines). He discovered that he could create new global moderator accounts and decided to do just that. Moparisthebest was unaware of this functionality and frankly the SMF team shouldn’t have had such functionality built into their forum software. So this guy went about creating maybe a half dozen other global moderator accounts for his buddies, and there was a bit of a mess. It culminated in me wildcard IP banning everyone until Moparisthebest could come online and resolve the issue.
So I guess somewhere between that incident and receiving Administrator was when I proved myself credible and trustworthy.
Was there at any point power-struggles within MITB? IIRC you banned Ikiliki to that extent, mind elaborating?
Well the situation with Ikiliki was that he wanted to have his own website. That’s fair enough, right, you can’t fault someone for that. But he leveraged his standing in the community, and his privileges as a staff member, to actively pursue MoparScape members and lead them to his site. I took issue with that. In my eyes it was a form of unjust profiteering from our community’s work. As you say, that particular story culminated in me removing him from the community.
What are you known for in MoparScape now or perhaps a while ago?
Well nowadays probably not much. I have RSC-related software on my GitHub account and that’s still there to this day. I haven’t contributed a great deal to the MoparClassic project but my own Elysium server is a functioning RSC game.
In my hay-day I provided a few cool features. Things like combat zones and the ability to toggle combat modes within the game. That’s one of the more memorable ones anyway.
What kind of work have you done regarding RSPS (public or private)?
Nothing particularly outstanding. Silabsoft and I worked on HybridScape for a while privately but it never really had the impact we wanted. Elysium, as mentioned, is a working RSC server that was designed to provide a high performance and highly concurrent server underpinned by Netty. There’s now a single-threaded version as well which is more easy for programmers who aren’t sufficiently experienced with concurrent software development. I provide the occasional technical guidance to people as well.
How did the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles first draft you as Dongatello - aka “the real Dongatello”?
Well the Dongatello costume was an 18th birthday present. There was an inside joke with a couple of friends about me not being “turtley” enough for the turtle club. This resulted in my very own turtle costume.
It goes without saying that it’s good manners to use things you receive as gifts, so I did - I took my costume and put it on. This led to many laughs and one of my friends took photos on her phone. Of course it was a child-sized costume, so it was a tight fit. I can’t find a link to it. You used to be able to google ‘lothy’ or my full name to find a nice picture of my arse in a turtle outfit.
How is your personal life going?
My personal life is good. I work professionally as a software developer for the state government here and recently received a promotion to Senior Software Developer. I work on a variety of software applications used across different government departments, such as software used by schools for managing students and software used by hospitals for reporting on patients who present with legally notifiable diseases. We also have our bastard child that nobody likes, which is a piece of software that property developers use for receiving approvals and submitting plans. It goes without saying that this particular application makes grown men cry. Still forever alone, but it’s fine
What advice do you have for those who want to be software developers, any insight into the industry, maybe about working for the government too, hows the pay like, etc?
If I had to make one suggestion when it comes to succeeding in any endeavour, including computer science, I would say read voraciously. Consume educational material like it’s going out of fashion.
If you’re looking to be a software developer then my advice is to spend the time practicing. Practice means both reading and writing code, reading books about writing good code, and undertaking a variety of projects that cover the many aspects of computing. If you want to truly excel then, just like any craft, you’ll probably want to do your ten thousand hours to go from zero to hero.
The industry is sometimes hard to describe. Here in Australia, from where I’m standing, it’s good. But there are many others who go on about the sky falling down, about how outsourcing is killing the local industry, and so on.
I mentioned that I currently work in government. Australia has (or had) a two-speed economy driven by our mining boom. I moved to Canberra and took a government job because the company I worked for, which relied on mining clients, basically went under. My hometown essentially had two kinds of software industry: Mining related, and banking related. So that situation was untenable for a software developer coming out of university, and I had little choice but to move - thus my current position in government. It’s a nice job. I work hard, but I could probably get away with doing less. I won’t though because I play to win and want to climb the corporate ladder just for the sake of it.
I wouldn’t necessarily recommend government or the public sector over the private sector though. If there’s one thing that can be said for sure, the grass is not always greener on the other side. Sometimes there’s cool stuff in the private sector, sometimes in the public sector. It depends more on the particular company you work for than the industry you choose.
What is your advice to newcomers, particularly those who want to learn how to code?
My advice to newcomers is to be aware of the credibility and standing of the material you consume. Like any educational material, not all software-related literature is equal. Some books are better than others, some online tutorial sites are better than others.
Secondly, you need to branch out. Too many people seem to want to niche too soon, and while they become quite adept at solving particular problem domain they lack the more generalised skills to take an arbitrary problem and methodically solve it.
I can’t stress enough that software development is the art of problem solving. It’s not just about languages, syntax, tooling and environments. Don’t lose sight of this fact.
And if you’re currently considering programming as a profession but haven’t quite made the jump from RSPS-specific software then I would strongly start thinking outside of the RSPS box.
Do you have any advice to programmers relating specifically to RSPS?
RSPS stuff is fun. For me back in 2006 it was a blend of a game that I enjoyed and a new hobby that I enjoyed. Ultimately where you go with it is up to you. If it’s all about RuneScape and programming is just the means to the end then enjoy yourself and build your server. If it’s about RuneScape but writing the code is the part that matters then keep doing that too. If you’re playing 20 questions with the community then try to do so in a reasonable manner. People will like you a lot more, and want to help you a lot more, if you demonstrate that you’ve made the effort to overcome the hurdles yourself. Similarly, do your research - there’s a good chance that your question is not unique and has been resolved.
But otherwise, just have fun. Finally, if you’ve happened upon programming through RSPS by chance and concluded that you could see yourself doing it professionally then make the leap from RSPS and take on other projects. Practice, practice, practice! Study hard, and consider some form of tertiary education. Depending on where you live you can probably get into IT without tertiary education. However it’s invariably a hard slog to climb the ladder in contemporary society without some form of certification.
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Contributing
I would like to remind everybody that the authoring of this weekly article can be done by anybody who wants to. You can either contribute a section or the entire article - contact Tom for more information.