OFFICIAL NEWS

RyZtart wird der Standard-Installer für Windows und Linux

Seit einigen Monaten befindet sich RyZtart, unser neuer Ryzom-Installer, -Patcher und -Launcher, im Betatest für Linux und Windows und in der Entwicklung für MacOS.
Wir freuen uns, ankündigen zu können, dass RyZtart nun der Standard-Installer auf der Ryzom-Webseite ( www.ryzom.com) für Windows- und Linux-Plattformen ist!
Die Installation von RyZtart erfordert nicht die Deinstallation des alten Ryzom-Installationsprogramms. Die beiden können ohne Probleme zusammenarbeiten.

RyZtart macht Ihr Leben einfacher

RyZtart bietet eine Verbindungsoption zu Ihrem Ryzom-Konto. Einmal verbunden, müssen Sie das Passwort bei den nächsten Sitzungen nicht mehr eingeben. Außerdem erlaubt RyZtart Ihnen, sich direkt mit einem Charakter zu verbinden, ohne das Auswahlfenster zu durchlaufen.

RyZtart ist Vielseitig und bietet hilfreiche Module

RyZtart ist vollständig modular aufgebaut und soll mit Hilfe von Utility-Modulen neue Möglichkeiten bieten.

Hier ist eine nicht erschöpfende Liste von Modulen, von denen wir denken, dass sie interessant zu entwickeln sind und für die wir alle Spieler aufrufen, die Kenntnisse in der Python-Programmierung haben und helfen wollen:

• Modul zum Ersetzen von Texturen durch ihre hochauflösende Version.
• Modul zum automatischen Sichern von Speichern/Ordnern in einem externen Ordner (Dropbox-Ordner, USB-Stick, etc.).
• Modul zur automatischen Sicherung von Speichern/Ordnern in der Ryzom Cloud für abonnierte Accounts (sogar für jeden Account, wenn die Ressourcen ausreichend sind).
• Forge-Modul, das es Spielern, die zur Verbesserung von Ryzom beitragen wollen, erlaubt, automatisch die notwendigen Tools für Entwicklung, Grafik, Wiki, etc. zu installieren.

RyZtart verwendet das pywebview GUI ( https://pywebview.flowrl.com), sodass es auch möglich wäre, Webanwendungen zu integrieren.

RyZtart-Quellcode

Der Quellcode von RyZtart ist hier zu finden: https://gitlab.com/ryzom/ryztart

Für weitere Informationen stehen wir Ihnen gerne zur Verfügung.

Das Ryzom-Team

If i have enabled /chatLog (creates a chatlog in the save folder) - it will also went to cloud?

Any chat log will be sent to cloud by default.

If it's a requested feature, we can add an option to send chat logs to cloud but will be disabled by default.

when i install RyzTart, will it detect my current installation and jorgensen, altonio etc? Or will i need to copy over the save folder to a new place?

Ryztart use the same folder than ryzom_installer, so you don't need move the save folder (but made a copy are always a good idea)

Ryztart will try to found all your profiles and import them, if not, you can add it yourself.

cool :) thanks

I'm quite concerned about this new tool. I'm sorry to say that, but it does not seems to match the code quality I expected.

So, I downloaded it from the Ryzom website and got an archive which contains 2 files : "Install Ryztart" which is a dynamically linked x86-64 executable which doesn't have the executable bit set and "package.bin" which is a shell script followed by a blob of data. No documentation of any kind, we are expected to guess what to do with those files. Since "package.bin" is the only file with the executable bit set, I try to start it :



Please note that, despite the critical failure, the soft doesn't exit. Instead, it stalls until you kill it.

Starting it without X installed has the self-update to fail, which is quite strange but still ok. However, the missing dependency on the Python humanize module is unacceptable: it fails even if the "python-humanize" package is installed on the system and therefore it looks like an issue with a virtualenv. Such failure makes me feel like this soft has never been tested before live deployment.

Before judging this soft too harshly because of this mistake, I had a look at the source code. Let's have a look at the start.sh script, which is 7 lines long and should be the first thing to start :

#!/bin/bash
REVISION=$(git rev-list HEAD --count)
sed -i "s/version_minor = .*/version_minor = $REVISION/" data/app.ini
rsync -a --exclude build --exclude __pycache__ --exclude builds/RyZtart --exclude dist --exclude env  --exclude .git --exclude app.ini --exclude t.py ../ryztart-dev/ .

source env/bin/activate
python -X pycache_prefix=cache ryztart.py $*

Line 1 (the shebang): not portable
Line 2 (define $REVISION): Why am I supposed to be in a git repository? Why am I even supposed to run git in order to play a game? Why is the number of commit considered as some king of software version? This is just all wrong.
Line 3 (sed) : Why does the program overrides a configuration file at each startup? Where the hell is this "data" directory where this configuration file is supposed to be since it's not in the git repository?
Line 4 (rsync) : Why using rsync to start a game? Why having such an external dependency (just like git)? By the way, where is the list of those external dependencies? What is this "../ryztart-dev/" directory supposed to be and when is it created and populated?
Line 5 : The only correct line since it's empty.
Line 6 (virtualenv) : So, here we activate a python virtualenv which has never been created…
Line 7 (python) : Using $* is quite dangerous, "$@" (with the double quotes) would be a much safer choice.

The sources are obviously not meant to be used by anyone else than Ryzom's devs. With absolutely zero documentation on how to use those sources to get the distributed executable, it's not that useful.

In fact, because the executable stalls instead of exiting, we can inspect what is happening : package.bin extracts some compressed files into a temporary directory (the path is visible on the error log). Theses files are:

• The "app" directory (visible in the sources) with all of its junk.
• A cache directory.
• A "python" directory which looks like a virtualenv.
• An executable shell script named "install" and visibly generated during the creation of the final executables. Note that its purpose is to start "ryztart.py", just like "start.sh" does but.
• Various files like logs, a shared library, a desktop entry and so on.

Looking deeper into the dependencies only raises more concerns. One example is the way Python packages are installed :

• Some are installed via pip (good).
• Some are manually downloaded from pypa (bad, pip is included by default with the Python binary installers since Pyhton 3.4).
• Some are downloaded from Ryzom's website (bad).
• Some are downloaded from Ulukyn's personal repository (very-bad).

Seriously, just chose one method to install packages and stick to it. This is a mess.

By the way, you should have a look at the Python packaging user guide. Python packages are a mess to deploy correctly, this is the way to keep things as clean as possible.

I'm quite afraid to look further, I even found some compiled libraries (WTF???). I would really prefer that our subscription's money goes to actual Ryzom development instead of this absurd "installer". There is many bugs waiting to be solved and this "installer" will only add new ones AND prevent new players from joining the game.

Anyway, I won't use this "thing" and I would recommend that nobody else's does.

I'm running Linux Mint 20.

Instead of running package.bin, i made "Install RyzTart" executable and ran that, because it seemed like the right file to start the installation. That worked and it installed Ryztart and logged in.

I had a look at the options, profiles, shortcuts, etc. Then i hit Play, and all it did was bring up the old ryz-launch launcher. I had to log in again the old way. Ryz-launch Account was even pre-filled to a different account than i had logged in for RyzTart.

I also had to log in a third time off of ryz tart to get the rocket chat going.

So ... isn't this just an extra step for logging in? I could have saved one step by going straight to the old launcher.

Agree.

That's strange, by login on Ryztart you should have a list of all you chars, select a char, click play and automatically connect the char, don't need enter the login and don't need select the char.

Can you contact me for check ?

o7 i dm'ed you on rocket chat

Ok, after talking with Ulukyn it turns out I wasn't using Ryztart correctly. I hadn't selected any server, account and character in the bottom right drop-down lists, so it was defaulting to the old login method.

So as of now, Ryztart seems to be working fine for me.

Tried it out,

Current setup:
Steam all in 1 folder (ryzom files + save)

Ryztart setup:
used steam/common/ryzom as game files location
used steam/common/ryzom/Ryztart as Ryztart location
c/users/magez/appdata/local/ryzom/0/ as save location

profiles/shortcuts:
it took a little while to figure out how to setup the alt account, first i added it manually in the profile and shortcut section, after that i used the ryztart login window to auto add the profiles and shortcuts.
manually i couldn't get it to validate(edit) c/users/.../0 for the alt so main and alt used the same save folder. automatic and then edit the profile/shortcut to validate c/users/.../0 worked right away somehow.

shortcuts to characters:
shortcuts get auto added when you create a new character IF you are logged in to the account on ryztart, if you are not logged in on ryztart and use the shortcuts to login to an account+character then use the ingame menu to go to character selection screen and make a new character it doesn't get added to ryztart shortcuts unless you login to that account again on ryztart>login.

python/ryztart windows:
what i didn't like is the phyton window and rystart window staying open, it messes with tabbing from main to alt, would be nice if there is a flag/checkbox to have it minimize to system tray when launching a certain profile (so when i flag it at alt profile/shortcut it auto minimizes to system tray after i log alt) or at least have the option to manually minimize it to system tray.

Updates:
some files were updated by ryztart, when i validated in steam(at the end after testing) again 25 files were re-downloaded.
by ryztart:
Ryzom/nel_drv_direct3d_win_r.dll
Ryzom/nel_drv_dsound_win_r.dll
Ryzom/nel_drv_fmod_win_r.dll
Ryzom/nel_drv_openal_win_r.dll
Ryzom/nel_drv_opengl_win_r.dll
Ryzom/nel_drv_xaudio2_win_r.dll
Ryzom/ryzom_client_r.exe
Ryzom/ryzom_configuration_qt_r.exe
Ryzom/crash_report.exe
Ryzom/client_default.cfg
Ryzom/d3dcompiler_43.dll
Ryzom/d3dx9_43.dll
Ryzom/fmod64.dll
Ryzom/forum.url
Ryzom/msvcp120.dll
Ryzom/msvcp120_win64.dll
Ryzom/msvcr120.dll
Ryzom/msvcr120_win64.dll
Ryzom/ryzom.ico
Ryzom/ryzom.url
Ryzom/ryzom_client_patcher.exe
Ryzom/ryzom_installer_qt_r.exe
Ryzom/upgd_nl.bat
Ryzom/X3DAudio1_7.dll
Ryzom/cfg/client_gpu_1.cfg
Ryzom/cfg/client_ram_512.cfg
Ryzom/cfg/client_vram_128.cfg
Ryzom/cfg/client_gpu_3.cfg
Ryzom/cfg/client_vram_64.cfg
Ryzom/cfg/client_ram_256.cfg
Ryzom/cfg/client_sound_buffer.cfg
Ryzom/cfg/client_gpu_4.cfg
Ryzom/cfg/client_gpu_2.cfg
Ryzom/cfg/client_cpu_4.cfg
Ryzom/cfg/client_cpu_3.cfg
Ryzom/cfg/client_vram_32.cfg
Ryzom/cfg/client_cpu_1.cfg
Ryzom/cfg/client_cpu_2.cfg
Ryzom/data/data_common.bnp
Ryzom/data/examples.bnp
Ryzom/data/animation_fx.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/animation_fx_set.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/animset_list.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/attack_list.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/automaton_list.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/building.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/continent.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/creature.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/death_impact.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/emot.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/faction.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/flora.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/forage_source.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/fx.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/id_to_string_array.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/item.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/light_cycle.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/lmconts.packed
Ryzom/data/mission_icon.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/outpost.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/outpost_building.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/outpost_squad.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/plant.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/race_stats.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/sbrick.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/sheets_packer.cfg
Ryzom/data/sitem.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/skill_tree.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/sky.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/sphrase.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/succes_chances_table.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/text_emotes.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/titles.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/visual_slot.tab
Ryzom/data/vs_index.txt
Ryzom/data/weather_function_params.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/weather_setup.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/world.packed_sheets
Ryzom/data/fonts/ryzom.ttf
Ryzom/data/fonts/ryzom_monospace.ttf
Ryzom/unpack/tmp
Ryzom/unpack/ryzom_live.version
Ryzom/unpack/ryzom_00881.idx
Ryzom/unpack/exedll_win64.bnp
Ryzom/unpack/packedsheets.bnp
Ryzom/unpack/cfg.bnp
Ryzom/unpack/fonts.bnp

by steam:
Ryzom/nel_drv_direct3d_win_r.dll
Ryzom/nel_drv_dsound_win_r.dll
Ryzom/nel_drv_fmod_win_r.dll
Ryzom/nel_drv_openal_win_r.dll
Ryzom/nel_drv_opengl_win_r.dll
Ryzom/nel_drv_xaudio2_win_r.dll
Ryzom/ryzom_client_r.exe
Ryzom/ryzom_configuration_qt_r.exe
Ryzom/crash_report.exe
Ryzom/cfg/client_gpu_1.cfg
Ryzom/cfg/client_ram_512.cfg
Ryzom/cfg/client_vram_128.cfg
Ryzom/cfg/client_gpu_3.cfg
Ryzom/cfg/client_vram_64.cfg
Ryzom/cfg/client_ram_256.cfg
Ryzom/cfg/client_sound_buffer.cfg
Ryzom/cfg/client_gpu_4.cfg
Ryzom/cfg/client_gpu_2.cfg
Ryzom/cfg/client_cpu_4.cfg
Ryzom/cfg/client_cpu_3.cfg
Ryzom/cfg/client_vram_32.cfg
Ryzom/cfg/client_cpu_1.cfg
Ryzom/cfg/client_cpu_2.cfg
Ryzom/data/data_common.bnp
Ryzom/data/examples.bnp

conclusion:
overall i think ryztart needs to be simplified for the public(newcomers), but it looks great, maybe a little overwhelming.
i think most do not use yubo or gingo (especially newcomers) and seeing that from the get go is a little confusing.
on the servers tab "changing the installation location of ryzom will not move it but create a new one" should mention you can select an existing location if you have it (like non default locations).

Will this be used for installs via Steam too?

Steam already has an installer and an updater that works very well. So Ryztart will not be used. Or maybe later with modules, but the game launch and update will be via Steam (like GoG Galaxy launcher do)