Official To‐Do List - Black-Tek/BlackTek-Server GitHub Wiki

Welcome All,

Since this is an Open Source project and many users have become interested in it's goals, and because it helps me to become more organized, I have decided to sit down and formally construct an "Official" To-Do List. With that being said, some of the things on the list have "prerequisites" and "sub-tasks" that go with them. I have not gone so far as to find and list every single prerequisite and task necessary for the completion of every item on the list, but instead I tried to give the entries assigned keywords that sort of act as labels, by providing you with more information about what is expected for that entry to become completed. It is also worth noting that there are already 280 commits worth of changes to this project by the time I created this official listing (1.0 is the only official release at this point in time), and so there are literally dozens of other changes worth knowing about that you can find in the commit list, and also in each release's download contains a full list of all commits, as well as an abbreviated listing of changes per release.

Keywords:

Refactor - to make a lot of changes within a given system or subsystem, often changing how some internals work

Redesign - to change design of a system or subsystem, this usually includes its interface as well as many internals

OverHaul - is when a system needs a massive amount of changes done, this often includes both a refactor and redesign

Milestone - is when the goal can contain many smaller tasks which qualify and/or is a pretty big achievement with a fair amount of work

CodeName - is used to give a specific goal a short hand name to be referenced for goals that require this one to be completed first

Requires - is used to mark a goal as depending on another goal (which will be named after with >> ) to be completed first

Now that you understand the context those keywords provide, and you also understand that this list doesn't list every single change needed in detail, let's have a look at the list!

To-Do Main Goals as of this original publish date: 02/09/2025

Major Changes

Milestone: Replace OTB format
Milestone: Replace OTBM format
Milestone: Redesign: All Pathfinding Datastructures with data oriented approach
Milestone: CodeName: << SPC << Replace all (applicable) raw pointers with appropriate smart pointer
Milestone: Provide alternate implementations for pathfinding algorithms
Milestone: Fully featured Error Handling System with logging, dedicated thread, priority levels, custom error handling and more
Milestone: Establish a full fledged CLI for the server
Milestone: CodeName: << OBO << Optimized Database Operations: for example Players and Items as binary load/unload from Mysql
Milestone: Overhaul: Requires: >> OBO >> Drop Mysql in favor of binary serialization with Cap'n'proto.
Milestone: Build a custom and extendible network protocol
Milestone: Overhaul: Monster and NPC AI - State machine for intelligence, extendible (if able) temperaments, coroutines and possible dedicated thread/thread-pool or fiber
Milestone: New NPC Interface (the intent is to add more rpg type features with an easier to use interface, and drop the old npc lua libs)
Refactor: AddEvent - Either implement safety with proper object validation through lookup, or look for alternatives like coroutines as a replacement
Milestone: Full Fledged Sound API, including dedicated packets (not based on tibia's sound protocol)
Milestone: Replace all Tibia specific code - strip down to bare minimum lua, and restart
Milestone: Create up to date documentation to be included as offline documentation as well as hosted on the github
Milestone: Critically analyze code for locations where async or other types of concurrency or parallelism can be beneficial and implement where applicable and beneficial
Milestone: - Critically analyze running code for any and all memory problems, such as leaks, ect, and resolve those issues
Milestone: Provide a robust and powerful lua standard library
Milestone: Replace all of XML with alternative (TOML)
Milestone: Implement Thread Pooling and Coroutines where appropriate
Milestone: Create advanced metrics system specifically for the combat, to enable clear indicators to use for balancing combat in game
Overhaul: Optimize Decay system
Milestone: Overhaul: Augments 2.0 - negative damage support and great many other new features, as well as a rewrite for optimization
Milestone: Requires: >> SPC >> RAII is Life: enforce RAII idiom on code wherever possible
Milestone: Multi-world support
Refactor: Talkactions and Spells (Spells become abilities)
Milestone: New Advanced Custom Spawn System
Milestone: Complete Design and support for Zones
Milestone: Create dynamic event/notification system extendible through the front end
Milestone: Add administration interface for Gods, GM's, ect. Server Owner account has greater access than all for creating new groups and ranks, handling logs, ect, even from a normal player
Milestone: Advanced Player Simulation
Milestone: Create Item Spawning system, for things like renewable resource generation
Milestone: Create "Regions" and "Dungeons" system in mapeditor and server
Milestone: Replace all STL containers with GTL containers
Milestone: Overhaul: Remove all virtualization inheritance (cylinders, thing, tile)
Milestone: New Guild System with tons of stuff like guild buffs, wars, ect
Milestone: Overhaul: Event Systems - Change all event systems for can, do, on {first one a boolean event callback, second one an event registered for variable manipulation, and last one would be a void type that just triggers}
Milestone: Overhaul: Lean and Mean - Port as much possible hardcoded logic to lua. We want the engine to only worry about its jobs.
Milestone: Pass by Reference when possible
Milestone: Memory Pooling where it counts
Milestone: Optimizations Big & Small for all Vital Systems
Milestone: Reorder all applicable Class Member Fields (for memory alignment optimization)
Milestone: Remove as much Top-Down Inheritance as possible; Replace with encoded types, metatyping, composition and bottom up inheritance
Milestone: Modernize all old C++ code
Milestone: Overhaul: Combat - Combat is a heavily weighted hotpath with lots of loops, recursion and duplicated checks throughout its main call stacks, as well as many other things holding it back, it needs completely reworked and built with optimization in mind
Milestone: Extendible Inventory (player's slots)
Milestone: Extendible/Custom Skils
Milestone: Extendible/Custom Stats (hp, mana, soul)
Milestone: Overhaul: Conditions (possibly replace with buffs/curses)
Milestone: World Building/Crafting (homes, guild halls, farms, ect.)
Milestone: RPC API for Administration, Connection Handling (for like voice nodes, or proxy communication), ect, utilizing Cap'n'proto
Milestone: Overhaul: Items - Item class is a very heavy class, and so is item type, these classes could be redesigned with a data oriented approach and that would make a players imprint on the CPU reduced exponentially
Milestone: Advanced Weather Systems and API
Milestone: World Events, things that are randomly occurring but are permanently effecting the world
Milestone: Address All To-do's in comments in the code
Milestone: Update bootstraps to handle everything necessary for getting started (this means website, database, ect)
Rework: Workflows - to reduce actions time, provide more efficient releases and cleanups, ect.
Rework: Modal Windows - to be more intuitive
Milestone: Proper and Structured Namespacing
Milestone: Tell it to the Compiler! - offloading code to compile time, including utilization of const, constexpr, meta, static, ect
Overhaul: Lua Interface - transition towards LuaObject approach
Milestone: Connection Request Packet Flood Protection
Milestone: Transition to a custom ECS type architecture
Milestone: Move experience and level to Creature class, with the option for them to be disabled on a per creature basis
Milestone: Implement other options for experience formula's and skill rates
Milestone: Sort and Organize all Class Members, implementing proper inlining while doing so

Smaller Changes

Update to C++23
Add augments support to items.xml/toml ✅
Remove current migrations and update schema
Drop 0.x TFS function's compatibility support
Introduce Crafting with blueprint(s) configurable
Block Advertising system
Game Store
Add packet compression support and implementation
Add extendible custom resources such as, wood, stone, leather, ect
Add Durability as a possible feature to enable/disable
Rework Scheduler/Dispatcher to reduce waits, coroutines are vital here
Revamp Quest System or remove it
Achievements system
Bounties (PVE and PVP). This could be done in lua
Cleanup all old LuaJIT code
Update licensing information for clarity in what the duo licensing means and how GPL still applies
Cleanup and restructure premake lua code
Replace Default Map
Custom Storages available on all creatures (if its not already like that), and accounts as well
Sort, organize and manage properly all include's, and possibly update header guards to pragma
Bestiary/Pokedex/Catalog Type System for all monsters (not to be made based on tibia's implementation)
Extendible Races, probably through toml
Eliminate Singleton Patterns
Change Code Formatting Style (I have been developing my own preference and will use clang-format for applying to whole codebase)
Create and establish a proper Project, timeline and project automation for this server, as well as sort, organize and detail this to-do list contents as milestones and issues