design Deprecation of VB6 Client soon

[Ueda]

Since launching the Inochi Client at the start of 2021, we've got it to a state where most people, if not all, are better off using it. Some of the major advantages it brings are obvious as a player. For most people, it will bring a performance boost, has new features that weren't possible before and there's no need to install Visual Basic runtime files (COM Components) to run it, which means no more pesky runtime errors.

But we've talked a lot about what it brings to the table. Today I'm here to talk about what keeping the Old client around costs and why we have to deprecate it soon.

The increased workload of double updates
It's hard to push updates with on both clients. There's a separate procedure for pushing updates on both so we have to do double the work. Also, some of the art has to be reworked into different formats for it to work on the old client.

We're effectively maintaining, updating and supporting two games at the moment. Two sets of it's own troubles and issues. When an important bug is found on one, it might have to be patched on both. To add an item to the game, we have to update both etc.

This slows down development, and this alone outweighs the benefits of maintaining the old client.

A new engine, with new possibilities, bogged down by the old client's limitations
There's new features that we've added and will be adding that cannot be done in our old engine. Some examples that we've worked on in the past few months that simply wouldn't have been possible before include oAuth login system (which also means social media login), Housing System & Furniture System.

There's optimizations that can be made, but not without losing support for the new client. We've done a lot of this in the past few months as well.  eg. LZMA Compression (Modern compression library). Once the next update is up, the new client will download and cache maps faster than ever before.

There's features we want to add and shaders that we want to use, but will only be possible on the new client as well. Such as a way to recolor hairstyles to any color you want on the spectrum.

Better debugging
With everyone on the New Client, regardless of how it performs for the individual, it will give us valuable information on how to solve remaining issues and improve performance across the board. We've added a lot more debugging information, along with what's available through 3rd party resources for modern .NET software, we will be able to handle issue reports that crop up better.

We've also been able to fix a lot of major issues that have long been impossible to on the new client, thanks to having Visual Studio .NET to work with, better debugging tools. Visual Basic 6 was deprecated in the early 2000s, the IDE doesn't even have Mouse scrollwheel support. That's the kind of limitations we've had to work with all this time.

Conclusion
There's a lot we can't do until we finally get past the hurdle of finally deprecating our ancient technology. As much as it's sad to say good bye to the old client and the work environment I've been using for 15 years, and 7 years for Nin Online. It's time to say good bye and move towards better days.

This is also going to be a one-way street. Once we make this move, it will never be possible to go back because of how major the upgrade is going to be and how much data is going to be converted... but it's one we have to delve into bravely.

I hope for everyone's understanding and support. If you haven't already moved over to the new client, please do so by downloading the new installer on the Download section. It also supports Macintosh!

PS: For people who are having issues using the new client, part of the deprecation of the old client involves removing some components that were causing that issue. So it will hopefully be working when the update comes.

Regards,
Ueda

[Music]

Cheers for the hard work guys, we know alot of the community gives you shit for not working at their desired pace but that doesn't mean we appreciate all the effort you put in nin online, good work you and wolf! 

[Seth]

Yeah I coded that client a lot, but I am glad we are finally moving away from Visual Basic 6. Visual Basic 6 uses C++, which is why we used it so long. Other than that, it was a terrible programming language.