James, I think part of the problem might be that you changed that file so much and have very limited comments in it that doing a diff against the current version of the file shows almost nothing matches up. This makes it nearly impossible for anyone to have any idea of what is going on other than reading your code line by line and figuring out what it does the hard way.
Also, there have been many combat changes starting around the time that you released this file. Many of them have been looked at very closely and everyone had input into the resulting final code. The recent changes to the damage bonus code are quite amazing. And there have been quite a few others. With the complete reformat of the file from it's original state, it would make adding these new changes a very involved process.
It would be best if you could simply post the changes you made individually the way that KLS asked for in the code submissions sticky like this:
In attack.cpp, change this:
to this:
or
In attack.cpp, remove this line:
and replace it with this:
Then we can see exactly what you are changing and easily evaluate if your changes are a good improvement.
I realize that it is hard to post it in that format when there are many changes, but it shouldn't take nearly as long as it took to write the actual code.
The main problem here is that everyone on the project has limited time to invest in it. We do have many new people with the ability to update the code that were added recently, so we can definitely get changes moving much quicker than ever. But I think asking anyone to completely evaluate the entire attack.cpp to many compare and find what has been changed is asking alot and would require quite a bit of time.
Not that it actually means anything, but I see that your join date is Sep 2008. I almost have to assume that you have been either involved or following this project for quite some time even though your account is new. This is because for someone to join for the first time and within a few days to rewrite one of the core components of the entire EQEmu code, is nearly impossible. If you have been involved in the project before, it wouldn't hurt to know who you were. Due to the amount of time it would take to evaluate your changes in the code, having some kind of reputation would certainly escalate the chance of one of the capable people to actually check it out. Currently, the only people I would trust completely to rewrite attack.cpp would be KLS and Derision.
Replacing an entire file makes it hard to track down and resolve the cause of problems/bugs if any are found. Putting your file in and testing it out is definitely an option, but I don't see any way this could be put into the official source download until the entire thing was evaluated. Which is why I think if it is possible, you should try to post your changes to it line by line. The problem with us trying to diff your file against the official one is that you reformatted the entire file moving brackets around, changing tabs into spaces, and other reformatting. I don't think cleaning up a file format is bad, but it isn't something you really want to do at the same time you are doing other changes. I would try to get the changes done first, then maybe take the official file and not change anything in it other than the format and resubmit that. By doing both at the same time, it just makes reading the diff a pretty involved process instead of just seeing clearly what code was changed.
I am sorry if any of this offended you in any way, as it wasn't meant to. I hope you can understand my perception of why your submission hasn't had very much attention. Some of the other mods and devs may have different reasons, but this is just my take on it. With all of the normal code submissions that have been made lately and some that each of the devs/mods have been working on themselves, it is hard to find the time needed to devote to evaluating your file changes. But, I am positive that if you posted them the normal way, they would definitely get reviewed and if they were found to be an improvement of fix, they would get added ASAP.
Most importantly, I hope you aren't upset by me saying any of this. I certainly don't speak for the entire team. And we definitely don't mean to scare off talented, helpful and productive coders. Please be patient with us, and if possible, try to keep code submissions in the standard format so we can quickly and easily review the code and then test it. But, always feel free to post if you have any concerns or if you think your code is being ignored or may have been forgotten about. We really appreciate any and all code submissions as does the rest of the community when they get to reap the benefits of it
