World in Flames is the computer version of Australian Design Group classic board game. World In Flames is a highly detailed game covering the both Europe and Pacific Theaters of Operations during World War II. If you want grand strategy this game is for you.
"I. Project Management
We are looking at the first week of November, 2009 for product release. " [&o]
Geez, I hope so! I've owned every paper copy of WIF ever released and have waited for a good computer version of this game forever. There is simply nothing like WIF out there, and if this game is done right no other grand strategic WWII game will come close to being as good as WIF.
I honestly don't have time to look through 4+ years of previous posts, but is this version going to take advantage of its translation to the computer to make the naval war better? Paper WIF did the best job of representing the naval war in a grand strategic fashion of any other game out there, but if the computer version can add limited intelligence and fog of war then I think finally we would see a game where the role the navies played on both sides of the conflict might finally be realized.
Only one weapon scared Winston Churchill to the point where he could envision his nation losing the war, the U-boats. This game could finally mirror that fear for a CW player. One weapon made the most contribution to defeating the empire of Japan, the submarine (from all allies involved), and hopefully this game can mirror that carnage that the submarines wrought. Paper WIF came close, but you could always see the pieces on the maps and had a general idea when your opponent was going to move them and their chance to sink enemy warships was never that good IMHO.
The surface fleets also suffered in paper WIF because you always knew where they were and could generally guess where they were going. This game could easily make the naval war just as much if not more fun and exciting as the land and air wars. To me, in paper WIF, the naval war was either over way too soon or was simply a side show to what happened on land. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product!
Oh yeah, LT, USN, 6160, just in case you felt like flaming me for being a bubblehead lover [:D]
Welcome to the forum.[:)]
Changing/revising the WIF rules is not part of my contract. In fact, it is specifically mentioned as something I am NOT doing. Plenty of other work is required to get this puppy out the door without adding new stuff.
Are you asking about the Hidden Task Forces Option?...or a change in the naval rules?
ORIGINAL: Shooterguy
"I. Project Management
We are looking at the first week of November, 2009 for product release. " [&o]
Geez, I hope so! I've owned every paper copy of WIF ever released and have waited for a good computer version of this game forever. There is simply nothing like WIF out there, and if this game is done right no other grand strategic WWII game will come close to being as good as WIF.
I honestly don't have time to look through 4+ years of previous posts, but is this version going to take advantage of its translation to the computer to make the naval war better? Paper WIF did the best job of representing the naval war in a grand strategic fashion of any other game out there, but if the computer version can add limited intelligence and fog of war then I think finally we would see a game where the role the navies played on both sides of the conflict might finally be realized.
Only one weapon scared Winston Churchill to the point where he could envision his nation losing the war, the U-boats. This game could finally mirror that fear for a CW player. One weapon made the most contribution to defeating the empire of Japan, the submarine (from all allies involved), and hopefully this game can mirror that carnage that the submarines wrought. Paper WIF came close, but you could always see the pieces on the maps and had a general idea when your opponent was going to move them and their chance to sink enemy warships was never that good IMHO.
The surface fleets also suffered in paper WIF because you always knew where they were and could generally guess where they were going. This game could easily make the naval war just as much if not more fun and exciting as the land and air wars. To me, in paper WIF, the naval war was either over way too soon or was simply a side show to what happened on land. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product!
Oh yeah, LT, USN, 6160, just in case you felt like flaming me for being a bubblehead lover [:D]
Conflict with the unexpected: two qualities are indispensable; first, an intellect which, even in the midst of this obscurity, is not without some traces of inner light which lead to the truth; second, the courage to follow this faint light. KvC
Are you asking about the Hidden Task Forces Option?...or a change in the naval rules?
I don't remember a hidden task force option in paper WIF, but yes that sounds like an optional rule like that would fit the bill. At least if the contents of a task force were hidden it would add some fog of war. Having limited intelligence (ie. limiting what a player sees of the enemy's forces) would be better.
There's been quite a bit written about paper WIF's number one draw back being the ability to see every counter on the board. There was an optional rule (as I remember, don't own any paper WIF copies any more) where players couldn't unstack anything on the board to add at least a little fog of war. My problem with seeing everything on the board was that it made submarines much less effective. You could simply drive around them or when you had to drive past them ensure you had enough escort to kill any submarine that dared to attack you.
I understand Steve's reply that he's not supposed to change the rules. No problem. Put out the game as written and we'll all be happy (including me)! Something like what I'm talking about could be added as an optional rule or an update later if people ask for it. [:D]
Changing/revising the WIF rules is not part of my contract. In fact, it is specifically mentioned as something I am NOT doing. Plenty of other work is required to get this puppy out the door without adding new stuff.
_____________________________
Steve
Understand, thanks. Like I said, get this game published as is and we'll all be happy [:D] Changes can always come later.
No, I'm an instructor at ATRC, but the rail gun is definately very cool! [X(] I haven't seen it up close yet though. I'll weasel my way in there some time.
Cool, you work at The AEGIS Training & Readiness Center.
For those that don’t surf the net much…
The AEGIS Training and Readiness Center (ATRC) is staffed and maintained by a team of professional military and civilian instructors and technicians who provide training to both enlisted and officer personnel in the skills they will need to operate the United States Navy's most sophisticated warships, the Ticonderoga class cruiser and the Arleigh Burke class destroyer, both equipped with the AEGIS Combat System and the AEGIS Weapons System.
AEGIS (Advanced Electronic Guidance and Instrumentation System) is the US Navy's phased array radar-based combat system. It is also the Greek word for Shield.
Welcome aboard.
University of Science Music and Culture (USMC) class of 71 and 72 ~ Extraneous (AKA Mziln)
Alain (Caquineur) sent me a partially edited version of the Land Unit writeups. I have put Adam and Christo in contact with him with the hope that they will author some of the missing writeups on land units.
BIG SNIP
IX. Glitz (historical video, sound effects, music, historical unit write-ups)
I have Robert on the naval unit writeups with Alain/Adam/Christo working on the same for land units. I am waiting on the sound effects from Jim and the music from Dave. There is no real hurry on the last two, though I would like to have them in hand before mid-August.
Not guilty
Would love to be in a position to help but methinks it was someone else
Alain (Caquineur) sent me a partially edited version of the Land Unit writeups. I have put Adam and Christo in contact with him with the hope that they will author some of the missing writeups on land units.
BIG SNIP
IX. Glitz (historical video, sound effects, music, historical unit write-ups)
I have Robert on the naval unit writeups with Alain/Adam/Christo working on the same for land units. I am waiting on the sound effects from Jim and the music from Dave. There is no real hurry on the last two, though I would like to have them in hand before mid-August.
Not guilty
Would love to be in a position to help but methinks it was someone else
Christo
It is. Christo is the forum member's actual name, not his name in the Matrix Games forums.
Hidden task forces is part of 11.4.3 Task forces(SiF option 21). It reads: "As a further option you can keep your task force marker face down....You can examine your opponents task force display at any time." FYI: Every task force is required to have at least one naval unit in it.
I dont know anyone who plays with this option, because its a headache and time consumer for most people who will want to keep track of information. Plus, there is a limited number of task force markers and task force spaces on the display chart, which limits fog of war along with opponents being able to examine that display chart. MWiF could make a good naval fog of war possible if it addresses the above. I know product one will not have this feature, but possibly in an add on, or "product two"?
ORIGINAL: Shooterguy
ORIGINAL: Jagdtiger14
Are you asking about the Hidden Task Forces Option?...or a change in the naval rules?
I don't remember a hidden task force option in paper WIF, but yes that sounds like an optional rule like that would fit the bill. At least if the contents of a task force were hidden it would add some fog of war. Having limited intelligence (ie. limiting what a player sees of the enemy's forces) would be better.
There's been quite a bit written about paper WIF's number one draw back being the ability to see every counter on the board. There was an optional rule (as I remember, don't own any paper WIF copies any more) where players couldn't unstack anything on the board to add at least a little fog of war. My problem with seeing everything on the board was that it made submarines much less effective. You could simply drive around them or when you had to drive past them ensure you had enough escort to kill any submarine that dared to attack you.
I understand Steve's reply that he's not supposed to change the rules. No problem. Put out the game as written and we'll all be happy (including me)! Something like what I'm talking about could be added as an optional rule or an update later if people ask for it. [:D]
Conflict with the unexpected: two qualities are indispensable; first, an intellect which, even in the midst of this obscurity, is not without some traces of inner light which lead to the truth; second, the courage to follow this faint light. KvC
I have barely gotten into WitP AE and I'm already becoming anxious for the WIF release. If the game is half as good as this forum its gonna be fantastic.
Michel Desjardins,
"Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious" - Oscar Wilde
"History is a set of lies agreed upon" - Napoleon Bonaparte after the battle of Waterloo, june 18th, 1815
A friend of mine was mentioning a while back that we had talked about how it would be cool to have a computer version of WiF in the late 80s...it just took 20 years....and I'm also playing WiTP AE waiting for WiF or a AE patch, whichever comes first.
September 1, 2009 Status Report for Matrix Games’ MWIF Forum
I. Project Management
I am not going to make the first week of November, 2009 for product release.
I really don’t know how long it will take me to fix all the bugs I am seeing. The beta testers discover the bugs, report them to me (oftentimes with saved games so I can quickly reproduce them), I recreate the problem on my computer, fault isolate the bug, fix the code, and then recreate the situation to make sure the bug is actually fixed.
This past month I focused 90% of my time and energy on fixing bugs, and it looks like that is what I will be doing in September too.
Communications
Nothing new from Mike (Players Manual), Jim (sound effects), and Dave (music).
I monitored all the threads in the MWIF World in Flames forum daily and uploaded versions 2.00.02, 2.00.03, 2.00.04, 2.00.05, 2.00.06, and 2.00.08 for the beta testers. Version 2.00.05 was short-lived since I needed to make a correction so Germany would declare war on Poland. About that bug, one of my recent changes was to check if there were no major powers capable of declaring war on minors. That situation comes up regularly in Barbarossa and one of the beta testers pointed out that that subphase of DOW should be skipped. But the logic was mistakenly applied to Germany’s DOW on Poland too, so the war got off to a slow start. Version 2.00.07 was only used by me (not the beta testers).
Orm continues to post his quasi after-action-reports on Barbarossa and Peter is continuing his on the start of Global War. Michael concluded his AAR on the Winter War.
Alain (Caquineur) has been going through the data files, field by field, looking for inconsistencies (primarily in the internal cross references). He has found a few odd bits here and there and Patrice has made the small corrections to the Map and Unit data files. For the most part this is buffing and polishing, though there were some units from the 2007 counter sheets that had a couple numbers changed that we had missed.
Patrice continued converting the existing text from the Players Manual into context sensitive help for the forms. In his spare time he has sent me a few more screen shots of forms for Section 8 of the Players Manual.
Rob Jenkins continues to do an enormous number of naval unit writeups every week.
Alain (Caquineur) sent me an updated version of the Land Unit writeups, which contained new contributions from Adam.
Peter Skoglund made progress on the convoy setups for all the major powers for the Global War scenario.
No communications with Harry Rowland or Chris Marinacci.
Hardware and Software Development Tools
I have not installed ThemeEngine July/2007.
II. Sequence of Play Beta Testing
There were 24 respondents to my request for beta testers and we chose 13, to bring the total back up to 30 active. All of the new beta testers began testing in the beginning of August.
I uploaded six new versions for the beta testers this month, which met my goal of one a week.
Version 2.00.02 (22 changes): fixed the Stay at Sea code so the interface works cleanly, corrected problems with naval movement and naval interceptions. As usual, an odd mixture of other corrections were made.
Version 2.00.03 (31 changes) was mostly to fix bugs in naval combat, especially the use of surprise points. A couple of ground support bugs were corrected, and a bunch of other things were fixed, including several bugs in NetPlay.
Version 2.00.04 (25 changes) had corrections for partisans, USSR reserves, Flyouts, Vichy France, air-to-air combat, and fixing several air missions bugs. I became annoyed enough with the air mission problems that I started a systematic review of the code for all 8 air missions by printing out the code and “desk checking” it. For this version I completed the examination of ground support, port attacks, and strategic bombing. My newly purchased printer (first in 6 years) has the ability to do two-sided printing which made desk checking much easier. Each one of these modules is over 1500 lines of code.
Version 2.00.05 was only in use for 3 hours and replaced by 2.00.06 to correct a bug where Germany did not declare war on Poland.
Version 2.00.06 (30 changes) completed the desk checking for the other 5 air missions. There were changes to the Naval Combat Abort Queue form, air-to-air combat, land combat (to display more details on the calculation of the CRT column and die roll modifiers), anti-aircraft fire, use of surprise points, and effects of surprise impulse on defensive air units.
Version 2.00.07 was never released to the beta testers and just used by me.
Version 2.00.08 (20 changes) reformatted the saved game files to embed the date and time the saved game was made in the saved game file. This change was why version 2.00.07 wasn’t released. Other mods were for returning carrier air units to carriers when insufficient carriers remained, choosing HQs for Offensive chits, merging convoys using the Naval Review Details form, fixing several bugs for captured naval units during the Conquest phase, and correcting Vichy France bugs.
As you can see, the range of bugs is wide, and I haven’t mentioned the more obscure items. To provide some insight into this, the code for the 8 air missions covers ~9 subphases for each. In effect, there are separate code segments for ~75 subphases, just to determine which air units are permitted to fly. That comes out to over 12,000 lines of code. Other code handles the player interface for moving the air units to and from their target hexes, and there are 5 primary forms for processing air missions: air-to-air combat, anti-aircraft fire (2 forms), air attack effects on naval units, and air attack effects on other targets.
Altogether, the code for the air missions is well over 20,000 lines. Recent corrections I have made were to add the word ‘not’ in two places, move a line of code down 2 lines, switch the order in which two lines of code were executed, and move 2 lines of code down 20 lines in a routine. You could think of this as a 20,000 piece jigsaw puzzle. MWIF in toto is 300,000+ lines of code. It is difficult to get every line of code perfect, but that is what is required.
Test Script/Plan
Nothing new.
Game Engine Redesign
Nothing new on rewriting the supply routines.
Units, Map, and Scenarios
Rob continues to generate new naval unit write ups. Alain sent me his current master copy of the land unit writeups, including some new ones from Adam. There were several small changes to the map and unit data files from Patrice & Alain.
Optional Rules
Nothing new.
Saved Games
I changed the format of the saved games to accommodate a strange file date format in Europe. Most of the beta testers in Europe have operating systems that store the date a file was last modified in a format that the standard Delphi code I am using can process correctly. However, for one of the beta testers, every time the program examined the date-last-modified for a file, an error message was generated. I gave up on trying to figure out what the differences were since they were internal to the Windows operating system. Instead I now simply embed the date and time of each saved game’s creation as part of the saved game. There is no need to ever even try to look at the date-last-modified.
Was this problem important enough to warrant fixing? Well, I think of each beta tester as representing ~3% of the customer base. So if the game sells 5000 copies, that means 150 customers would have encountered that fatal error. It is clear to me that every bug has to be fixed. Simply put, software which contains 1 fatal bug is worthless.
III. Player Interface
I spiffed up the Spend Surprise Points form somewhat since I was working on that code anyway. Because there were problems reported with that function in the sequence of play, I spent some time reviewing and revising the code (adding a bunch more comments and renaming variables).
I also revised the Test LAIO Scripts form so it shows more information simultaneously.
I completed revisions to the New Owner form. This is a simple form, used rarely, that lets a player decide the new owner (major power) for units that are conquered. Sometimes the original owner chooses and sometimes the conqueror chooses.
I modified the opening screen so restoring saved games from the AutoSave directories is easy to do. Besides the saves that a player specifically requests, MWIF has the ability to save the game immediately before most of the phases. Some of the phases have the Axis as the phasing side, others have the Allies as the phasing side, and yet others are ‘general’, such as the Weather. For each scenario, MWIF maintains saved games in: Saved Games, Saved Games\AutoSave, Saved Games\AutoSave\Axis, and Saved Games\AutoSave\Allied. All 4 of these directories can now be instantly examined from the opening screen, without having to negotiate the disk file structure.
IV. NetPlay
The beta testers have tested both MWIF and NetPlayTestCom for communicating between computers. No major problems were reported but I need to translate some ‘problems’ into innocuous messages. For example, a MadExcept error message appears when the player tries to connect and he is already connected. The same is true for disconnecting. When I next get a chance to spend time on this I’ll get bidding for major power groups functioning. To that end, I have revised some code in the Start New Game module.
V. PBEM
Nothing new.
VI. AI Opponent
I spent a couple of days working on this, more or less putting all the foundation pieces in place for the next two steps of parsing scripts. That will leave me with just one step remaining to complete the parser.
Peter has been posting alternate convoy setups for each of the major powers.
VII. Documentation
I made some changes to the Players Manual Section 8, adding a few screen shots with accompanying text. There are a couple dozen forms in that section that still need some work. Section 6 is missing a lot of material on the Standing Orders forms.
VIII. Learning Aids (tutorials, training video, embedded help text)
I revised the first Training Video so it uses, and explains, the revised Opening Screen.
One mini-project I completed this month was to identify all the forms that need help messages. My previous work on that was over a year ago, and since then there were a lot of additions and a few deletions. After the dust settled, the count changed from 97 to 151 forms with help messages. Patrice is copying the text from the Players Manual for inclusion in the Help Content.txt file, but there are about 50 for which I need to write a few lines.
IX. Glitz (historical video, sound effects, music, historical unit write-ups)
I have Robert working on the naval unit writeups with Alain/Adam working on the same for land units. Robert has been getting some help from Mike Dubost on the submarine writeups. I am waiting on the sound effects from Jim and the music from Dave.
X. Marketing
Von Paul (forum member) has shown some interest it setting up the fan site but he says that the previous work done by Andy Johnson won’t be usable. The problem is Andy was using licensed software ($). Paul said he wanted to better understand what he was signing up for before getting seriously involved.
Remaining Tasks
I Tasks requiring a small number of hours
1. Historical video
Integrate these into the program (randomizing when they are shown).
2. Sound effects
Awaiting Jim’s complete set of sound effects, after which I will integrate them into the program.
3. Music
Awaiting Dave’s complete set of music, after which I will integrate them into the program.
4. Unit writeups
Rob continues to generate more naval unit writeups and Alain is editing the land unit writeups. I simply replace the old files with the new ones when they send me updates.
5. Players Manual
9 of 11 sections are done.
6. Context sensitive help
I need to write a few lines for ~50 minor forms that pop up during play. For example, there is a special form for choosing which of a group of bombers to clear through during air-to-air combat.
7. Auxiliary files
These are starter sets for new players so they can jump right into playing the game without having to make a lot of preparatory decisions. I just need to round out my collection.
8. Tutorials and training video
The Training Video is 80% done. In August I worked on debugging naval movement and combat, which needs to be perfect before I can record the training video on that topic.
9. Player Interface
With the exception of the Standing Order forms for PBEM, I have finished the forms (150+ at last count).
II Tasks requiring a medium number of hours
10. Optional Rules
For the optional rules that I want to finish, I need to fix bugs and bring them up-to-date with rules changes since 2003.
11. PBEM
The technical task of sending and receiving emails from within the program hasn’t been coded. Work on the standalone program (running on a third party computer) to generate random numbers hasn’t begun. The large task here concerns the Standing Orders: defining and instantiating internal variables, then displaying them in the forms so players can review and revise them.
III Tasks requiring a large number of hours
12. Sequence of Play
There are still tons of bugs related to the sequence of play. I just have to “keep on keeping on” with correcting them.
13. NetPlay
There isn’t a lot to do directly related to NetPlay, but the underlying performance of the program in generating Game Record Log Entries has to be perfect. That’s because the GRLs are sent to each computer in a networked game to keep them up-to-date with the decisions of all players. I need to instantiate, with actual data, the form used to monitor internet communications while a game is in progress.
14. AI Opponent
I need to finish writing the parser. Converting the AIO decision making that I have written out in plain text into rules will require a lot of time. Which then leaves the task of calibrating the rules’ performance so the AIO plays well.
Version 2.00.05 would have make a very quick/short game of WiF indeed! [:D]
Thank you very much for your report. [:)]
Michel Desjardins,
"Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious" - Oscar Wilde
"History is a set of lies agreed upon" - Napoleon Bonaparte after the battle of Waterloo, june 18th, 1815
It seems now that MWiF is entering it's final phase before completion. Notwithstanding the number of bugs reported, I think we can dust off our old rule books, or, the latest 'RAW'. If not November, I don't expect it to take much longer. As when I first played regular WiF, I probably won't be bidding too high. Convoys and Cruisers should be a very nice touch, as I've never played with those options.
