When?

[Shannon V. OKeets]

February1, 2008 Status Report for Matrix Games’ MWIF Forum

Accomplishments of January

Project Management
While my heart wants to release MWIF at Origins 2008 my head says December 2008 is more reasonable. No one is more upset by this change than me. What consumes hundreds of hours of my time are inexplicable bugs. However, I am still planning on attending Origins 2008 and demonstrating MWIF with multi-player capability over a network there.

I had a long talk with Erik Rutkins at Matrix Games and we worked MWIF’s release into Matrix’s schedule for 2008. Happily, Matrix will be providing the music, sounds effects, and historical video for the game, relieving me of that task. All I need to do is identify what items are needed and provide a description of their content/purpose and duration (how long the item should run).

In addition, Erik says they can work with the WordPerfect files that I having been generating for the Player’s Manual, and edit them into the standard form Matrix uses for published manuals. Along that line, for MWIF Erik is looking into the possibility of changing from their standard 7 inch by 5 inch manual which has an upper page limit of 200 pages. I expect the MWIF Player’s manual to run to 150 full size pages (8 ½ by 11) and close to 400 if printed on 7 by 5. So perhaps the manual will be split into two volumes. But that is up to Erik and Dave to decide.

I consolidated all my different task lists into one long one. The first page is my daily task list and I update that first thing each morning. On good days I revise and reprint it during the day. The second section is a structured list of task items. That’s in an outline format and let’s me quickly find all the tasks related to NetPlay , Optional Rules, the Player Interface, and so on. Included within each task are cross-references to bug reports. The last section is a chronological list of bug reports by version number. Attached to each bug report are any notes I have made while fault isolating and correcting it.

Accompanying the master task list is a spreadsheet laying out the tasks by month, with each cell showing the number of hours to do the task. I keep that compressed to one page. As items are completed, I expand other items, so the spreadsheet always takes up 1 page.

Now if there were only more hours in a day, ...

Communications
Nothing from Rob Armstrong (graphics). All he has left are splash screens (2) and box art. I hope to get draft splash screens from him this month and the final versions in March.

Dan Hatchen has been hired by Matrix Games to work on NetPlay and PBEM. There have been some delays it getting this underway but he and I are now working together on NetPlay. My revised schedule has NetPlay technical code done in March and the technical code for PBEM in May.

Patrice provided me with Harry Rowland’s answers to World in Flames Frequently Asked Questions. There ended up being 375 total! Patrice has also continued to be a tremendous help on the map and tutorials - amongst other things.

I monitored all the threads in the MWIF World in Flames forum daily and uploaded versions 7.00 and 7.01 to the beta testers. The beta testers send me numerous bug reports for each new release.

Robert Nebel (Nebert) continues to work on a test plan for the beta testers.

I haven’t heard from the unit description coordinators recently, but with the change in schedule, they will have more time to finish those tasks too.

No communications with Chris Marinacci.

I heard again from Peter Skoglund who wants to work with me on the language for the AIO. I have been copying Richard Dazeley on those email exchanges.

I talked with Fernando about printing the entire world map. The next step is to go into more technical details with some of the people who work for him.

Software Development Tools
I have not installed ThemeEngine July/2007 yet. I will likely wait until after we get NetPlay working.

Beta Testing
Version 7.00 included compressed bitmaps for units and coastal hexes. Together with the compressed river/lake bitmaps I had done earlier, the game now loads in under 20 seconds. And once you have loaded all the bitmaps, you do not have to load them again should you decide to restore a saved game or start a new game. That translates into restoring a game taking around 10 seconds.

Version 7.01 was a quick fix on problems with using the compressed bitmaps. I just got a new bug report today that identifies a problem with restoring lake hexside bitmaps.

Units
Aside from compressing the unit bitmaps from 2100+ individual bitmaps into 22 pages of 100 each, nothing has been done regarding the units. They are done I believe. We still need to complete the unit writeups, of course. But that doesn’t require much from me.

Map
Compressing the coastal bitmaps was my major achievement in this area this past month. Down from 5000+ individual hexes to 6 pages. By interleaving the hexes, like they are on the map, I was able to reduce bitmap memory requirements so the entire world map now fits in memory. No more thoughts about trimming the top 10 or 15 hex rows! The savings were such that even with the full map, the bitmap memory required is now less than it had been previously. And as alluded to above, not having to open and close thousands of files cut the time to load the bitmaps dramatically.

Patrice has been responding to comments from Marcus Watney who has done a lot of research into world-wide resources during World War II. Mercifully these are all data driven and require no real work from me.

On advice from a forum member, I have decided to go with 6 segments for the printed world map. This is a side issue as far as releasing the game, but it takes on more importance when marketing is considered. I would like to have at least some of the 6 segments available at origins. The segments are equal in size (7 feet wide by 5 feet high) and I have labeled them: Europe, China, and North America (across the top); Africa, Australia, and South America (across the bottom). The next task on printing the map is to figure out what media would be best.

Scenario Setup
Scenario remains stable. The only bugs concerning these have to do with which units/countries cooperate. This is especially tricky during setup since slightly different rules apply as to which units can be placed in which foreign countries.

Optional Rules
Other than identifying precisely which optional rules require new or modified code, I did nothing on these.

Player Interface
I added a couple of new items to my task list - a very rare event. What I want to do is enable a player to click on a unit image in the Flyout display just as if he had clicked on it when it’s the top unit in the hex. The gain here should be substantial, since Flyouts let a player look at the units in a stack. By providing the ability to select a unit by clicking on it, the player is relieved of the task of cycling through all the units in a hex to get the one he wants on the top.

And to complete that capability, I want to let the player click on the “more units in hex” message at the bottom of the Flyouts (when there are more than 9 in a hex), in order to cycle to the next page of 9 units. Together, it should be possible to find the single unit you want in a stack of 50 and select it quickly.

Internet - NetPlay
Here is a quick overview of part of the NetPlay design Dan and I have come up with. The person who starts an Internet game is called the Originator. It is his task to choose the scenario and optional rules. He also enters the player names and then enables his computer to accept incoming ‘calls’ from the other players. Once all the players have logged in, the bidding for major power groups can take place. Alternatively, the Originator can assign a major power group to each player, if that has been worked out beforehand.

Once the game starts, the Originator becomes the Manager. His responsibility is to deal with players leaving/joining the game. If he wants to, he can pass his title and responsibility on to another player. Separate from the single manager for the game are the two Team Leaders, one per side. The Allied Team leader is Master MWIF, and it is on his computer that the program makes autonomous decisions, such as rolling for the weather and advancing the sequence of play.

The computer for each team leader acts as a server, with its clients being the computers of the other players on its side. This means that there are two players whose computers act as servers and each side can play the game separately from the other side. For example, when the Axis is deciding on land moves, none of the Allied players even needs to be logged on. And once all those decisions are made, the Axis team leader sends them over as a complete set to the Allied team leader who, in turn, distributes them to the players on his side.

Note that though the Originator’s computer acts as a server before the game starts, it may or may not be acting as a server once play begins. That depends on whether he is a team leader or not. Players can decide who is their team leader amongst themselves, it is not dictated by the program. But somebody has to be in charge!

CWIF Conversion
Nothing new on the supply line routines.

MWIF Game Engine
I continue to convert game play decisions to Game Record Log entries to support NetPlay.

Saved Games
I try to keep this functioning at all times. Sadly, I sometimes have to change the format structure, which renders all previously saved games obsolete. What a pain!

Player’s Manual
One of the major tasks I finished this month was to complete the Rules as Coded (RAC) document - 150 pages. This will serve as the fundamental reference for players of MWIF. We do not expect to print it, rather it will be a PDF file that the players can print if they so desire. Also, it will be accessible on-line during play.

To make RAC accurate, I incorporated all 375 FAQ questions and answers from Harry Rowland into the Rules as Written (RAW). That took some time and the document went through a dozen revisions. As it is, it meets with both Patrice’s and Harry’s approval. I also asked the beta testers to review it for accuracy and clarity.

There were a lot of changes but I avoided rewriting rules as much as possible. I even let stand some sentences and paragraphs that I thought could be written much better. This reluctance was partly because I do not have the time, but also due a concern that changing even a single word can change how the rule is interpreted.

To facilitate future communications with the people who will be serving as the editors for the Player’s Manual, I sent Erik a copy of the current Table of Contents. But before doing that I posted it to the forum for review and comments, which did cause me to make some changes to the TOC.

PBEM
Nothing new.

Historical Detail, Animations, and Sound
Other than Matrix agreeing to do all the grunt work on these, nothing new.

Help System and Tutorials
I started putting the context sensitive help writeups into the help file. Already in place is the code to pop these up on the screen when they are requested. To appreciate the size of this task you need only count the number of separate help writeups: 262. I’ve done about 10. I had been doing 1 a day but my revised schedule moves this task into the summer.

Patrice helped me with another 10 pages for the introductory tutorials. 7 pages remain. I added another form to make the summary page of unit costs and capabilities available during game play. Internally, these are identical to the help pages that describe what all the symbols and numbers on the units mean.

AI Opponent
I worked on the language specifications for the LAIO (Language for AI Opponent) and made some good progress. The code within the program is mostly established. Basically, at the points in the sequence of play where a decision has to be made by a player, the program checks to see if the major power is controlled by the AIO. If so, it determines which of the 8 AIO decision makers (e.g., Grand Strategist, Admiralty, Field Marshal) is responsible for making the decision and which # is assigned to that decision. It then make a call to a universal routine that branches according to decision maker and decision #.

There are 143 decision points currently, but that may increase slightly as I get further into the dirty details of the AIO decision making process.

I resumed typing in my general (not specific to a major power) AIO notes that I wrote up when I was in Europe in the spring. These are text writeups on how to make decisions at each of th e143 decision points. It would be nice to have an up-to-date copy of this document, rather than one with dozens of pages of notes written using 4 different pen colors. Then I could even make it available to others helping me with the AIO.

Other
My quartet has met only once since early December. Sad, very sad. Travel, work and illness take their toll. At one point I was the only member of my quartet who was not too sick to sing.

The guys next door, working on the 5 story children’s hospital, have laid the last of the ground floor foundation and have the first wall about 90% complete. I wish I had 25 guys working on my project every day.
====================================================================
January summary: RAC is done and so is compressing the bitmaps. The new schedule leaves me less panic stricken when I go to bed each night.
====================================================================

Tasks for February

Communications
Continue monitoring the forum threads.

Map and Units
Work with Fernando on getting samples of each media for the map segment I have already sent him. Check with the unit description coordinators to see how things are going.

Beta Testing
Upload versions weekly. [est. 2 hours]

Redesign of MWIF Game Engine
Continue to work through the sequence of play giving each phase its own module. [est. 100 hours]

CWIF Conversion
Continue converting from CWIF style internet formats to Game Record Log Formats. [est. 45 hours in March]
Test the new random number generator. [est. 1 hour]

Player Interface
Finish the code for determining and displaying supply lines. [est. 20 hours]
Create the Task Forces and Naval Review forms. Implement Task Forces as a new “unit type”. [est. 60 hours]
Create Unit and hex lists for air missions. [est 20 hours in May]
Display the sequence of play (SOP) on the screen so the player knows where he is within the SOP and what is coming up next. [est. 20 hours in May]

NetPlay
Test the bidding capability using NetPlay. [est. 5 hours]
Incorporate the Indy10 code for the two player system into MWIF. [est. 10 hours]
Incorporate the multi-player (more than 2) system into MWIF. [est. 15 hours]

AI Opponent
Finish the syntax for the LAIO language. Define LAIO variables with their supporting functions. Write a parser for LAIO. Create a few rules as text and encode them for testing the parser. [est. 140 hours in May - July]

Help System and Tutorials
Nothing scheduled until September.

Player’s Manual
Nothing scheduled until May.

Historical Detail, Animations, and Sound
Nothing scheduled until July.

Other
I’ll probably do singing valentines for 2 days, assuming we can assemble a quartet. My own quartet should be available in the evenings, but most of the buyers want the valentine delivered during the day at the work place.

================================================================
February summary: Keep the beta testers busy and respond to their bug reports. Work with Dan on NetPlay. Continue work on Game Record Log conversions to support NetPlay for entire sequence of play. Devote the most time to the getting the New Game Engine to advance through the sequence of play. Finish the revisions to the player interface for Task Forces.
================================================================

[wworld7]

As usual thanks for the update. I am sure you nobody will be happy with the delay. But better to to get it "right" than pushed out the door TOO early in my opinion.

[cockney]

on the brightside we are still looking at a release date of 2008, pity was longing fwd to getting hold of the game after origins, still as they say in France 'that's life' and as flipper said better right then broken.

[composer99]

While I am certainly sad to see that the release of MWiF has been delayed ([:(]), I agree that better to push things back than to deliver a buggy product. I can console myself with the knowledge that I have table-top WiF to play...

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: composer99

While I am certainly sad to see that the release of MWiF has been delayed ([:(]), I agree that better to push things back than to deliver a buggy product. I can console myself with the knowledge that I have table-top WiF to play...

Don't be sad, you'd be sad if it was abandonned, but here it is simply longer than expected. I'm not sad, I support Steve.

[SamuraiProgrmmr]

Whatever it takes, Steve.
 
You have my support all the way.
 
This is a HUGE project.  I am glad to see someone working on it that is not trying to push it out the door and fix problems later!
 
 

[NeBert]

ORIGINAL: SamuraiProgrammer

Whatever it takes, Steve.

You have my support all the way.

This is a HUGE project. I am glad to see someone working on it that is not trying to push it out the door and fix problems later!

That´s also my opinion! Good quality should be the main goal.
I could do with less or no options in the first release but lots of bugs would be really annoying.

Just proceed, I will support as much as I can.

[Neilster]

I've been wishing for a computer version of WiF since I first played it in about 1992, so another 6 months isn't going to hurt, especially as Steve is making sure all the details are right. Hopefully MWiF will be arriving during the reinforcement phase of Jan/Feb [:'(]

Cheers, Neilster

[Anendrue]

Sorry to hear about the delay. However a good thng is worth waiting for. A cold beer on a hot afternoon. Seeing a perfect game pitched. Watching the Patriots go undefeated, and MWiF released in a working format. So Steve you have my support!

[denxis1]

Wow I mean WOW! I cant hardly believe my eyes when I look through this Forum. There has been so much work and effort that has gone into this game. I just wanted to thank Steve everyone else for this. I too am disappointed in the delay but I would probably wait far longer than a few additional months for such a wonderful game. It makes me feel like a kid waiting for Christmas again. Keep up the good work.

[jesperpehrson]

6 more months makes for an even better game I am sure. And I mean even Gaudí had a slight delay in his masterpiece, so lets all give Steve all the support we can! Hasta la victoria siempre. [:)]

BTW, I will be needing more writers for writeups. Anyone interested can shoot me a PM!

[warspite1]

The delay is disappointing but not unexpected given the sheer enormity of this project - and thank you for the early heads up of the expected delay.  WIF is simply the best wargame ever devised with a perfect blend of realism - without sacrificing playability - combined with counters and maps of the highest quality.  What is so pleasing about the computer version is that the counters are faithful to the board game and the maps frankly are even better [&o]    
 
I spent many many hours in the 90`s playing WIF and am looking forward to resuming hostilities as soon as the computer version is available [;)].   

[HansHafen]

Thanks for all your work. I can't even imagine taking on a project of this magnitude. Wif is so sophisticated and nuanced, even deciding if you want to intercept an air mission alone could crash a processor, that I am extremely uncertain an AI can be developed that will work. I want there to be a legitimate AI, I just have to see it to believe it. The user interface in this game will be vitally important also. I read your update and am very encouraged by the fly outs.

Most of us still watching this thread have spent at least $500.00 (those of us who have spent way more don't laugh!) on the boardgame, and understand the massive investment going into this development. As a result, I am sure the price will be far above an ordinary release. Any idea of the price point? Don't worry, we will pay it. [:)]

Please do whatever is necessary to get this finished and released in time for Christmas this year. You can always release an update the following June or so adding other small chrome bits you couldn't quite get in. I know you mentioned one of these in your update. At this point, chrome will have to wait. Don't need any videos or history stories etc. Just need the basic systems and processes.

And hello to everyone.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Welcome.

I believe Matrix has listed a price for MWIF in their catalog. Though I guess it could be changed prior to accepting orders.

[YohanTM2]

I'm sure the French would be saying C'est La Guerre over this one

ORIGINAL: cockney

on the brightside we are still looking at a release date of 2008, pity was longing fwd to getting hold of the game after origins, still as they say in France 'that's life' and as flipper said better right then broken.

[Sewerlobster]

These updates should be an industry standard. I am literally glad to wait, I've had this game since the early 80's -- Now -- even if there are bugs with my inital purchase, I'll have seen the hard work and vicariously suffered with the programmers. Hope they make a bundle of bucks, so others will do as they did.

[christian h.]

Long-time lurker: Thanks, Steve! I understand it's frustrating to have to delay the finishing touch of your work, but we all support you 100%. This must be the best-communicated software project I've seen, and I'm sure the result is going to be worth the wait.[8D]

[Executioner Five]

I'd love to believe differently, but this basically means a 2009 release, unless you believe there aren't going to be ANY more release delays, since once you get too close to the holidays I'm sure Matrix will hold it over till '09.

[Mad Cow]

Good luck with this game. I looks and sounds excellent. 

[borner]

With a game this complex, I salute ya'll for wanting to take the time and get it right. If that's Dec of 2009, so be it. (Hopefully it will not take that long though)