When?

[rtamesis]

Always glad to read of more progress being made.

[composer99]

Language nitpick:

'must of' should be 'must have' (the contraction must've, when spoken aloud, creates the discrepancy).

I know, I know, I hang my head in shame. [;)]

But I am also pleased to see such progress on bug correction.

[kwfields969]

So, With all of this new update information, is there a release date set?

I am new to the forum but have enjoyed many hours of WiF and would love to play on my PC. I see that this project has been going on for YEARS now with no release date, I was just wondering if this project has an end date?

I would also like to know if I can get the beta version to see for myself how far along this project is and see if it is worth waiting for.[;)]

Thanks,
ken Fields

[Josh]

So uhm, this fansite Shannon is talking about: http://worldinflames.net/ when will it be open for public access?

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Josh

So uhm, this fansite Shannon is talking about: http://worldinflames.net/ when will it be open for public access?

That is up to Matrix Games. Most recent discussions have been somewhere around a month before the game is released. But again, this is not my call.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: kwfields969

So, With all of this new update information, is there a release date set?

I am new to the forum but have enjoyed many hours of WiF and would love to play on my PC. I see that this project has been going on for YEARS now with no release date, I was just wondering if this project has an end date?

I would also like to know if I can get the beta version to see for myself how far along this project is and see if it is worth waiting for.[;)]

Thanks,
ken Fields

I have sworn off estimating release dates.
---
The beta test versions are only available to the beta testers. I will probably recruit a few more in early March (not certain, but likely). The way I do that is to post a request for people who have an interest to respond to the request. I leave that open for 7-9 days and then decide whom to accept. If you are interested, check in once a week to this forum and see if I have posted a request for new beta testers.

[Guillerdemon]

Hi all

I've been following this forum for years and have never written on it but as it seems that eventually saw the light I have decided to do so.
In his time also followed that of the "Empire in arms"
I know there have been many times and none have been fulfilled and how hard it is to do it but you could confirm us only if the game will be released in 2011?
I have spent years complying with occasionally playing solo version of Criss Marinacci and I have a terrible desire to play MWIF.
By the way, if you need new beta testers will be an honor to work.

Thanks for your time and encourage you already see the light! [:)][;)]

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: La nueve

Hi all

I've been following this forum for years and have never written on it but as it seems that eventually saw the light I have decided to do so.
In his time also followed that of the "Empire in arms"
I know there have been many times and none have been fulfilled and how hard it is to do it but you could confirm us only if the game will be released in 2011?
I have spent years complying with occasionally playing solo version of Criss Marinacci and I have a terrible desire to play MWIF.
By the way, if you need new beta testers will be an honor to work.

Thanks for your time and encourage you already see the light! [:)][;)]

Welcome to the forum![:)]

As much as I would like to talk about a release date, my fingers are still crispy from having been burned so many times.

I expect to post a request for new beta testers in March.

Right now there are a half dozen beta testers who test for 10+ hours a week and they are keeping me very busy. I had the bug count for the sequence of play down to 85 a few days ago but I had to work on my chorus' mailing list for two solid days and the beta testers drove the bug count up to 101. Some of those are duplicates (which don't count as new task items) and others will be easy to fix. But it takes me time to read all the posts (69 posts on version 7.04.03 which I uploaded on the 13th) and update all my records so I don't lose any of the bug reports. In particular, beside the posts in the development forum there are emails I get of MadExcept reports (i.e., memory dumps when the program crashes) and saved games so I can recreate the problems the beta testers encountered.

So, adding more beta testers will only happen once I am happy with the basic sequence of play executing cleanly in solitaire play. Then I'll work on some of the missing optional rules. That's when I'll look into adding some more beta testers - in anticipation of NetPlay testing in the near future.

[Guillerdemon]

Ok cool
I see that steps are becoming safer.
And the end of tunes is getting closer.
Be alert in March for Beta tester. Now I have enough time to devote to MWIF and thus contribute my bit.
A greeting and thanks.

[wif_o_matic]

Steve,

No one else has asked, so I will: your status reports says 125 bugs left till solitaire play is ready. So the basic game is complete when that reaches 0? Or, put another way, the substantive coding for the game is done?

I'm not asking for a release date, but it looks like you're on the downhill run. [:)]

Cheers,
Ben

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: wif_o_matic

Steve,

No one else has asked, so I will: your status reports says 125 bugs left till solitaire play is ready. So the basic game is complete when that reaches 0? Or, put another way, the substantive coding for the game is done?

I'm not asking for a release date, but it looks like you're on the downhill run. [:)]

Cheers,
Ben

Yes.

I have the following categories, but they change over time:

Active (basic sequence of play with about 60% of the optional rules),
Not reproducible (I have bug reports from the beta testers but I can't make the failure reoccur),
Rule changes (recent rule clarifications which mean the code should be modified),
Future versions (e.g., uncoded optional rules, NetPlay, PBEM, AIO),
Post release (optional rules not scheduled for the first release), and
Suggested improvements (the beta testers often have suggestions for things that they would like the program to do that are outside the scope of my contract).

This categorization lets me maintain my focus on getting the sequence of play fully debugged without being sidetracked by other tasks. It's difficult to not spend a few minutes solving new bug reports that are in the other categories, but I try to adhere to just working on the first group.

[Maucat]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: kwfields969

So, With all of this new update information, is there a release date set?

I am new to the forum but have enjoyed many hours of WiF and would love to play on my PC. I see that this project has been going on for YEARS now with no release date, I was just wondering if this project has an end date?

I would also like to know if I can get the beta version to see for myself how far along this project is and see if it is worth waiting for.[;)]

Thanks,
ken Fields

I have sworn off estimating release dates.
---
The beta test versions are only available to the beta testers. I will probably recruit a few more in early March (not certain, but likely). The way I do that is to post a request for people who have an interest to respond to the request. I leave that open for 7-9 days and then decide whom to accept. If you are interested, check in once a week to this forum and see if I have posted a request for new beta testers.

I'm registered from 2007 and I didn't write messages only read the work in progress reports...
I'm waiting for years for this PC version so of course
I'm disponible to be a Beta tester!!!

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Maucat

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: kwfields969

So, With all of this new update information, is there a release date set?

I am new to the forum but have enjoyed many hours of WiF and would love to play on my PC. I see that this project has been going on for YEARS now with no release date, I was just wondering if this project has an end date?

I would also like to know if I can get the beta version to see for myself how far along this project is and see if it is worth waiting for.[;)]

Thanks,
ken Fields

I have sworn off estimating release dates.
---
The beta test versions are only available to the beta testers. I will probably recruit a few more in early March (not certain, but likely). The way I do that is to post a request for people who have an interest to respond to the request. I leave that open for 7-9 days and then decide whom to accept. If you are interested, check in once a week to this forum and see if I have posted a request for new beta testers.

I'm registered from 2007 and I didn't write messages only read the work in progress reports...
I'm waiting for years for this PC version so of course
I'm disponible to be a Beta tester!!!

I expect to post a request for new beta testers later this month. Check in once a week and you won't miss my post requesting people to apply.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

March 1, 2011 Status Report for Matrix Games’ MWIF Forum

Accomplishments of February 2011

Project Management
I monitored all the threads in the MWIF World in Flames forum daily.

There are 94 bugs remaining for basic solitaire play. Roughly 1/3 have to do with naval movement/combat and another 1/3 have to do with routing resources overseas. I had the count down to a low of 83 at one point this month.

Rolf was able to get a clean compile and link of MWIF, but only after much effort. It seems every time MWIF is installed from scratch on a computer system, whether by me or anyone else, there are unexpected problems. Well, I was guilty of leaving out one file when I provided the source code to Mitchell, and then managed to leave out 2 other files when I created a fresh set of source code for Rolf. But nonetheless, there were other difficulties that arose which didn’t make a lot of sense (to me). I guess setting up Delphi, the JEDI libraries, Theme Engine, MadExcept library, and the WIF Custom library involves a lot of steps which have to be performed nigh-on perfectly or else things careen off into a ditch.

I lost a few days this past month (a short month anyway) updating the chorus’ mailing list for the spring show mailing (500 new names and 800 revisions). Then there was the 30 hour span where I made 3 trips to dentists (zero amusement there). In effect, I had 24 working days for MWIF in February.

Hardware and Software
Mitchell spent most of the month delving into Theme Engine (TE) source code and running timing trials to determine why it took so long to change the theme from one major power to another. He finally fault isolated it to refreshing the scroll bars for the detailed map. I am not sure exactly why that requires 3 seconds to accomplish, but after I removed the detailed map’s scroll bars from the list of TE components, changing the deciding major power took 2 seconds instead of 5. We might be able to tweak that a little lower, but for now that’s an acceptable delay. If time permits, we might go back and see if we can get the detailed map scroll maps to work under TE without the 3 second delay for introspection.

Mitchell also tested using the new version of TE (9.20) and found it more efficient when changing the theme (although the detailed map scroll bar problem was unaffected). So we replaced TE version 9.10 with 9.20.

Beta Testing
I released versions 7.04.00 (17 fixes), 7.04.01 (16 fixes), 7.04.02 ( 28 fixes), 7.04.03 (1 fix), 7.04.04 (28 fixes), 7.04.05 ( 16 fixes), and 8.00.00 (12 fixes) to the beta testers last month. This totals 7 new versions and 118 fixes, which is my normal average for a month. Obviously version 7.04.03 fixed a major problem that I had created with version 7.04.02 - hence the immediate release of the patch with 1 fix the next day. I changed the numbering to 8.00.00 because we installed the new version of Theme Engine (9.20) and otherwise have solved most of the problems with TE. This also is a significant milestone since I am bringing both Mitchell and Rolf up-to-date with a complete new source code upload that corresponds to version 8.00.00.

Fatal errors still occur but they are fewer in frequency. About 2/3rds of the new bugs relate to recent changes I made to the code. Those are easy to fix. And the rest of the bugs are either duplicates of bugs previously reported or obscure items. For example, when an empty hex is both invaded and attacked from an adjacent hex, the odds displayed during the Land Combat Declaration phase do not include the notional unit. Change any of those conditions and the odds are shown correctly. As I said, obscure.

Here is the modification that caused me to skip version 7.03.00:
I modified the code to conform with changes from Harry Rowland (ADG) as to where naval units can set up at sea. Previously CWIF tracked each unit that was set up at sea back to either a major or minor port and counted how many were using each minor port for a hypothetical "return to base". Harry's modified rule is that there only needs to be one opening available for all units at sea. So, dozens of naval units could be ‘using' the same minor port. The code now has no minor port limitations imposed when units are set up at sea. However, at the end of setup for each major power, a check is run to make sure at least one slot is available for each naval unit set up at sea. The same slot can be used by innumerable ships. If there isn't an available slot, then the program requires the payer to correct the setup before the setup phase for that major power can be terminated. Because this change affected the format of saved games, I skipped version 7.03.00 and went directly to 7.04.00.

Most of the bugs I fixed during February involved naval movement and naval air combat. By contrast, surface and submarine combat seem stable. I currently have 9 naval movement and 16 naval combat bugs to figure out and fix. Virtually all the naval movement problems relate to interceptions and the naval combat to naval air combat. So, after fixing a bunch of stuff, I’m back to about the same count I had last month for those two phases (sigh).

Saved Games
Saving and restoring games is stable. I added the name of the current major power to the label for automatically saved games during 10 additional phases. This makes it possible to restore a game to a more precise point in the sequence of play. For example, you can restore a game partway through choosing actions for major powers rather than only at the beginning of the phase.

Map and Units
Rob continues to send me new and/or updated naval unit writeups. Happily, Adam has returned to doing new writeups for the land units. The count for missing land unit writeups is now below 90. I updated the master file of land unit writeups with both Adam’s additions and another couple of dozen that I had received over the past year. The master file is now current with all land unit writeups I have received.

Scenarios and Optional Rules
Nothing really new here. I fixed a couple of minor bugs that were scenario specific.

MWIF Game Engine and CWIF Conversion
I got the Naval Abort Queue to function correctly. There are a still a couple of small bugs remaining, but the primary functionality of choosing which units to abort as a group and returning them to base now works. Hark, the last of the 7 digression ‘phases’ (Naval Combat Abort ) has been completed!

I also fixed a bug in nested digressions so they operate as intended. For instance, when an overrun naval unit is forced to rebase through an enemy controlled sea area, a naval interception digressions occurs. After the interception is resolved, the sequence of play returns to the forced naval rebase digression in progress. The forced naval rebase digression could occur during land movement, advance after combat, invasions, conquest, or other places in the sequence of play.

Player Interface
I added a small new form that reports which scenario is being played, mode of play, and which players are playing. It is of minor importance for game play but is helpful for debugging purposes.

I modified the Choose Naval Combat form so it gives more emphasis to the list of sea areas. This was part of a general revision to the form to fix some bugs.

Internet - NetPlay
For now, NetPlay is in Mitchell’s hands. He was distracted by working on Theme Engine but should get back to the stand alone test program for NetPlay soon.

PBEM
Once Mitchell gets the NetPlay communications working, he’ll do the same for the PBEM communications.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Peter made excellent progress on the geographic breakdown for the AI Opponent. I revised the documentation on the command structure for the AIO so each element of the geography has a corresponding decision maker. There are 16 Theaters of Operation (TOs) that span the global map. Within each TO there is a breakdown for naval units into Sea Area Groups (which contain individual Sea Areas) and for land units into Areas of Operations (which contain Land Regions). The goal here is to provide a hierarchy of decision makers for strategic and operational decisions and a different decision maker for tactical decisions.

For instance, decisions about convoy routes span multiple sea areas and are made higher up in the chain of command, while decisions concerning a specific naval combat are made by the Fleet Admiral responsible for the sea area in which the combat is taking place. Likewise army reinforcements are shipped off to various TOs, whose commander designates which AO gets them; the AO commander designates a Land Region, whose Commanding General then decides in which hex to place the new unit.

What Peter has achieved is a finished geographic breakdown for Western Europe and the Med. He has almost completed the same for Eastern Europe. Those 3 geographic regions encompass the WIF FE European map.

Rolf and Mitchell plan to work together on completing the parser for LAIO (Language for an Artificial Intelligence Opponent) scripts. Peter has been working diligently on LAIO scripts and deserves seeing them in action, making decisions, ASAP.

Player’s Manual
I updated Rules as Coded (RAC) with a description of the Naval Abort Queue, which is a deviation from Rules as Written (RAW). I also reviewed and updated section 10 of the Players Manual so it accurately lists all the RAC deviations from RAW.

Tutorials, Training Videos, and Context Sensitive Help
I continue to make small changes to the context sensitive help messages based on feedback from the beta testers.

Historical Video, Music, and Sound Effects
Nothing new.

Marketing
Nothing new.

Communications
Nothing new.

[norvandave]

All in all an encouraging report with a lot of progress.  Do I dare say that the finish line is at least in sight? 
 
All the best to you and your team.   

[kwypto77]

The game has come a long way. I look at the forums about once a month, and how far the game has come along is a amazing. I am a software development manager, and I thoroughly appreciate the monumental task that was undertaken years ago. I patiently look forward to the day that I can play the game on the computer. The original game was awesome enough, but being able to play it on the computer will be so awesome. If there is anything that I can do, other than offer words of encouragement, please let me know. Thank you for your efforts.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: kwypto77

The game has come a long way. I look at the forums about once a month, and how far the game has come along is a amazing. I am a software development manager, and I thoroughly appreciate the monumental task that was undertaken years ago. I patiently look forward to the day that I can play the game on the computer. The original game was awesome enough, but being able to play it on the computer will be so awesome. If there is anything that I can do, other than offer words of encouragement, please let me know. Thank you for your efforts.

Thank you for your words of encouragement[;)].

It took me a while but I think I have something you might be able/want to do to help. Please send me an email (SHokanson@HawaiianTel.net) with a couple of sentences about your experience, a couple more about what you would be interested in doing to help, and how many hours a week you would have available for MWIF.

Again, thank you for your interest.

[tigercub]

I have been looking since day 1 still looking...

Tigercub

[Cyote13_MatrixForum]

Well I originally hoped the game would be available when I went to Iraq in '05, and Saudi in '09, maybe it will be ready when I go to Afghanistan in '12.

When ever it is ready and released I will get it, and your dedication to a quality product has been obvious.

Keep up the good work

[nanorider426]

Hi Steve.

As always thanks for your dedication to this great game. I must say that it's starting to look good now with all the extra help you've been given recently. I always felt bad about you having to toil away year after year all alone on this. I realize that the beta-testers and others have done and are doing a great job too, but being the lone coder must be very hard in the long run without having any others to spar with or indeed to help lift the heavy workload. So to me it's great news that you've finally got some help. [:D]

Cheers! [8D]