IMPORTANT: State of the Game and Future Plans as of June, 2015

[Numdydar]

Interesting.

There is a big discussion over on the War in the Pacific AE forum about trying to make an AE 2.0 that way. So far there are no one with the necessary programming skills willing to step up and commit for the time needed to do that. So I do not see putting Wif in the public domain faring much better.

At least with MWiF we do have someone that has the programming skills to at least get us this far. To me it seems non-productive (and take a lot longer) to switch this effort over to a public effort.

Maybe there is a bunch of programmers willing to work for free (which is what public domain means to me) to complete this task. But I have not seen any willing to step up on this (or other forums).

I mean that the original code was pretty much abandoned (CWiF). So between then and when Steve picked up the effort, any number of people could have asked ADG to allow them to take up the banner. As far as I know no one did that.

What did I miss in your desire to put this in the public domain? I just can't see how that would be any better than what we have now. Are you offering to take over the programming effort? Or are you just interested in seeing the code yourself and modding the game as you desire?

I do hope at some point we can mod the game to our own tastes. But putting in the pubic domain is not the way (imho) to get that done. As any further game development will come to a complete halt. Or to be so slow as to make current progress fast as lighting [:)]

[paulderynck]

Go here: http://www.vassalengine.org/wiki/Module:World_in_Flames

...and scan about halfway down the page and stop when you see the box outlined in red. There you will experience an attempt to do something better in the public domain (which is what Vassal is) and you can see how well that turned out.

[Dabrion]

If a public domain project was to come into existence, it cannot be base on an 15+ years obsolet technology. Therefor the capital of MWiF is not the code base but the conceptual legwork. The code base has to be completely recreated in a contemporary, future-proof and accessible framework; Unity being a strong candidate. I believe the same applies to AE.


Paul is trying to say that abandoned his involvement in the Vassal gamebox for World in Flames. Apparently he thinks that is on par with game development.

[davidachamberlain]

ORIGINAL: Dabrion

If a public domain project was to come into existence, it cannot be base on an 15+ years obsolet technology. Therefor the capital of MWiF is not the code base but the conceptual legwork. The code base has to be completely recreated in a contemporary, future-proof and accessible framework; Unity being a strong candidate. I believe the same applies to AE.


Paul is trying to say that abandoned his involvement in the Vassal gamebox for World in Flames. Apparently he thinks that is on par with game development.

I think that the point trying to be made is that this type of product is much too big for an open source offering. Those who would be most interested in participating would be those who play the game and have the skills and experience to do the work. The time that people would have (who already have full time jobs) would be less than 20 hours per week. I would expect that the number of people who fit both of those criteria you could count on one hand, which is definitely not enough. A project like that would involve many thousand hours of effort. Doing the math, I can not imagine enough effort being available and coordinated to complete that project within many years.

A serious open source project will usually be undertaken by a company with considerable resources available for profit, which they will get from consulting, customization, integration, and support, even when there are no license fees involved.

It would be very naïve to expect that a project with this scope would ever attract enough manpower to be able to be completed in any reasonable amount of time.

Dave

[pzgndr]

ORIGINAL: davidachamberlain
It would be very naïve to expect that a project with this scope would ever attract enough manpower to be able to be completed in any reasonable amount of time.

I am reminded of a Dilbert cartoon where the boss is told the project will need 500 man-hours. So the boss assembles 500 engineers in the auditorium and tells them they have an hour to finish the project. As if that's going to happen. [8|]

[Dabrion]

Dave, you lack the imagination of what can be done and how, that is entirely your fault ofc.

[davidachamberlain]

ORIGINAL: Dabrion

Dave, you lack the imagination of what can be done and how, that is entirely your fault ofc.

No, I understand VERY realistically. I have led more complicated projects with teams of well paid professionals. I have also led teams of volunteers. I have a very good idea of what and how and this does not fit into something that can be done quickly enough with a team of volunteers using any open source technology.

One can certainly hope and dream, but it would not come any closer to reality.

I suggest that if you seriously believe it can happen that you take the lead and recruit what I would suggest as a team of 20 or so people to make it happen, but you would still be surprised at how long it would take.

Dave

[davidachamberlain]

ORIGINAL: pzgndr

I am reminded of a Dilbert cartoon where the boss is told the project will need 500 man-hours. So the boss assembles 500 engineers in the auditorium and tells them they have an hour to finish the project. As if that's going to happen. [8|]

Unfortunately, it is more of the reverse. It would more likely involve 2 people working for about 25 years.

Dave

[Dabrion]

I have been part of open-source projects since the 90's. I guess we can just agree to disagree.

p.s.: Meanwhile, why don't direct your demands for more developer positions at Matrix? That would balance out your brown-noser image a bit

[davidachamberlain]

ORIGINAL: Dabrion

I have been part of open-source projects since the 90's. I guess we can just agree to disagree.

p.s.: Meanwhile, why don't direct your demands for more developer positions at Matrix? That would balance out your brown-noser image a bit

Again, I am realistic. At this point, Steve is all that is going to get assigned to this and unfortunately, that is as good as it is going to get. That could also end.

Coming back to my suggestion, if you can do it, why don't you rally some resources to do it. MWIF is a pretty large and complex product. Based on what I see, I don't expect that enough people will be interested to be able to do the work in time that anyone would accept.

What is there today is as good as it gets.

Dave

[brian brian]

It all just is what it is, in my opinion.

If you want to play World in Flames electronically and can keep track of the rules yourself, this is easy to do.

If you want to play World in Flames electronically and have some software assist with rules enforcement, this is mostly easy to do via the MWiF product. It's not "all the way" there yet but it continues to get closer, all the time. Steve is advancing the World in Flames hobby quite a bit through this labor of love type project, because MWiF introduces new players to the game, and we all need that.

In a world of video gaming, our small hobby of hexagonal maps and turns is just that - small. Unless one of us WiF players wins the Lottery and can't figure out what to do with the prize money, there will only be Steve, moving the ball down the field, slowly but surely, the best that he can.

Is there another way? I don't know. Although I love World in Flames and can't wait to play the newest iteration in another 3-4 months, I also don't see the point of continuing to shoe-horn the playability compromises necessary to play wargames on paper into a computer where most of those playability compromises could be designed away through the power of computing technology. It's not quite as silly of an idea as programming Advanced Squad Leader when gamers are already experiencing being a squad leader in real-time multi-player shooter games.

But I think this is what the idea of liberating MWiF out into an Open Source community project would run into: Why? Why invest in re-creating the gaming design techniques of 30 years ago?

Harry's design is a brilliant simulation of the constraints and decision making process of a Commander-in-Chief of a war machine made up of millions of human beings. I hope someone can talk him into writing a new, computer based version of his design with total Fog of War, operational planning, attritional losses, computer adjudicated logistics, simultaneous movement (so the IJN can invade Pearl while the Pacific Fleet is trying to invade Truk), and in general, the classic "limits" you experience when playing World in Flames - so you can't just order your aircraft designers to design only Spitfires and never fail with the Defiant, nor can you keep your regime in place by denying your oldest pal Goering's demands to create Luftwaffe field divisions while Manstein is screaming for trained infantry replacements. I have never wanted to play WiTP when it wants to show me how many artillery tubes a division of infantry is toting around. And this is Harry's brilliance - editing gamers eventual desire for more detail, detail, detail until the game is so much simulation no one can play it any more. I really hope publication of Collector's Edition frees him to move the game forward electronically by truly harnessing what software could do for it.

[paulderynck]

An excellent Requirements Document for Dabrion to take to his stable of open source developers who are chomping at the bit to take this on.

[RFalvo69]

I can only repeat what I already said on these fora:

WitP (and the AE successor) enjoyed the feedback coming from thousands of hours of people playing FtF. Go on the AE fora and you will find words like "Opening" or "Midgame": AE was (and is) played so intensively and extensively that people are using terms usually seen in chess.

From all these thousand of hours of gaming, with people straining the AE engine to the maximum, came both the discovery of bugs and project like the revered "improve and fix" managed by michaelm.

This is why I always stressed the importance to fix Netplay and let the people challenge each other before anything else: bugs and problems are discovered when an engine is strained to the maximum by two people trying to outdo each other by, often, thinking out of the loop - not when a stray gamer stumbles into a bug because he tried something new "just to see" while playing solitaire.

When I bought this game I had two daughters in high school, and my hair was black. Now I have a daughter studying Fashion and another studying Languages (English and French) - both living in Milan; and there is the first hint of gray in my hair.

But, who cares? Matrix's World in Flames is a "beloved" game (Matrix's front page said so) and, I read here, "a labor of love". So, in November 2013 I paid $150, but after four years I'm seeing the dividends: surrounded by love. And this is what matters. Isn't it?

[Courtenay]

My understanding is that MWiF is written in some variant of Pascal. If it were C++ I would volunteer to help code, but the last Pascal programming I did was over thirty years ago.

[juntoalmar]

ORIGINAL: Courtenay

My understanding is that MWiF is written in some variant of Pascal. If it were C++ I would volunteer to help code, but the last Pascal programming I did was over thirty years ago.

I believe is written in Delphi (and object oriented version of Pascal). I don't think getting to know the language itself is the difficult part (you get used to syntax quick) but knowing the data structures used in the game and algorithms.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Dabrion

I have been part of open-source projects since the 90's. I guess we can just agree to disagree.

p.s.: Meanwhile, why don't direct your demands for more developer positions at Matrix? That would balance out your brown-noser image a bit

Hmmm. How many lines of code in the largest of those open-source projects?

MWIF just recently passed 703,000 lines of Delphi/Pascal source code in 423 modules.

[juntoalmar]

ORIGINAL: davidachamberlain

ORIGINAL: pzgndr

I am reminded of a Dilbert cartoon where the boss is told the project will need 500 man-hours. So the boss assembles 500 engineers in the auditorium and tells them they have an hour to finish the project. As if that's going to happen. [8|]

Unfortunately, it is more of the reverse. It would more likely involve 2 people working for about 25 years.

Dave

In software development we have a saying: "to finish the project, it will take one programmer working 1 month, or two programmers working 2 months."

Or as Napoleon said once: "please give me one bad general instead of two good generals".

[Arglebargle]

Sorry I can add links to my post but this is from
openhub net

Linux Kernel: 17M sloc
Git: 400k sloc
Mozilla Firefox: 18M sloc
KDE: 58M sloc
Debian: 81M sloc

[Arglebargle]

In software development we have a saying: "to finish the project, it will take one programmer working 1 month, or two programmers working 2 months."

I have never heard that saying and I don't agree with it either. If you would have said 1 hour would take 2 hours for 2 programmers sure but on the other hand then programmers aren't that good. The smart option in that case would be for 1 programmers to solve the problem and for the other one to take a 1 hour coffee break ...

[BrianJH]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets


MWIF just recently passed 703,000 lines of Delphi/Pascal source code in 423 modules.

Good grief! - How long does it take to compile all of that code?