So, when is the new patch coming out?

The sequel of the legendary wargame with a complete graphics and interface overhaul, major new gameplay and design features such as full naval combat modelling, improved supply handling, numerous increases to scenario parameters to better support large scenarios, and integrated PBEM++.
jmlima
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RE: So, when is the new patch coming out?

Post by jmlima »

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

...
And there is the truth at last. That's why no patches or bug fixes.

If you lose 90% of your coding assets you have to expect things to slow down.
Oh wait. It's going to be all Ralph's fault. [:D]

Since he's responsible for 90% of the coding he sure is a suspect.
...

Coding, or code? If you're talking code, then this entire discussion is totally moot. Nobody can do anything meaningful with only 10% of the code.
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Peresvet
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RE: So, when is the new patch coming out?

Post by Peresvet »

1) While there are lots of people willing to contribute by coding particular bits, there is no one willing/able to architect/spec out/design the whole thing, which would require more experience/expertise than most people possess and more time than most people would be willing to commit.

That's definitely true. To kick start a project, there must be at least one skillful person ready to spend substantial time on the project.
2) Designing a game like this from scratch by committee (which is my understanding of how much open source software is designed) would be an exercise in futility--there are countless design issues to be resolved, beginning with what kind of license would be appropriate...

There's plenty of examples of successful community projects, as well as plenty of examples of commercial projects that failed due to lack of good technical leadership.
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RE: So, when is the new patch coming out?

Post by Zovs »

See post # 120
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Beta Tester for: War in the East 1 & 2, WarPlan & WarPlan Pacific, Valor & Victory, Flashpoint Campaigns: Sudden Storm, Computer War In Europe 2
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Peresvet
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RE: So, when is the new patch coming out?

Post by Peresvet »

In order to use Unity as your "base" engine you'd need to bone up on Unity and also pay a fee (which I think Al does - Warplan), its not cheap.

I believe Unity is free for non-commercial projects.
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76mm
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RE: So, when is the new patch coming out?

Post by 76mm »

ORIGINAL: Peresvet
I believe Unity is free for non-commercial projects.
That's correct, although the free version also lacks some features facilitating teams; last time I looked into this, the people with more coding experience than me seemed to believe that these missing features were pretty important, even though they seemed like just "nice to have" to me. This was awhile ago, features for the free version might have changed since then, dunno...
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RE: So, when is the new patch coming out?

Post by biddrafter2 »

ORIGINAL: Peresvet
Discussion in this thread kind of implies that there are plenty of programmers willing to volunteer and write code for TOAW. If this is indeed the case, why stay fixated on TOAW and its copyright legacy? Why don't we just cooperate and create an open-source operational game similar to TOAW from scratch?

I've seen this comment, in different forms, so many times over the years! I'm not saying this to discourage anyone... I think the creation of a new open source engine would be fantastic and if someone has the time and interest I'd strongly encourage them to go for it.

For whatever it is worth (as a pro dev for 20+ years), I'd give an open source operational art of war dev project a 99%+ chance of failure within one month. For folks that have not done this professionally there is a tendency to underestimate the complexity by at least three orders of magnitude. Add volunteers into an open source mix and it gets even more complicated.

[Edit] - By "99% chance of failure" in the last paragraph I mean something different than "99% chance that project ends".

This would be a joyless labor of love slog. Someone with a ton of time, perseverance, and ability is required to work long hours, on difficult code, for no money, in a booming job market for developers.
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RE: So, when is the new patch coming out?

Post by Curtis Lemay »

ORIGINAL: Lobster

Deflection is your only defense. Ask for help and you'll get it. Don't ask for help and you won't get it. The last is what you want anyway.

Call people liars, call them snits, tell them they are throwing tantrums. Say they've run off even though you drove them off. Besides, you wouldn't accept them as volunteers anyway. They're thieves and scoundrels and can't be trusted by your own words. No wonder they want nothing to do with you if that's what you think of everyone who might help you on this forum. Says a lot about you. As for me, I could and would never work with someone who can't take personal responsibility and continually blames things on others. Who uses deflection as their defense. Work with you? When pigs fly up my butt.
To repeat: I DEFY YOU TO BACK UP ANY OF YOUR LIES WITH EVIDENCE!!!!

All I said was that it was risky to trust stakeless coders with the code. From that truthful statement you've fabricated this entire lie. You are a pathological liar.
My TOAW web site:

Bob Cross's TOAW Site
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76mm
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RE: So, when is the new patch coming out?

Post by 76mm »

ORIGINAL: biddrafter2
This would be a joyless labor of love slog. Someone with a ton of time, perseverance, and ability is required to work long hours, on difficult code, for no money, in a booming job market for developers.
Well, not sure about the joyless part, but otherwise sounds about right...
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RE: So, when is the new patch coming out?

Post by biddrafter2 »

ORIGINAL: 76mm
ORIGINAL: biddrafter2
This would be a joyless labor of love slog. Someone with a ton of time, perseverance, and ability is required to work long hours, on difficult code, for no money, in a booming job market for developers.
Well, not sure about the joyless part, but otherwise sounds about right...

True. Perhaps too pessimistic. The coding probably quite enjoyable (as you know!). The team wrangling... not so much [:)]
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RE: So, when is the new patch coming out?

Post by Lobster »

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: Lobster

Deflection is your only defense. Ask for help and you'll get it. Don't ask for help and you won't get it. The last is what you want anyway.

Call people liars, call them snits, tell them they are throwing tantrums. Say they've run off even though you drove them off. Besides, you wouldn't accept them as volunteers anyway. They're thieves and scoundrels and can't be trusted by your own words. No wonder they want nothing to do with you if that's what you think of everyone who might help you on this forum. Says a lot about you. As for me, I could and would never work with someone who can't take personal responsibility and continually blames things on others. Who uses deflection as their defense. Work with you? When pigs fly up my butt.
To repeat: I DEFY YOU TO BACK UP ANY OF YOUR LIES WITH EVIDENCE!!!!

All I said was that it was risky to trust stakeless coders with the code. From that truthful statement you've fabricated this entire lie. You are a pathological liar.

You said any volunteers would pirate the software. You call people liars as your only defence because you use deflection to diminish what someone says in an attempt to reduce their value and so the value of what they say. Been watching your posts for over a decade. People who disagree with you are liars, snits, tantrum throwers and anything else you believe will diminish what they say. [:D]
ne nothi tere te deorsum (don't let the bastards grind you down)

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RE: So, when is the new patch coming out?

Post by Curtis Lemay »

ORIGINAL: Lobster

You said any volunteers would pirate the software.

Just one more lie. All I said was that it was risky. I even posted the exact quote earlier, so everyone can see how mild it was. From that, and nothing else, you've fabricated this monstrous lie about me - that you still can't back up with any quotes.
You call people liars as your only defence because you use deflection to diminish what someone says in an attempt to reduce their value and so the value of what they say. Been watching your posts for over a decade. People who disagree with you are liars, snits, tantrum throwers and anything else you believe will diminish what they say. [:D]

You're the only one I'm calling a liar. What else should someone do when being lied about publicly?

Here is the truth: Matrix is free to bring in whatever coders they desire. I just hope that, if they do, they choose wisely. And whoever they might be, they had better be prepared to be lied about publicly, because there are people like you who will do anything to get their petty wishes prioritized!
My TOAW web site:

Bob Cross's TOAW Site
biddrafter2
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RE: So, when is the new patch coming out?

Post by biddrafter2 »

Apropos of nothing, after some digging around I discovered how to utilize the block list on Matrix's shaky forum software. It would be nice if they made that feature a little easier to get to, like twitter does!
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RE: So, when is the new patch coming out?

Post by ncc1701e »

ORIGINAL: Zovs

Tom's post is spot on. Norm designed this thing all by his lonesome, prob from 1995-1998 when it was first released. He then worked on it from 1998 to 2003 I believe when ACOW was released. I thought he worked on it for TOAW III, but it seems that was Ralph's design. Ralph then worked on it solo till he parted with Matrix.

War games in particular seem to be solo efforts. There are a few exceptions like War in the East/West and the Flashpoint games. But it seems they are all mostly one shot deals by one individual that is an expert programmer.

I am a web developer (more precisely a senior software engineer), I am considered a full stack developer (meaning back and front end), but my skills have lent me to be mostly a front end developer with my current company. I learned C++ way back in the 90's but have mostly switched to Java, but I have been using JavaScript and various frameworks for years.

There are a few games programmed in Java (I believe Desert War, Valor and Victory and possible most from Yobo games), a lot of old war games were programmed in C++, but some of the newer ones are programmed in C#. Personally I think any newer programming language like C# or Java can be used to program a war game. Using something like Unity is also possible (WarPlan). In order to use Unity as your "base" engine you'd need to bone up on Unity and also pay a fee (which I think Al does - Warplan), its not cheap. Using Java, you can create your own engine, but that means at least 1-2 years of getting the engine off the ground, then another 2-3 years to get the game designed. Theoretically you could do both using Java but you'd have to plan out your engine and work on that.

Just to illustrate some issues, I know of a group of guys that have 3 main programmers one of which is the lead and brain child. One worked on the engine ten years or so ago and then went off to work for the government as a contractor making $$$,$$$ a year. The lead continued on solo for 3 or 5 years and then the other fellow joined and two years after that they had their first release.

Now Al (WarPlan) is an exception, he uses Unity and C# and has had 2 games in the last 2 years, but I still think we worked on the engine for at least a year and half prior to Warplan.

So unity cuts down on some of that time.

Rambling thoughts is all...

There is no need to use Unity engine. Right now, I am using Godot engine with C# and I can create hexgrid without any problem. Now, doing a game is another stuff. I am doing this to learn and amuse me.
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RE: So, when is the new patch coming out?

Post by ncc1701e »

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

Speaking of re-writing TOAW in a different language: Alvaro Sousa is THE developer for War Plan Pacific and he wrote WPP using the Unity Game Engine and C# and as far as I know he's the only developer for that game and he has been keeping up with frequent updates and fixes galore. It's my understanding that Unity is a great platform to write games quickly and easily. I've played with it and I haven't yet found something I can't do with it. SOMEBODY might want to look into that.

This guy is wonderful. This is the only developer of Warplan. I have raised many bugs inside the game and the engine of Warplan and almost all have been corrected. As a consequence, I was invited to do the beta testing of Warplan Pacific. Again, all bugs were tackled. Only balance issues remain.

If only Ralph had been so responsive to all the bugs I found during the TOAW 3 beta testing. That's why I have lost interest in the game.
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You don't trust me, do you? I don't blame you. If there is to be a brave new world, our generation is going to have the hardest time living in it.
woos1981
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RE: So, when is the new patch coming out?

Post by woos1981 »

Hi Bob, We just want to know one question right now, The new update still in the works? Or has the development of the game stopped now? Because this classic game touches so many old players' hearts, it means a lot to us.
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RE: So, when is the new patch coming out?

Post by DD696 »

Yes. That was my question. Obviously, no one is capable of answering it. They would prefer that we spend more money to purchase a "new" product with a couple of bells and whistles, but not one that improves the basic quality of the game. Would you agree with that, Bob?
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RE: So, when is the new patch coming out?

Post by Curtis Lemay »

ORIGINAL: DD696

Yes. That was my question. Obviously, no one is capable of answering it. They would prefer that we spend more money to purchase a "new" product with a couple of bells and whistles, but not one that improves the basic quality of the game. Would you agree with that, Bob?

His question was answered in my post #52.

TOAW IV's features were clearly listed here:

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3899655
My TOAW web site:

Bob Cross's TOAW Site
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RE: So, when is the new patch coming out?

Post by Hellen_slith »

ORIGINAL: ncc1701e

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

Speaking of re-writing TOAW in a different language: Alvaro Sousa is THE developer for War Plan Pacific and he wrote WPP using the Unity Game Engine and C# and as far as I know he's the only developer for that game and he has been keeping up with frequent updates and fixes galore. It's my understanding that Unity is a great platform to write games quickly and easily. I've played with it and I haven't yet found something I can't do with it. SOMEBODY might want to look into that.

This guy is wonderful. This is the only developer of Warplan. I have raised many bugs inside the game and the engine of Warplan and almost all have been corrected. As a consequence, I was invited to do the beta testing of Warplan Pacific. Again, all bugs were tackled. Only balance issues remain.

If only Ralph had been so responsive to all the bugs I found during the TOAW 3 beta testing. That's why I have lost interest in the game.

Weird. Playing TOAW4 practically non-stop and an occasional run of III.

Funny, I don't seem to run into all those bugs you found in III. I guess those are for the "elite" players, huh?
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RE: So, when is the new patch coming out?

Post by Lobster »

ORIGINAL: Hellen_slith

ORIGINAL: ncc1701e

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

Speaking of re-writing TOAW in a different language: Alvaro Sousa is THE developer for War Plan Pacific and he wrote WPP using the Unity Game Engine and C# and as far as I know he's the only developer for that game and he has been keeping up with frequent updates and fixes galore. It's my understanding that Unity is a great platform to write games quickly and easily. I've played with it and I haven't yet found something I can't do with it. SOMEBODY might want to look into that.

This guy is wonderful. This is the only developer of Warplan. I have raised many bugs inside the game and the engine of Warplan and almost all have been corrected. As a consequence, I was invited to do the beta testing of Warplan Pacific. Again, all bugs were tackled. Only balance issues remain.

If only Ralph had been so responsive to all the bugs I found during the TOAW 3 beta testing. That's why I have lost interest in the game.

Weird. Playing TOAW4 practically non-stop and an occasional run of III.

Funny, I don't seem to run into all those bugs you found in III. I guess those are for the "elite" players, huh?

They are listed on the test forum mostly. There is no bug sub forum here as you can see but people do mention them occaisionally.

That is a good thing since sometimes bugs are exploits. Don't want everyone to see them.
ne nothi tere te deorsum (don't let the bastards grind you down)

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Re: So, when is the new patch coming out?

Post by biddrafter2 »

Just wanted to say hello to this thread from the future, February 2024.
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