Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: RevRick

ORIGINAL: Ron James



So R U volunteering to be on the AI design team !!! ???



Im sure you would love a history teacher on your design team, we could all sit round and drink some coffee and have real nice chat every morning [:)]

Oh, really. Well, I'll throw my hat in the ring. I'm and ex-English Teacher who is now a pastor and a Naval History Nut.

Ought to be some interesting conversations.

yes indeed sir, I would go as far to even break out my best tea from mother England PG Tips a fine brew , Im no real expert on naval history, civil wars is my bag. But Im learning as fast as I can about the pacific theatre [:)]

What are you guys talking about? Buying the source code? How much do they want for it?

I think they're making VERY LONG-TERM plans for the day that Matrix/2by3 decides to make the code open-source. If that day ever comes.

To be honest, that was NOT my intention. I believe we were talking about a completly new game of WitP.

ORIGINAL: Terminus

I think they're making VERY LONG-TERM plans for the day that Matrix/2by3 decides to make the code open-source. If that day ever comes.

Why would they do that?

ORIGINAL: doktorblood

ORIGINAL: Terminus

I think they're making VERY LONG-TERM plans for the day that Matrix/2by3 decides to make the code open-source. If that day ever comes.

Why would they do that?

Because Matrix / 2x3 will never make another game using this engine (with the possible exception of the WPO mod, which I don't consider another game, it's more of an expansion / adaptation of WITP), and releasing the code is a good way to help keep the community alive and looking forward to your next game.

John Carmack releases the source code for his games at id software after their commercial life is over. Want the source code to Quake 3 Arena? It's available here: http://www.idsoftware.com/business/techdownloads/

Edit to add: But like Nomad, I thought that "option 3" involved starting from scratch with an open-source project to create a next-generation game from the ground up.

ORIGINAL: Nomad

To be honest, that was NOT my intention. I believe we were talking about a completly new game of WitP.

Okay, then I misunderstood something. Mea culpa! [:)]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

ORIGINAL: Nomad

To be honest, that was NOT my intention. I believe we were talking about a completly new game of WitP.

Okay, then I misunderstood something. Mea culpa! [:)]

Actually, I went back and looked and I was not really clear in what I said earlier. I was 'voting' for option 3.

I would hop in on this. I don't know squat about C# or C++ (except how to spell them) but I can hold my own with VB.

I do own Robohelp 3X and Acrobat 6.0, and would be happy to take a crack at the help files/user documentation. Also have a couple DVD's of ordnance publications from WW1 to Vietnam era, and 20+ years defuzing those infernal machines, so I can help with any research. Lastly, I have Installshield 5 and TrueUpdate 1.4, which would take care of setups and updates. Might even be able to come up with a couple hundred Mb of free web space on an Apache server, with a little advance notice.

Just my .02

ORIGINAL: Nomad

ORIGINAL: Terminus

ORIGINAL: Nomad

To be honest, that was NOT my intention. I believe we were talking about a completly new game of WitP.

Okay, then I misunderstood something. Mea culpa! [:)]

Actually, I went back and looked and I was not really clear in what I said earlier. I was 'voting' for option 3.

Since I think I was the one that came up with the three options - I'll try to clarify a little.

Option #1 would be someone funding a whole new company / effort to build a whole new game - but unless one of us wins the lottery, we can probably write this one off.

Option #2 would be someone getting the source code and trying to leverage that into WITP II ... this is a possibility that might happen one day ... but it didn't happen at or immediately after Origins as had been discussed as a possibilty.

Option #3 would be starting over / whole new game - but with a volunteer work force.

In a day or so - after this thread burns out, I'll send PMs to those who are interested and we'd probably need to take this discussion off-line if it is going to go any farther. I'd probably set up a separate forum ( on another site ) for this .. forum for public access, wiki for actual team. But again, I'll send PMs to those indicating interest in a day or so.

Hi, From the credits of WITP
2 Producers
3 design
3 programmers
12 research
3 artists
and 20 testers (many new ones since the credits)
The game required over 4 years before release.

At first glance sounds similar size to the group proposed here. Wonder if everyone that's interested is prepared for a very long development period of 4 years or more, assuming that the UBER team will be almost totally part-time.

ORIGINAL: Bodhi

Of course, that's how a project should be done. Probably another case of curiosity killing the cat, but I'm just wondering how the actual team involved in producing WitP compares with the team you'd like to assemble for Uber WitP.

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, From the credits of WITP
2 Producers
3 design
3 programmers
12 research
3 artists
and 20 testers (many new ones since the credits)
The game required over 4 years before release.

So Mogami found the "body count" ... though the "process" used is probably as important as the body count and we can't infer that from the body count.

WITP project, I think also included UV project - with UV being "test bed" for WITP ( I think I heard this anyway ). Also UV allowed the project to have an intermediate deliverable - which I think is very important, in fact I don't think an "volunteer team" project ( or most projects for that matter ) should go more than 12 months without a major deliverable. But the "body counts" are similar ... if you combine "design and research" as I did. And my hope is that most "testing" can be automated - in fact my current development team ( IRL ) believes you first start by writing the testing specs and then the testing harness ... essentially "test first" .... not that this means no humans test of course they do .... but much testing can be automated. We run hundreds of hours of automated tests ( which would require 10s of 1000s of human hours ) on software before release.

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

This project would be a dream come true for many. Alass, I have no programming experiance beyond Basic some twenty years ago...however you can always use help in concept work...I would be happy to weigh in there.

Question - if it's an entirely new engine we are talking about why do hexes at all? Seems a great many naval/air games got beyond that many years ago....

I would love to contribute to anything needed, however I have no programming experience beyond a little Q-Basic. I could help in research, testing, and concept design. It would be a fun project, I believe.

ORIGINAL: Bodhi

At first glance sounds similar size to the group proposed here. Wonder if everyone that's interested is prepared for a very long development period of 4 years or more, assuming that the UBER team will be almost totally part-time.

I think this point is "key" to the entire bit. I've mentioned before that I'd be only too happy to help develop a more detailed weather model... Yet, I'm active military now and I suspect while the concept of a finely tuned "war machine" (aka WiTP 2) would be sweet, it'd probably take 4-5yrs minimum to develp. Barring technology breakthroughs of course. [8D][:)]

ORIGINAL: 2Stepper

ORIGINAL: Bodhi

At first glance sounds similar size to the group proposed here. Wonder if everyone that's interested is prepared for a very long development period of 4 years or more, assuming that the UBER team will be almost totally part-time.

I think this point is "key" to the entire bit. I've mentioned before that I'd be only too happy to help develop a more detailed weather model... Yet, I'm active military now and I suspect while the concept of a finely tuned "war machine" (aka WiTP 2) would be sweet, it'd probably take 4-5yrs minimum to develp. Barring technology breakthroughs of course. [8D][:)]

A few points. The original team doing WITP was probably also part time - i.e. not spending 40-100 hours per week per person working only on WITP ( i.e. all 43 persons in Mogami's ). And in my opinion 4-5 years development time is unacceptable. Technology breakthroughs offer some hope ... but process breakthroughs offer perhaps more hope. Building in Parallelism in design and development, automation of testing ( a.k.a. "AI" ) heavily focusing on design and design of testing up front. Clearly indentifying scope. And insisting on major deliverables every 12 months could significantly reduce development time. These things being said, this would be 2 years minimum project.

OK...here is what I have so far with a 1km per hex, Company/Bn level modification. This is the Lunga/Guadalcanal area. I am still working on Siberia. Getting the Russian unit nomenclature right is a royal pain and I am having trouble with course of the Amur River (some variation between 1933 and 1956 maps). I am running ganged 16 x 3.4 Ghz processors with 1.2 Gig of RAM to improve scrolling.


BTW..I am looking for the TO&E of a 1941 Russian Inf Div horse-mobile med AT battery. Ideas?

Oh My!

I have about the same length of IT management experience as jwilkerson mentioned. From reading what he has posted here: he knows what he is talking about. If an effort does get off the ground, listen to him!