When?

[Joseignacio]

I was just telling him that this is a forum in English, that his google translation was not very good, some details about the game he was asking for, and the suggestion that I could tell more by PM.

I thought I could spare translating all the stuff to English because you'd guess that... You know me for several years now.

[Joseignacio]

ORIGINAL: michaelbaldur

ORIGINAL: Joseignacio

Hola, pescada. Quizás Google Translator no es tan bueno como crees. [:D]

El juego permitirá jugar por correo y creo que por internet con otro (¿otros?) jugador/es. Por ahora parece ser que en esta primera version no habrá IA, pero la idea es que la haya cuando sea factible.

Aqui se habla inglés, pero si quieres enviarme un PM yo te pongo al dia.

this is a English forum. so please only post in English

Take a lime tea to prevent these irkings, it will help your hemorroids as well.[:)]

[pescada]

Sorry to exist in the world but there are also people who can not speak English, not everyone is perfect, in fact if I knew English, do you think would use the google translator.
Regards and remember that the WIF is translated into many languages ​​including Spanish and unfortunately I have not found any on this forum Spanish version pc game

[WIF_Killzone]

Exciting progress is being made, given Steve's average bug fixes per month (128) I wonder how many remain outstanding. I seem to remeber a table of this in one of his ealier posts. Would be nice to see an updated table.

[yvesp]

ORIGINAL: WIF_Killzone
Exciting progress is being made, given Steve's average bug fixes per month (128) I wonder how many remain outstanding. I seem to remeber a table of this in one of his ealier posts. Would be nice to see an updated table.

Well, such a table presents little interest ; it is only valid during a short time span.
As bugs are crushed, new ones appear as the product both evolves and crushing old bugs makes it possible to explore parts of the code that were previously unreachable, or reachable under bad conditions.

If you've read correctly, there were not that many outstanding bugs. But Steve would usually crush 120 in a month, whereas testers would report 90 new bugs. Some of these new bugs duplicate referenced bugs, or bugs already crushed in the current version (Steve's one, the most advanced). Nonetheless, all of these have to be scanned in detail to determine their status, which takes a lot of time and bookeeping.

So what's really interesting is not the amount of bugs, but the curve showing how the work progresses. This can give an estimate of the time where few enough bugs remain to release the program. Actually, not even this is interesting ; what's really interesting is the number of serious bugs, those of the kind which ruin the game ; such as a bug that prevents you to reload a saved game, or that makes the game crash randomly. The bugs pertaining to obscure rules interpretation are unlikely to mess with your pleasure with the game.

And don't believe the program will come out with zero bugs : this is utterly impossible. Given Steve's devotion to the game, it will come out with few bugs, of the kind you're unlikely to meet even if you play twenty times. This is exceedingly better than the games one usually buys.

Yves

[Extraneous]

ORIGINAL: Joseignacio

ORIGINAL: michaelbaldur

ORIGINAL: Joseignacio

Hola, pescada. Quizás Google Translator no es tan bueno como crees. [:D]

El juego permitirá jugar por correo y creo que por internet con otro (¿otros?) jugador/es. Por ahora parece ser que en esta primera version no habrá IA, pero la idea es que la haya cuando sea factible.

Aqui se habla inglés, pero si quieres enviarme un PM yo te pongo al dia.

this is a English forum. so please only post in English

Take a lime tea to prevent these irkings, it will help your hemorroids as well.[:)]

[:D] Spanish and Portuguese speaking visitors to the forums could always PM you (Joseignacio) for clarifications if the Google translator isn't clear. [:D]

PS: Lime tea is great and I don't have hemorroids. [:D]

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: yvesp

ORIGINAL: WIF_Killzone
Exciting progress is being made, given Steve's average bug fixes per month (128) I wonder how many remain outstanding. I seem to remeber a table of this in one of his ealier posts. Would be nice to see an updated table.

Well, such a table presents little interest ; it is only valid during a short time span.
As bugs are crushed, new ones appear as the product both evolves and crushing old bugs makes it possible to explore parts of the code that were previously unreachable, or reachable under bad conditions.

If you've read correctly, there were not that many outstanding bugs. But Steve would usually crush 120 in a month, whereas testers would report 90 new bugs. Some of these new bugs duplicate referenced bugs, or bugs already crushed in the current version (Steve's one, the most advanced). Nonetheless, all of these have to be scanned in detail to determine their status, which takes a lot of time and bookeeping.

So what's really interesting is not the amount of bugs, but the curve showing how the work progresses. This can give an estimate of the time where few enough bugs remain to release the program. Actually, not even this is interesting ; what's really interesting is the number of serious bugs, those of the kind which ruin the game ; such as a bug that prevents you to reload a saved game, or that makes the game crash randomly. The bugs pertaining to obscure rules interpretation are unlikely to mess with your pleasure with the game.

And don't believe the program will come out with zero bugs : this is utterly impossible. Given Steve's devotion to the game, it will come out with few bugs, of the kind you're unlikely to meet even if you play twenty times. This is exceedingly better than the games one usually buys.

Yves

A very good assessment - I'm impressed. That's me banging out the bugs.[:D]

[yvesp]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
A very good assessment - I'm impressed. That's me banging out the bugs.[:D]

Well, that was not too difficult given that my job is quite similar to yours! [:D][:D]
Main difference is that I'm beeing paid every month, whereas I guess you're more or less waiting for the release of the game. My place is certainly more confortable than yours on that side. However, you likely have a freedom that I don't enjoy.

If I had free time, I would even have volunteered to help you, but hey, I've little time of my own (about 3h commuting every day), and I'm not much into delphi (used it once though, 10 or 15 years ago or so) ; I'm more on the java/scala J2EE development side. That's not exactly game building!

Yves

[Joseignacio]

Extraneous, the anwer was to a post of Michelbaldur, although implying all the previous posters somehow, but the message about the lime tea was intended for MB, since this high levels of sensibility often are due to physical pungent maladies.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: yvesp

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
A very good assessment - I'm impressed. That's me banging out the bugs.[:D]

Well, that was not too difficult given that my job is quite similar to yours! [:D][:D]
Main difference is that I'm beeing paid every month, whereas I guess you're more or less waiting for the release of the game. My place is certainly more confortable than yours on that side. However, you likely have a freedom that I don't enjoy.

If I had free time, I would even have volunteered to help you, but hey, I've little time of my own (about 3h commuting every day), and I'm not much into delphi (used it once though, 10 or 15 years ago or so) ; I'm more on the java/scala J2EE development side. That's not exactly game building!

Yves

My commute is measured in seconds, less than 10. During dinner my wife and I watch (from the 19th floor) the traffic back up on H1 for miles - sometimes in both directions.[8|]

[paulderynck]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: yvesp

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
A very good assessment - I'm impressed. That's me banging out the bugs.[:D]

Well, that was not too difficult given that my job is quite similar to yours! [:D][:D]
Main difference is that I'm beeing paid every month, whereas I guess you're more or less waiting for the release of the game. My place is certainly more confortable than yours on that side. However, you likely have a freedom that I don't enjoy.

If I had free time, I would even have volunteered to help you, but hey, I've little time of my own (about 3h commuting every day), and I'm not much into delphi (used it once though, 10 or 15 years ago or so) ; I'm more on the java/scala J2EE development side. That's not exactly game building!

Yves

My commute is measured in seconds, less than 10. During dinner my wife and I watch (from the 19th floor) the traffic back up on H1 for miles - sometimes in both directions.[8|]

It's a very nice view you have there in any event.

[WIF_Killzone]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: yvesp

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
A very good assessment - I'm impressed. That's me banging out the bugs.[:D]

Well, that was not too difficult given that my job is quite similar to yours! [:D][:D]
Main difference is that I'm beeing paid every month, whereas I guess you're more or less waiting for the release of the game. My place is certainly more confortable than yours on that side. However, you likely have a freedom that I don't enjoy.

If I had free time, I would even have volunteered to help you, but hey, I've little time of my own (about 3h commuting every day), and I'm not much into delphi (used it once though, 10 or 15 years ago or so) ; I'm more on the java/scala J2EE development side. That's not exactly game building!

Yves

My commute is measured in seconds, less than 10. During dinner my wife and I watch (from the 19th floor) the traffic back up on H1 for miles - sometimes in both directions.[8|]

My commute is measured in kilometers, (1640 if I was to drive), 3 hours by plane one way, plus airport security time and getting to the airport, so about 6 hours one way, performed twice a week = 12 / 5 days = 2.4 hours per day so I guess, I'm in the middle.

Would the graph could show the projected months (the x-axis), the # bugs (the y-axis) with two lines showing # of bugs reported, and # of bugs fixed. Surely the two lines will intersect at some point in the future i.e. the projected release date. [8|]

If you must seperate the bugs by priority (citical, high, medium, low) I wouldnt be adverse to looking at that graph too [:D]

[WIF_Killzone]

I have a question, would it be possible to list the release criteria (the criteria that must be met to release the product) and then report upon that criteria in your monthly status reports?

If you havn't decided upon the release criteria, could you let us know that as well? I'm sure the forum members would be willing to give one or two opinions on it [8|]

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: WIF_Killzone

I have a question, would it be possible to list the release criteria (the criteria that must be met to release the product) and then report upon that criteria in your monthly status reports?

If you havn't decided upon the release criteria, could you let us know that as well? I'm sure the forum members would be willing to give one or two opinions on it [8|]

I have admonitions from on high to not discuss specifics in detail.

Right now we're working hard on ironing out the remaining bugs and getting ready for full-blown testing of NetPlay. There are a dozen new beta testers on board and I want them to learn enough about the game to be able to test NetPlay once I place it into their hands. My goal is to have 2-3 people work together on NetPlay testing, so its gets a "real world" test rather than having one person with two computers side by side running the tests (which is how I do it).

As of yesterday I finished up with the Seeking Opponent database. It accepts "original request" posts and replies to the original requests. The originator can specify optional rules individually (On/Off). I have the delete function working so once the originator finds an opponent, he can delete his original post.

I still need to add an automatic deletion function if the post has been sitting idle without a reply for 1 month. Since I can't test that feature until a month has passed I can delay writing the code for a few weeks.

With my next release to the beta testers, they should be able to see if that new code is bug-free or not.

I'm currently coding the TCP/IP connections for players to send messages to each other through the Matrix NetPlay Message Server for World in Flames. Once I get that functional, I'll clone the code for the Matrix NetPlay Game Server. They use almost identical procedures, with the former for simple text messages and the latter for game events (e.g., move the 6-4 from this hex to that hex).

[WIF_Killzone]

Thank you, that informs..

Keep up the good work.

Craig

[bfontes]

Has it been announced that there will be no AI at release or are people making assumptions? How is it possible? Wow, talk about guaranteeing failure...

Is there any precedent for a PC wargame being released and succeeeding with no single player mode?

[Ubercat]

It's a good thing that many of us don't share your attitude and assumptions.

[undercovergeek]

ORIGINAL: bfontes

Is there any precedent for a PC wargame being released and succeeeding with no single player mode?

world of warcraft?

[Edfactor]

WoW is not a wargame
Wow does have single player mode quests all over the place, as well as PvP

I quite that addiction, now your making me think of it again.

[gridley]

ORIGINAL: Ubercat

It's a good thing that many of us don't share your attitude and assumptions.

Actually, he shares the attitude and assumptions of both the founder of Matrix games and the developer of Matrix World in Flames as per this post after the release in 2009 was not met.

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

... This was motivated by a conversation with David Heath about how important the AI Opponent will be.
... I now agree with Dave: the AIO is crucial for sales.

However, now we get a post like this in response to whether or not an AI will be part of the initial release;

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

We'll provide more information on that as we get closer to release. There's a lot that we still need to do to inform you all about what the release plans are and future plans after the release.

There is no question that the game will have an AI, but the AI will require extra work and our goal it so make sure the AI is competent and can provide a good challenge to new players. In the long run, this game is much better played against human opponents, which is why we are focusing on the multiplayer system first.

Regards,

- Erik

It is clear that there will be no AI in the initial release. Forgive me if I am not as confident as I have been for the last 7 years or so on the success of MWiF. Hopefully, when Erik releases thier plans my fears will be alleviated...this type of release schedule still just doesn't make sense to me.