Warzone 2100 Forums

The following is a rant. If you do not like rambling, frantic, angry blithering, or man eating gerbils with chainsaws and bat wings, please hit the back button now. I do not intend to upset anyone, merely to let out some pain.

Ok. Still here?

I remember 2011. I remember those glory days. 2.3.8 and 2.3.9 were the cream of the crop. Everybody talked about the upcoming 3.1, but nobody used it. People preferred the look and feel of 2.3.x. Most players preferred the warped, uneven balance. I was one of them. I still am. You see, what makes a game great, is not the graphics, or the site, or the community, or the netcode, or the symmetry of the balance. It's the ability to bring large amounts of joy. Many people I have talked to miss 2.3. I decided to switch the Legacy codebase to 2.3.x not long ago, although I have yet to work on it, and I expected a lot of "why? 3.1 has a better interface and better netcode!"

You know what I got?

War2070:

"If what your doing is based on 2.3.9 then I'm willing to give it a shot and spend my time playing it."

Grrr:

"I thought your wonderful project had died! So glad you soldiered on and I for one wish you all the best. 3.1 really sucks... Like a Dyson on steroids.

Yes, C++ has turned into a monster - which is why plain ol' C still is the top programming language in the world. C++ is used so that bloated <Sub-censored> code can be bolted together easily and kicked out the door asap to maximise profit.

Good fortune Subsentient - keep up the good work!
;D"

And not surprisingly zylonk:

"Good to hear this. Only in this way - taking up from the 2.3.9 branch - can something meaningful be made of WZ."

The people in IRC I have talked to also seem to like the idea. 3.1 has removed pieces of Warzone 2100 that made the game what it was. The strange part is, I can't even put my finger on most of them. The days I loved so much that brought me never ending joy are gone it seems. The ISA may be forced to dissolve from a lack of activity. Shortly after the release of 3.1, our already dwindling member activity started to flatline. I haven't seen many friends of mine since the release of 3.1. Some people like it better, and it does have advantages, but changing the game so much is bad for the game. I'm going to go all Jean-Luc Picard up in here: "It's an attack on it's very soul!"

I don't know exactly what changed in 3.1 precisely. Something that was done really hurt warzone. 2.3 has desyncing netcode, a slightly tilted tech tree, no Javascript support, no XPlayer support, and so much more, but something makes it superior. Something is broken in 3.1, and I'm not talking about bugs. I'll leave it up to you all to figure it out.

If you fork from 2.3.9, maybe then it would be possible to merge your fork with Iluvalar's fork. But if you instead spoon from 2.3.9, you could then merge with Iluvalar's fork, to make a spork.

So how do I get a spatula?

bendib wrote:So how do I get a spatula?

Maybe by merging a fork and a plate? Not sure exactly.

Well, to my knowledge, a few changes to balance were done, such as stat changes, and the addition of Transports and Gates I believe. Also, there were changes in the code regarding targeting (meant to prevent overkilling enemy units) that had an unintentionally negative effect on artillery, and there seems to be a bug regarding artillery targeting anything that's in visual sight (such as, say, a CB sensor or Radar Detector detecting a hardpoint).

Well, with the switch of Legacy to 2.3.9 we now have 3 sporks handling all three major release versions. 1.X, 2.X, and 3.X

Something to make everyone happy

Though with the bugs mentioned in the previous post I think looking back on 2.x and 1.x to see what broke might be in order In any event, Warzone is fully covered in every direction and flavor it takes. With the exception of the simpler days of NEWST when we didn't have the source code to frustrate us to no end. Then again.. I've found some really funny comments in said source.

Well, I finally restarted work on Legacy...

I gots a billion copyrights to update, and a few yacc related bugs to fix, but I am already making good progress.

My new machine has graphics issues, thankfully, the chip's so fast I can run the game in software mode, lol.
SDL is a bit difficult to work with, but I am getting by. Someone thought putting an SDL icon as a header file would be cute... Nrrr.

anyone who has tried 3.1 would never want to go back to any lower version if you play mp games
just too many cheats in all those other versions

when you truthfully ask anyone they will tell you the same

Shadow Wolf TJC wrote:Well, to my knowledge, a few changes to balance were done, such as stat changes, and the addition of Transports and Gates I believe. Also, there were changes in the code regarding targeting (meant to prevent overkilling enemy units) that had an unintentionally negative effect on artillery, and there seems to be a bug regarding artillery targeting anything that's in visual sight (such as, say, a CB sensor or Radar Detector detecting a hardpoint).

don't forget the path finding bugs!

Well, the netcode is lacking, but I did ask a handful of people. Most were nostalgic about 2.3 and wanted it back, regardless of the netcode. I do, however, have every intention of implementing a custom netcode that will require a lot of droid code rewrites, but in the end, prevent desync much better than 3.1. This is... going to be a massive job... Also will be working on a new map format dubbed "wzl2". Human readable text files in a zip.

bendib wrote:…, prevent desync much better than 3.1. …

Just out of curiousity, what does that mean? Will your code result in a negative frequency of desynchs, rather than merely reducing the frequency to 0 like 3.1 does?

Sorry, bad wording, it will try to be functionally similar while reducing the number of desync related freezes and delays.

@Cyp: The 3.1 netcode is a masterpiece, I will give you that. :^)
It just needs to be more "solution oriented".

Aaaaannnndddd.... I derailed my own thread....

Don't worry, we all do that at one time or another

bendib wrote:Sorry, bad wording, it will try to be functionally similar while reducing the number of desync related freezes and delays.…

It will be able to upgrade everyone's internet connection? That sounds good. (Actually, there is some room for non-magical improvement, in the case that someone has a better connection than the host, if clients communicate directly instead of going through the host.)