3.1 rc 3 is the end of the world, and kills kittens!!!

[aubergine]

Ah, now this discussion has been split in to it's own thread (thanks to whoever did that) I can reply to this...

Is like burying your head in the sand?

No, zydonk, it's not burying head in sand. The reason I facepalmed was because....

You're ranting (or at least that's how it comes across in all your posts for the last several months) about how much better 2.3.9 is compared to 3.1. Over and over and over again, in countless topics you have complained about 3.1 and told the world we should all go back to 2.3.9.

Well, 2.3.9 is still available and the source code is there for anyone who wants to maintain the 2.x branch. So if you love it so much, go do just that or find someone who will.

From what I understand, and I've spent a fair bit of time looking at warzone versions whilst doing documentation on my wiki, the 3.x branch is already going some 2+ years, maybe even as long as 3 years at this point. It's an attempt to clean up large chunks of WZ code and make it easier to maintain and extend, not to mention tackling lots and lots of other long term issues with the old code.

In any modernisation process like that, as any developer that's worked on a large legacy project will know, it's a non-trivial task and some stuff will obviously be better than before, and some stuff will be worse. The developers working on it will know all too well what is worse, especially with you constantly ranting in the forums about how you hate 3.1. But certain things take time to ferment to get their full flavour back.

Yes, there are problems with pathfinding. Yes, there are problems with targeting. Yes, there are heated discussions over balance. We all know this, because we all play the game. Constantly nagging about how bad it is isn't going to somehow magically make the problems go away any faster.

I dare say that some of the balance issues are caused by bugfixes! Certain strategies were not possible before due to broken code, but as that code gets fixed the *existing* strategies start to get used for the first time and long-term players find their tried and tested approach no longer working. I remember when setting VTOLs to circle was practically pointless, heck, they wouldn't even repair properly on their rearming pads. But once those bugs got fixed, VTOLs suddenly got a whole lot more effective (for me at least). Each time a bug is fixed, people will start taking advantage of the now-working feature that they couldn't reliably use before. Also, solutions are the main cause of problems - so when a bug is fixed, it can break stuff elsewhere. But as the developers have shown, they are in this for the long run and it's a fairly safe bet that those issues will get resolved.

In fact, wz2100.net is the only long-term active project maintaining WZ. Other projects have come and gone over years - and it's been lots of years now hasn't it? Pumpkin maintained WZ for maybe 3 years (two before release, 1 after)? NEWST / Pumpkin-2 lasted about a year or two if the releases they made are anything to go by?

If I understand correctly, the current team have been maintaining WZ since 2006, longer than any other WZ project or team ever. They've pushed out in the region of 100 releases (incl. betas/rc's, excl. masters/snapshots) in that time, taking WZ from 2.03 in 2006 to 3.1 rc3 just a few days ago. They have been doing it long enough to know where the roadblocks to continued development are (I'm not part of that team, so I ask them to please correct me if I'm wrong). A 1-2 year rough patch to achieve some major structural changes is a small price to play in a codebase that is now well over 13 years old, especially if it ensures that the project will continue to be maintained in the future.

I facepalmed because you seem to be short sighted and can't see the longer term vision that is being worked on. Instead you focus on all the negatives and cast blame on the devs as if they are somehow volunteering their free time to focus on making your life worse. And your constant nagging, spammed in to countless unsuspecting topics throughout these forums, is just plain annoying.

If you have gripes about where 3.1 is headed, compile a list and make a new topic, don't hijack dozens of other peoples topics. And don't simply suggest "go back to how it worked in 2.3.9" because that is completely ignoring why the changes were made in the first place. There's very good reasons why developers spend countless hours refactoring code, despite the pain that often causes them, and it's to break through some architectural barrier that prevents a project from moving forward. So when someone comes along and suggests the project go back to where it was, as if that will somehow help it move forward, they are quite simply barking up the wrong tree.

If you spot an issue in a new release, why not screen record a game showing the problem and upload it to youtube. Like the targeting issue you mentioned where defences near enemy troops weren't firing thus allowing the enemy to easily destroy them, and upload a savegame to the forums or a bug ticket along with a link to that video. Then the developer can see the problem in action (from the video) and use the savegame to recreate that problem in a dev environment where they can see what's going on inside the code and thus work out why it's happening. At least then you'd be doing something constructive: providing visual evidence that clearly illustrates the problem and data that helps a developer recreate the problem so they can investigate what's causing it. Can you not see how that would be more helpful and progressive than simply saying stuff that amounts to "make it work like it did in 2.3.9"?

If WZ was still a commercial project and these issues were happening and not getting fixed quickly, your current "nagging" approach might be justified (but still damn annoying and non-constructive!), because there'd be a team of 20+ people spending 8-16 hours a day, 5-6 days a week on it. But the current dev team is much smaller, and doing what they can in their free time, without getting paid for it, without being able to hire consultants to fill knowledge gaps, etc., and having someone just constantly nagging and saying they are terrible and should go back to 2.3.9 is 100% non-helpful.

Either get constructive (provide videos, savegames, and stop saying "go back to 2.3.9") or go make your own fork of WZ and maintain it for the next decade if you think it's so easy.

[Giani]

It seems to me as a layman that 239 was a culmination of a line of development and that to go further would require more fundamental changes. I think the temptation to make more than one of these changes at the time of the creation of the new line 3.0 must have been very great. Introducing both the netcode and a new renderer at the same time led to a huge workload in dealing both with bugs and in trying to iron out very real problems with the render. Yet, despite the burden of these issues, they continue to make significant changes to the gameplay. Now we have reached the stage where there is simply not the will to resolve this complex and messy situation.

Yes, you are right, you are a layman.

To me it appears as if 2.39 was a dead end without doing some major changes. And when you break compatibility, you might as well fix all that you would like to fix at the same time. That is why the next version was called "3" and not "2.4.0".

It is common best practise to redo a couple of design decisions when stepping from one major version to the next. And AFAICT the developers did a great job on that.

OK, I know all the answers to the above, having read them many times. Nonetheless that is the situation and it is a real one. 3.1 is not going anywhere

Oh sure it is. 3.1 is going to replace all previous WZ versions soon. We are at rc3 now, so I expect the final 3.1 to come out this year, at which point 2.x will be dead. Because I see no benefit in using the 2.x versions. Seriously, who is still using 2.x?

Oh, I forgot. Some people like cyborgs walking through walls and tanks (2.x) and consider that an essential gameplay feature. Oh, those poor kittens!

With all respects to it dedicated members, the dev needs some kind of oversight - a steering group drawn from within the dev, for instance - and a definite policy on what can be achieved.

You cannot put policy on volunteeers. Unless you pay them, at which point they aren't volunteers anymore. And seriously, the "classic" (whatever) WZ is dead. It has a single developer, bendib, which also had abandoned it for some time...

So please, think of the kittens.

And for a moment I believed you might take the situation seriously.

No, I cannot take you seriously. Because you only complain, but do not improve anything. I only take people seriously that contribute. Not that I have myself contributed much yet myself.

Please, dead WZ3.x developers. Just continue, and ignore this thread. Thank you.

We need a +1 button.

[bendib]

I assume that the more pressing problems can be corrected by reinstating the 239 code

Not easily, there are years of development between 2.3 and 3.1, and Warzone isn't the best example of well-separated, encapsulated code.

Granted. Think of WZ dev as a computer game, with each release like a savegame. I think of Philospher's Quest, a text game from the 1980's on the BBC Micro. You save your game and head off down this path, but after a while you come to a dead end. What do you do? Trek all the way back, or do you load a savegame that takes you back to the point where you branched off?

If the netcode can be isolated from the rest of 31, could that not be grafted onto 239, and then a new branch started that could then encapsulate other real improvements achieved in 31? I know the 31 tiles do not render well in 239, but that seems a problem with definition only.

239 is not some kind of solution to the problem of 31, just the point for a new departure down another path. This can be done, while putting 31 down to experience and learning from it.

I actually have to say I've taken a look at the netcode, and it is cryptic, scattered, and relies on some C++ functions. Porting it to the C based 2.3.x with a very different structure is going to be more than an nuisance.

[Lord Apocalypse]

Zydonk, start a new thread with detailed reports on...

I think that would make me appear as a crank. It's not simply a matter of like or dislike, more of what adds to WZ and what detracts from it. I have already made my points in that matter, so I assume everyone who's interested in the fate of WZ already knows about them. And remember others have raised the same concerns, including many who seem not too happy with the mp side - of which I know nothing.

A crank? No. It would give other like minded individuals a rallying point though to voice their own opinions if they feel the same. One thread with all the negative aspects of current WZ development would help the devs decide on what works and what doesn't.

With all respects to it dedicated members, the dev needs some kind of oversight - a steering group drawn from within the dev, for instance - and a definite policy on what can be achieved.

This is actually something that needs to be done. Not so much oversight as a more detailed roadmap such as what we use for Vega Strike.

There are many ways the devs could handle this. Things can continue as they are or perhaps the devs will adopt some other way. In any event there are two other forks for WZ for people to toy with. Regardless of how things turn out though this community needs to remain the focal point for all WZ development so that people who play or want to play will always know where to find all things warzone such as the various wikis, new forks, mods, maps, etc.

[Jorzi]

Maybe a roadmap would be a good thing, but I must emphasize that, if such a thing is made, it should be made according to what the developers are actually planning to do, rather than what someone thinks the developers should do. Also, the idea of "keeping an eye on the developers so that they don't do the wrong stuff" is absolutely ridiculous and anyone who proposes anything like that is obviously pretending to have some kind of authority which he doesn't have.

If there would be a conflict between developers working on the same code, there would be a need for negotiation. In fact, according to my view of work ethics, the weight of one's opinion is always directly proportional to the amount of work done on said project. This means of course that, if you don't participate in development, you automatically have no say about development. This also means that, if anyone has the authority to coordinate other people's development efforts, it is the one who has written the most code (other forms of development effort also counts, of course).

[cybersphinx]

It seems to me as a layman that 239 was a culmination of a line of development and that to go further would require more fundamental changes. I think the temptation to make more than one of these changes at the time of the creation of the new line 3.0

... was (at least partly) caused by us using SVN, which makes handling branches annoying, which doesn't allow people to fork their own repos to publish stuff easily... so everything that was deemed worthy was stuffed into the old SVN trunk. 2.2 was forked from that iirc ~3.5 years ago now, 2.3 was forked from 2.2 then. 3.1 is not intended to be the be-all and end-all of Warzone development, but the first step to get this mess into something releasable, and being able to improve on that in 3.2+. (Also, Aubergine is pretty much spot on.)

(Oh, and 3.0 was forked from 2.3 with some stuff backported from trunk/master, but there was just too much that couldn't be easily backported so we gave up on that again.)

[Originway]

Wow! This has to be the best post I have ever seen in these forums.

Ah, now this discussion has been split in to it's own thread (thanks to whoever did that) I can reply to this...

Is like burying your head in the sand?

No, zydonk, it's not burying head in sand. The reason I facepalmed was because....

You're ranting (or at least that's how it comes across in all your posts for the last several months) about how much better 2.3.9 is compared to 3.1. Over and over and over again, in countless topics you have complained about 3.1 and told the world we should all go back to 2.3.9.

Well, 2.3.9 is still available and the source code is there for anyone who wants to maintain the 2.x branch. So if you love it so much, go do just that or find someone who will.

From what I understand, and I've spent a fair bit of time looking at warzone versions whilst doing documentation on my wiki, the 3.x branch is already going some 2+ years, maybe even as long as 3 years at this point. It's an attempt to clean up large chunks of WZ code and make it easier to maintain and extend, not to mention tackling lots and lots of other long term issues with the old code.

In any modernisation process like that, as any developer that's worked on a large legacy project will know, it's a non-trivial task and some stuff will obviously be better than before, and some stuff will be worse. The developers working on it will know all too well what is worse, especially with you constantly ranting in the forums about how you hate 3.1. But certain things take time to ferment to get their full flavour back.

Yes, there are problems with pathfinding. Yes, there are problems with targeting. Yes, there are heated discussions over balance. We all know this, because we all play the game. Constantly nagging about how bad it is isn't going to somehow magically make the problems go away any faster.

I dare say that some of the balance issues are caused by bugfixes! Certain strategies were not possible before due to broken code, but as that code gets fixed the *existing* strategies start to get used for the first time and long-term players find their tried and tested approach no longer working. I remember when setting VTOLs to circle was practically pointless, heck, they wouldn't even repair properly on their rearming pads. But once those bugs got fixed, VTOLs suddenly got a whole lot more effective (for me at least). Each time a bug is fixed, people will start taking advantage of the now-working feature that they couldn't reliably use before. Also, solutions are the main cause of problems - so when a bug is fixed, it can break stuff elsewhere. But as the developers have shown, they are in this for the long run and it's a fairly safe bet that those issues will get resolved.

In fact, wz2100.net is the only long-term active project maintaining WZ. Other projects have come and gone over years - and it's been lots of years now hasn't it? Pumpkin maintained WZ for maybe 3 years (two before release, 1 after)? NEWST / Pumpkin-2 lasted about a year or two if the releases they made are anything to go by?

If I understand correctly, the current team have been maintaining WZ since 2006, longer than any other WZ project or team ever. They've pushed out in the region of 100 releases (incl. betas/rc's, excl. masters/snapshots) in that time, taking WZ from 2.03 in 2006 to 3.1 rc3 just a few days ago. They have been doing it long enough to know where the roadblocks to continued development are (I'm not part of that team, so I ask them to please correct me if I'm wrong). A 1-2 year rough patch to achieve some major structural changes is a small price to play in a codebase that is now well over 13 years old, especially if it ensures that the project will continue to be maintained in the future.

I facepalmed because you seem to be short sighted and can't see the longer term vision that is being worked on. Instead you focus on all the negatives and cast blame on the devs as if they are somehow volunteering their free time to focus on making your life worse. And your constant nagging, spammed in to countless unsuspecting topics throughout these forums, is just plain annoying.

If you have gripes about where 3.1 is headed, compile a list and make a new topic, don't hijack dozens of other peoples topics. And don't simply suggest "go back to how it worked in 2.3.9" because that is completely ignoring why the changes were made in the first place. There's very good reasons why developers spend countless hours refactoring code, despite the pain that often causes them, and it's to break through some architectural barrier that prevents a project from moving forward. So when someone comes along and suggests the project go back to where it was, as if that will somehow help it move forward, they are quite simply barking up the wrong tree.

If you spot an issue in a new release, why not screen record a game showing the problem and upload it to youtube. Like the targeting issue you mentioned where defences near enemy troops weren't firing thus allowing the enemy to easily destroy them, and upload a savegame to the forums or a bug ticket along with a link to that video. Then the developer can see the problem in action (from the video) and use the savegame to recreate that problem in a dev environment where they can see what's going on inside the code and thus work out why it's happening. At least then you'd be doing something constructive: providing visual evidence that clearly illustrates the problem and data that helps a developer recreate the problem so they can investigate what's causing it. Can you not see how that would be more helpful and progressive than simply saying stuff that amounts to "make it work like it did in 2.3.9"?

If WZ was still a commercial project and these issues were happening and not getting fixed quickly, your current "nagging" approach might be justified (but still damn annoying and non-constructive!), because there'd be a team of 20+ people spending 8-16 hours a day, 5-6 days a week on it. But the current dev team is much smaller, and doing what they can in their free time, without getting paid for it, without being able to hire consultants to fill knowledge gaps, etc., and having someone just constantly nagging and saying they are terrible and should go back to 2.3.9 is 100% non-helpful.

Either get constructive (provide videos, savegames, and stop saying "go back to 2.3.9") or go make your own fork of WZ and maintain it for the next decade if you think it's so easy.

[Rman Virgil]

.

Correction: The efforts of NEWST / Pumpkin 2 / RTS.net (same folks) in sustaining, deving and promoting WZ was NOT 1 or 2 years. MORE like at least 6+ years… (The conclave of 2006 that would subvert and preferably expunge that history, notwithstanding. In the end, there's no escaping the Karmic Wheel with that effort. No doubt about that, it's become increasingly obvious. As you sow, so shall ye.....)

Also...

Done a lot of volunteer work with various organizations over the decades. The common thread between the successfull volunteer organizations has been a clear and detailed mission as well an effective chain of command leadership that is fair minded, transparent, authentically appreciative, respectful and accountable.. Anything less than that set of values lived, you can infer the results as failure, sooner or later. At least that's how it works in RL. In cyberspace, the challenges can be greater because of the nature of crowd-sourcing anonymity.
....

[zydonk]

This thread proves something - it was worth all the tedious ranting, whining, whinging (sorry, that was my term) and pointed argument.

If the dev can establish some kind of control group and policy, then that's the good that has been achieved.

Incidentally, I should comment on the fanboy phenomenon, but I won't. There are always yappers...

[raycast]

This thread proves something - it was worth all the tedious ranting, whining, whinging (sorry, that was my term) and pointed argument.

Actually, no, it doesn't.

If the dev can establish some kind of control group and policy, then that's the good that has been achieved.

They didn't change anything so far. I believe the policy is essentially a: whoever does things, decides how they are done. And who does not contribute, does not get to decide anything.

Speaking of contributing, I just uploaded a patch to the ticketing system that should make targeting a bit better. "Doomed" units will still be shot at, only at a 20x lower priority than "alive" units. I'd appreciate if you apply that patch, build wz master, and see if that lessens your eternal pain.