Well, think about it... we're talking about people who still play a 25-year-old game. Some resistance to change should be expected.

I'm not asking you to share your scripts. I'm asking those who know which prompts changed to share that with the rest of the class so everyone who cares to can update their own scripts to work in both versions.

I have more than enough scripts to play this game the way I enjoy playing, and they all work in both versions.

The biggest change directly affected Offensive/Defensive scripts. Ship stats, if you search on the forum for a conversation over Lonestars Manifest script that's when we found the problem and I modified MOMBot and Manifest to correct the issue to work with both v1 & v2. Other than that most of the actual game prompts remained the same other than a few timing issues, like using exit/enter to clear limps/mines, it is nowhere near as fast as it used to be do to a timing change the way the game completely closes out before allowing you to reenter the game.

I had a list of items that were fixed at one time, but when I stopped playing I deleted all my notes I had made to that point since I have no desire to script or play. Good Luck

I think Prom and others mentioned a few key points; no need to beat a dead horse. But I would like to address the 'mess'.

Many players (most of whom are now gone), played on TWGS v1.03, for years... where's v1.05, or v1.06? There should have been a minor version change (v1.04 and on up to v1.5 or whatever), to address many 'bugs', and other issues minimizing impact on a game/software that people are essentially thrilled with. Instead, we have now a 'beta' in wide release, which completely defeats the purpose of what a 'Beta' is supposed to be. People are divided and/or alienated because all most of us wanted, was a few key issues addressed in v1.04. JP could then go and disappear for another 20years and return with TWGS v2020b. What TradeWars needed was a v1.5.

Evolution of Tradewars is good; however, there now exists a 'missing link' and many TradeWarriors are now extinct as a result.

Here is a complete revision list. Some of the first items were all BigBang (T-Edit) related. After that it was a group of people that at one point had a disagreement and left. Most of the opted to go back to V1.03....IIRC it wasn't until about 2.08 things took bigger change. And really 1.04 1.05 2.01 .... it is just a number I think I have every version that was released at home if someone wants them.

http://wiki.classictw.com/index.php?title=TWGS_v2_Revision_History

Very well said. It has to be done step by step.
1) Find a problem.
2) Brainstorm the problem. (Is it worth fixiing)
3) Fix the problem. (Code)
4) Beta Test - Beta Test - Beta Test
5) Release the repaired software to the general public.

The 3rd & 4th steps are the most important processes...
Where was v1.04, v1.05, v1.06 that had the basic bugs fixed?
The basic bugs weren't fixed until AFTER 10 or 20 other game altering changes had been made

Hey, it works for Google.

Cruncher why is it your still flying that fire tournament banner? Are you that proud the only other corp that showed up was crosbys single man corp and it still took your 5 man corp a week to kill him off?

Imo even bigger than script's was his decision to remove CPC and instead go with a batch event system. Using untested timing's for event's that were/are critical for combat. The response was largely in my opinion lackluster where the preponderance of evidence of disruption of gameplay fell upon the players.



Stand Down

Sorry for the off topic post, was just trying to get a legitimate answer.

Seems there's still a lot of interest in this topic.

IMHO, TWGS was static for way too long, 7-8 years between revisions? We lost JP to R/L for a while and during that time this game was inspected and dissected to the n'th degree.

Now it's under development again, and for those of you who write programs for a living, I'm certain you can attest to the fact that programs are forever evolving until they are no longer useful.

Seems we just got settled into Win7, and now we have something called Win8 to eventually move to. I'm in no hurry for that one, but I do know there are still players using WinXP who've never moved to Win7 yet.

Change is the only constant there is, and in IT it's only going to move faster...

Bottom Line, v2 is NOT broken, T0yman pointed out the few prompt changes that will help you to update your scripts if you so choose. If not, then please continue to enjoy 1.03. But buy yourself a Win7 license before that's sunsetted! LOL

I will agree, Tradewars v2 has been changed. As far as considering it as evolution, it's safe to assume that it has a bleak future. In layman's terms, v2 isn't, and never has been, useful except to a few sysops who choose to settle for a program that has shotty programming and more bugs than any beta version that has yet to be released to the general public.

...and you and your friends refuse to report any of these bugs. JP can't fix what you won't report.

Actually many players, including myself, reported several of the major bugs that needed fixed. JP chose to wait until much later, AFTER making many game changing "features", before he chose to fix those bugs and release a version with just bug fixes. (Which never was released)
It puts me in the mind of some of O'Bama's bills that he has submitted to congress, once you take away all the small print and BS, you finally start to addres the real issue.

We'll find out just how different they are when I release Weapon M. I wrote the lexer and parser for v2, and it's anyone's guess what it will or won't pick up from v1. I initially started writing it for both, but tracking down all the small differences in ANSI codes was taking too long. The format of the game text is abstracted away from scripts, though, so identical scripts would run on v2, v1, and even HVS if the helper were modified to support the different versions. As I noted in my blog, this would be a tedious but fundamentally simple enhancement for interested third parties to contribute after I release the source.