Hey, everyone. This is John. I haven't been around the forum for just about a year, when I set TW aside to go to work with Realm. I won't get into the details about what I've been doing over the past year, but many of you know that TW support has barely been on the agenda. I haven't released a new revision in far too long. But I haven't given up support of the game, and new revisions are planned. As some of you have heared, I am looking into various options for future development as well, and the first step will be the C rewrite I'm working on with Deuce. If that goes as planned, my goal is to halt development of TWv3 (preferably in a reasonably playable state) and continue development on this new version, both for Windows and *nix platforms. Initially, the new version will have fewer features than TWv3 (but it shouldn't bother you much since, barring a major change in plans, you'll have access to both versions with your existing registrations), but the best features of TWv3 will be added to that version as we go. I'm going to post another message detailing my intentions for that version, but this post is intended to address current development.

Since TWv3.11.55 was released, I have started two revisions. One was for v3.12 and had some major changes to gameplay. Midway through that, I had second thoughts about implementing these changes in TWv3, and decided that they should be held over for a new TW version, TWv4. I then started work on TWv3.11.56, addressing some important bugs. During that time, I left to work with Realm and was not able to continue that work. So now, I'm going to back up to the v3.11.55 code and start again.

My state of mind about the future development of TWv3 is much different today than it was a year ago. My goal now is to address only the most serious bugs in order to attain the most stable version possible under this codebase. Frankly, there are so many cheats and loopholes in the game that I no longer believe it is possible to solve them and keep the players in line. So those kinds of changes are not on my priority list now. They will be high priority for development of future versions. For now, I need to limit myself to those bugs that outright break the game.

For some time now, TW has been reasonably stable in low-capacity games. For high-capacity games, especially tournaments, some big problems exist. What I want to do is hear from you gameops what problems most need to be addressed in order to close this version to future development. I would like to see TWv3 played into the future, even if a new version is released. I believe that will be possible with a limited number of bug fixes. Tell me what fixes you would need before you would feel comfortable running TWv3 as an usupported version.

I believe there needs to be a setting for truces. If a truce is going to be set there needs to be a way to keep other players from attacking during that time. This is to help keep the game fair and to make Wildstar stop whining. Also there needs to be a bug fix to the aliens and high figs. If I set 5 mil figs in a sec the aliens will walk in and turn those 5 mil figs of mine into 50k def of theirs.

Thanks, Demon.

The first request falls under what I consider to be non-critical gameplay changes. That's not to say that you don't have a good point. It's just that there are too many of those kinds of changes that need to be made, and after those changes have been made the game would really be a completely new version. Therefore, I'm holding those changes for the new version.

The second request is just what I'm after. Actually, I've already fixed that one for revision 56.

The Gold Bubbles bug would be a nice one to have fixed. From what I understand the problem has been found but no release since then to implement it. Other than that, alien ai would be nice but not a priority.

The bubble bug was also addressed in the original .56 release I was working on before I left for Realm, so it'll be fixed.

As for the AI system, that was put on hold until the game reached a point of stability where I would be comfortable introducing 3rd-party access to game data. With the game's instability, it would become extremely difficult to determine where data corruption was caused by 3rd party bugs or game bugs. Because I have not been able to stabilize the game to the point I would like, I will be holding the more advanced Gold features like the AI dev kit for the next version that I mentioned in my other post. My hope is that the new system will be much better suited for advanced customization options.

Hey John welcome back good to see you active again

John,

Other than what's mentioned above the only other problem I can think of is mail file corruption. When it hits players often get locked out of that specific game, and deleting the mail file solves it.

Of course this is a bit of a problem when an invasion occured and you don't get notification of it...

BTW, no complaints here about what you've done. I saw the problems with the HVS version of TW2002. You have TWGS running pretty stable. Mine needs no maintenance other than rebangs.

When you say new ideas for version 4 are you going to be taking ideas that some of us gameops can come up with or do you pretty much have it how you are going to want it and just need to code it? If so what kinds of idea are you wanting us to come up with... ex. a level 7 cit.....
Strider

Actually, people have been proposing new ideas for TW as long as I've been involved (since 1994), and I have probably heard just about everything The problem is certainly not finding features to put into v4, it's deciding how to balance the existing features with some new ones, simplifying it somewhat, and solving the most serious design flaws, all without losing the essence of the game.

One goal will be to provide a more open Gold system that will hopefully (finally) allow gameops to implement their own good ideas into the game. That's always been one of my goals with TW, and I've been frustrated by the difficulty of providing that kind of functionality in the legacy code. But as for the standard, stock game, I will probably be pretty limited in what I add. I'd expect to see more subtraction than addition in the stock game. For v4, I want to polish what works, discard what doesn't and change only what I feel is necessary. As for how that will be accomplished, I will certainly be relying on gameops feedback, though I am aware that there will rarely be enough gameops in agreement to fill the hall closet.

Since i dont play many games with aliens my only issue has been the the TIME LIMIT.

we need a sysop configurable mininum time login.

this would stop the constant loggin in and out robots that exist in time limit games.
I would like to see it be a 1 minute or 3 minute charge for every log in..

Also if you make this sysop configurable then it will be up to the sysops to use it or not.

What kind of time do see it taking to get the revision of version 3 out or even the rewrite for 4...Just curious. Because ever since i became a gameop i have been into tw2002 like crazy and then had some computer problems with my ISP so i have not had my server up for awhile and it is killing me i can't wait to get things going again.
Strider

Is the bug still active where if you are logged in when the clock hits midnight(or is it extern when you get time back?) for some reason you sometimes get extra time?

And I can't beleive no one has mentioned the deletion bug where if you are logged in for 7 days without ever logging out and inactivity deletion is 7 days you get deleted. (it doesnt just happen for 7 days, just an example).

I hate to burst your bubble Grave but who in their right mind would stay on for 7 days without logging off. Whats the point, you cant do much if your not at keys anyway.

As far as things to add to the list, I just went through all the editor screens and the only other thing that I can find that would be nice to have is the ability to assign a planet to a Gold alien. Currently you can assign fighters and mines but not planets. That appears to be all the major things I can think of besides the gold bubbles I mentioned earlier.

quote:Originally posted by Shorty

I hate to burst your bubble Grave but who in their right mind would stay on for 7 days without logging off. Whats the point, you cant do much if your not at keys anyway.


There are a lot of very useful bots that can run unattended which will help your corp mates and log information and what not. Just cause you are afk doesn't mean you can't run scripts which will trigger on your corpmates commands. [:D]

Shorty, many people stay logged in for a lot longer than that, and you don't have to not be doing anything for it to delete you. You can play your turns, park on your planet with an online script every day and on the 8th day wake up to find yourself gone. Woops. I think I made it misleading, not the inactivity timeout, but the if you don't log in for 7 days your account is deleted timeout. Since the program sees you as not logging in (which you haven't since you have been logged in the whole time) it thinks you havent shown for a week. This is actually causing a big fuss over at twgs.org and happened as I describe it in BOTE just a bit ago.