|
Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: When? (11/3/2007 1:52:29 AM)
|
Sorry for the delay on this; a bad head cold wiped me out for a few days. Hey, this is the first time I have been late with this report since I started reporting August 1, 2005.
==================
November 2, 2007 Status Report for Matrix Games’ MWIF Forum
Accomplishments of October
Project Management
Origins 2008 is still the planned release date.
Communications
Rob Armstrong did some but not all of the last map graphics.
Patrice continues to work on MWIF daily and has started on the screen shots for the last of the introductory tutorials.
I monitored all the threads in the MWIF World in Flames forum daily.
I gave new text for the Matrix web site description of World in Flames to Dean Drummy and he replaced the old immediately. I have since sent him 11 new screen shots, though those haven’t been posted yet.
I upload versions 5.03 through 5.08 to the beta testers. At the very end of the month we acquired 11 new beta testers.
I gave Dan Hatchen a copy of the source code for MWIF so he can help with coding NetPlay. After the normal glitches, he was able to get a clean compile and execute.
Robert Nebel (Nebert) and Graham Dodge (Greyshaft) continue to develop a detailed test plan based on the WIF rules for the beta testers.
Graf Zeppelin sent me his naval unit writeups (60+). Capitan reports that all the French land unit writeups have been completed.
No communications with Chris Marinacci, Harry Rowland, or Richard Dazeley (AIO language).
Software Development Tools
I purchased ThemeEngine July-2007 to be compatible with Vista. I have not installed it yet because the beta testers with Vista machines are able to run MWIF fine under XP emulation. Since it isn’t a crisis, I am going to delay putting in ThemeEngine 2007 until a quiescent period occurs in the program coding process.
Beta Testing
I made over 100 changes to the code in response to bugs reported by the beta testers. I continue to give them a new version to work with roughly weekly, which should continue for the indefinite future.
The next version to upload will be 6.00 which will include revised formats for saving and restoring games. Note that in the official numbering system this is actually 00 00 06 00. As far as I perceive this stuff, I am still working on version 0.
MadExcept generated a problem with one of the beta testers’ virus protection software packages. He just told that software to not worry about MWIF and the problem went away. At the very least, the final MWIF program will have to warn purchasers of this potential problem. Or I might remove MadExcept from the final product (very likely regardless).
Most of the bugs relate to player interface these days. There are still some lingering problems with setup data, especially in combination with which optional rules are selected. Along the way, some of the optional rules are getting partially coded.
The game stops in Port Attacks still. It does go farther than when the month started, but not much. I was side tracked by several items, the most recent is getting Save & Restore Game fully functional. Without S & RG, it takes me 5 to 10 minutes just to set up units to test port attacks, which gets real old after about the 10th time you do it. In reviewing the S & RG code I decided that enabling S & RG during setup wouldn’t be difficult to do (just not during Scrap or Lend Lease). CWIF did not allow saves during setup, though I am not sure precisely why.
This is not to be confused with saving and restoring setups (S & RS). The idea behind S & RS is to have certain positions where you want to place the non-random units during setup. For instance, convoy points, named naval units, forts, oil points, and so on are always the exact same units in the setup tray each time you play the sceanrio. S & RS will let a player save the positions on map for those units and load them in from disk every time he starts a new game. You might have different setups depending on how the other players set up, or your mood. This will be especially useful to new players so they do not have to figure out how to build convoy pipelines and deploy the large CW navy.
The new beta testers bring the group size up to 30. Port Attacks and Save & Restore Game bugs, which I wanted to have done before they arrived, remain to be fixed - but such is life.
Units
The Naval Supply unit now shows the number of additional naval units by which it is capable of increasing a minor port’s capacity. I tweaked a few small items about units depictions but nothing really remains to be done with units for game play.
I am undecided about whether to add low resolution bitmap images for the units. I do not believe that will improve their clarity much over medium resolution, and with the addition of Flyouts and the Naval Review form, it might not be needed whatsoever. For now I am placing that task in suspension.
Work continues on unit writeups. I want to inventory what we have done and what remains. Greyshaft wants to review/finish the air unit writeups. Capitan wants to get caught up on the land unit writeups he has received recently, and I want to go through the naval units to see where we stand with them. If anyone wants to take charge of the naval unit writeups, send me a PM or email.
Map
A few more hex graphics done by Rob. A few more remain for him to do.
Scenario Information
The beta testers have cleared up the data problems here. They find & I fix. Today there was 1 item reported, which makes it the only one outstanding (I’ll get to it today or tomorrow). My quest to eliminate all the problems with setting up the 11 scenarios (begun 2 years ago!) is drawing to completion.
One new item about scenarios concerns setting up units when the weather roll is unknown. For instance, can you set up a land unit in a lake hex, assuming it will be frozen? Or can you place a flying boat in the lake hex assuming it will not be frozen? Right now I have the weather set as Blizzard world-wide for all scenarios where the weather roll occurs after set up. However, I am thinking about letting the players change the weather to whatever they want during setup (assuming the weather is not predetermined). This will let them place units where they want on the map, and test the effects of different weather on supply lines if they are concerned about that. Of course, once the weather roll occurs in the actual game, any weather settings made during setup will be meaningless. And, no, you won’t be able to change the weather during play.
Optional Rules
Not a lot of work this month on these, but dribs and drabs as issues are identified by the beta testers. I am in “response mode” on these. Once the test plan gets into the hands of the beta testers we should have a more rigorous examination of all the optional rules and whether they are working correctly.
Player Interface
I added Flyouts for examining individual hexes on the map. When the cursor is placed over a hex, up to 9 units in the hex are shown at zoom level 6 (Z6). Since players are likely to use Z3 - Z5 often, especially when seeking to gain an overview of the game situation, Flyouts let players quickly see (and clearly at Z6) what is in each hex. It’s a big help on densely packed front lines, what with normally only the top unit in each hex being visible.
I have a pretty detailed design for the Task Force Summary and Task Force Details forms. These will be closely cloned as Naval Review forms. In fact, I have decided to start with doing the Naval Review Summary and Naval Review Details forms first since the task forces add another level of complexity to the interface design. At this point I have coded the layout and just need to instantiate the forms with values (i.e., determine what units are in a port/sea area and display them in the form).
The purpose of the NR forms is to provide for naval units the same overview of what is in a hex (or sea area) that the Flyouts do for land and air units. Because so many naval units can be in a port or sea area, the form not only has to be bigger, it also has to organize the units so the player can quickly understand what he is seeing. Summary statistics help in that regard.
I create a rough design for the small form to display Hex & Unit Lists. The purpose of this form is to list the air units that can move and the targets they can move to. I have planned on doing this for a long time and the work on Port attacks let me better understand how it would be used. For example, during the CAP subphase, the non-phasing player would be shown which hexes might be attacked and which fighters are available to fly CAP. During the “phasing player flies air units to port attack” subphase the possible port attack targets and the air units that can fly as bombers and escorts would be shown. And so on. If there are numerous targets (e.g., ground strike), then only the air units would be shown.
This form would be optional and the player could turn it off completely. However, for new players it should be an excellent crutch while they are learning the game. I’ll try to get this up and running next month.
Internet - NetPlay
I made small improvements to setting up the INI file to store NetPlay information but otherwise not much was done here. I’ll take another crack at it next month.
CWIF Conversion
I finished as many of the conversion of components from CWIF to JEDI library routines as I want to at this time. The last 5 I’ll fix when I get to reviewing/revising the phases of play they are concerned with (e.g., air combat). I made an attempt to do them all this past month but kept finding that there were other things in the form that I also want to modify. That became simply too distracting from my higher priority items.
CWIF only had one zoom levels for forms: half size (Z4). I had added full size (Z8) last year since that was rather easy to do. At that time I made some provision for additional sizes but there were undocumented programming routines I had to figure out which I finally got around to this month. I now have provision for unit depictions at zoom levels 5 and 6 for forms. Other sizes could be added, but I do not see any need for them.
Nothing new on the supply line routines.
MWIF Game Engine
I converted a half dozen more game play decisions to Game Record Log entries to support NetPlay.
For the changes to Save and Restore Game I methodically went through all the variables in the game and rearranged their placements in files. Very few required relocation. Pleasantly, some of the work I have been doing (since forever) on organizing variables paid off handsomely. For save and restore game the variables are now all in the modules InProgressVar or GameInProgress. The variables in other files (e.g., GameRecordVar, PlayerInterfaceVar, InitializeVar, etc.) are not saved and restored when a game is saved. The exception is SetupVar which I am now adding to the save and restore game routines. This might seem like a small thing but when you are dealing with 500+ variables, having them cleanly placed in clear locations prevents a lot of opportunities for mistakes and makes finding them when you need them much faster.
Saved Games
My highest priority at the present. To which I will return to work once I finish this monthly report.
Player’s Manual
I am still chasing after examples of the best documentation of existing Matrix Games’ products to serve as a template for MWIF. If someone has a copy (electronic) of a player’s manual they like, I would be interested - no need to reinvent the wheel here.
PBEM
Nothing new.
Historical Detail, Animations, and Sound
Nothing new.
Help System, Tutorials, and AI Assistant
I added a Terrain Effects Chart and Unit Descriptions Chart to the tutorials. At the same time I made those pages accessible from within the game during play. Patrice did the detail work on these though I designed the layout, made numerous suggestions, and reworked the English. Both of these were based on comparable ones by ADG for the board game version, and their English was more Australian than American.
Patrice and I are worrying away at the last few missing pages for the Introductory tutorials. One thing that I did to help in this process is to give the beta testers the ability to change the weather whenever they want.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
I did almost nothing on the AIO in October. I need to start work on this in November, gather a little momentum in December, and do the big push in the first 3 months of 2008.
Other
The guys next door are trying to organize the foundations in the big hole they dug in the ground. Eventually it should be a 5 story children’s hospital. Looking down from the 19th floor let’s me supervise their progress whenever I need a break from the keyboard. One thing I have noticed is that while the work looks interesting most of the time, on days when it rains the job is a lot less appealing - tromping around in mud while being pelted by rain (even at 70 degrees F) - yuck!
I had a head cold the last 3 days of October which really messed up my schedule. I still have remnants floating around behind my eyeballs.
====================================================================
October summary: Good progress on the last bits of the player interface redesign. But when can I get to NetPlay? And I need to unleash the beta testers on the rest of the sequence of play.
====================================================================
Tasks for November
Communications
Continue monitoring the forum threads.
Map and Units
Hopefully Rob will finish the map. Call Fernando.
Scenarios
Have the beta testers test the sequence of play.
Redesign of MWIF Game Engine
Continue to work through the sequence of play giving each phase its own module. [est. 30 hours]
CWIF Conversion
Continue converting from CWIF style internet formats to Game Record Log Formats. [est. 30 hours]
Test the new random number generator. [est. 1 hour]
Beta Testing
Upload versions weekly. [est. 5 hours]
Player Interface
Finish the code for determining and displaying supply lines. [est. 20 hours]
Work on redesign of Main form layout. [est. 10 hours]
Code Task Forces and the Naval Review forms for ease of naval movement. [est. 20 hours]
Display the sequence of play (SOP) on the screen so the player knows where he is within the SOP and what is coming up next. [est. 30 hours in December]
NetPlay
Test the bidding capability using NetPlay. [est. 10 hours]
Incorporate the Indy10 code for the two player system into MWIF. [est. 40 hours]
Begin coding multi-player (more than 2) system. [est. 10 hours]
AI Opponent
Continue edits on the strategic plans and standardization of same. Work on the syntax for the AIO rules language. [est. 60 hours]
Help System, Tutorials, and AI Assistant
Finish the Introductory Tutorials. [est. 5 hours]
Player’s Manual
Write the sections on: Introduction to Player’s Manual and Installing MWIF. [est. 5 hours]
Historical Detail, Animations, and Sound
Nothing planned for November.
Other
My quartet has an unpaid 20 minute gig for a school fund raiser next weekend. This will be our first time doing more than 3 songs in a gig. By using a stop watch we discovered that most of our songs runs for less the 90 seconds, so it looks like we will be doing 11 to 12 songs - yikes!
================================================================
November summary: Keep the beta testers busy and respond to their bug reports. Test NetPlay communications for 2 players. Continue work on Game Record Log conversions to support NetPlay for entire sequence of play. Finish coding unit supply, the Introductory tutorials, and map graphics. Finish the revisions to the player interface for naval movement.
================================================================
|
|
|
|
