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Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: When? (12/1/2007 11:55:17 PM)
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December 1, 2007 Status Report for Matrix Games’ MWIF Forum
Accomplishments of November
Project Management
Origins 2008 is still the planned release date. To accomplish this I had to move a few features I really wanted from MWIF product #1 to MWIF product #2: Preplanned Moves and Game Replay. Neither of those are part of my contract with Matrix; but as a player, they sure would be nice to have.
Communications
Rob Armstrong finished the map graphics and the last Theme Engine graphics patch. All he has left are splash screens (2) and box art. David Heath and Harry Rowland discussed box art for MWIF this past month but I do not know what conclusions they reached. I assume that the two of them will work with Rob on that, and that the splash screens will match. None of this requires much participation by me.
It looks good for us hiring another programmer early in December to work on the technical code for NetPlay and PBEM. He and I believe we can get both of those done by February 1st, 2008.
Dean Drummy replaced the screen shots on the Matrix web site description of World in Flames with the 11 new ones I sent him (one by Patrice).
Patrice reports that he is in contact with Harry Rowland who has gone through roughly half of the rules questions we would like to get clarified for coding MWIF.
I monitored all the threads in the MWIF World in Flames forum daily and uploaded versions 6.00 and 6.01 to the beta testers.
Robert Nebel (Nebert) and Graham Dodge (Greyshaft) continue to work on a test plan for the beta testers.
Graf Zeppelin has taken over coordination of naval unit writeups. Both he and Capitan (land) provided me with their latest versions which I included in 6.01 for the beta testers to check out.
No communications with Chris Marinacci or Richard Dazeley (AIO language).
Software Development Tools
I have not installed ThemeEngine July/2007 yet. I will likely wait until after we get the NetPlay and PBEM code working.
Beta Testing
Version 6.00 included revised formats for saving and restoring games. In 6.01 I added the ability to save and restore setups.
Most of the bugs continue to relate to the player interface .
The game stops in the middle of Port Attacks still. After Patrice pointed out that CWIF had a simple (an good) system for deciding about fighter/bomber status and night attacks, I went back and ripped out some of the new code I had added for air missions.
Units
I decided to not add low resolution bitmap images for the units. The addition of Flyouts and the Naval Review Detail form provide easy ways to see what is in each hex when the map is zoomed way out.
Work continues on unit writeups. There is a good chance that we will have a fairly complete set when the product releases.
Map
Done. All the items on Patrice’s list of things to fix have been taken care of (or at least I surely hope so).
I compressed the river/lake bitmaps into a single large file which cuts the start time for a game to roughly 1/5th of what it had been previously. I can probably cut that some more by compressing the coastal bitmaps (5000+) and unit bitmaps (3000+); but doing so is not a pressing problem.
Scenario Setup
Scenario data seems stable (finally). The beta testers found a few more items during the early part of the month but nothing over the past couple of weeks.
I added the ability of players to set the weather during setup when the weather is unknown (i.e., when it is rolled for after all units have been placed on the map). This will let players place a land unit in a lake and a boat plane in a lake coastal hex. Either of those actions may result in a unit being destroyed if they guess the weather wrong; but that is a risk the players can decide to take or not. More importantly, the ability to set the weather during setup enables players to see which units may be out of supply if the weather turns bad.
I added the ability for players to save and restore setups. This only applies to non-random units, which means named units and generic units. All capital ships are named and so are HQs and Warlords. Generic units are forts, factories, saved oil points, and, most importantly, convoys. By saving a setup after you have placed all your capital ships and convoy pipelines on the map, you avoid having to redo them each time you start a scenario. Simply click on Restore Saved Setup and all the units you placed earlier go into the saved locations immediately. This will be a big help for newcomers to WIF, letting them simply use default placements for convoy pipelines and the large navies (e.g., for the Commonwealth, Japan, and the USA).
Optional Rules
I spent a few odd hours on these but not a lot of time.
Player Interface
I had Flyouts (for examining individual hexes on the map) working well, but then I added the Naval Review Details form and the interaction between the two has some bugs. The way this works is that double left clicking in an empty Land hex activates the Flyouts. Then whenever the cursor is over a hex with units in it, up to 9 units are shown, with preference given to the land and air units. If more than 9 units are in the hex, a little text message is added to the bottom of the Flyouts saying that.
Double left clicking on an empty All Sea hex activates the Naval Review Details form. That display shows all the units in a sea area, sea box section, or port. The display takes up half the screen (540 by 768) but it lets you clearly see, all at once, 36 naval units and the units they are transporting (e.g., carrier air units), with additional units available for review by scrolling.
I haven’t implemented the design for the form to display Hex & Unit Lists yet. The purpose of that form is to list the air units that can move and the targets they can move to.
I redesigned the opening screen in response to suggestions from the beta testers. It now gives the details concerning a saved game when a file name is clicked on: date last played, mode of play, players, turn, impulse, and so on. This makes it easy to go through the saved games directory and see what is there, without having to actually restore the game.
I reworked the save and restore menu items from the main form, adding the save and restore setups dialogs and converting them all to Theme Engine style (from standard Windows style). With version 6.01 the beta testers have been identifying some odd quirks given different combinations of restoring and starting new games in series. The code works hard to avoid having to reload bitmaps and standard data files more than once per session. To accomplish that requires some carefully written code (i.e., vulnerable to bugs).
Internet - NetPlay
My major accomplishment here was to line up another programmer to do this work. We expect to get started on it the first week in December.
CWIF Conversion
Nothing new on the supply line routines.
MWIF Game Engine
I converted more game play decisions to Game Record Log entries to support NetPlay.
Saved Games
I got this working again. To get save and restore to function correctly, every little variable in the game has to be written out and read back in. I improved on this code from what CWIF did, in that the program now permits saving a game in the middle of setting it up. Previously, you had to wait until you were done setting up all the major powers. As it is now, you can set up a couple of the major powers and then take a break, coming back to do the rest the next time you sit down to play.
Player’s Manual
Matrix Games’ sent me a copy of one of their product manuals and I have begun to convert what I have accumulated so far for the MWIF Player’s Manual into a structure that matches. This will let me avoid reinventing the wheel for things like the epilepsy warning about flickering monitors, how to contact Matrix, WIF web sites, and the like.
I am close to having the Table of Contents done which will let me list each section as a task item to be completed. Some of those sections are already done.
PBEM
Nothing new.
Historical Detail, Animations, and Sound
Nothing new.
Help System and Tutorials
I have designed the help system for MWIF. Basically there will be a separate entry (several paragraphs) for each form and each phase/subphase in the sequence of play. Those descriptions will be accessible using a help button on each form or by clicking on a phase/subphase in the sequence of play display. Additionally, they will automatically pop up the first time you see a form or enter a new phase/subphase in the sequence of play. A check box at the bottom of the form will let you disable the ‘automatic’ pop up part, and that information will be stored in the INI file so the ones you disabled will be remembered the next time you play.
The help content will come pretty much straight out of the Rules as Coded (RAC), which in turn will be a slightly modified rewrite of the Rules as Written (RAW) from WIF FE. As much as possible I will have each paragraph of explanation appear in the Help descriptions, Player’s Manual, and RAC. Write once, use 3 times.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
I worked on the language specifications for the LAIO (Language for AI Opponent) for a few hours but I need to find more time for this.
Other
My quartet did well at our 30 minute gig for a school fund raiser. Of more interest to you might be that my chorus performed on the USS Missouri, for the twilight ceremony Veterans Day. We’ve been doing that for free the last 4 or 5 years and this time they gave us a plaque in appreciation - a nicely engraved inscription on a piece of teak taken from the deck of the Missouri.
The guys next door continue to work on the foundations for the 5 story children’s hospital they are building (Shriners). What I have learned is that there is a lot of preparation required for the first concrete pour.
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November summary: It’s good that save and restore games and setups are now in place and the structure for the Player’s Manual and the help system defined. But it’s past time to continue through the sequence of play though, and get NetPlay code written and out to beta testers.
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Tasks for December
Communications
Continue monitoring the forum threads.
Map and Units
Call Fernando now that the map is done, to see about getting the whole thing printed.
Beta Testing
Upload versions weekly. [est. 2 hours]
Redesign of MWIF Game Engine
Continue to work through the sequence of play giving each phase its own module. [est. 50 hours]
CWIF Conversion
Continue converting from CWIF style internet formats to Game Record Log Formats. [est. 50 hours]
Test the new random number generator. [est. 1 hour]
Player Interface
Finish the code for determining and displaying supply lines. [est. 20 hours]
Create the Task Forces and Naval Review forms. Implement Task Forces as a new “unit type”. [est. 40 hours]
Create Unit and hex lists for air missions. [est 5 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 January]
NetPlay
Test the bidding capability using NetPlay. [est. 5 hours]
Incorporate the Indy10 code for the two player system into MWIF. [est. 10 hours]
Incorporate the multi-player (more than 2) system into MWIF. [est. 10 hours]
AI Opponent
Finish the syntax for the LAIO language. Define LAIO variables with their supporting functions. Write a parser for LAIO. Create a few rules as text and encode them for testing the parser. [est. 85 hours]
Help System and Tutorials
Finish the form for displaying Help Information. [est. 2 hours]
Player’s Manual
Finish revising the Table of Contents. [est. 3 hours]
Historical Detail, Animations, and Sound
Nothing planned for December.
Other
The chorus has a lot of gigs for the Christmas season: one last night, one on Tuesday, two performances of the Xmas show next weekend and after that 3 more gigs for hotels and country clubs. At roughly $400 a pop, that will put some money in our coffers.
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December summary: Keep the beta testers busy and respond to their bug reports. Work with the other programmer on NetPlay. Continue work on Game Record Log conversions to support NetPlay for entire sequence of play. Finish coding unit supply. Finish the revisions to the player interface for Task Forces.
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