Shannon V. OKeets
Posts: 22095
Joined: 5/19/2005
From: Honolulu, Hawaii
Status: offline
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June 1, 2008 Status Report for Matrix Games’ MWIF Forum
Accomplishments of May
Project Management
December 2008 is the scheduled release date for MWIF product 1.
David Heath (Matrix Games) has persuaded me to not attend Origins 2008 since the players that attend Origins are principally there to play in tournaments and purchase existing products. Their interest in demos is limited to existing products - to see if they want to immediately buy the game or not. The upside to this is that it gives me another week of productive time to work on the game and saves me several thousand dollars.
Communications
Rob Armstrong finished the splash screens with a flourish, providing me with a dozen, twice what I had been expecting.
Dan (NetPlay) has been tied up supporting his largest customer for the last couple of months. He and I are working on rebuilding the schedule for NetPlay based on his availability.
I monitored all the threads in the MWIF World in Flames forum daily and uploaded versions 8.03 and 8.04 to the beta testers.
Patrice, amongst other things, sent me the latest and greatest rules decisions/clarifications from Harry Rowland.
Peter Skoglund continues to help with developing scripts for the AI Opponent.
Robert Nebel uploaded a new version of test plans, incorporating Jimm’s contributions. They are pretty close to having all the portions of the sequence of play covered by test plans through the end of land movement. Lend lease of air units is the current thorny issue.
Robert Jenkins has sent me dozens of new and revised writeups for the naval units and Andy is almost 90% of the way through revising the air units writeups (1150 done out of 1300).
No information from Matrix about getting a price on a printed copy of the map.
No communications with Chris Marinacci.
Hardware and Software Development Tools
My new notebook arrived a week early which threw me into disarray for a couple of days. It runs Vista, which adds to my learning curve (I’ve used XP exclusively since I started on MWIF). To give you a sense of how busy I am on MWIF, all I have been able to really do with the new computer is transfer a copy of MWIF to it to see what it looks like on the notebook’s 17 inch monitor. That blew me away. The higher pixel density make the graphics look awesome. Especially when zooming in to highest resolution on the coastline hexes.
I have not installed ThemeEngine July/2007 yet. However, I might get to that before NetPlay is done since I can use the notebook computer to test whether the Theme Engine update fixes program bugs when running Vista in native mode.
Beta Testing
I uploaded versions 8.03 and 8.04 to the beta testers this month. Version 8.03 included my revisions to the code for deciding about scrapping units that are destroyed during a turn. I have these set up as Digressions from the sequence of play. So far I have 4 of them coded: air-to-air combat losses, anti-air combat losses, carpet bombing losses, and naval combat losses. New ones will be easy to add and only take 5 to 10 minutes each. When I am done there will be 14 references to the Scrap Units digression; then I can eliminate the ‘phase’ Destroy Units from CWIF.
Version 8.04 includes my revisions to the sequence of play in support of NetPlay up through air transport. It covers the air missions: port attacks, strategic bombing, carpet bombing, and ground strikes as well as naval air missions, naval movement, naval combat, land movement, and overruns.
I brought my records on who the beta testers are up-to-date. This took me some effort since I had previously been relying on Greyshaft to recruit, oversee, and coordinate the beta testers. Alas! family and work has taken him away from us. But I now have a fairly good spreadsheet on who currently is, or has been, a beta tester, with several columns of information on each person (e.g., real name and email address). Once I got a handle on that I was able to solicit new beta testers to bring the active group back up to 30. That solicitation will remain open until June 5th and I expect we’ll be adding 9 new beta testers to the group.
To accommodate the influx of new beta testers I have reviewed the various documents we have for them, principally “Beta Testing 101.PDF”, and Patrice then brought it up-to-date.
Currently each beta tester is responsible for 5 optional rules and 2 scenarios. I want to add to those responsibilities 20-30 test scripts, as prepared by Robert and Jimm. There are 11 scenarios, 81 optional rules, and 400+ test scripts. With a little math you can see that I am looking for double coverage or better on each of these items.
Units
As I reported last month, the ADG 2008 Annual for WIF included new units and rules and 3 new add-on modules, but they will not be part of MWIF product 1. More changes in the product definition I do not need.
Unit writeups are continuing, with steady progress on both air and naval units.
Map
Patrice added labels under each of the 100+ anonymous resources so they can be identified as Coal, Iron, Tin, Rubber, etc.. These have no impact on game play but look real nice and give the map more credibility.
A forum member asked me to post current images of the entire map, since many earlier posts are over a year old. This month I was able to find time to post current screen shots of North America. That was a success, in that forum members were able to point out several places where improvements could be made to make the map more accurate/realistic.
At my instigation (foolish me!), Patrice asked the forum for comments on the European portion of the map. The forum members went bonkers discussing the possibility and ramifications of changing the country borders in the Lowlands. It is so controversial I’ve decided to leave it as is and let Harry Rowland & ADG take whatever blame/credit is to be had.
Scenario Setup
I found one unit (captured French sub) that should have been included in Missed the Bus, and Harry Rowland agreed that it’s absence was a mistake.
Optional Rules
I went through the source listings reviewing the code for another dozen optional rules. For the most part they were all fine. I primarily added comments and in a few places made minor changes for clarity.
Player Interface
I took Rob’s splash screen image of the HMS Repulse and incorporated it into the opening screen. That turned out real nice. I still need to do something similar for when the game data is loading.
I methodically went through all 100+ forms and increased the size of the unit depictions from zoom 4 to zoom 6, when room permitted. This makes the units much easier to read. I also changed the font for any text that ‘floats’ on the textured theme engine backgrounds to bold, again for clarity. What prompted this was that I removed some old CWIF code related to forms, which invalidated several dozen of them. I needed to check them all and make a couple simple edits to those that were ‘damaged’ by the removal of the CWIF code. While I was making those changes I did the others at the same time.
Internet - NetPlay
No progress at all on this. Dan and I are working on a revised schedule for NetPlay.
CWIF Conversion
I wrote more of the code to recalculate supply for units. Once I get the sequence of play revisions for NetPlay completed through the end of an impulse, I’ll finish the supply routines. The new supply calculations use an optimal search strategy so determining supply will execute much faster than it did in CWIF, which did a blind search. I need this to be faster so the AI Opponent can examine hundreds of supply lines when evaluating whether units can be put out of supply.
MWIF Game Engine
I implemented Digressions for scrapping units, which really made me happy. They are a clean way to resolve the problems that come up when another player has to make a decision in the middle of a phase. WIF was intentionally designed to have this occur frequently. In over the board play it keeps the players on the other side involved in the game, rather than have them sitting there watching the ‘phasing’ side move all its units or otherwise make decisions. From a programming point of view this is a nightmare, because code has to be written to accommodate these interruptions in the ‘normal’ sequence of play.
Other digressions, besides scrapping units, are for correcting overstacking at the end of a phase, and forced movement of units due to political upheavals, such as conquest and liberation. Actually the possibility of forced movement occurs often, and code has to be written to implement it at each place it might occur in the sequence of play.
Saved Games
I keep this functioning at all times. However, some of the changes to the map data will cause games saved prior to version 9.00 to become obsolete - once I release version 9.00. When the new beta testers arrive, I’ll upload version 9.00 so they start with a new release.
Player’s Manual
I revised the RAC (Rules as Coded) document to incorporate Harry Rowland’s most recent revisions, including the ones listed as errata in the WIF 2008 Annual magazine. This is version 14 of RAC and the beta testers have a copy of it to review and critique. Patrice has already used a software program to identify all the edits I made since version 13, and he commented on a couple of places when the changes could be improved.
PBEM
Nothing new. This is scheduled for early summer.
Historical Detail, Animations, and Sound
Nothing new, scheduled for fall.
Help System and Tutorials
Matrix Games is working on a mechanism for downloading the 10 slide shows for the introductory tutorials, that Patrice created. These are PPS files which can be viewed using a free viewer available from Microsoft for PowerPoint presentations.
AI Opponent
Peter Skoglund and I made a first pass on encoding the strategic plans for internal storage and reference by other AIO decisions points. That is about 50% done. Right now we are working on encoding War Plans for the conquest of minor countries by the USSR. Once we iron out a few wrinkles in that we’ll post some of them for critique by forum members. I am hopeful that other forum members will be able to, and want to, encode war plans for the conquest of other minors.
I finally finished typing in my handwritten notes for the AI Opponent from last May, when I was in Europe. This represents all my thoughts on decision making by the AIO that is not specific to major powers’ strategic plans. This ‘general’ decision making document is close to 100 pages. The 8 strategic plans for the major powers average 25 pages each. So, there are roughly 300 pages of pretty focused information on how AIO decision making.
I took the strategic plans for France and broke the single file into separate data files for each decision point. For instance, French production decisions are now MC 02 Fr, Decide on Production Plan, and MC 03 Fr, Decide on Production for the Turn. MC 02 worries about gearing and the like, laying out general guidelines for production priorities. MC 03 makes the actual production decisions, based on available BPs.
After I do the same thing for the other 7 major powers’ strategic plans, in combination with the decisions, universal for all major power, I will have a full set of scripts for the AIO. I put together a spreadsheet listing all the separate scripts needed for the AIO, a mere 263.
Other
Due to a head cold I missed singing in the annual Spring Show this year. This is the first show performance I have missed in 11 years, very annoying. Yesterday, at the quarterly meeting of the Pan Pacific Convention we are hosting in late October, I presented my detailed spreadsheet on attendee flow for the 4 days of the convention. The piece de resistence was the movement for each the 18 competing choruses through 10 stages, timed so a chorus arrives on stage every 10 minutes. The tricky bit was the 20 minute bus trip across town from the convention hotel to the Hawaii Theatre.
The hospital next door has almost completed the vertical columns for the 2nd floor and have attached & buried the building’s plumbing into the basement.
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May summary: I regret not being able to get a new version of the program to the beta testers every week. Graphics are now done, which is nice. All the work Peter and I do on the AIO is ahead of schedule, but I like to keep Peter amused (and working). RAC is once more checked off my task list as finished - I hope it stays that way.
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Tasks for June
Communications
Continue monitoring the forum threads.
Map and Units
Make any corrections to the map on the 10th.
Beta Testing
Upload versions weekly. [est. 2 hours]
Redesign of MWIF Game Engine
Work through the sequence of play giving each phase its own module. [est. 150 hours]
CWIF Conversion
Convert CWIF style internet formats to Game Record Log Formats. [est. 40 hours]
Test the new random number generator. [est. 5 hours in October]
Player Interface
Finish the code for determining and displaying supply lines. [est. 10 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. 20 hours in July]
Fix small bugs with player interface. [est. 20 hours]
Complete the Task Forces forms. Implement Task Forces as a new “unit type”. [est. 40 hours in July]
Create Unit and hex lists for air missions. [est 20 hours in October]
Optional Rules
Review, comment, modify, and create code for optional rules [est. 40 hours]
NetPlay
Implement the bidding capability using NetPlay. [est. 10 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. 20 hours in July & August]
AI Opponent
Define LAIO variables with their supporting functions. Write a parser for LAIO. Create a few more rules as text and encode them for testing the parser. [est. 210 hours in July - August]
Help System and Tutorials
Nothing scheduled until October.
Player’s Manual
Nothing scheduled until September.
Historical Detail, Animations, and Sound
Nothing scheduled until September.
Other
Things are a little slow outside of working on MWIF, which is for the best.
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June summary: Keep the beta testers busy and respond to their bug reports. Continue work on Game Record Log conversions to support NetPlay for entire sequence of play.
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_____________________________
Steve
Perfection is an elusive goal.
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Printable Version
RE: Uncertainty - 
Indeed, many of the pages are for the index or concern optional rules, so I think the total for the basic game is under 100. A mere couple of hours of light reading!
That just says alot about the complexity issues of FE right there. IIRC, 5th ed had about 100 pages in total including all optionals, errata AND DoD1. So tutorials will certainly be welcome! 
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