Re: [Adonthell-devel] Sign of life

[Kai Sterker]

On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 12:57 AM, Chris Frey <address@hidden> wrote:

Hi Chris,

thanks for the input. Gets me thinking ... :-).


> I hear ya. :-)  I don't have time for much programming these days besides
> work related stuff, and general life can be sometimes more interesting
> as we get older, or more distracting, or even more demanding. :-)

Definitely. Priorities are quite different these days. And so are the
reasons for spending time on this project. For me it's no longer
something that helps me learn new stuff or to express my ideals, it's
more the social component that counts.


> As much as it may not make sense to the developer, tarball releases
> seem to be an important tangible item for the end user.  Source code
> is just too scary for them unless it comes in a tarball or a precompiled
> binary package.
[...]
> I've seen the dangers happen in 3 projects just over the past few years.
> And redesigns can be project killers.

Not much to disagree here. It's obvious that we did fall into the
redesign trap and it is kind of the reason why there have been so few
releases. It makes not much sense for endusers to update if the
changes are not visible on the outside. And especially for a game, if
it is not somewhat playable and polished, there isn't much of a
grateful audience (unless perhaps there are new features added in
regular, short intervals, to keep people interested).

I am sure that with the Waste's Edge remake done, we'd have reached a
point where additional features could be added at fairly small
intervals. E.g. the item/inventory system. The low-level code is all
there, just the GUI part is missing. Would not be difficult to
actually add items to Waste's Edge that are only mentioned in
dialogue. Similar with the Dun Barethsol world map. Just expand around
Redwyne Inn and release that for people to explore, even if there is
not much to interact with at first. But with that in place it might be
a good time to implement combat and once there is something to fight
and gain XP, implement leveling and skills.

But first, the state were we have Waste's Edge again needs to be
reached, at least in my opinion.


> Not sure if that helps, or just adds more pressure, but I can testify
> that after making an official release... man, the pressure is gone for a
> while! :-)  And developers need that clean slate every now and then too,
> to make developing fun again.  Staring at a long todo list that never
> seems to budge can wear you down after a while.
>
> How far away is Adonthell from a release?  Any release, even an experimental
> one.

Something in style of the previous three 0.4 alpha releases
(worldtest) could be done anytime. And with an official engine release
it would also be possible to have an official tools release (as the
tools require the shared libraries from the engine.

With a bit more effort, one could possibly build part of the Waste's
Edge map using cirrus' new graphics and release a 'game' package as
well that could be used with the engine instead of the included test
data.

The requirements for an actual 0.4 release are listed on the Wiki:
  
http://adonthell.berlios.de/doc/index.php/Tasks:Road_Map#Recreate_Waste.27s_Edge


During the website move, I had thrown out the 0.4 alpha releases, as
they had been quite dated by that time. So offering another one might
be something useful. But will it help to spark interest in
contributing?

Kai