Re: [Wesnoth-dev] Aiming for 1.0

[Richard Kettering]

On May 27, 2005, at 4:04 PM, Nils Kneuper wrote:
> I Think we should really head for 1.0. The game looks very complete to 
> me,

The game looks like a half-finished mess to me, and one which needs at 
least six months before we could think of calling it 1.0.

> 1) CAMPAIGNS:

Great ideas, I agree wholeheartedly.

> 2) UNITS:
> Is it really needed to get in more units? The units in 0.9.1 were
> looking quite complete. Should we really add more units to the game?

Yes, without a doubt.

Some races/factions are completely finished - others are barely half 
finished.
Dwarves, drakes, and the naga are simply not done.  Wesnoth is a work 
in progress, like a half-finished painting.
We've done the detail work on some sections, but others are just a 
rough sketch.

HOWEVER, the end is in sight - the important thing is not "adding 
units" per se, but is finishing factions.
I would say our current factions need less than 12 units to have all 
current factions basically finished.

After that, we can work on improving the graphics of the units.  We 
recently got support for dying animations.
Adding walking animations to our units, which we currently lack support 
for, would vault us into a new level of quality.


> 3) BALANCING:

Our biggest balancing concerns come from - surprise surprise - the 
factions that are unfinished.
Balancing is a major concern, but trying to balance something that is 
unfinished is asking for a failure, which is what our current dwarves 
and drakes are.
They are a royal mess.

Other factions, such as the loyalists and rebels, are in very good 
shape.


> 4) MORE EXTRA FEATURES:
A real, scriptable, sprite engine might be nice, and I'd like to try my 
hand at coding one this summer.


> 6) LEADING THE GAME TO 1.0:
> I would really like it if Dave could continue until 1.0 is out and 
> hand it over afterwards?

I fear for what may happen in his absence.
I myself would like to wash my hands of this affair, sometime after the 
next 9 or 10 months.

However, if the new lead does not have the foresight which so marked 
Dave, I doubt I will stay that long.
I joined here to refine my rather limited skills at artwork, and making 
more sprites is not helping.
However, I'd like to have something that I'd be proud to show off in 
the years down the road, rather than something people sneer at, as they 
do now.
Thus I am happy to continue forging as much as I can over the coming 
months - I have a lot of free time in the next few months.

> I think we could really complete Wesnoth to be in the state of
> releasing 1.0 very soon. It should be possible to do this in the term
> of this year. Sometime between autumn and christmas it could be done,
> so please Dave, stay this long and lead us.

Yes - as I said, something along the lines of six months or so, and we 
could call this thing good, depending on what gets done.
I have a lot of work to do, if people will let me.

> So these are the main points I wanted to write about. As I already 
> said, it was quite much, but I think it had to be written. Please
> comment on this and help to release 1.0 soon.
> Cheers,
> Nils Kneuper aka Ivanovic