The Battle for Wesnoth needs help

#1

Post by mproud » Sat, Jul 25, 2015, 5:31 AM UTC

The Battle for Wesnoth needs help
wesnoth.org

Re: The Battle for Wesnoth needs help

#2

Post by kazagistar » Sat, Jul 25, 2015, 6:18 AM UTC

Why does the game need to keep advancing? Most games in the industry are written, released, and finished. The best have a timeless nature, still excellent even though they haven't been changed for decades.

Battle for Wesnoth is an excellent game. But declining interest seems to indicate that maybe it is just finished?

Re: The Battle for Wesnoth needs help

#3

Post by Frenchgeek » Sat, Jul 25, 2015, 6:23 AM UTC

kazagistar wrote: post #2

Why does the game need to keep advancing? Most games in the industry are written, released, and finished. The best have a timeless nature, still excellent even though they haven't been changed for decades. Battle for Wesnoth is an excellent game. But declining interest seems to indicate that maybe it is just finished?

For the same reason my mechanic of a brother always has something to fix on his car : A labor of love never settle for anything less than perfection.

Re: The Battle for Wesnoth needs help

#4

Post by enraged_camel » Sat, Jul 25, 2015, 6:35 AM UTC

Perhaps the issue is that they are looking for intermediate to advanced C++ programmers who have experience with very large code-bases. That's a tiny portion of the programmer population.

I know this is a risky thing to say here, but I wonder if they should re-write the game in a more common/popular language, maybe something web-based like JavaScript. They would have a much bigger talent pool to pull from, gain access to a much bigger audience, AND probably have an easier time developing multiplayer functionality. Not to mention the plethora of open-source tools and libraries they can leverage.

Re: The Battle for Wesnoth needs help

#5

Post by meric » Sat, Jul 25, 2015, 6:39 AM UTC

I first started playing Wesnoth from version 0.5.0. Countless hours 'programming' in WML introduced me to software engineering. Back then I looked at the C++ source and wondered when I'd be skilled enough to contribute. Reading this, is making me consider returning to Wesnoth once again after years of not having looked at it. Wesnoth is still filed neatly in my bookmarks folder.

Re: The Battle for Wesnoth needs help

#6

Post by rdegges » Sat, Jul 25, 2015, 6:42 AM UTC

Wow -- I've spent countless hours over the years playing this games -- it is one of the best turn-based strategy games (like civilization) to ever be made, IMO.

Back in the day, I used to play this on my linux computer in my room with my brother -- it was one of the games that got me into coding / development in the first place.

I hope they find some good developers to carry the game onwards! It'd be a shame if such an awesome, free game ended up going extinct.

<33 drakes!

Re: The Battle for Wesnoth needs help

#7

Post by jon-wood » Sat, Jul 25, 2015, 6:44 AM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #4

Perhaps the issue is that they are looking for intermediate to advanced C++ programmers who have experience with very large code-bases. That's a tiny portion of the programmer population. I know this is a risky thing to say here, but I wonder if they should re-write the game in a more common/popular language, maybe something web-based like JavaScript. They would have a much bigger talent pool to pull from, gain acces…

If one of the problems they're trying to fix is not being able to iterate as fast as they'd like then rewriting the entireity of a ten year old game isn't going to help that.

Re: The Battle for Wesnoth needs help

#8

Post by SwellJoe » Sat, Jul 25, 2015, 6:46 AM UTC

kazagistar wrote: post #2

Why does the game need to keep advancing? Most games in the industry are written, released, and finished. The best have a timeless nature, still excellent even though they haven't been changed for decades. Battle for Wesnoth is an excellent game. But declining interest seems to indicate that maybe it is just finished?

Counterpoint: Nethack.

Sometimes the best games take a (long) while, and may never be finished.

Re: The Battle for Wesnoth needs help

#9

Post by kazagistar » Sat, Jul 25, 2015, 6:55 AM UTC

Frenchgeek wrote: post #3

kazagistar wrote: post #2

Why does the game need to keep advancing? Most games in the industry are written, released, and finished. The best have a timeless nature, still excellent even though they haven't been changed for decades. Battle for Wesnoth is an excellent game. But declining interest seems to indicate that maybe it is just finished?

For the same reason my mechanic of a brother always has something to fix on his car : A labor of love never settle for anything less than perfection.

What strikes me as strange is that you don't usually ask others to maintain your unmaintained labor of love for you, because you don't have the time and manpower. Plus, it sounded like they were complaining that they "weren't keeping up".

Re: The Battle for Wesnoth needs help

#10

Post by johnchristopher » Sat, Jul 25, 2015, 7:03 AM UTC

I am trying to download the latest release (1.12.4a) but I am caught in a never ending loop http://sourceforge.net/projects/wesnoth/files/.

Edit: okay, sourceforge is broken for me for any download, no matter the browser.

Let's consider that my sourceforge rant of the week.