Developer discussion for the game `Battle for Wesnoth' ()

Eric S. Raymond | 1 Aug 2007 04:57

What's going on with the new end-of-scenario logic

I have taken the first and largest step in changing the way
end-of-game works in BfW.  Unfortunately, I am also going on vacation
for twelve days starting Thursday (training in sword at a martial-arts
intensive) and will be unable to hack during that time, being
presently without a laptop.  (I will have limited email capability,
however.)

Accordingly, I'm writing here an explanation of what I've done and
what still needs to be done.  I will probably be able to address
some of these issues before I leave.  I'm writing them all down
do that others who feel motivated can work on them while I'm gone.

The effect of the new End-Of-Scenario (EOS) logic is that, in SP mode,
dismissing the victory/defeat popup no longer boots you to the next
scenario.  Instead, you drop into a browse mode where attacks and
moves are disabled, but menu commands are available.  When you click
End of Turn, *then* you go to the next scenario,

The motivation for this is twofold.  First, Zookeeper wanted people in MP games
to be able to stay in-game after victory/defeat, post-mortem it, chat for a 
bit, then *choose* to exit --  rather than instantly being turfed to the 
lobby as they are now.   I haven't implemented this yet.

Second, I wanted to solve a UI issue created when I coalesced the
three obnoxious EOS popups the game used to have into one popup
notification.  Though this was a good change overall, it did have the
effect of reducing the degree of control users had over whether
autosaves got made or not.  My intention was to solve the problem by
nuking *all* autosave options and simply letting the user choose to
save when he/she wants to through the menus, including at end of

(Continue reading)

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Eric S. Raymond | 1 Aug 2007 07:07

Chaos and madness

Something is badly, *badly* screwed in the MP lobby. With all files
current at 19276, Multiplayer -> Join Official Server -> Create Game
-> OK gets me the single-player game load menu!

This may be somehow related to the fact that my EOS linger changes,
which I tested successfully on both SP and MP before committing 19266,
stopped working, and started core-dumping MP, some time in the
three subsequent hours.  This was before 19276.

I have backed out my EOS-linger changes, as I refuse to leave the game
in a broken state.

I'm now stopped dead. Since I've become unable to create MP games, I
can no longer test the EOS-linger changes as I did for 19266.  

It is looking unlikely that I will be able to make any progress at all
before going on vacation, unless whatever bizarre bug is giving me the
SP load menu from the MP lobby clears up.
--

-- 
		<a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>

The two pillars of `political correctness' are, 
  a) willful ignorance, and
  b) a steadfast refusal to face the truth
	-- George MacDonald Fraser

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Eric S. Raymond | 1 Aug 2007 07:12

Chaos and madness, PS

It was crazy all over, BTW. At the same time my EOS-linger changes
were mysteriously turning from gold to shit, alink and uso were both
on IRC reporting weird new bugs not obviously related to any of mine.
--

-- 
		<a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>

The two pillars of `political correctness' are, 
  a) willful ignorance, and
  b) a steadfast refusal to face the truth
	-- George MacDonald Fraser

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Joseph Simmons | 1 Aug 2007 17:33

Re: What's going on with the new end-of-scenario logic

I can answer some of your questions:
> * At present, EOS linger is only triggered by victory or defeat.  Quit
>   behavior is unchanged.  There are a couple of other EOS states in
>   WML that I don't understand; "continue" is one of them.  I am not
>   clear on whether they should put the player in linger mode.
>   
Continue probably shouldn't put the user in EOS mode, though I suppose
it _could_ and it wouldn't cause major problems. Continue is used for
talking scenarios,  the difference between it and "victory" being that
it doesn't display a  "VICTORY!  Gold: Turns left: Bonus:" etc message
and it doesn't apply the 20% tax on retained gold. Since there's no
message at the end of continue scenarios telling the user the game is
over, it would probably be confusing to put them in such a situation.

Continue may also be used in some scenarios as a way of removing the 20%
tax, but it shouldn't be. (BTW, I would like to suggest making the
percentage of gold retained customizable in WML... have an attribute in
[endlevel] called retained= that defaults to 80%. Often on RPG scenarios
and such you want to let the user retain all of their gold plus any they
got on the current scenario, and there's no way to do that currently
that I know  of...)
> There is also a related issue about what how to change autosaves, and
> whether it should be changed at all.
>
> My own preference would be to abolish them entirely.  When users want
> to save game, they can use the menu.  This choice is now available 
> at any time, including at EOS.
>
> However, it has been pointed out to me that the other developers like
> having autosave enabled by default because it means they are much more

(Continue reading)

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Eric S. Raymond | 1 Aug 2007 20:04

End-of-scenario linger is back

End-of-scenario linger is back in trunk, this time for both SP and MP,
and not obviously breaking anything.  I chose an implementation much
less dependent on stupid C++ tricks this time.

Visual cuing remains an issue.  Color shift probably isn't a good idea
as that's already loaded with information about fog/shroud and 
time of day.
--

-- 
		<a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>

In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession 
or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches 
in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the 
preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot 
say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear 
such an instrument. [...] The Militia comprised all males 
physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense.  
        -- Majority Supreme Court opinion in "U.S. vs. Miller" (1939)

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Hans-Joachim Gurt | 1 Aug 2007 20:24

Hi !

Hello everybody,

I found wesnoth about two years ago, and enjoy playing it 
very much (only SP so far).

Back then, I also noticed several UI-issues that have not 
been fixed yet (savegame-dirs, no hotkeys on titlescreen, etc.).

Now I decided to help improve these things myself a bit, 
I looked into the code after some of the smaller issues,
and already made some patches (#764, #770, #782).

But it looks like it takes a lot of time until such
a patch gets processed, so I would like to ask for
direct svn-access.

Also, I think it would be useful for future developement
to prepare the code with more comments so that a tool
like doxygen can generate a meaningful documentation.
Currently, it is not easy finding anything in the code...

By(t)e,
 HaJo Gurt
--

-- 
"Use the force - change the source." --Sven Guckes

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dave | 1 Aug 2007 23:57

Re: End-of-scenario linger is back

Quoting "Eric S. Raymond" <esr <at> snark.thyrsus.com>:

> Visual cuing remains an issue.  Color shift probably isn't a good idea
> as that's already loaded with information about fog/shroud and
> time of day.

What about placing a huge, transparent label over the middle of the  
screen, which says something like "Victory!" or "Defeat!" ?

This should be fairly easy to do (just a floating label), and would be  
an effective cue that the scenario is over.

David

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Eric S. Raymond | 2 Aug 2007 00:55

Re: End-of-scenario linger is back

dave <at> whitevine.net <dave <at> whitevine.net>:
> What about placing a huge, transparent label over the middle of the  
> screen, which says something like "Victory!" or "Defeat!" ?
> 
> This should be fairly easy to do (just a floating label), and would be  
> an effective cue that the scenario is over.

Good idea.  

Anyone else can feel free to implement this while I'm gone.  The right
context is the method function playsingle_controller::linger().
--

-- 
		<a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>

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me | 2 Aug 2007 06:30

Re: Map border

I've read the posts explaining the reasons for the fading border on the
square maps,
but i really don't think it improves the appearance of the maps.  Nor do
i like including whole (even if partially ghosted) hexes which can't be
used. 

The current appearance of irregular maps (like hexcake) is to me
preferable,
though it could probably improved by some fancy terrain WML at the
terrain/void transition.
However at this point i'm not willing to put in the work to make that
happen.

In the last month or so i haven't put much effort into Wesnoth, and the
next several months will probably be the same.
The new Silver Tree project has gotten my attention.  So i'm not going
to try to change anyone's mind, do as you see fit.

I'll probably continue to lurk and put in opinions or the odd graphic
from time to time, but until i become active again, i don't wan to be a
non-responsive bottleneck to progress on any front.

Best regards,
-eleazar / j.w. bjerk

On Jul 27, 2007, at 4:55 PM, Mark de Wever wrote:

Hi,

With 1.3.6 we've implanted a new map border which I think is good enough

(Continue reading)

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jeremy rosen | 2 Aug 2007 09:34

Re: Hi !

Hello

I am the one that is usually responsible for patches, unfortunately, I am still cut from any acceptable internet access, which explains the delay.

hopefully someone else can integrate your patch for me...

we try to know the people and have at least two significant patches in before giving SVN access to anybody.

I would advise you to join #wesnoth-dev and come discuss with the dev there, that's the best way to get known a little and get SVN write access quickly...

I would gladly discuss with you there, but unfortunately, IRC is one of the things that don't currently work for me.

As for Doxygen, we have something called DevDocs, and I'm sure we would be glad if you helped us keep it up to date and documenting code (I don't really know that area well myself, so hopefully someone else will tell you more)

Regards
Boucman

On 8/1/07, Hans-Joachim Gurt <gurt <at> gmx.de> wrote:

Hello everybody,

I found wesnoth about two years ago, and enjoy playing it
very much (only SP so far).

Back then, I also noticed several UI-issues that have not
been fixed yet (savegame-dirs, no hotkeys on titlescreen, etc.).

Now I decided to help improve these things myself a bit,
I looked into the code after some of the smaller issues,
and already made some patches (#764, #770, #782).

But it looks like it takes a lot of time until such
a patch gets processed, so I would like to ask for
direct svn-access.

Also, I think it would be useful for future developement
to prepare the code with more comments so that a tool
like doxygen can generate a meaningful documentation.
Currently, it is not easy finding anything in the code...

By(t)e,
HaJo Gurt
--
"Use the force - change the source." --Sven Guckes

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