The upcoming update

[CyberShadow]

Hey guys,

As you may have heard, there will be several new major features in the upcoming Beta update. Until now, they were officially a secret, for reasons outlined below. But, since the cat is out of the bag, I might just as well spill it and fess up.

First of all, I'd like to say that we wanted the next beta to be released much earlier. We really did. I even added a small Christmas Easter Egg, hoping that it would be released before Christmas.

Unfortunately, this wasn't how it came to be. There are still some bugs with the large maps support we have to deal with before it is released. Not to mention that we can't work on the game full-time – this isn't our job, so some of our free time is all we can spare.

Also, I know that many of you are angry at us for keeping development plans to a group of restricted people. But, please understand – we aren't being selfish. We are trying to do what's best for W:A's development.

Not long after I joined the development team (which consisted of only Deadcode at the time), we created a secret "organization" with the purpose of creating a collective of productive minds aimed towards the game's development. Most of these individuals are either talented programmers, or trustworthy, important people in the W:A community. Please understand that we do not let people in depending on how much they deserve to be there! When evaluating someone's candidature for joining, three questions are asked: 1) how can he/she help with W:A development; 2) how much is he/she willing to help with W:A development; 3) is he/she trustworthy enough as not to leak out critical data/information, or misuse any of the material available for personal goals.

These people, among being informed of some things before the rest of the community, have access to alpha versions of the game – thus, they are in effect also alpha testers. There is a good reason for having closed alpha testing: the alpha versions often have bugs which impede compatibility with other versions – if the alphas were publicly available, it would cause us a lot of headache with compatibility problems and desynchronizations and corrupted replays and bug reports of outdated buggy versions and many other things the time dealing with which would be much better spent developing the actual game! Not to mention that some alphas are outright dangerous for the public to get – for example, an early version of my always-accessible weapon panel had a glitch which actually allowed you to view the weapons of your opponent! (Rest assured; all official alpha testers are instructed to dispose of alpha versions after a newer alpha is released).

As for keeping the newer features hush-hush: the reasoning behind this decision was based on that when either me or Deadcode join WormNET, we are often flooded by questions like "when will the next beta be released?" or "what new features will the next version have?". Now, imagine what would it be like if people knew what was coming to them. When the rumour spread that there exists an alpha version which has support for large maps, someone even tried to (unsuccessfully) bribe an alpha tester into sending him the alpha! Trust me, you probably wouldn't want to be in our position, sorting out with people who are trying to satisfy their own curiosity at the expense of our time.

Well, since it's not going to get any better keeping our eyes closed at the information leak, here's a list of goodies awaiting you in the next beta:

• As you may have heard elsewhere, the next beta update will support variable map sizes. Specific information can be found here.
• W:A no longer uses 100% CPU while minimized or in the front-end. It still uses 100% CPU in-game to assure maximum frame-rate.
• As announced in this thread, you'll be able to access the weapons panel even when it's not your turn.
• W:A now registers and handles wa://insert.ip.or.hostname.here style links, which means that snoopers will benefit from directly joining games without having the user log in to WormNET
• Some stability improvements, which include fixing the infamous W:A-minimizes-but-won't-restore glitch
• Many more smaller improvements here and there.

If you still think that any of the decisions we took outlined above are wrong, I'd like to hear your opinion, but only if you've thought them through fully, like we have. We are trying to serve the community, in the long run, and this includes actively preventing the community from preventing us from serving you.

Thank you.

[franpa]

FIANLLY, word of a new update, :P awesome bro thanks for the info.

edit: no new gui/interface/frontend/whatever in this upcoming beta?

[rednecks]

This sounds great and i hope you know how much the players of this game appreciate what you both do.

I think your 3 points are logical and spot on, id love to get a leaked version from a players pov but i fully understand your points on this.

I have an idea of who tried to make a bribe and if you check torrent spy you will see our old friend will has released "some thing", not holding my breath or downloading it.

Again, thanks for your hard work

[StaTich]

Very nice cyber and deadcode, me and the whole community thank you guys for what you are doing.

[GrimOswald]

Rock on guys.

[Thrik]

Awesome stuff, although playing in a window would be the ultimate revolution.

[Melon]

Hooray! A new update! All I can say is don't worry about taking your time with the updates. We're all lucky that W:A is getting updated at all, as most games never get updated, especially not so long after it's initial release.

I'd rather wait a year for a bug-free update than a rushed one.

[AndrewTaylor]

I think he's just downloaded WA:CE and put his name on it

[DudexTm]

Sounds great, a 7/8 year old game and its possibly the best game ever invented .
Thanks to you guys its now set to improve again.
As said in a previous post, there is no rush to make this game better than it already is, any improvements will be greatly appreciated so take your time and lets all reap the benefits when its all running smoothly.

Thanks once again for the work you put into this.

[Glenn]

Dammit, you guys are going to make me install W:A again. >_>

Oh well, keep up the good work.

[Melon]

I couldn't help but notice this.

Originally Posted by Cybershadow's Wiki

a cavern map may now be up to 32760 pixels wide and 32600 pixels tall;

That's unbelievably massive! And this is for colour maps and bit maps?

So if somebody makes a .png file that's of size 32760 x 32600, how big would that be? And more importantly, how long would it take to transfer that to each player over the internet? What if one player has a slow connection (say 56k/s)? Will all the other players have to wait ages for his to load?

What I'm saying is, will there also be a limit to the file sizes on a map? Because I can just imagine playing a game and sitting around a long time for it to start...

[bonz]

Originally Posted by Glenn

you guys are going to make me install W:A again

What? You uninstalled it?
Sacrileg!

[Run]

Originally Posted by Melon

So if somebody makes a .png file that's of size 32760 x 32600, how big would that be?

Depends what it contains. It's a compressed format so if the map is mostly empty space then it won't be big.

I've seen it mentioned somewhere that filesize limits may be introduced.

[Metal Alex]

I just LOVE this notice. It's not that perfect, just for a liiiittle fact: no water color thing (I hope it's one of those little improvements ). But, I prefer the bigger terrain thingy way more!!!

I think I'm starting to make a tower map...

Just a small question: How many colors do normal maps have? I mean, the mission ones. I didn't like the background thingies disapear in one of the patches. (if there is more than 64 colours, no thingies )

Just one little more thing: Good job, team.
(Uhm... Shadow Code seems a good name )

[Vercetti]

Originally Posted by CyberShadow

[*]W:A now registers and handles wa://insert.ip.or.hostname.here style links, which means that snoopers will benefit from directly joining games without having the user log in to WormNET

Excellent. Will there be a command line option for hosting games (obviously there will be for joining)?

[Vercetti]

Originally Posted by CyberShadow

[*]W:A now registers and handles wa://insert.ip.or.hostname.here style links, which means that snoopers will benefit from directly joining games without having the user log in to WormNET

Excellent. That takes care of joining. Will it also be possible to host games with a command line option?

[CyberShadow]

Thanks for all the positive feedback, everybody!

franpa: the new front-end is planned for 4.0 (which is already in the works).

Melon: while the game supports maps that are that big in one of those directions, we haven't really tried a map that's actually 32760 x 32600 - loading such a map would require a great amount of memory. And the dymensions don't have to affect file size - a blank 32760x32600 map can be stored in a file of just a few hundred bytes.
Before downloading and loading maps larger than a certain limit, the beta will warn the user about it, and will allow him to decline the map and leave the game. Deadcode said he wanted to make the limit adjustable in some way.

Metal Alex: check this article on the Worms Knowledge Base. The intrinsic maps used in the missions have up to 64 colours (excluding black).

Vercetti: Yes, it's /host

[kikumbob]

Excellent stuff peeps. You're doing the surviving wormers an amazing justice.

[Muzer]

YAHOOOO! *fires off a dozen rounds of gun*


I'm not from texas

Or am I...

No, I'm from Hampshire, UK. I don't even know where texas is, just that they stereotypically shoot bullets when they're happy.

[Distrance]

What about Fiddler, will it be on 4.0 ( if it will ever be released )...was waiting for that so i could maybe install worms again

[[UFP]Ghost]

A few things to say then a question:

Although i don't think it's nice to have such a secret group it is what better for WA so rock on.

I would like to thank you and your "secret" community for all the testing and work that have been done. As best said in 1942 in Yankee Doodle Dandy by James Cagney (or the real George M. Cohan). "My Father thank you, My mother thanks you, My sister thanks you & I thank you".

question, will this affect grenade timing in the game because of larger maps, a very big bng could mean impossible to hit with a grenade.
-and is there any way, if agreed by the creator, i forgot whom. To add the random scheme generator into the game as just like a button that does it.

If i come up with anymore questions or concerns i'll be back. Audios Amigos

--------------
Edit, Could you release minimum and recommended requirement for full size maps?

[Glenn]

Originally Posted by bonz

What? You uninstalled it?
Sacrileg!

No, it was never installed on this laptop.

[canofworms]

THIS IS JUST MY DAY TODAY!!!!

Shortly before, I recieved a very ammusing e-mail, that none of you would care about, but it was highly ammusing cause I know the name of the person who wrote the login scripts where I am based, and I think I have found on of his relatives (that guy was crazy, he left without leaving ANY documentation to the system).

Now this! Its great to see something getting done!

Kudos to CyberShadow and Deadocde

*starts prazing, and offering sheeps*

EDIT:

Wait! I posted someting to CyberShadow without something programming related at the end :O

Oh well!

*Goes off and write the INSERT INTO desk VALUES("head") module for something he is writing in PHP*

Originally Posted by Run

Depends what it contains. It's a compressed format so if the map is mostly empty space then it won't be big.

I've seen it mentioned somewhere that filesize limits may be introduced.

An image in Paint of that size will cause the program to crash, unless you have tons of memory. Im going to try with Imagemagik next.

Ok, if anyone is interested:

Starting Image:

Finishing image (did a imagemagik scale, this took ages, and really taxed my CPU): I gave up rendering this, the resultant size would be stupid, it will have over 1,024,000,000 pixels, so may go into the gigs. If anyone is willing to donate a render farm, please do =) Fyre crashes when I tried to do it (and even then it was only 10000x10000), but memory consumption went over 512mb. So generally, dont bother with images of that stupid size, keep them sane, but thanks for letting us have bigger images.

EDIT:

My my, aren't I busy. I wouldnt like to have one of my Fyre maps that I am working on at massive sizes either ^^. My CPU will melt :P

[ShOwTiMe]

CyberShadow,first off I have to say you do really greate work to this game and keep on doing this as long as you can/want!
The only thing that the community needs is a lil' reply what is happening at the moment with the upcoming beta,like you did here!
That's pretty much all we "waiters" need,we know now you work on it hard with fresh,new and amzing ideas.
Now it's definetly coming and we just need to wait.
As I call it we got food now!

[Chip]

the next beta update will support variable map sizes

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I honestly don't know how to respond to that, I realy don't.

Its one of the 3 things I've always wanted in WA.
As in the words of the Thespians - By God sir, a marvel!!!!!!!

[franpa]

how much memory are we talking? a gig? 2? i got 2 gigs of ram... approx 1.7gig free.

[bonz]

Originally Posted by [UFP]Ghost

question, will this affect grenade timing in the game because of larger maps, a very big bng could mean impossible to hit with a grenade.

Oh, that's a very good question.
And it isn't limited to grenades. All weapons in Worms explode after a certain time if they don't hit anything or get triggered.

Originally Posted by [UFP]Ghost

is there any way, if agreed by the creator, i forgot whom.

http://wiki.thecybershadow.net/Evz

Originally Posted by [UFP]Ghost

To add the random scheme generator into the game as just like a button that does it.

This has been suggested, IIRC.
And it's not that hard to program that they would have to use Evz version.

[[UFP]Ghost]

Originally Posted by bonz

Oh, that's a very good question.
And it isn't limited to grenades. All weapons in Worms explode after a certain time if they don't hit anything or get triggered.

also would not a sheep launcher become useless in fort and what about power when shooting.

And

you can't shoot a far grenade on a high angle with bigger maps?generally you cna far pretty far on a high angle with respect to the original map length.

EDIT:
FOr someone who has not yet mastered shooting is this gonna be bad?

[Metal Alex]

***OH!!! IMPORTANT!!!***

This is technically for the shotgun, or any other weapon like this:

the shotgun has a maximum distance. After it, the explosion is in mid-air. I'm sure, as I managed to find the exact place once... dunno the distance, though, but if it's lower than the map itself... we might have a problem.
Maybe for the bow, this could be taken in consideration, too...

Meh, This is all I can help with the patch, so I hope it helps

[GoDxWyvern]

Maybe for the bow, this could be taken in consideration, too...

The bow arcs downward after flying for a while, and I think it's alright this way.