Project Update! Seeking public input

Cervator

Org Co-Founder & Project Lead
Contributor
Design
Logistics
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Big update time! Everybody loves bulleted lists, right?

Project Topics (important!)

These are big walls of text as each makes up a cornerstone of the project and we're wanting to get these right the first time - as we're likely not changing any of these in a major fashion ever again. They'll finalize our licensing setup, code / module structure, and our release process. If you have any interest in ever contributing to Terasology or writing mods this is your time to make an impact. If not, you can safely skip these although feedback from anybody knowledgeable on the topics would be appreciated :)
  • Licensing and contributor guidelines - discussion on what project license and conditions we should formally use. Centers more on content than engine (which will remain plain Apache 2.0) - we want to support modders the right way even before we release, not still be promising a modding API nearly two years after release, not that I'm thinking of a specific example or anything ;)
  • Codebase restructuring - what code goes where. Doesn't relate so much to architecture inside the code, more like the overall project architecture regarding where everything goes and what benefits that get us.
  • Release management & analysis - a look at how we could try to structure our development process better now that our project has grown and "game modes" are becoming key - first Light & Shadow and maybe next "Steam Fortress"? ;)
While just 3-4 of us can sort all this out on our own if needed I want to give the community the option to participate - so speak now or forever hold your tongue! Well, not really, we're certainly open to tweaking these topics over time, but this is pouring the concrete for the foundation.

The Great Convergence Has Begun

And the march to Alpha starts when we're past it! This is the result / process mentioned above in the codebase restructuring. We'll be going through stuff like:
  • Merging all the work over several months in the develop branch to the multiplayer branch - Immortius has already begun this
  • Split out content modules into separate GitHub repos for a more natural "plugin" architecture - there are more details on that in the discussion thread
  • Setting up some sort of module/plugin browser and the automation to bring them into the game client easily
  • Apply earlier mentioned license changes / updates everywhere
  • Clean up code violations in bulk
  • Lay the foundation for supporting stuff like Android in the future
Launcher Release!

Thanks to the launcher team of mkalb + MrBarsack + Skaldarnar we're releasing v1.0.0 of our launcher! See its release page on GitHub
  • The launcher allows you to auto-update your version of the game
  • You can run different builds and even different release streams (latest unstable vs stable)
  • Options are included for memory settings and such
  • Launcher is internationalized :D So far just English and German
  • The is our first fully released project - version 1.0.0 woo!
  • This also is the first time we're using "proper" versioning like that :)
Feature updates

Related to actual work we're doing with the code including Light and Shadow
  • We're now using the latest Java 7 - which is important if you're still set up on Java 6 :)
  • The L&S game mode itself is in thanks to synopia with some of the basic textures by Skaldarnar yay! Right now the world is a giant maze used for testing pathfinding, later it needs to go back to being based on a heightmap that helps place L&S locations
  • Multi-block structures (think defense towers in L&S) need some more work and discussion on exactly what a system would need to support
  • We need at least a basic combat system for L&S - nh_99 might sort it out, relates more to the simple combat in portals (danger cubes) rather than the crazy nice physics based combat from aherber - since that branch is inactive and likely needs major refactoring based on multiplayer to work
  • Questing module - is in thanks to nh_99 - rough beginning implementation, could be used for victory conditions and "fake" fast crafting (return x, y, and z to a location rather than use a crafting cube). Need to add location sensitivity as a condition
New Stable Build Out!

Stable build 26 brings lots of neato updates including aforementioned L&S game mode with the crazy maze. You can even spawn the Red Queen in-game, but she isn't feeling quite well yet ...
  • We finally did the upgrade from byte block IDs to shorts, fixing the issues where too many modules would cause overflow and weird world behavior - thanks to Skaldarnar and the foundation work by Panserbjoern
  • We can support hi-res textures for blocks now, pretty! There are some higher res blocks floating around somewhere already
  • New smoke particle effects on explosions
  • Even crazier shadows now!
  • Torches got a major update and now light up their surroundings when thrown! For now we made them pick random colors for bonus points
  • ... much more crazy 3D wizardry from begla - just watch his videos on YouTube like this one :D
  • Game mode/type work by synopia and we renamed "Survival" to "Normal" for now (not much to survive yet)
  • Drowning: thanks to SleekoNiko we can now drown - woohoo! Which for now includes while you're in god mode ;)
  • Assorted other things, see the whole commit list if you like
Help Wanted

Some stuff we could use a hand with
  • AI - we have an old discussion thread and several possible interested contributors: synopia (pathing), SleekoNiko (new), ReleeSquirrel (recently returned), Eliwood (for basic L&S functionality). Just need to get back to work!
  • We have a radial menu concept - lots of utility, but unsure when overdhose will have time to work on it again. We also need to overhaul the GUI in general.
  • New world lead? Nym Traveel isn't finding enough time back anyway :( MPratt did some nice stuff but might be missing. UberWaffe is writing us some nice overviews and Brokenshakles is working on interesting "Steam Fortress" prep work focusing on PlaTec and chaining generation steps
  • Release coordinator to keep track of all the versions and promoting builds / make releases on GitHub / keep track of change notes / etc. mkalb has been doing some of this already but he's wanting to take a bit of a break after the launcher releases
  • Wiki coordinator - we have a ton of good info scattered around the forum but not a lot in the GitHub wiki. Would be nice with somebody who scans the forum for nice new info and updates the wiki with it. Example forum thread that would be great as an "architecture" type page here - Eliwood has been doing a little of this already
Misc
  • New Game & Book Club forum created - for sharing (primarily Terasology related) observations in other games or literature.
  • We have a shiny new Artifactory instance up for hosting some of our libs and maybe modules
  • Just because it so neat I have to relink the video from Marcin Sciesinski showcasing the (coming soon!) tree growth in stages :)
I might have missed some stuff but this post probably long enough as it is ... :geek:
 

liamdawe

New Member
I have to say I don't like the smoke effect when mining it doesn't feel right to have smoke coming off a tree or sand/grass when hitting it.
 

Cervator

Org Co-Founder & Project Lead
Contributor
Design
Logistics
SpecOps
I have to say I don't like the smoke effect when mining it doesn't feel right to have smoke coming off a tree or sand/grass when hitting it.
Probably one of those things we both need to tweak more (yep, should be limited to only some blocks) and offer a toggle for under graphic settings :)

Roger - thanks! Will add that to my short-list to look at some more
 
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