Possible Future of W:A, IMHO

[BlueJ774]

The following is simple one person's humble suggestion (mine), so please keep in mind I'm just trying to help the community as a whole.

It's a true marvel that W:A has lasted so long. It's a great game and its very supportive community has kept the game alive. People are running W:A on Windows versions it was never intended to be run on. That's a feat! I mean, how many other games do you know of that are this popular and this supported for, what, 9 years now? That's almost a decade of W:A!! However, the future may be uncertain for the game. I believe this title can be stretched for another 9 years or more, but it's going to take a little help from Team17 and a lot of help from the community that loves the game so much.

Here's a way, in theory, W:A's run can continue. First of all, it's wonderful that fans have become maintainers for this game. However, there are far too few. I believe roughly two people are currently maintaining the game. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) And these people are volunteers, too. More (volunteer) developers need to get their eyes on the code for W:A. Now, before you start protesting, I never meant that the code should be open sourced. First of all, the code should be put under a special license. This wouldn't be hard to do. The specifics should make sure that the code cannot be viewed or distributed without registration with Team17. Also, no derivative works can be produced. The code would remain the property of Team17. All edits to the code would have to be submitted to the principle maintainers and/or Team17 to be considered for inclusion. This process would mirror the way code is added to the linux kernel except that all submitted code would become the property of Team17. Contributors would be honored in the credits of the game, though. Also, to avoid people registering to be able to get the code and then just compiling it for themselves for a free copy of the game, the actual game content would not be made available without buying the game, just like always.

The benefits of such a plan would be varied. First, the game would last for much longer with such updates. I believe the improvements would be so notable that the game could even be widely rereleased. Next, improvements would come at a much faster pace. Things like WormNet could be vastly improved. The game's engine might end up based on SDL. Then there would be a very stable and portable code base that could be identically and totally compatibly ported to many platforms and architectures. Windows, Mac, and Linux versions would be practically identical. The game could work just as well in Windows Vista as Windows 98. The code base could become stable enough that Team17 could use it when producing any new 2D Worms games. Finally, this would get Team17 a lot of press. If they could pull it off, W:A might become a model game for the world of developer-fanbase interaction. In some rights, it would become the first Mozilla project of the game world. (I realize that's taking it a little far since W:A would not be open source.)

To sum up my thoughts, if done correctly, there would be nothing to lose and everything to gain. It's not just a pipe dream. W:A could become greater than anyone ever expected. I mean, who ever thought that the game's source code would be opened to a fan for maintenance? I don't know of any other game where that's happened. The current maintainers are doing a great job, but they could use some help. So, why not take it to the next step, community? Why not take it to the next step, Team17? It's almost certainly a win-win.

And, my fellow community, just think it over before you start to flame this thread. Please? I'm just trying to help the game we all love so much.

[yakuza]

I support this idea, however it won't be happening.

[franpa]

A) why MUST the developers require more help? everyone that suggests this have no real proof ;P YES it will make updates faster, but IMO it also most likely makes it more buggy and/or can lead to changes that just arnt deamed wormy enough.

sure we could make it so we pump a million updates out to the public each year, but that ruins the er feeling of joy knowing something awesome is gonna happen soon :P because you would know that iw would be coming in a matter of days/weeks instead of a year.

this has the potential to screw up the worms community.

[CyberShadow]

Hello,

Thank you for your post.

This topic has been discussed several times in the past. I mostly agree with your opinions, however there are several problems.

Probably the most dreadful (and dangerous for the community) problem would be cheating. If anyone can acquire access to the source code, by becoming a developer or if the source would somehow leak out, anyone would be able to modify it to create a cheat version of WA.exe. In fact, Deadcode has already added "tool-assist" features to the code - these features aren't included in public builds. The purpose of these tools are to be able to create tool-assisted replays, with the player's actions being controlled with absolute, per-frame precision as to aspire towards perfection in reaching a certain goal (check out the tool-assisted records on the mission records page (http://nanacide.com/missionrecords/) for examples). Some players have received tool-assist versions from Deadcode, but security measures have been taken to prevent problems in case of mis-use or leaking: the executable is watermarked with the recipient's nickname, all network code is removed, and the generated replays are encrypted (only a developer can decrypt them so they become watchable with a regular W:A version).

Secondly, there don't seem to be many people with enough skill, motivation and free time to work on W:A on a larger scale. As you may already know, we do private alpha testing, for a number of reasons I enumerated in this thread (http://forum.team17.co.uk/showthread.php?t=31403). Alpha testers are mostly people who can and want to help the W:A community, however it's also biased towards programmers - before the closed alpha testing idea came around, our "community" was just a "developers' hideout" of sorts, where technical WA-related matters could be discussed. I think that I once estimated that around 75% of alpha-testers are also code-knowledgeable.

W:A isn't the only W:A-related project under development, and there are some side-projects, probably the most notorious of these is HostingBuddy (http://forum.team17.co.uk/showthread.php?t=31424#post554223). However, most of the time I'm the only person who would work on the aforementioned project - and, since Deadcode has been very busy with real life lately as well, I'm often forced to decide whether to work on W:A or HB. Thus, it's true that we have a lack of programmers to help with W:A-related projects, let alone handle the code-monstrosity that is W:A.

Finally, with W:A being an 8-year-old game, Team17 isn't very interested in spending resources for a game that has lost its commercial potential. The income from the game's sales has become a trickle, and a lot of effort would be required to make an 8-year-old game worth buying again.

So, as you can see, the only action we could take in this direction - attempt to attract more developers who aren't as accustomed to the game and its community - would involve putting at risk the game and its community. As things are right now - a slow, but steady progress - seems to satisfy most of the community, who seemingly would rather wait it out rather than risk ruining it all.

Either way, we are already moving ("crawling" could be a more suitable term) towards the suggestions you've mentioned. Version 4 of the game would involve a rewrite of most of the code around the engine - a new front-end, moving the game's graphics towards 32-bit, code portability to facilitate porting to other platforms, etc.

[yakuza]

Good post cybershadow.

But how do you work this out?

seems to satisfy most of the community, who seemingly would rather wait it out rather than risk ruining it all.

[CyberShadow]

I reasoned that's what came out of past discussions on this topic.

[yakuza]

Well I'm not sure of the result, if every wormer was allowed to vote in a:

1) WA free source

2) WA kept as it is

poll, and not just those involved in these forums, because theres


50% people who seek for vista help or help in general

50% who have access to the alpha.

Seeing as this cheating and catastrophic theories are only hypothetical and that history proves it wouldn't be a big deal I don't see why anyone would not agree that free source is a way forward.

[Melon]

50% who have access to the alpha

What? Where did you pull that figure from?

Anyway, I personally would vote to keep it closed source. Open source doesn't solve everything you know. And even if they wanted to make it open source, I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that Team17 couldn't, due to some issues with some 3rd party code in there or something I think. Maybe.

[CyberShadow]

No one mentioned open source - just grant source code access to more people.

Anyway, that doesn't solve the main problem - lack of people capable of dedicating their time for W:A. There simply aren't many good programmers who want to work on the game. Or, if there are, they don't speak up. If you can find someone with the skills to maintain W:A and has been around the community long enough to know which direction should the development go in order to please the community (and so we can trust him for really wanting to get the source to help the game, not achieve his personal goals), two thumbs up.

[yakuza]

What? Where did you pull that figure from?

Anyway, I personally would vote to keep it closed source. Open source doesn't solve everything you know. And even if they wanted to make it open source, I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that Team17 couldn't, due to some issues with some 3rd party code in there or something I think. Maybe.

It solves many things, would make the game more active and more enjoyable for a big percentage of us, who think that the new updates are not what this game needs, the updates are mainly going in one direction, the casual style of playing, I don't know whose fault is this, or who has the last word on what to do and what not to do, and what things are being taken into account. But like I said, it seems its mainly focusing on the casual gamers, those who will enjoy big colorful maps for a while, some months, if they decide to become dedicated to become good at this game they'll come to the conclusion there's not much more out there, that the updates are not going to enhance his enjoyment, that in game clan support, rankings, league support, timetrial channel with worldwide records are things that don't seem to be in any sort of future plans because they might lead to cheating, an overused excuse.

The next step is big maps, granted some new schemes will be invented, casual schemes mainly based on luck which some people will love and some people will grow bored of. Granted new players will start to overuse the big map function and normal-sized maps will be something newbies won't even contemplate

edit: I'm not saying they're responsible for the game dying, but you see, now that there's no league to play #ag seems like a newb fest.

[CyberShadow]

in game clan support, rankings, league support, timetrial channel with worldwide records are things that don't seem to be in any sort of future plans because they might lead to cheating, an overused excuse

The truth about these features is that, first of all, all this will come with 4.0 and its new WormNET server. Trying to implement them with 3.x is quite problematic, for a few reasons. First of all, it's no longer just a switch that needs to be turned on. The current WormNET system is a stripped down version of the first one with rankings support, which has no support of rankings. Re-adding them could require recoding them under the new environment. We don't have access to the server, and even if we did, there is very little we could do to make them secure. Team17 took a shortcut by implementing WormNET on top of two standard protocols - HTTP and IRC - and paid the price, because the two server-side components aren't co-integrated. In 2007, any script kiddie would be able to figure out the protocol with a packet sniffer and wreak havoc wherever it's possible to put his nickname in a high-score list by cheating.

Can't we just wait and do it properly this time?

Edit: to tell the truth, I am myself not very keen towards putting much effort in 3.x, as it will have to be revisited or redone with 4.0. After the next beta is out, I'll push towards putting more effort in 4.0-wise development.

[yakuza]

Of course I can wait. I just hope the game doesn't die meanwhile.

[BlueJ774]

The main thing I worry about is portability. I'd love to see some ports of W:A. Do you think it would be worthwhile to work on getting a team together for the simple goal of porting to Linux and maybe MacOS X? I happen to know there are some amazing linux port developers out there who would probably be willing to help.

[CyberShadow]

Portability is one of the reasons 4.0 would need to be such a large-scale rewrite. The game's current state is in no shape to be ported to anything - lots of direct usage of MFC, Windows API calls and DirectX. With SDL, it should be pretty easy to port it to anything it can run :)

[Dando]

well, why don't we have a list of things to do and allow members here to vote for which they want to see implemented next?

Surely this would be a good idea?

[Melon]

I assume some things that some people would find more important aren't being worked on now because there are other things that need to be implemented first. Some crucial seeming aspects like online rankings and the next scheme files may be relying upon other things first, the major ones being completely gutting and re-writing huge chunks of the code and re-doing the front end.

Admittedly, things like automatic game replays and large maps aren't really crucial, but you can't deny that they're totally awesome!

If you put it to a vote, I bet a lot of people would just say "online rankings", which I'm personally not fussed about.

[CyberShadow]

Something like that is incompatible with the ideology of 4.0 - its purpose is to write everything from ground up so that we could do whatever we want, without the restrictions of 3.x's code. Our main priority currently is to release the beta, and after that to start working on 4.0 - the work on it should have started last year.

[franpa]

of course you would continue to release minor updates to fix bugs that are found by people outside your private testing group oO?

[CyberShadow]

Yeah - that's what I meant by 3.x entering maintenance stage - it'll be "maintained", but not actively developed.

[franpa]

ok !

[Bawb]

Well, this thread has been a great read. Nice to have such a dedicated developer willing to get things done right, albeit at a slow pace, and still be able to talk in depth to the community about all plans for the future. They're a rare breed. :)

[BlueJ774]

Portability is one of the reasons 4.0 would need to be such a large-scale rewrite. The game's current state is in no shape to be ported to anything - lots of direct usage of MFC, Windows API calls and DirectX. With SDL, it should be pretty easy to port it to anything it can run :)

Does this mean that 4.0 is going to be built on top of SDL?

[CyberShadow]

4.0 will support SDL. I believe it's best to make it internally modular, and allow different graphics/sound/etc. engines on platforms where this is available.

[BlueJ774]

I guess the only thing I have left to ask is if there's any way I can possibly help your efforts towards 4.0? This includes programming, monetary donation, baking you a cake...

[CyberShadow]

Experienced programmers with some W:A background are always welcome, as we have several W:A-related side projects going. Money isn't really necessary, but later we could accept hardware for porting W:A to other platforms (Macs, perhaps some portable devices). Thanks for your offer :)

[evilworm2]

baking you a cake...
You're welcome. ;)

[[UFP]Ghost]

what would one need to know to help program, i'v always wanted to be able to but have been lazy, it would take a while to learn but then so would 4.0 so what languages?

[Seita]

Learn D and get started on HB.

[SilPho]

I would also like to offer my (rather limited) services to help in any way possible, I'm currently working on something (not a program or anything) that might help to reduce the number of "Help Me" threads around here, but it may take a while, darn exams.

[BlueJ774]

Learn D and get started on HB.

What's HB?

[Melon]

HostingBuddy (http://forum.team17.co.uk/showthread.php?t=31424)

[AndrewTaylor]

Why is it so hard to port it to other devices. WA was released on the psx and the n64.

Yeah, but I'm pretty sure that was porting in the sense of writing the game again from scratch. This is more about writing portable code and making a seperate build for Mac. Besides, if Deadcode and CS don't own Macs, how can they test the code?

[CyberShadow]

W:A's source still has references to PSX code, so this isn't entirely so. I haven't seen any N64-related code, but since the systems are somewhat similar (used with a TV set, controlled with a gamepad) it's possible that the N64 version was an uni-directional branch off the PSX code.

[AndrewTaylor]

Hmm. I don't know. The N64 was notoriously hard to develop for but I don't know if that extends to being hard to port "normal" code to. From what I hear the N64 version wasn't very good, though, so it may well have been twice recycled code.

[[UFP]Ghost]

and recommendations on how to learn D?

[MadEwokHerd]

Use the Internet.

[bonz]

Use the Internet.
Better yet, use your brain. :rolleyes:

[[UFP]Ghost]

....of course i looked it up and found a tutorial but i thought someone who knew how would have a recommendation as not all guides are the same.

[evilworm2]

Ghost;579060']....of course i looked it up and found a tutorial but i thought someone who knew how would have a recommendation as not all guides are the same.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D_(programming_language)

Wikipedia rules.

[yakuza]

You're talking about porting WA to the PSP and GBA?

My two cents: Stupid waste of time, if you really wanna play WA portable that means you're pretty much a newb (WA wise), so you're better of buying WOW2.

Sersiouly, why would anyone waste their time on porting WA to the psp and gba? You can maybe make it work on the psp with some sort of emulator, but then its still pointless, and silly.

[BlueJ774]

I don't know if its a total waste of time. However, there already are two versions of Worms for PSP and at least one for DS.

Also, what about Linux? You don't need any special hardware to develop for Linux since you can use a LiveCD if you want to. Also, I wouldn't think it'd be as hard as Mac.

[Spadge]

W2/WA/WP is not open source or abandonware, it cannot be ported, transferred or distributed to other systems legally without our OK, regardless if it's for free or charged.

I can save anyone the bother; permission won't be given.

[CyberShadow]

Does that include other PC operating systems, such as Linux?

What about macs? People have wanted a mac port for a long time.

What's the reasoning behind this decision?

Edit: to make it clear - that applies to me and David as well, or were you referring to hackish ports from the community?

[BlueJ774]

Spadge, you make me sad.

Does this mean I'll have to start the futile fight with Wine and trying to code for it?

Also, just because a program is ported to Linux does not under any circumstances mean that it must become open source.

[Spadge]

Cyber; I'd prefer to discuss this off the forum with yourself and Dave, to be honest. I'll explain the reasons, of which there are many, but there's an element of getting totally carried away here.

Blue. Unfortunately life is not quite as simple as you imagine.

[AndrewTaylor]

Also, just because a program is ported to Linux does not under any circumstances mean that it must become open source.

I think the point is that since WA is not already abondoned or open source, Deadcode and CyberShadow can't just do what they want with the code: they've been granted permission to make patches to improve the game and fix compatibility issues, but not to port it or to turn it into an open-source project, or sell it, or print it on a t-shirt or what-have-you. If it were, there'd be no problems porting it, or doing any of that other stuff. But it isn't, so everything done with the code has to be with Team17's permission.

Where the line is drawn between "fixing compatibility issues" (such as the xp fix) and "porting" lies, though, especially with regards to Vista, I have no idea.

[Jerry]

If Worms Armageddon there was open source some programmers could help. I am general programmer VB6 and C+ else in the course studying, oriented more or less. HostingBuddy will work on Windows Vista? What you think guys about program to register players on WormNet?

[BlueJ774]

I'm sure none of this is simple, but don't you think that Team17 would want their software ported to another OS to reach a broader scope of users?

I mean, you wouldn't have to repackage it or anything. Users would just buy the actual game CD from where ever and then download the Linux binaries. The content of the game like images, music, and maps would still be provided by the CD as well as the CD check like normal to make sure it's in the drive.

[yakuza]

@Jerry

You're also the last person I'd want messing with the W:A code.

A login bot is very easy to make. It won't allow logins but it will allow other people to be certain "ropa" is in the channel and not someone pretending to be "ropa". You could auth to him via private message, previously having registered with a password that'd be logged and then he'd log your ip and identify you upon joining a channel, you could register from each computer you frequent and have different masks. Others will be able to use a command such as !seen "ropa" and if the bot answers "Ropa was last seen 0 seconds ago" a la TiCPU then you'd know its the real "ropa". The bot can only !see those who are authed/registered. So if fake ropa is in ag, the bot will tell you when the last time the real ropa was in ag :)

Even I could do this. But of course, I won't.

edit: All this is supposing WormNet doesn't hide real ips or that these can't be faked by other people.

[Spadge]

Not at all Blue. WA is 10yrs old next year, it represents a tiny, tiny part of what we need to keep our studio and people going.

We have no real issue with the community wishing to keep it alive on PC (and have been quite relaxed on that front) but that is really where it ends, as such given many partners interests with different platforms.

[yakuza]

I wonder if team17 still celebrates WA birthdays :(

[CyberShadow]

If you'll pardon the correction, Linux is an operating system for the PC. And, technically speaking, Macs are also personal computers.

Spadge: I've sent an e-mail to your Team17 address.

[thomasp]

What about macs? People have wanted a mac port for a long time.


Too right!!

Plus to add insult to injury, there *was* a Mac port, but it got cancelled when the company in question got taken over.

[Spadge]

Cyber, yeah replied.

[BlueJ774]

If you'll pardon the correction, Linux is an operating system for the PC. And, technically speaking, Macs are also personal computers.

Also, to add on to what you were saying CyberShadow, now that Macs are using Intel processors, porting is more trivial than ever.

[thomasp]

Also, to add on to what you were saying CyberShadow, now that Macs are using Intel processors, porting is more trivial than ever.
Great way to annoy those who use "classic" macs ;)

Still have to convert everything to run off the Mac's graphics though, as I imagine they're different to Windows.

[CyberShadow]

Macs have support for SDL and OpenGL; that's more than enough.

[BlueJ774]

That wouldn't be an issue if you used SDL. Take a look at Scorched3D. They have ports for all systems and it's not that bad for them since they use SDL for everything.