Status

Networking & Multiplayer
#1

As you can tell I’ve not been keeping up, so I apologise if these questions are answered elsewhere :slight_smile: However, couple of questions

  1. What’s happened to EA2? I seem to remember it wasn’t too far away quite some time ago.

  2. Battle Trolls - are we going to see this eventually, or should we forget about this one?

  3. Cosmic Birdie Demo - now I’ve played this, and its fun! Are we going to see the GDC/JavaOne demo release any time soon?

  4. More of a statement, it’d be nice to see some updates on the PDS website. Is there anything news worthy going on?

I’ve actually come up with a little game I’d like to write with DS but I’m still worried about licensing details and as to the direction the product is heading from a commercial stand point.

Kev

#2

Delayed by everything else we;ve had to do but not forgotten. I have 2 more bugs/limitations I want to get fixed and then it’ll get released.

Kidna been back-burnered because we have something MUCH more real and exciting we are working on right now. Just a question of resources. To get it out i need to do some paperwork regarding open source coming and code gojng out from Sun and I just havent had the time to do it. Myabe I can sneak it into the EA2 release…

Thats really in Sean’s court…

  1. More of a statement, it’d be nice to see some updates on the PDS website. Is there anything news worthy going on?

I’ve actually come up with a little game I’d like to write with DS but I’m still worried about licensing details and as to the direction the product is heading from a commercial stand point.

Kev

#3

And this more then anything else is what we’ve been working on and whathas delayed everything else-- getting the business model fleshed out and approved by management. (If youve never worked in a big comlopany you’ld think that would be simple, but its not.)

I can tell you that we are still very serious about this as a commerical prospect and in fact are deep in talks with a number of very major industry players. We’re about to start our first pilot project with one of them. And thats all I can say right now on that, sorry.

#4

Yes. I guess I can say this there will be a semi-public release after this holiday week. So I’ll go ahead and commit it to Monday, July 10th.
A couple notes though…
This will be single player only. That is, the build will not allow netowrked play. There are many reasons for this, but the main reason is for testing purposes. most people that will be testing will only need to get in and out and see what’s happening with the graphics, physics, collision, motion, UI, and gameplay elements. The connecting and hosting UI is a mess for all but the internal team. The next major public release will have playable networking.

#5

Hi

You’ll have to excuse my confusion here, but it looks like you actually hit a release date. I’ve not heard of this happening before in the software sector, did you find a time machine, or a worm hole or something? :slight_smile:

Endolf

#6

I just finished hackign one of the last two chnages I want to get into EA2.

Assuming its not too bug laden, and the other chnage goes as easily, Im looking at end of the week to finish coding. Then I need to put together a release that has all the missing parts you gusy found in the first release and have it organized so that its right from then on out.

So Im guessing end of next week right now for formal release of EA2. Note that this is just a guess, not a promise, yet.

#7

Update. Im almost doen with that last fix I wanted for EA2.

Next week will mostly be spent makign sure we have a release scritp thsi time that includes everything.

So Im guessing right now tail end of next week for EA2 release.

#8

Jeff,

Will EA2 have any API changes? I’m about to start on a demo so I want to be able to schedule a rework session if EA2 is going to change a bunch of stuff?

Kev

#9

EA2 I believe has no APi signiture changes.

But some behavior has chnaged a bit. For instancem the fix Iam workign on right now will make channelIDs retain their validity between system restarts.

#10

Update: i have pushed back making the ChannelIDs retain validity across resets. It turns out what looks at first to be a simple change has some pretty deep repercussions.

With that out of the way I am done with EA2 changes and am now workign on teh release process to make sure all the missing parts get in this time.

#11

Pushing back a feature in preference to stability and time to better understand impace?!?!?!?!? ??? ???
Don’t say things like that too loud around where I work…they kill people for less. :o

Personally, I have to say “thanks”. Your choice just pushed up my confidence in the success and longevity of SGS.

#12

Heh well not to undermine that confidence BUT…

After stepping back and saying “Im not going to do this…” I had a brainstorm on the right way to do it so I hacked a version today with the fix.

IF it works and passes tests it will stay in, if not Ill back it out. Either way were looking at end of week release still.

#13

Jeff, an enhancement that goes in and WORKS is fine. I’m surrounded by enhancements that go in for the sake of being an enhancement and then we have a few more bug-fixes on our matrix reports for the next month. Now if only we didn’t have enhancement requests so we had time to address the bugs that were introduced becuause we didn’t have time to do the enhancements correctly becuase of the bugs we were fixing. ::slight_smile:

#14

Well it sure seems to work ;D

Im back to workign on the automated release script. Still looks like Ill have a build by end of tomorrow.

It possible it might not get up to the website unti lstart of next week… thats not udner my control :frowning:

#15

Hi

That gives me the weekend to get my client working :slight_smile:

Endolf (waits impatiently :))

twiddles thumbs

#16

Okay guys.

Ihave everything built for EA2 release except for the WIn32 C++ API.

My Visual C Express tiemd out and thei stupid registration page isnt working for me, but I submitted a help ticket.

As soon as I cna ge this resolved Ishoudl be able to push this out the door.

#17

It’s bad enough we’re all pacing the floor and irritating our family and friends waiting for this…but to be waiting because of a non-Java…in fact, a Microsoft problem…

I just don’t know what to think… ::slight_smile:

:stuck_out_tongue:

#18

WellI solved the MSFt problem. We are now all built code wise.

I need to go over the docs tomorow to make sure they still apply and stick them into the release.

And then Chris shoudl be able to put it up for download!

#19

All,

Just received EA2 from Jeff! I will have it available for download tomorrow.

-Chris

P.S. Thanks for all your work Jeff!

#20

Update… my guys want to suggest a few minor tweaks to the release.

Ill have a new one to Chris by late tomorrow.