Operational Warfare Developer's Blog

Developer's blog for the Operational Art of War series

About the author

Ralph Trickey maintains TOAW III
I set this Blog up for fun, and for my own edication! Nothing is guaranteed, it's for my own use primarily, so even if I say that something may happen with the next release, please understand that it may not. I plan to post random thoughts and other things like that at random times here. I don't have a specific plan for what will be here.
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The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in anyway.

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Future Game ideas

The major thing about the next game will be that it's built from the ground up using C#. That's has a couple of advantages. One is that since C# is also my day job, making changes is going to be easier.  Right now, I'm thinking that it's going to be an XNA game with WPF added for extra features. XNA means that things like smooth scrolling are practical, and WPF means that things like a chain of command tree are a lot more practical.

I'm also pushing towards standards like XML, so creating alternate editors, and even modifying the save files for 'campaigns', etc. should be possible in single-player.

The feature list for the next game is similar, but there are areas like naval combat, chain of command and AI/Strategic programmability will be enhanced. There will be other changes as well. The wishlist is a good place to start for things like that.

WeGo and multiplayer is probably for the game after that. I can see where they go together for smaller, quick games, but there is too much to do there for it to make it into the next game. It's probably not going to have rounds, and is overall going to be a different game although it should allow play of the same scenarios. I see a multiplayer game as having to be more polished and having a simpler interface, since it's going to be a lot easier to get a friend into a multiplayer game than into a PBEM game. I can also see where wanting to be able to control at a higher level would be very nice to make it go faster, otherwise anything much larger than Arracourt is going to be a problem. Unfortunately, multiplayer coding is HARD, there are all kinds of issues like threads, ports and firewalls that you have to deal with. The combat model totally changes, you have to queue up all the moves and planned combats and then watch a movie after the fact (That means that there have to be new combat rules, etc.). There's going to have to be some expermentation to find out what user model works best. It almost begs for a model where you control at a higher level, and the individual units decide what to attack after moving instead of plotting the individual attacks. It's also true that it's a smaller market share, that's why it's a lower priority. I think that there's a market for it, it's just going to have to be a very different game.

Ralph


Posted by Ralph Trickey on Sunday, October 11, 2009 10:25 PM
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Comments

Rasputitsa United Kingdom

Thursday, October 15, 2009 11:11 AM

Rasputitsa

TOAW is one of those games that I keep coming back to, even in its present form I can see years of enjoyment in it.  WEGO would be great, the icing on an already very good cake.  I can only wish you the very best.

Marco Italy

Thursday, October 15, 2009 5:15 PM

Marco

"I see a multiplayer game as having to be more polished and having a simpler interface, since it's going to be a lot easier to get a friend into a multiplayer game than into a PBEM game"

I apologize for my rudimentary english. for me (I'm 54 y. o.) it is easier to have a pbem game than a multiplayer, so, because: "Unfortunately, multiplayer coding is HARD," I would prefer to have as soon as possible a game without a multy than a great multy but with some daly. Of course I wish you (and Wego!) the best too! Thanks!

Damezzi Brazil

Thursday, October 15, 2009 10:30 PM

Damezzi

WEGO would be nice, even if I like the actual system, but the best thing is seeing you working on new ideas and considering the next step.

JW Norton United States

Thursday, October 22, 2009 2:27 AM

JW Norton

I'm all for :

Modernized coding techniques/methods - makes modding/updating easier (instead of reinventing the wheel)
Utilizing the power of modern computers - Origional code was played on, what, Pent2's, with 256MB of RAM?
More Operational theme - 2.5KM hexes??? Ah, that's Tactical, I rekon....
User frendly scenario development - WYSIWYG
Logical AI - I know, I know.... AI programming is a chore...
Leadership - HQ's that do HQ work


I can add more, but I'm brain fried.

WEGO would be good, but not essential. As long as the engine does what it needs to do, the rest is fluff, and can be addressed as it matures.

Ralph Trickey

Thursday, October 22, 2009 3:52 AM

Ralph Trickey

There was code in it that did different things if you had less than 96 Meg of memory (fewer sound effects, etc.) It's inconveivable on today's PCs.

Bechtold United States

Monday, October 26, 2009 2:34 AM

Bechtold

It all sounds great. Only reservation I have about WEGO is how long pbem can take. If it's anything like the Battlefront games, cmak, etc., a pbem game can become very arduous.

Thanks for all the effort put forth. Hopefully the game will remain viable for years to come.

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