Liquid War NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. * December 2011: release of 0.0.13beta. Major improvements include help, tooltips and breadcrumbs displayed within the menus. The network remote node detection is enabled by default, even if network games are not yet possible. Map can also have a proper description, mention author and license in the metadata. MS-Windows and Mac OS X packates now include all maps, including the contents of the extra-map package. Note that 0.0.12beta contained bugs, one being serious, with are fixed in 0.0.13beta. * October 2011: release of 0.0.11beta. This releases introduces weapons, to complete the team profiles concept. It also has an exp system which unlocks the next level when you win a given level in solo games, two new bot engines, visual enhancements including a wave effect, and fixes about 10 outstanding bugs. * July 2011: release of 0.0.10beta. This releases brings a new concept: "team profiles". Team can act differently, some of them being more aggressive but weak, some other being faster, and so on. Additionnally, bubbling sounds "a la" Liquid War 5 were added, along with new bitmap cursors by Kasper Hviid and a basic score screen. * August 2010: release of 0.0.9beta. This releases fixes bugs 28030 (killing spree with small teams), 30409 (OS/X packaging), and 30354 (libpng detection). Frags are now by default calculated using a new method which gives bonuses to numerous teams when another team is dead. Network node auto-detection and listing works, however it's not activated by default. * July 2010: release of 0.0.8beta. Game is now packaged for GNU/Linux, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS/X. Has a bunch of new features including multiple layers, auto speed-calibration, a (totally useless!) splash screen and comes with some music. Network still not working, but getting closer and closer. * October 2009: release of 0.0.7beta. This long waited release introduces a dedicated rendering thread, the idea being to use modern and common multicore CPUs at their best capabilities. Game has also been ported to Mac OS X, even if no package is yet available. Among the new features of this release, it is now possible to scroll and zoom on maps, games do end at some point, and a deathmatch mode is available. There is still no network, but as far as solo/local mode is concerned, the game works. It is still a beta, but not a demo anymore. There are probably many bugs, but the current codebase needs testing and feedback, so it was released as is. * January 2009: release of 0.0.6beta. This release has a remarquable new feature, which is a good example of what was perfectly not doable with old Liquid War 5. Indeed, maps can now have several layers, that is, players can move on different levels. This allows construction of tunnels and bridges, for instance. Additionnally, Debian .deb and RedHat .rpm packages are now available again, along with a self-installable MS-Windows .exe binary. As usual, this release comes with its load of bug-fixes. * December 2008: release of 0.0.5beta. This one is playable. Local games should work, network is not fully implemented yet. There are still many outstanding bugs and missing features but it should be worth downloading and installing the game even for end-users, non-hackers players, who just want to enjoy the game. Network support and bug-fixing become the next priorities. * September 2008: release of 0.0.4beta. The major change is that the game now runs on both GNU/Linux and Microsoft Windows. Other ports for platforms such as *BSD or Mac OS/X are very likely to be technically possible, provided all requirements are installed, however this has not been tested. The game has been released in a temporary state which only allows map loading. The motivation was to allow map designers jailed on Microsoft proprietary systems to draw maps without the hassle of trying maps on Liquid War 5 or relying on the mere hope that it would hopefully work, some day. * January 2008: release of 0.0.3beta, which is not really feature rich from a user/player point of view, but reflects the actual development and recent evolutions in the game structure. Includes multithreading, safer memory management, cleaner interfaces, and revamped documentation. * October 2007: lots of "underground" work this month. Code has been updated, restructured, fixed, hacked. Package includes new maps by Kasper Hviid, and has been splitted into a core liquidwar6 package and an "add-on" liquidwar6-extra-maps package. Now focus will be put on 1) network code and 2) usability. It's time for players to toy arround with the game. * September 2007: after a long time, finally a new release. Network code started pouring in, but it's not workable yet. Code has been updated so that it (hopefully) compiles better under various flavors of GNU/Linux. Next step remains enabling network. Note that a bunch of cool maps are now included. Oh, and, yes, LW6 is now licensed under the GPL v3. * December 2006: a great effort has been put on packaging, so that people can try out the game. Debian (.deb) and Red Hat (.rpm) packages are available. Sound has been activated, and documentation updated. Network support is planned for next year, hopefully it should be available in early 2007. * November 2006: finally, a workable demo. There's still no real interesting gameplay (no winner, no timeout, no goal) so it's really a demo, a toy, and not a real game yet. Still, at this stage, the current snapshot can be used to try out maps, and have an idea of what the game will look like. It (hopefully) compiles and runs, and lets you toy arround with armies. Next major step should be the addition of network code, sound support, along with documentation for map designers. * October 2006: not many news, but many coding and commits. Most of the coding concerned arcane and very low-level elements. Now there's a serious urge for documentation, as many things have changed. Significant improvements include displaying the armies, having a working "shortest path algorithm", complete suite tests for all modules, full modularity, including dynamic loading of graphical and sound modules, an interactive console which is a Guile interpreter allowing interaction with the game and "whatever would not be available through the menu", and so on. Stay tuned. * April 2006: Lots of coding recently. Maps have been imported from Liquid War 5, and some algorithmic code actually started to pour in the game. For instance, teams can be placed on a map now, and most of the memory structures necessary to handle all the game's logic are ready. While the game is still not playable, it's getting closer to being a working demo. Plans have also been made to use libcaca as a third renderer, the first being SDL/GL and the second Allegro. * March 2006: The refactoring which had been started in early 2006 is now over. The game is now much more modular, the graphical backend is loaded dynamically, and this backend itself is structured in separated components. The algorithm part, the real "core" of the game is not written yet, but a decicated module "liquidwar6ker" has been set up, which has no dependencies on any external libraries but liquidwar6sys and glibc. This should, in the long term, ease up the work of using Liquid War algorithms & structures in a completely different context. * February 2006: It's been decided to use dynamic linking through ltdl (libtool) to handle dynamic loading of graphical backends. This means that the liquidwar6 executable itself will not rely on SDL or any given graphical library. Only libliquidwar6gfx will. While this is not of immediate use since only one backend will be developped at first, it opens interesting perspectives, such as easing up a lot the process of writing an alternative backend, depending on Allegro or plain X11 or whatever is needed, should the default SDL/OpenGL not be fully adapted to one's needs. This is not commited yet, but probably be soon. Additionnally, Liquid War 6 has been tested on a big-endian machine (Apple hardware running GNU/Linux). Some patches are required (mostly linked to bitmap loading) but it basically works. * January 2006: developpement is following its planned route. According to the "official road map" the project is on its tracks. The framework is here and works, it's possible to load a map, view it, and all this is done with a combination of scheme/C code through Guile, which is an order of magnitude cleaner than legacy Liquid War 5 code. Documentation is available on http://www.gnu.org/software/liquidwar6/manual/ * December 2005: Liquid War 6 becomes a GNU package. This is great. The short term and visible impact is that the official web page for Liquid War 6 moves from http://www.ufoot.org/liquidwar/v6 to http://www.gnu.org/software/liquidwar6/ * November 2005: Nothing really new on the code side, still I decided to release some package, to save people the hassle of accessing Arch depots directly. However the package does nothing usefull for end users yet. Spent most of my coding time/energy on PyGpsWeb. * October 2005: Developpement is halted this month, will continue in November. I have other projects to finish now, which have closer deadlines than LW6 (which has none). But don't worry, developpement is now over, it's just halted for a period of a few weeks. FYI I'm concentrating on XUL and PostGIS/UMN Mapserver for now. * September 2005: Continued the work started in August. I've also fixed some stuff in the old dusty Liquid War 5 code, basically I'm preparing a 5.6.3 release which will fix some bugs, and be Allegro 4.2.0 compatible. * August 2005: Coding is on its way, I've coded a bunch of things while I was in Spain. The good news is that: - OpenGL is rather simple to manage, I've been able to setup basic stuff quickly enough. No problem on this side. - Guile is pretty usable, the scm_ interface lacks a good tutorial, but it's very usable. I'm still no scheme guru, but wait 8-) Right now the current work in progress release does nothing interesting, but the framework is set up. I mean it displays stuff using OpenGL, and it's driven by scheme code which passes orders/parameters to low-level C code through Guile. * July 2005: Liquid War 6 is launched. For now it's only pure vaporware, but I have decided to devote time to it. I'm not used to drop projects, so be patient and it will be there. I've written a roadmap, which describes what I plan, and well, let's code!
