Wesnoth on TheOpenCD?

General feedback and discussion of the game.

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telex4
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Wesnoth on TheOpenCD?

Post by telex4 »

In my opinion, Wesnoth would be a great candidate for TheOpenCD, which contains lots of Free Software for Windows. It's designed to be the sort of thing you give a Windows-encumbered friend or colleague to show them some nice Free Software.

http://theopencd.sunsite.dk/

I was about to nominate Wesnoth, but I thought I ought to check with Dave first, and hear what the community has to say. A lot of the software on the CD isn't quite up to a 1.0 release, but all the same, should Wesnoth go on when it is still officially in beta?
Dave
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Post by Dave »

I think this is a good idea, by all means, submit it.

The Wesnoth development team encourages users to submit Wesnoth to all appropriate websites, magazines, CDs, etc etc, so long as the usage conforms to the GPL. Although it'd be cool if you'd tell us about where you've submitted it to in here :)

David
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Post by Insinuator »

I was wondering, what was the first version of BFW like? I first got Wesnoth from a $9.99 1000 games CD at a retail store. It does not have a version number on it, and I beleive it has only three scenarios. It takes over two minutes to load a game, and there are only three options in the main menu. I wanted to know if any of the users know of this, since most of the people who play it seem to have downloaded it off the Internet somewhere. I hope this was not going too far off topic; after all, it's another CD release, albeit outdated.

By the way, the CD is still sold in various stores.
telex4
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Post by telex4 »

That's actually part of the problem with putting it onto the OpenCD. They may still be shipping Wesnoth 0.7.5 when Wesnoth is on version 1.0.
Dave
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Post by Dave »

The first version of Wesnoth looked like this: Image

An awful looking Free game done by a programmer only in all its glory ;)

That is a valid point, that things are 'delayed' on CDs. Maybe we should put a more noticeable in-game message about updates being available from the website...

David
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telex4
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Post by telex4 »

Dave wrote:That is a valid point, that things are 'delayed' on CDs. Maybe we should put a more noticeable in-game message about updates being available from the website...

David
You could always prepare a special binary and source package specifically for the CD.
Sithrandel
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Post by Sithrandel »

Or for those connected to the internet, read and echo a file on the wesnoth server which states the latest version info.
Ayin
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Post by Ayin »

Sithrandel wrote:Or for those connected to the internet, read and echo a file on the wesnoth server which states the latest version info.
Err... I *really* hate this idea.

No program should connect to the internet without the user explicitly asking it to. Please do not introduce this "making things while the user is looking away"-behaviour in Free Software. This only belongs to proprietary-Spy^H^Hoftware.
Petrock

Re: Internet update

Post by Petrock »

Ayin wrote:
Sithrandel wrote:Or for those connected to the internet, read and echo a file on the wesnoth server which states the latest version info.
Err... I *really* hate this idea.

No program should connect to the internet without the user explicitly asking it to. Please do not introduce this "making things while the user is looking away"-behaviour in Free Software. This only belongs to proprietary-Spy^H^Hoftware.
I can understand that concern. I don't know how feasible it is, but what about including the game and adding some sort of "Update via the Internet" as a menu item (or somewhere else)? They can try out BFW as it was when included on the CD and, if they like it, they can update to the current version.

If a built-in update system doesn't work, there could be an Update window which lists the main website and a couple of links for where to find files. At the very least, even without including BFW on the CD, the website should probably be listed in the About window (it's not on OS X, I don't know about other systems, or did I just miss it somewhere?).
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Re: Internet update

Post by Dave »

Petrock wrote: I can understand that concern. I don't know how feasible it is, but what about including the game and adding some sort of "Update via the Internet" as a menu item (or somewhere else)? They can try out BFW as it was when included on the CD and, if they like it, they can update to the current version.
This wouldn't be feasible -- BfW has ports to a number of different systems, and writing a mechanism to upgrade the version for each of these systems would be far too much effort. And let's not even think about people who have installed from source (which is the 'default' way to install BfW).

Petrock wrote: If a built-in update system doesn't work, there could be an Update window which lists the main website and a couple of links for where to find files. At the very least, even without including BFW on the CD, the website should probably be listed in the About window (it's not on OS X, I don't know about other systems, or did I just miss it somewhere?).
Yeah we should probably list it in the About window.

David
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telex4
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Re: Internet update

Post by telex4 »

Dave wrote:
Petrock wrote: I can understand that concern. I don't know how feasible it is, but what about including the game and adding some sort of "Update via the Internet" as a menu item (or somewhere else)? They can try out BFW as it was when included on the CD and, if they like it, they can update to the current version.
This wouldn't be feasible -- BfW has ports to a number of different systems, and writing a mechanism to upgrade the version for each of these systems would be far too much effort.
Here we are only talking about one platform (Windows), although it still seems like a lot of effort.

I should think that if you could package a binary that is prepared to seem more "finished" (e.g. the message that says there aren't any more scenarios says it's a beta, and that they should visit the web site to get the most up to date game) and that mentions, perhaps in the main screen, the web site, then it'd be ready for soemthing like the OpenCD.
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Post by Insinuator »

Looking at the original version, I suddenly felt alot better about my version. Many of the terrain tiles were very similar, but, thankfully, the unit graphics have much improved. I would attach a screenshot, but for some reason, it won't let me. Oh well.

I think putting the address of the BFW site into the main page, perhaps in the corner after the version #. This would draw attention to the fact that this game was developing, and if they visited the site, they could see how fast. This would also keep it simple.
Michael

Post by Michael »

Dave wrote:The first version of Wesnoth looked like this:
I like the horses! They look about the way I would draw them, too. :P

It's really impressive how far the game has progressed, and it's not even 1.0 yet. Roughly when did 0.1 come out?
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Post by Dave »

Michael wrote:Roughly when did 0.1 come out?
June 2003.
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Post by Insinuator »

I must have .2 because it was shortly after June when I started playing.
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