is there a 1.4 "Roadmap"?

[notAdragon]

Not asking for a stable release date.

But in terms of features/improvements, is there a defined list of things that says "ok, if we get these done, we'll release a 1.4 stable version" ?

Right now I play the 1.2 stable, and when I see bugs, I don't know whether I should report them because they might actually be "fixed" in 1.4.x and I might just get told to play that instead...

[drcode]

You're probably better off using the snapshots. There's no written "roadmap" for 1.4, but we're generally looking to get hardcoded data out of the game and into datafiles, with support in ExultStudio.

[Toddeeey]

What does this mean? There will be no official 1.5 release?

Or is Exult in it's current state done and being re-written for/in ExultStudio?

[marzo]

What does this mean? There will be no official 1.5 release?

It means simply that we haven't gotten around to writing a "roadmap"; for now, 1.5 will happen when it happens. Or maybe it gets skipped and we release a 2.0. Or maybe something else entirely.

[Toddeeey]

Ok.

I understand you guys aren't getting paid and all that, but the last official release was four years ago.

Not last year, not two years, f-o-u-r years is a long time.

I was expecting a slightly better response given the timeframe. Your response was received as "ahh, dunno. Maybe something, we don't even know what we are doing or where we are going".

Is that the official stance of the Exult team after four years? I come here about once a month and peruse. If nothing else is going to be done, if there are no more goals for the exult team, I guess I can stop anticipating and call it dead. No disrespect intended, I'm just relaying what I read and how I interpret it. I know nobody's getting paid and this is all free, but at what point do you lose the last shred of community interest due to nothing said or done?

If it's dead and your done, please say so. I find it hard to keep a bookmark for a page that's updated once a year.

[Dominus]

please read again what Dr. Code and Marzo wrote. Also look at the download page more closely. But don't let that stop you assuming something no one wrote or meant.

[Andrea B Previtera]

Honestly, most of the software out there, sooner or later hits the end of its lifecycle, with the exclusion of some behemots like Photoshop or Office.

Take Winamp for example: yes they could keep upgrading it but it would be mostly exotic eye candy or support for obscure file formats. Winamp does everything one would expect it to do, and it does it flawlessly.

Ditto for Exult. There may be some bugs to fix but it's substantially perfect for the purpose it was born to serve. Everything that could be added in a 1.5 - 1.x version would drive it away from its premises and possibly "pollute" the nature of the original U7/SI games.

I can imagine a 2.0 version would be identical to the current 1.2 in terms of functionality and maybe performance - it would mostly be a global cleanup/rewrite of all the code with a completely rethought architecture.

[drcode]

Along with what Andrea said, most of the work in the last couple of years has involved support for mods. As far as playability, we fix bugs now and then; but overall, I think it's pretty solid for playing U7.

[mark mitchell]

Are there any plans to add features to Exult studio, such us unlimited map size, number of maps, non-chunk building, unlimited NPC's, etc?

[Andrea B Previtera]

@Mark: I am not an Exult coder, but I would bet that all the features you're naming would either require

1) Quick, dirty hacks

2) Re-architecturing the engine

So they're probably falling into the "let's rewrite everything from scratch!" option

[marzo]

unlimited map size,

No.

number of maps,

What, a total of 256 maps the size of the U7 map is not enough?

non-chunk building,

You can do that in a way; the Codex shrine, for example, was built that way. If you mean "non-chunk terrains", it would be trickier, but can also be done. Chunks are still important -- and eliminating that would probably make the original games unplayable in Exult.

unlimited NPC's

What, 65530 NPCs is not enough? (would be 65536 but there are a few "reserved" NPC #s -- notably, -1 for monsters, 0 and 356 for the avatar, 357 for the party and 359 because 359 stands for the party in usecode and 358 because it is in the way :-p).