BlameThePixel!

Quoted :: CyberShadow
Hey guys,

As you may have heard, there will be several new major features in the upcoming Beta update. Until now, they were officially a secret, for reasons outlined below. But, since the cat is out of the bag, I might just as well spill it and fess up.

First of all, I'd like to say that we wanted the next beta to be released much earlier. We really did. I even added a small Christmas Easter Egg, hoping that it would be released before Christmas.

Unfortunately, this wasn't how it came to be. There are still some bugs with the large maps support we have to deal with before it is released. Not to mention that we can't work on the game full-time – this isn't our job, so some of our free time is all we can spare.

Also, I know that many of you are angry at us for keeping development plans to a group of restricted people. But, please understand – we aren't being selfish. We are trying to do what's best for W:A's development.

Not long after I joined the development team (which consisted of only Deadcode at the time), we created a secret "organization" with the purpose of creating a collective of productive minds aimed towards the game's development. Most of these individuals are either talented programmers, or trustworthy, important people in the W:A community. Please understand that we do not let people in depending on how much they deserve to be there! When evaluating someone's candidature for joining, three questions are asked: 1) how can he/she help with W:A development; 2) how much is he/she willing to help with W:A development; 3) is he/she trustworthy enough as not to leak out critical data/information, or misuse any of the material available for personal goals.

These people, among being informed of some things before the rest of the community, have access to alpha versions of the game – thus, they are in effect also alpha testers. There is a good reason for having closed alpha testing: the alpha versions often have bugs which impede compatibility with other versions – if the alphas were publicly available, it would cause us a lot of headache with compatibility problems and desynchronizations and corrupted replays and bug reports of outdated buggy versions and many other things the time dealing with which would be much better spent developing the actual game! Not to mention that some alphas are outright dangerous for the public to get – for example, an early version of my always-accessible weapon panel had a glitch which actually allowed you to view the weapons of your opponent! (Rest assured; all official alpha testers are instructed to dispose of alpha versions after a newer alpha is released).

As for keeping the newer features hush-hush: the reasoning behind this decision was based on that when either me or Deadcode join WormNET, we are often flooded by questions like "when will the next beta be released?" or "what new features will the next version have?". Now, imagine what would it be like if people knew what was coming to them. When the rumour spread that there exists an alpha version which has support for large maps, someone even tried to (unsuccessfully) bribe an alpha tester into sending him the alpha! Trust me, you probably wouldn't want to be in our position, sorting out with people who are trying to satisfy their own curiosity at the expense of our time.

Well, since it's not going to get any better keeping our eyes closed at the information leak, here's a list of goodies awaiting you in the next beta:

* As you may have heard elsewhere, the next beta update will support variable map sizes. Specific information can be found here.
* W:A no longer uses 100% CPU while minimized or in the front-end. It still uses 100% CPU in-game to assure maximum frame-rate.
* As announced in this thread, you'll be able to access the weapons panel even when it's not your turn.
* W:A now registers and handles wa://insert.ip.or.hostname.here style links, which means that snoopers will benefit from directly joining games without having the user log in to WormNET
* Some stability improvements, which include fixing the infamous W:A-minimizes-but-won't-restore glitch
* Many more smaller improvements here and there.


If you still think that any of the decisions we took outlined above are wrong, I'd like to hear your opinion, but only if you've thought them through fully, like we have. We are trying to serve the community, in the long run, and this includes actively preventing the community from preventing us from serving you.

Thank you.

Quoted :: Pioneer322

Alternative map sizes? Is he talking about my idea about having double the sizes of maps and such? (3840x1392 xD)

Quoted :: Pioneer322

Alternative map sizes? Is he talking about my idea about having double the sizes of maps and such? (3840x1392 xD)

Quoted :: Spleet

Holy hell. If W:A gets support for larger maps I may shit myself.

Quoted :: TheAbdBoy

And add a third dimention to it too D: that would be really crazy.