After the longest break (pardon the pun) since the Resurrect ADOM development crowdfunding campaign we finally are getting back on track. Tonight we released ADOM 2.3.0 (r73), a special release in many respects:
- It is the first "ASCII only" (pre)release in a very long while. The reasons are twofold:
- We have added so much stuff that our graphics wizards in Team ADOM are still hard at work with catching up.
- We are fed up with the long break and want to get feedback as soon as possible. As some features are still missing in the graphical version (or broken) we decided to put the ASCII version on the testing block.
- It is probably the biggest release ever we have done. The issue tracker lists about 140 tickets (to be honest: after yet another 15 hour day I didn't count) for this release but the number has to be taken with some caution (partially because graphics fixes also are listed for the version number, partially because a single ticket can mean huge changes). Some of the huge changes are:
- More than 100 new items including a completely new category with new mechanisms,
- Rolf and Volcano quest added,
- an ASCII windowing framework to make interactions more obvious and don't miss them in endless text wastes,
- a speech bubble system for conversations,
- a completely revised pick/drop dialog (I'm pretty nervous about that one as it is a very deep change and probably needs a lot of fine-tuning),
- completely revised screens for quest status, talents as well as merged screens for skills and spells to simplify navigation,
- a new quick hint system that tries to teach keyboard commands with tooltips,
- a new look (and target) mode
- and hundreds of other major and minor changes.
- It is probably the most experimental release ever. This kind of follows out of bullet points #1 and #2 because we tested stuff - but our resources are far too limited to test everything. As a consequence regard this as a true prerelease:
- There probably will be crashes.
- Characters might get lost.
- Save files might get corrupted (although we haven't seen this so far).
- Or in other words: Here be dragons. Proceed at your own risk.
The prerelease is available via the prerelease tester access. Follow the instructions and start playing as soon as possible :-) The change log can be found here (also as usual).
Please use our bug reporting system for all your findings. Discussions about the changes are especially welcome in the ADOM forum. We want to get any problems sorted out as soon as possible, because our roadmap looks like this:
- Stabilize the ASCII version ASAP.
- In parallel add more unaddressed promises from the crowdfunding campaign.
- As soon as the ASCII version is stable, we will do at least one graphical prerelease for an equivalent feedback round on the graphical version.
- Then we will go to Steam beta with the prerelease.
- As soon as we know that the Steam beta is stable, we will make a public Steam release (including one of our front page lucky shots) to increase awareness. A major topic of our work for the past couple of months has been the simplification and enhancement of the UI - as a consequence it is a bit sad that you can't yet see all the fantastic changes in the NotEye/ADOM version. But we promise: the wait is worth it. IMHO the upcoming graphical release is spectacular.
On a side note we (again) changed the version numbering system:
- We have returned to the major.minor.patch level system.
- We still count releases but you now only can see the number with the 'v' command.
- This will allow us to do more branches in our GIT system so that we can have parallel development and bugfix branches. For the current version the 2.3.x branch will be used for bug fixes (with x > 1) and the next real big feature release branch will be 2.4.0.
Ok, we return to work immediately. So much to do and so many plans :-)
See ya soon with the next release!
P.S.: Here are some of the mind-blowing changes of the upcoming graphical release on which all of Team ADOM have also been doing amazing work:
- a completely revised HUD which is much clearer and more beautiful than the previous one
- tooltips
- mouse-based navigation
- animated monsters
- more icons, warning, indicators, etc.
- real scaling for big screen resolutions
- multi-monitor support
- and more!
This is just terribly exciting! Hats off to team ADOM.
ReplyDeleteCan't wait for the Steam release to drop. Massively good job, everyone!
ReplyDeleteJeez here I was thinking the prerelease would be at the end of the month. I'll be patiently waiting for the steam beta :)
ReplyDeletew00t finally!
ReplyDeleteNihilist ending? :(
ReplyDeleteLOL. You are funny. Not yet. And while it is a nice thing it is probably one of the most irrelevant things yet to be done because less than 1 in 10.000 players ever will get to that point. The frowning smiley seems a bit hysterical :-D
DeleteWell, the whole idea of that ending is based on something that will take a lot of effort, lot of luck, and basically yes, only maybe 0.01% of players will ever get to that point. And this (plus how cool this ending is) is what would make it very rewarding for such players.
DeleteI didn't add the sad smile to express my irritation or something. The only reason was because i thought you totally forgot about it, didnt mention since 2013. Didn't mean anything bad, i love all the effort you put in the game, and if i could i would donate 50$ again.
Idk much about programming, but i assume adding the special ending would take many workhours that could be spent on something more important.
But to be honest, argument that something is irrelevant because only very few players will experience it sounds bad coming from a guy who loves to add so many details, content, etc, to his game that are uber hard to discover, require luck and tons of the game knowledge.
Bottom line, you could just say something like "I have it in my mind, but we have much more important stuff to do now" instead of being rude for idk what reason.
Niiiiice. Looking forward to Steam release.
ReplyDelete