I’am not official, but I must say that:
a) VCMI is about recreating Heroes 3, not WOG, at least, to 1.0 release.
b) “I only see HoTA and Grove” - there are officially published Cove, Preserve, Forge. Grove is not official release.
And making a new town can be made in a day (of course, with already existing graphics an dunits on Internet). I think VCMI is for fans, because it’s easy to make new content. Maybe it will be not polished and incomplete (compared to Cove), but it’s will be people’s works, not some closed despotic groups (and there are many towns, that still not out and made by “groups” for over several years without any result).
I not talking about ports of any towns from WOG - it’s more easer, because all content is present, you need only write properties.
PS Again, i’m not official and not a member of VCMI.
Valery19, it is not like we’re against ERM or something like that. It is just impossible to make ERM 100% compatible.
Examples that come to mind:
Direct memory access (UN:C) - won’t work at all. This is dangerous and all addresses will be different in vcmi anyway.
Script that (for example) checks mouse position AND changes mechanics. VCMI consists from separate client and server meaning that one script can not access both game mechanics and GUI
Using another scripting language (lua/python/whatever) is much more easier.
Macron1, check project title:
a) VCMI Project - Heroes 3: WoG recreated
b) Some teams think that new towns must consist from new graphics, not some random pieces found on Internet.
a) But in fact team focused on H3 features for 1.0, and WOG is moved to optional - by you . If you recreate WOG, why you make it disabled?
b) This teams in result don’t produce anything. HotA is the only successful example. And we are talking of mods, not addons (from word “modify”)
Ivan, thanks for explanation. True, UN:C are different even from 3.58 to Era (4.00) but there are very few mods using it, and I guess they can be translated in a more elegant way once we have access to VCMI configurations.
1.0 release is not the end of the road. 1.0 is just meant to be a decent, fully playable product : Single Player + Multiplayer + AI + Campaigns + hopefully RMG (tbc). The purpose remains to have WoG recreated, but that will not be fully accomplished by 1.0. You can see today we already have Commanders, stack experience, etc, so WoG features are slowly making their way in anyway.
As you know, from the plethora of WoG features, some were more popular than others, and some were incompatible with each other. And you can imagine some are easier, while some are more difficult to implement. So 1.0 will be OH3 + basic WoG. To be seen what that “basic” will actually mean, which depends on the skills and maybe even more important the time (and number) of our coders. So if 1.0 will be a stable, playable platform/product, it will hopefully attract even more coders, who will help coding the remaining WoG features, or code new mods for it (which may be even more interesting then some WoG elements not yet in).
Another note about making WoG optional: it was not in the original plans, but several voices from the community asked for it. So nobody’s tossing it aside. I think everybody in the current VCMI group is a WoG fan, but if the VCMI platform can be of use to Heroes fans who don’t always like to play with WoG elements, then why not create it as such?
b) This team is not aiming to create any mod or addon, but to deliver an open source product which others can use for mods and addons. It does take us (way) more than anticipated, but on the positive side, the project always moved on. Every few months there is a new release which is better than the previous, closer to a fully playable product. It depends on where you set you expectations, that make where we are now look like a failure or not. As long as the project doesn’t go “on hold”, or coders reach a “dead end” in an important area, or we start seeing important members of the team leaving disappointed, I don’t think this project is at risk.
Bottom line: the challenges of recreating the game from scratch are different than those of creating a mod (like HotA, etc); so the fact that one mod or the another was or will be ready before VCMI, does not mean that one project had better coders than the other, or that it was more or less successful. Same as chess, I feel H3 will never die, so when we’re ready, I’m sure there will be players out there who will be happy VCMI arrived; better later than never!
We were talking not about VCMI team, but about teams who decide to create all graphics from scrath.
There are plenty of units and graphic resources, than can be made into VCMI mods/towns.
Save the nature - don’t produce things that already exist
So I was talking that only HotA team managed to create all content from scratch, and in took 4 years. Other teams died before ready towns.
We were not talking about VCMI failures
This is just an example. I’m not ERM expert but I’m sure that there are other commands that can’t be implemented in vcmi without breaking wog scripts.
For example script that allow you to leave creatures/artifact on ground won’t work as it - mechanics (creature removal) must be separate from GUI (get tile under mouse cursor).
Macron1,
a) Nevertheless all wog features are still part of our code and unlikely to be removed. All I did is allowed players to disable some of wog features or even remove it completely - similar to disabling particular script in wog.
b) I think there is some kind of similarity between our team and teams like HotA.
HotA team decided to make content from scratch instead of using existing one.
Our team makes engine from scratch instead of using existing one.
At first both projects were not popular - what the point of incomplete engine or project that released nothing but a few screenshots?
And now both projects are among most popular projects in H3 community while projects that were quickly made from existing content are mostly forgotten.
VCMI is popular is not because it was written from scratch - it’s bothers no one but only crazy open source fanatics.
VCMI is popular because it supports adding all existing creatures and towns you call dead.
Moreover there is no need for HotA anymore - Cove is already added by you to VCMI.
In general, no soft is popular because of open source or choosen language - soft is popular because of content.
In general software gets popular due to it’s price (when acceptable quality), which in turn comes directly from being open source (as closed source freeware is unmaintanable). Noone would play VCMI without original data (low price, high quality), great number of HoMM3 fans might be interested in VCMI over WoG/HotA due to possibilities coming from being open source (no easy way to maintain original heroes.exe).
You know - last part may sound offending for people like me…
On topic - yes, “written from scratch” by itself won’t change much. But in case of using something as base you’re usually limited in how you can change it. WoG “proved” this with still not released 3.59. In case of art projects - using existing content from multiple sources will result in mod where each piece looks separate due to different authors.
So at first such projects will get good results but in long-term they most likely will fail, 3.59 being the perfect example.
I’m not talking about released mod but rather about team itself. Without hota team there would be no cove to add in vcmi.
Support is still incomplete. Town is the biggest part but HotA consists from much more than that.
It’s always as “person done his work, he can leave”. People used to results not to their creators.
I hope, VCMI will get better day from day.
We wait for dwellings and warmachines mods. Than HotA support will be complete. But who plays HotA for some new dwellings?
That’s… an interesting position. Without artists there won’t be any new content for mods. What will you do if all skilled artists will leave H3 modding?
Interesting. You’re saying that artists can leave but hoping that VCMI will improve? And what will happens if all VCMI programmers will leave the project because (for example) original game is fully supported? He did what he wanted now he can leave?
And not only dwellings + cannon are missing in vcmi.
Adventure map objects:
completely new objects (like Hill fort “downgrade”)
new creature banks
new objects with same functionality as original objects (Resource stockpiles with windmill mechanics)
way to add hota campaigns and maps into vcmi (unplayable mostly due to missing map objects support)
functionality for special town buildings
several hero (and probably creature) special abilites.
That’s what I’ve found after quick read through their changelog.
By dwellings I meant all map buildings.
If programmers leave VCMI, it will be sad, but source files will stay - so your work will be continued by others. It’s open source - the programmer faith don’t matter to project more, than in closed source.
zmudziak22, hard to say when they will be implemented. As I said before this depends on developers interest in some particular feature and free time.
Macron1, that’s less likely scenario. Most of people who are interested in working on H3 (VCMI or any modding team) are already working on it. I can show you numerous projects that were abandoned because core team lost interest or time to work on it. And yes - they’re open-source.
I doubt that many would happy if this would happen to VCMI. Situation with artists is exactly the same.
I could give you dozens of examples of abandoned OS projects, including some GNU core (in fact most programs of GNU project are abandoned at early stage) and OSS flag ships. Some of them got various (github) forks, that archieved URL change in README at most. So please do not take programmers for granted, until you’re ready to take over their job when needed. The fact is, there is very few competent people ready to spend their time for not paid job, especially in old-style games, that don’t need to be rewritten (there is original Linux version of HoMM3, albeit RoA only).
It would be at some point the same, if “artists” made something unique, that not anyone can find replacement.
If there is monster or dwelling missing, there is already tons of DEFs for almost all cases.
If developers would be kind another and shared there materials, I and not only I could make town from it and populate it with creatures.
But they are not sharing material often, so their efforts go to complete waste.
But you produce available sources, so its not correct to compare.
And there are more C++ programmers, than drawers.
I looked to sources, if it be needed, I can workaround or correct some minor errors.
So if VCMI is dead tomorrow, result will be more playable and usable, than for Bastion for example.
Of course not. It’s you who said that only “open-source freaks” need them.
That’s why artists don’t want to share their unfinished work - the next day their content would be merged with any available crap and made public as pack.
That’s the point. You’ll spoil their vision. If you want to make a town, just make your own!
It’s their time, their right to waste it.
Go find a few interested and available. Most of them don’t play HoMM3 and program for food.
Great! Could you please write some code and benchmarks of my mmaped data loading variant? Because you see, I could write it (however in plain C), but have no time. Or pick any ticket from mantis, I see 102 unassigned yet there.
Without any active development, noone needs VCMI. The purpose of this project is to have possibilities, no developers means no new possibilities and in current state VCMI gives you almost nothing compared to other projects. No developers means no interest in community and no artists. Why would anyone play playable VCMI, while he can play original game with original mechanics (including AI)? In a few years VCMI might (and I believe will) be superior to other alternatives (most of WoG, maybe some ERM translator, some homan-readable scripting language embedded, existing high quality/resolution artwork, Android port, AI and all hardcoded mechanics moved outside code into JSON) and then active development might not be necessary. But it’s a long road from now and if VCMI is dead tomorrow it will remain dead. Or prove me wrong and take care of some bugs and TODOs, would you?
. If you recreate WOG, why you make it disabled?
