The State of the Code address is a not-frequenetly-enough updated article written by Knghtbrd primarily for QuakeForge developers and other people who consider themselves to be knee deep in the code, whether they happen to be writing it or just testing it. What you won't find here is a lot of the fluff news that tells the casual onlooker that the project is actually doing stuff without really telling you what the state of things are.
No attempt will be made to soften technical issues so anyone can understand them. If you want to really know what's going on, you probably don't want details left out because they might not make a whole lot of sense to a non-coder. Feedback is always welcome. So are corrections if they're necessary - contrary popular (with him) belief, Knghtbrd has in fact been known to be wrong sometimes. He isn't afraid to admit it either (most of the time..)
Yeah yeah, I know. Okay, first the quick news: Palisade is back. The website is still under construction but it got a lot easier to construct since now it updates immediately after a CVS commit. With Palisade back, it seems that everyone who planned to vote on the logos has now done so and we should hopefully have a result soon.
I promised I would keep the crap not related to the technical aspects of the project short and at the top where they were easy to skip, but a very important issue needs to be discussed whether it fits the usual content of this page or not. Here it is:
How many poeple can ask that in two weeks' time? I lost count, but there were a lot of inquiries. Unfortunately, I have bad news for you. MegaTF says they're quite loyal to QuakeLives, despite any legal or other problems the engine team has had or may have in the future. Ambush says on his radio show that he hopes all of the engines will support MegaTF though, so we didn't really expect any problems.
I've been trying for several weeks now to establish a regular dialogue with Ambush, but people close to the project have told me that most likely my emails wouldn't be seen, much less answered. So I mentioned something about trying to connect with him durring or after the 17 March 2000 MegaPhone show. Several other people from the team as well as from other teams came as well to help show the players of MegaTF that indeed we are serious about supporting the mod fully.
Things remained civil until some of the QuakeLives guys came in, and things started falling apart then. Attempts to calm the fires weren't terribly successful until not long before the show's start. Things remained sane throughout most of the show. Ambush asked for another small feature to be added durring the show (the console version string gets in the way and he'd like to get rid of it) and I wrote and committed the feature he asked for on the spot.
Fires started burning again shortly after the show ended. I'm not unsurprised, but eventually I did manage to wind up talking with DyerMaker out of the view of the main channel so there was actually a chance of talking. The results? I am now aware that MegaTF's loyalty to QuakeLives extends as far as deliberately shutting out any engine but QuakeLives from being able to run Mega2k. They've decided that since Slade will not take part in creating an open and secure standard for all engines, they can only support his. In order to do that and do it well, they have to ensure that we can't run Mega2k. Nothing personal against QuakeForge or anything, it's just how the politics have played out.
So from where I'm sitting, it looks like Ambush isn't interested in other projects and engines supporting MegaTF. Or at least, he's only interested in seeing QuakeLives-endorsed projects support MegaTF. Nothing personal and no offense intended toward us, but they seem to be intending whether they say so or not to be exclusively QuakeLives.
Well, nothing personal, but I have no intention of playing these silly one-must-win-and-everyone-else-must-lose games. I'm quite sick of them by now - but I'm surprised nobody else seems to be. We'll do the best we can to support Mega2k whether they want it or not. Why? For one, some of us play it. For another, and more importantly, many of YOU play it. I lost count somewhere not far before 150 people who have asked in recent weeks if QuakeForge intended to support Mega2k's new features because you don't run win32 and aren't interested in starting. Yes we will. It may not happen until after Mega2k's release if the needed information to do so is going to be withheld from us, but you better believe it will happen.
Am I being a bit harsh here? Quite possibly. As I write this, it is now merely 24 hours after what we can all agree was a rough night for a lot of people. From my perspective, it looks like MegaTF is refusing to allow Mega2k to run on anything but QL dispite Ambush saying he wants all the engines to be able to run it and to work together or interoperability standards.
It seems that's what's going on here, but that doesn't mean it is what's happening. Chances for misunderstandings have not been infrequent and it's not unlikely that MegaTF would be absolutely thrilled to see a project dedicated to compatibility and open standards like QuakeForge working to make sure not only that we support Mega2k, but that every project out there can. And even more importantly, that the user doesn't have to worry about whether or not project foo's client is going to work with project bar's server.
If that's the case, then all of the above is essentially moot. We'll do our best to make sure we support Mega2k right out of the archive the moment it and that whatever it takes to make sure it does work has already been made available for and incorporated into every single project we can find, whether they're affiliated with us or with QSG or MegaTF or the abominable snowman or not. Lack of standards can only hurt the game. Since that's obviously a very bad thing, hell yeah we'll do everything we can to keep it from happening.
So what are you, the players of MegaTF who don't want to be tied to a single engine and a single operating system, supposed to do about any of this? Make some noise! And I don't mean go around accusing MegaTF and QuakeLives of trying to quash all the other engines either---that's the wrong kind noise to be making. It also is quite likely not true. The noise you should be making is for Mega2k to run on your preferred engine. And I do realize for a lot of you, the engine you prefer happens to be the only one that even runs on your platform. If that's the case, make sure you're heard! You can write to me until the cows come home but I'm not the one who needs to hear from you!
If you're still here after all of that, I'm impressed. Release of 0.1.2 hasn't happened yet, but could really anytime now. Mostly I have just had other issues on my mind. Plus I don't want to give too much false hope here, but I really think a release of 0.2.0 isn't all that far off. I've been focusing my efforts in that direction.