Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

What's a "skybox" and why are they having so much trouble with it?

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

The skybox is a 3d cube with a sky wallpaper on it. It makes it look like you can see far into the distance instead of that boring fog/darkness that makes it look like you are inside a steamy sauna.

And it's working fine now.

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

Sounds nice, do we have a screenshot of it?

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

Dominions 2 has a skybox too, so it's nothing new.

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

It's the sky in battles, right?

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

Correct

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

0.16 versions or so to go. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

One a day http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

Hmm, sorry, don't take that literally. It's not entirely true.

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

heehee. Dont give THIS crowd a promise like that!

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

I love the 1 minute (probably less) between posts by Kristoffer. Heh.

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

I have a hard time believing that they would decide in advance how many updates the game should have before it goes gold. How can you arbitrarily decide that? It would seem to me that you would simply decide to go gold after most all known bugs (at least the major ones) are fixed.

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

Twice a day? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

Um, you set a given criteria for a version increment, then say the game will be ready for release at version xxx

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

Aw..I wanted to try out Dominions 3. before I go on holiday in mid july, but I guess the game wont be out before august. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

Are you saying the list of bugs is known in advance and then it is decided which and how many of those bugs would constitute a new version number? For example, if there are 10 known bugs, it could be decided to fix 2 bugs (those bugs and correponding version number(s) being selected in advance!) per version, thus going gold after 5 versions? If that is the case, then how do you handle bugs that crop up unexpectedly? I would assume new bugs would be "tacked on" to new version numbers as needed.

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

Yeah, the game looks to be at least another month away http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

I told you guys not to get too optimistic.

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

Must...finish...preview...before...game is...released!

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

Well, hurry up before it turns into a review http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

With the change of vine men and vine ogres needing magical control... that's fine, but I'm wondering will there be more cost effective summoned troops which don't need magical control ?
Regular commanders for most nations don't have much use already so I was just wondering.

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

Yeah yeah. It's sad that the cynics and pessimists are always right in the end. It would be fair and equal, if the optimists were right even once. World would be a better place too. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

The way I was told to make timelines (I have done some small programming) was to estimate how long it would take and triple it to account for debugging.

How they number the versions seems quite simple. When you think you have done enough to qualify for a new version, you say it is a new version. Bugs get fixed easily? That version comes faster. New bugs crop up? That version comes slower.

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

Neh, I am *less* pessimistic than many of my fellow countrymen.

And if the optimists were to be right once I hope it would be a more important matter than the release of a game. (nevermind that we are talking about *the* game here)

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

World peace or Dom III? hmmm...

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

The June 27th update changes vine men back to magical beings. The June 6th update made them magical beings in the first place. I'm no programmer, but how does such a bug crop up, when there are no apparent changes to vine men in the interim? Really strange.

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

Maybe they missed a bracket or semicolon somewhere in the code and thought it was working, but it wasn't.

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

maybe they forgot to hit 'save' the last time the changed them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

Or a previous library got included in a patch

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

The list is updating every time I hit refresh. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

LoL, was just going to post the same thing. This warrants another version methinks.

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

Also, what are Death weapons?

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

It would be interesting to read, from a programmer's perspective, how the versions are calculated. For example, between versions 2.83 and 2.84, there was a huge list of fixes, but between versions 2.84 and 2.85 there was a small list.

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

Most improtant is when the save format is changed. Different save formats make different versions incompatible.

Apart from that the version number is increased when we want the beta group to get a new version to test. Rather random in other words.

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

What's the Ancestor Vessel?

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

OMG machinery in Dominions?! Nah it cant be that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/stupid.gif

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

Wow, and the updates keep coming. By the way, a vessel is a container. Maybe it releases a powerful ancestor when you rub it?

Edit: Sweet, we have a new version!

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

Its an ancestor ghost possessing a living warrior. The warrior becomes a vessel for the riding ghost.

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

Bed time!

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

Ah sounds great! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

Nope. You set what you want implemented at what version number. If there's some bug which stops it working, then it isn't implemented. If it turns out there's cosmetic or other minor bugs it doesn't matter, you can fix them as you go along or even post release.
You don't design around bugs, you design around what you want the finished release to do.

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

It is true though in standard programming rules that 2.86 is considered to be a version of 2. And you can run the version as deep as you want, like 2.86a1b2 until you decide that its finally 3.00

Most programmers have their own rules such as +.001 for tweaks, +.01 for a feature add which might add crash bugs, +.1 for upgrades which cause it to not read previous versions files so that test games have to start over. And of course +1 and a .00 for a Gold release.

But this is all just FYI since I dont know what Johan uses as a guideline.

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

I always use dates as part of version numbers. I'll start with 1.(date), like 1.070106 for something compiled today, and will go up to 2.x, 3.x, and so forth when there is something truly major changed in the beastie-in-question.

Actually, I start with 0.x, until I have something that actually works. 1.x is the stage where it is supposed to work but has a bunch of bugs, and 2.x is when I think I've gotten all the vile stuff out of it. If there's ever a call for a major rewrite or a ton of new stuff gets added (or, more commonly for me, the graphic assets are redone), the major version number will go up one.

It's not entirely traditional, but I've seen others do the same thing, and it works for me.

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

"Flail and morningstar new mechanic (+2 att vs shields)"

Awesome! You guys warm my cold, wargaming heart!

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

12 versions or so to go.

What is a Serf Warrior?

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

Well, serf, IIRC, were like toilers on a monarch's land so I'm guessing a serf warrior would be akin to a militia or peasant army.

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

I hope this trend of a new version every couple days continues.

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

I hope that's a good smiley as in "yeah, of course the trend will continue" as opposed to a bad smiley as in "are you kidding, a new version every couple days!?"

Re: Dominions 3 development news
 

It's a pretty good smiley as in 'probably more versions this week, but fewer after that while JK is away'.