DevState

This page lists all the things that I still need to do before the next versions of ADOM II: Legends of Ancardia (formerly known as JADE) is going to be released. Regular blog posts will refer to updates to this page. With the release of ADOM II 0.2.7 the 0.2.x development line seems to have reached a stable enough level for me to begin to work on ADOM II 0.3.0.

The following changes are scheduled for the initial release in the 0.3.x line:
  • Most important: Missile combat will be implemented.
  • Lots of new items (missiles, missile weapons and thrown weapons) will be added.
  • Lots of new monsters will be added (missile users).
  • ADOM II will get a standard installer instead of the error-prone Java Web Start approach. I'm still pondering whether to keep JWS, too.
  • The user interface will be rebranded to the results of the ADOM II design competition.
  • The soundtracks created by Lucas Dieguez will be integrated into the game.
  • The class powers for thieves and tinkers need to be finished as well as some for fighters and commoners that currently only have been implemented as stubs.
  • The new look mode needs to be finished: Currently mouse support is still partially missing and a left click should show details (if available).
  • I want to add accessibility support (at least something rudimentary) for blind and otherwise disabled people. Since I have no experience with that I need to check if it is difficult to do - if so this feature will be postponed to a later point of the 0.3.x series of releases.
  • I really should start to work on the manual as by now a lot of detail needs to be explained.
Additionally ADOM II Deluxe (formerly known as "JADE: The Ultimate Edition") needs to be prepared. This entails establishing a full-fledged Plimus account (I have started on that), adding the licensing engine to the game, generating and storing licenses at Plimus, finalizing the license model, getting the installer builder to work and enhancing my Ant build system so that installers will be automatically generated besides the current JavaWeb Start version. Additionally this site will need a new home page leading users to ADOM II, ADOM II Deluxe and ADOM Classic.

7 comments:

  1. Lots of good stuff from the looks of it, somewhat surprised you settled on "Legends" as I would've suspected you'd have gone with a less commercially prolific near neighbor like "Sagas" but whatever. Especially with the quality Plimus aspect, take as long as you need to do a solid "soft opening" as this is pretty much a guaranteed purchase for me straight away.

    You could always shoot for the Comedy Option and release on Valentine's Day, hahaha!

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  2. "I want to show the relevant information about the position under the mouse cursor when hovering over a position and a left click should show details (if available).
    I want to add mouse support for movement: Left clicking on a position should cause the PC to move to that position using the best possible route."

    Sooo... would left click give me details about the square or move me to it? Can't do both. Well, I guess technically it could, but doesn't sound right ;). Maybe r-click for details? Seems quite natural.

    Also, might I suggest pushing some of the features to 0.3.x? This list looks like a whole lot of work. Having all of that sure would be nice, but with each of your posts the release seems to get further away instead of closer ;).

    qui

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  3. Oh holy crap, you DID get my email from a few months ago. Huzzah!

    "I want to add accessibility support (at least something rudimentary) for blind and otherwise disabled people."

    For me and people like me, all we need is larger fonts. Maybe include a minimap for when the playfield is zoomed or something. Making the game accessible to visually challenged people shouldn't be as hard as nearly everything else you do to make this thing. ;)

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  4. @RKade8583: Actually adding larger fonts _is_ one of the more complicated things. Not for the map as the map already supports zooming (see the View menu), which is easy to add as a keyboard command and also could be trivially supported with a mouse wheel (and probably will).

    But other areas will suffer from too little room for too much information. I'll try to find a workable solutions nonetheless.

    And yes, I did get that e-mail - I currently just don't respond that often due to lack of time ;-)

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  5. Sounds like some good stuff. If I gotta wait until December for the Hobbit, I s'pose I can wait that long til the next adom II update ;) anyway just reading the your progress of updates is entertaining enough for me. Keep up the good progress

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  6. @TB I had no idea... I know making a pdf/txt version of a manual would help there... maybe separate scale-able windows for the various displays? It worked in TOME as far as I know. I'm sure you'll make it happen though.

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  7. just a question: during the work on Adom 1, everything is freezed for Adom 2?

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