Difference between revisions of "4"

Revision as of 17:08, 9 August 2010

Worms Armageddon 4.x plan / idea dump. Please don't edit this page unless you've been invited to. Instead, feel free to discuss features on the talk page or Team17 forums.

W:A 4.x will be a complete rewrite of all of W:A's codebase except the game logic (physics etc.).

Plan

Platform/Libraries

• Programming language: D 2 (?)
  • 4/Why D
• Input/windowing: SDL (?)
• Graphics: SDL and SDL+OpenGL (?)
  • True colour everywhere; use 3D/hardware acceleration where available
• Network: standard TCP/IP

Code

• Split into open-source (not W:A-specific) and closed-source (W:A-specific) parts
• Separate input, network, rendering and each game logic instance into threads and use message passing?
• A simplistic dummy open-source game will be written which uses open-source parts of the code, to allow community development of open-source code
• It is extremely important that the UI framework is written to be as simple to use as possible. The fewer places code must be changed to add/edit a control, the better. Immediate mode GUIs may be worth considering.

Installation

• Installation wizard on Windows
• Copy and convert files from CD
• Optionally, copy/convert files from an existing W:A installation

Storage

• Use appropriate OS directories for user data
• Store objects into fanned-out files named by the file's hash (similar to git storage, but without packs)
  • Network operations will not send objects that already exist on the host (objects, including maps are cached).
• Operations:
  • Clean-up (suggest deleting unused maps, possibly old replays)
  • Integrity check (check that all objects correspond to their SHA-1s)
    • Garbage collection (unreferenced objects)

Interface

• Preserve classic black&blue look-and-feel
  • Skins?
• Non-modal interface (Allow switching from a game to the WormNET window, possibly allow playing a game and spectating another simultaneously)
  • Show a taskbar/tab bar when W:A is windowed, or always except when a game is running
• Specific screens:
  • Join "lobby":
    • Add easily-accessible "scheme diff" feature (e.g. on mouse hover over scheme viewer button), which compares locally-available schemes and displays a diff against closest matching scheme (e.g. "Closest-matching scheme: Hysteria; Low gravity ammo: 0 -> 1")

Options

• Customisable keyboard controls
• Customizable background detail levels
• Move instant replays from a scheme option to a game option, since it only works offline anyway?
• Team favourite colour (honoured by hosts on a first-come, first-serve basis)
• Allow customizing the six team colours (for people with colour deficiency, or who don't like certain colours).

Game engine/process

• Live map and scheme editing; changes saved in message stream
  • Map editor: (also see separate section for feature list)
    • Integrated with game logic (editing tools accessible just like weapons from a separate palette)
    • Maps should be sent as collision mask first, with progressive colour layer following
      • Colour data for loaded maps should not be stored in the message stream, but rather stored as an object reference
    • Ability to extract map as it exists at a certain stage in the game
• Real-time support
  • Real-time is always enabled
  • Turn-based games follow current W:A behaviour - current player is a few seconds (or whatever the latency is) ahead of other players, but other players would still be able to send certain messages "from the past"
  • Real-time games are synced simultaneously
  • Sync is achieved by "rewinding" the game engine and reapplying new input if it is received "in the past"
  • Optional moderation actions (allow placing objects, moving worms around with the mouse etc.) - this allows the host to fix player mistakes, or a sort of role-playing (D&D-like) mode
• How to elegantly design a unified interface for pre- and in-game map editing?
• All changes to game state and options must be representable as messages, however the entire game state should also be serializable/deserializable (for replay start at arbitrary points and joining in-progress games)
• Maps:
  • Wrapped maps?
  • Auto-expand map size? (Allow placing girders outside map boundaries)
    • Infinite cavern?

Customization

• Custom missions
• Scripting
  • Schemes
  • Maps?
  • Schemes + maps (missions)
• Map editor
  • Custom terrain textures

Map editor

• Open-source as much as legally and technically possible
• Support basic colour editing tools (MS-Paint-ish)
• Support clipboard operations
• Ability to flip maps horizontally and vertically
• Ability to generate maps based on a string (as with other Worms games)
• Ability to select a random map from the SavedLevels folder (or a sub-folder)
• "Plug-in" code model for landscape generators and texturizers
  • Add map generation for common schemes, e.g. RR (see MapGEN)
• Draw on the landscape (monochrome) level, see live texturized map?
• Layers? (parallax foreground, destructible land, indestructible land, destroyed land background, parallax background)
• Worm starting points?
• Allow pre-placing hazard objects (mines/barrels)?
• Crate drop zone probabilities?
• Allow manually specifying water colour and the background gradient

New scheme format

• Format
  • Text or binary? What about network/file aspect? Preserving whitespace/comments?
• Options
  • See 4/Scheme options

Graphics

• 24/32-bit, of course
• Zoom (with smooth transitions when using OpenGL?)
• Screen vibrations upon large explosions?

Gameplay

• Per-scheme features:
  • Rule enforcement as scheme options (see 4/Scheme options)
  • Roper:
    • Trick detection? (like here)

Replays

• Replays are stored internally as broken into message streams / metadata / maps
  • Exportable as one replay for the entire session, or one replay per round as usual (latter doesn't reference maps that were loaded but not played on)
    • Session replays should seek to the "game start" by default, by allow rewinding back to pre-start chat and map editing?
  • Individual segments should be exportable as well
• Replay viewer has a seek bar (similar to video players), with turn starts marked on it
• Allow resuming a game from replay file?
• Replay library interface
  • Replays will be stored in object database, but exportable to self-contained files
  • Search in chat
  • Search by certain parameters

Network

• Use a full-P2P network model (everyone tries to connect to everyone) instead of clients -> host
  • Measure pings and construct routes dynamically?
• Whether someone is "host" is a flag (there can be more than one host)
• If the original host quits, game continues as long as a route exists between all players
• Desynchronization errors don't disconnect players, but rather just cause them to surrender
• Don't forget about LAN and DirectIP play!

WormNET

• Each player has their own unique username and profile
  • Usernames are not editable, administrators can change them though
    • By derivation, clan tags are forbidden in usernames
  • Clans will be able to provide a flag-sized bitmap as a clan logo, which will be displayed instead of the country flag
    • Country flag will still be visible on hover
  • An additional editable "title" may be added, to represent secondary affiliations (to allow smth. like the present cfc`Komo`b2b)
  • Ability to "specify which schemes they like playing in leagues, which they only play in funners and which they don't play at all"
• In-progress games should be joinable, at least as a spectator
  • Spawning a team on the landscape in the middle of a game is certainly an option, though
  • Allow taking over a surrendered team, for example due to a disconnect (the host can give control of a team to any player, to allow a teammate to take over)
• Channels structure, ranks are TBD...
• Buddy list?

External links

• W:A 4.0 progress
• W:A feedback site