MT 1.3

[trevor]

With 1.2 behind us, time to move on to 1.3 !

We've had discussions already about what to expect, so expect those to start showing up.

At the very beginning though, I want to be clear that I fully plan to break backward compatibility. It's necessary to implement some of the requested features. So if you are in the middle of a campaign, expect to stick with 1.2 unless you want to recreate your campaigns from scratch.

[Dracorat]

If you're changing the file format, this should be a version 2 then

[trevor]

We've had long (sometimes heated) discussions about exactly that. The key feature that we want when moving to 2.0 is to require Java 6. But that will have significant implications that we're not quite ready for, so we wanted to do one more short 1.x release. I've tried to keep the file format backward compatible, but when I think about it, 1.0 isn't compatible with 1.2 and 1.1 isn't 100% compatible with 1.2. So making it 1.2 compatible with 1.3 isn't as big of a stretch.

And the file format itself is one of the reasons it's difficult to support backward compatibility. And since I need to change it in order to support some of the 1.3 features, I'm comfortable making that choice as long as the expectations are set. Hence the announcement

[primarch]

Hi!

Are we getting:

1. Doors
2. Individual player view
3. Player move restriction (player can only move the max they are allowed to)

..during 1.3?

Primarch

[Pfhreak]

When will we have a tool to work with that has this new format available? I've been thinking about putting together a campaign, but I haven't done any maptooling yet.

Also, plans on making this file format compatible with maptool 2.0?

[trevor]

We're settling on some of the final details, then we'll implement it.

Also, plans on making this file format compatible with maptool 2.0?

One of the reasons to change the format is so that we can have a migration path. By changing it to xml, we can check campaign versions and add migration scripts to update the campaigns to the current version.

[trevor]

Actually, my first item of business tonight is to remove the distinction between bounded and unbounded maps. There will just be unbounded maps, with the option to put a background bounded map onto it.

"What about the minimap?" I hear you wonder. That's next up on my forge. Mwuahahaha feels Goooooooooooood !

[Blakey]

At the very beginning though, I want to be clear that I fully plan to break backward compatibility. It's necessary to implement some of the requested features. So if you are in the middle of a campaign, expect to stick with 1.2 unless you want to recreate your campaigns from scratch.

I'm really disappointed by this news. I totally understand where you're coming from but having just spent literally hundreds of hours building all the maps for my upcoming campaign, this means I will never be able to take advantage of all the stuff you're planning on doing in 1.3 - stuff like Projector support and sorting out all the light and vision issues.

Pants.

Blakey

[ego093]

Oh... now I'm actually excited for 1.3! Do you have an outline of the spec available online?

[trevor]

Oh... now I'm actually excited for 1.3! Do you have an outline of the spec available online?

Still working on it !

[trevor]

I'm really disappointed by this news.

Note that this doesn't mean we can't make a converter Once we settle on the xml format, I imagine it won't be too hard to make a converter between old format and new. But it won't be available for the first couple releases (still working on the format)

[Blakey]

I'm really disappointed by this news.

Note that this doesn't mean we can't make a converter Once we settle on the xml format, I imagine it won't be too hard to make a converter between old format and new. But it won't be available for the first couple releases (still working on the format)

Okay, that's excellent news. I did think about suggesting such a project would be a good idea - otherwise all the work people have put in to date to their campaigns will be wasted, or else you're going to put a huge block on people upgrading.

Thanks for giving me some hope of being able to use 1.3 with my upcoming campaign, eventually.

[Hawke]

Based on the fact that we've got the source for how the old files are made and (soon) the template for the xml format, I imagine it wouldn't be too difficult. Might even be possible to have an import/export ability within MapTool if not a secondary application or script to do so.

trevor, is 1.3 done yet?

[snikle]

Yeah I would say given the move to xml, it should be fairly easy to make some manner of updater/converter script.

[Dracorat]

I would like to say for the record that moving to XML makes me all giddy inside, giddy like a school girl.

(That's a good thing fyi)