Widelands

Widelands at the CCC Camp 2011 There will be a CCC Camp this year! What is a CCC Camp? Well, it means camping with a lot of people all driven and fascinated by technology. And what has this to do with Widelands? Well, we are around. At least some of ... [More] the community will be there. I had little time, so I was unable to organize a official Widelands area. But I have a very big tent and every Widelander is welcome in and around it. I will arrive Wednesday night or Thursday morning and be around till Sunday evening. If you plan to attend, please leave a comment to this post. Make sure to be in our IRC Chat so we can coordinate social interaction! [Less]

Official Play day hjd suggested to hold another play day and - you know what? - he is right about that. Too long have we not played together and that is what this is all about, isn't it? Following his suggestion, the next official play day will be on ... [More] Saturday 30th July. We will be playing build-16 so anyone can join in the fun. Meeting place is like always the IRC Chat. If you are planning to join, just leave a comment to this news item or voice yourself in the forum thread. [Less]

Build 16 has been released The release candidate worked smoothly and we only needed to fix a bug related to localization. So without further ado, here it is: build 16. Some of the highlights of this build are: a new scripting engine that allows for ... [More] complex scenarios. a new watch-me-do tutorial and a new scenario for the Atlanteans win conditions for multiplayer games which add variety OpenGL renderer improvements to the user interface in many places more control over which wares are stored in ware houses team support in multiplayer shared kingdom for multiplayer, more than one player can control the same kingdom new maps new sounds extremely many new graphics and animations: there is no concept graphic in Widelands anymore. As always, you can find the full release notes and Changelog on the very same page where you can also download this version: https://launchpad.net/widelands/+download Windows and Mac binaries and the source packages are already on the site. There will not be any Linux binaries as we had not much success with them in the past. Instead, we will continue trying to make compiling on Linux as easy as possible (it is already very easy, just see BuildingWidelands and try for yourself!). Update: Mac binary is available now as well. Happy playing everyone! The road we came This is the time for me to reflect on the things that have happened to Widelands and to us, the Widelands development team in this last period. Please stick with me as I reflect on our youngest history. The work we did Let's start out with a quick look at the bug statistics since build 15. You can click the image below to get a nice, vectored PDF. When we moved over from SourceForge we took our unmaintained bug tracker with us and this shows in the plot: we had roughly 170 new bugs that weren't categorized and very few bugs that we had really fixed in our repository. We quickly went to work and categorized the bugs and since then, we kept the number of new bugs low - so we weren't slacking in this regard. The timeline then shows the bumpy road to build 15: two release candidates because a lot of critical bugs surfaced while play testing. That wasn't optimal and showed some flaws in our release cycle. We have worked on this issue and implemented a very rigorous schedule that we use for new releases. You can read all about this on ReleasingWidelands. But if you thought that build 15 was a big step, take a look what has happened in the last year: We have found, fixed and closed over 250 bugs for build 16! And between the release candidate and the final release, only one bug needed immediate fixing. Definitively an improvement! The only thing that concerns me is that the number of bugs and feature requests that we have marked as confirmed and therefore as worth to invest time into is steadily rising. No matter how quickly we close bugs, new ones keep popping up. But we stay vigorous and will keep making Widelands better! Of course, the bug tracker is only an lower estimate of the work with did. There were new features implemented, new animations made, new sound effects produced that weren't mentioned in any bug report or feature request. For example, nearly all graphics got an overhaul or complete remake by our pixel-magicians for build 16 and this is not reflected in the bug tracker at all! The fruits we earned What did we achieve with Widelands so far? Obviously we produced ourselves a great game. But otherwise, let me summarize some (more) statistics: Widelands is a success. So far, it has been downloaded 584.494 times from our hosters alone. This does not take into account all the Linux distributions that ship Widelands, all the download sites that offer the windows binary and all the magazines that offered it on their DVDs. To put this number into perspective: taking the mean, Widelands is downloaded roughly 150 times each day. Build 15 was a success as well. It accounts for 58.471 downloads, that is 11% of the total. The Widelands website had 230.000 unique visitors in 2010, roughly 20.000 per month. 52% of those are windows users, 38% are on Linux and 8% are on Mac OS. Those statistics seem to continue in 2011 so far, but we had an outage in the statistics gathering process for a few months. The transformation we underwent After we moved to launchpad, we got both more centralized and more decentralized. And all of these developments are good. We became more centralized on this very homepage. The mailing list is loosing importance but remains for the moment the only way to reach all developers quickly. More development, design and strategic discussion is going on here and players and developers meet on equal terms. This site is now really hosting a community of people who enjoy Widelands and want to push its growth. We became more decentralized and also fluffy regarding the concept of the development team. Before build 15, the Widelands development team was everybody who was subscribed to the mailing list and was able to push to the SVN. Now, between build 15 and build 16 this concept has transformed. It all started with the web based translations on launchpad: Suddenly, there were people who put their heart into translating Widelands into their own language and very often, they weren't vocal on this site or the mailing list. They only were visible through their good work. Completely unrelated, other good things happened as well: Widelands now has testers that go to great length to try out features and document unexpected behaviours. We have forum angels that are answering technical or game related questions, sometimes over and over again. We have people who put great effort into maintaining the bug tracker, closing old bugs, checking if others are still valid. Wow. I mean... Wow. Thanks everybody! The concept of the development team has become fuzzy around the edges and this is a terrific thing. The line between players and developers is much harder to draw. I love how people from the community always seem to find something useful to do with their particular skill set, helping out wherever they can. And this is so much appreciated: Every time, someone else files a bug or answers a forum post, no other developer has to do it. This leaves the hands free to do some coding, some drawing or some music making. This concludes my review of the smooth road to build 16. Thanks to everybody who contributed his workforce and time for Widelands in this past year. And now, on to build 17! [Less]

Build 16 rc 1 released! We now offer a build candidate for the upcoming build 16 release! The idea of build candidates is to test drive a release and see if it is good enough to become a stable release to the public. So download the version for your ... [More] operating system and start playing: https://launchpad.net/widelands/+download The source package, the windows and the mac binaries are already online. Statically linked binaries for Linux will be made available as soon as we have them ready. We'll update this post. The planned release date for build 16 is the 16th April but obviously only if no big bugs show up. Until then, everybody is invited to test drive this build and report all bugs on our bug tracker: https://bugs.launchpad.net/widelands Please also join our semi official play days on Saturdays on the IRC Chat. There is always a game going on or two and we will be playing build 16 rc1 till build 16 is released. Oh, so you wanna know what's new? Well, here is the not complete overview: a new scripting Engine that allows for complex scenarios. a new watch-me-do tutorial and a new scenario for the Atlanteans win conditions for multiplayer games which add variety open gl renderer improvements to the ui in many places more control over which wares are stored in ware houses team support in multiplayer shared kingdom for multiplayer, more than one player can control the same kingdom new maps new sounds extremely many new graphics and animations: there is no concept graphic in widelands anymore. The full Changelog is here. [Less]

Build16-rc1 is around the corner The last bug that was targeted for build 16-rc1 has been fixed today! We can therefore go forward with the release. The next step is the final feature freeze which was fixed for 28th March. So you have one more week ... [More] to translate widelands in your own language. Congratulations to the German, French and Dutch translator team which have already reached 100%! One week later, on 4th April the release candidate will be made public. Testing and having fun Next weekend, we will put the current trunk version through its paces again to make sure that there are no critical bugs. We will play on 26th and 27th March using the current trunk revision (r5891 or later). Please grab a nightly build or build widelands yourself and join in. You can meet us in the IRC Channel and on the game server. Please also comment here if you plan to join in and when. I am so excited! I am looking forward to another play day because this is always good fun and I am so proud of build 16 already, so I cannot wait to show it to the world! The widelands community is just the most awesome thing ever and keeps making widelands better and better. [Less]

We recently fixed a potential security issue in Widelands. The issue refers to Build15 and all development snapshots older than bzr revision 5875. If you use one of those versions, we advice you to either update to a development version newer than ... [More] bzr 5874 or to at least stay away from game servers hosted by users you do not know. Until now nobody missused this issue and the risk seems small that someone will. However as with all security problems from any program: "Better take the safe way!" We are working towards a speedy release of Build16-rc1 - that RC release will contain the fix as well. What is the problem exactly ? It would theoretically be possible that someone modifies his/her own game server to abuse the saved game/map transfer functionality of Widelands, to replace files on the systems of the users that connect to his game server. The widelands client part does trust the path that is send by the server, so any file on the client system which is writable by the user who started widelands could be overwritten if a malicious server sends a file path like /home/username/.bashrc. What can I do to be save ? As mentioned, updating is a good idea. Build 16 will contain the fix. If your stuck with build 15 only join games of people you trust. If you are only playing single player, you are save as well. We apologize for any inconvenience. [Less]

Time for some news and a status update : What happend to the Website? As you may have noticed, the website was offline for some days. Such things are obviously more likely to happen, when the only person, who can take care of the server is out of ... [More] reach (this time on vacancies) . However for now the webserver is online again and we cross our fingers, that it at least stays online until SirVer is back home and finds some time to dig into the problem. What is the status of Build16? Well, best check the status page of build16-rc1 and take a look at the changelog - We are walking big steps forward towards Build16-RC1 - at the moment only 4 out of 169 bugs are left... [Less]

First snow feature freeze Friends, today we come one step closer to the release of build 16. Today is the last day that new features can go into widelands for build 16. From then on, it is only bug fixing and testing. We have a multi stage release ... [More] cycle with widelands which we are still perfecting. See ReleasingWidelands for the details. The feature freeze that takes place today is the First-Snow Feature freeze. That means the following rules are in place right now: No new features No style fixes No changes to campaigns/maps No new tagged strings Only minimal invasive bug fixes The idea is that translators and graphic/media people can still contribute content for build 16 till Winter-Time feature freeze (which will happen as soon as all bugs are closed or re-targeted, see the status page for build 16 on launchpad. The winter-time feature freeze will then lead to a release candidate. So, if you ever dabbled with the thought of helping out translating widelands, do so now as the strings are fixed and won't change till build 16. Regular test games This leads us to testing, testing and more testing. Help is appreciated: The team meets up on weekends in the IRC Channel (#widelands on freenode). We will always play the latest development snapshots, so you have to make sure to stay up to date. Please join and to find the bugs we have to kill before we can release build 16. [Less]

A few days ago Teyro, a Moderator of the P3Cast show on German internet radio station RadioTux, asked me for an interview about Widelands. As we both had some free minutes the same day, we did not hesitate and recorded our conversation right away. ... [More] The interview was a cosly talk about Widelands' history, current improvements, the WiHack, Widelands' features and Widelands' future. Teyro even admitted that Widelands is one of his favourit games on linux and so we continued talking about some tactics and possibe improvements of Widelands after the end of the recording session. The result (in German) is now online and can be found at RadioTux, directly at P3Cast page or as direct Ogg Vorbis download from here. I am sorry for all those that do not understand German. Anyone brave enough to write down a transcript of the interview on English or another language? [Less]

Eye candy for all of us! We had plenty of highlights recently and here is one more: Chuck, our tireless elder of graphics, managed to get all the tiny Widelands workers together to take some group photos! Use this opportunity to get to know "your" ... [More] tribe from another side than the game. The images were listed and uploaded by Kristin and are available to be downloaded as desktop wallpapers on WidelandsArtwork. So have a look at all the detailed people working for your fun while you are playing! [Less]