First open beta of AOVAF

[Rodion Romanovich]

I don't think it's entirely unrealistic to expect a first open beta of the campaign map in a month from now. How is the skinning department progressing? Do you wish me to do some headhunting of skinners to speed up the process? It would be best to release the first open beta of the campaign map along with a great number of units, if not all, completed. The advantage of giving out an open beta is that it's possible to recieve help with the testing of the mod, which otherwise may be difficult to carry out for only 1 to 5 persons. I also think it's time to in about one or two weeks start putting together all that has been made so far to make everything compatible etc. etc.

I don't know exactly everything that has been made and that hasn't, so I'd like to in this thread create a list of what remains to do. Could each team member please post how many unique units are left to skin and model for each of the factions that you have responsibility for, and tell which factions you are currently skinning/modelling. Also, how is the situation when it comes to small things like:
- loading screens (how many do we have ATM? 16 is minimum IMO, but I'm also unsure it's possible to have any more than 16, so let's say the task is to achieve 16 loading screens. Temporarily for the first release we can use fewer.)
- menu movie (Can anyone make a single frame menu movie without any sound at all, that simply displays something that suits as a good menu background? Or a movie with several frames but the same picture in all frames, but with the menu music playing in the background? Something of that sort is needed for the beta release. I don't know if it's possible to create a more complex menu movie with moving stuff, but I think that could be postponed to either the real release rather than the beta, or release 2.0.)
- other movies (victory, defeat, intro etc. - they don't need to be movies, could be replaced by one frame movies)
- menu graphics
- HUDs
- music (how many percent ready are we - how much more do we need?)
- voices - should we try to use a neutral British English or American English (the latter perhaps strange as there was no American English at the time) voice for all factions, or try to get English with accents? I don't think it'll be possible to get hold of for the time correct voices for our first release, but perhaps for our version 2.0. So - should I headhunt for one or more good English voice actors, or should we stick to existing R:TW voices and just distribute them among the factions in a way that seems appropriate?
- buildings coding - I know this hasn't been started yet, but I also know it's underway. Just listing it now for convenience to be able to refer to this topic as reference later.
- buildings modelling and skinning - I know this hasn't been started yet either, but I also know it's underway. Just listing it now for convenience to be able to refer to this topic as reference later. Also, it's possible to release a beta without having fixed this - in emergency, if we feel it's important to recieve feedback on the work made so far, releasing with R:TW looking buildings on the battle map is a solution that could work.
- unit cards - have unit cards been made for any of the units? I think we should agree on a system for unit cards, i.e. all militia units stand on the right side of the card looking to the left, and all professional units stand on the left side of the card looking to the right.
- descriptions of all units, and all other texts that are needed in the mod - I'll start work on this
- names - can you, Meneldil, take care of this? I had a names thread which has been archived now, but I can send the name lists I made to you so you can edit the names .txt files properly according to them. There are only a couple of names lists for factions that haven't been completed yet.
- completed units and screenshots of them - no rush, but I'd like to have a list of all units that have been skinned, so I can set up a stickied thread containing the unit screenshots, and descriptions of them. The screenshots are low priority, and some we may choose not to display in that thread for secrecy and increasing the anticipation of those who are interested in this mod, but a list of completed units is needed as soon as possible, so I can set up the thread and descriptions of all those units in the meantime.
- tech trees - in order to know which tech trees I need to complete quickly, I need requests from you. Is there any hurry with the magyars tech tree, which I haven't finished yet? If so, I'll see to it immediately. I think I'll take a small break in the campaign map making in order to provide skinners and others who need info with the info they need to be able to carry out their work - info such as completed tech trees.
- research - what is left to do in that field apart from finishing tech trees, names lists and so on.
- quotes - can you, Meneldil, take care of entering the quotes we have listed in a quotes thread into the appropriate .txt files? I recieved plenty of errors when trying to edit them. Which quotes to use I don't know, but perhaps a good policy could be to have as many viking related quotes as possible, then add fewer quotes related to others. The too long quotes will unforuntately have to be ommitted due to engine limitations.
- editing terrain and climates - I'm working on this at the moment, and will headhunt for help or tutorials if necessary.
- character traits - "cognomina" are under research, this stuff will be started once basic campaign map and names editing is ready.
- other scripting - I know this hasn't been started yet. Just listing it now for convenience to be able to refer to this topic as reference later
- balancing units etc. - For those who are working on unit stats (Emperor Umeu 1 and QuickDagger), the lists of so far skinned units are needed so they can do their editing. The final balancing of this can only be carried out with in-game testing once a full beta has been put together and become ready for release. I believe we could release the beta with units having the stats you two have given them, they'll be close enough to the final values after your work, I think, so we can immediately get the needed playtesting from users of the mod, by releasing the beta openly.

I believe those are all the things that need to be carried out in order for this mod to be possible to release in it's first beta version. If I missed anything, tell me.

[Forgus]

I help you with the Magyar names and tech tree as promised...

[Rodion Romanovich]

Ok, very good. Have you any idea of when you might have one finished?

You might want to, when making the tech tree, compare it to others to see what every building level means and how different unit classes are distributed between the different building complexes and so on. The tech trees thread here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=48791

...contains all tech trees made so far in red color and unfinished temporary ones in black or blue. The current unfinished magyar tree is quite far down on the page.

Cheers!

[Forgus]

unit list ready tech tree.... see... Friday perhaps?

[Meneldil]

Well, I don't think releasing the campaign map in a first beta is a good idea...
It will need to have a whole lot of unit ready, a balanced game, no loopholes, etc. That will be *a lot* of testing.

On the other hand, a beta release with custom, multiplayer and a few historical battles would be easier, and released earlier.

We could plan to have the Vikings, Saxons, Frankish and (an eastern faction) units ready, historical battles such as Hastings, Clontarf, Stamford Bridge, etc.

As for quotes and names, I could take care of it, althought I've never did so before. Shouldn't be that hard.

Could you dl some instant messenger ? ICQ or MSN would be great. It would be way easier to communicate.

The map is almost done, regions-wise, I'll send a map to PseRamesses, so he can help me with the Viking areas. So far, I have about 170 regions, and ideas for the 30 remaining.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Ok, you might be right. But perhaps we should release a closed beta to a few beta testers (there have been some who have expressed interest in that) to recieve help with some testing early, it would improve the development of the mod I think. But it depends on how ready the mod is by that time. We should probably have finished most of the factions, preferably all, before we release. Anyway, I'm headhunting for skinners and modellers and coders and anyone at all who can speed up our development. A month from now might be unrealistic.

As for quotes and names, I'll email you the full lists. The files that are affected when editing names are 1 descr. txt file, 1 names lookup file, and one file in the folder called "text". BUT - the descr strat files of ALL campaigns - both provincial campaigns and base campaign, contain name lookup references in them. This means that it's probably safest to keep all old roman name lookups and only edit the text - otherwise the references from the descr_strat in the campaign/base folder will refer to non-existing names in the names_lookup file. I hope that was clear, it's not easy to explain...

[GoreBag]

I think Meneldil's idea of a few battles is appropriate for an early goal. If there'll be a closed beta, though, I want in!

I liked the idea of using English with accents, but I'm afraid that not all the accents can easily be synthesised. The team and the regulars all seem to pretty ethnically diverse, so some accented English wouldn't be too difficult to manage, but what about, the Saxons for example? How would they sound?

[Meneldil]

I've already started to add new quotes (I deleted the vanilla ones), using the Qoutes ( ) topic. Right now, I've added 41 quotes, I think I'll have about 60 tomorrow, maybe more if I use all the quotes (thanks to Wizard for the link) from *Idon'trememberwho"

More quotes from viking sagas would be nice though

Names are also pretty easy.

[Rodion Romanovich]

I think Meneldil's idea of a few battles is appropriate for an early goal. If there'll be a closed beta, though, I want in!

I liked the idea of using English with accents, but I'm afraid that not all the accents can easily be synthesised. The team and the regulars all seem to pretty ethnically diverse, so some accented English wouldn't be too difficult to manage, but what about, the Saxons for example? How would they sound?

Ok, Hastings, Clontarf and Stamford seems good. Maybe we could even add the battle of Tours/Poitiers, Abbassids and France would have almost the same units that are needed, even though the battle was before 843 (732 to be exact)?

@ NeonGod: Ok, you've shown a lot of interest and if/when we decide to release a closed beta you're in

@Meneldil: I've emailed the name lists to you now.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Situation when it comes to name lists:

- These need more names:
French
Normandie
Lotharangia

- These have no name list at all at the moment:
Saxons
HRE
Magyar

@Forgus, could you help with a magyar name list?

@Meneldil: I'll have a look at saxons and HRE in the meantime. For Normandy, should be lengthen the list by using French names, or a combination of French, Norwegian and Danish names, but with French in majority? For Lotharingia I think Frankish, Italian and latin sounding names would work. But there are probably enough sources on Lotharingia for me to find enough useful names only in those, so I won't need to use names from other factions, I think.

[Forgus]

Shure. How many do you need? Can the trait depend on a trait? Pagan vs. Christian again...

[Rodion Romanovich]

The basic names, such as first names and surnames, are not depending on traits. This means that if we include Christianized names, we can't prevent them from existing early in the period, before conversion. Only cognomina, trait names, can be affected by complex triggers. I hope that answered your question well enough

[Forgus]

Some names for you. Full names should be like (for males) X fia Y, like Aba fia Adony: Adony son Aba. I hope it will do.


Male pagan era

Aba
Adony
Ajtony
Álmos
Apa
Apos
Árpád
Bekény
Bene
Bese
Beza
Bodor
Bókony
Bors
Botond
Búcsú
Buda
Csató
Csegő
Cseke
Csepe
Dobor
Előd
Farkas
Géza
Huba
Izmény
Izsép
Kászony
Keve
Kinizs
Kond
Koppány
Kozma
Kurszán
Lél
Levedi
Marót
Obos
Ond
Pozsony
Réde
Sebe
Sebő
Solt
Súr
Szórád
Taksony
Tarján
Tas
Tormás
Töhötöm
Ügyek
Vata
Vazul
Zádor
Levente
Apor
Csobajd
Csaba
Fajsz
Egyek
Szend
Szemere
Keve
Vasad
Bátor
Karcag


Male christian era

István
Imre
Péter
György
András
Endre
Sámuel
Gyula
Levente
Kálmán
Csaba
János
Dénes
László
Simon
Aba
Géza
Béla

Female pagan era

Sarolt
Emese
Karold
Piroska
Gilvád
Cseperke
Csikó
Nyesta
Asszoncs
Eneh
Aranka
Virág
Liliom
Gyöngy
Sáfély
Balzsam
Bíbor
Szépa
Kandi
Piroh
Szinta
Csepke

Female christian era

Gizella
Mária
Ilona
Judit
Ágota
Hedvig
Margit
Krisztina
Anna
Gertrúd
Erzsébet
Katalin
Blanka
Borbála

[Rodion Romanovich]

Ok, very nice! Thanks for the help

[Forgus]

Note, that most of these names are based on XI century listings... So pretty accurate. Apart from the higher nobility non-christian names were used widely even to the 1400's!

[ScionTheWorm]

you know how many units such a beta would include right now? about 15 maybe... I think it's a mistake. If I'm not completely off the fields skel and quick haven't made a lot of new units, right?

have I missed something?

edit:
a beta would be completely wrong I think, it would barely be a preview... even with several historical battles, we have three half done factions..

edit 2:
okay closed beta is what this is about... I doubt a month is enough, but it hasn't have to be that much to produce something playable...

[Meneldil]

Yeah, one month sounds quite short.
Furthermore, anyone got news from Skeletor ? He hasn't posted for a while.

[Rodion Romanovich]

you know how many units such a beta would include right now? about 15 maybe... I think it's a mistake. If I'm not completely off the fields skel and quick haven't made a lot of new units, right?

have I missed something?

edit:
a beta would be completely wrong I think, it would barely be a preview... even with several historical battles, we have three half done factions..

edit 2:
okay closed beta is what this is about... I doubt a month is enough, but it hasn't have to be that much to produce something playable...

Nah, it was just a way of getting some attention to the interesting subject - getting an overview over what's left to do until the first open beta. But I'm thinking about, perhaps, releasing a beta with a campaign map where only saxons, welsh, vikings and gaelic factions are included. Making a campaign map from a small part of the existing one wouldn't be too problematic. Could be an interesting demo to increase the interest in this mod. It would then be released as a demo, not a beta.

But the main idea of this thread was to get an overview. I'm not sure how much time scripting etc. will take, but it seems skinning is what takes most time - by far a lot more time than other tasks, and will be our bottleneck. I'll try to learn skinning when I've taken care of the remaining campaign map terrain making, scripting, some minor researching (quotes, in-game texts etc.) and all minor details needed for a release, before I'll start working on skinning. Needless to say, I'll then be a newbie at skinning, but hopefully my skins won't look too awful... and it's probably not easy to come anywhere close to those of our current skinners But I could skin the factions there so far seems there hasn't been any interest in skinning - asturia, al andalus, abbassids and bulgars.

But - that's only ONE more skinner. Ideally, we'd want 5, in order to get the speed we want, so that skinning keeps up with coding. Don't feel stressed, I'll do what I can to recruit as many more skinners as possible.

[Meneldil]

I'm glad to say that adding names is a total pain and will take years. If we add more than a few at a times, the campaign CTD on start

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=28761.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Oops... Not good... Have you tried this tactic:

When you've successfully managed to add, say, 1 name for each faction, try renaming all characters in all provincial campaigns and the base campaign to such names. When that has been made, you should be able to delete all R:TW vanilla names from the files. When that has been achieved, further adding of names shouldn't, afaik, be an as large problem. Or?

[ScionTheWorm]

Needless to say, I'll then be a newbie at skinning, but hopefully my skins won't look too awful... and it's probably not easy to come anywhere close to those of our current skinners But I could skin the factions there so far seems there hasn't been any interest in skinning - asturia, al andalus, abbassids and bulgars.

I guess we should treat you as any new skinner, so we would like to see a sample first.

You could make the whole game with vanilla skins but unit names/tech trees like planned, and just change the models/skins to ours when they are finished. That way you can balance the game right. Also remember there are a need for new city plans, buildings, etc. and at least I have never seen anything done about it.

[GoreBag]

A provincial campaign as a demo would be amaaaazing. I was thinking to myself the other day about how there should be more provincial campaigns, and this one would probably take the cake.

[ScionTheWorm]

A provincial campaign could really work. An idea to this is:

- Factions: Normannaland, Danemark, Eire, Alba, Welsh, Englisc, Swedes.
- 4 turns a year (to test this out), from around 840-900
- Map area: something like viking invasion, including sweden.
- Larger provinces than on the full imperial campaign maybe?

Should be well done, therefore I suggest release no before mid-october.

What we must do for such a thing:
- Programming and skinning of course
- New strategy map graphics (towns, characters etc.)
- New city plans if we're able to
- New animations in battle - we have permission to use signiferone's pack with a few exceptions not fit for our mod.
- Unit cards, buildings etc.

I think it's a good idea, but we can't set a release date... shouldn't be hasty work.

I don't like the idea to put a lot of ideas to the side, for a 2.0 release, as I think so much is essential to a great mod. Should rather be more provincial campaigns, I really like that idea

[Rodion Romanovich]

I guess we should treat you as any new skinner, so we would like to see a sample first.

Yeah, if it turns out my skins aren't good enough I'll give it up. There'll always be more things to do in coding, PR, recruiting, researching and testing if my skinning attempts fail.

[Meneldil]

I'm sorry to say that names will have to wait for BI, cause right now, adding names leads to loads of bugs.

[Rodion Romanovich]

A provincial campaign could really work. An idea to this is:

- Factions: Normannaland, Danemark, Eire, Alba, Welsh, Englisc, Swedes.
- 4 turns a year (to test this out), from around 840-900
- Map area: something like viking invasion, including sweden.
- Larger provinces than on the full imperial campaign maybe?

Should be well done, therefore I suggest release no before mid-october.

What we must do for such a thing:
- Programming and skinning of course
- New strategy map graphics (towns, characters etc.)
- New city plans if we're able to
- New animations in battle - we have permission to use signiferone's pack with a few exceptions not fit for our mod.
- Unit cards, buildings etc.

I think it's a good idea, but we can't set a release date... shouldn't be hasty work.

I don't like the idea to put a lot of ideas to the side, for a 2.0 release, as I think so much is essential to a great mod. Should rather be more provincial campaigns, I really like that idea

Pretty much what I had in mind. The main idea is to get a demo out to increase the interest and recruiting abilities etc. for the mod. No release date set - agreed. However, when I say a certain date might not be unrealistic, that's my estimations, not a deadline.

[Rodion Romanovich]

I'm sorry to say that names will have to wait for BI, cause right now, adding names leads to loads of bugs.

Ok. Could I have a go at it? Perhaps I can find some way of doing it. Could you send me your last set of names files you managed to create that worked?

[Meneldil]

None managed and worked, actually. I had a set for the Western Frank (Scipii) that worked as long as I was playing with the Senate, but when I tried to play with the Scipii (Western Frank), it ctded after loading.

To test names, you'll have to play a few turns each time, because names sometimes cause CTD after 10 or more turns.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Ok. Could you then send one of the not working name files to me? As I know a lot of programming, I might be able to do some reverse engineering and find out what might be the problem, if I have a look at the files. Can't guarantee I'll find anything though, but there are some standard limitations that I can have a look at.

[Meneldil]

Well, to have names working, you must edit 3 files. Sending only one would be useless.

If you want, I can send them all.

About the beta, BDH made a huge map, and I think we would be able to use some part of it. Have a look at the Arthurian mod. You'll see screenshots.