v1.13 Wildfire 6.06 Beta released

For quite some time now many people used to hack their 1.13 installation and throw in WF6 maps to have some kind of Wildfire experience on top of 1.13 gameplay. Now there is something even better – the new beta of the WF6 mod for 1.13.

This isn’t exactly a direct port but rather the best of WF modified to match 1.13. From the FAQ:

- There are some new special LBE items included and an entirely new weapon class is available through Bobby Ray..
- Several mercs from Wildfire replace less popular mercs from the classic version.
- In some maps you might find sandbag barriers on roof tops, serving as cover for enemy soldiers (or for you, of course).
- Balime extended to 4 sectors.
- Estoni extended to include the junkyard.
- Meduna was made big. yeah, really big. so big in fact, that there are 3 seperate blocks to train militia in.
- Added the city of Palmas, which includes 3 sectors.

There is a German version available as well.

For details and download links visit this thread at BP’s.

The New Inventory System

Few things – if any – have created a bigger buzz than the New Inventory system (NIV). The masses jump at it as never seen before. I can’t understand why it’s so popular with the community. What the hell makes NIV a must-have?

The old inventory system is fairly simple. There are some pockets and you just dump your stuff in. Big items only fit into big slots and that’s pretty much the whole complexity already. Simple indeed but intuitive at least.

The new inventory system on the other hand is everything else but intuitive to handle. There’re like zillions of slots scattered around the whole interface panel. But only adding some slots is nothing new, we’ve seen that before. Nope, the real new thing is that you can’t drop anything anywhere anymore as we are used to. Now you have to pick certain items like combat packs and such in order to enable some of the new item slots. But not enough. Even if enabled they won’t take just any item but only those designed for fitting in. There’s a whole new science popping up which researches how to actually use this giant new mess. That’s progress.

Yeah, I’m not convinced of NIV, not to say that I don’t like it. Of course that made me lose most of my readers (like I had any). But to me the whole thing seems like an artificial complication in order to justify the addition of hundreds and thousands of items which are all the same basically. This isn’t an enhancement to game play but a limitation to the mess created in the first place. Anyway, it has a huge CAF.

And now with that said to the reason you’re actually here: the download links. Provided that you updated your game folder to the latest SVN revision go to http://ja2.h758491.serverkompetenz.net/ NewInventory/ and download the following files:

Update 29th April 08: download links removed due to final integration with release package, see 1.13 wiki for updated versions. /update

Don’t forget to pay a visit to the Bear’s Pit forums for feedback and support (and to tell them how much you love NIV).

JA2 Multiplayer on v1.13

Yep, no need to check your eyesight, there is a JA2 multiplayer project based on v1.13. Kudos to Haydent at Bear’s Pit.

What started as a proof-of-concept release a few months ago has now turned into a pre-beta development release. It actually allows some cool mulitplayer death-match action with up to for players. While suffering from some synchronizing problems in real-time mode it works out pretty well when turn-based.

If you like to check it out visit the thread at BP’s and find someone to play with via IRC at irc://quakenet/ja-galaxy and irc://quakenet/ja2-multiplayer. Remember though that it’s far from finished and very early in development. If you encounter bugs, crashes or other problems, check the v1.13 Bugzilla, file them if needed and help them finishing this cool addition to JA2.

Is it a Mod or a Platform?

When people new to 1.13 join the JA2 forums and write something about the “1.13 mod” it doesn’t take too long for the other users to correct them about 1.13 not being a mod but a platform for other mods to be based on. While this was true back in the days when the project started, as times passes 1.13 turns more and more into a mod itself. Let’s face it: The goal is not making the game moddable any more but simply squeezing in every little pseudo-feature you can think of. This isn’t bad by definition either – just don’t call it a platform when it’s not.

It was okay when they focused on externalizing hard-coded data from the executable. When they made it XML and got rid of stupid game limitations. But for quite a while now they lost sight of continuing that primary goal. Instead, they put in items over items, weapons over weapons. Things that should be left for future mods on 1.13 one could think. Another example is the “New Inventory” add-on. Regardless of whether you like it or not, how does this add to making the game a platform? If I made a mod, I couldn’t care less about the inventory system if it didn’t improve moddability.

The essential key-area to concentrate on should be externalizing data again to legitimate the use of the term “platform”. There are still way to many things begging for XMLification. Think of prof.dat, the animation system, NPC scripting and all those things that would add real value to the game if a modder was able to pick them.

There is one promising addition though. Someone added some LUA libraries to the code, for game scripting obviously. Unfortunately though there is a total lack of making use of them so far. Scripting support however (real scripting support for that matter) could turn things totally around. This would not only be a huge addition to the game when it comes to modding options but also allow people to work on meaningful features since other popular features could be developed separately via scripts. Curios about what coming next.

To draw a conclusion, there’s one thing to say: Keep externalizing. I know it’s hard. I know everyone contributing does it for fun, for the community and for free. So they do whatever they like and not necessarily what should be done. Of course, they got my respect and my gratitude nonetheless. But please, don’t be silly and insist on 1.13 being a platform.