With the initial beta now about to be launched (thanks to the volunteers thus far by the way!), I want to start sharing big milestones. Before that though, I want to offer a clarification on the difference between 2.5 and 3.0 since that seems to be a source of some confusion.
2.5 should be thought of as a client-only upgrade right now. While we may implement a few new features (most notably models and such!), I would like to see much of that reserved for 3.0. So when 3.0 initially rolls out, it will probably look EXACTLY the same as 2.5! So then what's the point? 3.0 is where the new features will go - the code is far more extensible and friendly. 2.5 is the stepping stone along the way.
In other words, 2.5 will get you at the Seeds of Destruction client so you have a less-lousy bug ridden thing to deal with there.
Now on to status:
- 2.5 server is fully functional! As soon as we get a few more bugs worked out, it's literally going to be a "point your client here" moment for beta-testers.
- Many CPU and memory-hogging bugs fixed, meaning things are getting more stable every day
- Zone renames work. For reasons too complex to go into, it's actually quite tricky to make the client say "Hidden Temple of Yaralith" instead of EQ's desired zone name. The code to fix that works, but we still need to do a few things so that it's a lot more transparent. This is actually one of the last major milestones before beta can open up.
- A few nasty bugs remain, but we're issue tracking everything now, so we have a bullet list of things to correct rather than just sort of remembering what doesn't work
Before beta opens up, I will be posting a Bug Reporting 101 thread both here and to players participating in beta. It's very important that we get useful feedback about how and why bugs occur, and I am working with folks to make sure that's as easy on beta folks as possible.
2.5 should be thought of as a client-only upgrade right now. While we may implement a few new features (most notably models and such!), I would like to see much of that reserved for 3.0. So when 3.0 initially rolls out, it will probably look EXACTLY the same as 2.5! So then what's the point? 3.0 is where the new features will go - the code is far more extensible and friendly. 2.5 is the stepping stone along the way.
In other words, 2.5 will get you at the Seeds of Destruction client so you have a less-lousy bug ridden thing to deal with there.
Now on to status:
- 2.5 server is fully functional! As soon as we get a few more bugs worked out, it's literally going to be a "point your client here" moment for beta-testers.
- Many CPU and memory-hogging bugs fixed, meaning things are getting more stable every day
- Zone renames work. For reasons too complex to go into, it's actually quite tricky to make the client say "Hidden Temple of Yaralith" instead of EQ's desired zone name. The code to fix that works, but we still need to do a few things so that it's a lot more transparent. This is actually one of the last major milestones before beta can open up.
- A few nasty bugs remain, but we're issue tracking everything now, so we have a bullet list of things to correct rather than just sort of remembering what doesn't work
Before beta opens up, I will be posting a Bug Reporting 101 thread both here and to players participating in beta. It's very important that we get useful feedback about how and why bugs occur, and I am working with folks to make sure that's as easy on beta folks as possible.
