[Warhammer Dark Omen Forum]

Warhammer Dark Omen Forum | The Remake Project | OMG WARTBED
New Year's Updates

[Mikademus]

Hi folks!

As you have noticed there haven't been many updates here for some while. That doesn't mean that development has stood still, but it has been slow for the last half year. That is due to that I got a new job, and since I was practically broke at the time I've had to dedicate myself to it - life must come first. Coupled with that this IS an ambitious and large project it is bound to take time.

That said, I have been working on it, and lately quite a bit. So here's the status. The last version you've seen, which included the Dark Omen Map Viewer, was a prototype. It was largely thrown away, and the rewritten WARTBED today is a sleek and powerful beast. I know you will all interpret this as you'll soon have a Dark Omen remake. But I'm sorry - this will take more time! Perhaps Darkmancer, who is also working on a remake, will be able to provide something faster than me. What I do have is a very solid framework, with the fundamental structures in place for real-time tactics game implementation.

The true implication of this is that WARTBED has now come over a threshold, where development will more and more focus on providing actual contents and game play rather than introduce underlying facilities and affordances.

Even though this space hasn't been updated often, the wiki has in fact been continuously updated by me. So if you surf over to the wartbed section of the wiki you can read quite a few articles about the architecture and whatnot of the framework.

See you soon!  o/

[Mikademus]

Realised that I didn't really provide much information about what's new and functional in WARTBED, so here's what we're at.

WARTBED
* is now a fully-functioning middle-level framework and library. It is currently included as a static library
* provides highly advanced and fully customisable input definitions and extendible input event system
* allows all games ("simulations") to be run without any input or graphics--all user output is a representation of the simulation--which means that any games implemented in it will not need to concern itself with display details
* has a rich inter-related set of classes geared toward RTT (and RTS) games, such as formations, groupings, targets and orders
* is currently fully capable of being the base for any non-distributed game implementation - in fact, a prototype game has been implemented using it
* is ready for implementing actual contents (modules), as opposed to only basic underlying features

WARTBED has not yet:
* a network layer or a client/server structure
* any completed intended module (f.i. Bright Portents)

I hope that is at least slightly informative

[lordbraprus]

i want to be like you when i be adult :O ; good job mike, good job .

[olly]

Sounds like a great foundation to create such a fully moddable RTT game engine.

Keep up the Fanstatic work!

[alavet]

i just worrying that there is a lot of mods workign at, but ppl around dont communicate with each other and might make double job for the same thing (like Cholio project with full new sprites and other guys).

I hope it's not the matter about your and Darkmancer project, otherwise it will be sad to know that you were doing same thing but on diffirient ways.

[Mikademus]

Love ya, guys! (^.^)

No, it is not the same: as far as I understand Darkmancer is working on a remake of Dark Omen. I am (we all are) giving him all the support and information we can, and are sharing our source code with him (f.i. the Dark Omen data file parsers) in the hope that it will help him along! And Darkmancer is of course giving back what he learns

The WARTBED framework is a generic RTT game framework, even though the primary inspiration is Warhammer, since that's our background. Basically, WARTBED uses only its own formats for everything. To use Dark Omen data it has to be converted into WARTBED formats. That is why Bright Portents is a "module", and future SotHR support will also be as a module.

I'm sorry it is taking so long; I tried to put in time on it even while working as hard as I had to do--coding on the train home after work etc--but it is a very large framework...

[lordbraprus]

dark mancers is like a dark omen but with things fixed. and wartbed like a engine where we will be able to play dark omen 2 and others game, that the modders and the artists will make. am i right?

[Mikademus]

The end goal is that you'll be able to quite easily make Dark Omen 2 yourself in WARTBED, or whatever wargame scenario you have in mind, and then play that module online against someone playing Myth