Guild of Writers

Hello Robert! I see on forum here that there's been a bunch of new 'shell-sign-ups' since summer and I'm a bit curious - so is there a new version coming soon?

Hello, Ametist!

There have been some new sign-ups, but no new shells since the July RAD contest.

If anyone out there has a shell ready for the public - or even for the Guild of Maintainers to review - just send me a PM, and I'll make a newer version.

On a similar topic, what's your stance on releasing WIP shells? Is it a lot of work for you to prepare a release, so you'd prefer to get only (more or less) finished shells, or is it a quick thing that would allow frequent releases of under-construction shells (provided they're explorable and stable in a technical sense, i.e. no crashers, no missing floor collision etc.)?

I sometimes think it's a bit of a shame that there is such a discrepance between the number of reserved shells and the number of shells actually populated in the game. Since such projects invariably tend to get left behind not-quite-abandoned-but-still-eternally-unfinished (well at least my projects do), encouraging WIP releases could help with that, showing us some shells, even if unfinished, that would otherwise never have been seen by the public. And seeing gradual progress in active shells might be interesting too.

(Of course, my own shell isn't even close to a WIP release... )

Since each shell uses its own PRP, wouldn't it be easier to release just the prp files and updated .age and .fni files?

the way Pahts is designed (one shell per page), the process of merging a changed shell in is very simple. Simply take the updated shell prp, replace it, and resum the age. The only question then is how much work it takes to test and upload the updated age.

Nadnerb wrote:the way Pahts is designed (one shell per page), the process of merging a changed shell in is very simple. Simply take the updated shell prp, replace it, and resum the age. The only question then is how much work it takes to test and upload the updated age.

Also there's the issue of Python scripts, which have caused problems for the RAD contest in the past.

Is this something GoMa could help with? Perhaps by setting up a dedicated team to support continuous pre-testing and tweaking of shells?

Well I can say that I am having to learn a lot about lighting before I can even think of lightmapping my shell.
I have changes in mind that will affect how the puzzles inside will play out

Dot wrote:Is this something GoMa could help with? Perhaps by setting up a dedicated team to support continuous pre-testing and tweaking of shells?

I think that's a great idea, Dot! The process could be something like the following:

• A Writer posts on the GoMa Ahra Pahts forums that they have a WIP shell to test.
• A Maintainer obtains the shell files from the Writer and incorporates it into the latest available Pahts release
• The Maintainer posts a link to the modified Pahts release (after testing it on their machine first), announcing its availability for other Maintainers to inspect
• Much inspection and feedback ensues

What do you think?

Thanks, Robert! We have started the discussion over at GoMa, and already have people interested of this project

see http://www.guildofmaintainers.org/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1168 - please come over an join, everybody with an interest in this!