Should I be writing for 1.3.1 or 1.2.4?

[peet]

I am working on a campaign idea and I am wondering which trunk I should write for. It looks like it's not easy to switch campaigns from one to the other.

I like 1.3.1 because the maps can include "farmland" as a tile, and I like the way that looks on the maps.

But is that a good enough reason to go with that version? It sounds like the 1.2 trunk and the 1.3 trunk will continue to be developed independently.

Also, if 1.3.1 is not "stable" then there might be crashes which are not the fault of the scenario or campiagn, and I wouldn't be able to troubleshoot that.

So... what do you think, 1.2.4 or 1.3.1?

Peet

[Mist]

There are three more reasons to move to 1.3.x than just better tiles (and it's going to be more of them than just farmfield)

1. WML is much more powerfull there (especialy when it comes to filtering)

2. Any bugs you may encounter will be fixed much sooner than those on 1.2.x as much of the devs attention is directed towards development (you'll be helping in polishing dev version by the time, which is also a good thing)

3. Your addon lifetime will be longer, 1.2 is pretty much a dead end while most of the 1.3 will get incorporated in stable 1.4. Thus you won't have to spend lifetime in rewriting your campaign when 1.2 gets abandoned.

And btw, unstable in this context means "under development, with things subject to change" not crashing all the time (sure, mistakes do happen, but are quickly corrected) so that's not an issue.

And just to be fair biggest reason against 1.3

-size of the community, much more people play 1.2 so amount of feedback and target audience is bigger.

So in the end it's your call. I'm writing for 1.3 and have no moans (not for to long anyway)

[Eleazar]

1.2.x isnt' a trunk. And it's not being "developed"— doesn't receive new content or features, just bug-fixes. It's where we expect most people who just want to play Wesnoth to be. Any campaign should work with any version of 1.2.x ignoring bugs.

1.3.x is under development, new features will appear, and old ones will be changed. Campaigns may work with some versions of 1.3, but not others.


If you don't really care about any of the new features (except farmland), i'd recommend you do your campaign for 1.2 and maybe do a conversion to 1.4 whenever that comes around. It wouldn't be very hard to snatch the farmland from 1.3 and use it as a custom terrain in 1.2.

[zookeeper]

I would actually suggest writing for the 1.3 branch. If you're just starting to develop your campaign it'll take some time to finish it, and by that time (even if not yet) 1.3 is probably the branch of choice (and while 1.2 won't be quite dead yet, it'll get less and less attention). If you'd just need to decide whether to release something fancy and finished for 1.2 or 1.3 today, I'd suggest 1.2, but if you're asking whether you should release for 1.2 or 1.3 in a few months (or more), I'd suggest 1.3, since that's where all the further development and momentum will be in time.

[Noyga]

1.3.x
PROs : more features to play with
CONs : unstable, ie :
- all version might be incompatible with the previous, which mean you might need to unpdate your campaign each time a new version comes out (AFAIK 1.3.2 might be terrain incompatible with 1.3.1
- short-lived versions : becames obsolete and unsupported once the next version is out
In short, you'll need to update it frequently so it remains playable

1.2.x
PROs : stable, ie :
- all version should remain compatible together. Once your campaign work with a version it should work with all (except if some bugs)
- it won't became obsolete before long
In short, once your campaign works, there is no need to update it (outside improving the campaign or translation updates).
CONs : less features

[SkeletonCrew]

AFAIK 1.3.2 might be terrain incompatible with 1.3.1

True, but after 1.3.2 the letters shouldn't change anymore. New terrains can be added of course.

[MadMax]

I'd probably suggest writing for 1.3+. Even though 1.2.x has the most players, many of them will probably move to 1.3+ as it matures. This way, your campaign will not be stranded at 1.2.x, and you can take advantage of the cutting edge of Wesnoth's development.

[santi]

My problem is different: I want to create a 1.3-compatible version for
my 1.2 compatible campaign, but I probably will not have the time to do this a zillion times. So I would appreciate advice on WHEN people think 1.3 is stabilizing enough, so that I can make the conversion and hopefully
be 1.4 compatible with perhaps only a few minor changes. Any ideas?

[torangan]

1.3 will be rather feature stable once we reach the stabilization phase for 1.4 which could be in a couple of month or later. Until then, each release can change quite a bit and authors should follow the progress. On the other hand, your chances to influence the design in a way useful for your campaign are also much higher...

[santi]

Thanks! I will probably wait then, as I do not believe there is much chance is influence anything....