Wesnoth 1.11.17 (1.12 Release Candidate 1)

[Iris]

Wesnoth 1.11.17 (1.12 Release Candidate 1) is out!



This is the first release candidate for the upcoming stable series. We are confident that we are really close to 1.12 now, but there is still work remaining to be done to ensure a top quality release. Our plan is to publish a new release candidate every two weeks from now until all pending serious issues are fixed; and once they are, we will release version 1.12.0.

In the meantime, we need you to test the game and report all bugs you find so that there is a chance for us to assess their severity and fix them before 1.12.0! It does not matter whether they are regular gameplay or WML/Lua development issues — every properly-filed bug report is useful to us, no matter how trivial or obvious the issue may seem to be. This is especially true now that we are in the RC phase of development.

• Players should continue to test this version and all the various new features and units added since 1.10.x.
• Content authors should port their content to this version and test it now to ensure first-time players of version 1.12.0 — or Wesnoth in general — have a chance to play with their favorite add-ons when the time comes.
• Translators should work on translating mainline Wesnoth and try to aim for 100% completion before 1.12.0, which is expected to become available within a couple of months eventually soon any moment now. Everyone with the required language skills can help — all the instructions to join and contribute to the mainline translation teams are in the wiki.
• Typos in the English text of the game should be reported in the wiki so they can be amended as soon as possible.

Naturally, as it has been a while since 1.11.16, there are a plenty of fixes and improvements in this version for you to check out. Here is a list of the most important changes since the last development release:

[ Expand all ]

Changes to Mushroom Grove terrains reverted»

In view of the amount of trouble they would cause for map designers, the Mushroom Grove/Lit Mushroom Grove stat changes from 1.11.16 have been reverted. Terrains with these overlays will behave just as they did in 1.10.x and past series.

This topic may be revisited at a later time, in 1.13.x development versions.

Buggy carryover WML feature removed»

Version 1.11.10 introduced a “carryover WML” feature, wherein the [endlevel] tag may contain child tags which would get merged into the scenario config for the next scenario. This allows for a scenario to dynamically reconfigure the next scenario.

Unfortunately, it was a bit buggy, did not actually work properly in networked multiplayer, and would have been very difficult to fix. There are also many other ways to achieve this — for instance, authors can use modifications or have scenarios pass variables to each other. The main use case for this feature was, what if the author wants to transition to a scenario maintained by someone else, but they would like to aggressively reconfigure it, adding new events or overwriting its events. There were other things that could be done with carryover WML, like having a scenario that loops and dynamically reconfigures itself, but reconfiguring an external scenario was probably the main rationale for having this feature. (Note that you can still just fork someone else’s content and make a new version which reads variables to allow it to be reconfigured.)

Another point raised in internal discussion is that it would probably be more useful if this feature applied before random map generation occurred, which when it was first implemented wasn’t how it worked. Since there are many changes planned to this scenario generation code path — such as merging MP and SP modes — and this feature adds a fair bit of complication, we decided to shelf it and perhaps rethink it later.

Partly reverted 1.11.13 [tt]defeat_condition[/tt] change»

Version 1.11.13 introduced an additional check for defeat_condition when using [endlevel] result=victory which could result in victorious sides being removed from carryover during [endlevel]. This one additional check has been removed.

Fixed [tt][clear_global_variable][/tt] assertion failure crash»

There was a long-standing issue in 1.11.x causing [clear_global_variable] to crash to desktop with an assertion failure (previously an invalid memory access) when operating on variables within nested namespaces. This bug (#21093 [Gna.org]) is now fixed.

Fixed recall list saving issue in linger mode»

An issue causing units in recall lists to be permanently lost in saves created in linger mode has been fixed.

Multiplayer gameplay fixes»

In previous releases, terrain maps for scenarios making use of the default random map generator in multiplayer games would be generated differently for other players, instead of using the map generated by the host. This bug (#22307 [Gna.org]) should be solved in this release.

Additionally, in 1.11.11 and later versions, map labels in networked multiplayer games would not be visible to other clients until they tried to alter them (bug #22251 [Gna.org]). This issue has been fixed as well.

Chat Log dialog now available in single-player»

It was previously impossible to open the Chat Log for multiplayer games reloaded in single-player mode, even if they did contain player messages. This has been addressed by making the menu option available in single-player mode as well.

User interface improvements, tweaks, and fixes»

A few issues with the multiplayer lobby were fixed in this release:

• The “Lobby sounds” option in Preferences → Advanced now applies to the default (GUI1) lobby as well as the experimental version.
• Lobby sounds would occasionally be skipped as there was a single sound channel allotted for UI sounds. This release adds a second channel so up to two UI sounds can be played simultaneously. In exchange, there now 20 channels available for game (WML/Lua) sounds instead of 21.
• The “ready to start” sound from the MP game setup screen now plays on the turn bell channel instead of the regular UI sound channels.

The Gamestate Inspector (also known as the :inspect dialog) has been granted the ability to split excessively long entries over 20,000 characters into separate pages, so as to avoid issues with our GUI framework (bug #22237 [Gna.org]). As a bonus, WML array elements on the left panel are also displayed with their respective subscripts now, to make it easier to identify them.

Other general user interface fixes include:

• Tooltips for replay controls are now displayed correctly (bug #22646 [Gna.org]).
• Fixed a minor bug wherein enabling accelerated speed with a hotkey would cause two messages to display on top of one another.
• Entries in the Advanced Preferences section display their descriptions as tooltips at the bottom of the screen (when applicable) instead of their labels (bug #22487 [Gna.org]).
• The Start Gold column in the second page of the Status Table dialog is now updated to reflect side gold changes performed by WML prestart and start events (bug #22443 [Gna.org]).
• The Gameplay → Time of Day help topic now correctly refers to the Second Watch ToD picture instead of Dawn (bug #22537 [Gna.org]).
• Terrain icons in the sidebar get their translatable names in tooltips instead of internal terrain identifiers.
• The Grand Knight unit no longer appears distorted in the sidebar.
• Themes including references to non-existent button images now quit to the titlescreen instead of crashing to desktop (bug #22611 [Gna.org]).
• D-Bus desktop notifications (e.g. on Linux) pass a path to the Wesnoth icon correctly for display.
• Made the error messages sent to stderr when the core data dir is incorrectly set even more helpful by correctly advising the use of --data-dir, not --config-dir (as promised in the 1.11.16 release announcement).

Bug fixes to mainline campaigns»

Certain issues with unit “sighted” events being fired prematurely in several mainline scenarios were fixed (bug #22466 [Gna.org]). Additionally, the following campaign-specific fixes are included in this release:

Heir to the Throne:

• Fixed missing message in “The Siege of Elensefar”.

Sceptre of Fire:

• Balancing tweaks to “The Dragon”.

The Hammer of Thursagan:

• Set Masked Dwarvish Lord ranged attack to be the same as the default era’s Dwarvish Lord

Known release-critical issues pending for 1.12.0»

This is the list of bugs that we consider must-fix issues for the 1.12.0 release. They are all already being worked on. All other bugs of which we are aware are of lesser importance and will only be fixed for 1.12.0 if somebody — possibly you — has the time and interest to do so. This means that you need to immediately report to us any bugs which you believe are serious enough to require fixing before 1.12.0.

• Start-of-scenario saves cannot be loaded correctly in Multiplayer (bug #22068 [Gna.org]).
• Wesnoth does not start on Windows when there are non-ASCII characters in paths or filenames (bug #13926 [Gna.org], #20089 [Gna.org], #22265 [Gna.org], amongst others).
• Legend of Wesmere still has several issues. They have all been fixed, in principle, but we did not have sufficient time to test them yet, so they did not make it into 1.11.17:
  • Some maps are oddly shifted (bug #22073 [Gna.org]).
  • Olurf does not appear in “Elves’ Last Stand” — see this forum thread.
  • “Human Alliance” (scenario 14) is broken for in multiplayer mode as it has more than 9 sides (bug #21941 [Gna.org])
  • “Human Alliance” is also being rebalanced

Known Windows-specific issues»

The following issues affect Wesnoth on Windows and they are pending fixes. However, they are not being worked on at this time and might not be solved in time for 1.12.0:

• ClearType font rendering is glitched and nearly unreadable (bug #21648 [Gna.org]).
  A workaround was added in version 1.11.10 to avoid using ClearType altogether. This is likely caused by outdated libraries in the packaging process.
• Consecutive line breaks (paragraph breaks) are not rendered as expected (bug #21649 [Gna.org]).
  There is no built-in workaround available yet. This is likely caused by outdated libraries in the packaging process.

Known OS X-specific issues»

The following issues (taken from this page) affecting Wesnoth on Apple OS X are known and they are pending fixes. However, many of them are beyond the scope of the 1.12.x series and require significant re-engineering that can only be done in 1.13.x development releases later, or cannot be properly addressed due to a lack of experienced OS X coders in our team. Thus, unless someone can contribute patches to address them, it is unlikely that these bugs will be fixed before or during the 1.12.x series.

• Color cursors are slow to the point of rendering the game completely unusable in windowed mode (bug #18112 [Gna.org]).
  As a mitigation measure, the old color cursors setting is ignored on OS X by Wesnoth 1.11.8 and later, and the option is hidden from view.
• Fullscreen mode does not fill the entire screen when maximum resolution is selected in Preferences → Display, and user interface elements are scaled and distorted.
• System commands do not work while Wesnoth is running in fullscreen mode (bug #21943 [Gna.org]).
• The mouse cursor is not mapped correctly to the game screen contents on Retina displays due to problems with detected vs. real screen resolution mismatches (bug #20332 [Gna.org]).
  A workaround is in place making Wesnoth default to 800x600 on OS X regardless of the incorrectly-detected maximum resolution.
• Trackpad tap clicking is sometimes not recognized (forum post).
• OpenMP builds randomly freeze (bug #18144 [Gna.org]).
  Official OS X builds are done with OpenMP disabled for this reason.
• Consecutive line breaks (paragraph breaks) are not rendered as expected (bug #21649 [Gna.org]).
  There is no built-in workaround available yet. This is likely caused by outdated libraries in the packaging process.

As usual, there are many more changes in addition to the aforementioned, including translation updates and fixes for recent and long-standing issues. Most of these items are listed in the full changelog. There’s also an alternative players changelog including only those changes deemed to be relevant for regular players.

An official announcement including a list with the most notable changes between 1.10 and 1.12 will be made available along with the 1.12.0 release when it is ready.


New Contributors

This release includes contributions submitted via pull requests on GitHub by LovCAPONE, now a member of our developers team.

Do you want to help shape the future of Wesnoth too? You are always free to join us in the #wesnoth-dev IRC channel on irc.freenode.net to ask for help with getting started!


Downloads

Source code (384.7 MB) (MD5 sum)

Xdelta from 1.11.16 (1.1 MB) (About Xdelta)

The Windows, OS X, and OpenPandora packages are already available and can be found on the Download page in the wiki.

All known Linux packagers have been contacted, and binaries for your distribution may have already been created. Information about where to get the respective binaries or how to install them can be found on the Linux binaries page in the wiki.

Downloads for other platforms may be found on the Download page in the wiki as they become available.

⁂

The multiplayer server for 1.11.17 is up and running. Due to the great devastation that ensued from the Great Mushroom War, this server can only be used to play with other players running 1.11.17 and later 1.12.x versions, including release candidates.

The add-ons server for 1.12.x is already running. It was started for 1.11.10 and it will serve all future beta and RC releases from this series, as well as all releases in the stable 1.12.x series. If you encounter any problems involving add-ons not working as expected, please notify the content’s author or maintainer.

If you find any bugs, do not hesitate to report them, but please read the instructions on how to report bugs first! As bug reports in the forums tend to be forgotten, you will get better results using our bug tracker. We require your help for finding and fixing issues, no matter how obvious, trivial or complicated they seem!

Have fun!

[gnombat]

Fixed a minor bug wherein enabling accelerated speed with a hotkey would cause two messages to display on top of one another.

It seems to me this bug is actually a more general bug than just a specific problem with one message. The accelerated speed message is fixed, but I'm still seeing this bug in other cases (e.g., when enabling Planning Mode).

[tekelili]

(disclaim: forgive me if this was already explained or I am just blind)

Has suddenly [feedback] tag disapear from add ons descriptions?

[Iris]

Has suddenly [feedback] tag disapear from add ons descriptions?

Yes. Somebody broke the add-ons server and will be accordingly punished.

Fixed now.

[GunChleoc]

The new UI looks really crisp and nifty, but I think there are 2 things that still need fixing. I have attached screenshots in 2 languages and marked the 2 spots with red boxes.

1. I find the indentation of the unit types in the attack screen a bit weird. Was this a conscious decision?

2. Truncation of the level information in the unit info, as discussed in this thread. We already have truncation issues here in English, but in translations, it gets worse.

1. is an artistic desicion, 2. is a problem.

en_GB

gd

[Felendril]

How can we create hilly forest in map editor now? I don't found the way to make it! And some keys are unusable like the one to write the name of a place, how to do it?

[beetlenaut]

How can we create hilly forest in map editor now?

Place the hills, then hold down [Shift] while you place the trees. In the same way, you can place any overlay terrain (like forests, bridges or villages) on top of any base terrain (like mountains, caves or oceans).

[max_torch]

I was just wondering, will the multiplayer version of Legend of Wesmere be fixed in the next release? Also, in the multiplayer version, how many players are meant to go through the campaign cooperatively?

[Felendril]

Thank you beetlenaut! Do you know how can I place a sign to name a place? In the editor, the "Letter A" tool is grey and unclickable!

[beetlenaut]

It seems like the labels are not implemented in the map editor yet. For now, you have to add them manually to the map's configuration file using Wesnoth's scripting language. There is more information under the "Create" tab at the top of this page. It may be too much trouble to learn just to place a sign, but if you want any events or traps or dialog, you will have to use it, so it might be worth looking into.

[fabi]

I was just wondering, will the multiplayer version of Legend of Wesmere be fixed in the next release?

Yes, LoW MP will be fixed and shipped with 1.12.0 what does not necessarily mean that it will work perfectly.

Also, in the multiplayer version, how many players are meant to go through the campaign cooperatively?

Chapter1: 2 Players
Chapter2: 3 Players
Chapter3: 4 Players
Chapter4: 4 Players
Chapter5: 2 Players --- This chapter is not ready to be played in MP yet.

[fabi]

Thank you beetlenaut! Do you know how can I place a sign to name a place? In the editor, the "Letter A" tool is grey and unclickable!

You need to open a map in "Scenario Mode".
If your map is saved in the old format then resave it as "Scenario".

[beetlenaut]

You need to open a map in "Scenario Mode".
If your map is saved in the old format then resave it as "Scenario".

I tried this, but the label button stays grayed out for me.

[fabi]

You need to open a map in "Scenario Mode".
If your map is saved in the old format then resave it as "Scenario".

I tried this, but the label button stays grayed out for me.

Yeah, shame on me.

You are right.
I disabled the feature in the past but forgot to adjust the tooltip text.
I guess that leaves me no other choice than to enable and fix it for the release.

The text can't be changed anymore.

[deriidf]

Awesome!