Wesnoth 1.1.2

[scott]

Ah, how sad.

<Slightly off topic>
Exactly how do they compile the source code into a specific program(s) for others to use?
</Slightly off topic>

You need three things
1. the source code
2. a compiler
3. any required libraries

Usually getting everything set up is a royal pain in the @$$. However, once it is set up compiling future versions from then on is really easy. http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/CompilingWesnoth has some information if you're feeling adventurous. I would say it's worth it if you really get into the game because you can play the bleeding edge code from SVN or not have to wait when a new release comes out. Otherwise it's probably not unless you just want to learn. Yogi Bear is working on the Windows version right now. It looks like he might be able to put in some last-minute bugfixes in.

[radoz]

Hope it's okay to (ab)use this thread to say a big, very big thanks to all the people involved in the development of Wesnoth. I've been playing hundreds of computer games since the late 70ies (think of a kid just tall enough to reach the joystick of a Space Invaders arcade machine), and Wesnoth within a few hours of playing easily made the Top 5 of my all time favourites. The gameplay and general idea behind BFW is very addictive and allows variation in games almost indefinitely, graphics are so well done for the game, the new music is great, interface is easy to grasp, and the coding quality exceeds that of commercial products by a factor of ten. The last five commercial games I bought crashed a bazillion times and had a shaky performance while BFW crashed exactly once so far, and that was the development version, mind you. Anyway, sorry for the torrent of words, just wanted to congratulate everybody who contributed to BFW.

[smchronos]

I actually may look into working with the sourcecode sometime. I'll need to try it out somewhat before I think if I can handle it. Also, good luck to Yogi Bear on the release for windows.

[BalkanTyp]

are there any balance changes????


it would be nice to have an thread with the balange changes that are made when a new version comes out.


=)

[scott]

are there any balance changes????


it would be nice to have an thread with the balange changes that are made when a new version comes out.


=)

See the changelog. The link is in the first post.

[Skippy]

I can't help but notice the rapidly escalating size: 1.0.2 was about 50MB, 1.1.1 was 65MB and now 79Mb for 1.1.2

(N.B. Theses comments are obviously particular to OS X but I would think the general point is still valid. I am surprised by how much larger these OS X builds are compared to other builds given that I am assuming that the code is a relatively small component of the size and making it universal shouldn't have that much effect - why are they bigger?)

Is anyone working on containing any unnecessary bloat? I would imagine it is already out of reach of dialup users on 52k modems but, at least in Australia, download limited broadband plans are the norm and a 300 or 400MB monthly limit is pretty common for introductory plans. If 1.1.4 is 100MB I would think you are getting into ADSL2 territory

[elanthis]

You need a 'compiler' to turn source code into binaries ('programs') to run them.

I think Microsoft now has a free edition of its compiler suite for Windows. If so, you might be able to just download that, open the Wesnoth project file, and compile it.

[sparr]

I agree that it is easy to simply build the game, but the debian packages are slightly more complex than that. The debian maintainer is nice enough to provide seperate packages for each base campaign, all versioned and dependencied to match the appropriate game binaries.

[scott]

I can't help but notice the rapidly escalating size: 1.0.2 was about 50MB, 1.1.1 was 65MB and now 79Mb for 1.1.2

(N.B. Theses comments are obviously particular to OS X but I would think the general point is still valid. I am surprised by how much larger these OS X builds are compared to other builds given that I am assuming that the code is a relatively small component of the size and making it universal shouldn't have that much effect - why are they bigger?)

Here's what Omni Disksweeper came up with (highlights only).

Total: 156 MB
Music: 24 MB (it's worth it)
Images: 21 MB
Translations: 15 MB
Data: 15 MB
Sounds: 4 MB
Executable: 8 MB
Python: 64 MB

In the data directory, we see the following highlights:
Campaigns: 13 MB
UTBS: 5 MB
HTTT: 3 MB
TROW: 3 MB

The next highest was units a 0.8 MB, but it's all text files.

Discussion:

1. Python! Wow. Iwa is being prudent in including it, but it probably isn't necessary, is it? We're all supposed to have it.
2. UTBS: A lot of unit images are 20k. Have these been pngcrushed at all?
3. HTTT and TROW: there are some unnecessary images, and the rest can be shrunk down significantly. Fortunately, I can take care of this, but it will probably shave at most ~2-3 MB.
4. There's not much else you can do. The music is big, the images are crushed every-which-way they can be, and unless everyone wants to just play in English translations are here to stay.

[turin]

Would it not be possible to have translations downloaded separately, and you only have to download your language?

[doctored]

id say play the new version before complaining about size besides there always the lite version if your on mac anyways

doctor ed

ps what kinda of compression are you guys using on the music maybe if you use vbr it could be smaller (not complaining, love the new music especially since i'm using lwas build not my own janky one)

[quartex]

2. UTBS: A lot of unit images are 20k. Have these been pngcrushed at all?

Actually a majority of the unit images are 4k and 8k. About ten are 20k and another fifteen 16k. I noticed that Graphic Converter did bloat the filesize, which is why I saved them with Preview.

However they haven't been PNGCrushed, and I just downloaded a handy OS X utility that seems to do the job. Upon testing it I found that many of the files have been compressed as far as possible, but a few can be made about 25% smaller. I put all my images through the crusher and saved about 300k.

Also, I don't know if it is just my computer or perhaps OS X 10.4, but my file system is telling me that my files are much bigger than I know them to be. Get Info says that the UTBS folder is 14.2 MB, which can't be right.

(The large file size is mostly due to the desert elf unit images and my large portraits and time of day images. I believe that the improvements these images make to the campaign is worth the extra 1-2 MB of file size)

[turin]

If you are referencing an SVN checkout for that number, you should realize that the hidden SVN files double to triple to size of any folder. (It makes my wesnoth install 394 MB).

[scott]

If it's your svn folder, it might be counting old revisions in the .svn directory.

[Skippy]

Discussion:

1. Python! Wow. Iwa is being prudent in including it, but it probably isn't necessary, is it? We're all supposed to have it.
2. UTBS: A lot of unit images are 20k. Have these been pngcrushed at all?
3. HTTT and TROW: there are some unnecessary images, and the rest can be shrunk down significantly. Fortunately, I can take care of this, but it will probably shave at most ~2-3 MB.
4. There's not much else you can do. The music is big, the images are crushed every-which-way they can be, and unless everyone wants to just play in English translations are here to stay.

Translations - how much do these compress for download? I suspect text would compress better than images (already crunched) or music (already compressed anyway) so leaving it out may not save as much as this list suggests.

For the rest I must admit that I don't use the music (iTunes supplies my soundtrack - a habit I picked up with the Avernum series). I listened to it at first so having it separate wouldn't have saved me the download. But, I think there would be benefit of having it available as a separate download (a situation that isn't solved by the lite downloads available at the moment because you can't get just the music if you so desire after you have downloaded the lite package).

But if Python is superfluous than that looks like the greatest gain for the least pain.

I, for one, would appreciate smaller downloads where this is possible with little (e.g. music available separately) or no compromise.