OpenMW's Roadmap and Future

Anything related to PR, release planning and any other non-technical idea how to move the project forward should be discussed here.
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Greendogo
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Re: OpenMW's Roadmap and Future

Post by Greendogo »

Thanks Zini. That was a very helpful reply.

I think it reinforces the point made by both opposing sides that we could have extended scripting capabilities, BUT it is a big task with a large overhead.

The way I see it, this discussion has brought up these questions:
1. Should we do script extension before 1.0?
2. Should we be placing a date on 1.0 release?
3. Should we be placing a date on 1.0 release AND then rush script extension before that time?
4. Or should we wait for someone with enough time and ability to decide to work on script extension AND push 1.0 until that time?
5. OR, should we just let script extenders come when they may AND not have that be a requirement for 1.0?

As an addendum, are we sure we want a version 1.0 release at all? It's technically not important and just a nice-to-have, for a FOSS project.
I ask, because it's been causing problems like these, over and over. Removing the 1.0 over our heads means we get to focus on what matters and not the posturing of a 1.0 release.
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AnyOldName3
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Re: OpenMW's Roadmap and Future

Post by AnyOldName3 »

Remember we've already got TES3MP-Lua, so OpenMW-Lua has a pretty good prototype. We're not flailing around in the dark with new scripting.
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AnyOldName3
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Re: OpenMW's Roadmap and Future

Post by AnyOldName3 »

Also, we need a 1.0 release as not having a 1.0 release is confusing a lot of people. There are still people who think 0.46 means 46% of vanilla Morrowind works and MMC people saying there's no point considering using OpenMW as we're not even 1.0 yet.
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psi29a
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Re: OpenMW's Roadmap and Future

Post by psi29a »

Greendogo wrote: 17 Jul 2020, 23:32 I think it reinforces the point made by both opposing sides that we could have extended scripting capabilities, BUT it is a big task with a large overhead.

The way I see it, this discussion has brought up these questions:
1. Should we do script extension before 1.0?
2. Should we be placing a date on 1.0 release?
3. Should we be placing a date on 1.0 release AND then rush script extension before that time?
4. Or should we wait for someone with enough time and ability to decide to work on script extension AND push 1.0 until that time?
5. OR, should we just let script extenders come when they may AND not have that be a requirement for 1.0?

As an addendum, are we sure we want a version 1.0 release at all? It's technically not important and just a nice-to-have, for a FOSS project.
I ask, because it's been causing problems like these, over and over. Removing the 1.0 over our heads means we get to focus on what matters and not the posturing of a 1.0 release.
I brought the questions up in the roadmap for the discussion but it seems pretty clear that:

1) It seems that modders have moved on to MWSE-lua; so it would only seem logical that OpenMW not invest itself in dead-end technology in the same way mwscript+ was also abandoned in favour of OpenMW-lua; that at least seems to be the consensus.

2) No date; Zini has done so in the past and I rather not follow in his footsteps there and he also gently nudges me not to make the same mistake.

3) Gitlab issue tracker is the roadmap; the 1.0 blockers are listed there. The rest is nice-to-have but doesn't block a release. So while priority is given and encouraged for 1.0 tasks; we shouldn't prevent people from wanting to improve OpenMW in other ways, such as openmw-lua. However the line has to be drawn at things that would hinder the 1.0 goal. Game-mechanic changes being a big issue.

4) OpenMW-Lua was never a blocker to 1.0 and shouldn't be. It will come when it comes, which is inevitable considering that after the 1.0 release; we shift focus to merging tes3mp into OpenMW as well, which... so happens to have lua. tes3mp-lua is the prototype of openmw-lua.

5) Refer to 1.

And yes... we should have 1.0 release... I would personally enjoy us taking whatever release we are; say 0.50.0 that we are working and then just bump the major number for OpenMW but not OpenMW-CS. It has all sorts of wonderful implications while only lightly going against the norms.
OpenMW 1.50.0
OpenMW-CS 0.50.0

Easier to manage and indicates that the CS is not yet ready for 'consumption' while maintaining our release minor versioning (we have made 50 releases, decade spanning legacy). It indicates that OpenMW has reached its stated goals while going above and beyond. For those thinking that 0.50 only means 50% done... then 1.50 would tell them, hey, we're 150%! :lol:

The trigger is pulled and then the flood gates open and bug reports come in (maybe?) which is fine and work continues as usual in refining OpenMW while also changing gears to pursue de-hardcoding, openmw-lua, tes3mp...
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AnyOldName3
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Re: OpenMW's Roadmap and Future

Post by AnyOldName3 »

I'm somewhat worried that 1.50 will get confused with 0.15, and 1.101 will just break people.
CMAugust
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Re: OpenMW's Roadmap and Future

Post by CMAugust »

There is something that has been a growing concern for me about the future. Recent admissions like improved third person camera aside, many QoL proposals have been encouraged to hang tight until Lua scripting is added. But the consequence of writing these features/fixes as scripts is that they are effectively demoted from "engine" to "content." And OpenMW so far has been very selective about what content is included as part of the release build: the GUI and shaders and a few menu textures needed to run the base game is about the size of it.

With talk of various features being removed and re-implemented as scripts or .omwaddons after dehardcoding, my fear is that a lot of QoL stuff that could have been (or were) developed as part of OpenMW will instead be shunted off to some third party website, which only a fraction of users will feel compelled to chase, and OpenMW will be experienced less favorably than it otherwise would have been.

With the advent of OpenMW-Lua not far away, I would like more clarity on how this divergence of engine and content will be handled in OpenMW's future.

I suggest that any worthy OpenMW feature that is judged to be better implemented as a script (including old features re-written into scripts) are included as resources in release builds, to be toggled/adjusted like any existing setting.
davidcernat
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Re: OpenMW's Roadmap and Future

Post by davidcernat »

Greendogo wrote: 17 Jul 2020, 23:32 4. Or should we wait for someone with enough time and ability to decide to work on script extension AND push 1.0 until that time?
5. OR, should we just let script extenders come when they may AND not have that be a requirement for 1.0?
You need to stop pretending TES3MP doesn't exist. Its Discord server is the largest single online community of OpenMW users:

Image

It's still growing, it's never going away, and it's been a playable project with deep and extensible Lua scripting since 2017, with certain scripting features that don't (and probably can't) exist in MWSE-Lua. As an example, here's someone placing tents that create their own associated interior cells on the fly:

https://streamable.com/4uk199

Its scripting is technologically superior to other implementations by default because everything added to it is going to work equally well in singleplayer and multiplayer (including, of course, multiplayer VR).

Really, you just need to help make that mergeable into OpenMW instead of "waiting for someone with enough time and ability to decide to work on script extension," because the only possible outcome of someone coming up with an entirely separate scripting system is two entirely separate OpenMWs, where one only works in singleplayer and the other one doesn't have that limitation.
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raevol
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Re: OpenMW's Roadmap and Future

Post by raevol »

davidcernat wrote: 18 Jul 2020, 20:13 You need to stop pretending TES3MP doesn't exist. Its Discord server is the largest single online community of OpenMW users:

Image

It's still growing, it's never going away, and it's been a playable project with deep and extensible Lua scripting since 2017, with certain scripting features that don't (and probably can't) exist in MWSE-Lua. As an example, here's someone placing tents that create their own associated interior cells on the fly:

https://streamable.com/4uk199

Its scripting is technologically superior to other implementations by default because everything added to it is going to work equally well in singleplayer and multiplayer (including, of course, multiplayer VR).
As someone who doesn't pay any attention to TES3MP, I wasn't aware this existed. Great work, but:
davidcernat wrote: 18 Jul 2020, 20:13Really, you just need to help make that mergeable into OpenMW instead of "waiting for someone with enough time and ability to decide to work on script extension," because the only possible outcome of someone coming up with an entirely separate scripting system is two entirely separate OpenMWs, where one only works in singleplayer and the other one doesn't have that limitation.
When is TES3MP going to get merged into upstream? What roadblocks stand in the way?
davidcernat
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Re: OpenMW's Roadmap and Future

Post by davidcernat »

raevol wrote: 18 Jul 2020, 21:40 When is TES3MP going to get merged into upstream?
I don't know, but it makes sense to have two phases for it, first merging in a shared Lua scripting system and then merging in the actual multiplayer.
raevol wrote: 18 Jul 2020, 21:40 What roadblocks stand in the way?
Multiplayer is a huge feature that shouldn't be added to a project trying to wrap up version 1.0 as a close recreation of an existing engine. The shared scripting system, however, has significantly fewer technical roadblocks, mostly needing to be switched to using higher-level abstractions than it does now, as well as requiring some guidance on incorporating the server application in an unobtrusive way that is acceptable to OpenMW.

From my perspective, 75% of the roadblocks have to do with purely human problems instead of technical ones, because I've overcome far harder technical problems than the ones still remaining, but the human problems are pretty relentless.

For instance, how am I going to merge an entire client-server scripting system into OpenMW when I could barely get an important one line fix past Akortunov, with him first denying my problem existed only to then make some other wrong statements, forcing me to write an entire essay that he then just ignored?

Add to that all the MWSE-Lua modders who spent years being hostile to OpenMW and Zini but who now clamor for singleplayer-only Lua in OpenMW that would throw away all of my work and you can see how it all gets quite frustrating.

This is, of course, leaving aside all the problems I deal with on TES3MP's end.
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Greendogo
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Re: OpenMW's Roadmap and Future

Post by Greendogo »

Hey Davidcernat, sorry I was not pretending it didn't exist. I simply didn't know about it because I don't use MP and don't pay attention to it because I assume it should not effect my OpenMW experience.

If that's the best way forward for non-MP script extension, then you should fight for it being the standard. I definitely support choosing the best system, and I hold no prejudice against anything that brings a better play experience for single player.
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