Marked Improvements, ?fixes

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raevol
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Joined: 07 Aug 2011, 01:12
Location: Caldera

Re: Marked Improvements, ?fixes

Post by raevol »

Morrowind without the CTDs is going to be such a different game. 8-)
ezzetabi
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Joined: 03 Feb 2012, 16:52

Re: Marked Improvements, ?fixes

Post by ezzetabi »

Tarius wrote:Well I am pretty sure things like memory leaks will be fixed.
Did you notice the footnote? ;)
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Zini
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Joined: 06 Aug 2011, 15:16

Re: Marked Improvements, ?fixes

Post by Zini »

Since the 1.0 topic has come up recently a couple of times, I think I should elaborate on it a bit.

The goal for OpenMW 1.0 is be a complete replacement of Morrowind.exe. Nothing more, nothing less. That also means that improvements over the original game are mostly ruled out for now. I pushed for this direction, because it is the safest way to finish OpenMW 1.0 as quickly as possible.
We consider this a very important milestone, because with 1.0 OpenMW will change from a demo to an actually playable game. We hope OpenMW 1.0 will draw a lot of attention; in the form of new developers and even more importantly a massive amount of new testers.

There are situations where we can diverge from Morrowind, even prior to 1.0.

First I don't feel any obligation to copy any non-functional behaviour. There is absolutely no point to mimic a crash or any other kind of failure mode. There is also no point in mimicing limits (like the if-then nesting depth limits in scripts), if an implementation without these limits isn't more work.
Generally with anything that does not work at all in Morrowind we have complete freedom in deciding how to handle it. Note that this does not include any bad game mechanics. Bad is not equal disfunctional.

Second, we can change anything that is not part of the in-game experience, e.g. the commandline options and the configuration files for OpenMW look completely different from what Morrowind is using. The launcher is another example for this case.

Third, we are not obliged to choose the same implementation path as Morrowind (where we know or can guess what MW is doing). It still should look the same to the player, but what is under the hood can look completely different.

And finally fourth, there are a few edge cases where we actually might diverge slightly from Morrowind on purpose, when it makes the implementation a lot easier or a perfect copy is a clear no go, because something has absolutely no future and a perfect copy would mean we would have to rip out the whole thing after 1.0 and reimplement the part from scratch.
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sirherrbatka
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Joined: 07 Aug 2011, 17:21

Re: Marked Improvements, ?fixes

Post by sirherrbatka »

There is absolutely no point to mimic a crash or any other kind of failure mode.
You broke my heart.
yshi
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Joined: 26 Jun 2012, 02:35

Re: Marked Improvements, ?fixes

Post by yshi »

I was just wondering because I remember some things such as the HtH being fixed by an executable working on the main program, and I thought I remembered seeing that some things would be possible due to the new implementation e.g. expanded scripting.

And speaking of limits, would you happen to know if the scale limit for items will still be .5-2?
sirherrbatka wrote:
There is absolutely no point to mimic a crash or any other kind of failure mode.
You broke my heart.
I know, right? I think I may have spent roughly a thousand hours with that feature on the xbox. The only crash I remember knowing how to trigger was moving too fast, too far and then looking at the map. Hello DD! :D
yshi
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Joined: 26 Jun 2012, 02:35

Re: Marked Improvements, ?fixes

Post by yshi »

Oh, yeah. One thing to note, the initial subject for that list was something along the lines of Reasons I Played Oblivion, but kind of diverted focus. I wouldn't expect things like physics to be implemented until well after 1.0. I do not think that the way stolen flags work was the intent for the game and is a real pain in the butt. I mean really. "Someone stole a cup from me and now I WILL CALL THE GUARDS ON ANY AND EVERYONE THAT EVER TRIES TO SELL ME CUPS EVER AGAIN" doesn't make too much sense.

That is, however, completely up to you as to if and when it will be changed.
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Zini
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Re: Marked Improvements, ?fixes

Post by Zini »

And speaking of limits, would you happen to know if the scale limit for items will still be .5-2?
No, it is not.
Chris
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Joined: 04 Sep 2011, 08:33

Re: Marked Improvements, ?fixes

Post by Chris »

yshi wrote:A button to cast spells without switching stance(unmodded)
I'd dislike this, actually. Although it's annoying that you have to use both hands to cast, I do like that you have to get ready to cast a spell and can't just throw one off whenever and regardless of what you have in your hands. Skyrim did this right IMO, by being able to equip a spell in your main hand and/or off-hand and use it by pressing the appropriate key.
Hand-to-Hand based off of Strength
This breaks werewolves, as it makes them able to one-shot almost anything. It makes being one too easy, and fighting one too hard.
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sirherrbatka
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Re: Marked Improvements, ?fixes

Post by sirherrbatka »

Skyrim did this right IMO, by being able to equip a spell in your main hand and/or off-hand and use it by pressing the appropriate key.
TRIVIA: There was any idea like that on our old forum. ;-)
abot
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Joined: 05 Mar 2013, 21:24

Re: Marked Improvements, ?fixes

Post by abot »

Zini wrote:
And speaking of limits, would you happen to know if the scale limit for items will still be .5-2?
No, it is not.
A note to help if compatibility is still a priority: several mods use the automatic resizing of scripted objects back to 0.5 - 2.0 range on reload as game-reload detector.

This and other exploits of engine quirks (e.g. removeitem inventory encumbrance bug, used to give gold weight...) have been used by popular mods.

In short, I think you should aim to compatibility with engine quirks when they have been used by mods, else it will be only half-compatible.
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