Solver: You're very much about right about a full fledged sequel. I don't think that anyone has the illusion that such a thing can be expected in the next year or two. However, regarding the more short-term patches, what's the status of the project team? Is shortage of coders is a serious issue, or are there any other specialties you lack? Also, is there someone among the programmers who has the knowledge to program AI and the multiplayer components of the game?

Locutus: I think two years would be extremely optimistic.

As I said, we’re currently working on a patch that’s on-par with the official Activision v1.11 patch and, aside from builds for playtesting and the like, we’ll probably not release anything before such a patch is done. The consensus in the community is that if we want to release a new v1.2 patch, it should actually be a step up from v1.1, not partially a step up and partially a step down. So the minimum list of fixes for our first patch is the list of fixes Activision made for the official patch. And while that list describes roughly what was done (if sometimes in somewhat vague terms) it does not of course describe how it was done. Reproducing the fixes of that patch is in some cases (particularly with complex network code for MP) going to be difficult. So it will be a while before we will release a new patch.

In itself we have a fair number of programmers working on the project, but since this is not a commercial project there’s no clear direction: everyone is basically doing what they feel like. Things would go a lot faster if someone was handing out assignments (programmer A will fix bug #1 and programmer B will fix bug #2), but that would take the fun out of it and make it like regular work. Which is the last thing we want of course, as that will only scare people away. So right now some people are happily studying and fixing the AI and others are trying to improve the SLIC scripting language, while what we really need right now is someone to look at the most urgent fixes still on the to-do list from the first patch, and many of those are MP-related. But unless I’m ill-informed, noone is really structurally working on MP at the moment. So if you’re asking what kind of people we lack, it’s people willing and able to work on MP coding. Aside from that, if we want to release the patch in a timely fashion, we really need one or two more programmers who are willing to do what’s necessary to release the patch ASAP and who can refrain from exploring the code too much and messing around with whatever fancies them (but I doubt we’ll find such people unless we start paying them). But that’s the ideal situation; in reality we’ll take any help we can get.

Don’t get me wrong: the current programmers are doing an absolutely fantastic job: countless bugs have been fixed already, some of them were from the official patch fix list, some of them weren’t but were still in dire need of fixing. Especially Fromafar and also Martin Gühmann are doing a terrific job in this area. Other programmers such as MrBaggins, Peter Triggs, J Bytheway and ctplinuxfan are also doing a good job, but they also seem to be spending a fair amount of time on their own pet projects (which will undoubtedly pay off greatly in the long run, but isn’t helping to get the patch out). Of course, I shouldn’t be talking: in theory I could be doing valuable programming as well but in the rare cases where I can actually spare some time for the project at all, I’m usually working on management or design.

I don’t doubt that we’ll release the patch eventually, but with our current team it’s just gonna take some time. Of course, if any programmers (regardless of skill or experience) with some time to spare are reading this, we can always use your help! The skills we need the most are network/MP gaming skills, but in the area of AI programming some further assistance would prove useful as well. But any help in any area is more than welcome at this point. And as I’m appealing for help anyway: I think in the longer run, we could really use some graphics people as well, both programmers (i.e. people with some experience with DirectX and the like) and artists. There’s currently a lot of talk about replacing terrain graphics and earlier we’ve discussed considerable changes to the User Interface as well (even a windowed mode has been suggested, but I fear that could prove very difficult; we’ll definitely need a good graphics programmer for that), and I imagine that once we get serious about a sequel we’ll need also a whole bunch of new units, buildings and other art. But more generally, we could use help in all areas, from playtesting to art design to programming, and every other skill required for a project like this.