Just received this e-mail from Jo Grant:
Hiya Matt,
Many apologies for not writing back to you from the other account. I see you saw my message on the TML. Well, it's all partially your fault! It goes like this:
I did get your e-mail and was rather excited that there was still interest in that old thing. But before doing something sensible, like write back, I wanted to have something to show. You see, I hate half-arsed and half-finished things almost as much as "under construction" signs. If you go public with that, you'll never get it finished. The code underlying that version of Adventure is from the "Traveller Tools Group" code which has, literally, been around since I was in college in 1987. It has gone through many revisions (and programming languages!) as technology and programming techniques have changed around it. It isn't actually private. It does have it's own website. It is public and contributions are welcome. I'm surprised your hunters didn't find it. (
http://111george.com/jaymin/ttg/index.htm) I have tried, at various times, over the years to promote everyone working together on one toolset, but it's never happened. Most people write Traveller programs because they like writing Traveller programs, not because they actually want to do something helpful and productive to the Traveller community. So everyone insists on writing their own. I've given up fighting it.
Anyway, back to the story. As it turns out I had actually been moving the last incarnation of the tool to a more modern version. Both are in Java, but the first was ported before I really understood Java. So little kinks like when to make things public and private are being worked out. Also I've become rather fond of the MVC pattern in programming (although not design patterns in general) and I'm changing it to adopt that methodology. The translation for non-programmers is "I'm tinkering with it".
So when your request came in, I thought "I haven't done the adv modules yet, but how hard would it be?" So I set to work doing just that. The reason development stopped on the old Adventure (other then there being no users) was that as it grew beyond the original plan the structure became inadequate for what I was trying to do. The Quest architecture (the concept shameless stolen from The Elder Scrolls) was great, but complicated to use. Changing from static to designed ships was hard. And ship-to-ship combat really hard to retrofit. So as I started porting things, I started having to rewrite things. I got as far as writing a complete MegaTraveller ship design module before getting distracted onto other things (this happens a lot).
I puttered around for a while getting back to some programming for the
www.solstation.com site. Got a computer version of The Company War game nearly finished. (that also happens a lot) Then I got hit with Colin wanting me to do a
www.pocketempires.com site. Since I wrote part of the M0 stuff I dug through old data to get a certain amount of content, but the site needed something cool to attract it. Having just done The Company War game I already had the structure and design for doing a basic game. Since Traveller is 2D instead of 3D that made it easier.
So I managed to stick with that to the point where I knew I had something workable and could commit myself by posting publicly. It's now in "Alpha" state ("ship" state by T4 standards!) and to the point where people can start churning out scenarios for it.
But back to Adventure. Bless your hearts for paying attention to it. I had noticed the traffic on the web site but only scratched my head. I'm putting what I have now up on the web so you guys can play with the current version. It isn't so much buggy as underdeveloped. The code is in a much better state than what you guys have been looking at. I'm bundling it into the jar files now since download speeds aren't much of a crimp in this day and age.
I keep it up in a semi-public CVS repository. Eclipse is my development tool of choice. The code started over 15 years ago as a programming project in College. I still kind of use it as a test bed for programming principles. I'm a bigger boy now and what I'm playing with is a bit more complicated than when I was in college. I can't promise that entry-level programmers will make "heads or tails" of it. However the MVC method is a great way of modularizing things. Other projects I've done have successfully moved between programmers and they cited this as a great way to bring clarity to a code set. If you are a Java programmer and are interested, then you are more than happy to chip in. I'm sure there is something that can be found for you to do.
But not just there, I would desperately love a UI designer. Or even just a designer. Or a doc writer. If you guys bite on this, (or the PE game) I'll create a section on the wiki I use for my D&D game and we can start writing designs, specs, manuals, etc. I'm happy to follow through wherever there is interest.
Anyway, I really must go now. Sadly to a friend's father's funeral. Another friend is moving this weekend. Here is a link:
http://joseph/jaymin/software/ttg/index.htm
This contains the Pocket Empires game "alpha", which I didn't publish to the list (just for you guys!) and the current state of the Adventure game. I'll also post this message to the bulletin board (if I can, if I can't you post it for me). OK, just tried, I can't. Can you post this for me there? Yes, including the bits praising yourself for spurring me into this.
Thanks so much for your interest. I'll try to reward it appropriately.
Cheers,
Jo
