It's been a long, long (long) time.

[KRD]

The Timeshock! table (and potentially the rest of the Pro Pinball series) ought to be enough for anybody.

By the way Nutter, terrible news. Team17 recently attempted to replace you, again. I posted a summary thread about it on the TUS forums and in case my dramatic tone managed to pique your interest, which was its sole intent, here's a link to that:

http://www.tus-wa.com/forums/worms-arma ... ain-24776/

On the bright side, Mike seems like a really nice fella, actually. He even played a bunch of games with the WA crowd last weekend, that was fun.

[Nutter]

Interesting read

Where has Spadge gone?

The one thing that stands out for me is that T17 missed opportunities to bake player modes into WA without actually revamping the game core/functionality/weapons/etc.


Forts, ropers, etc. and rules around them could all be programmed in; that is the one thing you need added - would save the trouble of an injection of newbies.

[Bloopy]

I'm playing the Pinball Arcade season 1 tables at the moment. I wouldn't be surprised if I'm still trying to conquer them in a year's time, never mind seasons 2 & 3.

[SupSuper]

Wow, has it really been an year already? What am I doing with my time?!?

any more pinball games I should consider buying?

Pinball Arcade is the leading product for accurate reproductions. Besides that, Pro Pinball and Pinball FX2 are pretty good.

Interesting read

Where has Spadge gone?

Like most industry vets, he's moved on to greener pastures, aka consulting.

Doesn't seem to be updating his blog anymore though, seems he's moved on to Facebook.

[KRD]

The one thing that stands out for me is that T17 missed opportunities to bake player modes into WA without actually revamping the game core/functionality/weapons/etc.


Forts, ropers, etc. and rules around them could all be programmed in; that is the one thing you need added - would save the trouble of an injection of newbies.

Yep, Deadcode and CyberShadow will eventually tackle that in the 4.x rewrite, in part possibly before then. We'll see, it's a bit complicated.

[Nutter]

Is 4.x fandom or official rewrite?

I noted Andy Davidson has returned to T17 employ as well...

For years he had a site up on Freeserve suggesting "the worm will return...."

[Zeor]

I noted Andy Davidson has returned to T17 employ as well...

Yeah, iirc he was pretty closely involved in the development of Worms Revolution.

Which was pretty solid, really. Just very slow-paced. Even for a Worms game I mean.

[KRD]

Is 4.x fandom or official rewrite?

Well, Deadcode and CyberShadow did both start out as community folk, but I'd say at this point, considering they've been almost exclusively responsible for working on WA since 2002 and 2006 respectively, it's as official as we're going to get. And, more importantly, as good as we're going to get. At this point, they know the codebase better than the people who wrote it in the first place and get enormous respect from the community for keeping the game alive and listening to the players' wishes. Even though they don't technically get paid to do it, Team17 do check their code before publishing it on their website, plus now with Mike on board, the communication between T17 and the WA devs should again improve. It suffered quite a bit when first Spadge, then Billt17 (Mark Baldwin) and even Volcane (ServerAdminDave) left the company.

Hoping for the best here! 4.x stands to revitalise the game in ways most of its players can't even imagine...

[Nutter]

Do we have an ETA?

[KRD]

Back in 2008, on the 4.0 Facts page, it was stated that "it would not be ready this decade". This fact has since been crossed out as a result of that particular decade ending. Does this mean it now will definitely be ready this decade? Probably not. But it could happen!

Part of the uncertainty (potential legal, bureaucratic, monetary, emotional, etc. issues aside) comes from that 3.x development is still ongoing, and we just don't know what the ratio between that and 4.x development will be in the future, i.e. when 4.x will become the main focus. On the bright side, fixing the 3.x engine up remains a worthwhile task, since the changes should get ported over to 4.x nicely, once that's come far enough to have an engine ported into it.

But yeah, it's complicated. The game is still enjoyed by many, many people in its current state, though, so that makes it easier to remain patient.

[Bloopy]

Pinball Arcade is the leading product for accurate reproductions.

Have you recorded any high scores in it via Steam? I'm just curious if the friends leaderboard feature works.