IA:EE progress report, thoughts, general observations, etc. Options

[critto]

The work is on-going, so I'll try to keep everybody updated on the progress in here. Also, people sometimes ask questions about how this or that functions, I can't answer these questions immediately and lose track of them. When I can I'll address these issues in this thread for the benefit of everybody.

This post has been edited by critto: May 18 2016, 03:51 PM

[critto]

Now that the 6.2 release is out, it wouldn't hurt to share some plans for the future of IA. During the course of our work on 6.2 we've come up with many ideas of what could be improved. This ranges from relatively small additions (new items being distributed via the randomizer and such) to rather huge undertakings.

As of the moment when this text is being written, current todo list consists of almost 200 separate records. Obviously, all of this won't fit into a single release, the work would take ages to accomplish. We'll split it into segments and work in iterations, re-assessing the situation as we progress further.

One of the larger and more fundamental tasks scheduled for near future is internal restructuring of the mod. It's being made more modular and flexible, with less of the hardcoded stuff and more of the modern approach to WeiDU scripting. Restructuring the mod and removing code duplication is rather fun and enjoyable. Removing hardcode, on the other hand, is a long and tedious process which involves working part-time on third-party utilities such as iesh that are used to aid in the process. I doubt that this will be completed 100% in the very near future for the number of precedents of interoperability between IA and other mods is almost zero due to many reasons. This fact does not persuade me to discontinue our work in that direction, however, even if it takes one small step at a time.

All this, of course, will not lead to the mod being broken down into separate components or IA suddenly becoming compatible with many of the "big" mods which is conceptually impossible. It will, however, allow for easier modding and addition of new content. If the interest will not diminish, both from players and our own, we might even have an easier time expanding IA beyond BG2 and ToB.

However, I've gotten some feedback from players after the release of 6.2 and have a better understanding now that the most expected new features are the long-awaited druid stronghold expansion and compatibility with the 2.x patch of EE. These two will be our primary focus for now. Whatever changes might tag along are going to be coincidental.

Later on, I'll talk more about various features and additions to the mod as the work progresses further.

Cheers,
critto