2008-02-03 Java Tech Release Demo 0.02 released

After more or less six months of coding , we have released the second tech release demo of the Java port today. There are a lot of new features in the codeline. Anyway remember this is a tech demo that shows all the potentialities of the framework. That means that the game is not yet playable as Freelord was but from now we believe that releases will follow very often.
The most important news are:

• Complete network handling
  A player chat was added and a lot of optimizations were done over the first version of the network code. Now things should be very fast over the network but there's still plenty more that can be done there. The cross network code interfaces were greatly simplified so the network stays out of the programmers way.
• Isometric map engine
  The old freelords code had a great drawback about map generation. Tilesets were very difficult to draw because of the many transitional tiles that were to be done. Now thing are a lot easier and the tileset is done by six tiles and a few water transitions.
• The User interface is growing
  Much eye-candy was added while the interface style is being worked on. The Interface now is defined by xml templates without us falling into the trap of putting code in xml.

• A lot of work on the server engine
  Items Back-end was added but requires an interface. The quest back-end is being worked on and now it is 50% to be completed. The first simple AI was implemented. Right click menu to pick what unit to build from a castle was implemented. Many bugfixes and optimizations were done.
• More JavaDoc of code base
  The JavaDoc of the code is worked on. A lot of classes now are documented.

There is anyway a lot of work to be done to have a playable game. But things are going on in the right way. So if you are interested in contributing to the project please do not be afraid to keep in touch with us.

Java programmers and graphic artists are always needed.

Andrea.