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[Urist McDepravity]

Well, i never had fort older than 20 in-game years. Due to fps-death.
So yeah, save compat is not that much an issue, as long as it spans for a reasonable time (like half a year).

[ggeezz]

FWIW, I'm pretty sure Toady is already on top of this.  I've heard him say that save compatibility is just a minor issue right now and will only be a major issue after some point in development.  There were other issues involved in this long release cycle besides save compatibility.  He's admitted that while A, B, and C needed to be done in one release he convinced himself to do D, E, and F as well, and perhaps he shouldn't have. 

Toady did a lot of "behind the scenes" engine updates that took a long time.  And there's a balance between an already long release cycle with few visible updates and an even longer cycle that takes advantage of those updates with elements the player can enjoy. 

I think he struck a good balance.  And now that the engine updates are completed, he can focus on the fun stuff.

I don't mean to be overly-critical though.  There's certainly value in polling the community and reporting those results to Toady.  I just feel like Toady was already on the same page.

[Star Guarded]

Although save compatibility isn't a big deal it would be nice if he could get .04 out and fix the hospital/military without breaking save compatibility. That's all I care about. There's a few community games currently running I'd like to see run without the large bugs.

[buman]

This kind of holds true with the recent bug fixes too, he has said he has fixed the hospital stuff but is now doing the 40# merge. I would have preferred a version with these working before adding the behind the scenes stuff of 40#.

Personally I would of liked to see him fix the military and hospital bugs before doing the 40# merge, this entire year and a half was meant to be about the military changes and a month after the release we still don't have a version that includes the vermin rot fix, hospital fix and military working, even thought the majority have been solved.

Looking forward to .04!

[LoSboccacc]

I think I've read on these forums that Today has already found a couple of bugs which would require him to break compatibility to get them properly fixed.

I do agree that until Today maintains the stance that the .31 release is an "alpha preview testing only beware of bugs" he may decide to avoid boing obsessed by compatibility and in regards to successions and community games, well, you knew this was a very unstable release and "accepted" by playing it to deal with the consequences

[Hyndis]

I think I've read on these forums that Today has already found a couple of bugs which would require him to break compatibility to get them properly fixed.

I do agree that until Today maintains the stance that the .31 release is an "alpha preview testing only beware of bugs" he may decide to avoid boing obsessed by compatibility and in regards to successions and community games, well, you knew this was a very unstable release and "accepted" by playing it to deal with the consequences

I'm pretty sure the fishing bug will require a regen, and thats just one bug.

[lucusLoC]

@vester

for now you are correct, but it will be a much bigger issue later on, when forts can be retired and you can reasonably expect a world to last for multiple forts/adventurers. even players who nuke forts after a few in game years will have incentive to continue playing the same world just to see if the get any old migrants and things like that.

@ggeezz

i had an inkling that toady was already considering this, do you know of any quotes? i did want to make sure that it was brought up though, just so everyone is on the same page.

@buman

i understand what you are saying, but a release for every bug fix is kinda the opposite of what we had for the .31 release. i am sure it takes some work to compile and get all the files packaged. i am sure toady will strike the correct balance.

@hyndis

requiring regen is similar to save compat, but not quite. just because there was a bug in the world gen does not mean that that world will not function properly (in its broken state) in a new version. save compat really addresses weather that old world will run at all, not weather it takes advantage of new features or fixes.

[Hyndis]

Its the same thing.

I can still play 40D if I want to, but to take advantages of all the changes in 31.03 I will need to regen.

If I have a 31.03 fortress and want to be able to fish, I'm going to have to regen.

Either way I have to regen to take advantage of the new features, and so the old fortress needs to be recreated.

[lucusLoC]

yeah, but you still cannot play a 40d world in .31. if you could there would be certain features that you probably could take advantage of, like kill orders. changes to world gen and raws requires a regen, but does not necessarily break save compat.

[madman]

I would have preferred a version with these working before adding the behind the scenes stuff of 40#.

There's several good reasons to do the merge now. Firstly, it was something that was in the list of things that was going to get done before the release, although getting it out now is a good compromise. Secondly, for those waiting for a stable version, it's probably better to have all the bugs out now and being fixed together, rather than have a lot of improvements then introduce a whole lot more bugs (that risks a lot of people sticking with the pre-merge version for a while). Last but not least, for those of us not on Windows or with poorer graphics cards, this is not 'behind the scenes' stuff - it is required to make the game playable.

Looking forward to .04!

Me too!

[Footkerchief]

@ggeezz

i had an inkling that toady was already considering this, do you know of any quotes? i did want to make sure that it was brought up though, just so everyone is on the same page.

This is probably the most direct quote:

I'm still ambivalent about save compatibility preservation as I've been handling it.  It wasn't fully responsible for the decisions that led to the long release wait, but it was an encouraging factor in piling on a bit more than I needed to pile on.  On the other hand, world preservation is only going to become more important to people, especially when they are allowed to get out there themselves beyond running isolated sites, and I'll probably be happy in the long run to have made so many save-breaking changes now once the main elements of the army arc are complete, rather than wrecking worlds that people have invested in.  Nobody really cares now, but if people don't care later, we aren't doing this right.

In any case, we're well along now, and all I can do is try to be a little more careful with my scheduling for future releases. [...]

[LoSboccacc]

Last but not least, for those of us not on Windows - it is required to make the game playable.

sadly I'm stuck to wine as dwarf therapist doesn't work under mac. I know there is a tentative version for linux, I wonder what is missing for it to works on a mac and if I could help to make an unofficial mac version.