Behind the scenes progress

Tech Preview 1 has been up for a while, and this has helped me figure out what needs to be updated on the engine before RFC can get an update. Here is a list of likely improvements I'll need to make to the baseline components before the next update for RFC is completed.

Map View
The map view works fairly well, but it is not flexible. In its current state, the control must be adjusted for every game depending on its resolution and position. That's not what I want. I am currently working on a map view that's much easier for developers, so they can size and position it in the editor, and get the results they wanted to see immediately, without additional editing of the baseline component. I will also try to add zoom buttons to this, so the visible area is adjustable by players.

Data Files
The built-in minimum files feel very important, but they don't look as nice as full drawable data, and the visual is pretty important. Downloading files on demand is good, but the game still ends up dependent on the server to hold them. A better way forward may be to split the full map data into regional packs, and letting the game load those from a folder the user selects. This will also let multiple games share the same map data folder, which might save storage space for the player if they have multiple PraxisMapper games installed.

Multiplayer
RFC isn't going to be a multiplayer game, but I have realized that I do want multiplayer games to have some peer to peer connection elements. I have server to client logic worked out pretty well, but I want games to be able to run with the least external dependencies possible. It does seem like there will be some kind of server connection, though I want it to work less like the current monolithic endpoint and more like a bittorrent tracker,  where it mostly lets you find other players. A hybrid setup is possible as well, though I'll need some time working on these to figure out how that would look. Also important to this, is to have the client be able to become a server instead of having a separate application for it.

This means the tech preview did it's job. Hopefully I can these going sooner rather than later and return to working on RFC for a proper game prototype. The first 2 points don't sound terribly hard, and I've made good progress on the updated map view. Multiplayer will be very complicated, but I can move on with RFC without that piece.  In the best case, we might see RFC get updated sometime this summer.