Crown and Cutlass / News: Recent posts

We are now using the SourceForge.net wiki, so the Crown and Cutlass Wiki has moved to http://crownandcutlass.wiki.sourceforge.net/

We have started a blog as an informal way to communicate our progress. We plan to continue to use news updates for major announcements, but use the blog to give a better window into what we are working on between milestones. You can read it at http://www.crownandcutlass.com/blog/

Despite our lack of updates lately, we are still working on our redesign of Crown and Cutlass. We were planning on writing a much more powerful graphics system, but have since decided to make sure of an open source graphics engine. We are in the process of evaluating our options. We have looked at Irrlicht, Lightfeather, and OGRE so far. Read more for additional information about our graphics engine search.... read more

We are participating in the SourceForge Subversion beta test. While we haven't had opportunity to do a lot of testing yet, so far it has been very positive. One of the improvements over CVS is that our commits are available to the read-only users instantly. You can read more (and browse the repository) at http://sourceforge.net/svn/?group_id=110607 Please let us know if you have feedback, so we can pass it on to SourceForge if necessary.

We have installed a wiki on our new website. Currently, we are using it as kind of a white board for development. If you are interested in what we are thinking and where we are heading check out http://www.crownandcutlass.com/wiki/

We have just recently switched to our new web host. We are paying for external hosting now, so that we can host and distribute files for the updater. We still plan on using sourceforge for other services, though. Please update links and bookmarks to http://www.crownandcutlass.com

In addition to the updater data, we are also hosting a wiki that we will use as a scratch pad for the development our the project. Look for more info about that in the future.

We recently registered "crownandcutlass.com" and are using some server space Collin signed up for. We're excited because that will let us host the updater content (I've started moving updater data there already). Like the temporary page says, it doesn't cost too much, but donations would be helpful. Look for more updates soon...

Collin noted that we passed 8000 total downloads today (adding up the "All Time" statistics, the "Files" screen number is slightly lower). We have been on sourceforge for a little under a year and a half. Sure Gaim or Azureus get more than that in a single day, but we still think we are doing pretty well. Thanks for checking us out everyone! Read on for an update on what we're working on.... read more

Avast, mateys. Today, Sept. 19 is Talk Like a Pirate Day. See http://talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html for more info. I would also recommend the pirate translator (english to pirate url translator) http://www.mediocreminds.com/content.php?articleID=160 Please enjoy Talk Like a Pirate Day responsibly... go easy on the grog.

We have released Alpha 1.4. One of the most important changes is that we are now using GLee to handle OpenGL extensions. We have also finishing switching our menus to guichan. There have been some behind the scenes improvements as well. Try it out. Read more for support information.

Please post your general Alpha 1.4 feedback in this thread:
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=1334962&forum_id=379055... read more

Work continues. We are hoping to release Alpha 1.4 within a week. We are excited to move on from the Alpha 1.3/1.31 release problems. For this release, we are now using an OpenGL extension handling library (GLee, http://elf-stone.com\). We have also finished our switch to using Guichan for our menus. Look for more info soon.

We had hoped to release 1.4 by now, but haven't gotten there yet. I thought I'd give an update on what we have been up to. I am also getting married this weekend, so I will be leaving town for a few weeks. Read more for details.

I am getting married this Saturday (I'm really excited!), so I will be gone for a few weeks, and probably busy settling in to married life for a while after that. I had hoped to get enough done to release 1.4 before I left, but got too busy. Anyway, Collin will still be around for most of the time, so he'll be taking care of everything here.... read more

I left a line I was using for debugging in when I compiled the executable for the 1.31 zip file. As a result, all the enemies in naval battles just ran away. I released a fixed 1.31 .zip file with the fixed exe. If you downloaded the 1.31 .zip file already, please redownload it.

I have just released Alpha 1.31. It uses the latest version of guichan, and contains a few new font images to fix the image size issues we had with Alpha 1.3. This is not a complete version, so in order to use it, you must also download Alpha 1.3. Please read on for additional information.

If you use the windows installer, just unzip the files in the .zip into the dir with the installed executable. It contains a new exe file, the guichan 0.4.0 dlls, and the new fonts. If you use the source, just unpackage the .tar.gz file into the directory with the executable. You will also have to make sure you have Guichan 0.4.0 installed from http://guichan.sourceforge.net

We got the source packaged and the installer made faster than expected, so we went ahead and released Alpha 1.3. It has been about 5 months since our last release, so a lot of work has gone into this release. There are a lot of rough edges to smooth out still, though. Read more for addition information.

We have started our transition to Guichan. It has taken us a while to get it going, but it seems like it will be a pretty good fit (and a definite improvement over the old system).... read more

We are finally in the process of packaging up the source and creating a windows installer for Alpha 1.3. We have made a lot of progress for this release, although there's still lots of work to be done! Look for more details soon.

We are busy working on Alpha 1.3 and hope to get it out before too long. I don't want to give a release date at this point, as we are still ironing out a lot of issues. However, I thought a news update would be good. I am excited about this release, as there are several new features including new menus, ship physics, and an updater. Read more for details.

Here is a list of changes:
- New menu system using Guichan (http://guichan.sourceforge.net)
- Physics-based ship controls
- Skydome in naval battles (camera still needs work)
- New city models (no more giant yellow boxes!)
- Ship repair
- Improved enemy ship AI
- Web updater (downloads updated files from a central server)... read more

I have finally written new instructions for compiling Crown and Cutlass in Dev-C++. This new set includes OpenAL directions. Read more for details.

These instructions should work with Alpha 1.2 or the current CVS code. I posted them in our "Help - Compiling" forum at:
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=1250604&forum_id=379056

I've been working on writing an auto-updater that will download an XML file from a web server and use it to verify the files on the user's hard drive. If the files don't match, it will automatically download the new versions from the server. I have it working in linux, and now just make some changes for windows..

However, we need alternative hosting for the updater files, because we are not permitted to release files via our project web server. Can anyone donate a little server space for the updater files? We will probably have around 50 megs of files max. Please email me if you are interested and we can talk about our specific needs. Thanks in advance.... read more

Crown and Cutlass is cross-platform 3d pirate action/adventure game in the spirit of the old Pirates! game. We have just released the Alpha 1.2 Windows installer, so Windows users can run Crown and Cutlass without compiling it themselves. Read more for additional information.

As I said in the announcement for the Alpha 1.2 source package release, please ask for help in our forums if you have trouble running or compiling Crown and Cutlass. Please give us general feedback on this release at:
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=1193527&forum_id=379055

Crown and Cutlass is cross-platform 3d pirate action/adventure game in the spirit of the old Pirates! game. We have finally released Alpha 1.2, with the source available now and a Windows installer tomorrow. Read more for additional information.

We have finally decided that we are ready to release Alpha 1.2. There is still a lot of work we want to do, but we decided that we should package a release to show everyone our progress so far. We are still working on the Windows installer with the pre-compiled binary, but we should release it tomorrow.... read more

Crown and Cutlass is cross-platform 3d pirate action/adventure game in the spirit of the old Pirates! game. We will be releasing Alpha 1.2 tomorrow, Saturday December 10. While we wanted to keep working on a number of improvements, we decided that we just needed to make a release. This release includes a number of large changes such as the ability to trade, naval battles, and audio. I will post more details tomorrow along with the files.

Crown and Cutlass is cross-platform 3d pirate action/adventure game in the spirit of the old Pirates! game. Ben Coppock has finished a redesign of our project website. Read more for additional information.

Ben Coppock has finished reworking our website. As usual, Ben has done a great job of making both a visually appealing and a very clean, simple page. Ben designed the title image using the logo created by Aleksandar Kovac, who also created the menu buttons. If you have problems or suggestions about the new website (or if you'd just like to tell Ben great job), please make a post here:
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=1176849&forum_id=379055... read more

Collin got married last weekend. The ceremony was very nice, and everyone had a great time (at least I did). Collin may be spending a little less time working on Crown and Cutlass as they adjust to married life.

Thanks to Aleksandar Kovac for a new logo. Check it out on our webpages (http://crownandcutlass.sourceforge.net/). If the image at the top doesn't look right, make a post or email me. Be sure to include what browser (including version) you are using.

I thought I'd give a little update on what's going on. First off, Collin is getting married next weekend, so he won't have much time to work on Crown and Cutlass for a little while. I am a groomsman in his wedding, so I'll be gone over that weekend.

My internet connecton is down. I'm not sure when it'll come back up, but until then I'll probably spend much less time around here. I'll try to answer questions and make posts, but they will just be less frequent. Of course, that means I'll probably spend more time actually working on Crown and Cutlass.... read more