[Widelands-public] Widelands Build21 – and now?

[Benedikt S. <ben...@we...>]

Widelands Build 21 has now been released. Now you can either download it
at once and play for hours and hours, or read this e-mail which rounds
off the release process with the Cap-over-the-Mill message prescribed by
the release plan.

Since the release, several branches with bugfixes and new features have
already been merged to master. A number of larger features are in review
already: A series of tribes-filtering branches to speed up game loading
and make the game more easily moddable, a scenario editor interface, a
redesigning of the launch-game screens. More goodies are under active
development: An Amazon tribe, an add-on system, several new scenarios.

Since the release of Build 20, only 14 months have passed, compared to
2.5 years between b20 and b19 and 2.75 years between b19 and b18. This
shorter interval was greeted with positive feedback from the community,
and it is my opinion that we should aim to keep the intervals for future
releases similarly short. It is much too early to set a date for the
next feature freeze already, but we should aim to have it in springtime
2021, and hold the next release in the summer of 2021.

Is Widelands still a game in beta stage, as our wiki claims? There is
some consensus that this is no longer true nowadays. We are discussing
whether to mark this fact by letting build-21 terminate the series of
beta builds and naming the next release "Widelands 1.0". Do you agree?
Post your opinions to https://github.com/widelands/widelands/issues/3979.

During the last year, I have developed quite a number of new features
for Widelands. For the course of the next year, I would like to move my
focus more towards squashing bugs. The features I do intend to implement
are the remaining graphics for the new Amazons tribe; a scenario editor,
an add-on system, more scenarios for the Frisian campaign; and perhaps,
just perhaps, the frequently-requested feature of naval warfare. If you
are a developer, or considering to join development (yay, please do!),
don't hesitate to state your plans here on the mailing list or in our
forum <www.widelands.org>!

I'd better stop writing now, as I don't want to keep you from playing
Widelands Build 21 for too long! Best regards,

Benedikt Straub (Nordfriese)