Eleq has volunteered to provide a server to test the latest release. I've already sent him the beta and as soon as he opens it up, I need some heavy testing. The last set of beta tests we did here were related to Jumpgate, it we were never able to get that version stable, so I have pulled all of that code and reverted the server to one that's very close to the last stable release. But it's not 100% the same, so it needs some testing to make sure it's a good starting point for the new round of fixes.

The first order of business will be to fix the mail file. I wrote a new mail file system already, so I'm just plugging that in and we can start testing. As soon as we have an idea of how stable the beta server is, I'll send Eleq that one and we can hammer it with some notifications, etc. I'm also going to shift some global config settings to per-game settings, but that shouldn't effect gameplay much.

From there, I'll assess my time and consider the most pressing bugs as well as proposed changes like adding support for "old school" games. I want to make sure a new revision can be released before I get pulled away for anything major (like a new baby due in July!), but after that, I'll continue to make small, focused changes, and keep the revisions coming as much as I can for awhile.

I will ask this first then. Once a release is hammered out and distributed, will it affect games currently running? For example, the mail bug fix appeals to us, but I don't want to have to restart/rebang a game my wife and I are playing in.

Ugh Ok, Thrawn. For you. I'll make sure it updates from current data. My sense was that after so much time, after fixing some major bugs it makes sense to force a reset. But I get what you're saying. The data conversion code goes all the way back to v3.00, like 1996, and it's getting bloated. But I can probably rip all of that out and only update from the latest release from "relatively" recently, 2004

The mail file change won't effect data, it'll just require the mail to start from scratch. But some other changes will effect data, like switching some global to local settings.

We would be grateful. If it is too much and a rebang is in order, then that is okay. I just know after one game at 179 days or one at 307 days my wife will be a bit unpleased if we have to rebang.

There's no way I could justify saving about an hours work and costing you guys that much time invested! But hey, make sure you back up before you install this thing