OK, looks nice. World in Flames only appears via search, not W. Also, DD Games is effectively a non participant. Craig has totally withdrawn from the WiF space. I am the one left standing. Logged in to library, cannot see anything to make changes. Advice on how to proceed appreciated.
This post has a list of modules where their maintainers will need to be involved in converting them from the old module library because we couldn’t see how to do so sensibly. World in Flames is on that list.
I’m not seeing that. When I go to W and page ahead, I see an entry for it:
Editing isn’t working properly at the moment.
It’s unclear to me what on the old page should be brought over to the new module library. That should be determined before doing anything else.
For my purposes, only the part where my name is mentioned (Alternative World in Flames Collector’s Edition Module) in the text. I have no interest at all with any of the really old and obsolete versions that exist on that page. I also wonder if any of the links actually work anymore.
Just to confirm as a regular World in Flames player, and having done maintenance on the old World in Flames page:
The current page Module Library - Vassal lists DDD Game Designs as the maintainer. DDD Game Designs no longer exists, their websites have all been shut down and they are no longer associated with World in Flames or in fact any vassal modules at all. Don Harris (palad0n) should be listed as the module owner as he is the primary author of the module for the current version of WiF (WiF CE), which is what 90% + of WiF players play.
There are some historical modules for previous editions of World in Flames that have various module authors, they should be kept for historical interest only.
With the new module library, what is the maximum file size? All of the previous modules should be kept and perhaps moved from sites like soapyfrog to be hosted on the new library site if it will take files of that size. There are still a few players that use the v8.x / v7.x modules (WiF Final Edition), and a small crowd that like to play WiF 5th Edition. Don’s module is just shy of 1GB so if files of that size can be hosted that would save needing to host it on someone’s personal Google Drive.
Del, Thanks for the clarification. I was not aware that people still played the really old versions, so yes they should be retained (via link or direct file via the Library). However, these old files are never going to be updated, have any errors corrected and may even become unusable as Vassal progresses onwards. But thanks again.
Returning to this now:
Each stream of WiF modules from the old page should have its own project. The next step is for someone to create a project for each of these, move the relevant readme text there, create one or more packages inside each of those new projects as appropriate, and then let me know which modules should be moved to those packages and which screenshots should be moved to which project.
The maximum size of a file you can upload is 300MB. There is no practical limit to the maximum size of a file we can host, but we pay for storage out of donations, at a rate of $0.02/GB/mo currently, so if you’re expecting us to host a 1GB file in perpetuity you should pony up a small donation once in a while.
OK here is what I would do. Let’s see if Don agrees, he’s the maintainer and owner of the current vassal module so I’ll defer any decisions to him:
- Project Owner should be Don Harris. There’s no point making the project owner “DDD Game Designs” because they no longer exist by any reasonable means (their website has been taken down, they are no longer making or maintaining vassal modules, and their owner is no longer contactable). There’s no point trying to contact Craig from DDD to allow Don and I to have edit access to the project, he won’t respond. So unless we are able to change the project owner, there’s probably no further point proceeding and we will look for places other than vassalengine.org to host and store the module.
- I can be created as an editor. The other past module editors, Paul and Mike “Davout” are no longer active. WifFwendell is still active but didn’t actually create or edit a module at any point in time.
- There should be the following packages: WiF Collectors’ Edition; WiF Final Edition; WiF 5th Edition.
- For WiF Collectors’ Edition, the only module that should be hosted or referenced is Don’s module. There is a new version of this module in preparation and it’s actively maintained. The earlier DDD module previously linked from here and also previously available at the ADG website is no longer available, previous links are just 404s. So I think we can safely deprecate that one. Maybe just leave in place a historical note saying that Craig’s / DDD module is no longer available in case anyone’s looking for it.
- For Final Edition there are about 3 modules that are currently relevant. One is Don’s FE module although I’m not sure if he wants to continue propagating or maintaining that one. Another is the 8.88 module currently at soapyfrog and the third is the 7.00 module and/or 7.00 reskin available from Google Drive. I can try to contact Paul and Mike who are the authors of those modules to get updates. I don’t believe that they are maintained any more but there are occasional players who use them.
- There is one 5th Edition module which appears to be on MS OneDrive. It is no longer maintained and probably has fewer than 10 players.
- All of the above files except Don’s module are less than 300MB so I’ll consolidate them onto the vassalengine site.
- I’m happy to do the work setting up the packages other than the WiF CE package which can be left to Don. I would suggest discarding the screen shots from the current library page, I’ll create new ones.
Questions for Don:
- As above, do you still want to continue your WiF FE module? I do field occasional questions about it on the discord channels. In particular someone wants CE maps with FE counters (!!!). I think that we decided that the FE module with SSW/Matrix maps was no longer tenable because of copyright issues, but how about the others?
- Do you know of anyone else that needs to be an editor? Was Ross working on a module?
Question for uckelman:
- What’s the advantage or disadvantage of having one project with 3 packages in it rather than 3 projects? It appears to me that each package just has one module stream in it which would have several different versions; all of the modules for all packages except the most recent WiF CE package are no longer maintained so if we created 3 projects then it would just be just extra work creating 2 packages which are no longer maintained. I’m not even convinced that I can locate the owner of the WiF FE modules, and I don’t even know who the WiF 5th Edition module author is although I do have a copy of that module.
If you have one project per distinct module, then no page has extraneous stuff on it to confuse people, and as a result you’ll field fewer questions about it.
The amount of extra work is minimal. Creating a package amounts to clicking a button, typing a name, and clicking another button.
I might be able to determine what account to associate them with if the modules were ever uploaded to our site.
Hrm, however in general discussions on the WiF discord or FB groups, we tend to direct people to one particular module page regardless of what module they are after. It’s all the same game after all, and most of the modules come from the same person or small group of people.
So if it’s OK I would like to keep it down to 1 project and have separate packages per module since it’s simple to create more packages and we tend to have the same small group of maintainers for all packages.
I might be able to determine what account to associate them with if the modules were ever uploaded to our site.
Most of them were not uploaded, they are mostly hosted on Google Drive, OneDrive, etc, due to the historic and present limitations on file size on vassalengine.org. WiF is a big game, big maps and lots of counters. We’re working on reducing the size of the current CE module but it may or may not get under 300MB.
I can chuck some money your way if I figure out how to do that however sending money from here to the USA is a no-go (if you’re Canadian that’s easier).
As for the owner of the past modules, I’m not even sure that some of them are still alive. Wargamers are an ageing bunch and we’ve lost a few from our community in recent years. In any case I’m not sure that some of them would be in a position to be “owners” of a project in the module library, in particular Craig who has dissasociated himself with WiF in particular and vassal module creation in general.
The question remains as to whether you’re able to change the owner of the current WiF project page, because if that’s not feasible then I think that we have no option other than to abandon it.
If that’s what you want, fine.
Here’s our current donations link.
I can change anything in the library.
I do not have a WiF FE module. I did once a long time ago, but Matrix games got upset.
At days end, I’m going to set up a new module library. Others will be welcome to join and post their WiF versions. Clean slate, so to speak.
Personally, the whole thing is sort of irrelevant. Google drive stores the module. Players only need to have the link - something that can be posted on the WiF FB page and Discord (and games something, etc). Google drive link has the advantage of only linking to the latest module version.
@palad0n can you please give me edit access to your project.
@uckelman FYI Don’s new project is here World in Flames Official CE ++ - Module Library - Vassal. Please transfer ownership of the old/existing project page here World in Flames - Module Library - Vassal to me and I will tidy it up and/or break it into separate sub projects with links to the ones that are still operational. You can also give @palad0n write access to that one.
Done.
For reference, the old module and talk pages are archived here:
Let me know when you’re finished, as then I’ll take WiF off the problems list. If you need anything else, please ask.
Will do Del, probably done by the time you read this.
Not that sure why I would want that. Any particular reason Del? In any event, if you have ownership, then you can then simply add me as another owner.
Try now. I fixed a problem left over from switching to project and package slugs for URLs.
Hi @uckelman , when I try to edit this module World in Flames - Module Library - Vassal I get an error:
APIError: 401 Unauthorized: Unauthorized
Try logging out and logging back in. If that doesn’t work, let me know.