Old module compatibility questions

Module Discussion
1

2-3 years ago, I created a module for my self-published game, Warchestra. It ended up involving a substantial amount of automation, and took me several months to finish. It was created using version 3.2.17 of Vassal. I have 2 questions regarding this:

  1. Would someone running the newest version of Vassal be able to play the module I created under version 3.2.17 as it was originally designed?
  2. If not, could they download version 3.2.17 to play it?

If the answer to both of these is no, I can only imagine how the new version would react to my prehistoric module, and the thought of revisiting it to make it compatible makes me queasy.

2
  1. As long as your module doesn’t rely on any of the bugs in 3.2.17 that have since been fixed, it should run just fine in newer versions of VASSAL.
  2. Yes, you can still download 3.2.17 if you want it.
3

  1. Would someone running the newest version of Vassal be able to play the module I created under version 3.2.17 as it was originally designed?
    In principle, yes. One relatively common issue concerns expressions that stop working as originally intended (to do with delimiting property names in “” and $$ symbols) as v3.4 got more strict about legacy vs beanshell distinctions. Generally the problem has been straightforward for module owners to fix and the devs have been helpful in responding to queries.

  2. If not, could they download version 3.2.17 to play it? YES

4

Yes, but be advised that already some users have a problem running 3.2.17. In particular, we’ve had many, many reports of users being unable to get Java 8 or earlier, which 3.2.17 requires, installed on Macs. (This was one of the things which prompted the development of 3.3.)

3.2.17 won’t be reliably usable forever. My advice is to try your module in 3.4.12 and ask here if you have problems. It’s better to do this now, when the transition from 3.2 to 3.4 is still fresh in people’s minds than a year from now when it’s not.

5

Thank you all for the quick responses. I have avoided updating Vassal to the newest version for this very reason, but will make the jump.