We are nearly there, guys, so this is the plan for the last meters :-)

Feature freeze

From now until the release, there will be a feature freeze aside from a few exeptions*.

What does that mean?

It means that we want to refrain from adding any new features to the release package. Features like new game content that can have errors and has to be tested/balanced before it is really done or that can make something else that worked earlier broken again. Improving, polishing and balancing existing stuff is not affected by the feature freeze.
So, please from now on put all new scenario and object game content in Test.c4f, this folder will not be included in releases so you can feel free to test around there. Engine coders which are developing features (in branches), please don't merge them into the default branch but in a new branch.

* the bugtracker issues in release blocking bugs which happen to be features

Whats left

All that has to be done before the release is currently in the bugtracker, which is a really not much anymore. A rough overview over the bigger points:

• Update system, Automatic release scripts and download links - Günther, Clonk-Carl, B_E(, Newton)


• Introduce new clonk - Randrian, Ringwaul(, pluto & anybody that can render with blender)


• Final testing of club, sword, shield plus finalization - Zapper and everybody else


• Finalization of Tutorials, Melees & Races - Maikel, Ringwaul, Mimmo and others


• crashes and minor engine stuff - Isilkor, Günther, any engine coder

How quick these tasks can be completed depends on the free time each one can and wants to spend on clonk, but my optimistic guess is that we can manage this in one week. When you reply to this post, can you please make a statement on whether/how this guess is realistic in your case (and if it is justified that I boldly assigned task(s) to you)?

Release steps

The first release with CK's automatic release system will be a semi-public beta, meaning that it will (if all the automatic download link creation and build scripts work without error) be available on the download page but will otherwise not be announced big time. It should be free of bugs. (Like the nightlies only that it happens to be on the download page as 1.0 beta)
With this release, the so called unit-tests which were suggested by Sven2 will be done. These tests yet have to be supplied (by Sven2) but basically are a few bugtracker issues in a seperate meta-issue like...
"Start network game -> let someone join and start" or "Start network game in Linux -> then let some Win user join and start" (or whatever makes sense, could break from release to release while it is an important feature) which have to be tested once and can be resolved thereafter. This can be done in one afternoon if no new problems pop up.

So if no new problems pop up, the next release named "beta" can be made public, meaning it can be included on the home page, announced in the clonk forum, clonk news page (poking Matthes) and blog.
If then again no problems pop up, it can be released as OpenClonk 1.0 (without "beta") and announced beyond the borders of the clonk community.
If new problems pop up, and that will happen, we make intermediate beta releases before reaching the first "stable" 1.0.

Also, this is just the rough plan, not accounting for any problems which might pop up here and there.

So it looks like the automated update system will have to wait for the next release. That's not a big problem, the only part we can't change after the release - the engine - should still work with the old CR code. So I propose we update the masterserver to announce a newer version - that's a trivial one-line-patch - and manually build and upload an update packet to test the engine and the download server. Then we can do the release, and write the server side automation for easy updates afterwards. The players won't notice how much manual work an update requires, and gradually increasing the amount of automation is probably more efficient anyway.