Xonotic 1.0 feature freeze?

Xonotic has been developed since March 2010 and loads of stuff has been done since that and Xonotic is really different from Nexuiz 2.5.2. Of course there is still loads of to do, but at the current state I think Xonotic is getting to the direction how we want this game to be.

I was thinking that should we make some kind of "feature freeze" for Xonotic 1.0. Briefly said - decide what features we want that Xonotic 1.0 has and finish them, but not make anything new things. Just to finish the 1.0 TODO-list and release the game after all requirements are done.

That's because there is still so much to do and I think after finishing all the things that are currently under developement, Xonotic is ready to hit gold state. Adding new features just slows down the developement while people are making new things before actually finishing current ones, and Xonotic will hit 1.0 maybe in 2020. We have lots of maps to play on, new models which needs polishing (and textures), current physics seems to be one which will be used and so on. Xonotic is completely playable at it's current state and when current "in developement" features are done. While we do "feature freeze" decision, that should motivate developers to finish the current jobs and Xonotic 1.0 will be reality. There is actually something to aim to.

What do you think about this? Should we make "feature freeze" list or continue with current developing stage just adding new stuff and decide somewhere in the future when Xonotic is ready for 1.0?

Examples being on "feature freeze" list:
- Finish current maps (bugfixes etc.) and decide which of them will be official
- Finish all the new weapon models and replace them with the current ones
- Finish all weapons (lightning gun?)
- Global stats system (?)
- All possible bugfixes
- All possible balance fixes
- Finish all translation files

Of course finish all the things above will take several months, but after that Xonotic is ready to hit 1.0 (IMO). Adding new features will, of course, continue after that but come to Xonotic 1.1, 1.2, 2.0 etc...

What's your opinion?

I am no developer and therefore not involved in any of the processes, but I think it would be good to release a new official beta or something like 0.2 rather soon so that the public servers get updated hopefully and we'd finally have places to play public matches. I think we'd need a feature freeze for 0.2 (if we don't have that already).

the next version will be 0.2

Of course 0.2 will be released before 1.0. The point of this thread is that should we think what kind of features we want for 1.0 and then release 0.2, 0.3 etc. before that, like milestones. Or do you think that we should make feature freeze list for 0.2 first?

Xonotic is open source. That means that people are working on it because they want to. If we start telling contributers what they have to give us, they'll just leave or fork or something.

I would like to see a priority list of what's in the works now, aka status.

-Relics mutator... any further progress? Did it get dropped?
-Weapons... which ones are going to be deleted as we stand now? How is the LG coming along?
-Weapon models... Status of the fireball? Is the LG model Sputnik gave us suitable?
-Maps... which ones are going to be included/on their way? About how many are going to be included in the 0.2... or 1.0 for that matter.

Not telling people what to do so much as asking them what the ARE doing

i know im getting a trickle of projects to do , but from the music/sound side , im seeing not much at all.

Xonotic desperately needs to replace the player sounds. The current sounds were inherited from Nexuiz, they are also incomplete.

Currently a compete set consists of:

PHP Code:

affirmative
attack
attacking
attackinfive
coverme
defend
defending
droppedflag
flagcarriertakingdamage
freelance
getflag
incoming
meet
needhelp
negative
onmyway
roaming
seenenemy
seenflag
taunt
teamshoot
death
drown
fall
falling
gasp
jump
pain25
pain50
pain75
pain100 


They can be found in xonotic/data/xonotic-data.pk3dir/sound/player/*

New sounds and noises are needed.

Xonotic is open source. That means that people are working on it because they want to. If we start telling contributers what they have to give us, they'll just leave or fork or something.

I would like to see a priority list of what's in the works now, aka status.

-Relics mutator... any further progress? Did it get dropped?
-Weapons... which ones are going to be deleted as we stand now? How is the LG coming along?
-Weapon models... Status of the fireball? Is the LG model Sputnik gave us suitable?
-Maps... which ones are going to be included/on their way? About how many are going to be included in the 0.2... or 1.0 for that matter.

Not telling people what to do so much as asking them what the ARE doing

Open source does not mean that the program will never get finished. Developing is developing seriously, not just for lulz. And most big open source projects have strict feature freezes etc. Feature freeze isn't something just commercial titles have, open source projects also need some kind on coordination.

And if you got me wrong: if the feature you've been working has been listed on "feature freeze" list, that should motivate you to finish it. Things don't work like "I started to do this, but actually it got never finished. I started do that new thing, but apparently it got also never finished." And if people are doing this and that without any coordination, nothing is actually finished completely.

It's not to force contributors to do something, more like motivating. If they start to work something, it's very pleasant that they also finish it and people know how thing are progressing.

Xonotic is open source. That means that people are working on it because they want to. If we start telling contributers what they have to give us, they'll just leave or fork or something.

I would like to see a priority list of what's in the works now, aka status.

-Relics mutator... any further progress? Did it get dropped?
-Weapons... which ones are going to be deleted as we stand now? How is the LG coming along?
-Weapon models... Status of the fireball? Is the LG model Sputnik gave us suitable?
-Maps... which ones are going to be included/on their way? About how many are going to be included in the 0.2... or 1.0 for that matter.

Not telling people what to do so much as asking them what the ARE doing

I guess this helps:
http://dev.xonotic.org/projects/xonotic

Agree with Exitium.

Is the best way to go.

Can a Developer comment, PLEASE??

i don't see a ff for Xonotic 1.0 on the horizon, possibly for 0.2. A road map for 1.0 has been available at http://dev.xonotic.org/versions/show/3 for quite some time. Whats lacking is not a buzzword, but rather ppl contributing towards making 1.0 happen.

Atleast you replied tZork

yes, we need freeze to a stable release, maybe a freeze-style Debian what do you think? i was wanting to pack Xonotic for Debian repositories, but i think better do this if it have a 100% stable version, because Nexuiz 2.5.2 repositories version is 100% stable, better thing to do is to port Xonotic stable version to Debian replacing Nexuiz.
what do you think?

There is many things for 1.0 that we cannot do yet because we do not have people for it.

Freezing, and thus preventing further development, just for that would kill the project.