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[Dan Peach]

Hey everyone,

I have been using WME for about 10 years now, and I absolutely love it. If I could, I would use it forever and ever. It's logical, it makes perfect sense to me, and I can use it pretty well by now.

Obviously though it hasn't been updated in a while. I'm not bothered about new features per se - I only make simple things anyway, and don't even use all the feature it has currently - but I am a little worried about whether or not my games will continue to run in the future. I am also not a programmer, so I cannot do anything with the sources myself.

So, I just wondered what the future of WME looks like. Will it always be available? Will it be updated if for whatever reason games stop working? Etc etc.

Thanks for any thoughts or clarifications.

P.s. I really do love this engine.

[piere]

Wintermute will always be useful, even for non-point-and-click adventure games. It can make a wide variety of genres, and will always be great ! I just hope a new update will come out soon or WME 2

[HCDaniel]

I'd say that in order to answer the question, we need to look at the different components separately:

wmelite engine:
I would expect that this engine will receive enough attention and maintenance, so it will be functional for a long time. Especially the support for several platforms makes it an attractive choice for developing games with. I hope that by keeping it functional with all recent versions of libraries wmelite depends on, it won't happen that this engine suddenly stops working.

wme engine:
As long as Microsoft does not remove support for the APIs that wme uses, wme will work on windows. The same would be true for emulations (wine) on other platforms. I do not expect that removal of vital APIs in Windows happens soon. But there might be a scenario where wme stops working on a new Windows version, and then it could mean to invest some effort to get the engine to work again (using new compilers and newer library versions...).

tools:
similar to the wme engine. and when the tools stop working, new games won't be created, even if there was still an engine to run them.

I think Mnemonic did the right move to release all code under a permissive open source license. It increases the probability that somebody tries to fix things that become broken in the future.

I was wondering whether it would help if the Windows based programs are always updated to work with the newest DirectX version and the newest MS compiler. I was also wondering whether it would help to get at least the tools to compile with winelib. But either might involve quite some effort.

[Dan Peach]

Thanks for the replies.

My only worry is that any game I make stops working in the future with new Windows versions. I know this could happen no matter what engine I use, and I know it's maybe unrealistic to expect things to work forever.

[keybone]

I follow with interest this topic.

[HCDaniel]

Now that Microsoft gives out their compiler tools suite for free (unless you are a big company):

http://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/products/visual-studio-community-vs.aspx

it could be easier to port all Windows based tools + engine to this recent toolset. It also ships with a DirectX SDK by default, so all the requirements to compile WME should be included. MFC is included as well, this was missing from the "express" editions and thus it was difficult to compile the tools without purchasing the compiler.

Anybody interested to "port" WME + Tools to the most recent compiler? Agreed, it won't make a difference right now, but maintenance might become easier, and in case sth. breaks on future Windows versions, it would be easier to fix.

[Mnemonic]

It also ships with a DirectX SDK by default, so all the requirements to compile WME should be included.

The former DirectX SDK is now part of Windows SDK. Sadly, the Windows 8 / 8.1 SDK that ships with VS2013 dropped the D3DX utility library, which WME uses (thanks once again, Microsoft!). This article gives some hints on how to replace D3DX with alternatives, but it would probably require quite a lot of work.

[Dan Peach]

Well, I am interested in anything that will extend the life of WME. 

Unfortunately I have zero skills in that area, so I can't really help out in any technical way.

[HCDaniel]

The former DirectX SDK is now part of Windows SDK. Sadly, the Windows 8 / 8.1 SDK that ships with VS2013 dropped the D3DX utility library, which WME uses (thanks once again, Microsoft!). This article gives some hints on how to replace D3DX with alternatives, but it would probably require quite a lot of work.

Hmpf. I should have known that there is a catch At first it looked so promising...