devilkin
08-07-2002, 21:29
We are pleased to announce our first Production Release!
We've been working hard to get to a point where we feel that
PCGen had reached a level of reliability worthy of being
called a production-level application. The application now
supports enough functionality to handle the twists and tweaks
required by a variety of books which are currently available,
and we are constantly working on supporting an even larger
array of material. The data has also been picked and cleaned
and scrubbed and only those sources which meet our high
standard of perfection are included in this release. The
documentation will be unrecognizable to those who have been
with us for any amount of time - it's actually in English (rather
than Coder Gibberish) and gives lots of examples!
The Beta releases will continue on this site per normal and
will include the full complement of data which has been
entered into PCGen to this point. Production releases will be
much less frequent and will be centered around large milestones
in functionality being completed. We will determine the scope
of functionality for each production release based upon what
full support for as many books as possible will require, among
other objectives. This production release can then be used
by those who want a reliable, 'stable' release which won't
be updated until the next production release. Those who
like the frequent updates of the betas can continue to grab
those releases.
Our goal remains unchanged - the support of as many d20
materials as possible. PCGen continues to be freeware and
is coded, supported and maintained by a dedicated group of
volunteers. We always can use more java Code Monkeys,
zealous List Monkeys to pour over and attack the data files,
perfectionist Documentation Monkeys, and Tracker Monkeys
(with soft paws!) who help us keep track of all the bugs and
features which need attention. In addition to that, feedback
at our yahoo site ( http://groups.yahoo.com/ group/pcgen ) is
always welcomed. That's also the place to volunteer to help
out. Join the fun on our team!
As is typical of PCGen releases, it is broken into 3 parts:
pcgen300_part1of3.zip is the application part.
pcgen300_part2of3.zip is the data (effectively a database
in ascii file format)
pcgen300_part3of3.zip is the documentation. This includes
a nice walkthrough and FAQ which is very entertaining! It
includes a discussion on how and where to submit bugs
and features. The FAQ also contains resolutions to common
problems regarding getting PCGen to work on your machine.
Please check out the About window in PCGen's Help menu.
Listed there are all the Code Monkeys, Test Monkeys and
List Monkeys without whom PCGen would not exist. A lot
of them have put in a lot of time - some have been with me
since the beginning nearly 2 years ago! In PCGen we have
found a way to create a utility that is useful for gamers, and
is respectful of the intellectual property of the authors of
all the material included in PCGen. PCGen is very useful to
generate and maintain characters but cannot replace the
need for the books themselves. For a fuller explanation of how
this is possible, see the various documents listed under
PCGen's Philosophy at pcgen.sourceforge.net. We're very
proud of the good relationships we have forged with virtually
the entire publishing community and we intend to keep things
that way.
All releases of PCGen are available at http://pcgen.sourceforge.net
System Requirements:
Java 1.4 (preferred for all OSes except Mac OS X at http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/download.html ) or Java 1.3 at http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/download.html
128MB of RAM (the more RAM the better!)
8MB disk space
Mac 8 & 9 users will need to either upgrade to Mac OS X or
use Virtual PC.
Although a lot of people have contributed significant amounts of
time and energy to PCGen for quite some time (just look at the
About window!), I'd like to mention a couple of people who
have really put in serious amounts of time dedicated to making
this release possible. Mynex (Rob Reed - Documentation) and
Tir Gwaith (Andrew McDougall - Data) have done an
outstanding job and I really appreciate their effort. If you see
them at GenCon, be sure to shake their hands and say thanks!
Please note that, although PCGen supports d20 materials,
PCGen itself is not a d20 product, nor is it OGL compliant.
We have never used nor implied compliance with either of
those two licenses, though we are investigating taking that
route. We seek the permission to include material from all
publishers within our application and would welcome a dialog
with any publishers who would like to have their material make
it's way into PCGen.
We've been working hard to get to a point where we feel that
PCGen had reached a level of reliability worthy of being
called a production-level application. The application now
supports enough functionality to handle the twists and tweaks
required by a variety of books which are currently available,
and we are constantly working on supporting an even larger
array of material. The data has also been picked and cleaned
and scrubbed and only those sources which meet our high
standard of perfection are included in this release. The
documentation will be unrecognizable to those who have been
with us for any amount of time - it's actually in English (rather
than Coder Gibberish) and gives lots of examples!
The Beta releases will continue on this site per normal and
will include the full complement of data which has been
entered into PCGen to this point. Production releases will be
much less frequent and will be centered around large milestones
in functionality being completed. We will determine the scope
of functionality for each production release based upon what
full support for as many books as possible will require, among
other objectives. This production release can then be used
by those who want a reliable, 'stable' release which won't
be updated until the next production release. Those who
like the frequent updates of the betas can continue to grab
those releases.
Our goal remains unchanged - the support of as many d20
materials as possible. PCGen continues to be freeware and
is coded, supported and maintained by a dedicated group of
volunteers. We always can use more java Code Monkeys,
zealous List Monkeys to pour over and attack the data files,
perfectionist Documentation Monkeys, and Tracker Monkeys
(with soft paws!) who help us keep track of all the bugs and
features which need attention. In addition to that, feedback
at our yahoo site ( http://groups.yahoo.com/ group/pcgen ) is
always welcomed. That's also the place to volunteer to help
out. Join the fun on our team!
As is typical of PCGen releases, it is broken into 3 parts:
pcgen300_part1of3.zip is the application part.
pcgen300_part2of3.zip is the data (effectively a database
in ascii file format)
pcgen300_part3of3.zip is the documentation. This includes
a nice walkthrough and FAQ which is very entertaining! It
includes a discussion on how and where to submit bugs
and features. The FAQ also contains resolutions to common
problems regarding getting PCGen to work on your machine.
Please check out the About window in PCGen's Help menu.
Listed there are all the Code Monkeys, Test Monkeys and
List Monkeys without whom PCGen would not exist. A lot
of them have put in a lot of time - some have been with me
since the beginning nearly 2 years ago! In PCGen we have
found a way to create a utility that is useful for gamers, and
is respectful of the intellectual property of the authors of
all the material included in PCGen. PCGen is very useful to
generate and maintain characters but cannot replace the
need for the books themselves. For a fuller explanation of how
this is possible, see the various documents listed under
PCGen's Philosophy at pcgen.sourceforge.net. We're very
proud of the good relationships we have forged with virtually
the entire publishing community and we intend to keep things
that way.
All releases of PCGen are available at http://pcgen.sourceforge.net
System Requirements:
Java 1.4 (preferred for all OSes except Mac OS X at http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/download.html ) or Java 1.3 at http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/download.html
128MB of RAM (the more RAM the better!)
8MB disk space
Mac 8 & 9 users will need to either upgrade to Mac OS X or
use Virtual PC.
Although a lot of people have contributed significant amounts of
time and energy to PCGen for quite some time (just look at the
About window!), I'd like to mention a couple of people who
have really put in serious amounts of time dedicated to making
this release possible. Mynex (Rob Reed - Documentation) and
Tir Gwaith (Andrew McDougall - Data) have done an
outstanding job and I really appreciate their effort. If you see
them at GenCon, be sure to shake their hands and say thanks!
Please note that, although PCGen supports d20 materials,
PCGen itself is not a d20 product, nor is it OGL compliant.
We have never used nor implied compliance with either of
those two licenses, though we are investigating taking that
route. We seek the permission to include material from all
publishers within our application and would welcome a dialog
with any publishers who would like to have their material make
it's way into PCGen.