The joys of MS arguments lol, I actually do love you guys.
Anyhow, Mith there is a lot that has happened away from the public tests, for example we have gigantic scrolling maps, area of effect spells of definable shapes and sizes relative to the players position and direction facing (think Tibia), have applied the theory of object orientation as much as possible throughout and done a lot of work throughout the source just to rip out and redo aspects of the code that perhaps Consty could of written differently.
The community doesn't yet know of the scrolling maps, area of effect spells, relative spells, or any of that nonsense yet - I've just said it to perhaps reinforce the idea that wile the public test hasn't really changed, there is a lot we aren't sharing yet.
I'll admit its a slow development, but its a hobby - its there to be enjoyed after all :3
Matt was correct in saying the GUI has had to be redone to incorporate code changes, the picscreen has changed to accommodate the scrolling maps, the hotkey bar is there to accommodate the ability to drag potions and spells down there to assign them to your F keys, the cast bar is there for spell cast times, each hotkey box has a spell cooldown bar that you can't see unless a spell is cooling down, the party window is there to incorporate our grouping code, etc etc, its all functionality that we can't incorporate into the current interface. The change is an expansion on the current to accommodate what we have been working on, not a change for the sake of it.
The point I'm trying to put across (perhaps badly) is although on the face of the public test there is little to see, everything we have been working on for months will suddenly bloom in the next test - its just a case of pulling it all together which has been extremely difficult. For example large map(s?) = big packet sizes, so very strict clipping and packet methods had to be written, compression had to be revisited, the default player location handling client AND server side in MS suddenly becomes completely useless as soon as you implement sharded scrolling so that needs redone, every time you recode something as a benefit there are 5 steps backwards as you redo other systems to fully take advantage of your change from the ground up - in essence, because of our constant lust for ensuring the code in its entirety is all inter-twined and complimentary things take a lot longer than if we were to bolt things on as I have done in the past when I actively coded - we're all too aware of vb's shortfalls, as if you want that extra half a second of map loading time, if you want the player indexes within your screen radius to be absolutely spot on regardless, it takes a lot longer than we would like in vb6.
Turning into a long post, it needn't be - no need to argue guys, lets just enjoy MS eh :3
EDIT: To answer Aydan's question, I left the team for about 2 months as the shit hit the fan in RL for me, the changes posted by Egon were the direction those guys were going to take MR in. I came back, and, without sounding rude, kicked said changes in the face xD
EDIT2: To answer Miths question - perhaps we may have a game we could consider 'finished' - but we are no where near the stage of development we are aiming at. The development on the test server is just for the luls, its a small test playground of the client as it was a few months ago - everything I say here eventually leaks into the community so I'd rather not say too much but the current test server is but a fraction of the engine we are working towards.
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