This past Sunday, I was working on PW2. Things seemed to be going pretty well until I got the message I'd been dreading...Out of Memory. No problem you might think, just restart your computer, close down any other programs etc. No such luck. This was with pretty much all the memory I could have, and I hadn't even run the game. The sad fact was, I wouldn't be able to finish the game. There is more left to do than I can hope to squeeze in. If I could, I would just drop some non-essential features and finish the game the best I could. Unfortunately, I would have to leave so much out that I couldn't release it and call it a game.
The reason for the memory usage? Am I pushing Visual Basic to its absolute limits? Far from it. Its simply my lack of programming knowledge which means the way I've chosen to do things are not the way they should be done. There's a lot I still need to learn about Visual Basic before I can release a game like PW2 and be proud of it. Yes, I was proud of what was there so far, but the foundations it was all built around weren't strong enough to hold it.
So, the future of Promotion Wars... Promotion Wars 2 cannot be finished. I won't be restarting it from scratch again. What I will be doing is taking a step back from these games and improving my knowledge of Visual Basic as best I can. There may be a time in the future when I feel I have the knowledge needed to make a Promotion Wars game which contains the ideas I want to include. For now, my aim is to better myself as a programmer.
A question that is bound to come up a lot is whether I'll be releasing what has been done on PW2 so far. The answer to that is no, which no doubt some people may not understand. This version of Promotion Wars, just like the infamous 2001 PW2, is just another piece of screwed up paper that won't see the light of day. I don't want Promotion Wars to be remembered for some half finished game that can't even be played properly. I know there are people out there who have put their faith in me all the way, and have waited patiently for 2 years to play PW2. All I can say is I'm sorry. I gave it my best shot, and it turns out that's not good enough at this stage in my life. Sometime in the future, maybe things will be different, and I'll have the ability I need to deliver a new Promotion Wars game.
Thank you to all the people that kept this community alive for the past 2 years. Thank you to the people who worked with me on Promotion Wars 2. Sorry your hard work and dedication has gone to waste. I couldn't have asked for a better team, and can only hope that we get to work together again in the future.
And if anybody asks whether they can have the source code to PW2 so they can finish it properly....no.
So that's it. The end of the long and rocky story known as PW2. Not the way I would have chosen it to end, but there you go.
And if you're stuck for a place to go after reading this, you could hop over to the PW Arena and join the inevitable Jennings-bashing, or you could check out this site of an up and coming sim author. I'm sure you'll all agree this lad has a very bright future ahead of him, and may one day be the next Adam Jennings...
Das war das offizielle Statement von Adam Jennings auf seiner HP.
PW2 wird also niemand von uns jemals spielen werden.
Wirklich schade. Aber vielmehr tut mir der arme Kerl leid.