v1.10 changes

[Ruvanal]

Why all that changes to the internal structure off the game ?
I expect most off the bug removal and the changes to could have been done without reorganising the code to that level I understand it have been done! It might even could have been done a lot faster!

Most of the 'internal' changes were done to the skills and monsters set up to make it easier to do adjustments for balance tweeking. In a C program, if you are needing to change an internal data table (most skills and quite a bit of the monster AI/interactions had internal 'hard coded' settings), you would need to write the changes to the appriate source file and then recompile the executable again (potentially 1-3 hours would be my guess for this size of program). On the other hand if you can use data tables that are read in at program start (the stuff that is stored in the MPQ files normally), then you can do adjustments to those in usually very fast turn around times. When I am doing some testing of some of the game mechanics, I can frequently get some of the adjustments that I need done to the data files and a new game using these adjustments up and going in 5 to 15 minutes of starting the data file editing. A considerable savings in time if you will need to be going in frequently doing fine adjustments to some of the settings in skills and such. There was also a lot of adjustment to some of the support parts of the game 'properties' that would allow them to be more flexible also (these were parts that had almost exclusivly been in internal tables before).

For a single 'rebuild' of the game, it would typically be quicker to just do it at the source code level. But that 'rebuild' would need to almost exactly correct on the first rewrite. The more you would need to go in a fiddle with various adjustments to things (like trying to balance the skills to each other and the monster capabilities), the more you would be in need of a way to quickly do these adjustments. In which case you can get better savings by putting the effort in up front and making it easier to do these (numerous) adjustments later in the balancing process.