Ok, well, as a disclaimer, this all started out as a joke. Then we thought about how actually practical it might be. And then we realized that it actually works out really, really well.

In short, V3 will no longer use VC at all. It will use C# (C-sharp, if you live in a cave). Now this might be a bit confusing at first, so bear with me. To alleviate immediate concerns, you do NOT have to have the $1100 visual studio .net package or even the C# module. Microsoft has ever so kindly provided a completely freely redistributable C# compiler, which is now built into v3. And if you DO have Visual Studio .net, you will be able to use the pimp-ass debugger on your v3 C# code.

The net result of this is that V3 will allow fully object oriented coding, and all of the other language features of C#, which are considerable. Furthermore the C# compiler produces natively-compiled code that will run at full speed with no need for interpretation. Additionally, to alleviate some concerns that C# code looks too different and is in some ways sort of retarded (which it is), we are making a C# preprocessor which eliminates the need for C# code to be exceedingly verbose (which it is). The result is that the v3 scripting will look a lot like VC, with all of the power of an industrial-strength C-based language. Furthermore, while v3 provides the C# classes to do mostly everything a verge game needs to do, you have access to the entire range of .NET api classes, making the possibilities here pretty much limitless.

The only caveat is... all systems that want to run v3 will have to have the .NET components installed. This is similar to a JRE for java or something.. and unfortunately, it is 20 megs. But, Microsoft being the enormous force that it is, we're pretty confident that, like DirectX, everyone will simply have it after a little bit. For those with slow modems, you can start downloading it here, and hopefully it will finish by the time v3 comes out. ^_^ And the other caveat is, the change has set back v3 development about 2 weeks. Still, we feel that the advantages far outweight the costs... once the .net components are installed, the requirements for v3 will be even less since the scripting will be natively compiled.

As an added bonus, this alleviates many of the advantages that ika and sphere used to have >:D while still maintaining a C-style, simple scripting system. And believe me when I say that were are going to great lengths to ensure that the scripting is still as simple as possible. So in conclusion.. here are some links you should go to!

www.verge-net.com
Shlock's V3 FAQ (not yet updated with this stuff)