No interface Improvements?
 

I noticed that this patch didn't seem to change anything to Dom2's argueably weakest point: It's interface.

Does anyone know if Illwinter has any plans for this? It seems to be one of the biggest issues with all of the patch speculation and suggestions, yet nothing at all was done to help it. Most of them are rather minor, and certainly don't require much work, and it seems rather bizare that such common things as "Return to main menu" in game are not present.

It just boggles my mind we get something like Ulms new theme (which just boggles my mind in general) and not have such a widespread issue covered. (Especially when you may have a flock of potential new cusomters thanks to all the gaming mags reviews)

Re: No interface Improvements?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">OR I saw alot of discussion of alot of things that Users felt needed "fixed". I saw some responses from the devs that they were interested in some of them. I see a number of interface improvements in the patch. And now you comment that it looks like they did some fun things in their free time instead of a solo-player feature...
What was the question again?

[ January 13, 2004, 02:35: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: No interface Improvements?
 

If they plan to change any of the interface issues in coming patches, or is it something with a very low priority.

The interface DOES turn off people from buying the game when they try out the demo...and when minor things aren't worked on then what hope is there for the other problems?

Re: No interface Improvements?
 

According to Gandalf, there are interface improvements, even if they might not all be on the feature list.

Are there other examples of simple interface improvements that would make a meaningful difference?

Personally, I though the changes list looked super! Ulm Black Forest sounds interesting to me.

Also personally, I don't care at all if it has a "return to menu" option or not. It only takes a few seconds to exit and re-start manually, and it's something I almost never want to do in practice. It's possible it might not be entirely trivial to implement, either. Is that really a meaningful feature to you? Hard for me to imagine, but I realize everyone likes different things.

PvK

Re: No interface Improvements?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's the hard way. The easy way is to rpess 'e', then click on exit. It takes you back to the main menu and saves what you've currently done in your turn. You have the option of starting again, or continuing from the same orders when you go back to the turn.

Re: No interface Improvements?
 

Hmm wish I knew that when I was remaking the game 30 x in a row playing with the mod tools a few hours ago ;p

Re: No interface Improvements?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Interface changes would have to be made by JK, JK has only so much time. The new themes mainly take up Kristoffers time. Illwinter simply does not have the reources or time to implement all the interface suggestions.

Why does the Black forest theme boggle your mind? Ulm is inspired by amongst other Teutonic Knights and German Landsknechts. The black forest theme is Ulm an intended shift of style towards central and eastern Europe, Southern- Germany/Bavaria and Tranasylvania. One of the classic ingredients of gothic novels is tainted bloodlines, another feature common amongst the traditional, Anglo Saxon and Protestant, gothic novel is that it takes place in some part of catholic Europe, so making a goethicized fantasy 'Bavarian' Ulm is a natural step, I think.

Re: No interface Improvements?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You answered my question of the thread I started Last week (before I even know a patch was coming out). Thank you for this information.

I read Dekent's post as being serious constructive criticism. Maybe his tone or choice of words (like mine I am sure, it already happened, I am not the best writer in the world) makes it seem that certain good things are not appreciated, which I am sure is not the case. But if Dekent can be read as saying "hey these interesting features are good and make the game more variable, but I did not feel that the game was lacking in this area (note: that is a COMPLEMENT), but when I hear 'patch' I had hoped for global improvements in what I felt to be an area upon which could be improved, namely: the interface", then I would agree with him. Maybe people like he or I are in the vast minority of people who currently play or would be interested in playing DomII in the future, who knows? I personally dont feel the "exit" needs work, but my thread with interface questions really does.

But in any case, I feel that people should also be able to post their questions and opinions about this if done in an appropriate manner. I also really honestly believe that this can also be read as a compliment (e.g. the game is very very varied and very very well-balanced as it is), and that devs and everybody here can and should welcome constructive criticism.

Re: No interface Improvements?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You answered my question of the thread I started Last week (before I even know a patch was coming out). Thank you for this information.

I read Dekent's post as being serious constructive criticism. Maybe his tone or choice of words (like mine I am sure, it already happened, I am not the best writer in the world) makes it seem that certain good things are not appreciated, which I am sure is not the case. But if Dekent can be read as saying "hey these interesting features are good and make the game more variable, but I did not feel that the game was lacking in this area (note: that is a COMPLEMENT), but when I hear 'patch' I had hoped for global improvements in what I felt to be an area upon which could be improved, namely: the interface", then I would agree with him. Maybe people like he or I are in the vast minority of people who currently play or would be interested in playing DomII in the future, who knows? I personally dont feel the "exit" needs work, but my thread with interface questions really does.

But in any case, I feel that people should also be able to post their questions and opinions about this if done in an appropriate manner. I also really honestly believe that this can also be read as a compliment (e.g. the game is very very varied and very very well-balanced as it is), and that devs and everybody here can and should welcome constructive criticism. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I don't think my response to Dekent was particularily harsh, and I do think people are reporting their suggestions all over the board, without feeling particularily harassed. I am sorry if you feel I have stifled constructive criticism, I don't think so myself.

[ January 13, 2004, 08:24: Message edited by: johan osterman ]

Re: No interface Improvements?
 

As most newbies will find out; Johan O. is just down to business, not particularly harsh. He has the benefit of having to answer the same questions repeatedly http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

I found Dekent's post(s) more of the "I want, I want, I want" variety instead of the "constructive critisism" variety. Progress was made with the interface and as some might note, even with our shiny new publisher, the developers only have a certain amount of manpower to give you your patches.

I'm glad the patch included some of what we wanted while disappointed it didn't provide some of the major annoyances. I'm a firm believer that if you give a good enough argument with enough input that you can tempt Illwinter into giving very reasonable thought to your suggestion(s).

The opposite is true, if you trivialize or become greedy without doing more than ranting, I have very little faith they will listen to you.

With that said; I'm sure a new wish list for a future patch will be surfacing soon; and I'm sure they already have in mind their list of priorities to patch as soon as they can.

Just for Alex. Adjusting Battle Replay Speed!

Re: No interface Improvements?
 

Oh no I did it again. Help!

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No, goodness, your post was exactly to the point and not harsh at all. It was not addressed to you whatsoever. I did have the feeling that other people found forms of constructive criticsm (unfortunately perhaps badly formulated like me and my English, so there is lots of room for misunderstanding) to be attacks on the developers.

Sorry for the misunderstanding again.

Re: No interface Improvements?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Thats still the (one and only one) major gripe I have against doms II compared to doms I. Count me on the list too.

Re: No interface Improvements?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If you read back thru some of the older threads you will see that you are coming in on the tail end of some of us trying to train other people in how to ask for things. You definetly have not been the worst. Some got rather loud and rude about things they thought were "broken" and "must be fixed" along with other more insulting choice of words. So things that come up often now from some of us are comments about how the devs have "real jobs and families" and are working on things that they "find interesting" in their "free time" that Users have "requested". I dont really know for sure how much the devs agree with all that but it has made an obvious difference in which threads here they join in, no matter if the ideas are good ones or not.

Re: No interface Improvements?
 

Hmmm I just had my own thought (maybe I should use that "search" in the upper-right of this screen first to see if anyone else has already suggested it)

Anyway, I was thnking that maybe the buttons for some things could change their text to provide info. It would save some button-pressing and make that main screen more informative.

Such as different text for the Mercenaries and Army Setup and Recruit.
Maybe Army Setup could change the color on that formation icon to green to show you that you have unassigned units.

Recruit could show red for things still in the queue so you know which ones arent building when you are viewing a province.

Mercenaries was the main thought. Maybe changing color or text such as
Mercenaries
no Mercenaries (meaning there are none avilable for hire)
due Mercenaries (or something to show that some are due for renewal)
Or maybe it could just be a plus and minus sign added to show hireable and due for rehire

[ January 13, 2004, 16:59: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: No interface Improvements?
 

Well I paid 50$ for this game, plus S&H..thats more then most NORMAL full budget games I buy. So expecting the same line of support shouldn't be out of the question.

Now from the start when I received this game I was disappointed, even before I opened it up. (No jewel case?) Then after playing it, it really isn't Dom2 so much as Dom1.5...For every step forward there seemed to be a step backward, and at the end I felt Dom2 was just about the same as 1, and only continued to play it (2 over 1) due to the new races, which is a rather weak point considering I have only played about 4 of the orginal to any great extent so far.

Now I belive both Dom1 and Dom2 are execellent games, and I have received more fun for my buck then any other nonblizzard game I have played. I still have my orginal dom1 folder floating around, 3 years old as it is and being bumped around from various HDs and partitions, I can't say that about ANY other game =)

Yesterday I was rather jaded, I have been very busy IRL and was settling down to relax and play some Dom2. The patch was out, I jumped for joy, oh boy...it screwed up my old save game which was nearing turn 200 and I was preparing to launch a final attack againt Jot (his dominion was swallowing me but I had most of the provinces)

"Well let's start over, I can play around with the mod tools and see what I can do....lets see....*opens up manual*..not working yet...not working yet...not working yet....but hey! I can add units to a nation, this might be fun, oh and customize units, that can be interesting too...*makes a few test lines, launches and adds mod*....well at least it didn't crash..lets fire up my good ol starting map....hmmm what? 'Abyssia has cheated! Ermor has Cheated! Ulm has Cheated! Pangaea has Cheated!' ack what is that....wait where did all these arch mage....GAAAAH!!"

Ok now I realize im ranting, but im still off my rocker ;p

I don't play Dom to win, I don't play multiplayer on it, I play it to have FUN, like I play almost all my games. Of the 70 or so games I have played (all vs cpu) I reckon I have won about..3. Most of the time I quit when I'm about to win, however more often then not it is because I lose. Now I don't consider myself a bad player, I just tend to give the CPU huge advantages including custom gods and scales, and large starting armies, or against ermor, let em expand and become their giant jugernaught selves.

Unfortually the patch has killed all my current work in this area, and since gods and scales have to be 'legit' now, it killed my primary means of having fun in this game. Odds are I'm just going to play with the mod tools some then reinstall (or am I able to make multiple installs of this game?) and go back to my old ways, I'm not quite sick of em yet =)

I hope all this helps yall understand why I often come off as being very cynical or demanding around here. I really do like the game and respect Illwinter for their hard work when they already have so much to do. I would just like it if the game didn't try to make me NOT like it so much =)

Re: No interface Improvements?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Of course there is a list http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif .

I would love to have the battle speed adjustable, for my sake as well as Alex's, but is is not feasible until the bugged battle replays are fixed, and that is an elusive bug. Unless the new suggestions regarding cross-OS-dunno-what give JK some good imput I do not think it will be easily solved. Unless the new imput is right it is not a bug in the battle, but generated earlier in the game, making it rather difficult to trace.

Re: No interface Improvements?
 

Sorry about your cheating gods http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif .

We intended to make a feature that increased playability. As we came across a problem of cheating in MP games we thought that it would be a good idea to disable or reduce the cheating opportunities. Of course we do not care if SP's cheat.

Re: No interface Improvements?
 

CUSTOM gods damnit ;p

How about this...leave the message in, but remove the part where they get turned into archmages. That way multiplayer people know whats going on AND it doesn't affect single player =)

Re: No interface Improvements?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Now that is interesting to me... This tells me that you did not even read what you were ordering... I just ordered the game Last week(received it yesterday)... It clearly states that you will receive the manual shrieked wrapped with the CD inside... If it is really that big of a deal, email me your address and I will mail you a jewel case... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: No interface Improvements?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Good idea.
You can immediately know who is cheating without hurting SP.

Re: No interface Improvements?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Now that is interesting to me... This tells me that you did not even read what you were ordering... I just ordered the game Last week(received it yesterday)... It clearly states that you will receive the manual shrieked wrapped with the CD inside... If it is really that big of a deal, email me your address and I will mail you a jewel case... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hmm I preordered it before it even came out, money left my Credit Card, it came a few days after release, it never mentioned anything about its packaging.

Dom1 had a nice little dvd case thing it came in, I was rather hoping for something like that. It's not a big deal just a minor thing, I stole a case from a CD-R.

Re: No interface Improvements?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Welcome to the "real world" of the internet... the vast majority of the internet is plagued by such stuff... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I can say that about Space Empires III and IV. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Although, SE III is far older than that... Civ II has also survived for quite a long time intact on my computer in all its incarnations.

[ January 14, 2004, 02:39: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: No interface Improvements?
 

Maybe we should in turn, welcome you to the Shrapnel Dom 2 Forums as opposed to you welcoming the Internet. The community here is not the vast majority of the internet, otherwise you'd see a "Blizzard" or "Ubisoft" as the publisher and not Shrapnel Games.

What the Internet is like and what you create a community to be are two entirely different things. I'd hope you'd appreciate that aspect and not the fact that the world is filled with *******s http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: No interface Improvements?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That is a great post. Comments like this about other themes would be great as well.

Re: No interface Improvements?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ive put Dominions into the Category with MoM and Stars! which have lived on my computers thru 6 Versions of Windows.

Gandalf Parker

Re: No interface Improvements?
 

I have MoM, Moo2, and KoDP as some of my old legacy games that still keep dishing out fun =)

What is Stars exactally? I've heard about it but have never been able to find any good information on it, or where one could obtain it.

And the black forest is weird because they took Ulm, the nation known for being a wall of steel, of turned them into a bunch of sneakers, black forest is almost a completally different nation, where most of the themes are just minor changes. I'm not complaining, and I found them fun to play, but that is a rather drastic change you have to admit.

Re: No interface Improvements?
 

Stars is a space conquest game which feels alot like Dominions in many ways. Its PBEM but also greatly enjoyable for solo play. You have many options in creating the race you start with allowing many very different styles of play. It doesnt have quite as many options as dominions but it was safe to say that people who loved starts should look at dominions.

The only thing I would say it fell short of Dominions for me was that its old. Its alot of fun to play and discover tactics that work but as far as the community of the game it felt like there was nothing new to discover. Even *I* was unable to offer any interesting twists they hadnt seen. But it is alot of fun and I still load it to every one of my machines.
http://www.starsfaq.com/

[ January 14, 2004, 19:54: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: No interface Improvements?
 

Is stars! still the micro hell that I remember it being? Sometime in the middle 90s I stumbled across it, checked out a demo and ditched it almost immediately as the micro was such a chore that it killed all the enjoyment for me.

Granted I didn't really give it a long enough look to perhaps learn shortcuts and better methods for doing what I wanted, but at first look... well alot of the time first impressions are the most important (Dom suffers from this too, but I'm more of a sucker for fantasy based games than sci-fi ones).

Re: No interface Improvements?
 

actually the biggest real difference (so far) is that in stars! it's a spreadsheat controlled game where there IS an uber race design and UBER ship design etc. and if you don't follow em and the enemy does your going to lose unless of course the enemy is a strategic nincompoop of course in which case you just got lucky lol.

but seriously I see people comparing the two games a lot and I just don't see the comparison. (aside from the fact that both are great games in thier own right.) but dominions is by far the more balanced where you can play ANY of the races and have an even chance of winning (as long as you don't totally barf on your dominion design but even if you do it's possible to make up for it with good sound strategy) it really is hard to really make a totally unplayable "god" in dominions but in stars it's the opposite it's hard to make a playable "race" hehe.

I guess it's the relatively large number of players per game and PBEM styles of the two that seem to mak epeople want to compare them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ January 14, 2004, 21:07: Message edited by: DimmurWyrd ]

Re: No interface Improvements?
 

Spreadsheet style? *flashback of moo3* ....*shudders*...Stars is a game right? It's not a simulation of a game? ;p

Re: No interface Improvements?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hmmm stars didnt strike me as spreadsheet. VGAPlanets did but not Stars. I think alot of Stars people came to Dominions because if you LIKED stars then you probably liked it for all the starting variations which allowed for completely different playing strategies (oh yeah, plus you already understood and were willing to overlook the quirks of a PBEM game)

What Stars did well, Dominions did much better. IMHO