Observations (v1.49)

[MegaTrain]

quote:

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Originally posted by proton2112:
This is being posted to both the Yahoo! group, the Shrapnel message board, as well as emailed to Malfador and Shrapnel's support departments.
<snip>
5b) When you pull up the construction queue for a planet. Often you want to see the facilities on the planet. I know that you can right-click on the middle-top portion of the screen (right below the blue 'Construction Queue' text, where the planet info is), but my friend had no idea.
<snip>
13R) The return key doesn't always work and I really really really think it should.
13E) Escape doesn't always close a window.
<snip>
-EB

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--So where is the Yahoo group that discusses SEIV? In Yahoo chat, Yahoo clubs, or somewhere else?

5b - Really?? Very cool! I've always needed to check the facility count of a planet in the construction queue, but I didn't know there was a way to do it without leaving the box.

13 - This is a MAJOR pet peive of mine.
The most annoying is when you are in one of the big lists, either planets or colonies or construction queues, and you right-click on a planet to see its facilities/percentages/population, you can't close it with EITHER the Enter or the ESC key!! So if I'm going down the list looking for a specific feature, it takes me forever. (I know, of course, that you can sometimes see what you want by changing what columns are showing, but you can't see everything that way.)

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-MegaTrain-
Athlon 1.3 GHz running at 1.6 GHz on an iWill KK266

[Andrés]

quote:

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Originally posted by MegaTrain:
--So where is the Yahoo group that discusses SEIV? In Yahoo chat, Yahoo clubs, or somewhere else?

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Exactly in Yahoo Groups
And it's much older than this forum, I remember reading there that Shrapnel Games was going to be the publishers of SE4.

http://Groups.yahoo.com/group/SE4

[This message has been edited by Andrés Lescano (edited 07 November 2001).]

[Andrés]

To answer your Q:

1)
Your test game is a turn-based-movement game?
That is nice because you play in the same way that in single player or hot-seat, but it's too slow.
File name doesn't change in simultaneous turn games.
Most players use simultaneous movements and most multiplayer options are thinked for that kind of game.

There are a couple of player made programs that may help you:
Fuerte's PBeM helper (although you'd be forced to use email that is of course slower than ICQ)
and Matryx SE4 Launcher

I don't recall links to those programs. You'll find them searching in the forum.

Also setting a game in PBW makes it easier.


1.a) Yeah that would be cool. Maybe a future patch?

2) Yes, it seems that feature doesn't work as expected.

3)

4) Never seen that problem. I always seems to close correctly for me.

5) I agree. UI is still a mess. SE3 used windows GUI and right click menus, and most players that played it agree it was much better than se4. After playing a little you get used to it, but it still many buttons that you're forced to click with the mouse and have no workaround with the keyboard.

6) Hit Esc first and then F11.
I don't think that's one of the major problems in the UI

7) Cliking in show desktop works for me.

8) Yep, I've seen the game crash that way too.

9) You can turn all names on in the popup map, it makes it too confusing.

10) Don't worry, IIRC there are scrolling arrows if all comps cannot be displayed. A condensed view would be nice thoug.

11) You're taking about planetary systems, not galaxies. That's how you can order a ship to move from one system to another.

12) Yep, the manual is nearly useless. There are a few player written documents, and there was the idea of compiling a new manual, but never got to be done.

13) Return and Esc support was added in a patch, and it's a miracle they even work in some windows.
And even in those where it works, you still need to use the mouse to click in the options. How about a mimic of windows GUI that allows navigating through the menus using arrow keys, tab and enter/space?

14) Why send things to Srapnel support when you can and have already sent it directly to Malfador Machinations? And got an answer from Aaron Hall himself. That is the support email listed in MM's site.

[proton2112]

>> 14) Why send things to Srapnel support when
>> you can and have already sent it directly
>> to Malfador Machinations? And got an
>> answer from Aaron Hall himself. That is
>> the support email listed in MM's site.

You're probably right there. I just wanted to make sure everyone saw it. Sometimes you send a complaint somewhere and the "right person" (the one that would say "heyyyy.. we gotta do something about this") never sees it so it sits in a pile. Nothing against Aaron, if you say he's the man I believe you

Furthermore, it doesn't look like I'll get a chance to send it to Shrapnel. After forcing you to sign up for a support ID/password, I found out that the text box on their support form (which is 55 characters by 5 lines high) takes no more than 5000 characters :/ I asked them to send me an actual email I can send to. We'll see...

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Let's be honeset here. This game is a poweruser game. It's for people that love tons of details and are fine with memorizing and reading a bunch of stuff.

I just think that it could move a lot closer to mass-appeal if it was more consistent, well thought out, and easy to use (despite being complex), and the things I listed generally speak to what I see as the lack of that (errr).

I think you know what I'm saying.

On the Yahoo group someone said the solution to my problems was to buy MOO--whatever when it comes out. That's all well and good but I bought THIS game and I want it to run smoothly. That's the only reason I spent an hour compiling that list

*shrug*

[This message has been edited by proton2112 (edited 08 November 2001).]