lab vault upgraded?

[Pocus]

Originally posted by Johan K:
I don't like the idea of searching for magic items. It would require a button which complicates the interface. And it feels like a cumbersome thing to make in a good way. Also it doesn't feel important unless you play a very large game.

ok, taking a deep breath now, but I feel it is my duty to put a recurring problem on the discussion table (telling something that many thinks without daring to speak):

...and again we bump against the style of play that the IW team practice, small to medium games, versus large games (or medium games with a long duration, often the case in pbem) that fans prefers.
I suppose you never used Forge of the Ancients to produce mass of items too (200 items created in 15 turns for example).
And no its not producing items for the sake of producing items. An astral nation with the majority of his mages with spell foci and rune smashers is not a secondary advantage.

Before you flame away, can we have the official position of IW on what they feel is important versus what fans feel is important? Is our opinion really requested, or is this forum just a a place where fans asks for tech questions, and you respond, and thats all?

=>
Is it possible to think that you might consider some of the features requested by fans, even if you deem the feature of poor importance? I need a clarification on this. I make no idea about myself, I'm just lambda fan amongst many others, but at least knowing your position will help me posting (to be exact help me not posting). Perhaps there is a good half of all discussions here pointless if you think that you (the IW team) and only you decide what will make Dominions.

Last, but not least, I dont want the discussion to drift into this silly attitude that we (excluding the team here) are customers and vote with our purse. I like the game, I really like it (my preferred game since I play, roughly 1980 I will say). It even pushed Master of Magic in my heart, and it was not an easy task. I'm just asking that you take notice that you are selling a game, so it means you want people to play with it. The time were you made a game for your sole pleasure has ended, I hope you realized that. This is a fact, people play with a game because they find features in it that please them.

Hope you will take this post for what it is, a constructive critic.

[ October 23, 2003, 07:37: Message edited by: Pocus ]

[-Storm-]

Nice post Pocus, and I agree.

The search feature: Can you tell me that why it is not so important? In big games it is hellish hard to manage the items/commanders, so a search option for magic items would be VERY helpful.

[Particle]

Originally posted by -Storm-:
so a search option for magic items would be VERY helpful.

I agree.

[Johan K]

Originally posted by Jasper:
An alternative would be a function that simply dumped all leader information to a text file, which would be much easier. This could then be searched in a text editor, or used as input for a 3rd party tool. IIRC Stars! had something like this for sharing info with other players.

I like this idea much better. It would also make it possible to make a print out of all your provinces and commanders which you can then use to take notes on, read on the train or whatever.

[MStavros]

Originally posted by Johan K:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jasper:
An alternative would be a function that simply dumped all leader information to a text file, which would be much easier. This could then be searched in a text editor, or used as input for a 3rd party tool. IIRC Stars! had something like this for sharing info with other players.

I like this idea much better. It would also make it possible to make a print out of all your provinces and commanders which you can then use to take notes on, read on the train or whatever.

---

Well than add this at least?
Still the previous idea is lot better, IE a search option in game.
So you don't wanna add that search feature, because you are lazy?

This reminds me of Kristoffer's post in the Diplomacy thread. He said that JK is bored by AI scripting........
I really don't like this attitude. IW should listen to the fans, Pocus was right: you want us to buy the game, don't you?

[Wendigo]

Guys, they cannot listen to _every_ fan. It's impossible to satisfy everybody.

If there's a particular issue you consider important argument 'how much better' it would make the game, and maybe you will see it imped, or maybe not. The designers might disagree, or not have the time for it, or it might be impossible to implement code-wise.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Johan K:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jasper:
An alternative would be a function that simply dumped all leader information to a text file, which would be much easier. This could then be searched in a text editor, or used as input for a 3rd party tool. IIRC Stars! had something like this for sharing info with other players.

I like this idea much better. It would also make it possible to make a print out of all your provinces and commanders which you can then use to take notes on, read on the train or whatever.

---

It'd be especially cool if what you dump out could be read back into by another player, so you could share intelligence. Even better, if you could read in your own older turns, which would make keeping track of persistant information you can no longer see much easier.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by MStavros:
Well than add this at least?
Still the previous idea is lot better, IE a search option in game.
So you don't wanna add that search feature, because you are lazy?

You're insulting the _lone_ developer, who almost certainly already has way more to do than he has time for. It's one thing to talk about possible extensions and changes, it's quite another to demand _your_ ideas be implemented.

Why not relax a bit, and give these guys a break?

[Wendigo]

Originally posted by Pocus:
Lastly, do we have a tool which can tell us where our items are on our leaders? A search box, or a table listing items possessed on all leaders? try to find your staff of storm in a big game, you will understand the problem...
[/QB]

This is one of the things that you could alleviate up to a point with the renaming feature:

My SoS bearer is often called Stormbringer for example, George used to rename his communion slaves to reflect their task, I sometimes rename support mages (etherealizers...) & commanders that require script with numerals (bad for RP, but sometimes the MM & confussion from duplicated names is too daunting...it even gets to a point that sometimes I do not care about giving info to my opponents if it makes my gaming more pleasant (they see the leading guy name in their province reports obviously).

Pls keep renaming (or at the least tags) in the game.

[Pocus]

Originally posted by Wendigo:
Guys, they cannot listen to _every_ fan. It's impossible to satisfy everybody.

If there's a particular issue you consider important argument 'how much better' it would make the game, and maybe you will see it imped, or maybe not. The designers might disagree, or not have the time for it, or it might be impossible to implement code-wise.

I hope you saw in my post that I was not asking the devs that they ought to include every single bit of feature everybody asked (which would be a rather impossible and anyway undersirable task) .

That they include or not a search function is not fundamental, I was heading to the principle : is it possible that they, sometime, code a feature because we the fans perceive it as important, or is it a definitive no? I dont remember that they ever changed their mind on a feature they didnt liked initialy. Feel free to refresh my mind if I miss something.

remember the thread about army destruction spells? Reread it, you will see that :
1 - nearly all (or is it all) fans expressed their view that they were somehow too potents/convenients.
2- no devs made a remark. Why? because they disagreed and they felt it was like this and not in any other way.

btw data dumping is fine for me. I remember with fondness these 3rd party Stars! utils which were doing that. Very practical.

M. Stravos : You position is far more rigid than the one I have. I, personally, can understand that they have the right to not accept 90% of the requests we have (requests asked by more than one person whats more, not speaking of every single concept everybody has 20 times a day!). What I would not like is a percentage of 100% denial.