lab vault upgraded?

[MStavros]

Originally posted by johan osterman:
We've been through this before

1. No one currently gets paid for the work they do on dominions, people here have a life besides illwinter, people here have to make a living of other sources then illwinter. There is only one person that does allmost all of the coding. He cannot add every singel feature you want, he cannot even realistically add 10% of all the features you want, he couldnt he if could devout all his time to coding dom 2, he cannot devout 100% of his time to dom 2 coding. Ergo less then 10% of the requests you make can realistically be implemented.

2. Pocus, you say that you cannot recall a single instance where illwinter has come around and implemented fan requested features they initially didn't like. Fist of all it is not true, no one here is interested in modding, copying scripts has been added, teloportability of immobiles removed and many many more. There are perhaps fan requested ideas that have and will not ever be implemented, but implementing ideas just because they are popular is a crappy idea, they have to have some other merit as well, and this merit has to be judged by illwinter whether you like it or not, and its merit weighed against the effort to implement it and in game factors. A feature that is fun to add is of course more likely to be implemented since that is much less of a chore. If illwinter designed games by polling dom 2 would be a Sims like game where brightly dressed elves shot each other with multicolored rays of love. Dominions couldnt have been made if it wasnt made the way it is, if JK and Kristoffer didn't enjoy doing dominions it wouldn't have been made at all. Perhaps this leads to the exclusion of some features you desire, but unless dom 2 makes a big impact in illwinters coffers and a slave coder can be hired it is likely to remain this way. And it can't be all bad since this design process has lead to the game you say like more than any other for 20 years.

3. In general if you want to have a feature added, ask politely. People at illwinter are human and insults and outright demands doesn't improve your chances of having a request implemented. This goes for questions as well, if you wish to get an answer, be polite.

I think I was polite enough. I don't think that my post was offensive.

Johan, I think you didn't read what we have posted. How do I know it?

'If illwinter designed games by polling dom 2 would be a Sims like game where brightly dressed elves shot each other with multicolored rays of love.'

Are you serious? So if we are asking for options like a search for magical items in game, that is bad? That will make the game look like Sims? Sorry but I am totally confused.
I think that everyone here had very good ideas.
The mod tools, the diplomacy system, the armor-weapon system, the search feature. These things would add a lot to the game. Don't tell me that these are bad ideas! You can't be serious if you say so..take a look at this wanted in-game search: what the hell is wrong with that? That would help a lot, if it would be implented. It is hard to believe that you don't see it...or don't wanna see it.

[ October 23, 2003, 16:13: Message edited by: MStavros ]

[st.patrik]

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?

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?

I think this is pretty offensive - calling the devs lazy, criticizing their attitude, telling them what they *should* do.

Maybe you don't realise how it comes off when you say these things - but it doesn't come off as polite. It's a pretty good idea to read over your Posts before clicking the 'add reply' button, just to make sure you don't come off as offensive - remember that Messages like these are a pretty limited form of communication - no tone of voice, no body language to clarify your meaning.

[johan osterman]

Originally posted by MStavros:
I think I was polite enough. I don't think that my post was offensive.

Johan, I think you didn't read what we have posted. How do I know it?

'If illwinter designed games by polling dom 2 would be a Sims like game where brightly dressed elves shot each other with multicolored rays of love.'

Are you serious? So if we are asking for options like a search for magical items in game, that is bad? That will make the game look like Sims? Sorry but I am totally confused.
I think that everyone here had very good ideas.
The mod tools, the diplomacy system, the armor-weapon system, the search feature. These things would add a lot to the game. Don't tell me that these are bad ideas! You can't be serious if you say so..take a look at this wanted in-game search: what the hell is wrong with that? That would help a lot, if it would be implented. It is hard to believe that you don't see it...or don't wanna see it.

I have read what you have posted, and I did find the accusatory tones of your and Pocus Posts offensive. You call JK and Kristoffer lazy because they have to priorotise between ideas and do not have the resources to add any changes you can come up with. In my book that is offensive.

No the ideas are not bad, there is nothing bad about an ingame item search. But in your post you say that in game items search will not be added because JK doesnt want to code it. This is true in the same way it is true that you do not want to learn C and code it yourself, it is possible to do but it requires a lot of effort he think is better spent elswhere. Illwinter has limited resources and has to priorotise between additions, that is all there is to it, it will not change however much you complain about it, unless of course you plan on making a sizeable monetary contribution.

[ October 23, 2003, 16:37: Message edited by: johan osterman ]

[Kristoffer O]

Originally posted by Pocus:

2- no devs made a remark. Why? because they disagreed and they felt it was like this and not in any other way.

Because I work 70+50%=120% a week besides work on Dominions and only read these forums on my spare time.

There have been a lot of Posts lately.

[ October 23, 2003, 16:45: Message edited by: Kristoffer O ]

[Gandalf Parker]

Wow this sounds like familiar (and scarey) territory. Ive admined MUDs for decades and continually had to post reminders such as...

we arent getting paid
we have other responsibilitys
this is our game
we work first on things we like
asking nice and appreciation has been known to upgrade things into things we like

The scary part is that Ive seen disparaging comments cause MUDs to lose their best admins and programmers where all we got was one post saying "this isnt worth it, goodbye"

I dont get the impression that the crowd at Illwinter got rich from Dom 1. And the pricing structure on Dom 2 might make it seem like things have moved out of the please & thank you territory but remember that they havent seen that money yet either.

[ October 23, 2003, 16:52: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[MStavros]

Originally posted by johan osterman:

No the ideas are not bad, there is nothing bad about an ingame item search. But in your post you say that in game items search will not be added because JK doesnt want to code it. This is true in the same way it is true that you do not want to learn C and code it yourself, it is possible to do but it requires a lot of effort he think is better spent elswhere. Illwinter has limited resources and has to priorotise between additions, that is all there is to it, it will not change however much you complain about it, unless of course you plan on making a sizeable monetary contribution.

Sorry but there was a post by Kristoffer that JK was bored by scripting something.....Guess you didnt saw that post.

I can understand that you don't like an idea, but you must agree that this search option should be a decent addition.
If Iw want to concentrate on something else, that is ok, but please consider to add things like this. This feature would be very, very, very helpful indeed.

[Pocus]

I raised the issue because of the initial remark of Johan K. For him it doesnt feel important to ask a search feature in-game.
My point remain valid : few things have been done so far to alleviate the end game micro. If you check back a poll on the most asked features, it was rather obvious that the people **which played doms I** were very concerned about the micromanaging problems of the end game.
I dont feel that I have been offensive, unless you put in the same bag the Posts of M. Starvos, which is somehow blunt in his comments, and Posts of mines.

The most offensive sentence I can think of is when I doubted that you implemented a feature which you did not like initially. Thats a rather harmless offense I would say, but if you feel it is one, then I have no problems apologizing for this part of the post.

Please take note also that I'm not asking for something fancy, like video of green elves dancing or whatever you spoke of. I'm asking for a mean to find items, which is a pain to do in big games. Aside from not liking the idea, why do you feel it is a detrimental feature to the game? I think I bring valid points on why it is of importance in big games.

And sorry if I bring again the topic, because on this I have not changed my mind : true, you have created a game which allow players - theorically - to play big & huge games. In practice it asks for the utmost motivation because of the lack of micromanaging tools. And the lack will remain, because you dont see the interests in these tools (see first sentence of the post...).

[johan osterman]

Originally posted by Pocus:
I raised the issue because of the initial remark of Johan K. For him it doesnt feel important to ask a search feature in-game.
My point remain valid : few things have been done so far to alleviate the end game micro.

I think you ought to hold your judgement on this issue until you have at least tried the demo.

[LordArioch]

Illwinter is completely free to do whatever they want with their game. They CHOSE to make a game for our enjoyment (and their own) and we CHOSE to pay money to pay for it. It's nice that they listen to major points usually and make changes (commander scripting anyone?), but although pleasing customers is good for sales they aren't required, or even expected, to search through forum Posts for good ideas to implement.

From what I've heard most of the end game micro has been reduced already, as we now have:
*overview screens
*patrolling/taxes toned down
*easy scripting

and probably other things I forgot.

I think the text file output would be nice because it would be easier to implement, and it would allow you to find items or whatever you were looking for. I have no problem with Illwinter handing out the data for 3rd party programs to make pretty. Maybe I can gather some support on this here rather than just having people tell Illwinter what to do.

[PvK]

Dominions is excellent, and many of the things I like most about it are its unique qualities which seem to be the unique things the developers thought were fun and interesting.

Dominions II looks like it will also be quite excellent. What I'm looking forward to the most are more neat things from the developers' imaginations.

Illwinter does great original work. They don't seem to need much help with player suggestions, although many of the suggestions are good and I'm sure often are helpful.

The fact that a game with such awesomely superior design and detail has come from folks working on their own time, deserves a lot of respect, not to mention politeness.

As cpbeller has posted on another thread, and as Richard has had to repeatedly mention and even close down threads (which he rarely has had to do on other forums), some of you folks, though intelligent and tasteful enough to choose and enjoy Dominions, have been very disappointingly insensitive in your statements towards others.

If you like Dominions, I suggest you try to be polite towards the developers and the other players. Your suggestions are welcome, but don't waste Illwinter's (or the players') time and attitude by behaving like a troll on their forums. They could've implemented a nice new feature with the time and energy they spent having to explain to you that swearing and calling them lazy is ridiculous behaviour, etc.

PvK