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Topic: Honest review and tips fro development of Widelands from an outside person

GunChleoc
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Joined: 2013-10-07, 15:56
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Posted at: 2020-10-19, 19:44

I use Ctrl all the time to place the flags automatically.

I plan to implement another training wheel for rocks that will teach how to place a road bit by bit rather than in 1 go. Which one comes first will be random.


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Nordfriese
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Joined: 2017-01-17, 18:07
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Posted at: 2020-10-19, 20:49

I recently installed the game Naev and tried to learn how to play. They have a great interactive tutorial, but most of the time I'm told "press this hotkey and then that hotkey and then yonder hotkey" and I kept wondering, why this and that and in this order and with those modifiers? Because even though they explained how to play they did not explain very well why those actions are necessary. In the end I uninstalled the game again.

I felt a bit like this when playtesting this branch: The text explaining how to build the woodcutter's house is fine. But afterwards, I'm told to Ctrl-click the main building's base flag, and I only wonder, why?? I clicked, and saw a road appear. From this I deduced, the Ctrl modifier is there to create roads!
Well, almost…

Edit: So I'd suggest being clearer about why we need roads (before just saying how to create them).
Are the strings meant to are on Transifex already before the PR has been reviewed?

Edited: 2020-10-19, 20:55

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GunChleoc
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Posted at: 2020-10-20, 10:44

I put them on Transifex so I could test the i18n setup.

We can definitely tweak the explanations. Please keep in mind that this branch is mostly a proof of concept - e.g. we should explain the building spaces before we start building. I don't want to end up with a huge branch that has has the complete training all polished and ready to go - that would make it unreviewable.

I am already planning another task for building a quarry that will create roads without using Ctrl, and once we have all of the tasks done that involve road building, then we can fill any remaining explanation gaps.


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ZADNE
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Joined: 2020-10-07, 19:10
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Posted at: 2020-10-21, 08:32

What GunChleoc has made look exactly like what I meant.

Nordfriese wrote:

I'd suggest keeping the hints even more basic though, telling the player to hold down Ctrl is perhaps too much to start with

Agree with this, a tip like this should go into loading screen tips. Or at some point later. I am pleasantly surprised! Keep this direction!

Edited: 2020-10-21, 10:09

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GunChleoc
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Posted at: 2020-10-23, 12:18

I have made a list of things that we will want to teach. Please let me know if I have missed anything.

https://github.com/widelands/widelands/issues/4396


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CrisiusXIII
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Joined: 2020-09-01, 07:18
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Pry about Widelands
Posted at: 2020-11-10, 05:53
Configure economy - This is another great feature that can help maintaining a huge economy. I don't think S2 had anything like this. Although I don't understand why this menu is accessed from a flag? This should be in the bottom menu next to Ware statistics etc.


I think to remember that in some S-serie you could check what amount of wares were available at a flag-pole.
Edited: 2020-11-10, 08:19

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