Topic: better messages about what is BEING made

Hello, the metal workshop and other buildings do have a very long lasting "skipping forging" message while another product is already being made. It would be to much to have the actual counter in the display but an little acknowledgement about the momentary product would be nice with eg a simple colour coding in red, yellow and green or perhaps a 3-fase bar. there is some space at the right side from the tab-bar. it could show the product name and icon there aswell with a single word perhaps even in that colour. i have no idear were to find the messages inside the c-script or luna script. although 'printf' works rather simple it probably is a rather large task, i asume. cheers

Top

Quote

Double dots :: does that mean its perl ?? it has the ampersand at the back& I go and try to read it, thank you

Top

Quote

Hi i am just reading the remarks and not much more and come to a simple conclusion that a "Busy" return "Result" would be nice

/// Calls a program of the productionsite.
///
/// Parameter syntax:
///    parameters         ::= program {handling_directive}
///    handling_directive ::= "on" Result handling_method
///    Result             ::= "failure" | "completion" | "skip"
///    handling_method    ::= Fail | Complete | Skip | Repeat
///    Fail               ::= "fail"
///    Ignore             ::= "ignore"
///    Repeat             ::= "repeat"

and "Duration" could be mentioned as "busy" value

    /// Does nothing.
///
/// Parameter syntax:
///    parameters ::= duration
/// Parameter semantics:
///    duration:
///       A natural integer. If 0, the result from the most recent command
///       that returned a value is used.
///
/// Blocks the execution of the program for the specified duration.

but i am not sure at all..... this is where i would start, i guess the most simplistic and common message is " busy for 'X' seconds " with only duration as value i read some off the translation files and that led to severall lua files with comments. somewhere there the "Busy" message probably will have to be added.

Top

Quote

Hi there. Found this wonderful game two days ago and I love it. But this really hits a nerve, it is highly irritating that what the building is actually doing right now seems impossible to find out. This goes much further than the "history" notification.

Mouseover shows the recent history. Ok. That feature is fine, but I think players hovering over the building are not ever interested in the last action performed. They always want to know what is currently happening. A history can be nice. Currently we have a history of 1. And that is the optional feature.

What's mandatory is to see what is currently happening. That's not "produced iron", that is "producing iron". Or "waiting for iron". That is inexistent.

What I'm trying to hammer home is that it's not about "how could I fit in these messages". It's about another (small) system missing. It's better to not even think about that mouse-over slot. We can ask what this is even supposed to do, once an action display is in place.

Now how could this work. Actually, you'd want that in the static info display (where it reads 90% and all that). Display a picture of the resource being made (or an idle symbol or just nothing). That's most of the job done.

Regarding the mouseover, I think it would still be better to display a text detail description of what is currently happening. The action messages could be a present-tense version of what currently is the "first history entry" (the current mouseover).

And if you want an actual history, push those messages into a textbox that is part of the window that opens when clicking a building. It is no problem to understand that it's not past-tense when it's labeled "history:".

Ok, now that this would be reintegrated... there's one more thing missing. The building's window should also clearly describe the current action. Namely the inputs. Producing 1 coal using 6 logs. Just tell me, please. I had to actually test how much logs one operation takes, because not even the (very nice) ingame help tells me the costs. It was also hard to find out if an operation needs all or any of the listed inputs. All this I could just learn from watching what the building currently does. Wouldn't even rely on up-to-date documentation, because it's automatically correct. But the game doesn't tell me.

So... my two cent. I didn't mean to sound as harsh as I probably did. I am perfectly aware that this isn't a commercial product and that one can easily say "this is no huge problem, not worth the effort" after playing only two days. And maybe you'd be right. The way I'm thinking (am commercially published indie dev) is that stuff like this is crucial to converting new players. And that means more people participating and that means a better product for everyone.

Alright, sorry for the ranty style, first post. I just really love this. Was about to play Siedler1 in WinUAE last weekend.

Top

Quote

impactus wrote:

Hi there. Found this wonderful game two days ago and I love it. But this really hits a nerve, it is highly irritating that what the building is actually doing right now seems impossible to find out. This goes much further than the "history" notification.

Mouseover shows the recent history. Ok. That feature is fine, but I think players hovering over the building are not ever interested in the last action performed. They always want to know what is currently happening. A history can be nice. Currently we have a history of 1. And that is the optional feature.

Agreed. +1 from me. However for all single product building it would suffice to have a working animation which we don't have unfortunately.

What's mandatory is to see what is currently happening. That's not "produced iron", that is "producing iron". Or "waiting for iron". That is inexistent.

It is inexistent because the String is a sidecatch of the productivity reporting.

What I'm trying to hammer home is that it's not about "how could I fit in these messages". It's about another (small) system missing. It's better to not even think about that mouse-over slot. We can ask what this is even supposed to do, once an action display is in place.

Now how could this work. Actually, you'd want that in the static info display (where it reads 90% and all that). Display a picture of the resource being made (or an idle symbol or just nothing). That's most of the job done.

Graphically demanding but I like the idea. To make this work it would need a zoomability of the strings with icons as well which might be a huge work in the graphics part. Changing the current string on mouse over should be much more easy to do.

Regarding the mouseover, I think it would still be better to display a text detail description of what is currently happening. The action messages could be a present-tense version of what currently is the "first history entry" (the current mouseover).

+1 see above

And if you want an actual history, push those messages into a textbox that is part of the window that opens when clicking a building. It is no problem to understand that it's not past-tense when it's labeled "history:".

Ok, now that this would be reintegrated... there's one more thing missing. The building's window should also clearly describe the current action. Namely the inputs. Producing 1 coal using 6 logs. Just tell me, please. I had to actually test how much logs one operation takes, because not even the (very nice) ingame help tells me the costs. It was also hard to find out if an operation needs all or any of the listed inputs. All this I could just learn from watching what the building currently does. Wouldn't even rely on up-to-date documentation, because it's automatically correct. But the game doesn't tell me.

that is on our list for long times, but so far nobody took the task to do this.

So... my two cent. I didn't mean to sound as harsh as I probably did. I am perfectly aware that this isn't a commercial product and that one can easily say "this is no huge problem, not worth the effort" after playing only two days. And maybe you'd be right. The way I'm thinking (am commercially published indie dev) is that stuff like this is crucial to converting new players. And that means more people participating and that means a better product for everyone.

As you are a dev you are more then welcome to contribute and provide a PR for these problems (or at least one of them) on our Github repository. Please ask if you need help or direction to the relevant parts of the code.

Alright, sorry for the ranty style, first post. I just really love this. Was about to play Siedler1 in WinUAE last weekend.

No worries. Although the style could be less direct the message was more the less right.

Top

Quote