Re: Problems, suggestions, etc.

[Hans Ronne <hronne at telia dot com>]

>Problems:
>
> o In the current version, the map fonts are very large. I am running in
>   800x600, but I always have been, and I haven't noticed this before. I did
>   change my X setup a while ago, but I don't know if that could be the cause.
>   At the moment I just have feature/unit names displays turned off. Other
>   fonts seem quite large, but they are not _too_ large.
>
>   Probably as a result of this problem, the `do you want to save', and `do
>   you want to resign' screens that appear when I quit do not fit entirely
>   into their windows. (only half of the yes/no buttons fit)

The default map font is 12 pt Helvetica. This looks good at normal
resolutions, nut it may look big if you are running at 800 x 600. The main
problem with the map fonts is that you really need to scale the sizes
according to the magnification of the map. Otherwise it looks silly at
small magnifications. I added such code earlier this year, but the price of
this was (for now) fixed font sizes at each magnification. It may change in
the future.

>Suggestions:
>
> o Some of the games that appear in the default list (without `List All Games'
>   toggled) seem to be incomplete. Perhaps this list should only have the
>   Standard game, LotR, and the WW2 ones? I haven't played all the variations,
>   but I remember that when I played Ancient Rome / Roman Civil War, it was
>   very unbalanced and perhaps not finished.

Actually, I have been going through all the game modules recently, updating
them as necessary and promoting or demoting their status. This has long
been neglected since there were so many bugs to fix. These changes have not
been checked in yet, but they will be soon.

>   Along the same lines, the README ( Welcome to xconq 7.4!) file has a long
>   list of games that are available, which includes some that are unplayable.
>   Perhaps this list should be shortened? Perhaps the emphasis should be on
>   the Standard Game, or LotR which are playable and fun.

I will update the README file as well before the 7.5 release. It's
completely out of date.

> o In the `Game Setup' screen, is it possible to not display the `Unused'
>   slots? Failing that, would it be possible to list them all at the end?

It's easy to remove the "unused" text. In fact, I already did that in the
mac interface since it does look a little weird. Changing the order in
which variant options (active or inactive) are shown is a little trickier.

> o When I first started playing xconq, I found the help dialog quite
>   because I didn't realize what was generic help, what was game description,
>   unit/terrain lists etc. Would it be possible to put a separator (--- or
>   something) in between each different type, to make this clearer?

Perhaps. These help nodes have to work with all interfaces, though, so
changing their layout is not trivial. Not sure it is a hiogh priority right
now.

> o I was also confused at first by the fact that when you are playing against
>   more than one opponent, and you say you want to quit, it doesn't actually
>   quit, but asks you (in the message area!) who you want to surrender to. I
>   also didn't realize for a while that `nobody' was an acceptable response.
>   Perhaps `all' should be the default?

"nobody" is displayed in the notices pane immediately after the question,
so it should be obvious that this is the default answer. Surrendering to a
side has a number of consequences, so surrendering to "all" does not mean
the same thing.

However, I see your point. I have been thinking about getting rid of the
surrender-to code altogether (or require a special command for it) since it
just delays the resignation in 99% of the cases.

I've also considered making all end-of-game interaction take place through
a single popup dialog. It's a little schizophrenic right now where you have
both the popup dialogs and the notices pane to deal with.

>Longer Term Suggestions(?):
>
> o The image at the top of the `World Size' dialog doesn't seem to do
>   anything.

I know. In the mac interface you can drag in it to resize the map. It's one
of many features that were not fully implemented in the tcltk interface.
I've fixed a number of these (weather displays, the design dialog etc.)
recently, but this is one is left.

> o Instead of the `Large Countries', 'Mostly Land', 'All land', would it be
>   possible to add an option so that games can specify generation options that
>   could be altered by the player? (eg. via scrollbars in the world options
>   dialog. A bit like in Civ:CTP)

In a future release perhaps. There is also a complication in the sense that
all tinkering with setup options must be supported both in the network code
and in all other interfaces. If not, strange things will happen.

>        I used to be dubious about the tcl/tk interface (it was a shock
>the first
>time I loaded the game), but I think it looks very nice in the post 7.4.1
>versions. Are you still planning to switch to sdlconq? If you are, then asc
>and lgeneral both have very nice interfaces... The current sdlconq interface
>seems quite clunky.

Yes. The SDL interface is not at all ready yet. But it does have
considerable long term advantages over the tcltk interface. So this is
probably where we will go in the future. I took a deliberate decision one
year ago, however, to try to upgrade the tcltk interface instead for this
release. Hence the many improvements to the latter. Glad you noticed them.

>        I am sorry that this email is so long (and that I made so many petty
>criticisms when I can't do anything to fix it), but I hope that it is useful.
>Thankyou to all the people who have been working on xconq recently (looking at
>the mailing list, there seems to be a team now) to improve the presentation,
>network code, and whatever else has been going on.

This kind of user feedback is extremely welcome. Activity on the list has
waxed and waned during the last few years. It's certainly much more fun to
work on xconq if you know that people care :-).

Hans