fr1tz {l Wrote}:Sorry but I doubt you'll change my mind about this. Working on CTF concurrently with ETH requires comparatively little effort and has the additional advantage of making the game more accessible, since only providing ETH requires new players to learn an unfamiliar game mode on top of unfamiliar mechanics.
It isn't just about the additional coding time. Gathering ingame experience for testing purposes is most valuable for TOL right now. If every playing minute spent, every feedback given and every ideas tried out are distributed over two seperate gametypes is a setback
if your goal is to get to a really compelling experience asap.
Unfamiliar game-mode and mechanics aren't a bad thing! They need to be the strengths that attract people. Presenting them should be a core effort. A pretty challanging one - but that's what it takes, and I like that challange.
fr1tz {l Wrote}:To me it seems there's already a bit of a divide on what players consider "perfect fun".
Having
multiple movement mechanics seems out of the question so that problem has got to be solved either way.
fr1tz {l Wrote}:Correct me if I'm wrong on this, but since you want TOL to stick to the ETH1-style outdoor maps I get the sense you're looking for tribes-style non-stop flowing movement, which is required for CTF, but also enforcing it for ETH maps would seriously limit to kind of playing experience that ETH can provide simply by having different styles of maps. I personally like playing both ETH1 and ETH3/ETH4 and I'm not alone on that. If some people only want to play ETH1-style maps they can. And if the people who enjoy maps like ETH4 didn't like ETH1-style maps it would make sense to stick to only one type, but that doesn't seem to be the case. The people who like ETH4 like it as an addition to ETH1-style maps, rather than a replacement. So there's no divide here and thus no need to make this an either/or issue IMO.
Remember the outdoor Quake CTF levels? They are
foreign to what Quake3 is.
Similarly all indoor scenes in Tribes (afair) were
foreign to what Tribes was.
My observation about games so far is that they tend to clearly fall into one category or the other.
TOL probably won't excell at both. Since both aren't required for a perfect gaming experience it's reason enough to drop the less promising branch -
for now.
fr1tz {l Wrote}:what makes you so sure that it will be "wasting resources in every possible way"?
Because by that approach it would be good advice to add
any possible variant of extra game modes.
What are the reasons for not also trying King Of The Hill, Team Deathmatch, Last Man Standing, ... alongside with CTF?
There needs to be a respectable amount of feedback & balancing to get either of them really right, no matter how fast they are implemented or how popular they are.
Having all of them may be cheap, but having one that rocks is hard work and costs much time. So a good choice on which one to focus first is crutial.
fr1tz {l Wrote}:mray {l Wrote}:The contributors I'd like to see would be craving for guidelines. I know I would.
Would you be willing to start writing those?
I started with the style guide and would be thrilled to work on mechanics and gameplay stuff together with other contributors.
Issues we discussed earlier would be integral part oft questions answered in that guide like (unsorted off of my head):
* Is TOL a game that should avoid frustration and be "nice" to beginners?
* How quick is TOLs game flow?
* What role should "momentum" have in game mechanics?
* I how far is TOL focussing on fight action vs. tactics & time management?
* How far does TOL go in terms of complicated game mechanics?
* How horizontal/verical should TOL action/fights be?
* Is TOL indoor/outdoor?
* How many different weapons should TOL offer?
* How far does TOL reward TOL profis?
* Should learning TOL levels be "rewarded"?
* ...
The list is way longer and roots in a few key values that TOL embodies.
I haven't clearly figured out what those key values would be yet, but that's where I would start.
fr1tz {l Wrote}:ROTC had a clear vision because there was just one person developing it, and my hope is that this vision will turn out to be strong
enough to remain somewhat intact, but compromises will have to be made. What do you consider "insignificant" add-ons and what
makes you sure that they're not important?
I hope it will remain intact because I love what you started. Significant contributions should be the ones that lift your vision to a higher level (and maybe change it a bit) while staying true to the basic idea. For example: a super-mario-styled level, a jetpack-mutator or a chocolate-donut-gun wouldn't qualify, even if they might be "fun".
fr1tz {l Wrote}:mray {l Wrote}:Gaining contributors increases only active people, but doesn't advance the games development.
Maybe, maybe not. Who knows? But if we want to find out we have to attract contributors.
It boils down to quantity vs. quality. I don't claim to *know*, but given a choice I certainly would stick to quality.
fr1tz {l Wrote}:Have you already made a list of rules? How do you know the rules are "good"?
The one above would be a first quick draft.
I don't now the rules are good. There needs to be constructive feedback and ingame testing to get a real clue.
Much will have to be revised, corrected or get discoverd by coincidence. But we need
one sensible starting point.
Let's start doing lots of errors and learn from them!
fr1tz {l Wrote}:I expect that choosing what goes into TOL and what doesn't will be delicate balancing act for me.
That's certainly the hard part of being a benevolent dictator. But even in that uncomfortable situation it is good to be able to point to a generally accepted concept of what TOL is/isn't.
fr1tz {l Wrote}:mray {l Wrote}:Please let's rock at one thing first!
Do you have an argument that could convince me that this is really the best way to go?
hmm... my probabilistic attempt:
"Let's rock at nothing first" +
"Let's rock at everything first" aren't even sensible ideas.
"Let's rock at multiple things first" is almost impossible because of the "first" part.
But even if you may raise the interest of more people by trying to rock at more things first, it also distributes their help on a bigger variety of things - making each of those less likely to rock again. Multiplied with the fact that with a growing number of participants and the absence of a clear directive you also increase the probability of having opposing opinions of what rocking actually means, results in a project that just does not rock.
While
"Rocking at one thing first" sounds just like common sense to me ^_^