[Freeciv-Dev] Revised opinion: 1.8.0pre2

[Martin Christensen <1934330m001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi guys

  As you may or may not recall I sent a post about a week ago. My
biggest complaint about the game was the mediocre graphics. With the new
tiles this has been mostly taken care of. The new graphics are not
particularly impressive, but nor do they need to be. They are so iconic
that they can be easily recognised (which is more than can be said of my
first encounter with CivII), yet so "realistic" that they are pleasant
to the eye.
  Tiles near the ocean, however, should not be so square. To tell you
the truth it looks stupid.
  The help function is very complete and informing, but I would have
liked historic background and pictures of wonders, description of units
and city improvements (not just raw data). This adds to the feeling of
completeness in the game, I think, and I would love to contribute,
should you wish to include such descriptions. Drop me a line
guaranteeing it will be included, and I'll get on it tonight. Could such
a feature make the 1.8.0 distribution, do you think?
  I would like an install script that at least prompts the installer for
which widget set he would like to use. I can't get the GTK to work with
1.8.0pre2, I can't find the QT version, and, for crying out loud, the
Xaw3D widgets don't seem to work properly when I run KDE 1.1: the
pull-downs will pull down, but will neither highlight nor in any other
way acknowledge the movement of the pointer. So the pull-downs are
useless unless I change to another WM/desktop environment. I wish I
could get bloody GNOME to work properly! :-)
  One thing I really miss is combat animations. Just something simple
like e.g. in CivI that makes sure that I notice that my units are
attacked. It's so anti-climatic to have your armour unit roll
dramatically across the land, and when you finally get to kill someone
nothing more happens than a line in the message box telling you who won.
That's such a turn-off. It would also be nice with sound, maybe as an
optional extra. Nothing like the roaring guns of a battleship. Maybe Sid
will let you use his. :-) In any case, it would be a valuable addition
to the "excitement" or "tension" in combat situations if combat in some
way is prolonged. That could be like in CivII where you see each
semi-battle being fought: you can follow combat as it develops, and this
excitement is an emotional response that really brings the player closer
to the game. Provoking emotions is a very important part of captivating
the player, especially in situations where you'd expect a lot of tension
or otherwise, combat being a great example.
  How about including server commands such as "expose map", "remove
unit", "remove city" and so on? The question is really if we want an
omnipotent god in the game.
  Why has QT development stopped? License problems, you say? But QT 2.0
should not be an object. What? What!? Of course, most Linux systems have
GTK on them, so that should suffice... if they can get it to work. :-)
Does the current GTK client upgrades not work with 1.8.0pre2?
  Why do AIs constantly shift between the wonders they're building and
where they're building them? If it isn't plain stupid it's annoying to
get so many messages about them doing so.
  I REALLY miss diplomacy. It must be really hard... but then, what do I
know about programming AIs?

I think this will suffice for now. I'll let you know if I think of any
more critique, good and bad. You're doing great, guys. Keep it up.

Martin

-- 
It is immoral for anyone who knows of Esperanto to not spread the
knowledge.
    - Leo Tolstoi