[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Getting rid of Isotrident

["Per I. Mathisen" <Per.Inge.Mathisen@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 17 May 2002, Mike Kaufman wrote:
> > :). You already knew that. I have to confess, the only reason I want a poll 
> > is
> > that I'm certain of the result. I doubt anyone shares Raimar/Mike's taste in
> > graphics. New users like eyecandy. I've just learned that apparently most of
> > the Freeciv users don't EVER download a new tileset. I'm disillusioned.

I think you are going about it wrong. First, we've never before had so
many good tilesets available for download. Second, we don't advertise this
fact very well. Third, I don't think downloading is the issue.

You see, for the ordinary user, the --tiles option doesn't exist. You have
to tell them. Imagined example:

Fred: "Hey, you know what? You can change the Freeciv tileset!"

Frank: "Wow! How do I use that? I didn't see a button
for that."

Fred: "No, apparently you have to write "civclient --tiles trident" to
use the other one."

Frank: "Oh, but I start it from the Foot menu. How do I change it then?"

Fred: "Uhhhn, you have to... eh... let's see if I can figure it out..."

Etc..

Heck, even RMS had to ask if there was a way to play without isometric.

> As to the belief that users don't ever download a tileset, that could very
> well be true. We simply need to educate them as well as make it easy as pie
> to do. I download winamp skins because they are trivial to install. Perhaps
> there is not a similar recognition. also note that "skinning" has become a
> lot more mainstream. New users may now be more open to the idea that they
> _can_ change tilesets.

They won't believe that unless they _see it as an option_. Very few users
experiment with "civclient --help" and go "hmm, what is this...".

Maybe Jason could be persuaded to resume work on his on-the-fly tileset
changing patch... :)

> An addition to the client help file comes to mind. Perhaps tilesets need to
> have their own page on the website accompanied by instructions. We have
> people contributing dist rpms. perhaps we could get some people to put
> together some tileset rpms.

All good suggestions.

> freeciv is already huge. "people are dumb" is not a good enough rationale
> for me. A release containing the stdsounds is good enough for me. A release
> containing the whole shebang probably would be alright as well. (But then
> we start to get into a situation where people aren't sure exactly what
> they're downloading...)

How big would the release tarball be with stdsounds + 4 extra tilesets?

Yours,
Per

"As Israeli forces pursued militants, civilians
continued getting in the way and dying as a
result." -- New York Times, April 21