[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Getting rid of Isotrident

[Raahul Kumar <raahul_da_man@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- "Per I. Mathisen" <Per.Inge.Mathisen@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 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.

I hadn't even thought of it as difficult. Did you receive comments on #freeciv?
 
> > 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... :)

Point me to this 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?

Doesn't matter. We have a link to the "Everything but the kitchen Sink
release".

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

Aloha,
RK.

You did something because it had always been done, and the explanation was,
"but we've always done it this way." A million dead people can't have been
wrong, can they?
{The Fifth Elephant, 1999, Terry Pratchett}

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