[Freeciv-Dev] Betr: (PR#6932) Re: Re: Artistic polish

["thomas@xxxxxxxxxx" <thomas@xxxxxxxxxx>]

<URL: http://rt.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=6932 >

Civfanatics tends to be a bit more focused on Civ3 only. In fact, they only
cover Civ3 and Civ 2 related news. Not even the CtP2 source release was
mentioned. So a game like Freeciv that takes a bit more effort and doesn't
look as sleek, as say Civ3
 would hardly be known there or get much positive
response because one of the prominent posters say "it sucks".

It's a bit better at Apolyton. But once again posters are split into closeknit
groups who only venture into one or two forums. So an ou
sider like Freeciv
doesn't reach the sort of public, modders, scenariomakers, GFX artists we
need. Freeciv is also harder to mod then Civ2. Civworld doesn't work under
Win32 and we don't have much tools or documentation to help mod-scenariomakers.

So it's understandable they tend to stick to the things they know.

On Sun, 23 Nov 2003 05:15:40 -0800 Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> From: Raimar Falke [mailto:i-freeciv-lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> >
> > Freeciv can be changed so that it can read the c
v3 gra
>hics format
> > (the original one and the graphics made by 3rd parties).
>
> And it hasn't happened because... people aren't paid to do it, so it
> happens slooooooowly if at all?

>I requested animation graphics from the civfanatics civ
 forum,
>got about 60 views and no replies. The guy who made custom gfx for their
>latest "Game of the Month"'s declined to contribute because of
>anticipated time consumption. In another thread, that crowd seem to
>think that Freeciv sucks, partic
larly because of lacking AI
>diplomacy. They probably favor Win32 and single-player style games.
>We should accomodate such people by creating a real smallpox
>solution, native win32 client, and adding code to support animation.

>Arnstein

Thos
 are the sort of features a Civ diehard would be interested in. It
should also be accessible to casual players e.a "be fun".

And then the artists would complain why Freeciv doesn't have a script scenario
language like Civ2 has had for years or why
there isn't any documentation
or working example ....

Those features you list would go a long way but it wouldn't solve the problem
of making Freeciv 'artist'-friendly. Using PNG for graphics is a step in
the right direction. Test Scenarios, work
ng examples, some simple map tools,
rule editors and gfx convertors would get us further along the way. The
main issue however is getting the message across. Apart from some newsposts
at Apolyton and some linuxgames sites. Apart from that, Freeciv h
rdly gets
promoted.




Thomas