[Freeciv-Dev] (PR#7051) Server options, rulesets, and usability.

["raven@xxxxxxxxx" <raven@xxxxxxxxx>]

<URL: http://rt.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=7051 >

Arnstein:  I would be interested to hear the reasons for your strong
distaste for server-options.

As a player, I absolutely love the plethora of options I can adjust in
freeciv.  With the possible exception of multiplayer and the pubserver, I
would say that having such detailed control over the rules of the game is
the single most important thing freeciv has that the other variations of
civilization are lacking.

Personally, I would be happier if the units, techs, and buildings rulesets
were made more available to edit for multiplayer (pubserver) games.

The only problem I see with so many options, is that they aren't presented
in a very usable manner.  The names used are somewhat obscure, many users
don't know the /help command, and perhaps most importantly, I'm not
familiar with any easy way to save a whole set of customized settings and
easilly reference it in pregame, rather than spend 5 minutes resetting
everything individually, every time.

What I would suggest, would be to have a nice GUI with all the initial and
ongoing server options, as well as the ruleset options.  Have everything
named as clearly as possible, and have it so you can click on the name of
an option and get more information on how that relates to the game (like
"/help" except possibly more obvious to newbies, and possibly a bit more
extensive in it's explainations, if that's needed.)

More-over, the really important part would be to have this GUI not be
something you would poke pregame, but something you would carefully edit
outside of a game, and save in it's entirety.  This "set of rulesets" or
game style, would be accesible through one command in pregame, rather than
several minutes of fiddling.  Ideally, styles could be saved on the
pubserver for pubserver games, there would be a public database of all the
contributed civstyles, and each style could have an "Author's Notes"
section, explaining important details to be aware of, and what the author
had in mind (long games, short games, etc.)

I think one of the best things about freeciv is it's capasity to be many
different games, even many different -types- of games.  I think that's
something to expand apon, I think encouraging that is a healthy
alternative to bickering about what the default settings "should" be, and
I think making more (and more easily accessible/usable) options is what's
needed to let that happen.

--Zack