Life Game

[Silverx]

  Joining a life game is like diving into a swamp with Alligators!!! Grrrr

[An_dz]

What's the point of this thread? Seriously, I can't understand.

[Silverx]

It is impossible to play an online game with experienced gamers! Because there is no live interaction between gamers, meaning by this no communication, therefore you can only watch and still learn nothing!! With most online games there is a chatline via Skype etcetera. It will be nice if such actions are in play, because then you can ask questions that are important to make this game more interesting!!

[IgorEliezer]

Because there is no live interaction between gamers, meaning by this no communication

Simutrans has a chat window, but this is pretty hidden.

[Jaridan]

the chat tab/window is in the message window, when you see that other players are connected, just ask, this is a very friendly and helpful community.

[DrSuperGood]

I always wondered why simutrans does not use the standard enter to chat approach most games do... I also wonder why it has such annoying error messages that prevent you from correctly interacting with the game by covering large parts of the screen so you cannot see what you are doing.

[Leartin]

Probably because other games require the use of chat, since you often play with/against strangers and have no other means of communication. In Simutrans, most players don't use the chat, since they either play offline or have other means of communication outside of the game (IRC-Channel, chat, skype,...) and even inside of it (marker near another players main station so they will see it, even if they are offline while you play)
Annoying error messages usually exist because the player should be annoyed, so he actually acts to prevent them. If it is not an annoying popup, the player might not even see it. Also, you can change all messages to be displayed in the ribbon at the bottom of the screen instead of popups.

[Yona-TYT]

Joining a life game is like diving into a swamp with Alligators!!! Grrrr

Is typical, the largest company destroys the small for after take over of the map. !


It would be nice to have maps divided into regions.  http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=9898.msg93647#msg93647


Still a good idea for my...

[Ters]

I always wondered why simutrans does not use the standard enter to chat approach most games do...

It might be because in most games, chat is the only place you type text, while Simutrans has several other GUI elements that consume text input, some of which use enter to mark completion.

[DrSuperGood]

Annoying error messages usually exist because the player should be annoyed, so he actually acts to prevent them. If it is not an annoying popup, the player might not even see it. Also, you can change all messages to be displayed in the ribbon at the bottom of the screen instead of popups.

You can really change the annoying "cannot build here" popups to not appear during construction?

In games like StarCraft II and Warcraft III they have a dedicated position for error messages which float above screen. This not only prevents a player being drowned by error popups all over the screen but also allows him to see what is happening better as a large grey box does not block where he is currently working. The number of times I have had to build stuff blind (and made mistakes as a result) because mid construction a popup appears because for some silly reason it thinks I was making a station twice in the same tile.

[Ters]

You can really change the annoying "cannot build here" popups to not appear during construction?

How else are new users supposed to learn that they can't build there? And once you've gotten that message, you don't do such things again, and the annoying popup never appears again.

In games like StarCraft II and Warcraft III they have a dedicated position for error messages which float above screen. This not only prevents a player being drowned by error popups all over the screen but also allows him to see what is happening better as a large grey box does not block where he is currently working. The number of times I have had to build stuff blind (and made mistakes as a result) because mid construction a popup appears because for some silly reason it thinks I was making a station twice in the same tile.

Some messages must appear in the way of what the user is doing, or the user won't see it. Simutrans uses the edge of the screen for less important messages, and lets the user select what is important and what is not.

[Sarlock]

Just carefully watch what the other players do (the ones making money, at least) and you'll quickly learn some tricks.  It's also useful to take an online game and save it locally and then you can try out different strategies to see what works best in each scenario, then take the one that works best and implement it in the online game.

[DrSuperGood]

How else are new users supposed to learn that they can't build there? And once you've gotten that message, you don't do such things again, and the annoying popup never appears again.

You do it again, and again and again! Something stupid as your mouse slipping a tile when dragging a platform across track will throw you 4-5 errors. If you suddenly drag over another player's station (without realising in the non RC/nightly version) that is another 7-14 error popups all over the screen. If you hold too long while laying a platform it generates you 2-3. Trying to raise land in a large area that is nearby stuff that cannot be moved will generate you dozens all over the screen.

This is not helpful at all and many times I have done stuff I did not want to because of all the errors. From a HCI point of view this is very bad.

Actions that are fatal (result of synchronous drag operation or single operations like convoy orders) should be created under the cursor for full attention. Continuous actions (continuous drag operations) should only create 1 error and update that to correspond to the latest problem and not one for each problem. This should especially be done in mid range (not above cursor) so that you can keep working unaffected.

Some messages must appear in the way of what the user is doing, or the user won't see it. Simutrans uses the edge of the screen for less important messages, and lets the user select what is important and what is not.

The fact that I cannot build a station above another players station is not important. The noise alone and lack of action is enough notification that I ran into this error. I do not need to be blinded by 15 windows saying the same error. Especially important in multiplayer as orders only generate errors when executed which is after lag frames (which I have set reasonably high due to the poor synchronization model used). It has literally got to the stage that I am not frustrated playing the game or that my action was cancelled, but that the errors popped up. Simutrans error messages have to be one of the most annoying in any game I have ever played.

[Ters]

Something stupid as your mouse slipping a tile when dragging a platform across track will throw you 4-5 errors. If you suddenly drag over another player's station (without realising in the non RC/nightly version) that is another 7-14 error popups all over the screen. [...] The fact that I cannot build a station above another players station is not important.

The game can't tell that your mouse is slipping or if you actually wanted to build over there. That station over station wasn't allowed is something a player really needed a message about, because that was not obvious.

Continuous actions (continuous drag operations) should only create 1 error and update that to correspond to the latest problem and not one for each problem. This should especially be done in mid range (not above cursor) so that you can keep working unaffected.

Now we seem to be getting to the real problem. This I agree to, except that mid-range may be too far away in some cases. It's also a longer distance to move the mouse to close it. (I like acting on and dismissing errors  as soon as they occur.) But I suspect that some drag tools may be just thin layers above a design based on building tile by tile. Dragging has at least become possible in more places than it was when I started playing Simutrans. (Which means I hardly use dragging, because I'm not used to it being possible.)

[DrSuperGood]

It's also a longer distance to move the mouse to close it.

The errors should not require closing. Like some errors do already, they all should disappear away. The idea is you place it far enough away that it is not going to interfear with what you are doing but close enough that you are aware of it. Having them fade away would be best but I think the graphic system would not like this (since it would mean refreshing the area of the window every frame, a demanding process).

I do not need to know I made an error 30 seconds ago as I have corrected it and moved on to several other things in the mean time.

[Ters]

The errors should not require closing. Like some errors do already, they all should disappear away.

That's another issue. Normally, it's the errors I need to know about that disappears while the errors I care about disappear while I close the former.