As I said in another thread, I am not yet an expert of game developing. I just know quite well programming and a bit of theory of game developing, but I am not an expert at all and most of all I am not an expert of the actual clonk engine. So what I can propose here might sound a bit impossible to achieve, I don't know. Anyway i feel that there are these problems and that if they could be solved, it could REALLY improve the players' experience, so to point them out I don't think it's a bad idea...and maybe there will be some solutions to discuss :)
There is one thing that gives tons of frustration and possible reasons to go away from the game for many many many newbies.
And it is the luckily chance to feel without control in several situations:
1)Getting stucked inside objects/ground
I know that this derives directly by clonk's gameplay and wonderful freedom, and I don't want this freedom to be limited in any way.
If you don't want to alter the game's freedom in anyway you have to live with the compromise that some undesired effects can happen, like the getting stuck situation. But I also think that this could be slightly improved without touching the actual gameplay.
For example it would be possible to make a timed function on the game engine, with a high time to not introduce performance issues (like once every 5 seconds or something like that) that would check for little little small holes in the ground (that actually causes anyway clonks to get stuck sometimes, or vehicles to have problems, even if they are like 2 pixel wide) and fill them, or checks if there are small small portions of ground (something like less than a square of 2 pixel wide) completely floating in the air and remove them.
I dunno what it would be the best algorithm to make this check, but anyway if it would not be tooo inefficient and make it run in a small portion around the player's position once every 5-10seconds, it could free a player stucked into something else.
Don't understimate this problem, most for newbies, because one thing that really cause frustration is to not have control on the game, and this is exactly what it does right now.
2)Better construction control:
a better building system that before confirming the start of a construction shows a complete preview of the following situation allowing the player to decide to construct or not. For example this could be useful in construction like the lift that several times can create problems having the "two little metal bars next to the base" that can annoy if they are in the middle air or in the way for something else.
Also the ability to destroy or deconstruct a building in a fast way could improve this thing (and maybe give back some resources so player can undo mistakes)
3)Handle a better way the interaction between the clonk and the environment
A lot of times happens that with a house in front a tree, a elevator behind a tree, or other types of object overlaying, it is impossible to do the desired function (like for example using the lift) using both the keyboard or the mouse (apart with dirty controls: clicking somewhere next to the top of the lift so the clonk automatically takes it to reach that point). This is again really really frustrating and I have seen at least a dozen newbies (friends I have shown the game to) getting pissed of by it.. Maybe a better, clearer way to assign the clonk action in this "confusing" situations could solve the problem..
There is one thing that gives tons of frustration and possible reasons to go away from the game for many many many newbies.
And it is the luckily chance to feel without control in several situations:
1)Getting stucked inside objects/ground
I know that this derives directly by clonk's gameplay and wonderful freedom, and I don't want this freedom to be limited in any way.
If you don't want to alter the game's freedom in anyway you have to live with the compromise that some undesired effects can happen, like the getting stuck situation. But I also think that this could be slightly improved without touching the actual gameplay.
For example it would be possible to make a timed function on the game engine, with a high time to not introduce performance issues (like once every 5 seconds or something like that) that would check for little little small holes in the ground (that actually causes anyway clonks to get stuck sometimes, or vehicles to have problems, even if they are like 2 pixel wide) and fill them, or checks if there are small small portions of ground (something like less than a square of 2 pixel wide) completely floating in the air and remove them.
I dunno what it would be the best algorithm to make this check, but anyway if it would not be tooo inefficient and make it run in a small portion around the player's position once every 5-10seconds, it could free a player stucked into something else.
Don't understimate this problem, most for newbies, because one thing that really cause frustration is to not have control on the game, and this is exactly what it does right now.
2)Better construction control:
a better building system that before confirming the start of a construction shows a complete preview of the following situation allowing the player to decide to construct or not. For example this could be useful in construction like the lift that several times can create problems having the "two little metal bars next to the base" that can annoy if they are in the middle air or in the way for something else.
Also the ability to destroy or deconstruct a building in a fast way could improve this thing (and maybe give back some resources so player can undo mistakes)
3)Handle a better way the interaction between the clonk and the environment
A lot of times happens that with a house in front a tree, a elevator behind a tree, or other types of object overlaying, it is impossible to do the desired function (like for example using the lift) using both the keyboard or the mouse (apart with dirty controls: clicking somewhere next to the top of the lift so the clonk automatically takes it to reach that point). This is again really really frustrating and I have seen at least a dozen newbies (friends I have shown the game to) getting pissed of by it.. Maybe a better, clearer way to assign the clonk action in this "confusing" situations could solve the problem..
![[fi]](/mwf/flags/fi.png "Finland")
I think those sound like good ideas. At least those problems (or whatever you want to call them) would be nice to be seen solved in one way or another.
![[de]](/mwf/flags/de.png "Germany")
i think the problem with stucking in landscape can be solven in increasing pixel size (ie zooming down clonks height)
look at this--> http://forum.openclonk.org/topic_show.pl?tid=20
it's 8x zoom
in old versions are 320x200 pixels and there was a landscape pixel each screen pixel - that was no zooming!
it's 8x zoom
in old versions are 320x200 pixels and there was a landscape pixel each screen pixel - that was no zooming!
Well...It does not look bad on the screen, but what about digging 8² Pixel? =/
weighted pixels?
use black/white landscape and a greyscale does round those edges.
try to blur the landscape.png in the example and look whether it was better.
i changed my techdemo a bit and here are the new results. Remember: it is all 8x scaled. (128x128 to 1024x1024)
http://www.file-upload.net/download-1589829/Techdemo.zip.html
use black/white landscape and a greyscale does round those edges.
try to blur the landscape.png in the example and look whether it was better.
i changed my techdemo a bit and here are the new results. Remember: it is all 8x scaled. (128x128 to 1024x1024)
http://www.file-upload.net/download-1589829/Techdemo.zip.html
>2
I think, it would be enough to allow destruction while construction is not complete. This was already discussed in the bugtracker...
My question: What should be done with the conkit and the material?
>3
When the new context menu was introduced, I thought that was realized particially. But I discovered the opposite. It would not be hard to add some menu-Points, that allow switching the pushed object.
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