Distension Beta Suggestions/Bugfix thread

[Aquatiq]

it's brutal if your computer is in a place that gets hit by direct sunlight or something, or your monitor just plain doesn't display color well. i literally tried to fly into a base full of enemies without shooting at them, wondering why they were shooting at me

[2kill]

I like what your trying to do with the font... but I think the blue was to be lighted to make it more readable. now I think you said that the enemy ships are the same coulor as the pub chat? thats unfortant cause it would have been nice for the ships to be red and the pubchat something else <shrugs shoulders> oh well. so something like the attachment or whatever you think up

on a unrelated note to the fonts, the terr's counter for the port was sitting in the bottom of the progress bar making it hard to read the time left.

2kill

[Edit: since the attachment is taking longer then I think it should I have uploaded it to http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/3199/chatoh2.png ]

[Mjollnir]

On that note, i like that wormhole (is fun and interesting during free play).

The red dot for enemy on radar is a good addition too; however, i think you should have more contrast/colour on the names. Is very hard for me to distinguish between the enemy and teammates without looking on radar (because the 'red-ish-pink' looks similar to the 'silver-grey').

Also, chat is very hard to see/read, and it hurts my eyes...

I like the old radar better because of being extremely used to it. I really don't see a reason for changing the colour of the enemies on the radar. They should stay the same because it is not possible to manually override that change. It is also hard to see the blinking of a captured flag on the radar.

The chat font would probably be okay (except for the blue text) if I wasn't so used to the old font. Also, the enemy name tags being red was distracting. Anyway, I will probably be using the old font by overriding stuff in the graphics folder.

Thirdly I want to talk about the dimness of the weapons and specials pictures (the ones that show if you have yellow bullets or a portal or a rocket etc..). I can't make out what colour my bullets/bombs are anymore and it is harder to see the specials. A portal that was set was also hard to see if I remember correctly. It seems the colours are really faded out somehow.

Dug: I appreciate all the work you have done but personally I like the old colours better. I know that you will be working on them so who knows how well they will turn out next time.

[meddi]

on a unrelated note to the fonts, the terr's counter for the port was sitting in the bottom of the progress bar making it hard to read the time left.

I just noticed this when I started terring recently and was surprised I had not seen anyone point it out. It is very difficult to see the port timer as a result.

Are 2kill and I the only ones to have this issue? Or has it been brought up before and we missed it?

[2kill]

I just noticed this when I started terring recently and was surprised I had not seen anyone point it out. It is very difficult to see the port timer as a result.

Are 2kill and I the only ones to have this issue? Or has it been brought up before and we missed it?

I think its a result of the new LVZ files... not sure but think so

and the fonts I think they were good this test had no problems reading good job I like new ideas

keep up the good work dug

2kill

[gdugwyler]

Progress bar covering up things: Damn, it's always seeming to cover up something. I moved it down because it was obscuring the super, but now it's just moved on to something else! Will try to make it work so that all of the normal icons there are not obscured.

Radar: I understand it's harder for those who have been playing many years to make good use of the radar; this was considered when the change was made. It's keeping with the philosophy of the game I had when first imagining it several years ago, however: holding to traditional principles (of both SS and TW) where they have unequivocally succeeded, and freely changing that which is mired in tradition without necessarily being the best way to do it. I'm not saying that this arrangement is better; however, in my personal opinion -- and I realize this is not the opinion of the majority of people as far as most things in the world go -- if something is different, even if it's slightly worse it's still better than the monotony of that which is the same. With that formula in mind, the chances of "success" in my eyes when changing something fairly trivial such as the color of enemies on radar is quite high. Furthermore, another goal has been to reward the adaptive and quick-thinking, and perhaps also level the playing field between new players and old players: both of which are pursued by this approach. Regarding the flag, though, I'll change that: you're right that it's too hard to see when you have it.

Sidebars: Ali is sending some sidebars she used for the VDay map, with the gridlines behind edited out. The colors are washed out ("desaturated") because they are normally quite garish and vulgar, quite unfitting to the nature of the arena. They'll probably still be toned down, but not quite to the level they are now, as the grids are the main problem. I'll turn the portal graphic back to normal, though, as well as the super icon. Today I'll be adding a SUPER graphic for when the player receives super. Maybe something that appears around the ship if I'm feeling frisky.

Fonts: Going to continue to work on them today. The gradient will be toned down as suggested. I'm not totally satisfied with the cyan arena/zone message color. Suggestions for colors that would match the overall scheme are welcome.

Optional graphics: Someone suggested that I make these graphics optional. If there were an easy way to make them "opt-out" -- default to on but allowing the player to remove them -- I would do it. However, the only option is "opt-in," downloading from a site or the like and installing manually, meaning the vast majority of the people (95%) would not play with them. (Further, they'd have to change them any time they went to another arena, etc.) Sorry to those that object, but that's just not my vision. All that I can say is that some of the options you can turn off in the initial menu, and the font you can change if you wish -- I'll include instructions for how to do that in the public release, though I think it will turn out acceptable enough for the majority of insipid social conformists and tradition-adherents that in the end this will not be necessary.

[Mjollnir]

...
Radar: I understand it's harder for those who have been playing many years to make good use of the radar; this was considered when the change was made. It's keeping with the philosophy of the game I had when first imagining it several years ago, however: holding to traditional principles (of both SS and TW) where they have unequivocally succeeded, and freely changing that which is mired in tradition without necessarily being the best way to do it. I'm not saying that this arrangement is better; however, in my personal opinion -- and I realize this is not the opinion of the majority of people as far as most things in the world go -- if something is different, even if it's slightly worse it's still better than the monotony of that which is the same. With that formula in mind, the chances of "success" in my eyes when changing something fairly trivial such as the color of enemies on radar is quite high. Furthermore, another goal has been to reward the adaptive and quick-thinking, and perhaps also level the playing field between new players and old players: both of which are pursued by this approach. Regarding the flag, though, I'll change that: you're right that it's too hard to see when you have it.
...

The enemy and teammate colours on the radar are also less pleasant on the eyes (especially the white) than the old colours and it is harder to distinguish stuff because of it. About the portal showing on radar: it is too dim (just like the flag is too dim). The portal comment was just in case you were going to change the portal icon instead of the radar.

[gdugwyler]

After messing with the font a good bit more, I'm now pretty happy with it. The distinctions are good as well, and it's highly readable. However a lot of the colors work pretty exactly with the normal radar colors (for friend/foe) so I'll probably go back to those, with minor modification. Will tweak the port color as well -- thanks for specifically mentioning the radar part.

For those wondering, we will be testing soon, but I need the arena clear. As the biller's down, just wait for the bot to PM you before entering.

[roxxkatt]

colors:
they look good now, only changes id make is a little cyan on top of the blue to lighten it a bit, and make the chats fireman red, the plum sucks imo, and maybe make the yellow look gold.

-important-
also, the gray weapon lvz is craptacular, looks as well as use.
today i was trying to figure out if i had xradar on, couldnt tell by looking.


its time for another team shuffle.
there should be a regular team rearranging, imo.
perhaps weekly, or bi-weekly.


bombs:
reduce the radius or power, and up emp bombs from 35% to 40%.
why be a lev when you can jav?
maybe, bombs look good as is anyway.


-important-
high and low rank caps need to go.
playing a lvl40, every kill i get is low rank cap.
if i got a 4fer, id get 50rp a person, and -150 for the tk i got with it, making my great shot worthless.
playing a lvl10 ship, every kill i get is high rank cap, 100rp or so is still good, but its horribly difficult to kill anyone.

rank caps cheat everyone out of the rp they deserve, both high and low lvls.
the high rank cap cheats the newbie out of more rp to lvl faster,
and the low rank cap cheats the high lvls out of the rp they have earned, making the game MUCH more of a grind.


also, today i tried to change to a shark.
WHAT A FUCKING ORDEAL.
the shark max wasnt reached, btw.
i tried 5 times, and was spec'd by the bot each time, and given that stupid nonworking lagout business.
i kept trying until the point where subgame disconnected me.
i came back to dist, and tried lagout. OF COURSE IT DIDNT WORK.
3 more tries of being spec'd, and i finally got into a shark.

#1: REMOVE THE SHIPCHANGE LIMIT COMPLETELY, OR SET IT TO 100.
#2: GET LAGOUT WORKING PROPERLY
#3: LET PEOPLE SWITCH SHIPS WITHOUT SPECCING THEM


also:
when u left, u said u set dist to continue for 90 minutes.
but the automated shutdown came like 30-40 minutes later...
did we get shorted an hour of dist? =(

[meddi]

Colours are good, and I could see my port timer today.

[gdugwyler]

Okay, Cheese, first off, chill out. Yelling at me about bugs I'm as yet unaware of makes no sense. It's basically just a personal attack. Take a deep breath, remove the caps lock key if necessary, and realize that we are in beta, and bugs you're reporting are the exact reason we are still in beta.

I don't just magically come to know about things. I rely on people to tell them to me. Insulting me by yelling at me, essentially saying, "this should have been fixed yesterday, even though I'm telling you about it today" is not even remotely helpful. Keep in mind that I only play Distension about 15-30 minutes a session personally, and during that time I'm usually looking mostly at the chat answering questions (or lately being yelled at about colors) and am rarely actually able to test the game out. I rely on you guys to find these things for the most part.



Someone told me today "lagout doesn't work," but I was able to use it myself. I did notice that the bot seems to sometimes spec you between shipchanges for some reason, but this is a new development, from what I understand. I'll take a look at that and lagout, and try to fix the shipchange limit.

Weapon bars: I know the weapon side bars are not fantastic at the moment. But if you'd actually read what I'd posted you'd know these will be fixed.

Bombs: Why be a Levi when you can Jav? Well, because a Levi is a gunning glider with EMP bombs, and the Jav is a bomber. A lot of people play Levi and like it. I see no problem with the Levi's role.

Caps: Caps of this nature are pretty standard. I'm not sure who you're killing with your rank 40 Levi, but at least half the people playing at any given time are above rank 20. Maybe you have a bad build, or just aren't very good with the ship yet? I'd like to know what other people think about the caps, if they've had problems, etc.

[meddi]

I am sometimes frustrated with the low rank cap when playing my shark, but the fact that I get a lot of profit sharing means I dont rely solely on killing to rank. I could see how fighting ships might be hurt by low rank caps and high RP requirements for each rank.

I don't think the upper cap should be removed. It isn't hard to rank with low ranked ships, there is no need to make it easier.

Edit: Now that I think about it more, the low rank cap helps to keep the ranks of the player population closer to the mean. This is important to help keep things balanced and makes it harder for the most powerful players to become even more powerful.

[2kill]

Someone told me today "lagout doesn't work," but I was able to use it myself. I did notice that the bot seems to sometimes spec you between shipchanges for some reason, but this is a new development, from what I understand. I'll take a look at that and lagout, and try to fix the shipchange limit.

Caps: Caps of this nature are pretty standard. I'm not sure who you're killing with your rank 40 Levi, but at least half the people playing at any given time are above rank 20. Maybe you have a bad build, or just aren't very good with the ship yet? I'd like to know what other people think about the caps, if they've had problems, etc.

ok my experince with this was I swiched to sharked and I laged out nothing really new there... I went !lagout and it put me in right away but speced me again I did this untill I got dc'd then I came back and had lost all particpation. I'm just wondering did you take off the 30 sec wait or is this part of the bug?

I haven't had any major problems with it since I still level fine, mind you my high rank ships don't tk exept maybe the lanc if I'm not careful so I'm not losing much of anything, so maybe I'm not the best one to talk about it though you should be a good enough bomber to avoid teammates.
[Edit: just read MeDDi edit and I agree

also I was hearing that people didn't like the plum chat... maybe going back to the purple? I was divided over which I liked better]

2kill

[roxxkatt]

caps lock is highlighter ;D

reentering dist, i really, really like the colors.
especially the blue.
maybe some cyan on top like snow on a rock, or sexy icing on a sexy, sexy cake? =)

keeping players closer to the mean is logical, but making it a grind to play by cheating players from rp sucks too =(

and im going to scrap some stuff so my 0/5 thr and 0/5 spd levi can go faster =S

[roxxkatt]

and dug, you must realize:

YOU HAVE CREATED THE BEST EVENT IN TW.
EVERYONE IS YOUR FRIEND NOW.


ty again for distension =)