Splitting thread from luck for discussion of 1.8r1

[multilis]

Then what, if anything, did replacing the sprites and animations require you to relearn? 2 (level 2) unit names were changed, everything else remained the same.

"sprites and animations require you to relearn"

(In my opinion) drake sprites are not any prettier than before but it takes time to quickly tell difference between drake fighter, burner, glider, etc.

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User interface: I found the revised interface with separate lists of players not any more useful, eg harder to quickly find who is online and where they are, takes bit more clicking to open up trees of who is in area, etc. Old interface simplicity seemed at least as good overall to new 'features' that didn't seem to help me.

***

Bugs: On my try, had weird out of sync, went into main lobby and lobby had a bunch of games with extra xml code around some game listings, then soon after a crash/assertion about miscount between two game counts.

At this point I was fairly annoyed, having uninstalled my old version of wesnoth because the forum claimed it was obsolete, and finding out that the "new" version wasnt really out yet, and not many cared to play it, and not anything better to see. So unfortunately I didn't care much about tracing the bug, just uninstalled game as quick as possible and installed the old one back.

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I had no hope of finding *options* like (no/less) luck patched in, but had hoped at least long requested improvements like perhaps better info/description paragraph when downloading an add-on (which was considered todo long ago). Many many months ago the best info for downloads was a third party web site from france with those paragraphs you later see when you pick a campaign viewable at time you are choosing what addon to download.

[thespaceinvader]

(In my opinion) drake sprites are not any prettier than before but it takes time to quickly tell difference between drake fighter, burner, glider, etc.

This is about the squillionth time I've seen this critique - where was everyone who thought this when we were DESIGNING the freaking sprites? It wasn't exactly a secret what was going on, and we probably would have been willing to listen if people had said it back at the base frame stage, rather than the 'everything done and committed' stage.

That being said: the old sprites looked horrific. The rose tinted nostalgia glasses may make them feel better, but the new ones make more sense, have lost the horribly corny green weapons, have team colour, and look suitably large and vicious.

Maybe it makes them slightly more difficult to tell apart. Meh. The basic layout of them was always going to be similar.

</rant>

Srsly, this bugs me quite a lot. The best thing about having open source development is that problems like this can be picked up at the source.

[Unnheulu]

(In my opinion) drake sprites are not any prettier than before but it takes time to quickly tell difference between drake fighter, burner, glider, etc.

Alright then, why don't you go and redraw all of the images. Oh, and don't forget all of the attack animations! Done yet? Sorry, you still have a load of defense animations to do. Ah of course. The huge amount of standing animations needs to be done up.

The sheer scale of work to update it is horrific, and although I wasn't around whilst they were drawing them, I can be sure a heck of a lot of time and effort went into that. If you don't like it, like I said, go redraw it yourself; otherwise quit moaning.

The great thing about opensource is that if you don't like something you can fork.

/re-enters lurker mode\

[Gambit]

Bugs: On my try, had weird out of sync, went into main lobby and lobby had a bunch of games with extra xml code around some game listings, then soon after a crash/assertion about miscount between two game counts.

And I'm sure you reported all of these so that they got fixed seeing as how you downloaded a release client (i.e. beta version).

So unfortunately I didn't care much about tracing the bug, just uninstalled game as quick as possible and installed the old one back.

No? Of course not.

At this point I was fairly annoyed, having uninstalled my old version of wesnoth because the forum claimed it was obsolete, and finding out that the "new" version wasnt really out yet, and not many cared to play it, and not anything better to see.

So yeah...

Your artistic opinion + your own fault for not checking facts = Wesnoth shouldn't get GSoC anymore.
Awesome reasoning there.

User interface: I found the revised interface with separate lists of players not any more useful, eg harder to quickly find who is online and where they are, takes bit more clicking to open up trees of who is in area, etc.

You are still able to view all at once, but now have the added ability to filter out information you don't care about. How is that not more useful? It in fact adds an extra use. Yeah I'm sorry you have to click two extra times...


The art doesn't even have anything to do with GSoC. And I'll have you know that last year, the door was opened to AI that can actually play the game. Wesnoth got a brand new developer and a complete rewrite of the AI.

[jb]

multilis wrote:
(In my opinion) drake sprites are not any prettier than before but it takes time to quickly tell difference between drake fighter, burner, glider, etc.

This is about the squillionth time I've seen this critique - where was everyone who thought this when we were DESIGNING the freaking sprites? It wasn't exactly a secret what was going on, and we probably would have been willing to listen if people had said it back at the base frame stage, rather than the 'everything done and committed' stage.

Sorry TSI, I tend to agree. (Don't shoot!) I think the new sprites look awesome, but similar.

/me wasn't around for the designing phase because I don't find art development very interesting. It could be squares and circles and I'd still play wesnoth.

User interface: I found the revised interface with separate lists of players not any more useful, eg harder to quickly find who is online and where they are, takes bit more clicking to open up trees of who is in area, etc. Old interface simplicity seemed at least as good overall to new 'features' that didn't seem to help me.

You have to view the lobby design as a work in progress. It will continue to get better. Yes, there are flaws. You should NEVER have to scroll east/west to read text in the lobby, esp when word wrap worked properly in previous version. But assume that in the future things like rooms and filters will be very useful.

[Pentarctagon]

the only thing i didn't really like about the new drake images was that they seem to be 3/4 green (some more orange seeing as they breath fire would have been nice). they do look infinitely better than the old images in any case.

the lobby kind of annoyed me though, i liked the way 1.6 had clearly separated areas for everything. now everything tends to blend together due to the dull, dark-grey background and lack of an outline around the different sections. the filter is really neat and will probably be much more useful when most people move from the 1.6 to 1.8 server.

[multilis]

"Your artistic opinion + your own fault for not checking facts = Wesnoth shouldn't get GSoC anymore."

Lobby says "Your version is *obsolete*. Get new version"

Can you honestly and directly answer question: "is version 1.6 of Wesnoth obsolete?"

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This is a forum for feedback, it is *also* a person's opinion that art is way better/less corny, etc.

Once long ago green trolls rather than gray ones still don't mind green trolls years later, don't see a big improvement with gray.

A fair assessment of art would be to allow non-artists/developers who have no stake/prejudice to vote on which they like better, can be done months after 1.8 is out if you feel nostalga is big factor. My personal opinion is art is around same and each change leads to relearning/confusion. I miss the loss of color which helped separate different races, eg trolls compared to drakes.

Reminds me of Master of Orion 3 which lives in infamy as some of the most out of touch developers anywhere who were so concerned about "corny" art, game concepts, etc that they ruined one of the most beloved franchises ever made... (The forum here sometimes reminds me of the MOO3 forum, some of mod sounded eerily similar, when related to things that many fans wanted but developers didn't like)

[Gambit]

Can you honestly and directly answer question: "is version 1.6 of Wesnoth obsolete?"

Yes I can.
No it isn't. You see, it's still listed as stable on the front page. (as of the time of this post)

[multilis]

Can you honestly and directly answer question: "is version 1.6 of Wesnoth obsolete?"

Yes I can.
No it isn't. You see, it's still listed as stable on the front page.

Entering the multiplayer forum from version 1.6 you now see:

"1.8 is released and is now available for download. 1.6 is obsolete, go get 1.8 now!"

So I first uninstall 1.6, then look for 1.8, notice it is only release candidate yes, but since already got half way there might as well install it.

I thus protest that it is *not* entirely my fault, as the info stated in game is *incorrect" according to you.

[The Black Sword]

At first I didn't particularly like the new drake sprites but I decided to try some campaigns/survivals on 1.8 with them(Rather than just debug to see the new images). Playing this way I no longer have any confusion which is which and I'm confident that when 1.8 becomes stable and everyone is using the images it'll be the same. I also think they're a lot cooler than the old images now.
But if you think about when you improve all the images in wesnoth, your bound to dislike some of them. Just see whichever particular units you dislike as the cost of all the othe great improvements in graphics.

[Soliton]

I thus protest that it is *not* entirely my fault, as the info stated in game is *incorrect" according to you.

Sure, it's not your fault that you don't like 1.8. Not much anyone can do about that now though. You're free to keep using 1.6 for as long as you want.

A fair assessment of art would be to allow non-artists/developers who have no stake/prejudice to vote on which they like better

Maybe we should also let non-coders vote on parts of the wesnoth code from different versions to see which they like better. I'm sure it'll get us interesting results.

[thespaceinvader]

Fair is unimportant in this case. This is not a democracy.

If people are willing to provide constructive critique EARLY in the process, we listen fairly. At that point. But if they wait til the finished product and whine about how they don't like it, it's just irritating. Changing the base frame of any drake would require alterations to as many as 30 frames. Per drake. We're happy with them as they are, and not looking to change them at this point.

[jb]

A fair assessment of art would be to allow non-artists/developers who have no stake/prejudice to vote on which they like better, can be done months after 1.8 is out if you feel nostalga is big factor. My personal opinion is art is around same and each change leads to relearning/confusion.

This is really a dismissive statement to all the hard work the artists have done. The idea that their work could be thrown out on a whim is a bit insulting. You're talking about hours and hours of work. Unpaid, volunteer time.

I joke that I would play with circles and squares all the time because the art isn't overly important to me. Yet every new version I'm impressed and happy with the evolution.

That's NOT to say art isn't important for the artists involved, nor to Wesnoth itself. Improving the game in all aspects is important, IMO. I personally don't play with music on very often, but I really enjoy the music packaged with the game, and I'm grateful they continue to make more interesting and unique songs. Just as with the art, some of the music is really amazing.

Additionally, it's short sighted to compare wesnoth development to MoO3. Your lukewarm claim that wesnoth developers are out of touch is ludicrous and insulting. You're chatting with several of them here in this very forum. We are telling you that your thoughts and visions for wesnoth are not in alignment with ours.

[Zarel]

For reference, I went and took a look at the new Drake sprites, and thought "Wow, these are kinda similar." Then I went a look at the 1.6 Drake sprites, and thought "Wow, these are even more similar."

[Dixie]

If I can place a comment: I personnally like the new drake sprites a thousand times more. Seriously, I always played with the drakes thinking "these guy sound cool, but are so goddawmn ugly."

That said, you can probably save the old sprites somewhere on your harddrive and replace the new ones manually in your 1.8 folder. It'd take some time, but if you hate the new ones so, who's stopping you?