Customization

[muxec]

Moderators please do not close this thread.

I enjoyed the game and I came to the forum. I posted several ideas and the answers were: NO, NO, NO, NO, NO. I did not suggest to change default rules I suggested adding flags like already existing one for fog of war to make the game more customizable. I checked the source code and noticed that to implement some of these changes we just need to add an if operator to the code (see my comment about randomness). Indeed everyone can code that by himself but we have a standartization issues. But if I suggest a change to be included not by default but as option developers say "NO, NO, NO!" Explain me why?


Now i understand Bill Gates who says, that freeware developers create as they what while payware developers develop customizable and flexible products.

Freeware developers must not think that customization is end-user's coding work if product-level customization is not hard to implement.

[Bandobras]

Now i understand Bill Gates who says, that freeware developers create as they what while payware developers develop customizable and flexible products.

Moderators please close this thread.

Dear muxec, please take your time to search and study the forum (and play the game). You will learn that much of the customization you propose is already in. And you will learn much more. (I'm a newbe like you, not one of those evil devs. Thank you.)

[muxec]

What can you customize without recompiling the game?

[Elvish_Pillager]

What can you customize without recompiling the game?

WML can do almost anything.

[muxec]

What can you customize without recompiling the game?

WML can do almost anything.

It can't:

Change damage calculaion system. (see my comment on random can be implemented as switchable by click)
Change economical aspects of the game. (already discussed)
Change unit reqruitment logic. (option to hire units without hero in keep for 130% of normal cost. disabled by default, can be enabled in new game dialog)

[Bandobras]

Oh, and when you find out that overexperience is customizable, please, make a sed script or a patch for the unit data that implements your proposal (or some saner system you will surely devise after reading the numerous threads on this topic). I'm so fed up of doing 5HP/100XP by hand all the time.

[muxec]

The unit class is written in the right way All member variables are accessed through methods and rewriting methods that set and return max HP is not too hard.

[Bandobras]

Sigh... This is all customizable. For overexperience (aka *-max-level-*, aka ALMA) You do not need to mess with classes, compilation, etc. Please, would you read the forum? Oh, my...

[caranha]

Sir, with all due respect, you are being a troll. (And I guess I'll bite)

Have you heard of Nethack? It is another Free Software game, in development
since the early 80's (and still in active development). It is also one of the most
successfull ones, IMHO.

Well, Nethack is THE (am i wrong?) most complex computer game you'll ever
find out there, in sheer number of different things you can do within the game. But
some people, like you, thought: "there should be MORE options in nethack".

They created SLASH'EM (Super Lots Added Stuff Hack Extended Modification - or
something like that). A game made by taking nethack code, and changing it (also
called a fork). Lots of people who agreed with them started playing Slash. Some
played both games.

One of the changes they made, the magic system, was so cool, that it made it
back to the original Nethack (in version 3.2, IIRC).

Moral of the story: If you feel that there's stuff lacking in Wesnoth, by all means, start
ShinWesnoth, Meganoth, Eastnoth, pick your fancy. You're not only allowed to do that,
you're encouraged to, by the GPL. Announce it on sourceforge.org, or similar. I'll play
it. And if I like it, I'll contribute too. I bet other players would at least take a look at your
game.

Now, moderators, please close this tread

[turin]

Moderators please do not close this thread.

I enjoyed the game and I came to the forum. I posted several ideas and the answers were: NO, NO, NO, NO, NO. I did not suggest to change default rules I suggested adding flags like already existing one for fog of war to make the game more customizable. I checked the source code and noticed that to implement some of these changes we just need to add an if operator to the code (see my comment about randomness). Indeed everyone can code that by himself but we have a standartization issues. But if I suggest a change to be included not by default but as option developers say "NO, NO, NO!" Explain me why?


Now i understand Bill Gates who says, that freeware developers create as they what while payware developers develop customizable and flexible products.

Freeware developers must not think that customization is end-user's coding work if product-level customization is not hard to implement.

reasons why:

adding an option suggests the devs support the idea.

adding an option means that, in the user's eye, the devs have to support it.

adding an option does require work, however little, and why should the devs work to produce a feature they don't want?

[Dave]

Firstly, asking for your thread not to be closed is a very good way of encouraging moderators to close your thread. Very few threads get forcibly closed by moderators, and saying "don't close the thread" only invites respondents to say "yes close the thread!" and encourage moderators to do so...

Anyway...

Wesnoth is not 'freeware'. It is Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS). Also known as Free software.

Now i understand Bill Gates who says, that freeware developers create as they what

I don't recall Bill Gates ever saying that specifically (although possibly he did), but you're right: Free software is about scratching an itch. About developers creating what they want to create. That is the root cause of Wesnoth being so good: a bunch of people of varying levels of talent creating a game that they love.

Not a game that someone else might or will love. A game that they love. These people hope that others will love it too, but if others dislike it, that's fine too: the developers are creating it for themselves, after all.

We don't write Wesnoth as zealots in some huge holy war against commercial software in general and Microsoft specifically, hoping to topple Bill Gates from his lofty position. If we were, we might care about comparisons with commercial software, and especially taunts that compare us negatively with Microsoft products. As it is, we don't: we are creating a game that we enjoy, so we are content.

payware developers develop customizable and flexible products.

Just out of curiosity, what are these 'customizable' and 'flexible' commercial products?

I've played recently, for instance, Civilization III. A very nice game, but I would have said it is far less flexible than, say, FreeCiv. Not far more.

Sure it has a few options, including even a few rule options, like lethal bombardment (mainly due to lots of controversy over that feature). However the combat system is always essentially the same, units must always be built from cities, as must buildings, etc etc.

Indeed everyone can code that by himself but we have a standartization issues.

Yes, we have standardization issues. I like talking with others on the forum and elsewhere about how they played Wesnoth. However if there are ten different options governing how rules work, then there is no common baseline. It is impossible to discuss and compare notes when everyone used different rules and options in their game. That is why I personally like to have as few rules and options as possible.

I checked the source code and noticed that to implement some of these changes we just need to add an if operator to the code

I'm glad you think it's that easy. Since you obviously have very clear ideas, and are passionate about how correct you think they are, why don't you make your own version of Wesnoth and distribute it?

That is the beauty of Free software: you have the Freedom to take Wesnoth, and try to make a better product than us. If your ideas are truly good ones, then surely everyone will play your version of Wesnoth rather than ours. We will even put a link on our site to your version and let you tell people about it here in the forums.

David

[turin]

changing game rules = bad.

that is the basic problem... game rules should stay static. (FoW and Shroud are exceptions, but they don't change the game unrecognizably.. plus devs like it. )

[Dave]

that is the basic problem... game rules should stay static. (FoW and Shroud are exceptions, but they don't change the game unrecognizably.. plus devs like it. )

Plus FoW and Shroud are purely information hiding. Given the same set of moves, the results are still exactly the same. It's just you don't have as much information to make your moves with with FoW and shroud.

David

[muxec]

Please read my post three times before replying. You did not understand me. These ideas are frequently proposed, it means almost one third of players want them implemented. And some of them rewrote the game a little. Let's suppose that we have 4 ideas that can be turned on by if. That we have 16 groups of players' desired versions. It means that we need 16 almost equal executables for each platform.

An example of what we can do with overexperience:

Original function:

Code: Select all

int unit::max_hitpoints()
{
	return maxHitpoints_;
}

The maxHitpoints_ is private and not accessed from outside directly. When unit is created (or gains level) maxHitpoints_ is realculated. To make it more flexible and easy to turn off we do not recalculate the HP everytime the unit gains experiens but only change the return function.

Code: Select all

int unit::max_hitpoints() const
{

	float g_fHPPerXP=0.05; // one HP for 20 XP
	//This variable must be global or passed from the calling function
	//To disable this feature it's enough to just set it equal to 0.0
	//Slider in new game creation dialog will be added soon.
	if ( can_advance() ) return maxHitpoints_;
	 else return maxHitpoints_+( (int)(experience()*g_fHPPerXP ) );
}

As long as the maxHitpoints_ variable is private it should work. If the source worked on my VC++ 6 I would probably test it. Maybe I'll try compiling this with gcc under Mandrake but later. Gamers, if you can compile, please test it. If it works I'll reduce randomness of combat evalution function and write a function that reads new globals from file or from GUI.

Dave, I respect your great programming skills and I must thank you for making critical variables private and critical functions easy to understand. When i edited source code of Militarizm it took me much more effort to change the onExperiebce bonus as it was not class-based.

[scott]

Please read my post three times before replying. You did not understand me. These ideas are frequently proposed, it means almost one third of players want them implemented. And some of them rewrote the game a little. Let's suppose that we have 4 ideas that can be turned on by if. That we have 16 groups of players' desired versions. It means that we need 16 almost equal executables for each platform.

//stuff//

Dave, I respect your great programming skills and I must thank you for making critical variables private and critical functions easy to understand. When i edited source code of Militarizm it took me much more effort to change the onExperiebce bonus as it was not class-based.

I think it is you who didn't read anything that was not posted by you. If you review the replies, you will see

1. It doesn't matter what 1/3 or 99% of the players want implemented. If the game's programmer says he doesn't want to change the rules, and in fact some of those changes conflict directly with the game's philosophy, then that's how it is.

2. It's not a matter of how hard it would be to do.

3. Our opinions on gameplay are submitted as advice, some of which is agreed with and some which is not. You already have a NO answer.

4. I'm not sure what you're talking about wrt 16 versions. If you're thinking permutations of options, then it's 24 versions. If you want 4 switches added, then there are 2 versions. 'Battle for Wesnoth' and whatever you decide to call your version.

5. You should play the game some more and by doing so get an appreciation for how all the naysayers feel about changing the game rules. You get such a negative response primarily because most of these questions have been discussed and debated to death.

6. Implementing drastic rule changes does not help the game achieve a 1.0 release. Arguing about the effects of changes at the very least distracts the programmers from actual work.

7. I realize that adding switches do not necessarily change the game because you can choose to play with them turned off. However, even optional (from the user's POV) changes affect the entire body of work. One person left over the addition of the drake faction because even though he didn't have to play with them ever, it was a change in TWP. And some people believe that is what makes this game different and so fun to play, thus messing with it is BAD.

I doubt this will satisfy your concerns, but at least I tried.