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Scripting demo release candidate

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Lewin

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Post 10 Apr 2013, 12:24

Re: Scripting demo release candidate

I have a few things that I'd like to add on top of Krom's well-written posts.
We are not testers, we are lab rats. We are getting thrown with new patches which we were not asked before. Build unlock! Go eat eat rats, let us see how you react.
Mulberry, if you feel like a lab rat then I suggest you stop participating in testing, because unlike a lab rat, you are doing this because you chose to, and you can walk away whenever you want to ;)

You seem to be acting like you're paying us to develop the Remake for you. You keep demanding us to do stuff for you and acting like you own the project as much as we do. I'm not sure how you expect the testing process to work, but I see it like this:
- We make a build and send it out to the testers
- Testers find bugs/crashes and report them to us, and if they have any other feedback they post it on the forum or email it to us as we asked
- We fix the bugs and listen to the feedback, then we produce a new build and send it out again, and the process repeats until we're happy that the release is stable and the feedback we received is resolved.

If that makes you feel like a lab rat then I'm not sure why you're still involved in testing.
- Dark Lord and To, what kind of discrimination is this? You ask people you like and ignores people who you dont like, this way it works?
No, I used TDL and To as examples of people who have given feedback (including negative feedback) politely and constructively. They are certainly not the only people who have done this. We listen to anybody who is polite and constructive, but the tone in your last post doesn't make me feel like listening to you at all.
- All of testers were present on Team Speak, they have decent English and are nice, easy-going people. There were only 2 people missing, you and Krom. Why should we 30 testers on Team Speak chasing you two, hah?
Judging by your last post you don't seem very easy going, and you don't seem to like us much. Why would I want to talk to you further if you're just going to say stuff like you did in your last post? Also, we currently have about 140 people on our testing list so it's a MASSIVE overstatement to say that all the testers are on TeamSpeak. We cannot practically talk by voice with 30 people, let alone 140, so the forums and emails seem like a far easier way to receive feedback. Whenever I go on TeamSpeak it's usually empty, because when I'm awake most of you are asleep. Why should I stay up to 4am just to get some feedback which could have just as easily been written on the forum?
- Once again. Testing has been finished. No one asked to summarize it. WHY? Be so kind, let me know.
What was there to summarise? You can see from the forum and more recently our website new story that we decided to keep the balance changes made in r4297 (shield bonus and bowmen firing faster) because we received overwhelmingly positive feedback about them. What else is there to say?
Ben, the strange thing is that Lewin was 100% aware of this issue because of the prompt feedback provided by testers. We get this issue now. In fact someone was just unresponsible in the past.
As I've said many many times, we are going to fix archers being unresponsive. I don't understand why people keep bringing this up. I'm not going to repeat this again.

Yes, as people have pointed out this issue was discussed ages ago and I was aware of the unresponsive issue then, but I forgot about that discussion when I recently saw the item on the todo list and implemented a fix. This was just one of thousands of changes made to the project since then, we're not going to remember how we planned to do each thing 6 months ago and we're not going to do everything perfectly. That's why we do test releases. We're not perfect, but we fix things when we make mistakes or forget about something. Why do you ridicule us? Does it make you feel good? Do you really think we implemented it this way to annoy everyone? Don't you sometimes forget about things from 6 months ago too?
Well, in that point I am sure they will disagree. I don't know if you are a programer yourself, but if you are and you are maintaining a large project, then I bet you would consider it as your own, too. It's not the project of the testers. They do a very important job, but it's only a minor job compared to programming this game. Lew&Krom spent already more than half a decade for this piece of software. It is their project, not ours. We are contributors, not developers.

Yes, I agree that their sight is biased, as is mine and yours, too. But I guess, they are dealing not too bad with this. And if they really make decisions that we completely disagree with: they made the game opensource and ensured public availability. So in the end you can fork it and maintain a 'improved branch' or whatever name you choose. If you do that, the you're a developer and the owner of that branch.
Thanks for that Siegfried, I completely agree and I hope some other people will read it too.
By the way, I dont really feel that they are developers and we dont. We are developers, but we develop the game as a public project, bring new poeple, advertise Remake, making game more popular. This aspect is very important too.
We have provided a lot of feedback with the highest level of responsibility. No one was rude, all post were constructive. All issues were addresse in public. As a reward, we haven't been given a chance to try speed up farms.
We are not testers, we are lab rats. We are getting thrown with new patches which we were not asked before. Build unlock! Go eat eat rats, let us see how you react.
I don't recall you communicating with us about including you into a team. You know that teams are made by people who share their views in general. It's hard to volounteerely work with people whom you disagree with (I'm not saying about product vision, but other areas as well, including communication). Perhaps you should be developing your own game then, since you think your contribution is that big that it deserves a developer badge. Maybe you can be a full-blown standalone developer then?
P.S. It's funny to see "No one was rude, all post were constructive" and "Go eat eat rats, let us see how you react" in one paragraph ..
Ben, the strange thing is that Lewin was 100% aware of this issue because of the prompt feedback provided by testers. We get this issue now. In fact someone was just unresponsible in the past.

Lewin, I am waiting for your answers. Thank you in advance.

P.s. After reading this post, follow the link and read 20 pages of feedback. I assume you haven't done it before. You are welcome to read it now:
viewtopic.php?f=26&t=1282
P.p.s Post edited. Some more reflections added.
Which exact issue do you refer to?
P.S. No need to throw such statements around, it is kind of bad for your reputation, because there are more than enough Lewins posts on the thread to indicate he has read it through more than once.
Well said Krom.

Regarding building unlocking, Krom and I are discussing it and we'll write about it here in the next few days once we've made a decision.
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The Dark Lord

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Post 10 Apr 2013, 12:32

Re: Scripting demo release candidate

I do not wish to be involved in the discussion between Lewin and Mulberry, but I support Lewin in his statements. I don't see why it's so hard to write your opinion here. Although I must say it would be nice to get a reply. So once again I will quote myself:
I'd still like a reply on this post:
Regarding the actual discussion of building unlocks:
- if the problem is that it makes maps too easy them maps can be modified to have less timber, stone, food, etc.
I agree.
- if the problem is that players build too much before peacetime then you can play with 5 or 10 minutes less peacetime
I agree.
- if the problem is that new players get confused and run out of wood/stone or forget to build an inn, that's a serious problem which needs to be considered
I agree. But don't think that it's only new players who forget to build an inn. It has happened to me and other TS guys as well.

Anyway, there is one more option you didn't mention. What if the problem is that people just don't like it and prefer the old way? Someone like myself? :P Call me a conservative, but KaM has always been a slow game and I like it. There's now an option to increase the game speed, so I don't see the necessity to speed up the game even more, and, what's worse: compulsory! We have no choice.
Map authors can still change the unlocking, for example To's maps still have the quarry and woodcutter unlocked at the start, other maps you have to build the school first (so To's maps still allow a faster game start than others because you can get the sawmill after just 1 building, rather than 2). So there's still room for customisation. You could even unlock the sawmill at the start to allow players to rush for gold/iron before getting woodcutters/stonemasons properly set up. Or unlock farms at the start to encourage people to use horses. Or unlock gold/iron/coal mines at the start. There's lot of possibilities for customising your map by unlocking certain buildings.
So when all of this is possible... when we can have so many different combinations and options of building unlocking... Why can't we have the old, default one?
Furthermore I agree with Revo. TPR had an option to choose pre-build towns (up to sawmill). This option would skip the, according to some, uninteresting start of a game.
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Krom

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Post 10 Apr 2013, 13:16

Re: Scripting demo release candidate

This change with the unlock order is really not necessary because of the reasons I will explain in this post.

It takes away a lot of variety between maps. Now you got the option whether you play a map with a prebuild town, normal unlock order or for example maps like back in the desert with completely different unlock orders. With this change you'll force everyone to play one way (yes prebuild is still possible, this could actually be the solution for your slow gamespeed).
This makes no sense, we just changed the default order to a more rapid one. You can still play pre-build maps and unique unlocking order maps. Even more, dynamic scripts allow to program any unlocking order you wish (however that will confuse a lot of players, if you tamper unusually with it). Allowing to use prebuilt bases is a good idea for a mutator. We might try it out (e.g. with a slider that sets amount of prebuilt houses from 1 to 15)
Second, I took a look at the list of most popular maps in 4179. Almost half of the maps played there is on maps where you don't have buildings unlocked from the start except for the school. The number one map is even one of the slowest and most campy maps around, Cursed Ravine. They even got the choice there to play a To map like Back in the Desert or Dead of Winter which are way faster.
You imply that more than half of the Top20 maps played in r4179 have buildings unlocked? Sadly we dont have stats on average map playtime and dropout rate. That would have massively helped us in analysis. Until then it's hard to name the exact reason CR is on top. Argument taken.
Third, this change will probably really confusing for many people because many of them play the game since the original version. They are used to the old unlock order and I think it might be possible they want to keep it even though it's just nostalgia. You might lose players because they expect the game to be as close to the original as possible.
It is not like we lock what was unlocked and unlock in some new crazy way. If we loose some nostalgic players, that would be mostly due to Market and working Multiplayer ... yet I don't see that happening, quite the opposite.
As last. This change will take away a lot of the challenge of the building part. Yes you could re-balance maps, but this will still make it a lot easier than it was before. I understand that you guys want to make the game easy to learn/play. Anyway taking away the challenge from the building phase is taking away the challenge of the game for me since I'm mainly focusing on the building part. I'm sure that I'm not the only one.
There's still enough challenge to not to forget to build an Inn and position quarries wihtout running out of wood. All is quite solvable with -8 wood -6 stone taken from starting resources. As said earlier - slightly reduced challenge is a side-effect of big change - speeding up the early game. If we would propose to make the game more challenging AND more slow (e.g. all roads require 1 wood + 1 stone and take x2 time to build), would we get support for that? I doubt.
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dicsoupcan

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Post 10 Apr 2013, 13:26

Re: Scripting demo release candidate

Even more, dynamic scripts allow to program any unlocking order you wish
Wait a second, is it possible to use dynamic scripting to use the old building unlock order in a map? If the awnser is yes, why are we still discussing? Then we could use dynamic scripting to get the challenge back for some maps while the new unlocking order is the standard one. this would mean problem solved.
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Ben

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Post 10 Apr 2013, 13:31

Re: Scripting demo release candidate

Wait a second, is it possible to use dynamic scripting to use the old building unlock order in a map? If the awnser is yes, why are we still discussing? Then we could use dynamic scripting to get the challenge back for some maps while the new unlocking order is the standard one. this would mean problem solved.
No, it isn't. HouseUnlock cannot override blocked houses, i.e., you'd need to first block the houses with script, and then use HouseUnlock to unlock them once you have the prerequisite built.

It is possible that there is a different method of which I haven't thought. Lewin would be able to confirm it.
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Krom

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Post 10 Apr 2013, 13:33

Re: Scripting demo release candidate

I think I posted about that some pages earlier, but here's the concept once again:

OnMissionStart
[Block everything but the School]

OnHouseBuilt
[if house = school then unblock Inn
if house = Inn then unblock quarry
if house = Sawmill then unblock everything]

Note that it is unBlock (Actions.HouseAllow), so that you dont need to manually manage build order after sawmill.

Furthermore, mapmaker can limit number of allowed houses to make it even harder, but please write that in a clear description and first ingame message or display as text "you can build 1 more Woodcutters out of 3" in at least 5 common languages.
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Ben

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Post 10 Apr 2013, 13:36

Re: Scripting demo release candidate

I think I posted about that some pages earlier, but here's the concept once again:

OnMissionStart
[Block everything but the School]

OnHouseBuilt
[if house = school then unblock Inn
if house = Inn then unblock quarry
if house = Sawmill then unblock everything]

Note that it is unBlock (Actions.HouseAllow), so that you dont need to manually manage build order after sawmill.

Furthermore, mapmaker can limit number of allowed houses to make it even harder, but please write that in a clear description and first ingame message or display as text "you can build 1 more Woodcutters out of 3" in at least 5 common languages.
Ahhh, so as long as someone blocks houses with Dynamic scripts (and not the traditional KaM code), they can be unlocked with dynamic scripts?

So, just to make sure I am understanding the syntax of the code correctly, to unlock the sawmill, I'd use this code:
  Code:
OnHouseBuilt(9 //woodcutter's) Begin HouseUnlock(0 //Sawmill) End;
Last edited by Ben on 10 Apr 2013, 13:43, edited 1 time in total.
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Krom

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Post 10 Apr 2013, 13:41

Re: Scripting demo release candidate

not unlocked, unBlocked(!)

There are two separate things:
- house can be locked/unlocked, meaning if it can be accessed earlier irregardless of build order and pre-requirements (e.g. I could unlock Stables in TSK1)
- house can be blocked/allowed, meaning if it can't be accessed even if its preceeding houses are built (e.g. Towers in TSK6 are blocked)
See the subtle difference

But we better continue that in separate topic about DynamicScripts usage. Here's RC discussion ;)
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Ben

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Post 10 Apr 2013, 13:44

Re: Scripting demo release candidate

Alright, I'll repost in a new topic.
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pawel95

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Post 10 Apr 2013, 13:49

Re: Scripting demo release candidate

.
Last edited by pawel95 on 10 Apr 2013, 14:02, edited 2 times in total.
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Ben

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Post 10 Apr 2013, 13:55

Re: Scripting demo release candidate

I think what Pawel means (I don't have 5057 on this computer so I can't check for sure) is that the AI colors in the map coops are not the same as they would be in the actual campaign.
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Lewin

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Post 10 Apr 2013, 13:58

Re: Scripting demo release candidate


Please refresh our memories or show a screenshot. I do not recall the issue with "completely wrong colors"
Just start a coop map, whichever you want :rolleyes:
You mean the coop player colors are not the same as they were in the singleplayer campaigns? If you have time could you fix the colors in the RC coop maps and send the .dat files back to us? Thanks for the report.
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dicsoupcan

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Post 10 Apr 2013, 14:02

Re: Scripting demo release candidate

I think I posted about that some pages earlier, but here's the concept once again:

OnMissionStart
[Block everything but the School]

OnHouseBuilt
[if house = school then unblock Inn
if house = Inn then unblock quarry
if house = Sawmill then unblock everything]

Note that it is unBlock (Actions.HouseAllow), so that you dont need to manually manage build order after sawmill.

Furthermore, mapmaker can limit number of allowed houses to make it even harder, but please write that in a clear description and first ingame message or display as text "you can build 1 more Woodcutters out of 3" in at least 5 common languages.
I am not sure since i am terrible at scripting, but if this script means you can put the old buildorder in a map (please say yes if i am correct and no if i am incorrect)then the mutator suggestion will be more useless, since the maps can be scripted this way. Then the people who want to have a larger challenge can try to script this in a map and make their own version of it to play between people. Anyway the problem would be solved and a lot of drama can be avoided :D
Last edited by dicsoupcan on 10 Apr 2013, 14:03, edited 1 time in total.
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pawel95

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Post 10 Apr 2013, 14:02

Re: Scripting demo release candidate

Btw i dont like really what is discussing here -.- Now you just said that some players can make a simple script for MP maps ? Than I just want to know whats about the original sp games like TPR +TSK or the other SP missions (I dont want to hear now from some players: SP isnt important for me. For some players it is important)? Should I paste now every script in the 34 missions of tpr and tsk and will it work propably(dont think so)?

First of all, when you dont want to accept our statements for first, I can understand this point. However maybe at least changing the ORIGINAL game back, with changing to the old building things on Sp maps? I just got massive negative feedback from some player, because it wont make sense to play idk TSK 02 with fast forester or co.



EDIT: Oh sorry Lewin. You are right. Only a few maps have problems with the color because wrong color number, I thought just they take for all maps random colors now :-) I will send you all fixes of the coop maps (included the TSK fixing) in some weeks.
pawel95
Last edited by pawel95 on 10 Apr 2013, 14:11, edited 1 time in total.
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The Dark Lord

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Post 10 Apr 2013, 14:09

Re: Scripting demo release candidate

I sense some map updates coming up...!

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