Slitherine

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I have worked independently for quite some time and discovered early on that no matter what you do, you always have a boss

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ORIGINAL: pak19652002
The use of colors for this purpose will be extremely confusing for the colorblind no matter what you do. There is probably too much information to be communicated in the 7 circles to avoid a confusing array of colors. You've got 24 different messages contained within 7 circles. That's a lot of data to be imbedded on the rim of a little counter!

Maybe it's my understandable aversion to color-coding, but I'm wondering if we really need all this. Is it possible to create an information overload? Counter density will be high and all these colored circles may become overwhelming. Could we look at a screenshot with maybe a dozen counters in full regalia to see if the map gets too busy?

I've been wrong before, but my spider sense is tingling about all these circles.
Peter

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Here is what status indicators currently look like (in development).

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- About the indicators, would it be possible to make them graphicaly look like to lights some more ?

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ORIGINAL: Froonp

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Here is what status indicators currently look like (in development).

This is quite beautifull !
My comments :
- I would like the counters to be a little less rounded at the corners. But I could live with this.
- Why not putting the shadow the other way around ?
- You must add tooltips to the indicators circles, that appear after 1 sec delay, so that explanation is available for them quite quickly. The players will be quickly used to them, so you should make them desactivable too.
- About the indicators, would it be possible to make them graphicaly look like to lights some more ?

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ORIGINAL: Neilster

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- About the indicators, would it be possible to make them graphicaly look like to lights some more ?

I had an idea that making the periphery of the indicators slightly darker and adding a highlight might help with this so I whipped this up really quickly using MS Paint. They obviously could be done much better, with more graduation of the darkening toward the periphery and a less blobby highlight. Also, what about the different zoom levels? Still should be doable, I think, perhaps abandoning this chrome when the indicators get too small.

Cheers, Neilster

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I originally had the shadows bottom and right but they ran into the status indicators (space is extremely tight). Quite by chance I found that by placing them under the status indicators (in order to save room) I stumbled upon the possibility of partially covering the status indicators for the units underneath. I consider this a big plus.

Tooltips et al are polish to come later. I expect to include them for a whole lot of stuff on the screen.

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An indicator that surounds the entire unit is good. (I belive you have included that already), but a status-light like "has moved this turn" is crap and should be replaced by movement arrows on the map to indicate the path traveled. Also attacks could be displayed with arrows. (see Gary Grigsby's World At War way of doing it)

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ORIGINAL: scout1

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I have worked independently for quite some time and discovered early on that no matter what you do, you always have a boss

I believe this IS the definition of a wife

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ORIGINAL: Lothrim

Regarding your tries to make the stacks 3D:
Having the shadows to the top left might be handy in terms of space, but it is contratry to the way shadows work in windows. Light is always comming from the top left.
Also you need a highlight of the other side of the counter in white.

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Regarding stacks:
You have chosen 3 categories:
- single unit
- small stack
- large stack

I would suggest that you keep it at 2 levels:
- single unit
- stack
The other option is confusing, and the difference between a large stack and a small stack is not really usefull.

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I am still a doomsayer I guess, when I predict that you will fail to produce a good AI. But don´t let that discourage you.

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ORIGINAL: Yohan

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I originally had the shadows bottom and right but they ran into the status indicators (space is extremely tight). Quite by chance I found that by placing them under the status indicators (in order to save room) I stumbled upon the possibility of partially covering the status indicators for the units underneath. I consider this a big plus.

Tooltips et al are polish to come later. I expect to include them for a whole lot of stuff on the screen.

The tool tips solves the color blind issue (and also have a nice PDF page I can print and put on the wall beside my computer to reference) and I think your shading idea to show an indicator on units underneath is perfect.

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ORIGINAL: Lothrim
Hi Shanon

Out from lurking (having watched this space for more than 6 months) I just had to post a few notes to you.
When you took up this project some time ago I quietly laughed at the world for producing yet another fool willing to try on the task of implementing WIF. I liked Chris, but I considered his effort doomed from the outset.
I must admit that your effort has turned me into a believer. Now I only cry because you have to spend time doing trivial stuff like positioning units inside a 96 pixel space.
It would be great if you had more people to help you with the basic stuff, so you could code a proper AI.

I am still a doomsayer I guess, when I predict that you will fail to produce a good AI. But don´t let that discourage you. I will buy your game no matter how much the AI sucks. Having a virtual WIF board that you can play with your friends on email is GREAT.

Regarding your tries to make the stacks 3D:
Having the shadows to the top left might be handy in terms of space, but it is contratry to the way shadows work in windows. Light is always comming from the top left.
Also you need a highlight of the other side of the counter in white.
If it is impossible because of space, I would rather have flat counters, possibly with am indication that there are multiple units in the hex.

Regarding stacks:
You have chosen 3 categories:
- single unit
- small stack
- large stack

I would suggest that you keep it at 2 levels:
- single unit
- stack
The other option is confusing, and the difference between a large stack and a small stack is not really usefull.

Indicators (lights):
While we are at it, my opinion of them is that they should be eliminated if at all possible.
An indicator that surounds the entire unit is good. (I belive you have included that already), but a status-light like "has moved this turn" is crap and should be replaced by movement arrows on the map to indicate the path traveled. Also attacks could be displayed with arrows. (see Gary Grigsby's World At War way of doing it)

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ORIGINAL: Capitaine

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ORIGINAL: Lothrim
Regarding your tries to make the stacks 3D:
Having the shadows to the top left might be handy in terms of space, but it is contratry to the way shadows work in windows. Light is always comming from the top left.
Also you need a highlight of the other side of the counter in white.

I quite agree with this here. This was my thought, too, when I first saw the shading. The added depth was excellent, but it looks awkward. The actual face of the counter, too, needs the additional highlighting. The "crowding issue" can be solved; better to reduce the size of the lighted indicators than apply backwards shading in Windows.

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ORIGINAL: Flanker Leader
just curious as far as stacking goes, is there going to be 'tabs' or another way to let you put all aircraft on top of the stack for investigation/movement, or all naval, or all land? or even to see at a glance that there are aircraft under a stack of land units and so forth? in fooling around with vassel it was a real pain trying to seperatly move land units on top of (often flipped) aircraft or to see if you have an unused aircraft at the bottom of a land stack at a glance. hopefully i didn't miss an old post that already explained this!

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ORIGINAL: lomyrin
And we also need to be able to read the labels and names at zoom level 4.

Keep in mind that zoom level 3 at 1024 x 780 is about equivalent to zoom level 4 at 1280 x 1024 in terms of map hexes visible and counter label readability.

Lars

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ORIGINAL: lomyrin

Yes, I agree that the numbers are more important than the names.

The ship symbols though, in particular, do need to be clearly visible as to the type BB, CA, TRS, etc. in order to easily select, discern, and move desired units.

Lars

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Your suggestion of 1 unit versus more than 1 unit for shading is a possibility. In WIF, having 3 in a stack is sort of a key number (when playing with divisions). This part of the design is still very young and I hope to gather more suggestions/alternatives about how to make it better before making any final decisions.

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At one time my brother and his wife, having consumed quite a bit of wine, gave into the temptation to let their 2 year old eat spaghetti with his hands. They placed him on the floor, with a tablecloth spread out underneath him, and let him have at it. When all was done, they picked up the tablecloth with him still inside of it and carrying the whole mess to the bathtub for a long soak and thorough wash.

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Chris wrote what I consider a very sweet way of gonig through a stack of units. When you right click on a stack a menu comes up, which is fairly standard practice. What is different in CWIF (and now MWIF) is that the code is tracking both the down stroke of the mouse click and the release. By positioning the popup menu "just so", with Next Unit immediately under the cursor, Chris was able to make a single mouse click serve a dual purpose. You can select from the popup menu or you can simply let the mouse button return to normal position. In the latter case, the top unit in the stack is moved to the bottom.

Now that is a lot of technical detail, but the effect is you simply right click on a stack to see the next unit. Even with dozens of naval units in a stack, it takes almost no effort to go through them all.

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ORIGINAL: Neilster

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I am still a doomsayer I guess, when I predict that you will fail to produce a good AI. But don´t let that discourage you.

Have you read the whole AI thread?

Cheers, Neilster

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ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
Marking out the path traveled isn't feasible in WIF. The unit density in the front lines is so high, that if I were to do that, it would look like a bowl of spaghetti run over by a steam roller. [At one time my brother and his wife, having consumed quite a bit of wine, gave into the temptation to let their 2 year old eat spaghetti with his hands. They placed him on the floor, with a tablecloth spread out underneath him, and let him have at it. When all was done, they picked up the tablecloth with him still inside of it and carrying the whole mess to the bathtub for a long soak and thorough wash.]

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ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
During game play it is almost a given that players will want to reconsider/undo moves. They possibilities are so numerous and there are so many units to move, that players frequently change their minds. For that reason having indicators for which units: can move, have moved, cannot move is a very useful feature. If I made it controllable by a toggle switch, I would bet that it would always be turned on. But I am still open to that possibilty.

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The goal of the indicators is obviously to assist that player, so that he remembers to move all units. I just think that indicators might not be the best way to do that.

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A Move-To-Next-Unit feauture is a possibility, but it is not very great in a wif scale game.

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A Hide-All-Units-That-Have-Moved is an idea I toyed with.

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ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

I am deciding on the size for the status indicators such that they are visible/useful down to level 3 of zoom. That translates as a change from 136 by 152 pixels per hex down to 51 by 57 pixels per hex. Players tell me they usually play at zoom level 4 and would like to be able to play at zoom level 3. That's because they can see more of the map at the same time when zoomed out.

While I hold aesthetics to be quite important, more than merely eye candy, playability still rules supreme in the list of criteria.

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The goal of the indicators is obviously to assist that player, so that he remembers to move all units. I just think that indicators might not be the best way to do that.

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A sentry feauture where you indicate that this unit is meant to be standing still for a long time (garisons, anti-partisan units, reserve convoy points etc) is a must in almost any implementation.