Slitherine

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Historical Detail
In the discussion about the units, some forum members suggested that when a unit is clicked on, a large panel could appear that provides historical details about the unit. This could include photographs, text, and perhaps a short description on the history of the unit during the war.

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I could set this up so it could be modifiable by the players. My thought being that players could exchange files on units (or someone could create a library of same) which could be used to replace the ones that come with MWIF when it ships. I could also provide a link to the record logs of previous games, and report on what the unit did in those games.

ADG always gives player notes for each scenario that indirectly provide historical detail. I intend to include all of those in MWIF.

What else would you like to see? And where should it be added?

Animation
Bugs Bunny. I’m sorry, but that’s what comes to my mind first whenever I think about this. My second thought is always the hand-eye coordination games (first person shooter) where weapons fire and things blow up. I entertain serious doubt that either of these would be acceptable to Dave. I do have one idea that I think will provide MWIF with some animation.

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In the discussion on after action reports and the use of the game record log, the suggestion arose of being able to replay a game from start to finish with the viewer controlling the replay. Different controls would be provided for the speed of the replay, what is included (e.g., skip all the production stuff, or only show me the land war in Russia), and point of view (zoom in or out during the replay). I can expand on this rather easily so that:
(1) the replay can be started and stopped at any point in the game (e.g., just the summer offensive of 1944),
(2) the game can be played in reverse, from finish to start, and
(3) an individual turn can be replayed - during a game.

What I have in mind for the last is giving the player the ability to have all his orders for the turn ‘replayed’ on the screen before he commits to them. This would primarily apply for reviewing all your land moves and the attacks that you intend to make. It would let you do one last check before clicking on the OK button.

Still, there should be more animation.

Sound
When I listen to the ideas about sound inside my head, all I hear is silence.

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ORIGINAL: SeaMonkey
Plush...yeah , what they said, but luxurious, something radiating overwhelming comfort, to draw you in and compell you to never leave.

History...that's the games we play. A short take of the real history to compare to the new(recent)more expansive history from our game actions. Unit notations of past(recent in game) conflicts(victories & defeats), equipment upgrades, replacements, to&es, commanders, unit patches and insignias.

Animations...yeah this could be good, old newsreel (movietones), Victory at Sea, as well as the appropriate footage of the battle actions taking place, sounds of weapons, equipment movements and historical radio reports and clips of newspaper headlines.

And during those more subliminal periods (planning) the appropriate music from the era for the side that is being played, Big Band Music, classical German marches and Russian composers, etc. Propaganda speeches,(Tokyo Rose, Goebbels radio addresses, fireside chats, etc.) corresponding to the ingame date to keep you oriented. The reactions of the crowds/masses, air raid sirens, muffled artillery explosions, small arms, with (on screen)peripheral flashes of light signifying the fight going on all around us.

All kinds of little visual representations and sounds to challenge your attention to the game mechanics and invite you into mistakes, like the Sirens to Ulysses' ears.

Now I'm not sure if there is any intelligence gathering or espionage in MWiF, but perhaps a verbal/visual or written report(historical) from time to time, not necessarily factual, generated by triggers from your or your opponents' moves.

All in black and white, like the era, and the sound characteristics as well. yeah that's the ticket, take us back in the time machine, we don't just want to replay the conflict, we want to live it.....without getting hurt , of course.

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ORIGINAL: Greyshaft
I hate the repetition of some games which play the same animations/video clips umpteen times in a game. I want information dammit! I don't need some game designer's idea of video entertainment <oops... there goes my name off the beta list>

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ORIGINAL: Greyshaft
I hate the repetition of some games which play the same animations/video clips umpteen times in a game. I want information dammit! I don't need some game designer's idea of video entertainment <oops... there goes my name off the beta list>

OK... I agree with the need for a leetle something extra when you right click on an aircraft/naval counter. I vote for an even split between game information <this is one of 'x' Sopwith Camels in the game> and historical information < The Sopwith Camel entered service in May 1917 and was armed with twin vickers machine guns. It was a b@stard of a plane to fly and the average life expectancy of an English pilot was little more than two weeks. It has been claimed that the Sopwith Camel was responsible for shooting down 1,294 enemy planes during the war. >

Dibs on the aircraft histories. I'll get up a para or two on each air unit counter and see if its useful. It's a starting point if nothing else.

Steve, if you have better idea for collating game info then then tell me before I waste too much time on this

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ORIGINAL: c92nichj

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ORIGINAL: Greyshaft
I hate the repetition of some games which play the same animations/video clips umpteen times in a game. I want information dammit! I don't need some game designer's idea of video entertainment <oops... there goes my name off the beta list>

I agree with greyshaft that the same videoclip/picture cannot be played to many times, then it is just annoying, it have to be a unique clip for each occasion and shouldn't be played more than once maybe twice during a campaign, that was the beauty with the wonder movies in Civ II, in each game you could only build each wonder once, hence only see the movie once, as it would be unlikely that you built all of the wonders the next time you played the game and built a different set of wonders you would see a differnet set of movies.

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ORIGINAL: Froonp

Oh, I just got an idea.
One thing that I would like MWiF to contain is a WWII timeline.
Best if that timeline can be filtered by theaters.

For example, from old SSI games :

******************************************
World War II (39-45) - General Timeline
(from “Clash of Steel” - SSI)


Date Place Event
Sep/ Oct 39 Poland Germans invade
Sep/ Oct 39 Warsaw Germans capture
Sep/ Oct 39 Poland Surrenders
Nov/ Dec 39 Finland Russia invades
Jan/ Feb 40 Finland Surrenders
Mar/ Apr 40 Denmark Germans invade
Mar/ Apr 40 Denmark Surrenders
Mar/ Apr 40 Norway Germans invade
Mar/ Apr 40 Oslo Germans capture
Mar/ Apr 40 Norway Surrenders
May/ Jun 40 Norway Allies land at Narvik
May/ Jun 40 Norway Allies withdraw troops
May/ Jun 40 Netherlands Germany invades
May/ Jun 40 Belgium Germany invades
May/ Jun 40 France Germany invades
May/ Jun 40 Antwerp Germany captures
May/ Jun 40 Paris Germany captures
May/ Jun 40 Brest Germany captures
May/ Jun 40 Bordeaux Germany captures
May/ Jun 40 Netherlands Surrenders
May/ Jun 40 Belgium Surrenders
May/ Jun 40 France Surrenders
May/ Jun 40 Italy Joins Axis
Jul/ Aug 40 Hungary Joins Axis
Jul/ Aug 40 Rumania Joins Axis
Sep/ Oct 40 Egypt Italy invades
Nov/ Dec 40 Greece Italy invades
Nov/ Dec 40 Egypt Allies attack Italians
******************************************

Or :

******************************************
Word War II (41-45) – Eastern Front
(from “ War in Russia ” - SSI)


DATE SITE BATTLE INFO
Jun 41 Daugavpils Germans capture
Jun 41 Gorodishche Germans seal off
Jun 41 Minsk Germans seal off
Jul 41 Minsk Germans capture
Jul 41 Dvina Germans cross
Jul 41 Dniepr Germans cross
Jul 41 Smolensk Germans reach
Jul 41 near Uman Germans seal off forces
Aug 41 Smolensk Germans capture
Aug 41 near Uman Germans capture forces
Aug 41 Dnepropetrovsk Germans reach
Aug 41 Kremenchug Germans form bridgehead
Aug 41 North of Gomel Russian attack repulsed
Aug 41 Novgorod Germans capture
Aug 41 Vuosalmi Finns capture
Aug 41 Viipuri Finns capture
Sep 41 near Lokhvista Germans capture
Sep 41 Schlusselburg Germans capture
Sep 41 Dniepr Germans cross
Sep 41 Kiev Germans capture
Oct 41 Vyazma Germans seal off
Oct 41 Bryansk Germans seal off
Oct 41 Vyazma Germans capture
Oct 41 Bryansk Germans capture
Oct 41 Moscow Germans begin assault
Oct 41 Kharkov Germans capture
Oct 41 Orel Germans capture
Oct 41 Kalinin Germans capture
Oct 41 Sevastopol Germans begin assault
Nov 41 Rostov Germans capture
Nov 41 Rostov Russians recapture
Nov 41 Tikhvin Germans capture
Nov 41 Kursk Germans capture
Dec 41 Tikhvin Russians recapture
Dec 41 Moscow Counteroffensive begins
******************************************

Or

******************************************
World War II (41-45) – Pacific War
(from “ Pacific War ” - SSI)


DATE BASE BATTLE INFO
12/ 41 Bangkok Japanese capture
12/ 41 Batan I. Japanese capture
12/ 41 Clark Field Japanese capture
12/ 41 Davao Japanese capture
12/ 41 Guam Japanese capture
12/ 41 Hong Kong Japanese capture
12/ 41 Jitra Japanese capture
12/ 41 Khota Bharu Japanese capture
12/ 41 Kuantan Japanese capture
12/ 41 Lagaspi Japanese capture
12/ 41 Lingayen Japanese capture
12/ 41 Makin I. Japanese capture
12/ 41 Miri Japanese capture
12/ 41 Oahu Japanese carrier attack
12/ 41 Sarawak Japanese capture
12/ 41 Singora Japanese capture
12/ 41 Tarawa Japanese capture
12/ 41 Wake Japanese capture
******************************************

There is also a good one at http://www.wargamer.com/ww2timeline/main.asp

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ORIGINAL: rtamesis
Re: Historical detail
Have the historical details window pop-up available as part of the menu items when you right-click on the unit and not automatically show up on the screen everytime one clicks on a unit. With everything that's going on, I would not want the window cluttering up the screen unless I really wanted to view it. Perhaps the scenario set-up screen should be the place for having the history available to the player.

Re: Animation
I'm like you. Animation adds little to my game experience unless it's a unit going away in a poof of smoke when it is completely destroyed or a destroyed ship unit quickly sinking into the sea. Make it a choosable option on the menu bar that can be turned off to save on processing power and increase the performance. Replays are fine as a menu item if other players want it. Footage can quickly get repetitive and slows down game play considerably as far as I'm concerned so again, make it an option that can be quickly turned off.

Re: Sound
Other than an explosion sound when a unit is attacked and destroyed, I see little use for it. Again, make it an option that can be turned off.

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ORIGINAL: Cheesehead
IMO I don't think any of these issues need to distract you (Steve) from the meet and potatoes of the game. There are plenty of people at Matrix that can handle the eye and ear candy. I would hope you would let them deal with it and not worry about it for another minute of your time. Most of the historical fluff goes on in my imagination anyway.

John

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ORIGINAL: rtamesis

A new player may not necessarily realize that you can skip the splash screens and videos at the start of the game. I had to weather through tons of those things in other games until I pressed the esc key out of frustration. If you are going to implement splash screens and video at the beginning of the game, please have the instructions "Press ESC to skip this" appear if the player moves his mouse and then fade away after a 10 seconds of mouse inactivity.

• USA Anthem: "The Star Spangled Banner" (Sousa)
  
• USA March: "The Stars and Stripes Forever" (Sousa)
  
• USA Air Victory: "Wild Blue Yonder"
  
• USA Naval Victory: "Anchors Aweigh"
  
• USA Hymn: "Adagio For Strings" (Barber)
  
  
• UK Anthem: "God Save the King"
  
• UK March: "Rule Britannia"
  
• UK Hymn: "War Requiem" (Britten)
  

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2) Animation -
- I would suggest animating the combat results, possibly with die rolls being shown as well.

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I wouldn't necessarily show them on the map, but show all the engaged units on a suitable background and let combat commence. This might make it easier for players to pick out which units they want to destroy or have damaged, and to see what their opponent has done to them. The player should have the option to not show die rolls and not show the combat animation (just letting the units change status and disappear from the map), provided a detailed combat log (a la UV or WitP) is available to figure out exactly what happened during a battle.

- I would suggest using small sprites for things like factories, oil refineries, resources, manpower, and other map elements.

- At high zoom levels, I suggest you consider using animated sprites for different kinds of units (a la "Hearts of Iron").

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MWiF has an enormous variety of units, so it might be tough to develop accurate sprites for each of the individual ships and aircraft types in the game. If you do this, I suggest the on-counter information should be displayed if the unit is selected (see "Historical Detail"). At lower screen zoom levels, it might be easier to have just an icon (a la UV or WitP) representing the position - clicking on the icon would allow access to all units "underneath" the top unit on the stack.

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ORIGINAL: popejoy1
Hi!

Here are some initial thoughts:

1) Historical detail -
- I would ask that the historical detail for any one unit be limited to what it did historically and/or what it has done in the current game.
- I would ask that all the historical information be accessible from an in-game browse function that could review this information for each unit (including enemy units) in the game.

2) Animation -
- I would suggest animating the combat results, possibly with die rolls being shown as well. I wouldn't necessarily show them on the map, but show all the engaged units on a suitable background and let combat commence. This might make it easier for players to pick out which units they want to destroy or have damaged, and to see what their opponent has done to them. The player should have the option to not show die rolls and not show the combat animation (just letting the units change status and disappear from the map), provided a detailed combat log (a la UV or WitP) is available to figure out exactly what happened during a battle.

- I would suggest using small sprites for things like factories, oil refineries, resources, manpower, and other map elements.

- At high zoom levels, I suggest you consider using animated sprites for different kinds of units (a la "Hearts of Iron"). MWiF has an enormous variety of units, so it might be tough to develop accurate sprites for each of the individual ships and aircraft types in the game. If you do this, I suggest the on-counter information should be displayed if the unit is selected (see "Historical Detail"). At lower screen zoom levels, it might be easier to have just an icon (a la UV or WitP) representing the position - clicking on the icon would allow access to all units "underneath" the top unit on the stack.

Sound:

- I would suggest appropriate sound information (boom / splash / Stuka sirens / artillyer fire / bombs whistling down / aircraft maneuvering / etc) for specific results tied to combat animation (if used). The player should have the option of turning these off.

- I would suggest national anthems for each participant be played for certain major events; a "national march" for national victories (i.e., enemy country surrenders), a "national hymn" for defeats, etc. For example:

• USA Anthem: "The Star Spangled Banner" (Sousa)
  
• USA March: "The Stars and Stripes Forever" (Sousa)
  
• USA Air Victory: "Wild Blue Yonder"
  
• USA Naval Victory: "Anchors Aweigh"
  
• USA Hymn: "Adagio For Strings" (Barber)
  
  
• UK Anthem: "God Save the King"
  
• UK March: "Rule Britannia"
  
• UK Hymn: "War Requiem" (Britten)
  

My $0.02!

Pablo

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ORIGINAL: Froonp

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- I would suggest using small sprites for things like factories, oil refineries, resources, manpower, and other map elements.

- At high zoom levels, I suggest you consider using animated sprites for different kinds of units (a la "Hearts of Iron").

Oh no please never do that, I personnaly know at least one player who would die of a heart attack if he saw that the world of sprites has invaded the world of WiF FE !!! Arghhh not that

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ORIGINAL: Froonp

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ORIGINAL: popejoy1
- At high zoom levels, I suggest you consider using animated sprites for different kinds of units (a la "Hearts of Iron").

Oh no please never do that, I personnaly know at least one player who would die of a heart attack if he saw that the world of sprites has invaded the world of WiF FE !!! Arghhh not that

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ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

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ORIGINAL: Greyshaft
Dibs on the aircraft histories. I'll get up a para or two on each air unit counter and see if its useful. It's a starting point if nothing else.

Rather than a paragraph or two - how about 2 or 3 sentences with a notation about how much more could be said (+, ++, +++).

• Being able to access historical information on counters is an excellent idea. It would also be great if it were possible to do so on every hex in the game as well. Major battles/events fought at a particular location. Not that I would expect matrix to put in that information for every extra hex. But if the user base could mod it they will.
  
  
• Another idea would be for each turn have available the historical events that happened. That way the player could compare their capture of Paris against the historical date. Or perhaps when a unit moves into Paris in the status bar have the information scroll by. This information should be a modable part of the game. Perhaps have an OnCapture OnLiberate fields containing text to display unobtrusively on those events.
  

• Dice Rolling. Some people have firm faith in their ability to effect a dice roll by striking a bargain with the universe. Others are irritated by every gimmicky effect which slows down gameplay. This should be an optional feature.
  
  
• Counters Moving. When your opponent moves your should be able to watch the hexes they move over. Perhaps even highlight those hexes as the counter moves. This also should be able to be configured to be skipped always and skipped on demand.
  
  
• Ambience. Have factories smoke stacks billow as they work. Or if they are damaged by bombing have them burn. Rather than having to go off the weather lines have an option where the climate can be displayed over the hex via a animated cloud or some other type of effect. Providing players with immediate feedback of the status of a hex. Have tiny trains travel up and down the rail lines. Convoys sailing through the sea zones where they are placed.
  
  
• Screens. Perhaps have a background animation or scene keyed to the battle/terrain/weather being fought. A battle in a blizzard might have frosted buttons/backgrounds. It would be neat if the entire GUI subtly changed depending on the outcome of the war. So Germany it would shift from enthusiasm in 1940 to sheer desperation in 1944.
  
  
• Short optional ingame movies on major events. Fall of Paris, Berlin, Moscow etc. I tend to think they don't provide enough bang for buck. Most people would only watch them once.
  

• Music. I would like to see the ingame music linked to the country you are playing in order to give a different feeling to each nation. Perhaps each side having its own containing folder of mp3's to which the user can add their own selections to the playlist if they desire.
  
  
• Depending on the hex, screen which has focus overlay some background noise for that selection. A industrial clanging for the production screen, tropical jungle sounds for examining a hexstack in Burma. A train toots when you railmove. Parachuts open on an airborne assault.
  
  
• Combat sounds during resolution and varying depending on units engaged and result.