coralsaw
Posts: 418
Joined: 10/29/2000
From: Zürich, CH
Status: offline
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Oh well, this is too important a thread to pass. 
First of all, I'd like to say a big thanks to the decision maker that took the decision to strengthen the WITP development team and move the series forward. No matter what we individually rant about, we should agree that WITP has been a great teaching tool, a great entertainment and overall a terrific bang for the buck. Bring WITP 2 on!
Second, I'd like to pitch in my €.2 about what bothered me in the game, and why I stopped playing it after a year (a year nevertheless!). Perhaps there are other people that shared my experience, who knows.. Here goes then, my top-5 game-breakers, in no particular order (And no, existing bugs are not included, it goes without saying that thay should be fixed, and neither is AI, I found it adequate as a learning tool, even unpredictable at times).
- It always felt that I was WITP's personal assistant, not the other way around. Meaning, I had to keep logs upon logs to understand what's going on. Aren't computers supposed to automate these mundane tasks? Shouldn't I be able to enter a free-text mission for each ship/division/TF whatever so at least I remember what I want to do without bringing another laptop for text processing along? Shouldn't I be able to have all parameters and information at hand, without resorting to spreadsheets? You bet I should. Corollary: Cure spreadsheet fever.
- Rolling a new interface was really not necessary. I have ranted about this before on this forum. These days, people are (for good or for bad) used to the standard Windoze interface. Menus, right clicks, minimize/maximize, shortcuts etc. There have been millions of dollars poured for making this paradigm as easy as possible, and people have responded by learning it. Why force somebody to learn a sequence of ten clicks deep when there's usually an alternative standard way to perform the same action? Corollary: Do not roll your own interface.
- Unnecessary micromanagement kills. Rotating air units so that their crews are fresh and trained is a nice idea. It teaches me valid tactics, it teaches me history. It's also nice to be able to see who the top leader is, and who the best pilots in a squad are. We grogs love this detail. But instead of making me check every blooming unit for fatigue, let the system warn me with a trigger when this happens instead of me going searching for it. Corollary: Let the player set rules, for the system to micromanage itself.
- Hiding how things work is a bad, bad thing.Yes, I understand that it's nice to perpetuate the folclore of cryptic formulas, savvy players doing experiments to figure out inner workings, and the like. Yes, it's a good practice to protect your trade secrets, assuming formulas is one of those. But there's a lot you can do to improve the understanding, and thus the involvement, of the average player, like offering solid (even qualitative!) explanations about how the TAC AI makes choices, what goes on during a land assault etc. Hey, you might even put all this advanced info in a strategy guide to make some more money. Or could it be you've got to hide something, say, inadequate formula modelling? Corollary: Expose the game's inner workings.
- Reports, replays, and situational data. I finish a 2 hour WITP turn, hit go and the turn executes. Where is my dashboard where the system tells me how well I'm doing, how many casualties I had, how many battles have happened, which ships need my immediate attention? Where is my positive or negative feedback? I'm Yamamoto dammit, I need my officers to summarize everything for me, instead of having to visit half a dozen screen and pop-up windows to get all the data I want. Corollary: Summarize the situation for the player.
Apologies for the longish post. Hopefully, some of the above problems of mine will find their cure in the next version of the game. Best wishes for the team's forthcoming effort.
/coralsaw
< Message edited by coralsaw -- 10/3/2006 11:21:40 AM >
_____________________________
A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon. - Napoleon Bonaparte, 15 July 1815, to the captain of HMS Bellerophon.
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