Wish-List for Dominions 4

[HoneyBadger]

As much as is possible with the limited contact of a game and a forum, I like the Devs as people. They both seem very polite, friendly, creative, and committed to the finer things in life-as well as to their fans. As such, my preference is that they get as much out of this experience as we do.

I try to keep in mind that yes, their are a lot of things I'd like to see for this game, but also, there's only so much that two people can or desire to do in any given period of time, and if they were to expand the number of people working on *their* project, that it may dilute their sense of personal involvement and their creative vision.

*Their* work and *their* vision are what has brought us all together, and yes, I think their's a lot more to this journey to go, but only if Dominions keeps on the right path.

Personally, I'd like to see it picked up by a company-but only the *right* company. One that would improve some elements of the game that need improving, but leave others alone where they should be left alone, and in all cases, give the Devs their due creative freedom-along with a bigger paycheck, and involve the community-us-to the degree that we're used to.

[MaxWilson]

Sandman said:
* More mouse support; ideally the game should be fully playable without a keyboard.

I'd actually like to see more keyboard support, too. For instance, when I'm selecting spells to script, I'd like PageUp and PageDown to scroll down the screen instead of having to grab the scrollbar with my mouse. Same thing with the monthly messages screen, the ritual magic casting screen, and the F5 research screens.

-Max

[Xietor]

two minor things, but can be huge impact if careless(or tired).

1. option to have a confirmation when destroying an item. it is right next to the laboratory. I have accidentally destroyed a item or 2 when being careless putting it into lab.

2. An option to have stealth armies move normally unless told to stealth. It can be annoying as Pangaea or another stealth race with a stealth army and wanting to attack, but forgetting to hold down control button when you move that army. you may be moving 12 commanders and armies from that square and happen to miss one.

Scouts and assassins would continue to default stealth when they moved.

[Jazzepi]

Xietor said:
I think all he is saying, is since the game is not "free,"
he can reasonably expect the developers to improve the game where it needs to be improved most, not just where it is fun to do so.

I also have that expectation. Their personal lives, the fact they are great guys, work 2 jobs, is irrelevant to the average purchaser, who does not have a clue about anything except the product. In addition, I think there is likely a point of pride that they have produced one of the best strategy games ever. And Dominions is clearly one of the best ever.

If they ever tire of working on the game, and they may, I am sure a gaming company would buy the rights to the game and attempt to make it better. Though as we have seen from some other games, some attempts to improve another person's game, sometimes fail miserably.

Exactly, I wish the devs would have spent whatever time they did on making the two new races on UI improvements instead (and fixing the awful temple dominion rate spreading bug). Every hour they spend fixing one thing could have been spent fixing something else.

I personally would get infinitely more value out of a better UI then two more races.

That isn't to say that Dom 3 isn't a great product. I think it was worth the money I spent on it, but I still bought it. I expect the game to receive support just like any other software product. Bug fixes, revisions to the code and interface.

I read somewhere that the devs didn't know what to do with the income they were getting off the game. Well I have a suggestion. Hire someone else to help them code the parts they really don't want to. I think it would be easy enough for them to partner with a third party (who could be located anywhere internationally with the miracle of the internet) that could help them with the drudgery of UI improvements, while they focus on maintaining and improving the core of the game.

Jazzepi

[MaxWilson]

HoneyBadger said:
Personally, I'd like to see it picked up by a company-but only the *right* company. One that would improve some elements of the game that need improving, but leave others alone where they should be left alone, and in all cases, give the Devs their due creative freedom-along with a bigger paycheck, and involve the community-us-to the degree that we're used to.

I'd like to see collaboration with a company with a couple of very experienced old C hands and a great manager, who were willing to take direction from Kristoffer and Johan but would also hop to it when they said, "Yeah, that sounds like a great idea but it would be boring to implement. Why don't you write us a patch and we'll see if we like it?"

I can dream, anyway. : )

-Max

[Sombre]

I'm not saying the devs /should/ be doing more races and not fixinf serious bugs or improving the UI, I'm just saying that because of their status as part time devs who do this because they like it, you should probably /expect/ that they'll always focus on adding fun stuff. It's part of the reason Dom3 is the way it is.

[HoneyBadger]

I think they should spend the money on good food, fine wine, and jewelery for their significant others. If they don't have significant others, then high-priced "escorts".

It would be nice for us if they spent their well-gotten gains back on the game, but it wouldn't necessarily be nice for them. I think we in the Forum should offer to start a donation of funds specifically for the purpose of hiring a coder to do drudge-work for the Devs.

[Gandalf Parker]

MaxWilson said:

I'd like to see collaboration with a company with a couple of very experienced old C hands and a great manager, who were willing to take direction from Kristoffer and Johan but would also hop to it when they said, "Yeah, that sounds like a great idea but it would be boring to implement. Why don't you write us a patch and we'll see if we like it?"

I can dream, anyway. : )

-Max

A game written in Basic on an Atari then gradually converted to C on Linux.. that would have to be one heck of a team to dive into that.

[HoneyBadger]

That sounds really scary!

I think the team's job would be to rewrite the game from the ground up in whichever language seemed the best (I'd love to see it in some form of Java, but I'm guessing that would be a poor choice), under the guidance of the Devs.

I'd guess that it would be significantly easier to re-do the game, maybe in a different language, now that it's been done once, than it was for the Devs to write the original, just because the whole concept is complete and working.

Probably, also, a lot of programming "shortcuts" could be taken in certain areas, where either more powerful tools/commands are available now that weren't previously available, or simpler methods can be used to achieve effects that were done 1 careful step at a time.

After all, it's easier to picture a stained-glass window from the viewpoint of a human looking at it from a distance, than it is as a fly crawling across it.

[MaxWilson]

[Off-topic but perhaps interesting to some]

"Rewrites Considered Harmful." This is such a common meme in the programming community that I'm having trouble locating the article I originally read on the subject, but here are two good articles, one short and one long:

http://www.ronkes.nl/blog/?2005-04-15-neverrewritecode

http://www.neilgunton.com/doc/rewrites_harmful

Redesign is good, refactoring is good. Rebuilding from the ground up tosses out years of accumulated design experience and bug fixes that you'd forgotten were necessary. If a program needs a redesign, do it a piece at a time as much as possible and test continuously so you know instantly when a refactoring breaks the existing functionality, because it's the functionality and not the prettiness of the code that matters most. (Pretty code helps you add NEW functionality, but that's later.)

-Max