About the text delay speed..

David E. Gervais · #1 November 26th, 2003, 01:36 AM

Hi,

I've played the demo for a few run throughs and I noticed that the game has the option for a 3, 4, or 5 sec delay speed for the fight description text. Personally I'm not the fastest of readers and often miss the colorful descriptive text. You might consider the possibility of allowing the player to set his/her own speed by having the game wait for a mouse-click to procede.

IE:
(3)sec (4)sec (5)sec (wait)click

that way slower readers like myself could enjoy all the fight narations which seem to add much atmosphere to the game.

just a few thoughts, Cheers!

hyperstork · #2 November 27th, 2003, 09:18 PM

The test delay problem turned out to be the deciding factor in my NOT pre-ordering the game, sadly. Lots of great ideas here but perhaps some tweaking needed. It felt like the gladiator contests were between two guys with pen-knives at times, as they smack each other by nicks and tiny cuts forever until one wimps out. :/

"Ow, dude, you broke my nose! I'm going home..."

StormcloudCreations · #3 November 28th, 2003, 07:01 AM

hyperstork: just to let you know, more text delay speeds will be added to the full Version, in response to demand (a shorter delay for later on - 1 second - and much longer one - 8 seconds).

Some tweaking to combats and starting warrior stats will be done as well to the full Version, to make combats a little more "brutal" and quick at times, and prevent totally imbalanced fights against guys with "double the stats across the board" syndrome.

Hope you reconsider.

hyperstork · #4 November 29th, 2003, 03:30 AM

Oh, I'll keep an eye on it, as I really want this game to turn out great. I wrote a gladiator text combat game for the Commodore 128 about 16 years ago, and this sure got my attention. :>

StormcloudCreations · #5 November 29th, 2003, 06:14 AM

Ah, yes the C-128...I have fond memories of that machine...one of the best BASICs ever in that thing. What a shame Commodore couldn't market water to a man dying in the desert, ugh! But that's a different long-winded rant that i'll spare you

There will be a new demo coming out in the next few days, with more text delay options and lots of game balance tweaks (along with being able to change the attack strategy in the middle of combat!), so it may be better for you.

PvK · #6 December 20th, 2003, 05:16 AM

Why not just allow the text to be displayed until the user presses a key to see the next? That would let players read at exactly the pace they wanted, without necessarily using speed settings.

PvK

FloridaFringe · #7 December 23rd, 2003, 07:59 PM

Actually, having the ability to adjust the text speed during a match (ala WCBM) would satisfy everybodys needs. There are so many different opinions on what the appropriate speed should be at any given time that it would be best to allow for an in-game adjustment slider. It should vary in range between having Click to Continue on up to absolutely no delay as options if the user so desired.

The more options available to the player the better and this could prove an excellent area for advancement.

Personally, being forced to Click to Continue would drain a large portion of the flow that exists while watching a match. The balance for me is approximately 8 seconds delay on average. Anything slower than that and I would get completely bored and probably lose attention. Having to click between each text display is way more effort than I care to exert in �watching� the match unfold. I would prefer to feel as if I am actually at the event as opposed to sitting in front of the computer with a mouse in my hand waiting for my finger to press some buttons in order for everything to move along as it should.

Furthermore, there are times that the match just needs to end for one reason or another. Sometimes a point is reached where my fighter is more than likely going to lose or more than likely going to win. Either way, it would be nice to turn the speed up to the max and get the ball rolling faster onto the next stage. This is not a bad thing in the least unless you must Click to Continue or wait several seconds between text.

There are many that may agree and many that may not. In the end it could just go to show that there are too many personal opinions on what a comfortable speed setting is for them personally at whatever point of the match that they may be.

StormcloudCreations · #8 December 23rd, 2003, 08:36 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by FloridaFringe:
Personally, being forced to Click to Continue would drain a large portion of the flow that exists while watching a match...Having to click between each text display is way more effort than I care to exert in �watching� the match unfold.

That's my own opinion. Very few would want to click or press a button every time a combat swing happened...it would get cumbersome, overly clicky and annoying after awhile. I actually tried this idea with a fair number of testers, and most of them agreed: not something many would use over the long haul. I think there's a good variety of timing options there to satisfy all manners of reading speed.

gregebowman · #9 December 23rd, 2003, 08:45 PM

I wouldn't call myself a speed reader, but I can usually read pretty fast. But sometimes, the words go by too quickly. Yet, if I slow it down, then it bogs down the game. There should be some method which can make everybody happy. Hopefully there will be one by the time the game is released.

PvK · #10 December 28th, 2003, 05:18 AM

Providing a key/click to skip to the next event doesn't force anyone to use it. If one could do that, and also adjust the speed during the match, then it would cover most or all of the bases.

PvK