A Fix to the Power Problems - Batteries/Powercells

[lav_coyote25]

let me reword my first post and see if that makes a difference in its content being perceived.
all these mechanics proposed are 14 years old and were implemented in the classic RTS Total Annhillation. this means I know exactly how they played-out from MP experience not just conversational thought experiments.
please state exactly what you percieve as the power problems and issues that these 14 year old mechanics from TA are gonna solve.
honestly i'm not seeing how turning this aspect of WZ into TA, adding more layers of power resource microing, is gonna make for more fun tactical gaming rather than being the frustrating, annoying, nonsensical, constraint that it was in TA.

i will backup what cumandgetit has said 100 percent. dunno why this is even being discussed AGAIN!! every year this keeps coming back up. why not just play the game the way it has been played since 1999. this is what has kept the game going since then. where is TA now?? i haven't seen anything recent from their community. will have to do a deep search and will get back to you on this...

[Berg]

I just have to make a commenT.

What is Warzone.....its definitely not total anialation or starcraft or any other game you care to mention ...

So changes that make it the same as other games cannot be good.

[zydonk]

I just have to make a commenT.

What is Warzone.....its definitely not total anialation or starcraft or any other game you care to mention ...

So changes that make it the same as other games cannot be good.

Right on!

[Chojun]

I'm not sure what all this hysteria is all about, nor the visceral knee-jerk mouth-foaming reaction to any sort of proposed change/improvement/addition to the game.

I think SC or TA got a lot of things right as did WZ. To completely distance ourselves from the good things of good games in the same genre is not pragmatism, I think.

To say that optionally building an additional structure to store extra power is 'microing' is an exaggeration.

The reactions demonstrated are not conducive to the evolution of an (supposedly) evolving game, now are they? Anyone that indicates otherwise should not be privy to any intelligent discussion.

[lav_coyote25]

I'm not sure what all this hysteria is all about, nor the visceral knee-jerk mouth-foaming reaction to any sort of proposed change/improvement/addition to the game.

I think SC or TA got a lot of things right as did WZ. To completely distance ourselves from the good things of good games in the same genre is not pragmatism, I think.

To say that optionally building an additional structure to store extra power is 'microing' is an exaggeration.

The reactions demonstrated are not conducive to the evolution of an (supposedly) evolving game, now are they? Anyone that indicates otherwise should not be privy to any intelligent discussion.

ok fine. if thats it, then bring back the flying trucks with out any one saying crap about anything then. ok? deal!!! done!!!

[Berg]

The reactions demonstrated are not conducive to the evolution of an (supposedly) evolving game, now are they? Anyone that indicates otherwise should not be privy to any intelligent discussion.

So if others dont agree they are dim wits? ....

Not to worry I can ignore these discussions they often lead no where anyway just recycle thing said year after year.

Have another nice year.

[cumandgetit]

still have the questions. let me try to be clearer.

building the structure is not really optional if your power is penalized /capped by not building the structure. that's how i'm understanding the last set of propositions here.

and I stand by my original statement that this type mechanism does add a whole layer of non-trivial, no fun, annoying microing as I actually experienced it in playing countless TA multiplayer games.

as I understand it, Pumpkin very deliberately avoided this mechanic because they were surely aware of it's existence in TA (by gosh they played TA & liked it and the topic of copying aspects of TA came up in their WZ boards) but they did not want to copy it for good reason.

WZ is about effective decision making across a range of different tasks, in an optimal sequence, as quickly as possible, and capturing, producing and using all the available power to implement all those rapidfire decisions. how exactly do batteries-capacitors fit into that WZ style of gameplay ?

I do believe in evolving WZ from within it's own gene pool - what is in the source but not completed by Pumpkin because their development was cut short by Eidos. I also believe that RTS designs that came years AFTER WZ can inform developement to the extent that WZ can refine aspects of its own unique identity rather than graft bits & pieces of the identity of other games onto it like some Frankestein creation..

I also asked, sincerely, in my last post, to please explain the following:

1.) state explicitly what these power problems / issues that are only vaguely refered to here ...and...

2.) exactly HOW creating the above TA mechanic in WZ is gonna solve the WZ power problems / issues.... that is, correlating # 1 and # 2.

The creator of this thread has not responded to these questions yet (which honestly reflect my open mind to an evolution I can not see in this particular proposal) and your scolding Chojun has not answered these questions either.

[Chojun]

I don't think that the battery/power cell idea will solve the power problem, either. So I'm not necessarily an advocate of all of that specific idea. However, I am an advocate of anyone who intelligently posits an idea and believe that that individual deserves intelligent responses to their ideas.

I think it has been established and demonstrated that storing lots of power is not a good strategy in this game. Therefore, I'm a proponent of capping the amount of power that can be produced to a reasonable amount. I also agree with what others have stated elsewhere in other threads that there is little strategic value to power generators, and their upgrades are simply vain repetitions (twice the power! Zero the price! Why not!). I think that if a power generator is destroyed, the player should lose any power stored therein. Strategy.

[zydonk]

I'm not sure what all this hysteria is all about, nor the visceral knee-jerk mouth-foaming reaction to any sort of proposed change/improvement/addition to the game.

The reactions demonstrated are not conducive to the evolution of an (supposedly) evolving game, now are they? Anyone that indicates otherwise should not be privy to any intelligent discussion.

I've assumed all along that WZ was being updated - with a great deal of dedication and effort - so that it would provide optimal playability on modern computers and the variety of OSs. I didn't know it was to be made into another game.

[cumandgetit]

I agree with you Chojun that some one who posts their ideas in good faith does not deserve to be ridiculed for their effort of sharing constructive thinking and an inclination to assist, in perhaps the only way they can, development efforts.

ridicule is bad form, bad manners, cruel and only serves to discourage participation and enjoyable, beneficial, conversation. nobody enjoys being eviscerated metaphorically any more than physically. public humiliation may work as a political tactic but should be avoided here by all means. there are always other ways to make a valid point with wit and grace. a worthy challenge in itself.

however, what has happened here is instructive beyond the ideas presented. i've seen it many times. players whose experience is mostly from playing the campaign and skirmish a whole lot think that their experience also translates naturally to multiplayer. it doesnot. what may work to enhance the single player modes is often a really bad fit in multiplayer.

players coming from a mostly SP experience have to understand this qualifier to their experience with the game no matter how many countless hours they've played WZ. WZ players with lots of MP experience are ALWAYS going to see the limits of experience confined to SP and it is rather insulting when someone thinks they have THE answer for all 3 modes of play from a mostly SP background. at the least, if your experience is mostly SP, qualify your comments upfront that this is your limited frame of reference which clearly may not apply to WZ multiplayer. this is a central distinction worth keeping in mind in all improvement efforts and discussions..

[Iluvalar]

hmmm, I'm sorry if you perceive that as agressivity toward the poster. I've been agressive toward the idea and only the idea. And only because from game theory point of view, those battteries wouldn't give any effective choices. Either forced, or useless option...

As a matter of fact, if you want players to argue about the effectiveness of keeping the power in reserve and therefore creating new relations with power, you need to give them encouragement, a bonus, when they do so. Not forcing them to pay more to keep it. The exact opposite of what is proposed here.

[cumandgetit]

those criteria for designing game play mechanisms are very good, no doubt in my mind.

and you are right that criticizing an idea is not the same as criticizing the person who voiced the idea.

however, with rare exceptions, many peoples personal identity is emotionally wrapped up in "their" originating ideas.

even scientists following the scientific method are prone to this connection. unless you are dealing with dedicated Taoists or Zen Buddhists (just 2 examples of exceptions off the top of my head) you have to be aware of this very common reactive tendency of conflating idea criticism as a personal attack.

still, even with due diligence in your use of language to avoid these miss-understandings, this is a tough medium and there can still arise miss-perceptions. as of this moment I see the air as cleared here of these personal miss-understandings and some genuine nuggets of useful insight & wisdom have emerged in the civil conversational flow.

[cumandgetit]

in correcting my typos, and before I exit the thread, I felt inclined to expand on the following statement made a few posts back.

I do believe in evolving WZ from within it's own gene pool - what is in the source but not completed by Pumpkin because their development was cut short by Eidos. I also believe that RTS designs that came years AFTER WZ can inform developement to the extent that WZ can refine aspects of its own unique identity rather than graft bits & pieces of the identity of other games onto it like some Frankenstein creation..

frankenstien creation implied I was against such attempts with WZ and fact is i'm not. to me these are simply mods of a boldly creative nature and they are worthy efforts. there is a remarkable history of mods supplanting in popularity the original game.

if the dev team continues to completion its efforts in the new method of UI creation and also convertng the scripting lang, I predict there will be a mod of WZ in the future that makes use of these fundamental changes and that this mod will supplant the stock WZ by orders of magnitude. at such a time the pure WZ can still exist for the purists while this frankenstein mod goes forth carrying the torch far and wide in the realms of RTS gaming. a win-win outcome for all, I think.

this dual perspective is very powerful. an insight deified long ago by the anchient Romans in their mythos surrounding Janus. conflating the perspectives as
an either - or proposition, rather than a fertile coexistence, has been common in this community; as a source of rancor and stultification over the years this thread presents a cautionary tale.

just occured to me that "Frankenstein" was subtitled "The New Prometheus". what an interesting and unintentional dovetailing of mythos in the context of WZ creation-deving: the Greek Prometheus and the Roman Janus. usually it's only Apollo that gets top billing.

[Rman Virgil]

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Hmmm. As food for thought this thread was a seven course meal with all the trimmings. Reminds me of the old days.

- Regards all, Rman.
.

[Emdek]

Similar to second idea from (also some interesting comments):
viewtopic.php?f=30&t=5376