Warzone 2100 wish list - all can contribute_part 1

[Olrox]

* A decent Multiplayer Save/Load system for those of us that enjoy playing looooonnng games with our friends
(It's been lacking in that respect since WZ originally came out in '99)

  I think you would like my topic on long term battles, Infidelus.

[The Noid]

I'd like to be able to set a target-upgrade for a research centre, and have it automatically research all prerequisites.

So right at the start I can set my first RC to research up to "repair facility" and it will do all the work necessary to get
there. If it ever has "nothing to do" because some other centre is already researching what it needs to do, it could just research the cheapest thing to do, until it can do something again.

That would really save on the research-micromanagement...

[GiGaBaNE]

at first glance i like the idea, but given more thought, i wouldnt want to play games with that pluged in.

as a turtle. my ability to micro manage my research better than my enemies is mostly what wins me the war..

if everyone could do what you say then we would all just select the best money research in one lab, self repair in another and proll heavy body dragon in a third, scourge in fourth and bunker buster in fifth.

then just charge after as many oil dereks as possible, combined with a bit of early base rape to prevent good starts for everyone else, bla bla bla.
you get my point tho..
not trying to shoot your idea down, its just the way it appears in my head 

[J.Vaughan]

lol, I'm a turtle too... Anyways I seconed the being able to rotate the structures. Also with the structures Would lowering them just a tad or removing that 2D "mat" that they sit on make the game look better? Or possibly creating new pie models that make the "mat" 3D if the engine could handle it. Obviously bigger resolutions and more polygons would make much of the game look better.

[bded]

I would like the ability to switch A.I.s in the multiplayer menu. I've never used the Aivolution A.I. because I don't know what I'm doing.  :'(

[J.Vaughan]

The funny thing is, there's no music on my original copy of Warzone 2100. I've never played it with music, and i'm pretty okay without it.

It makes the game seem more realistic.

But the game absolutely COULD use some nature sound effects such as thunder, raindrops, wind, stuff crackling, better propulsion sounds, and less base noise. :/

In my original copy, the base made nowhere near as much noise as they do in this version.

Here, the Factory makes a noise once every 1 and a half seconds or so.

in the original it only let a burst of air, and a sound only every 10 seconds.

So, I tend to work outside my base while in-game most of all. Cause the noise from the Factories, Oil Derricks and most of all the annoying electric sound of the Power Generators is pretty damn annoying.

Yes, ambient effects, has this been added to the wish list? Blowing wind, distant gunshots/explosions (deep ambient and creepy), a few animals (wolves or coyotes)... obviously if we survived a few animals would. water around water tiles. Would we have to modify the source to be able to add ambient sounds to affect only certain areas? I don't think so, at least not that much, facilities and factories only make sound when the player is in proximity all we would have to do is define a set of coordinates on the map and then a radius for the sound to be broadcast...

^^
I think this will greatly add to the environment, game play, and immersion factors...

[ADD]

I defiently think that the units and structurs need better resolutions (more detailed) and more polygons (less blocky) I agree with lav
on that While i would like to see the wheels move ect I understand that would be asking a lot. Something else I wanted to add but oh well, I'll post later...

[J.Vaughan]

Well since I'm at it... The volcano textures by Grim and the map lav mad gave me an Idea to include blowing dust, smoke, fog and haze (which is already present to limit your view area) but throughout different places in the map. For instance some fog in a low level area of the map but on a mountain none and you can look down on the cloud or fog. In the desert maps an occasional sound of wind blowing and a small dust cloud (more feasible than fog [just recolor the smoke sprite and move it horizontally)] and smoke for the volcano textures ect... I don't think WZ has a particle rendering system (what I believe or have hear of from some programs as an engine to model clouds, smoke fog water ect in modern games or animation.) However if I am correct it does use a sprite system (2d side spin images, sometimes transparent, model fire... smoke ect. The same stuff you see tomming out of your structures and units when damaged.) Adding these in certain areas of the map could increase the game play factors mentioned above as well.

We should also experiment creating a few "fire" sprites if possible to add to damaged buildings and see how they look. If they detract from the realism we can remove them.

[Serman]

Well since I'm at it... The volcano textures by Grim and the map lav mad gave me an Idea to include blowing dust, smoke, fog and haze (which is already present to limit your view area)....

Not to mention the ocasional tumbleweed. 

[J.Vaughan]

Warzone 2100 is one of the greatest RTS games i've ever played. It's inconvinences, unpopularity, and poor graphics though, are driving many potential players away. I'd like to see the following stuff implemented:

- Different 'skies' for every map type.
- Night and Day
- Better looking 'rain', and snow
- Thunder and Lightning in rainy maps
- Faster falling rain, that makes splashing sounds.
- Reflections of units on, or near water
- Moving water. (ripples, waves, and such)

- You can see wheels, tracks, etc move while the unit is going.
- Hovercraft fan spins
- More rounded turrets, and bodies. (less sharp corners)
- More rounded transports (regular, and cyborg)
- Larger cyborg transports
- Cyborg Transports whose weapon systems you control (currently, they only fire automatically)

- Option of 'Lobby Server' and 'Find IP' after you click 'Internet' (instead of leaving ip blank, and clicking check)

- Better looking laser fire for laser weapons
- Stronger sound for laser based weapons. (current sound sounds sissy.)
- Rotary weapons actually rotate after each fire (such as Hellstorm, Pepperpot, and Assault Gun)
- More sound variety for missle based weapons (all missles sound similar)


- Organizeable Designs section.
- Design limit increased.
- Weapons aren't replaced in the design section (for instance, machine gun is replaced by Assault Gun)
- Cyborg, and Scavenger renders should be COMPLETELY redone. (they look like walking boxes)

and last but not least
- Access to Scavenger bodies in DEBUG mode.


Are any of these possible to implement in future releases?

-Night and Day-> it may be a pain in the ass, but all you should have to do is take all the current textures, add some blue and darken them up a bit. This goes for structures and units as well. I know its very rudimentary but how exactly does warzone light its maps? I never really thought it did... I also thought the shadows were just a black/grey re-rendering of the original object in 2d... something  like that... Also change the distance fog to either a dark blue/black, (but don't make it look like fog of war either...)

-Different Skies for every map... Create a bunch of different sky boxes. In the next version of edit world include a feature that will modify the map to allow the map maker to either choose one of the skies that comes with wz or create one himself to be uploaded with the map.

[kage]

yeah. if not done already, it'd be good for there to be script hooks to change the backdrop (textured skybox) -- since before source release there were already dynamic weather and day/night transitions done entirely within scripts -- might as well be able to extend that with changing backdrops, though admittedly, it would use a whole lot of disk space, memory, and processing speed to have smooth transitions in the form of individually rendered transitional backdrops, and would look really tacky if there wasn't a smooth transition, so source changes along the lines of creating a "fade backdrop to color" hook for scripts would be immensely useful.

-Night and Day-> it may be a pain in the ass, but all you should have to do is take all the current textures, add some blue and darken them up a bit. This goes for structures and units as well. I know its very rudimentary but how exactly does warzone light its maps?

quick fix: let scripts tint the entire screen a given color. kind of like fake ambient lighting.

-Different Skies for every map... Create a bunch of different sky boxes. In the next version of edit world include a feature that will modify the map to allow the map maker to either choose one of the skies that comes with wz or create one himself to be uploaded with the map.

i'm quite sure this capability already exists without the need of further modification.

[J.Vaughan]

Of course keep in mind that  a simple day and night would suffice... If you want to get into transitions that would be great but probably a little gnarly since doesn't war zone like many older games render the map once and then thats what you see? But if you have a way to do it either through scripts or what not great!

I suppose a script could tint the color of the textures to trick you into thinking its night. It would be fun to play around with!

[kage]

tinting every texture might work, but that'd be really expensive... a fullscreen tint is cheap and reasonably effective. by transitions, i meant the visual transitions from any given time to any other (such as from day to night), or if you wanted to go the extra distance, the visual transition from dawn to morning, assuming you had backdrops for each -- without such transitions, one frame you'd be looking at the night sky, and in the next frame you'd see a bright blue sky and a sun sitting up in it: obviously transitions are a necessity.

[J.Vaughan]

I think this is something feasible... Transitions weren't in my mind from the beginning. Either the map was night, or the map was day... no changing from day to night. No rotation schedule but transitions don't seem like they'ed be too hard. It isn't hard to make sky boxes. Anyways we should play around with it...

[Serman]

Tinting fullscreen won't work.

You won't see stars in the sky, the moon, or transitions from day - sunset - night - dawn - morning

[Giel]

Tinting fullscreen won't work.

You won't see stars in the sky, the moon, or transitions from day - sunset - night - dawn - morning

A simple switch of the skybox texture could make it work.