Love AI War and/or Tidalis? We could really use your help...

[keith.lamothe]

I think that the tracker is actually better at getting at the info than the forums, but that a lot of people who would jump into a forum discussion won't get near the tracker, let alone comment on a tracker record.  I might be wrong about that.

I think continuing to have how-to-improve-the-game discussions over here is good, it is a forum after all, but the actual one-thread-per-discrete-issue part fits in the tracker.

[Lancefighter]

I generally agree that the forum works considerably better for mass stuff....... would it be possible to get some sort of bot to link the two? I'm meaning that generally the end user will be able to view it in customary forum form, but as a developer you can look at it to see it in dev-preferred form

[eRe4s3r]

You're missing the filter controls: you can filter it to just suggestions easily, or make it show even closed issues and not just open ones, etc.  It does everything you described and more, and we can even set up global quick-filters if people want them (or people can do them for themselves, too).

Mhh, i need a Tutorial then as its not apparent how thats supposed to work.

the first page i can see is this one (bookmarked)
http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/my_view_page.php

No filter controls there and no personalization possible, thats bad (as surely thats the "incoming" page, so i go there

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view_all_bug_page.php (already the URL indicates thats not what i want..)

Theres a filter yes (Filter by Category), but i can only chose and filter for 1 category, not for multiple. I could SORT the whole thing by category of course, but then i am still shown 90% of stuff i have no use for...

So yeah, this is easily the most confusing filter i have ever seen   Or maybe i am just easily confused, still...  I don't understand how to make my own custom filters either. Theres a manage filters but no CREATE custom filters anywhere... If you do make a selectable filter, please have one called "Suggestions" that lists only suggestions ;p

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And i would much agree to see something like Lancefighter suggests, but likely a bot is going to be way more complex than it sounds. And require unified formating of suggestions...

[vonduus]

I think the suggestions should be allowed to stay in the forums. The best place to discuss a suggestion is in the general discussions forum (this one), because this is where most people will see it and comment on it. Suggestions in the developers section is only seen and discussed by people who know it's there, go take a look, there is not that much discussion going on, compared to here. And I don't think the notes in the bug tracker is a good platform for the kind of social talk that is also important for this kind of forum.

General discussions is also the place where the Community Suggestion Poll is located. I suggest we use the bug tracker to track bugs, and the forums to discuss everything else.

[keith.lamothe]

Well, I think the tracker should track suggestions too, at least ones that the suggestor is serious about

But the forums do seem much better suited to an actual discussion environment.  Having that tracker record is very valuable, though, particularly if/when implementation actually starts.

[Winter Born]

One of the nice things the forum does with one click is show changed/new posts since I last visited.
Also I am more inclined to look at a topic with a lot of hits, again something built into the SMF.
Both of thes probably could be set up in Mantis

I do think the SMF forum does promote more community participation (what it was designed to do )

[vonduus]

Well, I think the tracker should track suggestions too, at least ones that the suggestor is serious about

But the forums do seem much better suited to an actual discussion environment.  Having that tracker record is very valuable, though, particularly if/when implementation actually starts.

Of course, when all problems and bugs from the port has been solved, it will be a lot easier to use the bug tracker for suggestions. AIWar has never been a bug-ridden application, in the past bugs were mostly something that came up in connection with implementation of suggestions. I remember this was one of the things that really amazed me, when I first began playing AIWar: The game never crashed on me! When this trait has been re-established, and the game has become bug-free (and it seems you are slowly but steadily getting closer to that goal) perhaps the bug tracker will be more of a suggestions tracker

[TheMachineIsSentient]

I have ported a lot of defects to the bug tracker from the forum. I like the bug tracker for maintaining priorities and managing lots of bugs, but it is certainly inaccessible compared to the forum as it relates to adding new defects and searching on them. The forum maintains categories and allows everybody to add their input fairly easily, where the bug tracker is an extra step and does not have those nicely laid out categories (unless you, the user, are savvy enough to figure it out). I think this is going to exclude a lot of people if you make them use the bug tracker for suggestions, which I agree are best discussed on the forum first.

If a suggestion is so awesome as to be approved, then move it over; locking the suggestion forum will only mean people will make more posts in the general thread area. Part of it may be a laziness problem, but the reason they are too lazy to do it is because it is a few extra steps and a bit of a learning curve to open a very simple suggestion.

[Sizzle]

Theres a filter yes (Filter by Category), but i can only chose and filter for 1 category, not for multiple. I could SORT the whole thing by category of course, but then i am still shown 90% of stuff i have no use for...

So yeah, this is easily the most confusing filter i have ever seen   Or maybe i am just easily confused, still...  I don't understand how to make my own custom filters either. Theres a manage filters but no CREATE custom filters anywhere... If you do make a selectable filter, please have one called "Suggestions" that lists only suggestions ;p

1)  Go to  http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view_all_bug_page.php
2)  Click "Advanced Filters"
3)  Select an item to filter on (in your case, perhaps "Category" would be a good place to start)
4)  Ctrl click on each category you want to include in your view (same methodology as file selection in windows explorer -- shift click to select from your currently selected category to the category you're clicking on, etc.)
5) repeat for "Status" for looking at closed issues, or only "considering" and/or "strongly considering"
6) repeat for any other fields you like
7)  Click Apply filter.

[Sizzle]

I have ported a lot of defects to the bug tracker from the forum. I like the bug tracker for maintaining priorities and managing lots of bugs, but it is certainly inaccessible compared to the forum as it relates to adding new defects and searching on them. The forum maintains categories and allows everybody to add their input fairly easily, where the bug tracker is an extra step and does not have those nicely laid out categories (unless you, the user, are savvy enough to figure it out). I think this is going to exclude a lot of people if you make them use the bug tracker for suggestions, which I agree are best discussed on the forum first.

If a suggestion is so awesome as to be approved, then move it over; locking the suggestion forum will only mean people will make more posts in the general thread area. Part of it may be a laziness problem, but the reason they are too lazy to do it is because it is a few extra steps and a bit of a learning curve to open a very simple suggestion.

I think the tracker just needs to be more prominently featured and preferably integrated into the forum so that we don't have to register a new user.  I'm aware that Chris has already looked into this and only found one apparently broken plugin for SMF integration, that doesn't mean it's not a laudible goal nonetheless -- maybe the community can assist in finding one that works.

Maybe a permalink to a "suggestions" view that is pre-defined in mantis at the top of the forums.  Several pre-defined views should work well so that the user can get their feet wet so to speak without having to figure out the filtering themselves.  The bugtracker really is superior in finding out whether something has already been suggested....

[TheMachineIsSentient]

Superior? Forum steps:

• click on the suggestions forum
• click on the category
• Post

I should also add, there is a plaintext search box on the forum which is really handy.

[eRe4s3r]

Theres a filter yes (Filter by Category), but i can only chose and filter for 1 category, not for multiple. I could SORT the whole thing by category of course, but then i am still shown 90% of stuff i have no use for...

So yeah, this is easily the most confusing filter i have ever seen   Or maybe i am just easily confused, still...  I don't understand how to make my own custom filters either. Theres a manage filters but no CREATE custom filters anywhere... If you do make a selectable filter, please have one called "Suggestions" that lists only suggestions ;p

1)  Go to  http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view_all_bug_page.php
2)  Click "Advanced Filters"
3)  Select an item to filter on (in your case, perhaps "Category" would be a good place to start)
4)  Ctrl click on each category you want to include in your view (same methodology as file selection in windows explorer -- shift click to select from your currently selected category to the category you're clicking on, etc.)
5) repeat for "Status" for looking at closed issues, or only "considering" and/or "strongly considering"
6) repeat for any other fields you like
7)  Click Apply filter.

Thanks, and, wow, that is totally unintuitive. Who puts a Shift Select function in a DROP down menu that instantly closes when you press left mouse button? Why isn't it automatically a shift function and closes when you click apply.....

Ehm yeah, but thank you for the Tutorial That works fine and that reduces my complaints by -1-

[Mánagarmr]

Theres a filter yes (Filter by Category), but i can only chose and filter for 1 category, not for multiple. I could SORT the whole thing by category of course, but then i am still shown 90% of stuff i have no use for...

So yeah, this is easily the most confusing filter i have ever seen  Or maybe i am just easily confused, still...  I don't understand how to make my own custom filters either. Theres a manage filters but no CREATE custom filters anywhere... If you do make a selectable filter, please have one called "Suggestions" that lists only suggestions ;p

1)  Go to  http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view_all_bug_page.php
2)  Click "Advanced Filters"
3)  Select an item to filter on (in your case, perhaps "Category" would be a good place to start)
4)  Ctrl click on each category you want to include in your view (same methodology as file selection in windows explorer -- shift click to select from your currently selected category to the category you're clicking on, etc.)
5) repeat for "Status" for looking at closed issues, or only "considering" and/or "strongly considering"
6) repeat for any other fields you like
7)  Click Apply filter.

Thanks, and, wow, that is totally unintuitive. Who puts a Shift Select function in a DROP down menu that instantly closes when you press left mouse button? Why isn't it automatically a shift function and closes when you click apply.....

Ehm yeah, but thank you for the Tutorial That works fine and that reduces my complaints by -1-

Umm, it works like that in...pretty much every program that has drop downs O.o (And you are allowed to select more than one option ofc)

[Fiskbit]

Chris, in case you missed it, Revlry in the comments over at http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/30/ai-war-and-the-hidden-cost-of-indie-games/ offered to do some free advertising. If you haven't yet, that'd probably be worth following up on.

Also, 3 of us were talking in IRC several nights ago about how nice PvP would be for the game and that it'd really revitalize the game for us. I know that's a pretty small sample set and that there's a lot on your plate right now with AI War over the next few months, but I figure I'd throw the PvP idea out there as something to think about for the not-too-distant future to try to make the game appealing to more of the RTS audience. I think that AI War in a player-versus-player context would offer up an experience which differs significantly from other games, especially if the AI were included in that experience for terrain, pressure, and interesting happenings. I realize your expertise with RTS games is really skewed toward the co-op, that it's a non-trivial addition because there'd be some balance and gameplay tweaks required to get it just right, and it'd slightly complicate adding new things in the future because their impact on multiplayer would have to be considered. However, when it comes to increasing the size of the potential audience for the game, this seems to me to be a powerful possibility. The PvP crowd, though much smaller than the number of people who play solo, is pretty vocal, and this feature could get the game a lot more mention on forums, as well as additional AARs (with views on both sides of the battle!) that seem to get a lot of attention.

[Lancefighter]

Posting to say something along the lines of 'i was there'.


(and think that pvp would be good)