A few comments to the general thread above:
- The opinions of reviewers and other non-hardcore AI War players do matter quite a bit, as we're dependent on new customers in order to stay in business. The fact is that basic fonts are generally reviled in games, regardless of how readable they are. They remind many players of spreadsheets and work, and seem nonprofessional because of their unoriginality. Let me note that again: they seem unprofessional, nay, downright amateur, to many people. I've experienced this first-hand with iPhone games that I play that use too basic of a font and which seem more amateurish for it. The new font looks much more professional in the sense of games, and for that reason I think it's a solid improvement in marketability. For business software, I have always preferred the Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial line of sans serif fonts, but this isn't business software.
- I agree that readability is incredibly, hugely important, and to that end I've been trying to make as many improvements as possible to this font, and am even open to using a different font if need be (not one of the inbuilt windows ones that I can't redistribute -- what good is a font if it can't legally be redistributed for non-English-speaking distributions, if it can't be used on Linux or the Mac or a variety of other locations). Also, not being able to edit the proprietary fonts as needed is a problem, to some degree. As previously noted, I don't mind paying for a font, but anything over $200 - $300 is extortion in my opinion. Paying $10,000 for a font is simply ludicrous unless you are creating a word processor (for which such a cost might be reasonable), in my opinion. At any rate, my point is that I have to go with a font that will actually be legally/functionally usable for the game, and I want that to then be as readable as possible. Simply using a mod to switch back to Arial or another font your prefer certainly will solve your own issue, but it will do nothing to help the readability of the general game for everyone. If you're not fussed about contributing, that's fine -- it's not required -- but specific feedback on things you'd like to see improved in the current font would certainly be appreciated.
- Full unicode support, while certainly preferred in these fonts, is not required. Those can be added in at a later time as needed as long as the font is open source, or our partners in other languages can use a font of their own choosing (as they would have to with, for instance, Japanese or Chinese characters, anyway). Being able to swap out fonts like this requires loading a font from a local resource in a pretty specific way, and this is part of why I can't just use a system font in general. At any rate, this whole thing of unicode support is something that is a nice to have at the moment, but in no way required, as that can be dealt with by our publishing partners as needed. First priority is to get a font that looks great in English, and then to later either extend that or replace that as needed for any other languages.
- Please make sure you're looking at 2.001P when commenting on the font, as there are a number of significant improvements to sizing and legibility in general with it. I can understand the prior complaints with the font when it was being displayed too small, but in 2.001P I personally find it quite readable at all levels. But feedback from others with different resolutions, different monitors, different habits and eyesight and whatever else makes a difference, are what is key for me to be able to really make this the best possible.
- Arial doesn't have the narrowest spacing of any font. It is the narrowest among the windows fonts for the most part, but there is even Arial Narrow that is narrower. Many non-windows fonts are in fact wider, but often they also have a Condensed version that can fit. Using TypeTool 3, which Arcen has, we're also able to edit (in non-proprietary fonts) the width of font elements and spacing, as well. So if things are too wide, that's something that is honestly pretty easy to correct on a character-by-character basis in an open source / truly free font. At any rate, any wrapping issues with the new font are indeed partly because the original sizing of stuff was designed for Arial (of course), but as the new font is being adjusted that is becoming less of an issue, and simply by adjusting the size of the font as it is used also has an impact on it one way or the other. In many cases the current font is actually being shown as larger on the screen than in the past (to aid with readability, given that it is a more unusual font), and so some of the sizing issues result from that. In general, those are easy to fix, I just haven't found all of them yet.
