A review of previous games and lessons to learn for the future

[Kahuna]

I'm not sure it's a good match for AI war since it's not a mission-based game.

Exactly what I thought.

I was going to ask "do we want a campaign with an integrated tutorial or should the tutorial be separated from the normal game?". Imo it should be separated like it currently is. Own buttons for a "new game" and "tutorial" in the main menu.

[kasnavada]

Own buttons for a "new game" and "tutorial" in the main menu.

I'm not sure about that one.

On one side, if AI war is to keep (when "fully trained") the amount of complexity it currently has, the "external" tutorial will either cover only the very basics, leaving a lot to be forum-searched, asked around and so on, or the tutorial will last for hours, which is a definite no-go for me.

On the other side, I seem to recall Chris writing that he wants the tutorial could be somehow moddable. If a tutorial is moddable, it opens the door to making complete scenarios. People will be crazy enough to do that. Now that's something else I'm not sure I'm fond of. On one side the idea is great, but it sounds time-consuming.


Which is why I made the proposal in the second part of my last post. That's how other games do for tutorials, seemed a good match. And, hopefully, it's less time-intensive than enabling scenario edition.

[tadrinth]

I sort of said this in my previous post, but to be really explicit about what I think would be ideal:

• New player starts the game, they have a button that says 'Start Campaign' and a button that says 'Options'. 
  
• Start Campaign launches a hybrid campaign/tutorial, which combines the existing tutorials with some plot.
  
• Finishing the campaign unlocks followup campaigns, each of which adds another batch of mechanics and some plot.
  
• Once you've finished at least one of those, you unlock a new Custom Campaign button, which is the current lobby.  You also unlock a 'Challenges' section which has things like kickstarter-backer setup scripts. 
  
• Finally, under Options, there's a button that unlocks everything right away. 
  

[chemical_art]

I sort of said this in my previous post, but to be really explicit about what I think would be ideal:

• New player starts the game, they have a button that says 'Start Campaign' and a button that says 'Options'. 
  
• Start Campaign launches a hybrid campaign/tutorial, which combines the existing tutorials with some plot.
  
• Finishing the campaign unlocks followup campaigns, each of which adds another batch of mechanics and some plot.
  
• Once you've finished at least one of those, you unlock a new Custom Campaign button, which is the current lobby.  You also unlock a 'Challenges' section which has things like kickstarter-backer setup scripts. 
  
• Finally, under Options, there's a button that unlocks everything right away. 
  

+1

[kasnavada]

I sort of said this in my previous post, but to be really explicit about what I think would be ideal:

• New player starts the game, they have a button that says 'Start Campaign' and a button that says 'Options'. 
  
• Start Campaign launches a hybrid campaign/tutorial, which combines the existing tutorials with some plot.
  
• Finishing the campaign unlocks followup campaigns, each of which adds another batch of mechanics and some plot.
  
• Once you've finished at least one of those, you unlock a new Custom Campaign button, which is the current lobby.  You also unlock a 'Challenges' section which has things like kickstarter-backer setup scripts. 
  
• Finally, under Options, there's a button that unlocks everything right away. 
  

I'm fine with the "spirit" of this, but not how it's proposed.
I think something following the "simple, normal complex" that was there for ships fits better. (I'm nitpicking, sorry).

[motai]

Ok i want to get a few things out.
First,  i agree a lot with your opinion on needing a gateway for new players to learn the game. I have played so many games at this point where the entire first 3 hours is tutorial that i will have to kill someone if i'm forced to play another game that makes me click this to click that to see that is how it is done. i really like the popup idea for info tooltips since these are more easily suppressed individually and en masse. either way it is done there needs to be a checkbox to turn the tutorial parts off or on when you start the game.  it should be a are you sure type popup warning asking if you are comfortable with figuring it out.

a few suggestions, currently there are a bazillion options in game generation. i love this but i would recommend taking a step to nest the option in menus and allow some simpler choices. i currently have the setting set to my preferred game style but as i try to convince a few newer players  to try the game my  settings are defaulted and i both have no way to get them back and no way to easily erase them for a newer player. so please have a starting selector. for example, (base game, everything, custom mix 1, custom mix 2, campaign arc #) then an options popup to let you customize it and set this as a saved mix or to use only for this game.

you have already started in ai war 1 to use mission and conflict notes such as wave warnings and alerts. i would appreciate if you work on taking this further to also keep the mission/objective logs as toggle visible message queue as well. This also could help you work on the needs for hidden info filters for locations outside of view and paly back to improving the ai itself. the current info block nesting is tedious and overlookable, so a more interactive notification log would be awesome.

an extension of this from the last 2 suggestions is please decided on either tabs on the top or categories on the side. please do not use both. So many things from options menus in games and infopedias become confusing and almost unnavigable when you cross this. nest the categories is fine but keep the orientation singular and consistent everywhere please. oddly this may be a wawy to make alien races shoud you add them different without people directly thinking about it by just flipping the menus while in the interface from tabs to rows or vice versa.

another "lesson" which may not be obvious. please make sure that zoom/scroll options are always capable of scrolling playable areas to the center of the screen. the number of game i have played with  interfaces that obscure a scene or encounter that refuses to be viewed purely because they do not allow for the interface obfuscation is appalling. similairly as you learned by adding the red no command line. make sure commands can not get issued to outside the playable area. even in aiwar 1 there were times you could not locate things because of interface and or zooming issues. but there were alot of center on this commands once you realized they were there to use. but i would prefer not to have to rely on those. i have found it odd that no modern games have realized that if they limited their "viewport" they could get a better game experience by leaving the outside of the screen to interface only rather than this cover every inch of the screen garbage fps games have buried us in today.

and last as an opinion i would prefer that you include as much as possible of what aiwar has already brought to the universe of aiwar rather than reserving it all for expansions. alot of games of late have been trying to microsell content that should have been included in the base game. most notably in my opinion is civ 5 though it kinda began with homm4 ,gal civ 3, and aow3. not that i have a problem if for thematic or campaign reasons you break the game into multiple parts or downloads. but sell a complete product not just a engine that will run all this new content once you are willing to pay for it.

there are I'm sure lots of decisions on what to do with ai war as you go forward. i wish you well in your innovations and ai training courses.