Forum

My thoughts on v2

Some of this I have already stated ingame, but I thought others might like to chime in.

v2 needs some clean up in the js as it requires a heavy cpu load currently -=- https://zeroground.net/public/Screen%20Shot%202012-10-03%20at%202.45.20%20PM.png -=- As you can see my CPU is much higher state when the v2 window is in the foreground.

The vertical scrolling is terrible IMO. When you have 20+ countries recruiting troops, you have to scroll pretty far to get to the chat window (or vice versa when scrolling up), which also scrolls inside the scrolling window. So for me, I have to place my cursor on the very far left to scroll without catching the seemingly endless chat window, should i want to scroll past it. Some expand collapse toggles would be nice way to fix some of this. However I much prefer the drop downs from v1, thus eliminating and unnecessary scrolling to get to recruit troops, etc. I never really did much scrolling in v1, but it seems that i need to do it for everything now in v2 since everything is jammed into that sidebar. The sidebar should also retract to the side, so i can see the entire map and not have to drag it around.

chat is upside down? Not sure why it was implemented that way, but it is very confusing, since in english we read left to right and top to bottom. Also it scrolls inside a scrolling pane, and it scrolls in the reverse direction making it difficult to scroll into the past. The chat is severely limited in characters that you can use as well. I can hardly fit one sentence, making conversation difficult. Make the chat window size adjustable, and be abled to be moved around the map, also with a toggle to expand/collapse the chat or hide it. fixed, chat set to normal top to bottom now There should be seperate rooms for all chat and the specific game you are in.

The notifications -=- https://zeroground.net/public/Screen%20Shot%202012-10-03%20at%203.56.34%20PM.png -=- need to fade away after about 10 seconds. clicking them away is annoying.

Reload Map should tell you why it needs reloading. have it display what country was invaded. make the reload pop up smaller and also fade away.

action buttons need to be labeled, and maybe arranged better. upgrades ends up being another scrolling window inside a scrolling window. All these actions should pop up in a window similar to when you select a country, so that you dont have so much information crammed into such a small space. Please Please Please less scrolling.

actions log should also scroll top to bottom, and more information should be displayed about the actions the player has taken. ie. troop recruiting, building tanks, fortification, etc.

government panel should just be incorporated in the top pane on the side. It only shows to things, and allows you to change the tax rate. just put that all in the same pane with your money and countries info. Also please add total number of troops, tanks, etc. to the top pane, in similar fashion to how it shows the number of nukes you have.

messages pops out a new window, and really it should pop up inside the same window the same way the country selection does.

troop recruit time shows in seconds (i think). but when you goto recruit troops it tells you how long in minuets. pick one or the other. I should not have to divide 23450 to see how long it will be till i get new troops. Also im pretty sure the recruit time for multiple countries is borked. In v1, your time divides by the number of countries (iirc). it says thats what it is doing -=- https://zeroground.net/public/Screen%20Shot%202012-10-03%20at%204.15.22%20PM.png -=- but the times do not match up -=- https://zeroground.net/public/Screen%20Shot%202012-10-03%20at%204.15.34%20PM.png -=- should take ~1m30s but is showing 601 seconds (10mins)

When you overshoot the recruit slider, you will catch a popup for whatever country your mouse lands on -=- https://zeroground.net/public/Screen%20Shot%202012-10-03%20at%204.13.03%20PM.png -=- kinda annoy, perhaps put in the percentage options here as well.


----

Thats all for now. It is coming along nicely, and I hope all the kinks get worked out. However I will probably not play the game if all the vertical scroll stays intact the way it is. v1 layout seems much better to me at this point in time.

----
EDIT:

There is no option to forfeit the game. And if you forfeit a game or goto another game, you should not be able to come back. The admin left the game I was in and was able to come back with a new country next to mine and invade me.

I noticed some play/pause style button on the notifications, but they should default to disappear, and should consolidate similar actions like troop recruiting in different countries. no need for 20 popups when one can contain all relevant info.

CPU load is definitely an issue I'm aware of. The map right now is meant to be completely functional, but is very inefficient. Optimizing and cleaning the code there will be done before v2 is live.

I'll add collapsing units to the sidebar. I agree there is too much scrolling, but I put off fixing that until around now (since I was focused on getting things functional first). I'm also thinking of separating chunks from the sidebar into separate modal windows. That way each section get's more space and the sidebar has a lot less scrolling.

The logs are meant for battles only, because that's a public thing. Can't put information on recruiting, etc. because I'm sure your opponents wont want you knowing that.

For chat, it's actually set up on the backend to have a world chat and game chat. For now, I've removed game specific chat, until it get's more active. Otherwise, it's not usable and looks bad. Chat direction has been fixed. Like I said before, the chat right now is more functional than perfect.

I've set notification to fade after 8 seconds.

Thanks for your indepth feedback, it's super helpful. I've added many of these to my list, thanks!

My plan is to launch v2 by this weekend, so you'll see these changes very soon!

With the battle logs, just have it show recruit info of the players info only to that player. dont display it to the other players. you should use the activity log for more information. just battles is not making much use of the space.

yes modal windows that you can move and resize would be nice.

A lot of the problems have been fixed. Give it a go.