Re: What to do with Xconq

["Martin Burke" <mburke at clark dot net>]

Thanks for the opportunity to comment on the game.  I don't have the desire
to dig into
the code at all so I've never felt comfortable posting to the list before,
but I enjoy playing
xconq a lot

One of my long time questions comes from not really understanding the
history or inner
workings of the game itself.  I used to play in the lab at my university,
where we were
running mwm on Solaris workstations.  The game looked and played far far
different
from what I see when playing on a Redhat Linux machine running kde.  I
didn't play the
game for about 3 years between systems, so I was wondering if it looked so
different
solely because mwm and Solaris are so much superior to kde and Linux, or if
a lot of
coding had taken place, or for some other reason.  To tie this into the
topic at hand...I
think the game I played at school felt more like a finished game than the
one I play now,
which I attribute to cleaner graphics and a sharper interface (so I agree
with Stan's
proposed focus in that area).

Not being able to get a bunch of friends into a computer lab on Saturday
nights anymore,
I think some real work on internet play would be a great thing.  I also
agree with Stan on
the need for several sharply defined (and complete) scenarios to add a sense
of polish.  We
very nearly always played the standard WWII game on random maps at school,
but we also
had great fun with a purely naval map we put together with one-hex island
cities widely
scattered around an ocean world.  Scenarios wouldn't just add to play value,
I don't think,
but would also show people what can be done with the game engine and
hopefully inspire
some new additions.

Something else I think would be a good focus would be coming up with another
name.
Not that I have any problem with 'xconq', but new players without my years
of enjoyment
behind them might be more attracted to something else.

That's about all I can think of at the moment.  I'm glad that you're going
to be continuing work
on the game, and I look forward to what's ahead.  I have many great memories
of playing,
usually with a nethack window up as well due to the painfully slow play of a
couple of our friends,
but always having a lots of fun.

Martin Burke