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Re: What to do with Xconq


MLHowe@aol.com wrote:
> 
> I read your emails about XConq with interest, though not being very
> technically inclined, not always with understanding.  You might be interested
> to know that they came on the very day that I posted a "Best Free Games"
> thread on the c.s.i.p.g.s newsgroup, listing XConq as one of the seven, of
> course.

Thanks!  Advertising always helps...

> The incomplete or buggy libraries are a problem.  I'd like to see only
> fully-implemented libraries in the game, with "in progress" libraries clearly
> separated out.

Would you say that inclusion/exclusion in the New Game dialog is sufficient,
or is it worthwhile to separate the files as well?  There's been a proposal
kicking around to have a contrib dir on the ftp site, for instance.

> If you want more users to design libraries for XConq, you might need to make
> the language easier, though I'm the last person to be giving advice about
> this.  For example, Zillions of Games has a language that I was able tolearn
> well enough to implement several chess variants.  I doubt if I could write an
> XConq library given an equal time investment.

I've spent a little time sketching out ideas for a totally on-line design
mode.  It would be pretty hard to implement, but it would be easier to get
started designing a new game.

> To attract a broader audience, you definitely have to stabilize the PC
> version and add some interface conveniences, especially a city/production
> screen.  After giving it several honest tries, I found that the Windows
> version kept crashing, even crashing my system, and I took it off my hard
> drive.

Bleah, that's bad.  NT must have been quietly covering for me - but now that
Cygnus took back the NT laptop I was using for development, I'll have to test
on my W95 system... :-( :-)

> I don't think that XConq lacks a genre.  I think of it as a 4X game, similar
> to Empire Deluxe, which still has lots of fans.  And I didn't understand what
> you meant by it being not state-of-the-art.  I would much rather play a
> considered, turn-based game of strategic conquest than any number of
> Starcraft-like clickfests.  And please don't turn XConq into a realtime game.

Don't worry, it would never be anything but a game designer's option!  Starcraft
is a useful example because players do get very absorbed in it, but it doesn't
*really* need to be real-time - just imagine that it had an "auto-pause" mode
where you got a chance to give orders to each unit before going to the next
turn/time increment; would that make it suddenly unpopular?

By state-of-the-art I mean the underlying assumptions and techniques.  For
instance, up until recently, Xconq was drawing all terrain with pattern fills.
Commercial games haven't done that in many years, and after studying present-day
games pixel by pixel, I came to understand pattern fills were never going to be
as attractive as per-cell images.  Part of the motivation for pattern fills was
to allow smaller images, which at one time was motivated by the desire to fit
Xconq on a single floppy.  Is that quaint, or what?

> So I guess for me it just comes down to getting a good, bug-free PC version
> with some display glitches fixes and an interface enhancement or two.  Then,
> give me some good modules that don't crash because they have missing
> components. To extend longevity, every modules should have a random map
> generator and a choice of world sizes and number of opponents.  Then, when
> the game looks stable, I might become interested in learning how to author my
> own modules.  What modules should the game come with?  Ancients,
> age-of-cavalry, WW2, late 20th C, one or two SciFi, one or two fantasy
> settings, and each era should come in a range of complexities from few units
> to many and from no economics to complex.  I realize that it's a lot to ask
> for, but a lot of it seems like it's already in place, or at least the
> framework for it is there.
> 
> I hope this non-technical feedback from a gameplayer, not a programmer, is
> helpful.  XConq is an exciting system that I would love to see continued.

Yes, very helpful!  Thanks again!

Stan

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