Compliment the second time around

[Victarus]

P.S. Did you know that some people were requesting that our game not have unit images at all, but instead be switched to use the NATO symbols?

Hard-core nerds for life!

Regarding graphics, I recall reading a review (I have no idea where, unfortunately) where something the reviewer mentioned was not liking the units and buildings, not because they were poorly rendered or any such nonsense, but because they looked fake on an otherwise beautiful topographic map. He conceded that it made finding things much easier though, but there's another side of the story for you.

I'd like better graphics I suppose, but don't spend too much time on it - if it won't add to the game, I'd rather you spend your time... well, adding to the game. Bells and whistles only entertain for so long.
Also keep in mind that not all of us have the latest, fastest computer, at least in the video department. When Civilization IV first came out I couldn't play it without a framerate in the lower teens at best, and often it was simply unplayable. Some big changes were made between 3 and 4, but I'm sure you can imagine that this kind of tainted my feelings of fancy graphics in strategy games that don't need them. (I still twitch when I see a Europa Universalis III screenshot, but we'll see...)

[Legend]

Thanks for the encouragement and comments about graphics. As part of the entire development process, balance is a very important idea to continually consider. When trying to work towards any goal, such as - How can we increase sales? - we need to balance our time, money, effort, feature list, complexity, learning curve...etc.

As part of this original thread, the demo was tried and then put down in large part due to its graphics. So the new question is... in future titles, how far do we take our graphics while balancing quality with development time and associated costs? (all while trying to appeal to a few more people who try the demo.)

Are there other games that anyone would like to discuss? For example.. I'm playing Age of Empires 3 and i'm taking a look at their grapihcs. I'm considering the things that appeal to me and the things that don't catch my attention. One thing I noticed is the Age of Empires logo within the game. Inside the game in the bottom GUI control panel the logo appears and I sort of wondered if I was playing a game or a franchise. Any thoughts about AOE III or any other game in relation to graphics?

[Victarus]

Well it doesn't do any good to keep someone with graphics if you lose them because of the game. Graphics may result in more players for Civilization or Age of Empires games, but they're much more simple to play - the potential audiance is significantly larger and, generally, a larger percentage of those judge the book by its cover, as it were. Admittedly a functional and good looking interface will affect sales, but bells and whistles like 3D effects, explosions and the like will hardly make a dent - this game doesn't sell in that kind of market. The potential profit may be less, but that just makes it the best market for a smaller business - Just as Wal-Mart has yet to stock Advanced Squad Leader, EA hasn't made an SR2010.

I'd limit the logos - I think that's some sort of weird subliminal marketing thing (or they couldn't think of what else to fill the space with ). A general theme would be nice though - something like the backgrounds for Hearts of Iron II, each of the major countries having their own with a German, Soviet, etc. theme. Having country-specific themes may not be possible of course, but something that fits the feel of the game, even if its in an abstract way, definately helps the game look better. The trick is to make sure that it doesn't take too much time to implement or too much effort to make though - the HOI backgrounds, for instance, are simple bitmaps that are just placed behind all the buttons and such. Easy to impliment, easy to make the files for (including players, but that's a different discussion), and it looks nice.
I think what might help would be to have an artist or the like help in the interface design. Not take total control of course - he may make things pleasing to the eye, but that doesn't make it easy to use - but people with that kind of eye are probably more suited to make the initial impression as good as possible than us practical folks.

[rss0900]

well if it were blue sky..... I'd like a much bigger map with a lot more definition. Where when zoomed out you basically see what you see now, but when you zoom in you actually zoom in to a city and street and infantry and tanks, you see the war being fought. The only example I can think of like this is Rome Total War, except you would have no loading screen, you would just zoom in and see the same battle in detail. You could remain zoomed out too. For this game the graphics are adequete, I can't think of many way to improve this considering what the nature of the game is. I like the other poster above think you have a unique and awesome game going here, it's just not catching on because of the learning curve I think.

Talking about other strategy games like AOE3 and such, they are completly a different type of game, without the detail and strategy of SR2010. Grpahics are important in those types of games because that's about all they have going for them most of the time. Again, I think the graphics are OK in SR2010, nothing great, but you have to get past understanding what the game is about before you can appreciate the entire package.

[Il Duce]

Groovy grafix are only useful in the sense that they help to convey the information that is ultimately the subsatnce of a game like this. Forget the sizzle, sell the steak.

[Victarus]

well if it were blue sky..... I'd like a much bigger map with a lot more definition...

And I want a million dollars, if only to give to BG after they go bankrupt working on this.
Nice? Definately. Realistic? Not even to the slightest degree (never mind the computing issues this could bring, just pure budget and time restraints).

Groovy grafix are only useful in the sense that they help to convey the information that is ultimately the subsatnce of a game like this. Forget the sizzle, sell the steak.

Ah, but what of selling steak to the deaf?

Think of it this way: BG is the librarian, the people who the graphics are for are that "kid with potential" who's always reading trashy novels. BG wants them to read some classic book but they're turned off by the dust, the picture-less cover, the story being older than his grandparents... all that stuff that good books tend to have. The librarian tries to make the book look good by talking about it, the kid reads it and really like it, and they read classic literature from now on - they just needed to try it to realize that they'd enjoy it, and the graphics is the librarian talking about how good the book is.
Admitedly anyone who tries the game will have to have be fairly smart in order to understand what's going on and have fun, but just because they're only interested in decent graphics doesn't mean they're not that "kid with potential". Good graphics won't bring vast numbers of converts, but that's why amazing-super-great(-and-expensive) graphics aren't the goal - just good enough to turn a few heads that wouldn't have turned otherwise.

[onerobot]

By "1) The graphics were poor."... can you give some examples?

Aside from including an option to further increase the resolution of the map and using more stylistic menus I really can't!

Unfortunately I don't think there's really a great deal you can do to improve things without raising the system requirements as the graphics are likely considered "poor" simply because they're not technically impressive. They hold up fairly well artistically, but the vast majority of people judge the visuals of a game based on the polygons and technology it pushes, and most reviewers take that into consideration.

With that said the people who are interested in strategy games like SR2010 probably care a great deal less about that and judge the graphics based on the quality of the artwork and whether or not they serve their intended purpose, but until you incorporate the Unreal 2007 engine with klunk maps that push 800 glob-carrots per second your going to be stuck at "poor".

[BigStone]

The graphics in these kind of games are -functional-
We don't need more...

But there could be some minor improvements:
I still have some problems to see in -one blink- the difference
between a mil outpost and a small base...
The same for port/pier and airbase/strip and the some powerplants...
And why are militaryplaces painted hell red....

[Legend]

By "1) The graphics were poor."... can you give some examples?

Aside from including an option to further increase the resolution of the map and using more stylistic menus I really can't!

onerobot... can you elaborate on the stylistic menus? Do you mean having nicer looking buttons and backgrounds in the main menu/game menus? If so, we have plans for this in future titles. If you mean something more, or wish to detail what you envision seeing, let us know.

An added comment regarding reviews... I think I mentioned it somewhere... I wish they had different categories for things. For example, we don't have fancy graphics in part due to system requirements. The reason is that every unit every time slice is looking for opportunities to engage other units. Each unit searches surrounding hexes and then acts accordingly. Add in the fact that we have some games with thousands of units being played just adds to the calculations. We have (possibly) sacrificed graphics for removing a limit found in all other computer games. Reviewers don't give credit for that. Our reviews are quite good, and perhaps with some slightly better graphics they could have been even a bit better.

As for zooming in individual units... down to city or street level... I don't think it's going to happen. As Supreme Ruler you shouldn't be concerned about what is happening on a street level basis... but look at things on a larger scale... who are my enemines? where are my borders? put a tank battalion over there.. etc.

I continue to value your comments... any further thoughts?

[onerobot]

onerobot... can you elaborate on the stylistic menus? Do you mean having nicer looking buttons and backgrounds in the main menu/game menus? If so, we have plans for this in future titles. If you mean something more, or wish to detail what you envision seeing, let us know.

That's it exactly. I'll leave the details to your art team since I'm sure they know a lot more about it than I do.

An added comment regarding reviews... I think I mentioned it somewhere... I wish they had different categories for things. For example, we don't have fancy graphics in part due to system requirements. The reason is that every unit every time slice is looking for opportunities to engage other units. Each unit searches surrounding hexes and then acts accordingly. Add in the fact that we have some games with thousands of units being played just adds to the calculations. We have (possibly) sacrificed graphics for removing a limit found in all other computer games. Reviewers don't give credit for that. Our reviews are quite good, and perhaps with some slightly better graphics they could have been even a bit better.

Graphics would definitely help in that area, but I think the most important improvement was the one Victarus suggested: better tutorials. It seems the most common complaint about the game concerned its learning curve, and it seems like this would be a less expensive fix than graphics. Having interractive tutorials that really focused on one part of the game - maybe even going so far as to lock the player in one department per tutorial - and stressing the initial importance of ministers would be insanely helpful.

As for zooming in individual units... down to city or street level... I don't think it's going to happen. As Supreme Ruler you shouldn't be concerned about what is happening on a street level basis... but look at things on a larger scale... who are my enemines? where are my borders? put a tank battalion over there.. etc.

While that's probably kind of extreme such a thing would be helpful to graphically convey information about individual cities or industries (like in the Civ series), which is one of the other things I thought could be improved. Coloring important stats red or green to convey how certain things are faring (maybe even using different shades to convey them over varying time periods) with plus and minus signs or arrows next to them to represent how they've changed from the average would be nice as well.

[madjack]

BigStone, there is a graphics pack in supremewiki that i use. Check those graphics improvements, i think they are really useful.

I think the interface needs a few improvements.. Especially the menus.

1- The "all units" menu in the military panel, multiple units should be selectable. And also, there should be a choice like "closest base" in the base list when you send units into reserve using that menu. I cant memorise all the base names...

2- I would be really happy if I could drag&drop missiles into my aircraft and then enter the number of missiles that I want to load...

3- There should be an option to select the same type of units.. I think there is no such shortcut. If there is, I want able to find it. Especially in the "all reserves" list.

4- It would be nice if I could shift-click as in windows explorer to select.
I can ctrl-click, but i have to do it hundreds of time.

There are many more that i can suggest, i will do so if you are interested.
Maybe we should do a complete list, or a seperate topic where we can discuss these. There may be such a topic that i havent seen yet, but i'm new to the forums and they are so large..