Misc. Suggestions

[phong]

Just figured I'd consolidate my thoughts here, lam has already addressed some of these:

Client Side:


-Skins? (gui/ship) Would allow to change the bubble look with a more dark ui/ships.
-Dedicate each release to a player/team in the credits based on forum suggestions/input? Would give people a reason to give their suggestions.
-Mini radar. I'd like for smaller ships/larger maps but without radar it is impossible.
-Small place to show system time somewhere, I hate having to tab to see what time it is.
-Cleaner GUI? All the bubbly red buttons/ui scare some people off as if the game is too childish. I've had a hard time getting people to try the game seriously. ?
-"Connect" command (connect server/port)
-In free camera view there should be a hot key to speed up the camera speed (shift maybe)? Takes awhile to find someone sometimes.
-Improve map development


Server Side:


-Options for allowing number of spectators vs. players *planned*
-Possibly a way to register / prevent duplicates / preserve nicknames until the persons vapor id currently allocating it changes their nickname to something else.
-Configuration options for EXP, not so much to set the value given (could get abused) but to disable/enable the giving of EXP for certain things, such as kills, or reduce the default by a percentage. Say I want to give low exp -75%(of default) for ship kills but +25%(of default) for base dmg. Or to give all teammates a share of the base exp giving (promote teamwork).
-Some type of clan/guild/squad (with captain controls) and some way to identify the member as being in the group (possibly tagging some type of 3-4 letter abbreviation before their name (in a different color so people cant fake).
-Admin refresh/reload command from console to reload config.
-Is shipscale/mapscale configurable in the server side options or must it be changed after the server is running?
-Smaller default shipscale 95/93 of current (100). Forum vote?
-Map aspect to 110 of what is current (100) by default. Forum vote??
-Admins should not be affected by the 5min idle limit?
-Server side ship config settings? Or a way to increase the health of ships globally to allow for custom games.
-Add server config option for "quick award ceremony", skipping the line by line in place of just all at once.
-Advanced logging options to output player kills (vaporid), deaths, matches, etc. other misc statistics to a logfile which can then be parsed to generate server stats.
-Admins should be able to join their server outside of the minlvl/maxlvl restrictions.
-Admins should be able to join their server outside of available slots (server full).
-Some type of group chat/messaging system integrated into the friends list like an IM or irc client built in when logged on. Then you can have like a squad/guild/team/friend chat that you automatically join when you log on.
-Nicknames hard to read when ships are scaled
-Configurable "Bind Address" option
-Additional team game modes such as first team to X kills, or 3 deaths per player until all players on team are out (ex. subspace/continuum svs 4v4 league)


Settings:

-If ships are supposed to be balanced throughout biplane/flexible wings has issues.
-Time Anchor needs change/buff


Misc:

-Better pricing / online purchasing / website?
-Forum template customization similar to the wiki.
-Animated objects (client/server/editor support)


*Possible Bugs:*

-If you manually (or other means ) go into spectator mode, it still says "Press f to spawn", though pressing f does nothing until you hit T and manually select a team. This is annoying because you get put into spec after idling for so long, if there is a duel going in deathmatch it can easily last a minute or two.
-Dual monitor support, playing altitude on a secondary window in windowed mode appears to cause disconnect after a few seconds.


Will add some more as I think about it.

*Updated*

[eth]

I guess the GUI is altitude's style, but I have also had problems with getting my friends to take it seriously :P I'll link them to the game and they just laugh and think Im joking ^^

[phong]

Mine think I'm joking and still don't take me seriously when I say I'm not :(

[lamster]

Yeah we definitely need to rework some of the UI stuff.

For those of you with personal experience trying to convince other people to play, where exactly do you lose them:

(A) website -> won't download game (why? too kiddy?)
(B) download game -> see UI, quit without playing (why? too amateur looking?)
(C) play tutorial -> quit (why? too boring?)
(D) other?

[phong]

Yeah we definitely need to rework some of the UI stuff.

For those of you with personal experience trying to convince other people to play, where exactly do you lose them:

(A) website -> won't download game (why? too kiddy?)
(B) download game -> see UI, quit without playing (why? too amateur looking?)
(C) play tutorial -> quit (why? too boring?)
(D) other?

I think you hit them all.

I was in idling on battle.net last night waiting for some friends to log on so I was playing altitude in the meantime. Friend logs on and this is how the conversation went (from the top of my head):


me> Come play altitude with me until <insert name> comes on
him> Altitude? wtf is that
me> http://www.altitudegame.com
him> lol looks childish
me> a little :)
him> man I hate it when I have to download something
me> shutup stop whining
him> Seems stupid to be killed in 2 hits
me> yea depends on the ship/mods you're currently playing with
him> lets play dota


From that convo I took that -
A) website looks childish (can be good and bad depending on target player base)
B) he was joking about the downloading so I ignored that
C) starting in a loopy is pretty much a fly and die scenario when you just start playing which made him lose a little interest immediately?

I'll get some more input from him today when I see him, I really didnt ask why he didnt like it.

Possibly change default ship (1) to bomber w/ rubber shields or add a starting popup explaining the 2 starting ships and their differences.

Talking to another friend right now and logging his responses, will post after.

[phong]

<jro> come play altitude
<P4T> what is altitude
<jro> http://www.altitudegame.com
<P4T> lame
<jro> what is lame about it
<jro> did you download it and try it?
<P4T> the graphics
<jro> too childish?
<P4T> yeah
<jro> the graphics on the site or in the game?
<P4T> looks liek a popcap game
<jro> its not supposed to be wow quality :)
<jro> just a addicting shooting game
<jro> it has levels though, you can get to 60!
<P4T> lol
<jro> did you download it?
<jro> or just looked at the videos
<P4T> just looked
<jro> :(

[Rechtschaffen]

I teach Psychology to 17-18 year olds. I've got one of my more computer-literate students interested in the game, and he plays the demo. I think it's because I told him how awesome it was to go pew-pew shot tha playn.

[Triped]

I get that kids' game stuff or "there's no point."

I think the first thing people need to see is gameplay. Some kind of flash highlight reel that starts playing immediately upon loading.

[NastyManatee]

I think the first thing people need to see is gameplay. Some kind of flash highlight reel that starts playing immediately upon loading.

Agreed. Altitude shines in its gameplay. Honestly, people get hooked when they see a cluster**** of explosions and planes dying and all the good stuff. A short montage of different high action scenarios on different maps, maybe ending with three or four tbd game ending bomb drops, would be an epic inclusion to the game page, and I think would win more people over than reviews and comments.

Also, as far as the site design is concerned, bubble letters and cell-shaded graphics tend to be a turn off to most hardcore. Some text changes, maybe a rerender of the planes looking battle scarred, and some slightly darker colors could take away all of the concerns. You obviously have to preserve your own style, but these are suggestions.

As far as the GUI is concerned, I think the rerender I mentioned above and slightly darker colors would go a long way too.

I love the game as it is, but from trying to get people to play (4 successfully now), those tend to be issues. That's my two cents.

[eth]

Oh man scarred, dirty planes would be so insanely awesome :D

[phong]

Added skins suggestion.

Would allow you to set a skin for the GUI or for Ship images with different themes. Maybe built in with some predefined skins with a prompt at initial startup to choose default.

[phong]

Longer time anchor on miranda.

[phong]

Also lam, I've been wondering if it is possible to set the ship/map scale default on the server config? Otherwise whenever the server is auto-restarted from an update I have to manually connect to the server and re-adjust the scale.

[Triped]

Regarding that guy who couldn't handle "gay" and "fag" and such:

a) when will we be able to add words to the ban list?

b) huge feature request, but maybe include an option to auto-mute players who use too many filtered words, or don't display entire messages that include filtered words.

[nesnl]

Regarding that guy who couldn't handle "gay" and "fag" and such:

a) when will we be able to add words to the ban list?

b) huge feature request, but maybe include an option to auto-mute players who use too many filtered words, or don't display entire messages that include filtered words.

You can already modify the filtered word list. It is in Altitude/config/filtered_swear_words.txt

Here is a good website that you can use if you want to make a huge list that pretty much includes any word you could think of:

http://www.noswearing.com/list.php

[TomBRowkaH]

There's a lot of good ideas in this thread. I know when I tried to get my friends to play I was largely successful because they like a more casual style game. I noticed most of them thought it was some weird kids game until they actually played, and then they were hooked. Even watching me play didn't really sell it.

I was only unsuccessful with one of my roommates who had a hard time choosing altitude over "Left 4 Dead" :/

Less "happy" website and menu design is a plus! Maybe you can make it so the menu skins are customizable?

[phong]

LOL@va-j-j on the list.

[Nickname Here]

-"Connect" command (connect server/port) *planned*
-Cleaner GUI? All the bubbly red buttons/ui scare some people off as if the game is too childish. I've had a hard time getting people to try the game seriously. *planned*
-Skins? (gui/ship) Would allow to change the bubble look with a more dark ui/ships.
-Small place to show system time somewhere, I hate having to tab to see what time it is.
-Mini radar. I'd like for smaller ships/larger maps but without radar it is impossible.
-In free camera view there should be a hot key to speed up the camera speed (shift maybe)? Takes awhile to find someone sometimes.


i dont like the mini radar. it ruins suprises and makes the game less interesting. why not just show in game objects? (the objects in the game. in view editor there are views and the main one is game. just show all visible objects.)

[phong]

Added 2 more:

Option for a quick award ceremony
Admins not affected by 5min idle limit.

[as red as black]

I'll ask Elite Agent how he got like 10 people addicted to this damn game haha

[phong]

Added

-Admins should be able to join their server outside of the minlvl/maxlvl restrictions.

[phong]

Also, another neat thing might be to have a "This release dedicated to: xxxxx" in the credits on each version/release based on contributions/suggestions/referrals or other good deeds for altitude. Might spark interest and more input from the userbase.

[DiogenesDog]

Well, Snow, Maimer, Vi, and Redshift all made it into the credits. :o

[phong]

I'm talking more along the lines of "Employee of the month"

[Triped]

Two other ways I'd like to display score:

-Number of kills more than deaths. So the score sheet from top to bottom might read +26, +18, +10, +10, +7, 0, -4 for example.
-K/D ratio for the round, so score sheet from top to bottom might read 2.1, 1.7, 1.1, 1.1, .9, .5, etc.

[eth]

Please no :( Then everyone will play bomber and spam chokepoints for massive ratio e-peen.

[Niko0olas]

i have the same prob...
the website seems so so so childish...
i downloaded the game from apple...
if i was visiting the page i wouldnt be here.
i know my self..
;p

now i would love to have a small radar in my screen... [like fifa09]
click here to see the image (http://evo-gamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/pes2009-2008-10-07-22-05-03-88.jpg)
bt this 1 should be only a full game advantage..
not a demo 1..

[Triped]

Please no :( Then everyone will play bomber and spam chokepoints for massive ratio e-peen.

They already have the ratio, though. There's no difference between 38-18 and +20, but displaying the second would be a pretty nice way to read how the game's going.

[phong]

Bumping this.

[innociv]

Yeah it looks childish, but an IRC for another competitive game recommended it so I tried it out.

It's free to try it out.. I tried it, liked it, bought it. Only took a minute to be in game, no hassles.

I recommended it to a few dozen friends too.


IDon't most competitive gamers appreciate bright colors and a varied pallette in order to distingiush gameplay objects(powerups, players) more easily from the background, and distingiush the obsticals themselves?

Alot of the competitive gamers bitched about UT2003 having more realistic lighting because in shadows you couldn't see people nearly as well and it was much much harder to distingiush teamcolors, which lead to the brightskins modification.

This is the art style the game has, and I don't think it's going to change as that requires redoing lots of art. I don't have a problem with it and I don't htink shallow gamers are a part of the community you'd want.

[phong]

Updated checklist again.

[DryBone]

If the game website design looked too childish, I think the KLF logo of the plane burning is a great layout design for the web. I think it was made by Nickools(?) aka Eli.
So wondering if he still has the design

[phong]

Added some more stuff.

[phong]

Updated, nice to see all the work that has been done :)

[elxir]

Smaller planes hurt my eyes.

[phong]

Server side ship settings would be awesome, could just disable XP if custom settings are used so it couldn't be abused in xp farming.

Then you could make custom games :)

[Mt.Vesuvius]

I think that they should bring back aerodynamics as a perk

[phong]

Bumping this again just to ask the age old question of:

Will there ever be official game support/functionality for clans/squads/guilds? By this I mean tags, captains/leaders, etc.

If you could kindly elaborate as to what the difficulty has been implementing this system in altitude, as it seems trivial in comparison to some of the other game additions over the years.

[Ribilla]

Just as an aside, a smaller shipscale would introduce balance issues (Read: it buffs loopy, whale and bomber, but nerfs randa and bip due to their precision weapons compared to homing/explosive ones.)

[phong]

Actually it would nerf loopy and buff miranda (if you have good aim)..

[mikesol]

Actually it would nerf loopy and buff miranda (if you have good aim)..

Why would it nerf loopies? They have auto aim so it doesn't matter the size of the plane. Also how would it buff randas any differently from any other plane?

[Pieface]

Why would it nerf loopies?

EMP has a relatively short range, so like laser they'd need to get in close to use it. Planes with larger ranges would be able to take them out more easily as they approached.

Also how would it buff randas any differently from any other plane?

Not laser, but trick and TA both have weapons that travel at incredibly high speeds for pretty long ranges. All other weapons have shorter ranges or are slower and easier to dodge from a distance. Take NE 1DM for a good example of how this dynamic affects gameplay.

[Winters Ark]

Old thread is old.

Some of these ideas are good, like the radar. I would like to see the radar implemented as an option, but only for spectators. The radar would be in one corner of the screen and it would show what part of the map the camera is viewing, where the planes for each team are on the map, and where the power-ups/bombs/ball are.

Another thing I'd like to see added for spectators is the ability to see a player's current health/energy/speed when you're spectating a player. Before you say that's a bad idea I know that it can be used for scouting, but since teams are most probably going to scout regardless this could be a way for newer players to get an idea of how to become a better player by watching and studying how a more experienced player manages their energy/health in most situations.

[[Y]]

Finally figured out what makes laser seem op.

It's the camera viewscale. It's zoomed in enough so that you're almost always in range of it.

[elxir]

;111155']Finally figured out what makes laser seem op.

It's the camera viewscale. It's zoomed in enough so that you're almost always in range of it.

the scale in NE1dm hurts my eyes

[phong]

Why would it nerf loopies? They have auto aim so it doesn't matter the size of the plane. Also how would it buff randas any differently from any other plane?

Basically what Pieface said, but anyways this is getting off topic.

Really just looking for an official response on the stance of an built-in clan/guild/squad system and what the complication has been in getting one setup or why it's being avoided. It's a BIG feature that Altitude is lacking that is pretty much standard in any multi-player team game.

Outside of the interface changes for clan/guild/squad management (creating, inviting, joining, leaving, delete, etc), it really should be just setting up vapor mappings, having the client display the defined clan/guild/squad tag and updating json logs to display the clan/guild/squad name for killer/victim?

Also, what would it be for Altitude so I can stop generalizing it? I don't know what groups of planes flying together are called but that would probably be the way to go, clans just seem silly.
Squads?

[Ribilla]

Squadron is the term used in the Air Training Corps.

[sunshineduck]

the clan organization subforum is aptly named, imo