What Do You Think Needs to be in World In Flames PC Game

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: freeboy
... interested how naval combat is handled...

Naval combat is complex and you really need to read RAW to understand it. There are 3 basic combat results tables for naval combat (sub, surface, and air) plus air-to-air combat and anti-aircraft fire that can precede it. Then there are: optional rules for an expanded ASW subsystem, different ship types and capabilities, transported cargo, surprise points that can be used a different places in the combat system, land based air units and carrier based air units, ... the list just keeps on going. A terse summary is not really possible without raising more questions than it answers.

[c92nichj]

FIve types of ships exists;Surface combat Ships( battle ships, Crusiers, destroyers etc) Carriers, Transports, Submarines and convoys

Naval units are placed in seareas. The medeterrainian consist of three sea areas; west, east and Italian Coast, all bordering Malta.

A ship can have 5 different position in a sea area 0-4. The higher box you are in the more active you ar in patrolling the area and the better you are positioned to intercept/avoid enemy ships.

Each time a combat is initiated in a sea area each player make a roll (modifed by weather, presence of aircraft and convoys) if either player roll below his search number(0-4) combat is initiated and the player with a good search split you roll low opponent high, gets an advantage in combat.

[Zorachus99]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: freeboy
... interested how naval combat is handled...

Naval combat is complex and you really need to read RAW to understand it. There are 3 basic combat results tables for naval combat (sub, surface, and air) plus air-to-air combat and anti-aircraft fire that can precede it. Then there are: optional rules for an expanded ASW subsystem, different ship types and capabilities, transported cargo, surprise points that can be used a different places in the combat system, land based air units and carrier based air units, ... the list just keeps on going. A terse summary is not really possible without raising more questions than it answers.

The rulebook needs to be rewritten (not volunteering) as a 'light' version that omits many of the tasks the computer performs. Something to ease you into the game, but glosses over things that aren't critical to playing. Once a player can handle the light manual, they will go off searching for the detailed one at random times to look up obscure rules.

Another idea is to incorporate the rulebook into the game and merely selecting a unit would allow you to hit F1 to find out the pertinent rules to the type of unit that is selected.

Ideas, nothing more.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99
The rulebook needs to be rewritten (not volunteering) as a 'light' version that omits many of the tasks the computer performs. Something to ease you into the game, but glosses over things that aren't critical to playing. Once a player can handle the light manual, they will go off searching for the detailed one at random times to look up obscure rules.

Another idea is to incorporate the rulebook into the game and merely selecting a unit would allow you to hit F1 to find out the pertinent rules to the type of unit that is selected.

Ideas, nothing more.

Ideas are good.

Several beta testers split up RAW and went through it specifically to identify where MWIF will need changes made. For example, references to off-map boxes. I have their annotations for all of RAW. Mziln is also going through RAW and pulling out the sections for each of the optional rules (he was up to #29 out of 80 last time I checked). Peter has volunteered to edit those aggragations into something a little easier to read.

Eventually I expect to create a RAC document as about half of the player's manual. RAC is Rules As Coded, and is intended to perform the same function as RAW, but for MWIF instead of WIF FE.

The other half of the player's manual will explain the player interface for MWIF - how to play WIF using the computer. I expect the tutorials to help players who are new to WIF a lot and I intend to have them accessible during play.

As far as context sensitive help, I am all for it, but I do not have the mechanism thought out in any detail. Just a loose "press F1, get help" which is not sufficient detail for creating anything that will actually be useful to the players. I despise 'help' systems that never provide any help (they just waste your time) and will not create one unless it correctly anticipates the question(s) the player is most likely to want answered.

[Anendrue]

It would be great if the RAC document could be a pre-release so we can come up to speed on differances in using the computer as an interface. Especially since RAW has always been available as a download. Besides it might help gear up sales just a bit and keep the sharks from circling as they get antsy for a release. Hmmm, buy a stein and get a printed RAC as a combined product etc...

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: abj9562
It would be great if the RAC document could be a pre-release so we can come up to speed on differances in using the computer as an interface. Especially since RAW has always been available as a download. Besides it might help gear up sales just a bit and keep the sharks from circling as they get antsy for a release. Hmmm, buy a stein and get a printed RAC as a combined product etc...

Well, I expect to post the RAC to the forum for review, once I get writing it underway. Indeed, most of the Player's manual is likely to be posted piecemeal over time. My logic here is rather simple - the RAC and Player's manual are worthless unless you own a copy of the game.

[Anendrue]

I have to agree it would definitely be useless without a copy of the computer MWiF itself. The nice thing is that all the decisions discussed on this forum, interfaces and other items that you have worked on for so long can finally be viewed as a cohesive unit. Hopefully Matrix would allow them to host this document on their website.

[YohanTM2]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Well, I expect to post the RAC to the forum for review...

Oh great, a homework assignment [:'(]

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Yohan

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Well, I expect to post the RAC to the forum for review...

Oh great, a homework assignment [:'(]

Well, you could think of it more like trying on pants and asking the tailor for adjustments prior to purchasing them. Bell bottoms for the sailors?

[Fred98]

ORIGINAL: David Heath
What do you think needs to be in World in Flames?

That the graphics look OK on a large LCD TV.

[Zorachus99]

a large lcd tv will have to support a PC being hooked up.

The minimum readable resolution of my 55" lcd TV is 720p. Resolution at 1080i is terrible with a 30hz refresh rate. At 30hz movies look fine, and the resampling definitely is a bonus for either DVD's or Divx/Xvid.

For widescreen 720x1280 is the resolution most likely used (this is from memory). My screen tends to display 648x1164 best however (overscan from the TV).

The idea of 1080x1920 sounds good, and is definitely a serviceable area, but I don't know any video cards that drive a 1080p signal. Not impossible however...

From 12' 720p is so much more readable though.

[Fred98]

I really don't know what all that means.  But I picked up bits and pieces. Please fill in the gaps.
 
To play this game a monitor needs to have a minimum refresh rate of-----[........]
 
To play this game the screen resolution of your monitor should be a minimum of-----[.......]
 
The video card needs to drive a signal to the TV screen and technically the problem is-----[........]
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99
a large lcd tv will have to support a PC being hooked up.

The minimum readable resolution of my 55" lcd TV is 720p. Resolution at 1080i is terrible with a 30hz refresh rate. At 30hz movies look fine, and the resampling definitely is a bonus for either DVD's or Divx/Xvid.

For widescreen 720x1280 is the resolution most likely used (this is from memory). My screen tends to display 648x1164 best however (overscan from the TV).

The idea of 1080x1920 sounds good, and is definitely a serviceable area, but I don't know any video cards that drive a 1080p signal. Not impossible however...

From 12' 720p is so much more readable though.

I was gonig to post a reply to Joe but after reading yours, I am appalled by my ignorance.

So I'll just say that I am designing for 1024 pixels wide by 768 pixels high, with support for larger widths and heights. The program 'reads' from the operating internals what resolution you have the screen/monitor(s) set for, rather than imposing a resolution.

[Zorachus99]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99
a large lcd tv will have to support a PC being hooked up.

The minimum readable resolution of my 55" lcd TV is 720p. Resolution at 1080i is terrible with a 30hz refresh rate. At 30hz movies look fine, and the resampling definitely is a bonus for either DVD's or Divx/Xvid.

For widescreen 720x1280 is the resolution most likely used (this is from memory). My screen tends to display 648x1164 best however (overscan from the TV).

The idea of 1080x1920 sounds good, and is definitely a serviceable area, but I don't know any video cards that drive a 1080p signal. Not impossible however...

From 12' 720p is so much more readable though.

I was gonig to post a reply to Joe but after reading yours, I am appalled by my ignorance.

So I'll just say that I am designing for 1024 pixels wide by 768 pixels high, with support for larger widths and heights. The program 'reads' from the operating internals what resolution you have the screen/monitor(s) set for, rather than imposing a resolution.

I just posted twice and got them eaten but some browser bug. I'm very tired and don't have the temperment to rewrite all the information again.

A VERY short summary:

If your PC is hooked up to your HDTV: This is with component video (RGB), DVI, VGA, or HDMI.

Your output can be:

720p: 1280x720 progressive 60hz signal. Note this does not meet the minimum requirements
1080i: 1920x1080 interlaced 30hz signal. Looks terrible for everything but movies.
1080p: 1920x1080 progressive 60hz signal. This is not supported by many HDTVs however.
Non-Standard values are supported by some HDTV's.
Some HDTV's support virtual desktops where the resolution is higher than can be displayed by the TV. Hence you scroll around your desktop.

Gah... so much typing lost. I hit Ctrl-C this time...

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Z.

If I am going to enter a lot of text, I usually write it in a text editor and then copy and paste it to the 'reply'.

Sometimes I see that I am writing more than I thought I would in a post, so I do a quick select all and cut and paste it into the editor.

Experience is a harsh teacher. And paranoia isn't paranoia if there are people (or systems) out to get you.

[amwild]

ORIGINAL: Joe 98

I really don't know what all that means.  But I picked up bits and pieces. Please fill in the gaps.

To play this game a monitor needs to have a minimum refresh rate of-----[........]

To play this game the screen resolution of your monitor should be a minimum of-----[.......]

The video card needs to drive a signal to the TV screen and technically the problem is-----[........]

Refresh rate refers to the number of times per second the display refreshes all the pixels. On a CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) monitor, 60 Hz means that the display is refreshed 60 times per second, and for most good quality PC monitors, this is on the low side, and the display may seem to flicker a little. 85+ Hz is much better. This is because between the times the electron beams excite the monitor phosphors, the light emitted from the phosphors fades a little. The faster the refresh, the less fade. Of course, on TVs, the phosphors are made to retain energy a bit longer, so a TV display may still not have significant flicker at a lower refresh rate, but in the case of objects on screen moving rapidly, there may be a little ghosting - where old images take time to fade. Plasma screens operate in a similar manner.
LCD monitors are not sensitive in this manner to refresh rates since the pixels do not spontaneously change state the way CRT phosphors do. Thus they do not suffer from flicker. However, LCDs have response times typically ranging from 25ms or lower. The higher response times mean that in games where objects move quickly, the monitor suffers from ghosting proportional to its response time. For this sort of gaming, a response time of 8ms or less is recommended.
As an example, I have a CRT monitor next to an LCD monitor. The CRT's refresh rate is 85 Hz, while the LCD's is 60 Hz.
Refresh rate is set in Windows by right-clicking on the desktop, selecting Properties, clicking the Settings tab on the Display Properties dialog, then the Advanced button and the Monitor tab. The Screen Refresh Rate may then be changed.
Screen Refresh Rate does not affect the way software runs, it only affects the display quality. If you have a CRT (or plasma) monitor, use the highest refresh rate you can as long as the monitor still works. Different CRT monitors have different upper limits on refresh rates. If you have an LCD monitor, use the lowest refresh rate, since it means that your video card is doing a little less work.

Screen resolution is the number of pixels it is displaying. MWiF uses a minimum of 1024x768, which means that the screen needs at least 1024 pixels across by 768 down. Again, this is set in the Windows display properties/Settings tab. Unlike refresh rate, this setting does affect windowed applications like MWiF. The higher the resolution, the more pixels on the screen, but the smaller all the details (like the text and graphics) will appear. You need to choose a resolution to balance between fitting the required information on the screen and having everything so small that you need a magnifying glass to see it. In general, the larger the monitor, the higher the resolution you can use it to display. LCD monitors differ from CRT monitors in that they are digital rather than analogue. Where a CRT monitor uses several phosphor dots to display any pixel, LCDs have an optimum maximum resolution, and can lose quality if a screen resolution is used that is not an even multiple of its own maximum resolution.
My CRT and LCD monitors are both 19 inches diagonally, and I run them both at 1280x1024. My LCD's resolution is 1280x1024, so if I tried to run it at a lower resolution other than 640x512, it would look a bit odd, as the monitor would have to interpolate to decide which screen pixels would be used to display each image pixel.

The Video Card driving a 1080p signal means that the video card must be capable of outputting a 1920x1080 pixel screen resolution. There are plenty of video cards that can output that resolution to a PC monitor via a VGA or DVI cable. I don't know myself what resolutions video cards can output on a tv/hdtv-out port.

[jerome]

This is my first post on the forum.

I'm impressed by the level of commitment behind this project. I wish all the team great success in the design and development of this promising game. A release within 12 months would be nice.

INMHO, "Cheat Mode" should be included. Not to actually cheat. Just to "adapt" things if needed (I understand any "cheat mode" can unbalance the AI if not used with care).

I remember in Third Reich PC, the program was not deducting the 25BRPs for the loss of the Baltic States (I don't remember if it was omitting the calculation or removing twice the amount 50BRPs). If you invest a huge amount of time in a full campaign, you don't want to get your fun spoiled by a rule incident or a minor bug... If such a problem occurs in MWIF, you should be able to do something...

Moreover, the game should be as flexible as possible.
Let say you "disagree" with the amount of BPs/resources, you should be able to add/remove BPs/resources from any nation at anytime if necessary. Probably not on the map but at least in the available totals.
If you want to change the ratings of a unit. it should be possible to do it or at least manipulate combat ratios/hit columns, reroll dice...
It should also be possible, at the start of the game, to sligthly modify combat charts, force pools...

Harry keeps saying no one is playing WiF exactly the same way... Everyone is using a few home rules. That's what makes this game unique. If there is one or two things you don't like in the design, just modify them (or, in the case of MWIF, just avoid them or create some kind of compensation).

If it doesn't eat too much resources in the develoment of the game, this matter should be looked at.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: jerome

This is my first post on the forum.

I'm impressed by the level of commitment behind this project. I wish all the team great success in the design and development of this promising game. A release within 12 months would be nice.

INMHO, "Cheat Mode" should be included. Not to actually cheat. Just to "adapt" things if needed (I understand any "cheat mode" can unbalance the AI if not used with care).

I remember in Third Reich PC, the program was not deducting the 25BRPs for the loss of the Baltic States (I don't remember if it was omitting the calculation or removing twice the amount 50BRPs). If you invest a huge amount of time in a full campaign, you don't want to get your fun spoiled by a rule incident or a minor bug... If such a problem occurs in MWIF, you should be able to do something...

Moreover, the game should be as flexible as possible.
Let say you "disagree" with the amount of BPs/resources, you should be able to add/remove BPs/resources from any nation at anytime if necessary. Probably not on the map but at least in the available totals.
If you want to change the ratings of a unit. it should be possible to do it or at least manipulate combat ratios/hit columns, reroll dice...
It should also be possible, at the start of the game, to sligthly modify combat charts, force pools...

Harry keeps saying no one is playing WiF exactly the same way... Everyone is using a few home rules. That's what makes this game unique. If there is one or two things you don't like in the design, just modify them (or, in the case of MWIF, just avoid them or create some kind of compensation).

If it doesn't eat too much resources in the develoment of the game, this matter should be looked at.

Welcome.

Providing variations in the rules et al is not part of my task for MWIF product 1. There are some files that I have set up as comma separated values files (CSVs) which the players can modify before a game begins. However, I have not made it a design feature to provide all the various tables in WIF as CSV files. My standard explanation is that I am creating MWIF (Matrix Games' WIF FE for the computer) and not a WIF design kit. The latter is a much more difficult task. [There are 80 optional rules already].

As for changing parameters during play, that is in conflict with my desire to provide players with a game where their opponent(s) are unable to cheat. Yes, I know that modifying simulation parameters during play is a common practice in computer games. But that opens gaping holes in the security of the game.

As for program flaws/bugs making a long investment in playing a game 'worthless' because it crashes (or misbehaves in any of numerous ways), that is my #1 paranoia, and I am working hard to prevent it. Letting a player go into data variables while a game is in progress and 'tweak' them is virtually guaranteed to create bugs by the thousands (literally).

[mlees]

One of the features of Face to face play is the "mulligan", or "do-over".

Long story short, in MWIF, the game engine should not allow a player to make an "illegal" move, and production totals are calculated by the game engine (the two most common human error areas), so the need for "mulligans" is greatly reduced.

The only thing that I can think of that jerome might need this kind of control is if he wished to set up a MWIF game to match an AAR, or an ongoing face to face game for his planning needs and/or entertainment. (What other possibilities am I forgetting?)

As far as I know, it will not be possible to do this, correct?

(For ongoing MWIF games, save files can be emailed. But to set up a game without the benefit of such a file... what are our options?)

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: mlees

One of the features of Face to face play is the "mulligan", or "do-over".

Long story short, in MWIF, the game engine should not allow a player to make an "illegal" move, and production totals are calculated by the game engine (the two most common human error areas), so the need for "mulligans" is greatly reduced.

The only thing that I can think of that jerome might need this kind of control is if he wished to set up a MWIF game to match an AAR, or an ongoing face to face game for his planning needs and/or entertainment. (What other possibilities am I forgetting?)

As far as I know, it will not be possible to do this, correct?

(For ongoing MWIF games, save files can be emailed. But to set up a game without the benefit of such a file... what are our options?)

MWIF product 1 has no provision for "creating scenarios" beyond the 11 standard scenarios defined in WIF FE.

The details are quite numerous for creating a scenario, it depends heavily on the optional rules selected, and the sequence of tasks that have to be performed is rigidly defined because of their high interdependency. It took me a long time to create the code & data for the 6 scenarios I have done (CWIF had 3 done), I still hve 2 left to do, and there are some missing pieces remaining to be done for all the scenarios (e.g., units for Cruisers and Convoys in Flames, factories "en route" at the start of a scenario).

Though you might view "setting up a position" as something different from creating a new scenario, in practice, they are equivalent: which countries are at war, who controls what territory, which US Entry options have been chosen, what chits have been drawn for US entry and neutrality pacts, which units are where, where is the initiative marker, etc..