Historical Details, Animation, and Sound

[Orm]

I am a fan of the long movies. They give a extra feeling to the game. And if there is 2 or 3 of them for most events then you do not tire of them to fast. When a turn last for an hour or more a clip for 30 sec does not feel so long.

I like all the glitz. For me the more the better. But I do like when you can turn it on/off.

I would hate if the glitz delayed the release date so adding most after release might be wise.

-Orm

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Orm

I am a fan of the long movies. They give a extra feeling to the game. And if there is 2 or 3 of them for most events then you do not tire of them to fast. When a turn last for an hour or more a clip for 30 sec does not feel so long.

I like all the glitz. For me the more the better. But I do like when you can turn it on/off.

I would hate if the glitz delayed the release date so adding most after release might be wise.

-Orm

Glitz (historical video, sound, music, unit descriptions) takes very little of my time. I have 60 hours total scheduled for them - and that is a somewhat inflated number.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here is my final pass on historical video clips to be included in MWIF product 1.

As always I am open to suggestions for improvements. But I want to wrap this up in the next week and send it off to the guys at Matrix to begin acquiring them for me.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Well, my previous post here has met with a resounding silence.

I am going to send it off to Matrix tomorrow as my final list unless someone has something to say before then.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Well, my previous post here has met with a resounding silence.

I am going to send it off to Matrix tomorrow as my final list unless someone has something to say before then.

Warspite1

Steve

Three suggestions:

I dont know if its too much detail but for the land ops, can you differentiate between Pacific and Europe and have troops moving through Jungle terrain, specifically for the Pacific theatre?

Also what about Axis forces taking a Capital? Why only Paris?

Finally, for the naval combat, what about clips of sinkings? There are tons of clips for merchant vessels being hit by torpedo and I see you have "sub firing at a surface target" covered, but what about ships as they go down? Loads of merchant ship footage of that. Equally, sad though it is, what about the famous clip of HMS Barham blowing up as she rolls over? Would be good to have that powerful image.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Well, my previous post here has met with a resounding silence.

I am going to send it off to Matrix tomorrow as my final list unless someone has something to say before then.

Warspite1

Steve

Three suggestions:

I dont know if its too much detail but for the land ops, can you differentiate between Pacific and Europe and have troops moving through Jungle terrain, specifically for the Pacific theatre?

Also what about Axis forces taking a Capital? Why only Paris?

Finally, for the naval combat, what about clips of sinkings? There are tons of clips for merchant vessels being hit by torpedo and I see you have "sub firing at a surface target" covered, but what about ships as they go down? Loads of merchant ship footage of that. Equally, sad though it is, what about the famous clip of HMS Barham blowing up as she rolls over? Would be good to have that powerful image.

Ok.

1 - A good addition.

2 - Yeah, an omission on my part.

3 - I have torpedo hit on sufacre ship but I'll add one for 'shell' hit from a surface ship.

[Mad Russian]

These are one option I could do without.

I'd rather you spend time on the finishing the mechanics of the game and add all this later in either patches or addon's. I played WiF for years without any visual effects I'll more than likely keep playing it that way.

When playing wargames I normally try to put myself "in the boots". IOW, I try to assume the command level of whatever level the game is set in. Chiefs of Staff did not watch tanks attack, ships sink, hear torpedo hits, or watch bombs fall. In all likelyhood I won't either.

Good Hunting.

MR

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Mad Russian

These are one option I could do without.

I'd rather you spend time on the finishing the mechanics of the game and add all this later in either patches or addon's. I played WiF for years without any visual effects I'll more than likely keep playing it that way.

When playing wargames I normally try to put myself "in the boots". IOW, I try to assume the command level of whatever level the game is set in. Chiefs of Staff did not watch tanks attack, ships sink, hear torpedo hits, or watch bombs fall. In all likelyhood I won't either.

Good Hunting.

MR

Yeah, this is glitz. But it requires very little of my time. I send a list to Matrix; they send me files; I activate the files when certain conditions are met (as defined in the above tables). Not a lot of work compared to any of my other tasks.

[HansHafen]

Have you thought about not eating every other day? That could save you lots of time! No cooking, no washing dishes.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: HansHafen

Have you thought about not eating every other day? That could save you lots of time! No cooking, no washing dishes.

You would be surprised. I get busy and delay meals (my wife insists on cleanliness though). Today was an extreme example: start work at at 8 am (I was up until 1:50 am last night) breakfast at 2 pm, lunch at 4:30 pm, and dinner at 6:30 pm.[X(] Very bad habits which I am trying to break.[:-]

[Mike Parker]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
... breakfast at 2 pm, lunch at 4:30 pm, and dinner at 6:30 pm.[X(] Very bad habits which I am trying to break.[:-]

tsk tsk.. such inefficiency.. you could save at least half an hour by having a scrambled egg pizza at 3pm combining the 2pm breakfast and 4:30pm lunch! The wheel of history is turned only by blood!

[MajorDude]

I couldn't read through every post here, but the video ideas look good. [&o]

I didn't see a list for the simple sound effects, but may look later when I have more time.

I do think that some sort of pleasant, variable background sound tracks would be nice as we scroll through the phases, etc., like many rts games have these days - some of them are really quite good. [:)]

The possibility of optioning on/off for these is a good idea - one player I know turns off all sound and music so he can blast his ears with headbanger stuff while he plays... [:D]

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: MajorDude

I couldn't read through every post here, but the video ideas look good. [&o]

I didn't see a list for the simple sound effects, but may look later when I have more time.

I do think that some sort of pleasant, variable background sound tracks would be nice as we scroll through the phases, etc., like many rts games have these days - some of them are really quite good. [:)]

The possibility of optioning on/off for these is a good idea - one player I know turns off all sound and music so he can blast his ears with headbanger stuff while he plays... [:D]

Here is what I sent to Jim and he is working on preparing these for me. I have expanded the click sounds to 4, adding one for a right mouse click and another for placing units into a hex.

[Taxman66]

I suggest combining the Air Ground Strikes and Air Ground support.
 
Also, I suggest adding sound effects for the V-weapons and the Atomic bomb. 

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here's the current status on what I am calling glitz (I apologize in advance if using this term offends anyone).

1 - All the splash screens are done.
2 - All the air unit writeups are done (written and edited).
3 - Andy (editor & author) and Rob (author extraordinaire) are working on the naval units writeups (my guess is that they are 80+% done).
4 - Alain just started editing the land unit writeups. These are about 60% written.
5 - Barry has sent me sample historical videos and the program displays them corretly. He is working on gathering the rest.
6 - Jim has sent me sample sound effects and the program plays them correctly. He is working on creating the rest.
7 - Dave has just received my list of music requests. These will be in the same format as the sound effects, so playing the music is no problem.
8 - Dave is investigating copyright issues for using radio clips.

========
Glitz for MWIF
(as of June 12, 2009)

Introduction

MWIF contains the following elements that do not affect game play (i.e., glitz):
• Splash screens
• Descriptions of the historical units
• Historical video
• Sound effects
• Period music
• Radio clips (maybe)
• Newspaper headlines (not for initial program release)

A splash screen appears as the opening screen image when MWIF is executed. 10 other splash screens are randomly used when a scenario is started or a saved game restored. For most of the units in the game a historical description has been written. To access these write-ups, the player has to be proactive. That is, he has to request to see the write-up, otherwise it is not shown.

All of the other glitz elements are event based, which is to say that the program decides when to present them based on events in the game. Of course the player can disable these via the player interface settings.

[MajorDude]

I really like the idea of enabling sounds for the weather and other elements of gameplay - it's like, omygosh, we are using OTHER senses to play the game - lol - great idea! [:)]

[brian brian]

WiF has a great history of using clever faux newspaper headlines ... but that is in the Days of Decision games, so since those are already on a back-burner compared to the other items, maybe those should be just considered when the MDoD is worked on someday. I would think in this day and age it would actually be not too hard to program a little news-service module to write short little newspaper blurbs, maybe even let the players influence those for a little fun talking e-smack. Just daydreaming about the future.

[Halsey]

Late post on this subject.

Please allow me to disable animations and soundtrack addons from an in game preference screen.

I'm sure after a few years into a game I might want to stop the feature at times.[;)][:D]

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Halsey

Late post on this subject.

Please allow me to disable animations and soundtrack addons from an in game preference screen.

I'm sure after a few years into a game I might want to stop the feature at times.[;)][:D]

Done. That was one of my earliest decisions about this.

Here is the current Player Interface Settings form, accessible from a drop down menu on the main form. What is new is the ability to set the die rolls (only available when playing Solitaire).

Since I was going to show a scren shot I used the opportunity to show the cleaned up images for the Vichy French units.

[Caquineur]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
...What is new is the ability to set the die rolls (only available when playing Solitaire)...

Thanks very much for that, Steve !