your dreams about witp 2 :)

[Terminus]

ORIGINAL: RisingSun

I doubt if this will happen, since Gary will be retiring someday soon. He will need someone that have 3D skills along with his works if this going to get any better. This kind of game need extra environments to see what the battlefields would look like in different strategy.

Not relevant. He had nothing to do with AE.

[Terminus]

ORIGINAL: Kull

ORIGINAL: sunjiafu

Time to uncover the truth

The semi-humorous comments of others aside, that really is pretty cool. Especially in light of how many said it wasn't possible. And assuming this isn't a beautifully done photo shop.

If there was a game file in which, say, all the IJN units were in English and the IJA was in kanji, that would give us Japan fanboys a better appreciation of the real-life coordination issues between the two!

Sure. Let's just go learn Japanese...[8|]

The market for this type of game in Japan is so tiny it's almost invisible. Not gonna happen, and Thank Thread for that.

[JeffroK]

ORIGINAL: jolly_pillager

Dream number 1 - REDUCE ACCURACY ON ALL WEAPONS TO HISTORICAL
Dream number 2 - REDUCE SORTIE RATES TO HISTORICAL
Dream number 3 - INCREASE OPS LOSSES TO HISTORICAL
and
Dream number 4 - FOR GOD'S SAKE FIX NIGHT BOMBING

Instead of WITP II, aim for WITP Air Marshall or General edition.

IMHO the air war and ground war processes need tweaking.

[Jim Stevens]

- tactical notes: allow a player to assign a note to an action - when tf arrives pop note "load aircraft". TF names help a lot remembering what you were doing two turns ago. Just extending that idea

- pick up missions for ships: much like an air transport asset can be assigned to fly to a base and pick up a unit, allow the same for ships

- multi step missions: fly to this base, wait for repairs or not, fly to next base, and so on

- local escort missions: bases attract enemy attention, have a tf mission that say out to x hexes go and meet tf inbound or escort tf out to x hexes and then return

- add Geisha as a supply item for Japan: just kidding...

[czert2]

jup, lets keep curent look/graphics (well animations can use some improvment - instead of geneal ones lets have sitiation specific, hihher resolution...etc.
turn reports shoudl use some filters.

and of course - start fundraiser to fund developing of witp2

[DD696]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

Sorry guys, I tried fantasizing about WITP2 last night but all I could come up with was this.......I am a very weak man....

Sheeesh! Obviously, there are no Marines viewing this. We don't dream about females who are all covered up, for there is nothing to be gained there. If you dream, dream of naked wenches, then those dreams have less to cover to come true.

But, in order to improve WiTPAE, you really should include the appropriate number of AI players who play the game versus the PBEM players in order to achieve a true balance of what the game should be in the development of a future version of this great game.

So, to make it simple, work on the AI, the UI, the ground combat, and USER CHANGEABLE DATA. You've got the maps, the OOB, and the air and naval portions in pretty good shape (allowing for the "always room for improvement" for this and that).

Words have been spoken about funding for such a project. I tentatively made a gesture in this respect several years ago, but not sure I would want to do it anymore. I'd rather go out and buy another old Corvette.

[czert2]

ORIGINAL: JeffK

ORIGINAL: jolly_pillager

Dream number 1 - REDUCE ACCURACY ON ALL WEAPONS TO HISTORICAL
Dream number 2 - REDUCE SORTIE RATES TO HISTORICAL
Dream number 3 - INCREASE OPS LOSSES TO HISTORICAL
and
Dream number 4 - FOR GOD'S SAKE FIX NIGHT BOMBING

Instead of WITP II, aim for WITP Air Marshall or General edition.

IMHO the air war and ground war processes need tweaking.

well i fear that field marshal edition will requre a lot of recoding for ground combat...maby to big task for limited resources devoted to this game.
So maby in witp 2
start fundraiser for it

[Zebedee]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

You know, and please nobody hate me too much, but I really am quite happy with the game as is. Sometimes I will get a bit perturbed with some facet, but never for long. Sitting here now, I find myself quite happy with the game as is ... particularly with John, Andy, and Michael all still actively contributing and most of the rest of the devs lurking in the back ground.


[&o][&o][&o]

Without wishing to blow smoke up too many orifices, best purchase I've made for a computer game in terms of hours played and enjoyment gained vs money spent. Think with DBB thrown at AE, other than letting people loose to see what they can do without having to wear gloves, this is about the limit for me in terms of scale and depth. Maybe the odd little bit more here and there, but not too much more.


Just on the AI thing, if you're wanting a competitive AI which doesn't cheat, then you're pretty confused about what you're asking for in a game of this type of scale. Stick with chess if you want that. If you're half-decent at Go, you may get the odd challenge from the AI without a handicap.

[bartrat]

My two cents:

Better AI programming and more scripting.
Easier way to create your own game via the scenario editor.
Orders for ships, as in do A then B then C (of course the program would only do if some checks are passed)
Capturing merchant ships, raising ships sunk in ports.
Better micro level control of the economics (you get to schedule your own ship construction, allocate fuel, supplies to land bases (more manual control) av fuel, and lot of other ideas.
TF names showing up in more places in the UI.

I have an idea that allowing the ALLIED player control over production. The idea is that the more you want from the Production allocated to Pacific it will cost you VP points (and PP's also). You could even play a Adm. King's dream game of Japan first!!!
Another option to allow the Allied player to try to "win on the cheap". Give him VP if he takes fewer units.

Of course some of this maybe easy to program, some not. Hope you will consider the above.

[LargeSlowTarget]

Better Combat and Ops Reports with links that teleport to the location of the action.

Also a better structure (current ops report is a confusing jumble) and more infos.

There should be sections for TFs orders, LCU orders, Repair Reports, Sighting Reports (split into enemy units sighted and own units snooped by enemy), Administrative stuff (e.g. "grounded for maintenance") etc.

And there should be more infos on units which have completed orders this turn, e.g. "Cargo TF 123 has reached destination, awaiting orders" or "99th Tunderbox Const Coy has reached destination, awaiting orders".

Would make it easier to keep track of units and issuing new orders, reducing the need to keep notes and going through the entire map each turn.

[LeeChard]

When getting the Ops report it would be nice to be able to jump to the area and perform an action on the board.
As it is now I have a notepad that sometimes I can't read[8|]

[mind_messing]

ORIGINAL: Ranger5355

When getting the Ops report it would be nice to be able to jump to the area and perform an action on the board.
As it is now I have a notepad that sometimes I can't read[8|]

Why the original design didn't let you click on "Radio Signals at hex 44, 75" and have it take you to hex 44,75 is beyond me.

Same with "TF 213 reports being sighted by Allied Torpedo Bomber".

Something so simple that would have saved a great deal of time by streamlining the game.

[Alfred]

Because it is essentially a DOS era GUI.  The things which one commonly finds in Windows based GUI, utilising the full range of windows tools, are just not possible with this GUI.  A completely new engine would be required.  That was completely out of scope for AE development.
 
Just about everything which people regularly clamour to see in a WITP II cannot be done without writing a new engine.  The cost in both development dollars, time and labour would be astronomical and most likely not recoverable from sales, let alone leaving any surplus for profit.  That is why Gary Grigsby recycles so much old code in his games.
 
Alfred

[GaryChildress]

ORIGINAL: JeffK

Instead of WITP II, aim for WITP Air Marshall or General edition.

I think this is a good idea. One thing I'd like to see is greatly improved flexibility (which generally means a bit less hard coding of some functions). For example be able to set the start and end dates to just about anything a modder wants. So for example if I decide to do a new War Plan Orange, then I could just set the dates for 1922-whatever and do my mod however I want. Also greater flexibility with the map. Allow me to design my own map of whatever portion of the Earth I want. Ideally it would be great to just have an extremely versatile game engine which could be manipulated to achieve almost any modder's goal. More modding versatility usually = more game longevity and popularity.

As I stated previously in this thread I think it would be great to eliminate as many of the vague values in the editor as possible such as "durability", "Effect" and things of that nature and replace them with fields where known values and specifications can be inserted and then let the game engine calculate the "fuzzy" things like "Maneuver" or something. So for example I can plug in the length, width, speed, tonnage and whatever else is necessary for a ship and the game engine would take those values and convert them into "Maneuverability", "Durability", etc.

One other thing I'd like to see is a "vehicles" database separate from devices, along the same lines as the "aircraft" database is for planes. This could evolve into a more sophisticated land combat model which would take into account more subtle characteristics of land combat units.

Finally it would be great to be able to increase the size of various game art files. For example, aircraft and ship sides would look better I think if they were a bit larger in scale. Even allowing the modder to set the size of his art would be a great too, again more flexibility is a wonderful thing.

Other than that WitP is a wargamer's dream come true and AE is an even better realization of that dream. A lot of game designers out there try to improve upon a game by completely revamping it and simply ruin it, (Sid Meier's Civilization for example IMO) I would love to see WitP continually expanded upon and updated to where it continues to get better and better. I don't think it needs a complete overhaul just needs to be made more versatile and modder friendly and of course as bugs and unrealistic events pop up, they can be fixed too.

The AE team is still improving upon the game. LONG LIVE THE AE TEAM!! [&o] I would love to see WitP improved upon to infinity. I hope WitP never stops being improved. It's like the ultimate expression of wargaming. Grisby and Billings really got to the heart of wargaming with WitP. It would be great to eventually be able to mod scenarios for modern warfare with all the gadgets and countermeasures that are used in warfare today. Flexibility and versatility, key words for me...

[:)]

EDIT: oh, and the ability to add nationalities to the game. Perhaps a "nationalities" database could be done where I could set up a new nationality, default experience levels, etc.

[LargeSlowTarget]

Well, some screens in the game have jump options - e.g. when you click a city name on the industry screen, the map centers on the selected city and opens the base screen. I'm no programmer so I cannot tell how difficult it is to apply a function which obviously has been coded already into the game to the Combat/Ops/Intel report as well - e.g. clicking on a TF name and the map centers on the TF and opens the TF screen. Just wondering from the "simple-minded innocent user POV"... [;)]

[GaryChildress]

ORIGINAL: Alfred

Because it is essentially a DOS era GUI.  The things which one commonly finds in Windows based GUI, utilising the full range of windows tools, are just not possible with this GUI.  A completely new engine would be required.  That was completely out of scope for AE development.

Just about everything which people regularly clamour to see in a WITP II cannot be done without writing a new engine.  The cost in both development dollars, time and labour would be astronomical and most likely not recoverable from sales, let alone leaving any surplus for profit.  That is why Gary Grigsby recycles so much old code in his games.

Alfred

The graphics and interface are fine IMO. Graphics sizes could be increased just a little maybe and perhaps improvements to the "spreadsheets" available to the gamer could be done. WitP is a classic and a very elegant design. It really gets to the basics of wargaming I think. I don't think it can really be improved upon in terms of the GUI, without making it an entirely different gaming experience. Most of us don't want a radically different game experience, we just want to see WitP live on and get better. [:)]

[czert2]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

AE will never be open source.

well, i think you missunderstaded me, i didnt wanted to make ae open source and improve it by volunters, but make completly new game wit code from scratch, which will feel like witp but will be better in every aspect .
Oh yeah, and i forgot it will take jsut 20 years and 30 full time volunters to finish it .

[czert2]

ORIGINAL: Moose

Hey, the Kickstarter idea sounds good. I usually think it's a pretty lame concept, but for a wargame, I think it might actually work pretty well.

Yeah, kicstartr is great idea, who will start it ? i have some spare money, until wife will find them so act quickly.

[czert2]

ORIGINAL: Gräfin Zeppelin

Going 3D would be a no go for me. I doubt I would buy it.

Well, it realy matter how and where they implemet it . if it will be a/c model pictures, compat animations...etc while map will remain nicely 2d, i think it is here litle room for complain.

[czert2]

ORIGINAL: berto


Way cool, championzhao. You might make it clear to everybody that the text is Chinese, not Japanese.

Well, im the only one which find klingonese easier to read than chinese/japanese ?