Curse

Mat Thirteen · Jun 28, 2005, 02:16 PM // 14:16

Ill sign this. Problem is though, this is a little too small of a feature to every actually happen. Whoa, colors on the mini map BLOW ME AWAY. I dont think people will care very much, so probably not worth that ridiculous ammount of programming.

Yorrix · Jun 28, 2005, 02:53 PM // 14:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mat Thirteen

Ill sign this. Problem is though, this is a little too small of a feature to every actually happen. Whoa, colors on the mini map BLOW ME AWAY. I dont think people will care very much, so probably not worth that ridiculous ammount of programming.

Actually it shouldn't be to hard to program. Just pick some sensible colours and program a way of distributing those accordingly (try a for-loop).

Furthermore it does help different people offer opinions and strategies via the min-map, which guilds (or independantly formed parties for that matter) may find useful.

It may not be the largest of greatest feature in the world, but I think there are some real and useful applications for it. Don't discount it just yet.

Rayea · Jun 28, 2005, 09:23 PM // 21:23

wait, you can draw on the minimap? or the u key map?
ohhh...u have to be in a group to do this....ah.
i had no idea you could do that. i wondered what people were going on about when they said daysies on the map

hm...lots of ways to stop them. is there a way to clean the map off? (imaginces a map windscreen whiper going back and forth) how about just adding that as a button that you can use and then if someone draws naughty pics, u just wipe them off? not only would that bug them *they have, as far as they are concerned, worked hard to draw all those naughty little shapes* but you might have time to work out who is messing with the screen.
colors is ok, but then, you will get the *arteests* that like to plain stuff in lots of prety shades, unless they are locked into set players. you *could* use gradients of color, like black to white or whatever shade, but green and red are usually out, cause like someone said, theres peeps out there that are color blind

Aiden · Jun 28, 2005, 09:35 PM // 21:35

I haven't read this entire post, but I wanted to chime in. Someone earlier mentioned about you (the individual) being able to check and uncheck anyone's name to filter who's drawing you see. I think this would be the best possible solution here. Just make it like what where you can ignore whoever you want. That way if group member 1 wants to see everyone's paint, but group member 2 doesn't; 2 can just uncheck who he doesn't want to see. And this would be easily changeable at any time (ie. just check or uncheck whenver you want).

Thanks,
Aiden

johnnylange · Jun 28, 2005, 09:44 PM // 21:44

All I hear is a lot of wah, wah, wah... So what if some kid is drawing on the map like they're in pre-school. The truth is, you only encourage those to keep doing it by constantly complaining about it.

Aiden · Jun 29, 2005, 02:06 AM // 02:06

You know, if no one ever complained about the problems in games like this, nothing would ever get fixed and the game would never get better.

My 2 cents,
Aiden

Ashley Twig · Jun 29, 2005, 06:11 AM // 06:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mat Thirteen

so probably not worth that ridiculous ammount of programming.

I agree with Yorrix: the programming of a feature like color shouldn't be that hard.
I'm not an expert on this, but as far as I understand this network stuff the server sends a "draw pixel" or "draw line" command to your client. Why not include an extra attribute that sais "draw pixel(yellow)" or something like that.

The client already know to paint in white. Since all painting information of your group is forwared to your client anyway, adding information about what color to paint in should be trivial. But again, I'm not an expert.

Some things, that sound trivial are sometimes hardest to do.

I don't care that much, if someone paints smilies, hearts, flowers whatever on the map as long as it doesn't endanger the mission itself.

But nazi-crap and the like. I say NO! People like that, regardless wether they understand the meaning of those symbols or not, can't be allowed on a team, even if paintings like that have utterly no effect on the mission.

Someone said: the less you complain about it, the more likely it'll pass.
I strongly disagree.
BS like that just doesn't cease to exists. For some jerks it might be a passing phase, but mind the early stages of actions like that.
Today painting a swastika might be fun, because your on of those guys who gets his rocks off simply by annoying others.
Tomorrow things could be already more serious.

Just give me colors to identify people like that, to have'em off my team.

Jczech · Jun 29, 2005, 07:50 AM // 07:50

My thoughts on the issue:

Have players assigned colours, allow other players to tell which colour is which person via the party window. This way, when you need to make important decisions in an instant, you can tell who is leading and who is trying to screw everyone else over. Possibly have people's pings match their colour, though the colours would have to be different from the standard pings made by the game.
Give all players the ability to check on/off whoever else they wish. If someone is drawing all over the map and you don't want to deal with it, just turn them off, you don't have to see or hear what they're doing.

Having colours helps you identify who the person is quickly, so when Bob the Warrior decides everyone needs to go one way in battle and everyone else another, you can tell right away, and turn them off at the next oppertunity. This way, nobody has absolute power, nobody can annoy anyone else by being the unignorable leader, and the leader can't silence that necromancer who's trying to get things done while the leader is busy making offensive drawings. Everyone wins, except maybe the people who get kicks out of annoying everyone else, whether it be crude drawings or 60,000 pings per second.

Just my two gold.

Shadow_Avenger · Jun 29, 2005, 09:18 AM // 09:18

Unless your colour blind, then you still screwed.

Yorrix · Jun 29, 2005, 09:38 AM // 09:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnnylange

All I hear is a lot of wah, wah, wah... So what if some kid is drawing on the map like they're in pre-school. The truth is, you only encourage those to keep doing it by constantly complaining about it.

Well, I for one wasn't complaining. I heard someone with a problem and, together with ideas already propossed, I propossed my own ideas in an attempt to solve the problem.

As for your view that discussion will actually encourage the issue, that sounds like pacifism to me. Something that was rife in the 1930's... Wait, that brings us right about back to the start of this whole thread...

Personally I agree with Aiden. Good as this game maybe, or any game for that matter, there are small problems and things that could be done better to aid those using it. Some are there due to mis-programming, some due to mis-design, some due to lack of time, and some due to not understanding how the game works. Ask most programmers and I garentee they will say they have a far better understanding of what a program was meant to be after they programmed it; a popularly known fact if only for the Mythical Man-Month (a book).

By presenting what we, as users, see as faults, errors, problems or points of improvement, we help those who maintain the game to refine the game to work better for all who use it. The fact that we also suggest positive thoughts as to how these problems may be overcome, not to mention our views views on those potential solutions, is quite a bonus.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ashley Twig

The client already know to paint in white. Since all painting information of your group is forwared to your client anyway, adding information about what color to paint in should be trivial. But again, I'm not an expert.

Some things, that sound trivial are sometimes hardest to do.

Hopefully they thought about the ability to change colour for drawing in the map from the design stage. I would have hoped I would have thought about it in that situation. If nothing else I would have thought this would be done to aid the game's graphical designers and GUI staff. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems logical to me that this would be the case.

Changing code is never 100% easy or free from potential problems, but this issue does benefit from the fact that the biggest change people have said they would like to see (colours assigned per player) is a relatively small change and is hopefully something that will benefit from previous planning.

Other issues, such as the tick boxes, may not be so easy, but they're professionals. If they want to do it, they will.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jczech

Possibly have people's pings match their colour, though the colours would have to be different from the standard pings made by the game.

I have to say, good idea. Maybe colours (somewhere on the ping point) to indicate visually who it was too. Why didn't we think of this earlier? People ping spaming annoys me, for sure. Well done, great idea. I'm in support.

Yorrix · Jun 29, 2005, 09:44 AM // 09:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadow_Avenger

Unless your colour blind, then you still screwed.

Rather than saying anything regarding this particular subject, I will refer you instead to here for your own reading.

PieXags · Jun 29, 2005, 09:50 AM // 09:50

In no way should you limit a persons ability to draw on the map no matter what their party position, I've had many many many many many many many many many many many horrible party leaders. I don't want just that person to draw on the map.

I'm all for colors though. We love colors!

Numa Pompilius · Jun 29, 2005, 11:49 AM // 11:49

<color coding pings as well as drawing>

Excellent idea. Strongly in favor.

(Also, I'd say that putting different colors on the line drawings will be extremely easy. The devs already have a color assigned to the drawings, so all that's needed is to simply change the color value in accordance with a simple look-up table (player 1 = white, player 2 = blue etc).
Pings probably aren't much harder.)

Plannb23 · Jun 29, 2005, 05:29 PM // 17:29

That works great unless the person leading the group isnt the same person that is guiding the group.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Talesin Darkbriar

Why not lock the map drawing feature for everyone except the party leader?
Simple.
Problem solved.

Aidan Gawain · Jun 29, 2005, 05:47 PM // 17:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ashley Twig

Some kind of a rating system ala eBay could make sense too. All team members vote on each other after the (un)sucessful mission. Anonymously, of course. Nothing too fancy. Maybe just something like "valuable"-member and "spoiled the mission"-member.

As a Monk, this scares me because a ubiquitous trait among non-Monk noobs is to get yourself killed and blame the Monk. I don't want to get a lot of bad ratings just because some idiot thought I could keep him alive when he ran across the map to solo 7 enemies while I was low on energy.

slasc · Jun 29, 2005, 05:53 PM // 17:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ashley Twig

I'd like to see a feature, that every member on a team get's his/her own color to paint on the map with.
Not because it's beautiful (though it might be), but to identify people who paint crap.

The other day some jerk was in my team, painting 3rd-Reich symbols on the map.
We weren't able to identify him/her because all the paintings are done in white.

I don't suggest that everybody can use RGB to do unique colouring. Just take 8 different colors and assign them.

Or maybe A-Net could put some permission-checkbox on the party-window were the team-leader decides who paints and who doesn't.

If there'd been the feature "ban member from pary" and I'd been able to identify the 3rd-Reich guy, he would've been baned AND reported.

A lot of players are probably 18 and less in age, so one might argue, that they don't understand the meaning of such things. But why should such ignorance ruin my team and the mission it's on?

Sometimes 1 member can ruin the hole thing. The pary would be better of with just 5 members than have 1 jerk, screwing it all up.

Wow. I've only encountered the sexual drawings as irritating and the occasional scribbling. The drawing on the map feature is really cool, but I 100% agree with you. Some sort of color assignment, and maybe even an ability to "ignore" scribbles from one person would be nice.

It's unfortunate that such tactics must be recomended. Some people just are not mature enough for these things.

Aidan Gawain · Jun 29, 2005, 05:57 PM // 17:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadow_Avenger

Unless your colour blind, then you still screwed.

Color-blind people can ask "Who did that?" and the people in your party who aren't color-blind can tell you. It's not as good as being able to see the colors themselves, but at least this way they can know who did it second-hand.

Talesin Darkbriar · Jun 29, 2005, 06:10 PM // 18:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by EmperorTippy

Because you get idiot leaders who dont notice half the mods on the map and when you go to cirle the mobs so people know that there their or when you draw that line so people will stop. This doen't make much sense a well. Different colors are good plus being able to turn off a persons drawings would be nice.

Duh...pick a competent leader anyone? heh heheh...I said...leader..heh...

toastgodsupreme · Jun 29, 2005, 06:21 PM // 18:21

When my friend found out he could draw on the radar, well, it turned into a penis festival for the rest of that mission. It was to be expected though from him. Lots of laughs.

Aidan Gawain · Jun 29, 2005, 06:46 PM // 18:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Talesin Darkbriar

Duh...pick a competent leader anyone? heh heheh...I said...leader..heh...

How do you pick a leader? And how do you know who's competent if you've never met any of them before? And if you can know which stranger is competent before the mission starts, why don't you just kick all of the incompetent ones and avoid the noob map-drawers in the first place?