Features/Requests for winbolo itself and winbolo.net

Jun 16, 2003 01:57 Features/Requests for winbolo itself and winbolo.net
Some ideas on what id like to see changed or added to future winbolo versions.

First of all, there is a bug where an enemy pill doesnt die. This happened in a 1x1 with Kax, and it was not in heavy lag either. What happened was i shot the enemy pill like normal, until it was dead. Then something strange happened. instead of being a red dead pill, it was a green dead pill, and not only that, it continued to shoot at me. then a few moments later, it transformed into a red pill again, but this time it had 1 or 2 shots of armor left. i tried killing it again, but it was still "invincible" I am not sure, but i think running over it will allow you to pick it up, nfortunately that is kinda hard when its firing at you. This i think should be a top priority in making winbolo better.

Another thing is lgms seem a lot harder to kill. You have to shoot a block or half a block ahead of the lgm that is visible in order for it to die. This may or may not be due to lag. Having a shot detonate directly on top of the visual lgm does not always kill it, this i can say with certainty. I would seriously like to see this fixed, if possible.

I think its a wonderful idea to have a ranking system for 1x1s on .net. Perhaps we could have a game log of some sort, or at least who they played, and when. When someone last played shouldnt be a private thing, since some seem sensitive about disclosing game results. I for one would like to see game results disclosed, since if you dont want them up, dont use .net. Also, perhaps including what map was played on would be nice. When, who, what map, and maybe the result would be the basic info id like to see.

Some kinda of integrated ibl type ranking for 2x2s would be ideal. Not sure exactly how it could be inplemented, but something that would show ones team playing ability. The team idea only records if the other side is a team, and everyone is there, which makes it very difficult to use at present.


Those above things are my prime suggestions. the rest are some things id like to see, but are of a slightly lesser priority than the above.

A different chat window. The current chat window can take forever to scroll through. Perhaps have it as part of the skins that will(?) be implemented.

Ability to ignore the messages of a player. Some players, especially in opens just cuss and plain are annoying. Stopping this will perhaps cause less general aggrivation, cuz no one wants to be called a "sh1tface a55fuqer queer fagg0t" all game long.

Saving games, and replaying them, like in mac bolo.

A observe mode, for players to watch games live, perhaps a simplified overview of the map that refreshes once every 5 seconds, that shows pill placements, base control and tank location only? perhaps make it password protected as well.

ok, heres a big one, that would be real neat imo.

Instead of connecting to a game and joining it right away, have a mini chat room type area for people who have joined, and people can set up teams there, and perhaps even sides (ie, pick where you spawn initially) include a timer at start, so then this gets rid of wasting time picking teams and sides, cuts down time cuz you start on your side, and no lame newbies crashing game. perhaps have a "im ready" button to click. Basically, something like the starcraft battlenet system, if your familiar with that.

Different visuals for tanks, make enemy tanks look different than friendly tanks, not just color, but the actual shape.

New textiles. Ones id like to see: Land that cant be altered, such as tarmac. This will add a new game play to winbolo, and will actually make opens not just turn to water.

Invincible blocks that are on map already ( not made by tanks ) for making a permanent border.

ability to set tree regrowth rate to high, normal or low.

ability to set mine max, and possiblely shot max armor max and tree max.

ice, which has same max speed as tarmac but is much slower at decellerating or accelerating on.

lava or acid. if tank is on this, it damages the tank per so many seconds. perhaps it kills lgm on contact. this is a little hard to implement, but a neat idea imo.

different view points. 3d would be neat. but also the ability to turn the map. like moving the camera view point.

oh yeah, one more bug i noticed. when your tank dies with your lgm out, while your respawning the lgm does some crazy "dancing". like it moves one way, then stops and moves another way. rather strange imo.

a better tutorial/net guide for newbies, cuz too many lamers ruin it for the rest.

integrated irc #winbolo in the program. makes it easier for people to get into the real fun of winbolo.

some kind of advantage or cool thing only registered players get, just to make an incentive for people to pay shareware.

winbolo merchandize, like tshirts. not sure how profitable it is given the current size of winbolo, but i think it would be awesome. i for one would buy at least one.

thats about it. sorry its long, but just some things ive had on my mind. some are more practical than others. feel free to flame and critisize me, foolish mortals. i look forward to winbolo becoming HUGE
Jun 16, 2003 04:18 some more
some i forgot to mention:

map over view

decent AI bots

a decent map editor

a FAQ for winbolo on winbolo.net and perhaps with the winbolo download

ability to set a game objective other than take all bases in a tourny/strict.

for example, on bridge over kwai (sp?) have the game actually end when the bridge is gone.

or perhaps in open jousts have a (50 kills wins) setting

Another interesting mode is a limited number of lives. for example, you have 5 tanks. you die 5 times, and your unable to respawn.

also, more hardcore midget porn
Jun 16, 2003 04:28 last thing
a minor bug

the timer for coutdown til game start does not fit in the double and quad size screens correctly, needs readjustment


also, would be nice to have a "make full screen" setting, or a stretch bar like the normal windows
Jun 16, 2003 10:14
SAVE US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jun 16, 2003 15:12 Feature requests
Even people who disagreed with me about the -maxmines idea seem to believe that the goal is to make winbolo as much like bolo v.997 as possible. If that's really the goal, here are three very important things to do ASAP:

(1) Pills in winbolo don't seem physically solid around the edges. You can drive a tank "into" the pill, up to about 1/3 of the way through the pill, from some directions. The practical effect is that you can drive over dead pills and not pick them up, and you can shoot them without hitting them. In mac bolo, pills are entirely solid, and it changes the feel of the game very noticeably. Beyond being different, the current situation just doesn't make sense.

(2) As others have mentioned, when the message window is highlighted, the cursor should always be ready to type.

(3) In winbolo, it's very easy to trap builders because when they land on a block or pill, they're immobilized and you have to kill them again to get them back. That wasn't the case in v.997. Rather, if an lgm landed on a solid object (pill or wall), the lgm could run around "on" the object but couldn't run off of it, and you could grab it simply by driving up to the object. The only way to "pin" an lgm was to build something on top of it while it was running. Although this might seem to be a minor point, it's really not -- for example, if you're sitting on a base and send out your lgm and lose it, then you lose that base before it lands, the lgm is lost yet again by virtue of the fact that it's pinned on the now-hostile base. The current situation also makes repeated builder-pins pretty easy, if not trivially so. I played a game with ud yesterday where he pinned my lgm 3x in a row in a 1x1 -- it was a good move on his part and skillfully executed, but that wouldn't have been possible in mac bolo.

Whatever else we may think, I submit that these changes are more important than acid or lava. [Insert seventeen emoticons here.] I'd also love to see pill massaging -- adds a great skill element to the game, and makes you work harder b/c you can't spike out a base simply by planting next to it. But that's perhaps of secondary importance.

Kix
Jun 17, 2003 02:09 Re: Features/Requests for winbolo itself and winbolo.net
underdog wrote:

Another thing is lgms seem a lot harder to kill. You have to shoot a block or half a block ahead of the lgm that is visible in order for it to die. This may or may not be due to lag. Having a shot detonate directly on top of the visual lgm does not always kill it, this i can say with certainty. I would seriously like to see this fixed, if possible.


welcome to the world of the internet ... trying to fix this will simply create more problems. IMHO

underdog wrote:

I think its a wonderful idea to have a ranking system for 1x1s on .net. Perhaps we could have a game log of some sort, or at least who they played, and when. When someone last played shouldnt be a private thing, since some seem sensitive about disclosing game results. I for one would like to see game results disclosed, since if you dont want them up, dont use .net. Also, perhaps including what map was played on would be nice. When, who, what map, and maybe the result would be the basic info id like to see.


shouldn't we be trying to promote USING .net ... rather than implementing features that will cuase others to no longer use it .... and saying .. "if you don't like it ... get stuffed" ... which is pretty much what your doing.

underdog wrote:


Some kinda of integrated ibl type ranking for 2x2s would be ideal. Not sure exactly how it could be inplemented, but something that would show ones team playing ability. The team idea only records if the other side is a team, and everyone is there, which makes it very difficult to use at present.


Impossible with the current team ranking system ... for the IBL part anyways ... the IBL was intended to organize FUN games .... and we strongly considered hiding people's actually rankings ... since the rank was not what it was about .. it was about pitting people of similar skill level against each other.

underdog wrote:

A different chat window. The current chat window can take forever to scroll through. Perhaps have it as part of the skins that will(?) be implemented.


use minborg.

underdog wrote:

Ability to ignore the messages of a player. Some players, especially in opens just cuss and plain are annoying. Stopping this will perhaps cause less general aggrivation, cuz no one wants to be called a "sh1tface a55fuqer queer fagg0t" all game long.


good idea.

underdog wrote:

Saving games, and replaying them, like in mac bolo.


another good idea .. which unless I'm mistaken is already under development.

underdog wrote:

A observe mode, for players to watch games live, perhaps a simplified overview of the map that refreshes once every 5 seconds, that shows pill placements, base control and tank location only? perhaps make it password protected as well.


would cuase lag ... no way you implement this would not cause lag ... and simply saying "then have an option to turn it off" doesn't address the actual issue. and having the ability to replay the games later makes this "option" obsolete in my opinion.

underdog wrote:

ok, heres a big one, that would be real neat imo.

Instead of connecting to a game and joining it right away, have a mini chat room type area for people who have joined, and people can set up teams there, and perhaps even sides (ie, pick where you spawn initially) include a timer at start, so then this gets rid of wasting time picking teams and sides, cuts down time cuz you start on your side, and no lame newbies crashing game. perhaps have a "im ready" button to click. Basically, something like the starcraft battlenet system, if your familiar with that.


been suggested ... many times ...

underdog wrote:

Different visuals for tanks, make enemy tanks look different than friendly tanks, not just color, but the actual shape.


this is already available ....

underdog wrote:

New textiles. Ones id like to see: Land that cant be altered, such as tarmac. This will add a new game play to winbolo, and will actually make opens not just turn to water.

Invincible blocks that are on map already ( not made by tanks ) for making a permanent border.

ability to set tree regrowth rate to high, normal or low.

ability to set mine max, and possiblely shot max armor max and tree max.

ice, which has same max speed as tarmac but is much slower at decellerating or accelerating on.

lava or acid. if tank is on this, it damages the tank per so many seconds. perhaps it kills lgm on contact. this is a little hard to implement, but a neat idea imo.

different view points. 3d would be neat. but also the ability to turn the map. like moving the camera view point.


I'm not even going to say anything about this area ..... and will attempt to forget you even suggested it ..........

underdog wrote:

oh yeah, one more bug i noticed. when your tank dies with your lgm out, while your respawning the lgm does some crazy "dancing". like it moves one way, then stops and moves another way. rather strange imo.


ya .. it seems confused about where you will respawn .. makes it easier to kill

underdog wrote:

a better tutorial/net guide for newbies, cuz too many lamers ruin it for the rest.


write one if you want one .... why should everyone else do the work?

underdog wrote:

integrated irc #winbolo in the program. makes it easier for people to get into the real fun of winbolo.


you already suggested this in the "battle.net" suggestion further up ... any particular reason for repeating yourself?


underdog wrote:

some kind of advantage or cool thing only registered players get, just to make an incentive for people to pay shareware.


read the documentation .... it address's this sort of issue addiquettly(yes .. I know its spelt wrong) already

underdog wrote:

winbolo merchandize, like tshirts. not sure how profitable it is given the current size of winbolo, but i think it would be awesome. i for one would buy at least one.


uh ....... :/

underdog wrote:

thats about it. sorry its long, but just some things ive had on my mind. some are more practical than others. feel free to flame and critisize me, foolish mortals. i look forward to winbolo becoming HUGE


(/flame)
Jun 17, 2003 02:12 Re: some more
underdog wrote:
some i forgot to mention:
map over view


I don't see the need for this ... but since this is supposed to be a clone ... :/

underdog wrote:

decent AI bots


make one yourself ... all the documentation is availible for it ...

underdog wrote:

a decent map editor


make one yourself .... can't expect elvis to do everything ..... personally I think there is nothing wrong with the current one .. which is why I have not really attempted to do this.

underdog wrote:

a FAQ for winbolo on winbolo.net and perhaps with the winbolo download


so .. are your fingers broken? .......... no? ......

underdog wrote:

ability to set a game objective other than take all bases in a tourny/strict.

for example, on bridge over kwai (sp?) have the game actually end when the bridge is gone.

or perhaps in open jousts have a (50 kills wins) setting


if implemented tastefully ... I could see this being interesting

underdog wrote:

Another interesting mode is a limited number of lives. for example, you have 5 tanks. you die 5 times, and your unable to respawn.

also, more hardcore midget porn


more stuff I'm ignoring.....

Min
Jun 17, 2003 02:14
You seem to use that "if you don't like it, get stuffed" logic a lot yourself Min.

"Well, who cares that his LGM spawns in the same corner it dies.. don't lose yours and it won't happen."
Jun 17, 2003 02:16 Re: Feature requests
Kax wrote:

(1) Pills in winbolo don't seem physically solid around the edges. You can drive a tank "into" the pill, up to about 1/3 of the way through the pill, from some directions. The practical effect is that you can drive over dead pills and not pick them up, and you can shoot them without hitting them. In mac bolo, pills are entirely solid, and it changes the feel of the game very noticeably. Beyond being different, the current situation just doesn't make sense.


YES!!!!! ... as soon as possible!!! ... also ... make the bullets hit the exact center of the gunsight .... and implement tank sliding ...... AND ... SUPERBOOM!!!!!!!!!! *falls over twitching* but don't allow superbooming bases. ... cuase that would suck ... I seem to recall something about this being done ...

Kax wrote:

(2) As others have mentioned, when the message window is highlighted, the cursor should always be ready to type.


another good one ... perhaps someone should email these to elvis?

Kax wrote:

(3) In winbolo, it's very easy to trap builders because when they land on a block or pill, they're immobilized and you have to kill them again to get them back. That wasn't the case in v.997. Rather, if an lgm landed on a solid object (pill or wall), the lgm could run around "on" the object but couldn't run off of it, and you could grab it simply by driving up to the object. The only way to "pin" an lgm was to build something on top of it while it was running. Although this might seem to be a minor point, it's really not -- for example, if you're sitting on a base and send out your lgm and lose it, then you lose that base before it lands, the lgm is lost yet again by virtue of the fact that it's pinned on the now-hostile base. The current situation also makes repeated builder-pins pretty easy, if not trivially so. I played a game with ud yesterday where he pinned my lgm 3x in a row in a 1x1 -- it was a good move on his part and skillfully executed, but that wouldn't have been possible in mac bolo.


I was unaware of this ..... and if that is how macbolo was ... thats how winbolo should be ... it makes alot more sense.

Kax wrote:

Whatever else we may think, I submit that these changes are more important than acid or lava. [Insert seventeen emoticons here.] I'd also love to see pill massaging -- adds a great skill element to the game, and makes you work harder b/c you can't spike out a base simply by planting next to it. But that's perhaps of secondary importance.


I'm not sure what I think of the idea of having massaging ..... I think if its added .... it should be ... close to last .....but thats just my opinion ... everyone seems to ignore me anyways .... mutter mutter (/flame)
Jun 18, 2003 20:30
Underdog - I finally read your whole post - it was a lot to digest hence the lenght of time before I finally read it. It's good you took the time to write all of it down despite the fact it allows yourself to be critisize by other.

Kax - as always you write very logical post that make complete sense (that is until the day you'll critisize one of my post :P)

To add to your list Kax though, I'd love to see tank to tank fighting on par to macbolo. Tank to Tank fighting isn't much of anything in winbolo - it just consists of doging the seemingly slow bullets whereas in Macbolo it was a deadly venture to run away.

To add to Underdog's list, I'd love to see customized graphics in full 24 bits instead of the current bitsize we can modify using a hacking program.
Last edited: Jun 18, 2003 20:55 (edited 2 times)
Jun 18, 2003 20:48 lgm differences
In MacBolo, it seems to me (and was confirmed by the people in #bolo) that if you shoot the exact location of a dead pb.....it will kill the lgm who goes to rebuild it BEFORE the pb is rebuilt. (without too much lag that is)

Whereas in Winbolo - the lgm will build the PB first then die. So killing an lgm on replanting in winbolo without having the pb rebuilt is a bit harder as you have to shoot a little ahead....and it's not something you can easily do while moving to pick the pb...

I'd love to have that fixed as that impacts pbwar and other pb battle stuff.
Jun 18, 2003 21:34
Just finished playing another game and remebered an idea I had.

Whenever an lgm dies, at the location of its death, it leaves a patch of red blood that stays until the game is over. The more lgm deaths, the more patches of red blood spread out on the map :).
Jun 18, 2003 22:44 Another Difference between Macbolo and Winbolo
I just remembered another difference between the mac and windows version of bolo I'd love to see rectified:

In MacBolo, if someone quits on purpose, the message displayed is:
"fi is quitting. fi has quit". Otherwise, a netsplit, a crash etc just has the message "fi has quit" without the "fi is quitting" part.

This is an easy way to see immediately if someone left because they got tired of the game and didn't want to play anymore, or if they quit due to a computer crash, losing internet connection, etc.
Jun 18, 2003 23:13
heh, I keep remembering more differences between bolo and winbolo I'd love to see resolved.

Un-Allying effect. In Bolo when you dissally - you don't keep anything except what is inside your tank. Even the base you are sitting on bounces you off. Thus, unallying in bolo is a very serious step in which you lose everything.

In Winbolo, as we know you keep everything you have last captured.. Which is why this "quit on win" feature is important. In Bolo, since we didn't worry about someone dissallying at the end of the game, a good number of times, we (both allies and opponents) would stay in the game and play with each other - walling each other, or the likes, and chat about the game, and other stuff. Was kinda cool - chatting and de-stressing from an intense game was pretty beneficiary - talking in IRC is quite different and doesn't compare IMO.

It would be real good if instead of a -quit on win we had a -quit on leave combined with the unally feature of bolo. Thus once the game is over, we can chat and de-stress from the game. Then after the last person leaves...the game automatically shuts down, like in Bolo.
Jun 18, 2003 23:53
yes fi that you only get what's in ur tank when u leave an alliance cuz im sick of playin people who i make a mega base with and then they leave our alliance...and yeh it sux
Jun 19, 2003 02:56
fi wrote:

To add to your list Kax though, I'd love to see tank to tank fighting on par to macbolo. Tank to Tank fighting isn't much of anything in winbolo - it just consists of doging the seemingly slow bullets whereas in Macbolo it was a deadly venture to run away.


this is impossible due to the way networking and latency works.

Min
Jun 19, 2003 02:58 Re: lgm differences
fi wrote:
Whereas in Winbolo - the lgm will build the PB first then die. So killing an lgm on replanting in winbolo without having the pb rebuilt is a bit harder as you have to shoot a little ahead....and it's not something you can easily do while moving to pick the pb...


latency issue as well ... unless I'm mistaken ...

Min
Jul 31, 2003 10:54 A Useful Feature
Having an alarm that informs you when someone else joins the game, ie a sound. Waiting for hours for someone to join is boring, so I might come to forums. While in forums someone else might join and start playing, and it' snot until they make a sound near me that I hear them, so having some kind of audible alert would be really good
Jul 31, 2003 23:45 Re: A Useful Feature
Tim_the_Saxophonist wrote:
Having an alarm that informs you when someone else joins the game, ie a sound. Waiting for hours for someone to join is boring, so I might come to forums. While in forums someone else might join and start playing, and it' snot until they make a sound near me that I hear them, so having some kind of audible alert would be really good

This could easily be done with a brain. Each time the brain is called it could check the number of players in the game and play a sound.