WOK and its future ......

Its all WOK here.

Moderators: Duke, trewqh, korexus, Egbert

User avatar
Hannibal
Commander
Commander
Posts: 886
Joined: Sun Sep 21, 2003 7:00 am
Location: London and The Vulkings Clan.............(started in Valn Ohtar, then jointly founded The Vulkings)

Post by Hannibal » Mon Jan 23, 2006 7:30 pm

korexus wrote:I'm not going to have a whole lot of spare time, but some of my Saturdays will be kinda free so keep putting up the ideas and I'll work on them as I get the chance.
I hope you get a bit of time to play, as well as code and covertly run Kaomaris ......

OK, idea #10: (I shouldn't really do this till ideas #8 and #9 are done or laid to rest, but it might be part of the same coding-trip ...........)

Now that we'll have an intelligible and visible "Games In Progress And About To Start" panel (instead of the current "Search For Game Using" panel), we need to flag access to it clearly on the Home Menu. So, on the Home Menu, change "Standard and Advanced Wok" to "Games In Progress And About To Start" - so that it TELLS the newcomer where to find it, takes them straight there, and lets them find a panel-title that matches and makes sense. I realise that this is not the ONLY reason to go to that screen, so feel free to add "GM Menu" too, as a separate menu-choice that takes you to exactly the same screen.

But then "Other Wok games" makes no sense as the last menu item there (it was OK following "Standard and Advanced Wok", but not following "Games In Progress And About To Start"). So, bounce "Other Wok Games" down to the panel below, no problem.

Cheers,
Han

PS Don't worry, #11 is dead easy ...... though #12 is a biggie ......
There are two ways to write: Short-hand, and Long-Han'ed. ~ Han

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs"......... it's probably just that you're the last person to appreciate the enormity of the catastrophe about to

User avatar
korexus
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 2827
Joined: Tue Nov 12, 2002 8:00 am
Location: Reading
Contact:

Post by korexus » Mon Jan 23, 2006 9:30 pm

Han, regarding idea #10 The 'Games' box already has these ideas implemented. - Clicking on one of those links takes you directly to the relevant part of the Lobby. The 'Standard and Advanced WoK' link in the menu box takes you to a sub menu for all sorts of things, (map central, kaohalla, downloads, etc)

And I'm going to play in Gaz's game when it starts. So I'm not totally out of the loop, I'm just avoiding Standard WoK games while there's a fair chance I have to look at players' data mid game...


Chris.
With Great Power comes Great Irritability

User avatar
korexus
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 2827
Joined: Tue Nov 12, 2002 8:00 am
Location: Reading
Contact:

Post by korexus » Thu Jan 26, 2006 9:05 pm

Ok, here is what I have done;

I have added a 'Search for Games' option to the main menu, just to up the obvious level to the maximum.

I have re-worded the specific games search descriptions to make it more obvious what they do

I have given the game search itself a serious overhaul, including removing the redundent 'free slots' column and changing the names of several of the columns and options.
(This actually turned out to be a bigger job than I anticipated as I had to change the names in the database if I'm going to have any chance of remembering what is what 3 months down the line. Therefore I also had to change the update kaobase, insert game and create game scripts to use the same words. This is probably a good thing anyway. If something stops working, I was probably supposed to update that too and forgot.)

I've right-justified the scores in the table on game pages, it still looks a bit funny as the column is very wide, but it's a little more readable. I've also attempted to do this for the score table at the end of turn reports, but as I can't change the ones which have already been produced, we'll have to wait for another turn to run osmewhere before checking that.


I have *not* swapped the Gamemaster's panel and the game search panel round, nor will I as personally I use the GM's panel more frequently. :P If players really have an issue with scrolling down, what I will do is add an anchor so clicking on a game search links directly to that part of the page instead.


Thoughts? Feedback?


Chris.
With Great Power comes Great Irritability

User avatar
Egbert
Commander
Commander
Posts: 658
Joined: Tue Sep 03, 2002 7:00 am
Location: The Scholars' Library (dusty section)
Contact:

Post by Egbert » Fri Jan 27, 2006 2:43 pm

:) Great work, Korexus!

(psssst, you may also want to tell the GMs that we can now rerun turns very easily).
"Fairy tales can come true,
They can happen to you,
If you're young at heart."

User avatar
korexus
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 2827
Joined: Tue Nov 12, 2002 8:00 am
Location: Reading
Contact:

Post by korexus » Fri Jan 27, 2006 4:03 pm

Egbert wrote: (psssst, you may also want to tell the GMs that we can now rerun turns very easily).

Is it easy? That one's probably top of my list of things which Han would say I understand because I made it but makes very little sense to anyone else.

If you can't think of any improvements, I'll unleash it on the general public. :)


Chris.
With Great Power comes Great Irritability

User avatar
Hannibal
Commander
Commander
Posts: 886
Joined: Sun Sep 21, 2003 7:00 am
Location: London and The Vulkings Clan.............(started in Valn Ohtar, then jointly founded The Vulkings)

Post by Hannibal » Sat Jan 28, 2006 4:06 pm

Er ..... before you finalise it and unleash it .....

I haven't seen it, but does it ONLY let GM's re-run turns, nothing else? In case it's all connected: my "Duel" game variant (for 2 players - see other thread) kinda requires that the GM step in to a) put in orders for the 4 semi-neutrals each turn, according to rules, before the game auto-runs, and b) checks that there hasn't been a nap-break-order, to cancel that order before the turn runs, rather than re-run the turn ....

And it may not be just my "Duel" variant that needs these options for the GM to step in ..... maybe other variants will need a GM input rather than just a change of parameters at the outset or a rerun?

So, is there a way to tell the auto-GM NOT to run the turn till the GM has checked it and pressed a button, just for such cases? And can the GM edit the orders and/or the results manually before the turn is run or released?

Great that you have a rerun-turn option, sorry to be asking for more .... my Duel game can't run without it, unless you'd prefer to try coding in automatic cancellation of nap-breaking orders?!! Best if the GM polices them, so long as he can overrule the auto-GM.....

Cheers,
Han
There are two ways to write: Short-hand, and Long-Han'ed. ~ Han

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs"......... it's probably just that you're the last person to appreciate the enormity of the catastrophe about to

User avatar
Hannibal
Commander
Commander
Posts: 886
Joined: Sun Sep 21, 2003 7:00 am
Location: London and The Vulkings Clan.............(started in Valn Ohtar, then jointly founded The Vulkings)

Post by Hannibal » Sat Jan 28, 2006 5:43 pm

Great stuff, Kor. I do appreciate that every 10 mins of my effort causes 60 mins of YOUR effort, I'd guess. You're a diamond geezer.

Thanks for doing #10, one way or another!

Er, was it deliberate or oversight that left the title as:

Difficulty
All
Beginner
Invitiation (sic)

Erm, surely the title would be better as:
Player Level
All
Beginner
Invitation

...... if only because it avoids implying that there are any "difficult" RULE-CHANGES ("Difficulty") when a game is All rather than Beginner....

Han
There are two ways to write: Short-hand, and Long-Han'ed. ~ Han

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs"......... it's probably just that you're the last person to appreciate the enormity of the catastrophe about to

User avatar
Hannibal
Commander
Commander
Posts: 886
Joined: Sun Sep 21, 2003 7:00 am
Location: London and The Vulkings Clan.............(started in Valn Ohtar, then jointly founded The Vulkings)

Post by Hannibal » Sat Jan 28, 2006 6:36 pm

OK, here's the easy #11. And then I'll shut up for a while before the biggie of #12.

#11:
In the auto-GM commentary, instead of
"Delirius does nothing"

change it, always, to:

"Delirius re-organises/does nothing visible"

You see, if not already obvious from the above, it is accidentally very off-putting for new arrivals or lurkers/watchers to visit us, see our games in progress, and see the commentary for a game-in-progress looking as DULL as:

Delirius does nothing
Comatus misses the turn
Sleeper misses the turn
Calculus does nothing
Niente does nothing
Nada does nothing
MIA misses the turn
Rien does nothing
Hannibal missiles #01 and attacks #01, 02 and #03 (but fails)


If I knew how to copy/transport the real recent examples to here, I would. They are full of misses turn and do nothing.

Of course, let's try to reduce missed turns, sure. But meanwhile, let's make it at least look as active as it is beneath the surface:

Delirius re-organises/does nothing visible
Comatus misses the turn
Sleeper misses the turn
Calculus re-organises/does nothing visible
Niente re-organises/does nothing visible
Nada re-organises/does nothing visible
MIA misses the turn
Rien re-organises/does nothing visible
Hannibal missiles .....


Old hands (and logicians) might say there's no difference. But, I contend, to the newbie or semi-interested visitor, it looks less "dead" than the current list full of "does nothing" ?

Easy to do? Just have to choose between UK and US spelling?! Over to you, Kor.

Han
There are two ways to write: Short-hand, and Long-Han'ed. ~ Han

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs"......... it's probably just that you're the last person to appreciate the enormity of the catastrophe about to

User avatar
korexus
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 2827
Joined: Tue Nov 12, 2002 8:00 am
Location: Reading
Contact:

Post by korexus » Sun Jan 29, 2006 1:02 pm

*Takes a deep breath*

The rerun thing isn't really a re-run thing, it can just be use as such. GMs can edit the status of their games in kaobase by using the udate kaobase link. I've allowed GMs to change the current turn, thus they can reset it to a previous turn and re-run that way.


As for your other points,

You can fool the game engine into not running your game by;
a) setting a very long deadline and running manually before that.
b) listing the game as Advanced WoK
c) pausing the game after each turn.

Changing the commentary is no problem. Eventually I hope to have a list of comments for each situation which the engine chooses from at random when it generates the turn but I keep getting scared when I think about doing that...
None of these are particularly satisfactroy, I'll try to add something in the game setup page.

'Difficulty' was an oversight, if you look at the search field, you can see that I changed that to 'Open To'. This is what I meant when I said about changing every reference. :P


Chris.
With Great Power comes Great Irritability

User avatar
Hannibal
Commander
Commander
Posts: 886
Joined: Sun Sep 21, 2003 7:00 am
Location: London and The Vulkings Clan.............(started in Valn Ohtar, then jointly founded The Vulkings)

Post by Hannibal » Wed Feb 08, 2006 2:02 pm

Great stuff so far, Kor. I hope you're not tiring, or losing the will to live. We've almost got the site right for a push on recruitment, so that we maximise conversion when people DO check us out, rather than lose them forever after 5 mins of looking .....

OK, here's suggestion #12. You haven't actually done or rejected #11 yet, but they might be tied together ..... and we just might have someone willing to take some of the php-coding load off you over the next two weeks (T.?), so it would be a shame to miss that window .....

#12 is this:

Even apart from the easy-improvement of #11, (ie simply change "Han does nothing" to "Han re-organises/does nothing visible"), the commentary at the top of each turn is effective and functional, sure, but is not exciting, not very clear, and not very easy to follow.

When people that I/we recruit to take a look come visit, I'd like them to understand and be enthused by the current games they take a quick look at.

Apart from the poor "Hannibal does nothing", we also have the less-than-ideal "Hannibal attacks 24, 25,28, 29 but fails". Sure, WE understand it; but for new visitors?

Idea #12 is that we recode all that, to make it clearer and more interesting.

By:
1) Saying WHOSE province is being attacked (it's darned hard to see who's doing what when you don't know whose prov it was, or whether it was just a neutral, and you can't flip back to the previous map the way you, Kor, used to do so well when you GM'ed in the old way). That would surely make the game clearer to any watcher or visitor? I'm NOT asking for "view last turn's map", not so important, but I AM asking for whose prov each attack was against ....

2) Colour-code the commentary references to players, just to save the hassle (who bothers to?) of scrolling down to the legend of players and back up to the map and the commentary. As GM's in the old way, both you and I used to manually colour-code our references to players in our commentaries (I got the idea from you), to make it easier for watchers to follow the action. Surely some clever coder (T.?) could code that to be automatic?

3) Change the wording a bit, to make it clearer and more interesting.

So, net, net, instead of
"Hannibal attacks 24, 25, 28, 29 but fails."
we get:
"Hannibal [the name appears in yellow] attacks Korexus's #24 [ word Korexus appears in orange], and wins; attacks neutral's #25, and wins, attacks Trewqh's #28 [word Trewqh appears in HIS colour], and wins; attacks Trewqh's [colour] #29, but fails". Obviously, the colours are automatically taken from the legend of players on the scoreboard ... should be codable rather than manual? And if the current commentary can say ",and fails", surely it can say ", and wins", yes?

If you want to add a flourish, you could ALSO, at the same time, go with your own pet wish to add in a bit of variety and tone by randomly alternating, say, the terms "and wins", "and takes it", "and conquers it", "and gets it", and "and succeeds" (etc.). And you could even add in a bit of "extraneous" commentary, such as "That had to hurt" or "Tough luck" (after "and fails"), or "That was a long run" or "Way to go!" after a couple of victorious attacks, automatically, and randomly choosing between the valid alternatives for variety and the semblance of human commentary...

Talking of which, I think my 4) would be:

4) A way for the human GM to amend, or at least add a paragraph to, the auto-commentary. Eg, in "Duel", I could accept the above commentary AND add a first para, eg., "One collision on Turn 1, and Trewqh comes out ahead" (sorry, Kor!)

IMHO, points 1-4 are way more important than the extra flourish of extraneous comment, but the ideal would be both. Not only to make the players enjoy their commentary more, but to get visitors to LIKE it, and new players to enjoy the experience.

And we may have someone with 2 weeks of free time, and php, to give it a try ....

'Nuff

#13 and #14 are, er, bigger, or more contentious, but THEN we're ready for it to be worth bringing new players along to check us out; I don't want to push my club-members, or my PBEM-friends, this way to check us out, until the site is optimised for them to be likely to want to play .... and stay.

Cheers,
Han
There are two ways to write: Short-hand, and Long-Han'ed. ~ Han

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs"......... it's probably just that you're the last person to appreciate the enormity of the catastrophe about to

User avatar
trewqh
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 1877
Joined: Mon Dec 09, 2002 8:00 am
Location: Bialystok, Poland clan: The Vulkings

Post by trewqh » Wed Feb 08, 2006 2:26 pm

Great ideas, Han! But I am still faaaaaaar faaaaaaaar away from coding those.

My level of coding is only at a level which could allow me to make the descriptions at movement, change aim and tech trade in the AOF look better. (moving the blue numbers from the end of the line to the next line)

trewqh

User avatar
Hannibal
Commander
Commander
Posts: 886
Joined: Sun Sep 21, 2003 7:00 am
Location: London and The Vulkings Clan.............(started in Valn Ohtar, then jointly founded The Vulkings)

Post by Hannibal » Wed Feb 08, 2006 2:45 pm

OK. I'm glad you agree with the ideas! The hints that you might try it were perhaps a tad premature. Just a thought. Since you said you were free for a while, and learning php-coding ....

I was just grabbing at the possibility that we might take some of the burden off of Kor and Mull, with a self-contained task you could play about with, if only as a focus for your php-learning and practice....

But I realise that Kor and Mull are hard acts to follow, and at least one of them is a control-freak and a perfectionist, so I don't blame you for shying away, as I would ..... :wink:

!!!

Cheers,
Han
There are two ways to write: Short-hand, and Long-Han'ed. ~ Han

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs"......... it's probably just that you're the last person to appreciate the enormity of the catastrophe about to

User avatar
Hannibal
Commander
Commander
Posts: 886
Joined: Sun Sep 21, 2003 7:00 am
Location: London and The Vulkings Clan.............(started in Valn Ohtar, then jointly founded The Vulkings)

Post by Hannibal » Wed Feb 08, 2006 3:00 pm

trewqh wrote:Great ideas, Han! But I am still faaaaaaar faaaaaaaar away from coding those.
Hmm, for a man of your calibre, that means about 4 days away from being competent, right?! You said you were learning it. Couple of days?! :wink:

(I'm only kidding - It would take me a year! - but hey, you've got at least a few days!)

Cheers,
Han
There are two ways to write: Short-hand, and Long-Han'ed. ~ Han

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs"......... it's probably just that you're the last person to appreciate the enormity of the catastrophe about to

User avatar
korexus
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 2827
Joined: Tue Nov 12, 2002 8:00 am
Location: Reading
Contact:

Post by korexus » Wed Feb 08, 2006 4:45 pm

Ok, here is an olive branch to keep you happy:

You now have previous turn and text turn buttons on the game page, I'll let you work out what they do yourself...

I also lined up the houserules, title and pop linkbecause they were annoying me.

GMs can now edit the turn commentary (again) *and* see what it will look like to their players on the same page.

#12 is doable, but maybe not quite so easy as you would think.

trewqh, if you want to get thrown in the deep end, just let me know!


Chris.
With Great Power comes Great Irritability

User avatar
Hannibal
Commander
Commander
Posts: 886
Joined: Sun Sep 21, 2003 7:00 am
Location: London and The Vulkings Clan.............(started in Valn Ohtar, then jointly founded The Vulkings)

Post by Hannibal » Wed Feb 08, 2006 5:09 pm

korexus wrote: GMs can now edit the turn commentary (again) *and* see what it will look like to their players on the same page.
Yippee!
korexus wrote: #12 is doable, but maybe not quite so easy as you would think.
Who ever said it was easy? I may be dumb but I'm not stupid. I warned about 6 posts ago that #12 was a biggie; I realise it is logically doable but probably tricky ....! :wink: I know how worth-it it is, you know how difficult .... somewhere in between ....But you remember how neat it was when your and my commentaries colour-coded the names of players for ease and "local colour"?
korexus wrote: trewqh, if you want to get thrown in the deep end, just let me know!
Sorry to have pushed him towards the deep end. My paper-thin understanding of coding meant I had absolutely NO FEAR of the deep end on his behalf ... At least it MIGHT take some load off you?

Cheers,
Han
There are two ways to write: Short-hand, and Long-Han'ed. ~ Han

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs"......... it's probably just that you're the last person to appreciate the enormity of the catastrophe about to

User avatar
korexus
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 2827
Joined: Tue Nov 12, 2002 8:00 am
Location: Reading
Contact:

Post by korexus » Wed Feb 08, 2006 5:38 pm

I've done the easy bits of #11 and #12

Player's names are in colour and the commentary has some variety when players do nothing.
See http://www.kaomaris.com/phpNuke/modules ... &GameID=14 for an example when all 10 players miss the turn or do no nothing visible.

I'll work on getting targets' names into the commentary and livening up the attack/missile parts soon.


Chris.
With Great Power comes Great Irritability

User avatar
Duke
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 1699
Joined: Wed Sep 04, 2002 7:00 am
Location: Sweden, Valn Ohtar

Post by Duke » Wed Feb 08, 2006 6:04 pm

*sticks his head through the door*

Everything in order here lads? Good, good. Carry on!
First one here, last one to leave.

User avatar
Hannibal
Commander
Commander
Posts: 886
Joined: Sun Sep 21, 2003 7:00 am
Location: London and The Vulkings Clan.............(started in Valn Ohtar, then jointly founded The Vulkings)

Post by Hannibal » Wed Feb 08, 2006 9:43 pm

Kor, did I just glimpse a gargoyle over there by the door? You're not changing this into an rpg behind my back, are you?

Han
There are two ways to write: Short-hand, and Long-Han'ed. ~ Han

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs"......... it's probably just that you're the last person to appreciate the enormity of the catastrophe about to

User avatar
Hannibal
Commander
Commander
Posts: 886
Joined: Sun Sep 21, 2003 7:00 am
Location: London and The Vulkings Clan.............(started in Valn Ohtar, then jointly founded The Vulkings)

Post by Hannibal » Thu Feb 09, 2006 2:41 am

Hey, if #11 and #12 are causing you difficulty, just wait till you hear #13 and #14 !! (Not so much technical difficulty as , er, agreement .....).

Cheers,
Han
Last edited by Hannibal on Sun Feb 26, 2006 12:02 am, edited 3 times in total.
There are two ways to write: Short-hand, and Long-Han'ed. ~ Han

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs"......... it's probably just that you're the last person to appreciate the enormity of the catastrophe about to

User avatar
Hannibal
Commander
Commander
Posts: 886
Joined: Sun Sep 21, 2003 7:00 am
Location: London and The Vulkings Clan.............(started in Valn Ohtar, then jointly founded The Vulkings)

Post by Hannibal » Fri Feb 10, 2006 12:53 pm

Thanks, Kor. The commentary above the game map now looks SO much more attractive (and makes life easier), now that the player-names are colour-coded to match their colours on the map. Eg. on Tyler's Islettes. Beautiful. Thanks.

Han
There are two ways to write: Short-hand, and Long-Han'ed. ~ Han

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs"......... it's probably just that you're the last person to appreciate the enormity of the catastrophe about to

Post Reply