The Competition & Teaser Thread

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

I think the interface is just fine. It works and is very user friendly, which to me is a selling pooint for a lot of things. If it's a great game, but complicated, you spend more time trying to get around than you do playing. I will use Baseball as an example. I play Puresim baseball. I tried Out of the Park Baseball, but was so confusing and difficult to get around the different pages, it took an hour to finally get inot a game, but puresim was so user friendly, I was gaming in a matter of about 5 minutes. Much more enjoyable than OOTP. If you make the interface less user friendly, you will lose people. KISS method is best in these issues...Keep it Simple Stupid. The more people that can understand it, the more that will be interested.

[Richie61]

Mark. The interface is easy for you since they haven't really changed it much over the years. I came into SB from a more modern gaming background of CMx1/2, racing sims and air combat sims. I had a hard time figuring out
the dos style icons and commands.

These are great for current JT/ HPS folks, but Gerry is right about bring new commands to the forefront. The system could use a better more modern way to get around the map. I don't see a middle button pan as a zoom in/ out and pan as earth shattering. They can add more key stroke hotkeys and still leave the icons for others.

Most of the people on this site are going to buy PB. But JT needs to get newer blood into the titles and reach out to people are other game sites.

Not trying to be a PITA, but we need to think outside the box at times.

[Strela]

As far as the victory icons, whatever is decided on, might be easier to just have one standard for each country. So na matter if SS or regular Wehrmacht capture it, it would look the same. Cuts out the extra work of multiple icons.

Can't you tell, I'm a graphics tweaking fiend.

Like all things guys all the artwork in game is moddable. In a later post I'll list out all the additional graphics included in game but not default. These are there for those who want to tweak the way the game looks.


Here is my latest efforts with Victory Point icons. Having black lettering is slightly restrictive, but I'm certain if it was white, I'd be lamenting a lack of black. All are still WIP.


Original Victory Point icons;





New Victory Point icons
Top to bottom, Russian, Russian Guards, German, German SS, Luftwaffe. With & without units;




At 2x size




In Game





David

[76mm]

I think the interface is just fine. It works and is very user friendly, which to me is a selling pooint for a lot of things. If it's a great game, but complicated, you spend more time trying to get around than you do playing.

I have to disagree with you that the interface is fine. For many important functions, you have to select a tiny icon in the upper row, then deselect it, and select another tiny icon to do something else. Or even worse, you have to dive a couple layers down into a menu.

Meanwhile, there are hotkeys only for a small percentage of these functions, which cannot be reassigned. I finally installed a third-party hotkey manager to give me much greater hotkey functionality in PzC, but without the extra-hotkeys I would have abandoned PzC series long ago as unplayable.

I'm not asking for a major overhaul of the user interface, but I'm not sure that it would be that complicated to fix hotkeys, and it makes a huge difference in playability.

[Xaver]

Great job with victory icons, they look a lot better now... maybe as suggestion the SS icon could use runes like in Jison map mod for PzC or the original bar for SS units in PzC.

Use a border in the hex with victory point is an option but i think that with the defensive works using now hex borders could be a problem... maybe is a good option add an alternative victory points show mode, stock is the classic with an icon and alternate could show the hex in red for soviets, grey for germans... something like in LnL but with no flash effect.

I like to the Irox SQB mod aproximation to the victory points is other option to, maybe here Jison and Ironx use both the flags as victory points in a very visual way.

Maybe i need say that after see again Ironx map mod for SQB i really think if is possible do like in SQB and made that 2 hexes with trenches/IPs conected could be showed as a continuous defensive work... for me the best representation i see for trenches in a wargame are from Ironx mods and bunkers integrate very well with hexes with trenches.

Interface... well, i allways want one easy to use, intuitive and friendly with player, Tiller games have an old but robust interface maybe my biggest complain about it is that you cant edit hotkeys and you are unable to made map icons (trenches, minefiels, victory points etc etc) "fly" over counters, same with village names, you can turn on or off this info but you cant made the info be over or under the unit icons.... and well, a little thing to, be unable to turn the map, orientation is allways north-south in PzC and games with no orientation is not a great problem but other Tiller games with unit orientation and a better 3D that made posible play games in 3D maybe needs this a lot.

As is now the interface is good at least for the things Tiller games offer is not like new wargames i play that with more details they need improve interface to made information easier to find, understand and use.

Oooo, air attacks... they are like arty instant attacks or like in WWI engine you "plot" an area to attack in enemy turn??? we can see the icon??? and a little question more, there is defensive fire from ground units like in PzC unit by unit or we see only if the air unit suffer casualties and or win fatigue??? sometimes air attacks in PzC are excesive long in time.

WOA, i cant wait the game, even more, i do some test with my Kindle to see if is posible read PDF manuals from PzC and works fine, i am going to have new reading in my "throne time"

9

[Richie61]

David,

The emboss idea is a cool one on the VP icons

[Xaver]

I read this in Tiller web (yep, i know we need wait to have game but i visit the web everyday to see if Tiller update the PzB image in store )

"John Tiller Interview with The Strategy Wargamer on March 10th"

http://the-strategy-wargamer.tumblr.com/...1/big-news

I am going to miss it at 8PM here i am in my bed dreaming with icons

[Compass Rose]

David,

Have you given any thought to releasing two different sets of Victory Point icons?

From my POV I like the Original Victory Point icons.



They are very easy to read.

On the other hand.....

The New Victory Point icons look good for both Russian icons and the German Cross however, I do not like the way the SS and the Luftwaffe icons look. The numbers look very pixel-ed/choppy and hard to read with those two background images.

Also, I would be willing to bet that the Original Victory Point icons will still look good and very readable in the mobile app version of this game, when it is released. I don't see those New Victory Point icons working well in small screens.

If you released two versions of the Victory Point icons for the PC version, owners could easily choose which set works best for them. Best of all, you already created both sets!

[Compass Rose]

I read this in Tiller web (yep, i know we need wait to have game but i visit the web everyday to see if Tiller update the PzB image in store )

"John Tiller Interview with The Strategy Wargamer on March 10th"

http://the-strategy-wargamer.tumblr.com/...1/big-news

I am going to miss it at 8PM here i am in my bed dreaming with icons

Boy, talk about an "understatement" in their ad. I am guessing that John has released at least 70+ games. I have no idea where they would come up with a dozen unless they divided his total by 6!

[Richie61]

Speaking of John Tiller. I thought this answer was really interesting.
Maybe this is where he came up with the idea for Panzer Battles?

http://www.1up.com/features/john-tiller

CGW: What's the key decision in a game?

JT: In wargaming, the single most important decision is scale. For example, take the Squad Battles games set in Vietnam. The higher you get in scale, the more discouraging the result becomes. But by staying down at the squad level, the level that individuals fought, and by just focusing on specific battles and not trying to include higher-level considerations, it is possible to create something that is representative of the tactical fighting and interesting to play.