OK, let me try to draw the whole picture - how it looks from my point of view.
I perfectly agree with all of you that there is no need to implement every idea that comes along. And we agree, that an idea has to be mature before it is implemented. In fact - if you think back, Lewin - I also was one of the guys complaining that most ideas were only half-ready suggestions, that were thrown in withoug any coherence to kam. I badly want the ideas to fit to the kam universe and the gameplay. That's why I don't like walls and that's why I dislike the fog of war, because the first one does not fit the game and the second is not realistic and does not fit.
But - there is one point where the remake is not completely consistent with the things Lewin says. The remake is designed to be a modern TSK, but it requires that the user has TPR installed before using the remake. Why? I think, it is because it uses some material from TPR. And this material is the fishers hut and the TPR troops.
The fishers hut is implemented - why exactly? The finiteness of fish is realistic, but it does not fit the TSK food scheme. But it is implemented - and I like it. This just as a side note.
But more important are the TPR troopes. They are there. They are a part of the remake. It's not a fancy idea someone had. And it's not only that the sprites are there like for the walls. They are already a part of the remake and work well, so we have to find a solution how to deal with it.
Do you want them explicitly to be fighting-only? Like the barbarians? This would take the barabrians much of their specialty - and this goes contrary to other statements. So why they are there?
The point with the "we don't have to include every idea" is not valid in this case. It's an open question, and I am pretty sure, that Lewin or Krom won't close this question without thinking about it thoroughly.
The other TPR stuff was removed in the last release, but the TPR troops stayed. The barbarians are meant to be the special units, not the other TPR troops. So how to deal with them? Remove them and risking some old fighting maps to become unbalanced? Maybe this would be the easiest way, and it's the way it was dealt with the ballistae.
But as long as this decision isn't final, there's room for discussion. And I wanted to stress the point, that the fitting of an idea to kam is more important than a realism, which either way cannot be there. Think about the axe, where does the iron come from? This is not realistic and it was never meant to be realistic. It was meant to be simple, so that a game can be made.
And therefore I think an unrealistic simplification like a pike becoming a pitchfork is of less importance compared to an idea not fitting to kam gameplay.
Tell me that you don't like a pike being used as two different weapon type because all other weapon types are unique and I have to agree (this is in fact the weakest point of that idea). But please don't tell me that a pike becoming a pitchfork is unrealistic, because then I _have_ to say that a wooden board becoming an axe is the same level of unrealistic wonder, but it's reality in kam.
Thanks for reading
