Knights and Merchants.net Forum

We are not testers, we are lab rats. We are getting thrown with new patches which we were not asked before. Build unlock! Go eat eat rats, let us see how you react.

- Dark Lord and To, what kind of discrimination is this? You ask people you like and ignores people who you dont like, this way it works?

- All of testers were present on Team Speak, they have decent English and are nice, easy-going people. There were only 2 people missing, you and Krom. Why should we 30 testers on Team Speak chasing you two, hah?

- Once again. Testing has been finished. No one asked to summarize it. WHY? Be so kind, let me know.

Ben, the strange thing is that Lewin was 100% aware of this issue because of the prompt feedback provided by testers. We get this issue now. In fact someone was just unresponsible in the past.

Well, in that point I am sure they will disagree. I don't know if you are a programer yourself, but if you are and you are maintaining a large project, then I bet you would consider it as your own, too. It's not the project of the testers. They do a very important job, but it's only a minor job compared to programming this game. Lew&Krom spent already more than half a decade for this piece of software. It is their project, not ours. We are contributors, not developers.

Yes, I agree that their sight is biased, as is mine and yours, too. But I guess, they are dealing not too bad with this. And if they really make decisions that we completely disagree with: they made the game opensource and ensured public availability. So in the end you can fork it and maintain a 'improved branch' or whatever name you choose. If you do that, the you're a developer and the owner of that branch.

By the way, I dont really feel that they are developers and we dont. We are developers, but we develop the game as a public project, bring new poeple, advertise Remake, making game more popular. This aspect is very important too.
We have provided a lot of feedback with the highest level of responsibility. No one was rude, all post were constructive. All issues were addresse in public. As a reward, we haven't been given a chance to try speed up farms.
We are not testers, we are lab rats. We are getting thrown with new patches which we were not asked before. Build unlock! Go eat eat rats, let us see how you react.

I don't recall you communicating with us about including you into a team. You know that teams are made by people who share their views in general. It's hard to volounteerely work with people whom you disagree with (I'm not saying about product vision, but other areas as well, including communication). Perhaps you should be developing your own game then, since you think your contribution is that big that it deserves a developer badge. Maybe you can be a full-blown standalone developer then?
P.S. It's funny to see "No one was rude, all post were constructive" and "Go eat eat rats, let us see how you react" in one paragraph ..

Ben, the strange thing is that Lewin was 100% aware of this issue because of the prompt feedback provided by testers. We get this issue now. In fact someone was just unresponsible in the past.

Lewin, I am waiting for your answers. Thank you in advance.

P.s. After reading this post, follow the link and read 20 pages of feedback. I assume you haven't done it before. You are welcome to read it now:
viewtopic.php?f=26&t=1282
P.p.s Post edited. Some more reflections added.

Which exact issue do you refer to?
P.S. No need to throw such statements around, it is kind of bad for your reputation, because there are more than enough Lewins posts on the thread to indicate he has read it through more than once.

I'd still like a reply on this post:

Regarding the actual discussion of building unlocks:
- if the problem is that it makes maps too easy them maps can be modified to have less timber, stone, food, etc.

I agree.

- if the problem is that players build too much before peacetime then you can play with 5 or 10 minutes less peacetime

I agree.

- if the problem is that new players get confused and run out of wood/stone or forget to build an inn, that's a serious problem which needs to be considered

I agree. But don't think that it's only new players who forget to build an inn. It has happened to me and other TS guys as well.

Anyway, there is one more option you didn't mention. What if the problem is that people just don't like it and prefer the old way? Someone like myself? Call me a conservative, but KaM has always been a slow game and I like it. There's now an option to increase the game speed, so I don't see the necessity to speed up the game even more, and, what's worse: compulsory! We have no choice.

Map authors can still change the unlocking, for example To's maps still have the quarry and woodcutter unlocked at the start, other maps you have to build the school first (so To's maps still allow a faster game start than others because you can get the sawmill after just 1 building, rather than 2). So there's still room for customisation. You could even unlock the sawmill at the start to allow players to rush for gold/iron before getting woodcutters/stonemasons properly set up. Or unlock farms at the start to encourage people to use horses. Or unlock gold/iron/coal mines at the start. There's lot of possibilities for customising your map by unlocking certain buildings.

So when all of this is possible... when we can have so many different combinations and options of building unlocking... Why can't we have the old, default one?

This change with the unlock order is really not necessary because of the reasons I will explain in this post.

It takes away a lot of variety between maps. Now you got the option whether you play a map with a prebuild town, normal unlock order or for example maps like back in the desert with completely different unlock orders. With this change you'll force everyone to play one way (yes prebuild is still possible, this could actually be the solution for your slow gamespeed).

Second, I took a look at the list of most popular maps in 4179. Almost half of the maps played there is on maps where you don't have buildings unlocked from the start except for the school. The number one map is even one of the slowest and most campy maps around, Cursed Ravine. They even got the choice there to play a To map like Back in the Desert or Dead of Winter which are way faster.

Third, this change will probably really confusing for many people because many of them play the game since the original version. They are used to the old unlock order and I think it might be possible they want to keep it even though it's just nostalgia. You might lose players because they expect the game to be as close to the original as possible.

As last. This change will take away a lot of the challenge of the building part. Yes you could re-balance maps, but this will still make it a lot easier than it was before. I understand that you guys want to make the game easy to learn/play. Anyway taking away the challenge from the building phase is taking away the challenge of the game for me since I'm mainly focusing on the building part. I'm sure that I'm not the only one.

Even more, dynamic scripts allow to program any unlocking order you wish

Wait a second, is it possible to use dynamic scripting to use the old building unlock order in a map? If the awnser is yes, why are we still discussing? Then we could use dynamic scripting to get the challenge back for some maps while the new unlocking order is the standard one. this would mean problem solved.

I think I posted about that some pages earlier, but here's the concept once again:

OnMissionStart
[Block everything but the School]

OnHouseBuilt
[if house = school then unblock Inn
if house = Inn then unblock quarry
if house = Sawmill then unblock everything]

Note that it is unBlock (Actions.HouseAllow), so that you dont need to manually manage build order after sawmill.

Furthermore, mapmaker can limit number of allowed houses to make it even harder, but please write that in a clear description and first ingame message or display as text "you can build 1 more Woodcutters out of 3" in at least 5 common languages.

Please refresh our memories or show a screenshot. I do not recall the issue with "completely wrong colors"

Just start a coop map, whichever you want

I think I posted about that some pages earlier, but here's the concept once again:

OnMissionStart
[Block everything but the School]

OnHouseBuilt
[if house = school then unblock Inn
if house = Inn then unblock quarry
if house = Sawmill then unblock everything]

Note that it is unBlock (Actions.HouseAllow), so that you dont need to manually manage build order after sawmill.

Furthermore, mapmaker can limit number of allowed houses to make it even harder, but please write that in a clear description and first ingame message or display as text "you can build 1 more Woodcutters out of 3" in at least 5 common languages.