[T:V] The little things you'd like.

Z

Zoolooman

Veteran XV
In this thread, post the little customizations and details and things that are nowhere near necessary, but you'd feel are simple little things that improve the fun.

This does not include MASSIVE GUI CUSTOMISATION TOOLS (we want this, but this is not an easy thing to implement). This includes more things like my own following examples:

1. ^# or <xmltag> system of coloring names, chat, and other silly things. I'd love to have a small smattering of colors available to color my player name with, or to emphasize text with. ^6Z^2oolooman would suddenly become: Zoolooman

2. Several levels of zoom when observing.

3. Follow the objective (flag/whatever) observing. :x

4. 32 character max for a player name. If you use a font that isn't fixed width, this means that the longest possible name will consist of 32 capital Ms. MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM That is because M is more often than not the widest letter (along with W) in a font that isn't fixed width.

5. XML/RSS information we can parse in a PHP webpage to collect and display information about a server. (This can probably be scripted by the community as a server mutator. Whatever.)

6. The advanced option to choose which weapons are visible (instead of all weapons drawn or all weapons not drawn.)

7. Easy custom reticles.

8. The ability to change your name in the console when it isn't in tournament mode (with a 30 second wait of course - fucking name spammers).

9. SPRAY DECALS (This last one is a joke, as I'm betting it isn't as easy to implement as the ones above. It also opens the door to porn sprays... blech. It's too bad, because sprays/armbands/symbols/etc that everyone can see are pretty fun. DO NOT DERAIL THIS THREAD WITH SPRAYS. THEY WOULD BE A THREAD IN AND OF THEMSELVES.)

Any other things you think will probably be already half made during development that would make nifty little options in a Tribes game?
 
1. ^# or <xmltag> system of coloring names, chat, and other silly things. I'd love to have a small smattering of colors available to color my player name with, or to emphasize text with. ^6Z^2oolooman would suddenly become: Zoolooman
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You're borrowing this from the quake series eh? I'd love to see the tribes console have the same kind of functionality as other FPS's.
 
Carry over the Tribes 1 IRC Client (freely joins any server, can be used in-game by hitting Escape and clicking on a button/tab like Tribes 1).

Do a better job of the skyboxes... Most games have great graphics, but come up second best for skyboxes, they look ugly, 256 colour bmp images that suck - make them decent please, with lens flare etc, make it believeable :(
 
ability to change pov (first or 3rd person) when observing/viewing demos (behindview 1 or 0 as default ut)
maybe they'll keep most of the ut console commands, so ALL of us don't have to learn new ones
 
i'd like to see non-death 'ragdoll' physics.....

.... enemy mortar explodes by your buddy he goes head over heels arms flailing as he twists and slams into the building.

as is is now the mortar explodes and the 'erect' players moves back a bit.

this could be implemeted for every type on non-death hit. and a quick wasd movement key would upright you again.


this would make the game more realistic and funny, i luv when bodies are strewn everywhere at oportune times, it makes me laugh...... bring on the funny.
 
Guess this falls under GUI customization, but a tri-slider system to change the colors of IFF triangles would be nice, especially if we could change them on the fly.

That said, one thing I'd like to see would be the ability to buy less ammo than your maximum. That way, if you're the type that tends to get killed a lot, you can at least make it so the enemy can't scrounge a full loadout off your corpse. I can see this being quite useful for HO-types.

Bring back the buddy-search feature from T1--the free-text entry box in the server list. That thing just plain RULED, as you could refresh all servers and then type in various tags one after the other without having to refresh the list again. Hell, the entire T1 server browser was a work of art--fast, simple, and effective.

Training: It would be nice if one of the training maps or whatever covered the subject of weapon velocity inheritance.
 
Njal Storm said:
i'd like to see non-death 'ragdoll' physics.....

.... enemy mortar explodes by your buddy he goes head over heels arms flailing as he twists and slams into the building.

as is is now the mortar explodes and the 'erect' players moves back a bit.

this could be implemeted for every type on non-death hit. and a quick wasd movement key would upright you again.


this would make the game more realistic and funny, i luv when bodies are strewn everywhere at oportune times, it makes me laugh...... bring on the funny.
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It would be difficult for the hitbox to stay true to the model with these kinds of animations going on. Just make sure there's an option to toggle off these kinds of animations for those of us that just want a hitbox :p
 
I'd like to see the compass (or maybe a reticle ring) track the direction of an enemy in your sensor net. But that might be considered too much of a cheat (like auto waypointing enemies).
 
A wide range of gamma values in game. Don't give some people an advantage just because they have a brighter monitor or use a 3rd party program for gamma.
 
Ability to make your own teamchat messages, choose sounds for them, and maybe link them to game events. Grab the flag and your custom message will automatically appear in teamchat.

And Flagtimer for CTF.
 
Njal Storm said:
i'd like to see non-death 'ragdoll' physics.....

.... enemy mortar explodes by your buddy he goes head over heels arms flailing as he twists and slams into the building.
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The problem with ragdoll physics is that they are:
1. very processor expenxive
2. random
3. completely dependant on world state at their start

So because of # 1 we can't have the server perform all of the ragdoll in a game as it could easily get swamped with action all over the map.

Because of #2 we can't guarantee that ragdoll is the same from machine to machine (in fact we can guarantee that it won't be the same) as it's based on YOUR computer's random number seed which will be different than my computers.

Because of #3 we can't even guantee that the end location of a body will be close to the same from machine to machine. Where your PC thinks you are, where the server thinks you are, and where my PC thinks you are, could very likely be three different things. probably very close things, but a difference of a few centemeters could make the difference between you boucing off a wall or hitting the corner and wrapping around. So when you get up now you'd be several meters away from where I or the server thought you were.

So while we're always thinking about ways to get past the problem we're not at all confident that we'll be able to do anything.

Really #1 is the most important issue, because if the server can't do all the calculations then you're turning over the calc to another computer and opening yourself to cheating of some sort.
 
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{A} PR24 said:
Built in FOV script. 90% use the FOV script now in T2. It would be great to have it added to T:V game release.
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I demand proof of this 90% claim. My guess would be that removal of the zero would be more accurate.
 
Thrax Panda said:
I demand proof of this 90% claim. My guess would be that removal of the zero would be more accurate.
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Huh? 9% of the T1/T2 population change their FoV? That's as bad a guess (probably worse) than a 90% figure.

I've learned to change my FoV manually before I installed the now infamous MortFOV script in T2. Hell, on the TWL there was even a 90 vs. 120 thread just last week. Changing FoV has become as customary as changing your skins or GUI, a way to customize your gameplay experience.

I don't know what will happen with scripts, but if you keep FoV stuck to a particular value without any chance of modifying it easily, then you'll make a LOT of people unhappy.

9%? Come on, you can't be serious.
 
Maybe 90% of the competitive community uses FOV scripts :shrug:
Either way, FOV should be a GUI option. I dunno how much this weighs into your decision making, but CAL and CPL don't allow any non-gui config changes for any games. So any settings you expect competitive gamers will be using, should probably be available through gui if you want the game to pick up in league play.
 
Exactly. People are slowly accepting that scripting will be limited in T:V, but this needs to be balanced by extensive gameplay customization options. Think Windowblinds/Litestep/Samurize but for the Tribes world. Common customizations that players use include GUI cosmetic changes and GUI placement, Chat HUD seperation (Team Chat, Death Messages (I urge you to take a look at the FilterMsg script by Halide), etc.), an assload of optional HUDs (FPS, ping, alt, speed, demo on/off, observer, loadout, etc.), the ability to easily modify player and weapon skins, your reticles, and the ability to easily modify your FoV.

BTW, I hope you don't see changing your FoV as an unfair "advantage". It does allow you to see a wider angle if you increase it from its default value of 90, but at the cost of precision. Hell, I know many a competitive LD that refuses to play at anything but 90 because it hurts precision. It's just a setting that further customizes gameplay for the individual
 
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on my team of around 18ish active people, there are about 3 people that play at 90 FoV. I'm fairly sure a poll of the TWL community would show nearly 50% playing at an FoV other than 90. i'm talking T2 though, i dunno about T1.
 
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