As many may have observed throughout the last years, AoC has taken a rather popular turn in developement with modifications to the visual aspects in favour of improving the efficiency of gameplay. Examples for this trend can be given with the famous ***** Wood, the recent Grid Terrains, as well as the Blue Berry mod, which allows players to reliably distinguish berry bushes from gold piles.
I feel however, that at this point the modding community has come to a halt, a border they do not dare to cross. The fear of robbing the game of its so appealing graphical features is present, and has been publicly spoken of by those who reject the latest gem, the grid mod. Let me use this chance, though, to reveal them for what they really are: Afraid of change. Daydreaming away in the beautiful views of lush green fields and forests full of giant trees, they stand in the way of a process which I like to see as inevitable, in the name of efficiency. As we all are aware of, there is a certain limitation to the skills of a player, and surely we have reached it in many aspects already. How else then could we still find improvement if not by further modifying the game in the good tradition of ***** trees and grid terrains?
Therefor, this is my sincere appeal: Please do not stop here! Keep on destroying the beauty of the game that has plagued us for far too long! Bury the sentimental feelings, and do not further let the creativity of the honorable developers remain valued! Big trees have had their time, hardening every player's micromanagement of villagers. Wall foundations you could not see have been made visible, for the pretty look had to pass to enable players to click on them. Tile borders, smoothened out with so much love and care by AoC graphic designers, were made to reappear in order to prevent the good player from overseeing otherwise invisible holes in his walls.
What will the future bring, then? I see mountains being flattened, elevations cut down until all tiles appear of the same height. Hill bonus can be made visible by numbering the tiles' height and writing it on the terrain. This shall be the last piece to make walling mistakes history indeed!
However, it can not stay with that. The progress can not be stopped, we are on the right track and must follow it further. Why do we need to painfully tell the difference between Stone Wall and Fortified Wall from the looks of the building? It is another obstacle on the way to efficiency, and I am proud to have found a solution to this already: Present the user the information in a form he can easily grasp, from now on Stone Wall will be recognized by the letter S on the tile, while Fortified Wall will be marked by an F. A higher Stone Wall would therefor be written as F3, a lower one F2. Any player with some intelligence can easily predict the next steps from here: The colours of the players have to be represented by letters, the health of a unit by numbers, the status of a shooting archer, equally. A green archer on ground elevation will be 2Ag, a shooting archer as 2AgS.
I know that this vision of a future game may surprise and shock some of us today. They can not believe, that a game window at some time will consist solely of letters and numbers. However, I can assure you: You will have time to adapt. The changes are performed slowly, reducing the visual beauty step by step, mod by mod, until finally we have reached the ideal game.
Please go ahead, dear fan modders. We are ready.
I feel however, that at this point the modding community has come to a halt, a border they do not dare to cross. The fear of robbing the game of its so appealing graphical features is present, and has been publicly spoken of by those who reject the latest gem, the grid mod. Let me use this chance, though, to reveal them for what they really are: Afraid of change. Daydreaming away in the beautiful views of lush green fields and forests full of giant trees, they stand in the way of a process which I like to see as inevitable, in the name of efficiency. As we all are aware of, there is a certain limitation to the skills of a player, and surely we have reached it in many aspects already. How else then could we still find improvement if not by further modifying the game in the good tradition of ***** trees and grid terrains?
Therefor, this is my sincere appeal: Please do not stop here! Keep on destroying the beauty of the game that has plagued us for far too long! Bury the sentimental feelings, and do not further let the creativity of the honorable developers remain valued! Big trees have had their time, hardening every player's micromanagement of villagers. Wall foundations you could not see have been made visible, for the pretty look had to pass to enable players to click on them. Tile borders, smoothened out with so much love and care by AoC graphic designers, were made to reappear in order to prevent the good player from overseeing otherwise invisible holes in his walls.
What will the future bring, then? I see mountains being flattened, elevations cut down until all tiles appear of the same height. Hill bonus can be made visible by numbering the tiles' height and writing it on the terrain. This shall be the last piece to make walling mistakes history indeed!
However, it can not stay with that. The progress can not be stopped, we are on the right track and must follow it further. Why do we need to painfully tell the difference between Stone Wall and Fortified Wall from the looks of the building? It is another obstacle on the way to efficiency, and I am proud to have found a solution to this already: Present the user the information in a form he can easily grasp, from now on Stone Wall will be recognized by the letter S on the tile, while Fortified Wall will be marked by an F. A higher Stone Wall would therefor be written as F3, a lower one F2. Any player with some intelligence can easily predict the next steps from here: The colours of the players have to be represented by letters, the health of a unit by numbers, the status of a shooting archer, equally. A green archer on ground elevation will be 2Ag, a shooting archer as 2AgS.
I know that this vision of a future game may surprise and shock some of us today. They can not believe, that a game window at some time will consist solely of letters and numbers. However, I can assure you: You will have time to adapt. The changes are performed slowly, reducing the visual beauty step by step, mod by mod, until finally we have reached the ideal game.
Please go ahead, dear fan modders. We are ready.