Feedback
Harimau
Join Date: 2007-12-24 Member: 63250Members
Join Date: 2007-12-24 Member: 63250Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Mainly criticisms</div>I'll stick to criticisms/reports, because I haven't really been able to play a game. When I've had a full, decent game, know that I will shower you with such praise that you will feel like gods or demons. I may even use that kind of language. But until then...
<i>Engine(?) problems:</i>
That bug I've mentioned in <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=111945" target="_blank">another thread</a> (and <a href="http://getsatisfaction.com/unknownworlds/topics/some_sort_of_display_error_following_the_purchase_of_a_weapon" target="_blank">on getsatisfaction</a>). Occurs in two cases that I know of: Joining the alien team (the moment I spawn), and purchasing a weapon (the moment I press the button for a shotgun/flamer/whatever). If I am killed (by a fade dancing around in our base for instance), and respawn as a marine, my graphics are back to normal. After realising this, and attempting once again to buy a shotgun, and coming up against the same graphical error, I 'kill'ed myself using the console - graphics back to normal. In the alien case, it's a no go, I've gotta 'rr'.
One thing to note, text and chat still work. Well actually, I'll expand that: the game runs pretty much otherwise, but I can't do anything if I can't see anything.
Appears to occur with people running GTS 450s, based on those <a href="http://getsatisfaction.com/unknownworlds/topics/gts_450_terrible_graphical_anomalies" target="_blank">other</a> <a href="http://getsatisfaction.com/unknownworlds/topics/graphic_errors_nvidia" target="_blank">two</a> getsatisfaction entries.
What this means for me at the moment, though, is that I'm stuck with the marine team, and stuck with the rifle.
Setting graphics to 'ridiculously awful' didn't help.
Black screen upon joining a game (text and chat still working), lasts indefinitely - moved my mouse, and then everything appeared and I was already in the ready room. I doubt this is intentional.
Black screen upon tabbing out of the game, and back into the game. Could only Exit, and resulted in a bug report.
Commander mode is pretty jittery - and I was the only one on the server. But I'm sure that'll be improved.
<i>General feedback:</i>
Switching weapons is cumbersome. Note: I use the mousewheel to switch weapons, and I have a basic optical mouse. I don't like using the numbers because it takes my fingers off the w, a and d keys.
First thing, I associate 'higher' weapons with 'up', so I instinctively use mousewheel to scroll down to a 'lower' weapon, my pistol. Uh nope, I have to scroll up. I don't know, maybe I need to change the bindings, or maybe that's just something I need to get used to (theoretically, scrolling up could be easier than scrolling down, based on the hand's position on the mouse - extension rather than contraction of the finger).
The second thing, is that it's annoying and a bit jarring to have to wait for all the 'loading' animations before I can switch to another weapon. I understand that you have to fully load a weapon before you can attack with it, but that's a different situation. I can't switch from rifle to ax instantly, because I have to wait for both the pistol and the ax 'loading' animations to complete, rather than just the ax animation. I'd like to <b>not</b> have to wait for my pistol animation to <b>complete</b> before I switch to my ax; I'll still have to wait for the ax animation to complete before I can attack with it, obviously.
Doors don't look like doors; they look like metal walls. The change from a wall to a door is so seamless it's practically invisible. I really don't notice them until I'm walking past a door and I hear the "open" sound.
Extremely hard to navigate. A minimap and a compass will help this. However, in the long run, you're probably gonna navigate by... what's the term I'm looking for? Environmental awareness, I guess. Judging where you are based on familiar landmarks, and navigating to other locations based on their respective positions, based on a mental map. And that's just too difficult at this point in time. Rooms look too similar to other rooms, there are no 'arrows' or any sort of directional guides, and there are no clear landmarks to distinguish rooms. Committing the map to memory is going to be a big task--and a big ask, for the average starter. It's a bit like trying to find your way through, and commit to memory, a maze with a set of almost identical rooms.
Maybe I just have terrible, terrible aim, maybe it's the stutteriness, maybe it's the hit reg; but killing a fade with a rifle (my only option) is impossible for me. Pointing your rifle directly at a fade that's about thirty centimetres from your face and holding the trigger, should probably do <b>something</b>. I guess the biggest problem is, I can't even tell if I'm doing any damage at all, there needs to be some hit indicators (or if there already are, more visible indicators).
Following a fade after it blinks is also impossible because you usually don't know where it's gone (most of the time it's pretty obviously headed for a doorway, but it'll take some practice to make that connection immediately) - <b>but</b> that's one point in the current fade blink's favour, I think. The old 'blink' leap was trackable.
It's a bit frustrating not being able to repair buildings, as a marine, and knowing that the MACs and/or commander are currently occupied with other things. Will we be getting welders? Or perhaps alerting nearby MACs to damaged structures?
Then again, it's kinda the commander's job to consider the state of buildings, and welders would make MACs obsolete considering they're the poorer building force now. I don't know, I'm divided.
<b><i>tl;dr:</b></i>
gts450 <b>:'(</b>
black screens <b>:S</b>
commander mode <b>...</b>
switching weapons <b>!...!!...!!! D:<</b>
doors <b>?</b>
navigation <b>@_@</b>
fade+rifle <b>D:></b>
fade blink <b>'-'b</b>
damaged+no welders <b>:(</b>
<i>Engine(?) problems:</i>
That bug I've mentioned in <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=111945" target="_blank">another thread</a> (and <a href="http://getsatisfaction.com/unknownworlds/topics/some_sort_of_display_error_following_the_purchase_of_a_weapon" target="_blank">on getsatisfaction</a>). Occurs in two cases that I know of: Joining the alien team (the moment I spawn), and purchasing a weapon (the moment I press the button for a shotgun/flamer/whatever). If I am killed (by a fade dancing around in our base for instance), and respawn as a marine, my graphics are back to normal. After realising this, and attempting once again to buy a shotgun, and coming up against the same graphical error, I 'kill'ed myself using the console - graphics back to normal. In the alien case, it's a no go, I've gotta 'rr'.
One thing to note, text and chat still work. Well actually, I'll expand that: the game runs pretty much otherwise, but I can't do anything if I can't see anything.
Appears to occur with people running GTS 450s, based on those <a href="http://getsatisfaction.com/unknownworlds/topics/gts_450_terrible_graphical_anomalies" target="_blank">other</a> <a href="http://getsatisfaction.com/unknownworlds/topics/graphic_errors_nvidia" target="_blank">two</a> getsatisfaction entries.
What this means for me at the moment, though, is that I'm stuck with the marine team, and stuck with the rifle.
Setting graphics to 'ridiculously awful' didn't help.
Black screen upon joining a game (text and chat still working), lasts indefinitely - moved my mouse, and then everything appeared and I was already in the ready room. I doubt this is intentional.
Black screen upon tabbing out of the game, and back into the game. Could only Exit, and resulted in a bug report.
Commander mode is pretty jittery - and I was the only one on the server. But I'm sure that'll be improved.
<i>General feedback:</i>
Switching weapons is cumbersome. Note: I use the mousewheel to switch weapons, and I have a basic optical mouse. I don't like using the numbers because it takes my fingers off the w, a and d keys.
First thing, I associate 'higher' weapons with 'up', so I instinctively use mousewheel to scroll down to a 'lower' weapon, my pistol. Uh nope, I have to scroll up. I don't know, maybe I need to change the bindings, or maybe that's just something I need to get used to (theoretically, scrolling up could be easier than scrolling down, based on the hand's position on the mouse - extension rather than contraction of the finger).
The second thing, is that it's annoying and a bit jarring to have to wait for all the 'loading' animations before I can switch to another weapon. I understand that you have to fully load a weapon before you can attack with it, but that's a different situation. I can't switch from rifle to ax instantly, because I have to wait for both the pistol and the ax 'loading' animations to complete, rather than just the ax animation. I'd like to <b>not</b> have to wait for my pistol animation to <b>complete</b> before I switch to my ax; I'll still have to wait for the ax animation to complete before I can attack with it, obviously.
Doors don't look like doors; they look like metal walls. The change from a wall to a door is so seamless it's practically invisible. I really don't notice them until I'm walking past a door and I hear the "open" sound.
Extremely hard to navigate. A minimap and a compass will help this. However, in the long run, you're probably gonna navigate by... what's the term I'm looking for? Environmental awareness, I guess. Judging where you are based on familiar landmarks, and navigating to other locations based on their respective positions, based on a mental map. And that's just too difficult at this point in time. Rooms look too similar to other rooms, there are no 'arrows' or any sort of directional guides, and there are no clear landmarks to distinguish rooms. Committing the map to memory is going to be a big task--and a big ask, for the average starter. It's a bit like trying to find your way through, and commit to memory, a maze with a set of almost identical rooms.
Maybe I just have terrible, terrible aim, maybe it's the stutteriness, maybe it's the hit reg; but killing a fade with a rifle (my only option) is impossible for me. Pointing your rifle directly at a fade that's about thirty centimetres from your face and holding the trigger, should probably do <b>something</b>. I guess the biggest problem is, I can't even tell if I'm doing any damage at all, there needs to be some hit indicators (or if there already are, more visible indicators).
Following a fade after it blinks is also impossible because you usually don't know where it's gone (most of the time it's pretty obviously headed for a doorway, but it'll take some practice to make that connection immediately) - <b>but</b> that's one point in the current fade blink's favour, I think. The old 'blink' leap was trackable.
It's a bit frustrating not being able to repair buildings, as a marine, and knowing that the MACs and/or commander are currently occupied with other things. Will we be getting welders? Or perhaps alerting nearby MACs to damaged structures?
Then again, it's kinda the commander's job to consider the state of buildings, and welders would make MACs obsolete considering they're the poorer building force now. I don't know, I'm divided.
<b><i>tl;dr:</b></i>
gts450 <b>:'(</b>
black screens <b>:S</b>
commander mode <b>...</b>
switching weapons <b>!...!!...!!! D:<</b>
doors <b>?</b>
navigation <b>@_@</b>
fade+rifle <b>D:></b>
fade blink <b>'-'b</b>
damaged+no welders <b>:(</b>
Comments
Secondly, they have specifically requested that feedback be placed in a specific thread and bugs be placed on getsatisfaction. Placing information outside of these places is unlikely to get attention unless a lot of other people chime in to agree.
Thirdly, by reproducing a report 3 times, you're actually giving the devs more work, not lightening it. If you think something sounds just like what you're experiencing, add to the original report. Do not file a duplicate, and certainly do not file a dupe and triplicate of a bug you have already reported yourself. Just because a dev doesn't respond, it doesn't mean they haven't read what you have to say. That's really important to remember. Shouting over and over about the same thing does not help anyone.
The bug you have given on GetSatisfaction probably has enough information for the devs to investigate at their end when they can get around to this issue. If it doesn't they will no doubt get in contact with you.