Out of everything in my life that I have done that was pretty important was not fuelled by skill but fuelled by the community and would of not even existed without the community. This is the power of the people and clearly TMW embraces this as much as possible or it would have never lasted.
That being said I'm here to make some feedback. Just a warning I'm not trying to be a jerk, ass, or a buttface. But some things that I say might come out as sarcastic, rude, or buttface. I don't mean to come out that way but I have a habit of sometimes talking like an ass and never meaning to sound like an ass!
First Day connecting to TMW Server:
Holy crap nothing has changed, Alt F4, THE HELL I can't even use Alt F4!
Client Install and run: Smooth, easy, No issues besides the 100 Patches. We need to compile down some of the patch into one file and call it main or something like that and for smaller updates and patches just reuse past patch files rather then having a new user down 100 tiny files and causing lots of micro hits to the web server as well.
One thing I find that is almost a must is to change the starting of a game overtime. Fit it some how in the lore or story but change it. The desert was great but the desert is also one of the worst starting points in a RPG. Just like a Snow Zone is as well. You always start your adventures in a forest, or a plains but not a Desert. Take this from almost every MMORPG and level facts on where people like to level the most from Level 1 and on it will be for sure in the zone that it looks more natural and forest like.
Second thing is that you are a F2P game and 100% unique community. I doubt a large portion of the players here have or had any interests in games like WoW, Rift, WildStar, etc. You will tend to get repeat players coming back time after time. Just this alone should be a good reason to sometimes change up the starting zone here and there. You want to impress the players and show them some changes when they come back after many years of being away.
Client Suggestions:
- Larger Hit box for clicking. It's becoming harder and harder to click on Mobs, Npc's, etc. For people who enjoy click attack and such we need a bigger hitbox to click on to make sure we actually make it to our destination.
- A feature to hide the character sprite health bar. http://i.imgur.com/yEhQZOl.png It gets in the way of the mobs HP Bar.
- Mob Health Bar http://i.imgur.com/GdcyRRd.png Worst example ever. But the idea is a nice large bar that shows the targets health bar.
- When the emote is out it be nice if you can have chaht show above the emote instead of through the emote. Language warning I was using this to compare to another game my friend and I were working on and I sent him this picture and too lazy to learn the skill again haha http://i.imgur.com/ATicQcZ.png here is his picture BTW from our other game: http://i.imgur.com/gKEOhkm.png
- Not sure if this is possible but be nice if more settings could be applied to the client without a client restart. Including a way to resize windows in opengl mode if possible.
- This is a must feature its sort of the future for Windows PC Gaming now that everyone begs for. Fullscreen Window Mode. So it acts like full screen application but lets you hit the windows key etc without any kind of disturbance like it was in window mode.
- Better Windows Support. No matter what Windows is going to be the increasing player base with ManaPlus. You have it on steam, you have it on mobile now, and always had it for Windows / Linux. But as the time grows the more and more Windows Users will show up. I would love to see better supporting in the development testing area like SDL2 that is the future feature for ManaPlus and builds as far as I know on Linux / Android just fine. Windows Love is a must as much as you guys hate it I just want you make you aware that your sometimes making us feel like outcasts like broken Project files etc. But I will keep bugging you on this <3
TMWA Suggestions:
- Send full path finding packet so when you click attack your not 10 tiles away fighting against air.
- Quest Log Support. Remember your not only supporting the future of TMW but everyone who uses TMWA. Add the support in now even if TMW does not use it right away. This way future games will have the use for it.
- More Scripting Functions scripted. I hope this makes some kind of sense but I love how the daily quests function was created. It would be nice if there was more pre-made functions / scripts created for things like Kill, gather type quests that a new or even old scripter would not have to write a book to to add basic functionality to their script.
- Better method of testing out scripts. If its bring back reload and fix it or something new. We need better methods of testing scripts out.
- Windows Support. This one will give me a lot of flack period. But this is not so much about Windows as it is promoting new script developers. We can't expect everyone to run windows and the scripting in this game gets complicated where it becomes harder for people to test out their scripts. I can't expect to reboot a test server 100 times an hour because someone wants to test a script on it nor can I always be there. We need to be able to create simple Windows Packages that I can give and other people can give to their users to test out scripts, maps, and other features. I rather use Windows for my server even though linux might be more stable.
overall I'm having a great time trying to learn TMWA / ManaPlus Out. It's just been harder as a Windows user to get things done even more so having to be forced with Linux at times for the server. I think the biggest issue comes down to testing scripts is like pulling teeth. It's one thing having to script an entire quests that seems so inefficient. But its another when you have to do it by rebooting a server 100 times because guess what? We are trying to attract new people and this is the worst way we possibly can do it.