Planetarion Forums

Tomkat · 29 Sep 2006, 11:42

I bought World of Warcraft relatively recently (May or so). Something that confused me at first was how much effort people put into making their characters look "cool". I, coming from the PA background, didn't care much about graphics on them. I wouldn't choose a str+4 over a str+5 simply because the +4 one looked better, for example.

Now I've got into it though, I have taken time to try to make my character look better. It's something quite common actually.

So it got me thinking to Planetarion. There is nothing to show what your planet looks like. The only figures we have are how many ships you own.

I see it as looking something like this:

The planets would show up on the galaxy page, with all 15 planets together. It could replace galaxy pictures.

The "graphics" of the planets would be based on the race, the number of each type of mine, the number of structures and type of structures, and the number of ships.

Now while it would look nice and everything, it would serve no purpose.

Implementing some form of "hot-or-not" on it could give it purpose though. Obviously being able to rank a planet on 1-10 would be abused by alliances (read down) by boosting their own scores and crippling others. So it would need to be random.

Clicking on a "Planet" page would take you to a random planet (coords hidden) and you could vote 1-10 on how attractive you think it is. There could be some form of reward for voting for (for example) 20 planets or something (you get some resources or something).

The score your planet receives based on how attractive it is goes firstly into a new rank on the universe page. Secondly, it reflects how "content" your citizens are. A planet with rank 10 citizens will be able to do more damage in attacks/defence than a discontent planet with rank 1 citizens.

This obviously would also move PA from simply being a spreadsheet in your internet browser to something with graphics (albeit quite simple ones).

robban1 · 29 Sep 2006, 12:26

you kinda forget who runs pa atm :/

Ultimate Newbie · 29 Sep 2006, 12:38

Well, displaying the number and types on structures that a planet has on their picture (or being able to tell how many based on the picture) kinda defeats the purpose of a number of scans which people have to pay for the privelige atm - having said that, those scans are quite hopeless and i've wanted them removed for a while

.

I think it would be nice to do things like that, however perhaps players could choose how much water/land/atmosphere etc there was on their planet, and whether it was a desert/lush/snow/barren/temperate etc type climates. the outcome would be different coloured planets (eg, green, blue, red, yellow etc), with sparse or plentiful cloud cover, etc etc. And maybe pollution levels or whatever. You'd have a page just to fiddle with your planet's scheme, and whether it shows up on the galaxy page or not it would show up in a planet scan.

As for people getting resources, i dont know. I just think that a list of the most pretty (etc) planets would be sufficient - wherever there is a list, it is human nature to try and get to the top

.

Heartless · 29 Sep 2006, 12:53

During my time on the PAN development group I advocated having a more graphical user-interface (mainly because it is possible to do that). Main reason against that was actually that people could no longer play via cellphone or textbrowser. I would have understood it if pa team would have said "nope, getting that many graphics done costs too much money" but that was nowhere mentioned at all.
I guess this is once again a case of "nice idea" (I really love it and I wouldn't just stop there!) but overall it will never be implemented because of ... well you know whom.

Zeke · 29 Sep 2006, 13:43

Basically a nice idea, but I think it gets boring after some round, and I wouldt replace the gal banner completely and an option to turn this "planet view" of and on, and I wouldn't say that its affect our damage or anything else..

Tomkat · 29 Sep 2006, 16:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ultimate Newbie

Well, displaying the number and types on structures that a planet has on their picture kinda defeats the purpose of a number of scans.

Yeah, I guess that it would have to be representative of something but you wouldn't be able to work out the exact number from the picture.

Quote:

Originally Posted by UN

I think it would be nice to do things like that, however perhaps players could choose how much water/land/atmosphere etc there was on their planet, and whether it was a desert/lush/snow/barren/temperate etc type climates. the outcome would be different coloured planets (eg, green, blue, red, yellow etc), with sparse or plentiful cloud cover, etc etc. And maybe pollution levels or whatever. You'd have a page just to fiddle with your planet's scheme, and whether it shows up on the galaxy page or not it would show up in a planet scan.

Yeah, that'd be awesome. It'd also mean there'd be a proper difference between how planets looked.

Quote:

Originally Posted by UN

As for people getting resources, i dont know. I just think that a list of the most pretty (etc) planets would be sufficient - wherever there is a list, it is human nature to try and get to the top

.

The resources would be an incentive for people to score other's planets. Otherwise people might not bother doing it so hardly anyone would have a score.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Heartless

I guess this is once again a case of "nice idea" (I really love it and I wouldn't just stop there!) but overall it will never be implemented because of ... well you know whom.

Well it hopefully would attract more people to the game, which would be a reason for PA Team to look into it.

I mean if I told someone I played PA and they wanted to see what it was like, then showing them the overview screen and a few battlereports will hardly excite them enough to sign up.

If you showed them your planet and a few others, it might be an incentive to sign up and see if they could do better.

Heartless · 29 Sep 2006, 16:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tomkat

Well it hopefully would attract more people to the game, which would be a reason for PA Team to look into it.

I mean if I told someone I played PA and they wanted to see what it was like, then showing them the overview screen and a few battlereports will hardly excite them enough to sign up.

If you showed them your planet and a few others, it might be an incentive to sign up and see if they could do better.

Been there, done that. I did argue a lot in favour for such things but it got rejected.

jt25man · 29 Sep 2006, 21:28

Why not just copy from WoW and go with having customizable pictures of the ruler based on race. Then you can play with there hair, clothes, skin color variations, crown, throne, robe, or whatever else.

Chef! · 30 Sep 2006, 01:54

Really like this idea, definatly something worth thinking about for round 20. I will mither the development team about this.

Ultimate Newbie · 30 Sep 2006, 06:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by jt25man

Why not just copy from WoW and go with having customizable pictures of the ruler based on race. Then you can play with there hair, clothes, skin color variations, crown, throne, robe, or whatever else.

I dont see why they are mutually exclusive - have a place to play with your planet's scheme, and then a wardrobe to play with your ruler's picture

.

They're both great ideas.

Kal · 30 Sep 2006, 10:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Heartless

During my time on the PAN development group I advocated having a more graphical user-interface (mainly because it is possible to do that). Main reason against that was actually that people could no longer play via cellphone or textbrowser. I would have understood it if pa team would have said "nope, getting that many graphics done costs too much money" but that was nowhere mentioned at all.
I guess this is once again a case of "nice idea" (I really love it and I wouldn't just stop there!) but overall it will never be implemented because of ... well you know whom.

The plan with PAN was to have a graphical based AJAX interface and a simple text based interface. The issue is and always will be the graphics side of things as we have allways had issues getting graphcis produced, and t he more grpahics we have the harder it is to change them and the game in the future.

Tomkat · 30 Sep 2006, 15:25

Round 20 should have some sort of large improvement/introduction made to it though, like PAX did. I guess it'll be PAXX! Or PA2X

Obviously this would take a lot of work compared to most of the other suggestions, which are (as far as I can tell) just a bit of coding.

I don't know how graphics and coding of graphics would work though (a customisable planet is no easy thing to do, I'd have thought). Would you have to ask jolt for some money to pay a graphic developer or something to do it? It's a lot of work for someone to want to undertake voluntarily - unless it was for a university course. Also, which coding language would need to be used for it? Java? Flash?

Kal · 30 Sep 2006, 15:31

I agree we do need to get something new out the door soon - pax is now older than pre-pax. But resources are somehwat limited atm.

I'd personally like to avoid using things like java or flash with PA if at all possible to maximise compatibility.

robban1 · 30 Sep 2006, 16:20

r20 should be free so we get more ppl playing :/ a larger playerbase should really be the first prio for the pateam

Kal · 30 Sep 2006, 16:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by robban1

r20 should be free so we get more ppl playing :/ a larger playerbase should really be the first prio for the pateam

The last free round did not result in a boost in paid accounts in the round that followed it. Additionally I don't think January is the best time for a free round.

Tomkat · 30 Sep 2006, 16:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by robban1

r20 should be free so we get more ppl playing :/ a larger playerbase should really be the first prio for the pateam

A free round would have to go hand-in-hand with some sort of marketing, to tell new players about the game.

You can't just make the game free and expect thousands of people to suddenly flock to it. It needs to be publicised. If/When we get a free round, it needs to be a big event.

robban1 · 30 Sep 2006, 16:39

well something needs to be done cos as it is now there isnt gonna be any pa to play after some rounds but hey if you add up pateam and their friends to about 200 ppl you got a stable ground of players

Heartless · 30 Sep 2006, 17:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kal

The plan with PAN was to have a graphical based AJAX interface and a simple text based interface. The issue is and always will be the graphics side of things as we have allways had issues getting graphcis produced, and t he more grpahics we have the harder it is to change them and the game in the future.

Yeah and as said before: having a text-based client as well as a AJAX based interface screw over a lot of the possible fancy features a gui would offer. Especially when - as it was planned - the text based interface was supposed to be the default.

Fiery · 30 Sep 2006, 18:36

TomKat,
I like the idea of PA-SIMS. We can make our little characters and go visit each other's planets and have parties!

Ramihyn · 30 Sep 2006, 22:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tomkat

Round 20 should have some sort of large improvement/introduction made to it though, like PAX did. I guess it'll be PAXX! Or PA2X

Obviously this would take a lot of work compared to most of the other suggestions, which are (as far as I can tell) just a bit of coding.

I don't know how graphics and coding of graphics would work though (a customisable planet is no easy thing to do, I'd have thought). Would you have to ask jolt for some money to pay a graphic developer or something to do it? It's a lot of work for someone to want to undertake voluntarily - unless it was for a university course. Also, which coding language would need to be used for it? Java? Flash?

You could start with using a Perlin noise generator (http://freespace.virgin.net/hugo.eli...s/m_perlin.htm) or use some of the source from here: http://shedletsky.com/jjshed/perlin/

One layer for planet texture and one layer for clouds - maybe a distorted third layer for "special" effects like a hurrican, meteor craters or a megacity.

Virtual Terrain Project has tons of useful resources for more serious planet creation.

Sean O'Neil (author of GLPlanet and GLCloud) has some articles about planet creation on gamasutra and gamedev. GPU GEMS 2 might be useful too.

Use a .php or .pl script to collect user input, add some planet specific infos like the number of structures and call an external function creating a sphere mapped planet texture into a .jpg. Assign the .jpg to the planet. Shouldnt matter which language the planet generation is coded in

ps: unleashing such a cpu hungry feature on the poor server(s) will likely result in pretty long waiting times when its first introduced

Kal · 1 Oct 2006, 00:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Heartless

Yeah and as said before: having a text-based client as well as a AJAX based interface screw over a lot of the possible fancy features a gui would offer. Especially when - as it was planned - the text based interface was supposed to be the default.

graphical interface was the default (asusming the browser supported it - there would have been a test at login)

Makhil · 1 Oct 2006, 03:17

Free rounds don't exist, either the players pay, or Jolt pays.
There's a lot of nice ideas suggested on the forum to improve PA without recoding the whole thing. A new 'Suggestion status' thread or an update of the current one could help sorting all the ideas and select the best.

myk · 4 Oct 2006, 03:23

Okay, I have seen this planet graphics on other games, I am not going to mention a name. I particularly liked it, however for a game like PA, does it/would it work?

Yes I understand that there are calls for big improvements for Round 20 and we are certainly listening to the community on it. I would like to see something in PAXX as TomKat put it emulates this suggestion somewhat. The specifics would have to be worked out, and major changes would have to take place.

Shyne · 4 Oct 2006, 12:23

z0mg your planet is hawt !!

Check out those mountains and that bush !