Wishlist

General wishes

Jack-audio-connection-kit support

• Why? For sound input? Sound output already uses SDL --Nct 14:04, 7 December 2005 (PST)

• SDL doesn't work well with jackd. I've tried, unless you know of a way. some people must use jackd do to the cards they have, such as me (the m-audio 1010LT) and glob2 doesn't work with it for sound --AppleBoy 09:06, 10 December 2005 (PST)

A VoIP solution for in game talking

• Already implemented for Linux, just need to implement system-specific code for OS X and Win32 --Nct 14:05, 7 December 2005 (PST)

Revamped tutorial and campaigns

• Mission Objectives screen is ugly. When running at higher resolutions the text is very hard to read, since the whole description can fit on one line. Maybe add a preview of the map you're about to start? --Stefan Kangas 01:41, 18 December 2005 (PST)

• Good idea, we could also limit the width --Nct 02:34, 18 December 2005 (PST)

A better map editor

• Areas as invisible flags. So we don't need to hardcode coordinates in the script
• Be able to edit globules & buildings & flags. Ideally, before dropping as well as once dropped would be nice.
• Possibility to set a time limit for a game, and also multiple win conditions, like who has most resources after one hower....etc..
• Make the script editor more user friendly

• (syntax highlighting, highlight errors in the compile, or make it easier to find them at least), would be very nice if there was an API to go with as well perhaps a lil help button with possible commands and explanations for them. It is essential if we expect many users to help us script that we make it as easy as possible

Bookmarks for LAN-games

it's very uncomfortable to have to type the same url (dyndns) again and again. also when it crashes it would be nice to at least not have to type it again.

User wishes

AppleBoy's Wishes

• Ysagoon online renamed to something cooler
• A new meta server setup that allows the linking of multiple ones for redundancy

basically something like battlnet from blizzard, where you can choose your location and connect to that one

• have the metaserver deny you access if you aren't running the latest version
• have a seperate metaserver for testing versions
• level4 towers able to attack air! necessity!
• before the game, be able to choose the following:

1. fruit vision enabled or disabled? - reason being sometimes a person will turn it on to turn the tables when they are loosing because they have more fruit (ok, I do this to others, but still)
2. fog of war?
3. allies (still changeable in game)

Giszmo's Wishes

Aging

Imagine the globs growing old. So from a certain moment in time on they start moving slower, needing more rest (grow hungry more quickly) and also needing a doctor more often (randomly loose health) until they finally die because they didn't reach the hospital in time. Just a thought ;)

Improved Map Management

Concept

The idea is to provide a possibility to both provide own maps to the community and easily retrieve maps from others. For this purpose I suggest to implement some new features in the YOG-map-selection-screen.

• a "share map" button next to every map that is not already shared via the YOG-server. Probably the Player will be asked to provide a name and comment.
• some filters:
  • a checkbox "list online maps": if checked, maps that are not yet downloaded are listed with those on the pc
  • min rating (attention: new maps start with 10 votes "0/10")
  • min player count
  • max player count
  • map has fruits
  • min size
  • max size

Where does the rating come from? Well I suggest to put it in the "game finished" screen as an extra tab where the player can change his mind on the map (vote or withdraw his vote).

Implementation

In order to be able to distinguish maps i suggest to force to use unique lower case names with a-z and SPACE only. In order to really be able to distinguish maps i suggest to calculate checksums (md5, SHA-1). Those are the handles in the databases. the database (?) that stores the login data of yog-players gets a table of all the map-data

CREATE TABLE map (
  id int not null auto_increment,
  hash char(60),
  url varchar(100),
  playerCount int,
  sizeX int,
  sizeY int,
  fruitCount int,
  PRIMARY KEY (
    id));

and a table player2map

CREATE TABLE player2map (
  playerId int,
  mapId int,
  vote int,
  comment varchar(200),
  PRIMARY KEY (
    playerId,
    mapId));

Improved pathfinding

1. identify one-wide passages (every square accessible from 2 of 8 directions is part of a one-wide passage)
2. trigger when a glob moves within a passage
3. make the passage propagate gradients in one way only so other globs will be forced into the same direction.
4. when the last glob leaves the passage open it again for both directions

although i guess the above would dramatically improve pathfinding without the need of human assigned one way areas as proposed earlier there remain special cases:

differently fast globs

faster globs will not be allowed to ignore the global gradient due to a collision. switch off local gradients while within a passage!

dead ends

if a glob realizes it can't reach its target without violating a passage-rule choose the best passage and make it switch direction

an example of (blue=)"one-wide passages". each of those blue areas will have to be treated as one so direction switches on the whole length.

Steph's Wishes

Magician

We can have a new unit, let's call it magician, caster or shadow for now. This unit will undiscover the map around it for the enemy (i.e., recreate black). When upgraded, it could kill explorers. This way, the information control get a first place in glob2's gameplay. Ideally, it should be linked to papyrus. I still don't know how it should be done (by a building, an upgrade, a continuous consumption, per shot consumption, ...). On the implementation side, this effectively bring ranged weapon ability to units. Nevertheless, it should be implementable in a reasonable time if we use the bullet code.

God actions

We can have global effects. For instance, buildings providing prestige could recharge some global action capacities, which can be used globally. I can imagine:

• mass conversion (convert all units on an area of map)
• garden of eden (a nice way to recreate wheat !)
• holy forest (you always loved trees didn't you ?)
• mass depression (remove all happyness of units on an area of map)
• eye of god (reveal the whole map)

Singularity Obelisks

We can have a new building, the singularity obelisk. It would allow any globule to instantly travel to any other obelisk. This would allow the unit to get a shorten way in some situations, for instance to go from one island to another.

This can be not-too-hardly implemented by modifiying the gradient computation system so that when it encounters an obelisk, it looks around all other obelisks belonging to this player or its allies (obelisk sharing being a question to discuss) to see if there is a lower value for its target (or higher, depending the gradient algorithm conventions).

Of course, an obelisk would be hard to build, and perhaps would consume, let say, papyrus ;-) (so that the Archwizards in it can write and cast spells to maintain singularity). We could even imagine to make the obelisks quite dangerous so that if they reserve of papyrus fall to zero singularity collapses and make a lot of damage around.

wiz's Wishes

Make AI (m.b some other parts too) use multiple threads. 6 AI Castors periodicaly slugging out X2 3800+.

Wishes from the forum

• Look over the strength of level3 buildings, maybe too weak?
• Is the issue where the AI will still allow it's buildings to be surrounded by wood or wheat fixed?

Out of game wishes

• Update AUTHORS file: please add yourself in it if you have contributed something that has been added to releases.
• Go through bugtracker and forum to compile a more thorough list of all bugs, document them, close fixed ones, etc.
• Finish moving everything over to globulation2.org