Concerning the most recent edition of War2Combat...

[iL]

@iL

Ever get the chance to see this topic?

Thanks probably mousey, mentions is a great thing helped me to see this topic!

In this modern day in age, file sizes are not as problematic anymore since both hard drives and USB flash drives hold much, much more space than they used to hold in the past.

You're definitely right! That is most likely my old-school stereotypes: to make programs as small as possible. Need to add music+speeches+videos into next version. At least to make it as an alternative for current one.
2 other must-have features:
- to add auto-dep-exclusions for war2 to win10. Default war2 crashes on all windows with DEP, so combat start command-line to add exception for it's exe to dep exclusions, that's not working on win-10.
- to add auto-select-ddraw.dll. Now it works like "try ddraw test4 or minimal, if not works, try test3, else try test2". No idea how to do that automatically.
Appreciate anyone's help with these 2 problems.

[Cel]

Here is one idea that is not automatic but might be a little more user-friendly than what we have at the moment.
We could ask the user directly if the install worked after his first launch and try the different settings for him if it didn't until we find the right one or we run out of options in which case we prompt him to ask on the discord/forum for help.

For example it could be something like this when you run the batch file:
Step 1:
Runs the game with default settings.
Step 2:
When you close the game, if you have not yet approved you will be asked if everything worked properly.
Step 3:
Checking the user's feedback
-> if yes, we save in a file the current configuration and we do not ask the user again next time he closes the game (we don't even have to wait for him to close it).
-> if it didn't work out, then we proceed to the next configuration and try running the game again and repeat step 1 until it works or we are out of options
If all installations configs failed we prompt the user to ask for help on the forum or better the discord.
I guess that could be a suitable way to handle the issue.

I think the same for the game files overall I think if it has all the musics and sounds and cinematics/campaigns it might help more people coming back as they wont feel like the game is broken or something's missing. Even though I guess most of us don't actually play with the music on and certainly barely ever play the campaign, when people come back they are more nostalgic and they might want to play the campaign first before they play online just to get themselves back on track, plus they wont end up in someone's game rediscovering everything while being cursed at.

Hope this helps 
 

[iL]

We could ask the user directly if the install worked after his first launch and try the different settings for him if it didn't until we find the right one or we run out of options in which case we prompt him to ask on the discord/forum for help.

Great idea!
Just to start that dialog box when war2 is being exited.
"How you find graphics? Stay as is or switch?" With the screenshots how it works on each system and buttons "switch, stay". And with the link to the forum.
"Have you been able to host games?" With the link to another thread on the forum.
"Have the been started at all?" Link to thread related to specified OS.
"Just tell us what you think about the game".

Good way like modern trends i think.

I think the same for the game files overall I think if it has all the musics and sounds and cinematics/campaigns it might help more people coming back as they wont feel like the game is broken or something's missing. Even though I guess most of us don't actually play with the music on and certainly barely ever play the campaign, when people come back they are more nostalgic and they might want to play the campaign first before they play online just to get themselves back on track, plus they wont end up in someone's game rediscovering everything while being cursed at.

And you are definitely right again! All these campaigns, briefings, videos and music is very attractive for nostalgic players, returning back after years. And almost useless for those who play every day.
So we need 2 versions: first of all full version for for those who joined for the 1-st time (600-700Mb) and also the small version (50-100 Mb) for those who just want to play on the server.

[I hate naggers]

i always had a thing for black Alleria, want her voice back

[Cel]

Well as you said we don't really care that much about disc space anymore, disc space is cheap I am pretty sure everyone would be fine having the complete install knowing that they also can launch that campaign thing if one day they feel like it right away they install the game once and voilà they are basically done they have everything ready to go out of the box so to speak.

Also if you think a dialog box is cool still we need to make sure that it is not too intrusive that once the game install works properly it wont show up anymore so that you don't run into it every-time you exit the game ;-)

So basically if you do that in a batch file you can check just after starting war2 if you need to wait for it to end or not based on if the user said he was fine with the install or not by reading some saved data from a file. :-)

[Lambchops]

So we need 2 versions: first of all full version for for those who joined for the 1-st time (600-700Mb) and also the small version (50-100 Mb) for those who just want to play on the server.

                             . I agree.





Sort of related kind of interesting stuff:

The original WC2-BNE CD was a dual Audio/Data disk. The WC2 in game music ( not the campaign sounds etc. ) was CD audio... you could actually put the original WC2 CD in a standard audio CD player and play the in-game music. This was also how the music was played in-game. After the initial CD check at startup, the CD-ROM drive was put into audio mode then during the game, the music tracks were played just like any standard music CD.


SC1 achieved massive popularity in Korea. It was also absolutely hacked to pieces. There was an open-source full automation API and bot-vs-bot leagues. This ultimately made the game pretty much unplayable for human players. I havn't even looked at the new SC:BW reboot, but I'm assuming it's an attempt by oldschool lovers of the game to get their game back again and make it playable....   i.e. Make it bot-proof so humans can actually play it again, which is cool



Co-incidentally I was just getting some stuff out of storage today and I found these:

The SC1 is still sealed with the original disk and CD-Key inside... I didn't find my WC3 box tho