04-12-2016, 08:46 PM
I think that issue is more complicated than that. We may not know what we ultimately want to get, but original Colobot devs doesn't seem to know either. Just look at missions: Have you ever tried doing them using only programs? Most players would struggle a great deal at mission 2-4, since that mission is incredibly hard due to low energy levels on both bots. It might be even impossible without "cheating".
Speaking of which, radar stations doesn't affect robot's radars at all. Take example of 2-4: In that mission you are supposed to build a Converter, then Power Station, then Radar Station, then take your Winged Grabber, find Black Box and bring it back to Space Ship. How can you cheat that? Build Power Station, use superior radar(BlackBox) command, and go straight for black box. This is just one of many examples which shows how game wasn't designed with programming in mind.
And back to main point, after 2-4, player who decided to do program-only playthough will meet another obstacle: The Damned 3-3, which is impossible to do for medium to even higher skilled programmers. Those who would be able to do it are probably doing their own games instead.
But at same time, if this game is not about programming, then about what? What is interesting in Colobot on it's own? What would make people stick to this game? I'll let you answer that question.
As for missions and programming course, since C2 was brought up, here is what I was thinking:
Colobot 2 should have 3 campaigns, an easy "Human" campaign, a hard "Machine" campaign, and a mixed one in between, medium difficulty. First campaign, an easy one, is like introduction. It's not designed to be played with only programs. Player do get a lot programs from Huston, to make it easier to deal with simple and repetitive tasks. It is for these who don't want to code (so they can go f❤❤k themself) but also to show how programs can be used to make things easier. Then, second campaign is harder to do without programs (many tasks required to be done simultaneously), and player starts with less of them, this is when player needs to come up with his own scripts to beat that campaign. Last campaign, is code-only. For those who are deep into this game. This solves problem with programming course, as it's logically placed between 1st and 2nd campaign, and player can basically solve it parallely to 1st one.
As for topic of C2 itself, before we'd do something, we'd need to talk about C2 design, and you need to talk within Terranova team specifically. We have one shot on making "a second" game, we can't just blow it, otherwise it might end up like original Colobot, or even worse
Speaking of which, radar stations doesn't affect robot's radars at all. Take example of 2-4: In that mission you are supposed to build a Converter, then Power Station, then Radar Station, then take your Winged Grabber, find Black Box and bring it back to Space Ship. How can you cheat that? Build Power Station, use superior radar(BlackBox) command, and go straight for black box. This is just one of many examples which shows how game wasn't designed with programming in mind.
And back to main point, after 2-4, player who decided to do program-only playthough will meet another obstacle: The Damned 3-3, which is impossible to do for medium to even higher skilled programmers. Those who would be able to do it are probably doing their own games instead.
But at same time, if this game is not about programming, then about what? What is interesting in Colobot on it's own? What would make people stick to this game? I'll let you answer that question.
As for missions and programming course, since C2 was brought up, here is what I was thinking:
Colobot 2 should have 3 campaigns, an easy "Human" campaign, a hard "Machine" campaign, and a mixed one in between, medium difficulty. First campaign, an easy one, is like introduction. It's not designed to be played with only programs. Player do get a lot programs from Huston, to make it easier to deal with simple and repetitive tasks. It is for these who don't want to code (so they can go f❤❤k themself) but also to show how programs can be used to make things easier. Then, second campaign is harder to do without programs (many tasks required to be done simultaneously), and player starts with less of them, this is when player needs to come up with his own scripts to beat that campaign. Last campaign, is code-only. For those who are deep into this game. This solves problem with programming course, as it's logically placed between 1st and 2nd campaign, and player can basically solve it parallely to 1st one.
As for topic of C2 itself, before we'd do something, we'd need to talk about C2 design, and you need to talk within Terranova team specifically. We have one shot on making "a second" game, we can't just blow it, otherwise it might end up like original Colobot, or even worse
"Deep within all of us lives an idiot, and if you let that idiot dictate your decisions your live is going to be rough."
~ Ryan Letourneau, 2k15
~ Ryan Letourneau, 2k15