Custom Features

[SpaceRocket]

No matter what, there will always be features in COLOBOT: Gold Edition that some people will like, and some people will not like. So I thought of a system that will not only provide a compromise between them, but will also provide the best gameplay experience possible.

I suggest that there should be a page in the Options menu that will allow users to choose the new features. Almost ALL features added in COLOBOT: Gold Edition would be included.
Exceptions:
-Features that are extremely difficult to make selectable.
-Features that the player is not required to use, and have nothing to do with original careers (such as Code Battles).
-Bugfixes.
-Features that may cause copyright/license issues if removed (such as the ICC logo). 

This way, if a user does not like a new feature in the game, the user can deselect it and play without it. If someone does not like the new CBOT editor, they would deselect  the checkbox next to "New CBOT Editor" in the menu, and they could play with the original editor, but still play with the other features in the game. The game would have to be restarted for the changes to take effect.

Some of the things that would be on the list:

-New CBOT Editor
-New Programming Course*
-New Objects (includes new aliens, bots, decoration, buildings, etc.)*
-New CBOT commands (factory(), build(), etc.)
-New Graphics (or possibly a subset to select specific graphics features, such as Dynamic Shadows)

* = if added

By default, they would all be selected, so the game would work normally unless a player purposely wants to change something in it. If New Objects was deselected and new objects were added to original missions (such as, if a new alien type was added to some of the original missions), then the game would load an original version of the mission without the new items. If the mission is NOT original, but New Objects is deselected, then either a message would notify the user that the level may not work properly, or the game would prevent the user from starting the mission altogether.

It may sound complicated, but much of this is only based on IF certain game elements are added; the base of it is: to create an Options page with Boolean checkboxes that will enable/disable new game features. All you would have to do is preserve some of the original GUIs, scripts, and files in a separate folder, and make the game load them instead of the default if the option is selected. Sure, it may take time, but it would eliminate most of the controversies over new features, since users will be able to select them.

[Simbax]

I don't like this idea. It's already hard to fix the legacy code in order to provide these new features, keeping the old stuff just for some nostalgic haters would make even a bigger mess and, sorry, but I can't see a reason why would someone disable the remake features. If someone doesn't want "remade" stuff, then the one shouldn't touch the remake which is Colobot: Gold Edition, at all and should play the "good old" Colobot instead. "But it won't work on newer systems!" - so download early versions of Gold or modify and compile the source code by itself, no one will stop you. Providing such options would be like "hey, we are working really hard to provide you guys awesome features, let's give you an option to disable them!". It just sounds hilarious. I'm definitely against that idea. It's an open project, if someone doesn't like something, then change it. GOLD is not original COLOBOT, deal with it, it's a new game based on COLOBOT, nothing less, nothing more. If something's bad then well everyone can have their own opinion. It would be hilarious if some reviewer gave the game 9/10, but other 4/10 and the only difference was that the former disabled some features, whereas the latter didn't. What game would be GOLD with such options? It would be impossible to describe it. It wouldn't be a game, it would be a set of mediocre games.

[SpaceRocket]

nostalgic hater

Thanks for the "complement", by the way.


The original COLOBOT does not have factory(), build(), and other features critical to development of certain bot systems, the early versions of gold edition are very buggy, the new versions of gold edition break (or will break) several aspects of the game/code, and modifying the original code to include them is not only probably beyond my (and most COLOBOT user's) abilities, but the programs made on a modified game probably couldn't be shared, as they would often not work on any other versions.

The whole purpose of this suggestion was to give players the ability to choose what features they wanted, instead of being forced to use either all of them or none of them. You might agree with all the new features in gold edition, but not everyone does. This of course isn't just for the current edition, it includes the future, where content in gold edition probably WILL be more controversial than it is now; there will be content added and content removed, and not everyone will agree with everything. What if TerranovaTeam removed, say, AlienWasps, and you voted to keep them but were outvoted? Then, the removal would be forced on you unless you played either a buggy old version of gold edition, or the original version of COLOBOT. TerranovaTeam probably wouldn't do anything like that now, but who knows which players will run it years from now?

[Simbax]

I didn't call you a hater.

And I'm still against. People can have their opinions and we have as well right to not listen to them. We are doing what we think is right, as every creator in the universe, this is our freedom and our project. If someone doesn't like something, then it's his problem, not ours, especially that we're doing it completely for free. The players are in a much better situation anyway, because the game is open source, so everyone can modify it to his taste. If it was some kind of business then MAYBE we'd consider providing such options if some features would be REALLY controversial, but honestly, show me one project which provided such options. I haven't heard of any and there are probably a lot more (even technical) reasons why than we're even discussing here.

"What if TerranovaTeam removed, say, AlienWasps, and you voted to keep them but were outvoted?"

I'd agree with the will of the people or fork the project. I won't be whining like a little kid just because someone decided to not play with me with my favourite toy any more.

[RaptorParkowsky]

I can't see any reason to keep any backward compatibility in a game which is still in alpha stage. The code is a mess, if we want to fix it and make a solid game, we must break a lot of it and remade even 170% of the game to make it right and up-to-date. Of course, there will be a lot of controversial features, missions, objects, UIs, graphic designs, plot and modding solutions, but the community and open-source nature of the development will be polishing this game over the time even after the 1.0 release. "Creating is an act of sheer will, next time it'll be flawless".

So that's why I once said (in the times of Polish forum I believe) it is required from current creators that they should making also a readme's with info about what version of GOLD is required to run any userlevel or mod. There will be a lot of changes and everyone must just live with it.

[tomaszkax86]

There is no point in creating switches to enable or disable individual features. First, there would be hundreds of them. Second, they wouldn't improve the game in any way. There are options for graphical features but this is more than obvious why they exist. If you don't like build() and factory(), just don't use them. We don't plan to remove astronaut's ability to build. Nothing is lost, something was simply added. If someone doesn't want something, they don't have to use it. We don't force anyone to use something that wasn't in original Colobot unless it's obvious improvement. I can't really say that keeping both CBot editors would be good. Is there something wrong with current one? Maybe we'll add some customizations to it, but I don't think we'll bring back the old one. CBot is currently mostly backward-compatible, so there should be no problem to people who prefer "original" CBot to share their programs with each other. New CBot is supposed to be backward-compatible with future versions but we can't fully guarantee that. CBot is somewhat broken and we want to fix it. It will never be forward-compatible though. We add stuff that most people would find useful, but we can't please everyone.