In Honor of the JTS Interview Thread -- What Should Be Next?

[panzerde]

Well said. As for me, the engine changes I'd most like to see are:

   
• 2X 2D zoom in all the games
• Map graphics a la the WWI Campaigns series
• Formation-level morale, particularly in the early modern period games. It's tough to reproduce historical routing behaviors with the current system
• Improved single player AI. I need all the practice I can get against a decent bot for when I play hoomins.
• An option for order delays that's reflective of historical messaging technologies - again, primarily of use in early modern games but would still have some impact in WW2 and post-WW2.
• More options to issue orders to formations and have those orders carried out intelligently versus having to (mostly) move every single counter. This is possible now for moving formations in column and formation movement when not in contact, but could use some tweaking.
• Either clean up the 3D representation of the game to something approaching modern graphics standards or just get rid of it. I know there are some people who like playing these games in 3D mode, and that JTS doesn't really have the resources to dramatically improve them, so I'm reconciled to this - but since you were asking...

[Cyrano]

If I were to pick one and only one, I should have mentioned, it would be Doug's #3.  Drives me absolutely buggy sometimes, particularly in the Napoleonic games.

I think they're taking an honest shot at 1 and 2 (y'all saw that HPS Waterloo got the 1.07 patch that includes #1, right?) and I will likely die wondering why the obsession with the 3D.  It worked with the Battleground titles because of the sizeable art budget that was to hand, but the flame hasn't been worth the candle since.

Best,

Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)

[bbmike]

Yeah, it's mainly the graphics that need updating. The latest release is an improvement but it needs even more. I agree that if the 3D graphics can't be improved on the just get rid of them. 2D works just fine as long as it looks good and you can zoom in and out.

[panzerde]

I will say that I think the counter art in the Panzer Battles series is a very nice improvement. Very nice for a company scale wargame. The map is also an improvement over the traditional Tiller map art, which is no doubt why we're seeing variants of it show up in the other games. It is still too pixelated in zoomed views.


Another thing I'd love to have more of are keyboard shortcuts. I tend to use the ones available, but most are of limited use to a 2D player. WASD to scroll the map would at least placate my map scrolling muscle memory. Shortcuts for "move to top of stack" and "move to bottom of stack" would make playing gunpowder era games much nicer. The shortcuts for moving units seem mostly useless to me, but I would guess someone makes use of them.

[Strela]

@bbmike. The 3D graphics are moddable. No one seems to have done it for some reason. We did cut the 3D out of Panzer Battles once we got the improved 2D graphics as well as the 'hill side' contours to allow depth perception. So they are fixable if someone has the time.

@panzerde I'm going to go back to John re. shortcuts. That seems to be the most asked for feature of late (now that graphics are improved!). In an ideal world they would be totally user mappable with the ability to share and load maps. I'll find out what is possible. You do realise the arrow keys scroll the map like your suggesting for WASD?

[Happy Hedonist]

New development recently has ported some of our games to mobile devices such as iPad and Android. This effort is opening up new possibilities as it is based on C# programming. Once we have that game engine, then other ports are possible and other platform development becomes an option. For example, I have been experimenting with the Unity 3D platform in support of our game engines and there are some interesting possibilities associated with that.

Does this mean that the engine is actually being ported and we could some day see a Panzer Campaigns 2 engine built with Unity?  That would be really interesting. 

And as for what I think should be next?  More Panzer Battles!  I absolutely love Battles of Kursk.

[Boggit]

Well said. As for me, the engine changes I'd most like to see are:

   
• 2X 2D zoom in all the games
• Map graphics a la the WWI Campaigns series
• Formation-level morale, particularly in the early modern period games. It's tough to reproduce historical routing behaviors with the current system
• Improved single player AI. I need all the practice I can get against a decent bot for when I play hoomins.
• An option for order delays that's reflective of historical messaging technologies - again, primarily of use in early modern games but would still have some impact in WW2 and post-WW2.
• More options to issue orders to formations and have those orders carried out intelligently versus having to (mostly) move every single counter. This is possible now for moving formations in column and formation movement when not in contact, but could use some tweaking.
• Either clean up the 3D representation of the game to something approaching modern graphics standards or just get rid of it. I know there are some people who like playing these games in 3D mode, and that JTS doesn't really have the resources to dramatically improve them, so I'm reconciled to this - but since you were asking...

I think those are pretty good choices.

As for a new game I'd love to see Modern Air Wars come to WW1, perhaps with some campaign elements. A Bloody April 1917 would be a good one, but so too some of the 1918 stuff, oh, and Zeppelins! Gotta have Zeppelin raids! ;)

[panzerde]

As for a new game I'd love to see Modern Air Wars come to WW1, perhaps with some campaign elements. A Bloody April 1917 would be a good one, but so too some of the 1918 stuff, oh, and Zeppelins! Gotta have Zeppelin raids! ;)

Zeppelin raids? BRILLIANT!

[panzerde]

@panzerde I'm going to go back to John re. shortcuts. That seems to be the most asked for feature of late (now that graphics are improved!). In an ideal world they would be totally user mappable with the ability to share and load maps. I'll find out what is possible. You do realise the arrow keys scroll the map like your suggesting for WASD?

Strela - yes, I've used the arrow keys in the past but my fingers know WASD from so many other games. I frequently play turns from CM and a JTS game in sequence of an evening, so there's some cognitive dissonance when I try and scroll the map in a Tiller game and it doesn't move!