Simcountry is a multiplayer Internet game in which you are the president, commander in chief, and industrial leader. You have to make the tough decisions about cutting or raising taxes, how to allocate the federal budget, what kind of infrastructure you want, etc..
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New Home Page (Little Upsilon)

Topics: General: New Home Page (Little Upsilon)

Plato (Little Upsilon)

Wednesday, December 23, 2009 - 07:47 pm Click here to edit this post
I find many of the screens hard to read with the green background.

C.Rabs (Golden Rainbow)

Wednesday, December 23, 2009 - 07:59 pm Click here to edit this post
switch to red or some other color then

C.Rabs (Golden Rainbow)

Wednesday, December 23, 2009 - 10:44 pm Click here to edit this post
i personally like the blood red one

Inanna (Golden Rainbow)

Thursday, December 24, 2009 - 03:04 am Click here to edit this post
What I don't like is logging into my messages and getting the same message for 45 different new messages. Something is wrong.....

Also, it appears to be a little bit of room at the bottom of the page, can we keep the newspaper in the open, with the option to minimize, maybe...?

Gold And Coal Researcher (Little Upsilon)

Thursday, December 24, 2009 - 04:12 am Click here to edit this post
i also think it needs a bit more fixing on this.

Inanna (Golden Rainbow)

Friday, December 25, 2009 - 04:11 pm Click here to edit this post
Still, from the new interface, i am getting duplicate message for all new messages. I have 69 new and have yet to see what they say.

I know it isn't on my end becuase on my LU main i have the old interface, and i read all new messages fine, just something to look into before you guys make this permanent.

Petra Arkanian (Little Upsilon)

Friday, December 25, 2009 - 04:54 pm Click here to edit this post
I'm not sure how I feel about the new home page. Instead of making it more intuitive, as the W3C team probably hoped, I think it instead now suffers from an information overload. Whereas navigation may have been difficult for new players on the standard home page because they are unsure of which link goes to what, the new page - in my opinion - simply throws too much in your face. But, as always, I hope W3 will refine their latest improvement. They have been particularly good about that in the past year or so.

spartacus303 (Little Upsilon)

Friday, December 25, 2009 - 06:46 pm Click here to edit this post
The new page is completely UGLY.

I hope that they will allow players to keep the old format on, and somehow get rid of that useless popup that says you can switch back.

I saw, disliked and switched back.

I barely tolerate the ugliness of the portal page.

Aaron Doolavay (White Giant)

Friday, December 25, 2009 - 06:51 pm Click here to edit this post
would it look prettier with a train running across it?

spartacus303 (Little Upsilon)

Friday, December 25, 2009 - 07:20 pm Click here to edit this post
The country page would not look "prettier"

but if train transportation were introduced, I think the gameplay would be greatly improved.

Petra Arkanian (White Giant)

Friday, December 25, 2009 - 08:36 pm Click here to edit this post
You fail to specify how.

Edit: Let me be kinder. Manny, I am not against your suggestions or any suggestions for additions to the game. However, when the advantages that would be added to gameplay are not clearly specified it leaves me thinking it would be a feature "just because it would be cool." We don't need more superfluous junk added to the game (like the street maps) ahead of more essential fixes or exciting depth-adding features.

You give me a run-down of how you'd like to see trains implimented and they ways they would/should affect the game + the strategies they would add for players... I will then sign on.

-Wild

spartacus303 (Little Upsilon)

Friday, December 25, 2009 - 10:31 pm Click here to edit this post
Alright then. I will produce an extensive analysis and explanation on how the introduction of "trains" will be beneficial to SimCountry above the obvious "trains are needed for train tracks and traintracks without trains are useless" analysis.

Manny

Petra Arkanian (Little Upsilon)

Friday, December 25, 2009 - 11:42 pm Click here to edit this post
I would appreciate that, because the "trains are needed for train tracks and traintracks without trains are useless" analysis entirely misses the point of distinguishing "useful additions" and "superfluous additions"

Let me get you started, for example... if you were to suggest a way in which more train tracks and perhaps high quality locomotive engines would aid in the war-time supply system. That would be great. Perhaps a productivity bonus to corps for the ability to transport large quantities of supplies and end-products cheaply?

There are two good ideas for you. Much better than your idea to include advertising fees for corporations that you suggested in Jozi chat.

Things that raise costs for players without and benefit down the line = bad suggestions.

Things that potentially add benefits or create new ways to run countries = good suggestions.

You make both kinds of suggestions quite frequently, Manny. IMO, Laguna, Jozi, Tommi, et. all, would take you far more seriously if you learned to distinguish between the two and create supporting arguments or at least supplemental ideas for how your suggestions can be the latter.

whiteboy (Little Upsilon)

Saturday, December 26, 2009 - 12:10 am Click here to edit this post
I actually don't mind the new page too much, I can see how it could be info overload for some, but I actually like the large amount of information being so readily available. However I do have one big complaint, when looking at another country with the new format the 'Map Customization' option is not available which makes things much easier when looking at defenses/garrisons etc since some objects can't be clicked on either because they are not displayed or there are units on top of them.

jakester34 (White Giant)

Saturday, December 26, 2009 - 02:40 am Click here to edit this post
Am I overlooking a link in the new homepage for education priorities and worker transfers? I am still going through the GENERAL Tab for Important Things To Do to get to these 2 screens.

spartacus303

Saturday, December 26, 2009 - 04:09 am Click here to edit this post
Thanks Petra/Wild.

I started the research already. I should be able to present you with a report/study in early Jan.

P.S. I never suggested advertizing fees for corps. I don't even understand your reference. What are/would be advertizing fees ?

Tom Willard (Little Upsilon)

Saturday, December 26, 2009 - 09:42 am Click here to edit this post
Thanks for your comments!

I will discuss all these points with an engineer in the coming week and we will make corrections where needed and possible.

As to the amount of information on the screen:
you can just remove whatever you do not want or don't like and it will not come back unless you put it back.

You can remove the map, or any of the widgets. You can move them around by clicking on the headers as on the portal page and change the configuration of the page.

You can also change colors of fonts, background, titles etc. and your screen will look very differently.

The messages:
we received a couple of complaints on this and obviously something is wrong. There was no detailed explanation but if it is a general problem, we will find it.

Education priorities have never been on the country home page but rather in the menu at the top, under departments--> education etc.
this remained unchanged.

There are indeed some problems with readability and color choices. Some of the pages have not been updated.
This will be corrected coming Tuesday.

In the coming weeks we will add:

The automation button in the header will lead to a page that will allow you or mainly beginners, to request automatic running of some aspects of their country like education, transportation, health but even more in depth, helping them prepare for a buildup of their defensive army.
Each of these options can be turned on or off.

The automatic system will not get them a top score but will make sure the essential things are done correctly.

To achieve higher levels, they will have to turn automation off.

We will also add a new button in that row, "What's next" or similar.

This will allow beginners see what they need to do and help them do it.
We have the important things to do but we want a better one, more context dependent, that will show a small number of items and lead beginners into some learning.

Any ideas on this are welcome. we are now listing the possible features on that page and will implement it ASAP.

We see this as essential and a problem for a long time. New players get to the country home page, look around and think:

Now what?

any answers you have, may help.

Happy new year to everyone.

Noproblem (Fearless Blue)

Saturday, December 26, 2009 - 01:45 pm Click here to edit this post
Would the auto setting buy schools/hospitals/roads/tracks/water in quantities that a new country can afford? Make that part of the automation initially?

What about auto upgrades to corporations, and explanation about what they can do for a corp. Make that part of the initial automation initially?

If a new player doesn't know that 25 new corporations can't be added immediately, limit the number of new corps that can be built.

Once a new player takes over a country, automatic building of corporations should be turned off so that they don't end up with new corporations which supply a product which will already be in oversupply due to c3 overbuild. It can be turned back on by the player. This is one automatic system that seems to do more harm than good.

MAKE LINKS to the section of docmentation for each subject which make the final cut on your list. Of course the documentation needs to be correct.

Inanna

Saturday, December 26, 2009 - 02:42 pm Click here to edit this post
YES, an updated documentation should be of high priority, especially weapon types that are not expalained in the detail section.

Also, any timeframe on Space station trading?

Tom Willard (Little Upsilon)

Saturday, December 26, 2009 - 03:32 pm Click here to edit this post
Thanks for the suggestions.
we will take this into account.

We will introduce targets for various indexes and in some cases, allow the user to decide on the target. we will take cash and profit and loss into account. sophistication always comes as an evolutionary process. we will do it in stages, trying to improve in time.

Automatic building corporations in C3 countries:

The current process only builds corporations producing products that are in short supply.

This may of course change overtime but at time of creation, there must be a shortage of 50+ corporations, most times it is 100+ and only several are being build before the next game month and a new evaluation of the market.

Petra Arkanian (Little Upsilon)

Saturday, December 26, 2009 - 07:24 pm Click here to edit this post
Tom, have you read the suggestion I made with regards to automation options for investment funds?

https://www.simcountry.com/cgi-bin/discus/board-auth.cgi?file=/8/14299.html&lm=1261324810

Just curious how possible it would be to do something like this.

spartacus303 (Little Upsilon)

Saturday, December 26, 2009 - 10:06 pm Click here to edit this post
Tom,

Can you please promise that that veterans and other players who want to keep the old layout will be able too.

I think the old format is great, and I hope I can keep it. Also, How do i get rid of the popup that says:

"Available now! A new layout for your country page. If you don't like it, you can revert to the old layout on the settings page. "

I reverted back to the old layout yet this annoying popup still shows up.

Tom Willard (Little Upsilon)

Saturday, December 26, 2009 - 11:36 pm Click here to edit this post
Petra,

I just read it now.

It makes sense and most of it is even easy to implement as we are now using our own limits and settings which means that the system is already in place and we just need to allow the users set their own parameters.

Some is new and will require more work.

Don't hold you breath but I will have it looked into in more details and have it written up for a developer. Then, I will have to wait for a development time slot.

I will try to have some of the easy parts implemented quickly.

Petra Arkanian (Golden Rainbow)

Sunday, December 27, 2009 - 12:12 am Click here to edit this post
Thank you very much, Tom.

spartacus303 (Little Upsilon)

Sunday, December 27, 2009 - 06:23 am Click here to edit this post
So I guess my comment was ignored :(

Laguna

Sunday, December 27, 2009 - 02:40 pm Click here to edit this post
Ignored, but ignored with love, Manny. ;0

Laguna

Sunday, December 27, 2009 - 06:06 pm Click here to edit this post
The new home page design lacks both president message and national anthem.

Unsuspecting players must hear my president message.

spartacus303 (Little Upsilon)

Sunday, December 27, 2009 - 06:48 pm Click here to edit this post
All I am asking for is that Tom acknowledges that players who wish to will be indeed able to keep the old layout that's all.

I am one of those players.

Christopher Michael (Golden Rainbow)

Monday, December 28, 2009 - 10:26 pm Click here to edit this post
Although I like the old lay out of the home page, I have experimented with the color layouts in the new page, and have found them fun as a new feature. Things are hard to find on the new page, but I think it's because we are not accustomed to it yet. The only thing I miss (and it may be there and I just do not see it) is the "Important Things to do" button.

Daelin (Little Upsilon)

Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - 11:39 pm Click here to edit this post
The new layout no longer displays how long a player has been inactive (assuming the player has that option turned on).

i.e. "The president was active in the last week."

Daelin (Kebir Blue)

Monday, January 18, 2010 - 02:58 am Click here to edit this post
Also, the new layout doesn't notify you that a disaster has hit your country. You need to read it in the newspaper, instead.

whiteboy (Little Upsilon)

Monday, January 18, 2010 - 04:44 am Click here to edit this post
And I still can't do 'Customize country map' on other player's countries which is the only way you can scout certain things such as garrisons, cities, bases etc. when there are supply units or other types of units on top of them. :S


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