Suggestion for in game downloader - display of the missions

[Dark Phoenix]

When new folks use the new 2.0 engine and download the missions from the games built in downloader, they have no idea what the missions are like, which ones to try first ect.. there is simply no info on this to help make a decision. Many folks won't go on a game forum to find such info.

 

The Dark Mod 's missions seems to me can be broken up into categories. Very small maps ( in terms of megabyte size and game play) as well as easier maps can be in these categories - But only if this holds true.

 

For instance:

 

You can have single standalone missions in a category by itself and out of these in decending order on the list you'll see either small medium or large size or perhaps categorized by easy, harder and hardest.

 

Next I would list all the missions that are not standalone.. ie. have multiple parts. I would also list these by either small medium or large size or perhaps categorized by easy, harder and hardest.

 

Perhaps you could have such a category for times to play with short missions listed then, longer and longest.

 

You get the idea. In this way when people download missions they will have a better idea what the mission is like so they can choose which one to download, install and play.

 

Anything will be better IMO than these missions only being listed alphabeticly. What do you guys think??

Edited October 24, 2013 by Dark Phoenix

[jtbalogh]

Already showing the darkmod.txt / readme.txt in a side frame. The author of the mod might just add a category in the text and not need to redesign the downloader.

Edited October 26, 2013 by jtbalogh

[MurcDusen]

There is a button to display additional information about the mission, but the descriptions don't contain the same amount of information for all missions (I'm guessing it's displaying the readme.txt that comes along with a mission if there is one? Never bothered to check). For some missions it just displays basic info like title, author and build time, for others there actually are pictures and fluff text. I'm guessing it's more of a mapper's thing and if they choose to write a comprehensive description of their mission or not.

[Springheel]

Those are fine ideas; it just comes down to a question of manpower. If someone wants to dive in and look at improving the mission downloader, just let us know.

[STiFU]

I always thought a "Recommended playing"-section would be great. I don't want to step on anybodies toes, but the quality of different FMs clearly varies and I would not want to see a beginner ditching the game, just because he didn't like the FM. But then again, we have the beautiful training mission and Saint Lucia in the base package, so people are likely to play these first and see how beautiful the mod can be.

[stumpy]

well the downloader text part is a gui, so you would just need variable in the script for the gui to mesh with to get it to display what type of mission it is. you could just be very simple and have a box saying easy, hard, hardcore, for type of game play, and it could also display type, horror, undead, spider, city streets, mansion, castle, underground, church, monastery, undercover, contest.

[Serpentine]

ah yes, the good old "spider" type mission. Everything about it is just so spider. How do I shot web?

 

Note to self: web arrows.

(And that's why they pay me the big bucks.)

 

Back to the topic: This stuff is all lovely to say, but just remember that gui's are in a virtual 640x480 area, it gets real cluttered, real fast. Not exactly an easy job.