Is OTTD getting to complex?

[John_Smith]

With the new game ‘City in Motion’ coming out, giving OTTD for the first time some real compensation in the market. City in Motion is a city-based mass transportation simulator for the PC. Players operate their own transportation company, building a public network with a variety of vehicle types, including buses, trams, and subway trains. Sounds like another game I know? City in Motion will not beat OTTD, this time, however I very sure the CIM team know of OTTD, and are following it closely and soon, we will see PBS, long bridges and much more in City in Motion 2 based on the form of the OTTD community. The question I am asking is OTTD getting too complex in many areas and needs to be made simpler or risk losing the next generation of OTTD players?

For example number of settings. At last count there are over 250 settings stored, in up to four different places. Settings like length of time the error message shows, and how the game is saved, adds a not needed levels of complexly in my view. Setting that are standard in other games, are available options in OTTD, adding a small but complexly to the game. I know many people out are going to say “I love the micro managing and being able to control OTTD in the way I like.” However the problem is that this is a game not an operating system. The more complex the game becomes the less likely people are going to continue to play the game after downloading.

Other areas include the vehicle information screen becoming unclear and old, the way the main menus are laid out, and many sub areas that will not be listed here all add to the first time user dislike of the game and moving on to other games.

In my view this comes out of the open source development process may not be well defined and the stages in the development process, such as the relationship between the end users, and the game for all users of all ages not just the core crowd users of all may be ignored. This is has noting to do with open source in some case including OTTD open source improves and strengthen a project aims and objectives. I not suggesting that OTTD goes closed source, it just the main open source causes problem in project such as this.

John Smith.

[Lordmwa]

With all the default options in the standard trunk download with the standard graphics i dont think there is much that is too bad.

I do however think we need some sort of manual and or tutorial built into the program download

[oberhümer]

There's a guy compiling a complete, extremely detailed manual over here (German), but it'll be printed and cost around 15 euros.

[Hyronymus]

The view the developers have is that everything new shouldn't render the old, original features obsolete. Perhaps it's an idea to break with this approach and create new basic features?!

[Yexo]

The view the developers have is that everything new shouldn't render the old, original features obsolete. Perhaps it's an idea to break with this approach and create new basic features?!

It would not be so much about creating new basic features as well as removing old features / settings that can now be accomplished in another way.

[Hyronymus]

The view the developers have is that everything new shouldn't render the old, original features obsolete. Perhaps it's an idea to break with this approach and create new basic features?!

It would not be so much about creating new basic features as well as removing old features / settings that can now be accomplished in another way.

Yes, that is a better way of saying it .

[Dave]

Am I led to infer from that post, then, that the devs consider the current incarnation as being somewhat clunky and lumbersome?

[Yexo]

No, you can't. The only thing you can conclude from that post is that I, personally, think there are currently too many settings. I think several can be removed and others can perhaps be removed from the gui so they're just accessible from the config file and console.

[Alberth]

The question I am asking is OTTD getting too complex in many areas and needs to be made simpler or risk losing the next generation of OTTD players?

Is OpenTTD getting too complex? Perhaps.

Does it need to be simpler? I doubt it. There is a reason why people play OpenTTD and not some other transport game. Throwing away all the advanced features basically reduces OpenTTD to your average commercial transport game (and a very bad one, our pixel graphics are non-sellable by todays commercial standards).
So we wouldn't attract any new players, and we would lose all current players. Not sure how that is better.

Do we risk losing the next generation of OTTD players? No idea, what is the current generation according to you? I wouldn't know. I believe people of all ages play the game. I have seen teenagers here, and have read about elderly people discovering the game when they are 70+ years, and having a good time.

Also, much like any open source game, we mostly don't care about market share. I see that as a strength, as it allows us to do things impossible otherwise.

For example number of settings. At last count there are over 250 settings stored, in up to four different places.

Yep settings could use some re-organization in the form of less places. Removing settings is a whole different matter, because people use all settings.
For a casual game, it is an insane number of settings. For a game that you play for a long time, it gives you endless possibilities to experiment and tune the game to your liking.

The more complex the game becomes the less likely people are going to continue to play the game after downloading.

Yet the game has already survived 25 years or so. How did that happen then?

I think OpenTTD is not a game for a casual player. It is a game for a strategic player that likes to build nice networks for a long time. That is a different segment of the market, with different ideas of what a 'good game' means.
The commercial games are good for getting people attracted to simulation games. Once they are caught by the virus, they will eventually find and play OpenTTD forever

Other areas include the vehicle information screen becoming unclear and old, the way the main menus are laid out, and many sub areas that will not be listed here all add to the first time user dislike of the game and moving on to other games.

GUI is partly by design, as to preserve the look and feel of the original game. For another part, apparently nobody cares enough to invest time into fixing it.

In my view this comes out of the open source development process may not be well defined and the stages in the development process,

That is not a property of open source, but a property of a program developed purely by volunteers.

Whether it is really as bad as you say is debatable.

If you had to pay for the development, the game would be dead and buried ages ago. Instead, it still lives, and is developed in many different directions by many people. (And that are not just the people writing the actual code, but also people doing testing, reporting bugs, discussing designs and ideas, doing translations, updating the wiki, etc.)

Not all directions are successful, or useful to all players, but why is that a problem? Either they evolve to something better, or it dies. At least it gives more diversity in the OpenTTD eco system, which is good too

OTTD in the last few years has improved in major leaps and bounds, however with every leap and bound problems step in and need sorting.

Sure, and they will. It is just not defined exactly when that will happen nor who will do that. In general, it is the first person bothered enough by it to invest time into the problem to fix it.
(Which is only possible due to the fact OpenTTD is open source. With closed source, you'd be stuck with it for a much longer time.)

I am not a developer, or artist so have no idea how to help, but I am trying to make a good game a great game.

That's easy, find a problem you are annoyed by, start working on it, and stick with it until you see no more ways to make progress.
It will take time, it is hard, it is entangled in 5 other problems, you will try the wrong way to solve it first, repository owners will not agree with your solution, but oh, it is *so* sweet when you finally find the right solution and all the pieces fall exactly at the right spot.

[planetmaker]

No, you can't. The only thing you can conclude from that post is that I, personally, think there are currently too many settings. I think several can be removed and others can perhaps be removed from the gui so they're just accessible from the config file and console.

The latter would already go a long way

A few settings cannot easily be removed as changing them to another value kind of breaks the savegames which used another one.

But maybe people take this opportunity to suggest settings which could either go completely or at least go into hiding into the config file (yes, i personally also think there are too many settings, at least in the GUI - even though it's called 'advanced' settings). Mind also that only recently about half a dozen settings were scrapped, many remaining ones probably are used somewhere by different people differently.

EDIT: maybe post your config files so that we see what actually IS used.

[Lordmwa]

Could i suggest a few "one touch presets"

Perhaps....

"Beginner" Settings are in place to make the game easy - i bet some total beginners find it a challenge to make money to start with
"Original" Where as many new features as possible are disabled (not improved replacements like YAPP)
"Realistic" Where all things like realistic acceleration are turned on
"Fast" For if somebody uses an old computer, anything that needs lots of calculations
"Custom" Basically what we have now - maybe we need a new an innovative settings interface. I quite like the current one except how expanding some send it off the screen....

[ostlandr]

Too complex? I don't think so. You can just load the game and play using the default settings. When I use the older, slower computer, I play "vanilla" OTTD- just the basic game with default vehicles. That's relaxing, but can't really hold my interest.

The complexity is what really has me hooked on OTTD. I prefer to play the CargoDist version, or better yet, ChillCore's PatchPack. Industry set is Pikka's Basic Industries, Train set is NARS 2, road vehicles are eGRVTS and HEQS, and a ton of other NewGRFs to make OTTD look and work like I want it to. Hideously complex, but I love it!
When I have a really good game going, it doesn't feel like a "game." It feels like running a transport company. Even with the current pixel graphics, my games look like a virtual model railroad to me. Between North American Stations and Industrial Stations Renewal, I can create very realistic structures. I prefer the original TTD graphics to OpenGFX, so it's nice that I have that choice. If I want to, I can even use the Japanese graphics.

[2006TTD]

I'm fine with the current OTTD and the learning curve isn't that steep. However, a live tutorial like the original TTD can help beginners more than instructions on the wiki (Which is how I managed to get the hang of the game when I first tried it).

I agree with ostlandr that playing OTTD feels like running a transport company, this is a higher level of enjoyment.

For the graphics, pixel graphics are only one of the styles/disciplines (compare with Minecraft). The small size and palette colours makes designing easier, with these limits.

In fact I like/favor the large number of configurations, fine-tuning the game does make the game better - even small things count. Of course, you can 'care not' on the settings and jump into the game directly.

For players concerned with complexity, I propose a new setting to hide the 'complex' ones.

[John_Smith]

Well, thank you for your comments.

There were several threads to the first post I made. However of the main discussion point that came in your posts was the number of settings in OTTD, so I will address that pointer first.

The number of setting and the number location of all the settings are stored are growing out proportion to what OTTD is, a transport simulation game. For example there are several location where the setting are stored, they included:

1. New game settings.
2. Game options.
3. Advanced settings.
4. Difficulty settings.
5. NewGRF settings.
6. AI settings.

Six different places, and at the last count there are about 250 settings. The main area in my mind that needs to be cleared up is settings that add very little value to the end user, and should be done automatically by the game itself. This is not settings that change the game like max vehicle limits or vehicles expire dates. But settings like, show vehicle speed in status bar, show town population in the town label and duration of error message. Having the game automatically doing simple things that it should do and simply decrease the complexly of the setting menus would have benefits for the players of the game.

This was best stated by Hyronymus, “that the developers have [the view] that everything new shouldn't render the old, original features obsolete. Perhaps it's an idea to break with this approach and create new basic features?” Sometime altering software can dramatically change the end user overall experience of the software. One example is the Microsoft Office program. In 2007, the new version of Microsoft Office was released with of putting in the Ribbon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribbon_(computing). Some may say that it was a step back however the ribbon spread through all the Microsoft product ranges, from WordPad to its e-mail. It was risky move by Microsoft with products like Open Office and Google Docs both free software, nipping at Microsoft shoes at the time. The Ribbon improved the for the most people there end user experience, and to this day Microsoft is still one of the biggest Office Suite manufactures and do not get to that position and stay there today by doing nothing.

I am not suggesting that we start putting diesel in the SH’40, but a looking at the overall picture of the game with fresh eyes from the root to branch would help and attaching new people to the game. Focusing on one area such area path based signals, cargo dist. and the 32 bit graphics adds to the tree of OTTD but not the overall forest that is OTTD. I know the game is not for profit and the budget will never be as big as say the Call as Duty series or the average run of the mill game. The improvements of the game by decreasing complexly and adding to the overall end user will take time.

By clearing the old original TTD features that is holding the game back maybe long, and hard, but getting to game to that is better, and sleeker could lead one the best transport simulation game online for free, and who does not want that?

John Smith.

[Zuu]

Relevant older thread - User Experience / Interface Design

If you have anything new to add to that thread (after having read the discussion there) I think it would be good if you add it there.

[555gln22]

The big things in OTTD that cause problems at the minute are structural things, like Tunnel and Bridge wormholes, curved tracks, and diagonal roads, which are related to fairly basic concepts that underpin the basic structure of the game.

Fixing them wouldn't make much difference to the casual player, but it would be an enormous amount of work, and would definitely break lots of stuff.

I think that once OTTD reaches a place that is considered "feature complete" (and who is to say where that is), that version should be spun off to OTTD Classic, and efforts should be made to upgrade the map array to full 3D, which will then allow a lot of possibilities. That's just my opinion, and I'll be happy to play on regardless.

[Lordmwa]

We already have some code branches, maybe this should be exploited more

[planetmaker]

The big things in OTTD that cause problems at the minute are structural things, like Tunnel and Bridge wormholes, curved tracks, and diagonal roads, which are related to fairly basic concepts that underpin the basic structure of the game.

Fixing them wouldn't make much difference to the casual player, but it would be an enormous amount of work, and would definitely break lots of stuff.

I think that once OTTD reaches a place that is considered "feature complete"

It is "feature complete" as of 1.0.0 as it can be used as a 100% free re-implementation of TTD - that's why it is meanwhile 1.0.x and not 0.x anymore. Everything which is done now is "extra" - the question is rather of what is the long-term vision?

[TERdON]

One idea about the settings, which is used in some more complex softwares: Group the settings according to (subjective) complexity. E.g. standard would be to only display the most basic settings that newbies might want to change, then you have to click a box to show intermediate and advanced ones.

More available in-context help of the different settings where they are not obvious may also be needed.

And finally - a way to save presets. It's very hard to remember the "good" settings that you indeed found just because of the number of them. Saving a preset would be great, just as for the NewGRFs (maybe even jointly with the NewGRFs - maybe even put NewGRFs and settings in a common GUI?)

[John_Smith]

@Zuu
Yes I was aware of that topic however the this is talking about overall OTTD is too complex and not just setting.

@Davepoth
All those are separate suggestions, and you should break then up and submit separately, in new topics where they will get better feed back.

@ TERdON
Changing the order the setting in my personal view would lead to a worst situation. It would be like going in a library and rearranging the books from the Dewey Decimal Classification to alphabetic.

John Smith