DFD-R3: 335 vs. 563, 1020 vs. 615

[Renegade]

DFD: Daily Feature Deathmatch

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The Cruel Fight For Implementation

This is a Daily Feature Deathmatch post. If you are unfamiliar with the background of this event, please read the announcement, the adjustment and the schedule.

Fight 1

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[335] LineTrail alterations vs. [563] Ability to Show/Hide Campaigns

Fight 2

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[1020] Re-Implementing TreeFires? vs. [615] The ability to set a refinery's docking cell(s)

After the fight is over, two of these issues will be suspended, while the other two move on to the next round.
Remember that the coders will not take part in the discussion, so make your arguments complete, concise and convincing - when it's over, it's over.

Part of that is clearly marking what outcome you support for which issue.
There should be no ambiguity in the issue you're talking about, and it should be clear what outcome you support. Feel free to put your stance in bold, and use simple terminology like "kill #69" or "I want #42 to survive".
This use of simple terminology should be part of a larger argumentation - if this is all your post consists of, it will be ignored. We are interested in argumentations and details to consider, not votes.

A decision will be made either way, a lack of discussion will not cause all issues to live.

Be friendly, be civil, be logical.
You are allowed to try to deconstruct the arguments of those arguing against your candidate, but remember that they don't make the call - there is really no point in getting personal.

The discussion should be contained in this thread, argumentations elsewhere will be ignored, but you are allowed to transfer and adapt points made elsewhere in the past.

We want a good, clean fight.
Let's get it on!

These fights are largely automatically generated - if an issue turns out to be unfit for combat, it will be disqualified and the opponent will go into the queue.

[Black Shadow 750]

Fight one is meh, so onto fight 2.
Whilst tree fires are a nice graphical touch, that's all it is (AFAIK), where as be able to set a refinery's docking cell removes a pointless limitation and allows for different shaped refineries.

Fight 1: meh, neither, either or both
Fight 2: 615

[reaperrr]

Fight 1
While Linetrail alterations is only a cosmetical feature, I think it would see much more wide-spread use than unlockable campaigns. Well, and I just like it more
support #335
kill #563


Fight 2
@BS750: You're wrong, tree fires damage nearby units.
That being said, it is used prominently in the TS mod Twisted Insurrection, and I find it a bit annoying and not worth the implementation. #615 sounds more useful to me, so
support #615
kill #1020

[Blade]

I agree unlockable campaigns would see almost no use and I was dissapointed to see the restored Map Select screen defeated on the argument that unlockable campaigns could provide similar functionality when it IMO doesn't. I would much rather have seen that progress and would have voted for that. As it is I don't feel I have much interest in either from the first fight.

For the second fight I'd rather see the forest fires logic restored, it is a nice graphical effect and can be made to provide tactical possibilities with damaging animations. The docking cell just lets the artists have a slight bit more freedom designing the refinery, they can suck it up and make do with what they have (for the few who would ever even make a new one) IMO. There are plenty of better logics waiting to be implemented, even graphical ones that will have a bigger visual impact than this.

[Nighthawk]

For fight one:
Oh joy, both issues are my own. Nighthawk is not amused.
Hmm, this is odd... having to argue against my own issue, but anyway. LineTrail alterations are a purely cosmetical enhancement. My suggested implementation was for something like engine trails or something along those lines. It's good for eye candy, but it's a fairly minor thing that I wouldn't prioritise. In fact, I probably wouldn't use it massively myself - it was a suggestion that I thought other more graphically-inclined people would likely make use of.

As for the second issue, I've already made plenty of arguments for this in its previous DFD. Blade actually also makes a good point. I don't know who said this provides the same functionality as map selection, but they're assuming wrongly - my request has nothing to do with map selection. My request is simply to have a campaign not show up on the campaign list until you complete one or more other defined campaigns. It could be used to provide some kind of end-of-campaign reward mission for players, or even simply a secret or bonus campaign, e.g. like the Scrin campaign in C&C3.

My stance is support #563, reluctantly kill #335.


For fight two:
Forest fire logic was always a brilliant little piece of eye-candy in Tiberian Sun. However, if it's not implemented properly by modders, it might look a bit odd with some of RA2's brightly-coloured-bloom-vomiting map lighting schemes. Fire animations already exist in the game, so it shouldn't require much asset alteration.

Refineries have always been crippled by this bug. With the current game, you can't make a refinery with less than 3 cells in its bottom row. Westwood's own special refinery foundation (3x3Refinery) can't even be used because of this bug. With this de-regulated, you could finally make smaller refineries. It's not as massively noticeable an effect as burning forests, but it'd be a handy game bug to remove.

Though I like the forest fire logic, I'm going to have to say support #615, kill #1020.

[MRMIdAS]

[563] unlockable campaigns work for me.

out of 2 good issues [1020] gats my vote, forest fires are a great graphical touch.

[Beowulf]

Support #563 for sure. I love #335, but being able to show or hide campaigns is much more useful. I'd really just like to hide the existing ones.

Support #1020. Unless the new scheme allows for multiple docking ports, I don't really see the point. It's a stupid limit, yes, but I don't see it being used enough. I see people using tree fires more since it doesn't require too much additional work, and it would be nice to see those damn forests burn to the GROUND.

[Darkstorm]

I'd love to see more campaigns and you can actually implement a changing faction campaign (a reason to kill that issue) by just unlocking a new campaign. Hell you can go a step further and implement the RA2 campaigns that unlock the YR campaigns that unlock new campaigns. Anyhow, line trailers are a cosmetic feature, and looking at it, I probably wouldn't mess with it.

Tree fires all the way, why does a tree just disappear. Well if Yuri gets his hands on a vaporizer 2000 plus gamma ray rifle, but otherwise it doesn't make sense. TI makes tree fires up front and center in the game play, and I feel it is flawed in ways, it just shows that they can be a big feature. As Beowulf added, it is a stupid limit but it won't be used a lot.

[Blade]

I'd rather the factions changing one be implemented to be honest, I can have the Yuri campaigns "unlock" just by merging the campaigns together although being able to have secret campaigns would be nice. The map select screen combined with faction changes would have allowed branching campaigns and allowed a player to choose which faction to support at branch points, but that seems like it is not to be *sniff*. Besides, without working save games, a lot of the SP stuff will only be used for very short campaigns anyhow.

[Renegade]

Administrative Notice:

Since the last post in this discussion was four days ago, it is assumed to be over. We will proceed to judgement.

[AlexB]

Fight 1
As most of you want the Campaign List extension, I'm going with that. LineTrail anims might indeed be easier to implement and they would serve a more general purpose. Compared to its predecessors, YR's and RA2's map selection and campaign branching are non-existent. This is ok for the campains that come with the games as linear campaigns are special cases of branching campaigns. But it's not universal and should get extended.

Fight 2
Fire seems to be very attractive to some modders. Never stand between a man and his tree.

The docking feature would indeed be nice to have as it is a silly limitation. Some day this should be implemented even if it loses this round. Not a top priority, though.

[Renegade]

Fight 1

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Again with the niche shit! That's what, the fourth issue regarding campaigns today?

Independent from the fact that there still hasn't been an uprising of mappers creating an unending string of ultra-creative single player campaigns, #335 has more ICS support, and given how many people start playing around with trailers on airplanes once they explored trailers for the first time, it's time this gets added.

Seriously. I wish all the people requesting this "allow campaign management feature X" crap would provide campaigns to actually use those features first.
There's no fucking point in enabling selectable, game-mode-dependent, branching, progressively revealed, causal campaigns, if the few mappers out there don't even create standard campaigns!

#563 is a waste of time. It can be reopened when there are 5-10 mods, each using the campaign list and multiple campaigns that follow each other.
Until then, there is no userbase to use this.

Kill: #563
Support: #335

Fight 2

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I am the mod of hell fire, and I bring you...

FIRE! duh duh duuuuh

Sorry, got carried away.

Alright, the awesomeness that is treefires, supported by multiple participants in this discussion and six people in ICS, vs. the boringness that is "oh look, my harvester can now dock over there!", with a few supporters in here, and two in ICS.

Yeah...the request doesn't request multiple docks, there would be no speed advantage to the harvester, and there's really nothing special about it. #615 would allow different foundations for refineries. That's about it. It's essentially a graphical feature.

So if I have to choose between two graphical features, I obviously take the hot, shiny one.

Kill: #615
Support: #1020

[DCoder]

Support #335.