2.6 Testing (Report 2.6 problems here)

TheDog

@rogercooper said in 2.6 Testing (Report 2.6 problems here):

It would be good if the boardgame conversions were first.

Are you referring to the 2.6 map tags?

TheDog

@LaFayette
I noticed in Download Maps panel that there are a lot of maps that dont have description.html file to read.
Perhaps if there is no description.html then TripleA could look for
mapName\games\mapName.notes.html and display that instead?

Also in Download Maps panel at the bottom there are ooooo with reserved space below, what is their function?

Is it for map tags?

As the space could be used to display more listed maps and more of the preview.png and description.html

RogerCooper

@thedog The distinction made between excellent, good & experimental mods was useful. I think most casual users want to load mods derived from the board games and the other mods that are the results of substantial efforts by teams (such as Path to the Victory). I am embarrassed to see my own experimental mods coming up first. And Tutorial should be more prominent, perhaps it should be named 0-Tutorial.

I am willing to review all posted mods and make sure they have a description.html file (and otherwise are working in 2.6).

LaFayette

description.html files

@thedog I ran a script some time ago to extract descriptions from 'triplea_maps.yml' and to dump those as description files. Seemingly since then we have added a number of new maps that did not also add their description files (so, they were added as strictly 2.5 maps). We just need to backfill these.

It is odd that there is a unique description for map downloads and then in 'select game' we show the game notes. Game notes though won't work well for downloads due to the image links in game notes (those won't come through). We also have a problem where the payload for game downloads listing could be really excessive if we showed game notes.

I think the bottom line is that it is prudent to only change so much at a time. I don't think introducing more change right now to this is going to be really good.

Re: space at the bottom of the downloads section

I'm not quite sure what this is referring to. Could you post a screenshot to clarify @TheDog ?

Re: map categories & experimental mods

@RogerCooper
Categories could still exist, we need to add in map tags; right now there are none. With respect to dead-end experimental maps, these should be removed from the listing. It's okay to post a map that is in-progress and being worked on, but seemingly an incomplete and abandoned map has little purpose being downloaded by others.

TheDog

@lafayette
On my screen it looks like this and displays a list of 18 maps

.
If I drag the ooooo down, it looks like this and displays a list of 22 maps

So why have it? Just make the map list and map screen bigger?

LaFayette

@thedog Isn't that the area that displays maps that are being downloaded?

TheDog

@lafayette
Ooh err, it might be, doh
Well you can download at least 3 map files at the same time, nice.

beelee

@LaFayette is it worth the labor to set up a couple bots for the new lobby ?

LaFayette

@beelee It'll need to be done at some point. Trouble is finding empty bots in 2.5 to grab.

beelee

@lafayette right on. Just wanted to test the new lobby.

RogerCooper

@lafayette said in 2.6 Testing (Report 2.6 problems here):

description.html files

Categories could still exist, we need to add in map tags; right now there are none. With respect to dead-end experimental maps, these should be removed from the listing. It's okay to post a map that is in-progress and being worked on, but seemingly an incomplete and abandoned map has little purpose being downloaded by others.

I added a description.html file to 1939_Pact_of_Steel_Big_World, but the description is not appearing on the downloaded maps list.

I think it is important to make the program appealing to new users. Tutorial should be part of the default download process. TripleA versions of the various A&A games are the games of most interest to new users. Perhaps we could give the player the option when installing to download a standard games packing which includes the 2.5 Excellent list. As of now, the games people want the most are at the end of a long list and not clearly identified. If nothing else, we should sort the list so the first page is the best page.

I am also reluctant to purge the experimental mods. Many of them have some interest from PvAI perspective. There are also some poorly designed mods that have good art (e.g. Vikings).

In general, the 2.5 system worked well at segregating the mods. I see no sign of mods being misclassified.

I have starting using 2.6 for actual play. I noticed that the AI seems to be doing better in the Global game.

Here is an example of the blank line. It only appears during editing.

TheDog

I would like a new **** category this is the best of the High Quality/Excellent map, this is for the same reason as Roger, so new players can easily find the best/most popular TripleA maps.

I would like to reclassify 6-8 (3-4%-ish) maps some up and some down, most are Fantasy maps. I agree that most are classified correctly.

I too wish to keep the experimental list, it provides a good resource for maps, units and xml code.

LaFayette

@rogercooper That description is showing up now. Upload another and let me know about the next example. It looks like maybe some sort of caching was involved. I'll need another example to debug further.

Re: categories and tags. TBH I don't really care. The tags are up to you all. I need a list of tag names and corresponding possible tag values.

Re: tutorial, AFAIK the engine should prompt first time users to download the tutorial.

Re: auto-download, I'm not sure about this. I would prefer that we carve ourselves a better niche than having clones of the board game. Mainly that TripleA should be the place where you can draw your own map and we highlight those creations.

Re: poor maps in the list. There are many ways to preserve interesting artwork without having a map be fully uploaded. There is an image cache, and we can just tuck those maps just anywhere else. Just because a map is not in the official download list does not make it lost. I think we should prune maps that nobody would want to play (namely those that were never completed and are abandonned)

RogerCooper

@lafayette You have to install Tutorial at the very least. So users know how to play.

LaFayette

@rogercooper So you're saying the tutorial should be part of the game download.

I recall there being that discussion some years ago when we unbundled maps. One issue is that it makes the game download larger for everyone on every update. Another issue is that it breaks the packaging of where maps are, adding special casing for finding the tutorial map is not ideal (we really need to simplify as much as we can, complexity is overwhelming already).

One counter-argument for having new players download the tutorial, they perhaps get to see the UI for downloading maps sooner and would then have fewer questions for how to get maps. I would also hope that a prompt asking to download the tutorial that automatically starts the download is really not that big of a burden for finding & playing the tutorial.

Myrd

@lafayette I like the idea of showing a prompt that suggests downloading the tutorial when the maps folder is empty.

LaFayette

@myrd I might be confused. Download folder is empty on new installs, and on new installs, we prompt to download the tutorial map. If we do another map migration where we change the download folder, would that be a situation where we should show the 'download the tutorial' prompt?

Seemingly we already show the download prompt in the interesting case when no maps are installed (first time user), and there are other cases where there could be no maps (and in those cases it might not make sense to prompt download of the tutorial). I might be missing something though.

In other words, why is not enough that we show first time users the prompt?

Myrd

@lafayette oh, I didn't realise that was the behaviour already. If so, I think it already does the right thing.

LaFayette

@myrd There is a toggle in settings to "show first time prompts" that should trigger the "download tutorial" prompt. I do have a small suspicion that behavior might not be working properly. Regardless, the intent is to show first-time players the "download tutorial" prompt.

TheDog

@lafayette
On the Download Map panel the Map tab has 3 sorted states;

default where it lists Map - numbers, uppercase, lowercase
click sort once, Map ^ ........- numbers, ignore case
click sort again, Map v .......- ignore case, numbers

It would be better to reduce confusion and just remove the first state and go straight to Map v ?

Also are the pointers correct, shouldn't they be swapped to?
Map v ........- numbers, ignore case