Yeah, there'll be some things that some people expect that might not make it. Some of that will just be a matter of time -- I'm a solo dev so I can only move so fast. The game isn't super demanding so it should run ok, but it's also not optimized yet -- optimization is one of those things you want to save for last, if possible. Optimizations done too early can become wasted work when things change. Feedback during testing will help me prioritize what to work on.
Right now for graphics settings you can adjust resolution, v-sync, motion blur, AA, anisotropic filtering, texture quality (mostly affects lightmap quality since the textures are minimal), and fov (if you consider that graphics setting). More will come later.
But if you want this:
You might be disappointed. When new players see that you should make your graphics look like total crap in order to be competitive, it's a huge turnoff. So my goal with the art style is to make it unnecessary, though that doesn't always mean it's going to be reductive. My philosophy with the art style is to be communicative -- where you won't even want to turn things off because doing so will put you at a disadvantage by missing out on the game communicating to you what is happening. There'll also be some effects that are intentionally intrusive -- think flashbangs in CS, but more interesting. Counter-Strike, LoL, and DOTA2 do a good job here by keeping regular play and competitive play consistent and that's a big goal of mine in general, but AoT's art style should help ensure these effects are clearly readable while still looking aesthetically pleasing as a whole.
Yeah, using the UI for communication will be important.
Voice will be left to third party services. I agree in-game voice is useless for competitive play and, while casual players will demand it, I think voice chat in pubs mostly ends up being kids trolling so I'd like to avoid that headache. To compensate, I think a VGS system will be very important for pubs -- the VGS system might also tie directly into player actions so that it's semi-automated contextually (if I do that, you'll be able to mute it for comp play).
Will probably have standard text chat too, but it might be restricted in some way. Want to avoid trolls distracting from the actual game. Haven't made any decisions yet because it'll be something that evolves over time as the game adapts to the community.
A guy at Riot did a great GDC talk about this sorta thing. I like how the Tribunal system is crowdsourced by the community.
Matchmaking only makes sense when you have a large community. In the meantime, I think the community itself can help a lot here. Like with this:
It's something I've been thinking about, though I didn't know CS:GO had anything like that -- how's their system work?
It might not be there on day one, but yeah I want LAN support.
Long term goal, but yeah ranked ladders are something I'd like.
Yeah for this I want to try and raise the bar on two fronts. I think FPS games can do a lot better with in-game tutorials, but I also want to try and find incentives for the community to help here too -- possibly rewarding players for creating guides, teaching new players, etc.
Heh -- you'll be able to set case, but I'm leaning toward no color except maybe for clan tags.
Heh, it was cool seeing the post automatically update in realtime while I wrote my reply.
