Regular questions on the developer forum about title screens got me thinking: Some of us have put in a lot of time to find ways to display cool title screens on the map. And sometimes that works pretty well.
But does it really make sense?
I mean, we have this browser view available, and you can do a level of formatting and presentation using the browser that you can't hope to meet on the map. For example, flash animations, CSS formatting, etc. Plus, for multiplayer-only games at least, you can have the web page resources load from a web server and not have to be part of the .rsc file, you can load all or parts of the page from a web server so you can update it at any time with release notes, etc.
So why not suppress the map on login, and use the browser instead?
What do you think?
ID:2635
 Jul 29 2005, 12:00 pm
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Jul 29 2005, 12:02 pm
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Jermman
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Soundsl ike a decent idea.
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I totally agree.
I think that the reason title screens are so popular now is because they look cool. I don't think that ease of use or functionality really has anything to do with it. | |
I think is that, players want to keep their games as commercial and stand alone looking as possible. I mean, people would love to have the ability to make their DM games standalone. Maybe some code to break it out of the default client or something but then you'd have some problems with chatting and all. It's just the problem with title screens and web browsing from what i've heard is that the 56kers whine like babies. I put a command in one of my games to display a web page to everyone in the browser window, and everytime I did all the 56kers whined. I guess not everyone is attracted to the browser window. =\
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I'm a 56ker...:) But I believe it can be structured so that download time isn't an issue.
Something I meant to mention in the post but didn't have time: A cool thing you can do is have the title screen HTML served remotely, yet contain commands that interact with the game, since interaction between the web page and the game happen via byond links. | |
I like to cover the map while I prepare it. Removing the map section of DS will adjust the other DS contents as well and I don't like that. Even if I managed to create a browser window which could not be moved, it would not adjust to match the big and small icon modes.
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I've used a title screen before, but only in completely finnished projects. I don't like the idea of ploping the player directly into the game without warning; it leaves a sort of... how shall I put it? 'Atomic' taste in my mouth. I don't want a user to enter my game, look around, and say "That's a turf, that's a mob, and that's an obj." The title screen is a good way to show the user that your game is more than icons slapped on the atomic system, if your game actually is more than just icons slapped on the atomic system. Otherwise, it's just another gimmick to make your zeta look different than the other zetas.
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I'm auctually thinging using your (Deadron) Charcter saving Library but put a Background on the Select Character screen. and that would be my title screen lol
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Great, I finally figure out how to get a title screen (With all the commands, "New", "Load", "Delete", and "Quit"), and now people don't want them anymore.... This really sucks....
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I love the browser. My newest project is making alot of use out of the browsers in it's gameplay. I despise huds and sometimes I just want to throw stat and verb panels out the window.
~Texter | |
The browser is great, but suffers from one flaw: it's not in the same place as the map. Commercial games have the luxury of total control over the screen, so splash screens can fade seamlessly into the rest of the game. If you use the browser for a title screen, you've either got A) a popup that has to be closed or B) a nice presentation which is segregated to the embedded browser window, separate from the map area where the actual gameplay takes place.
It seems like a minor point and it is, but even I have enough game-fashion-savvy to see the shift from one window to another as a discontinuity, however small. | |
Using my library Cinematics, we can achieve really nice title screens. An example of what I mean can be found in:
http://members.byond.com/DeathAwaitsU/files/Alt.zip You'll need to have downloaded the library Cinematics though. | |