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[Ampersand]

Yeah, I totally do want to play this game, it just seems too buggy at this point, at least on windows vista and up. Someone get this guy a copy of 7 or something.

[Cthulhu]

Yeah, I think most of the raeg is because it's kind of like going to Disney World and finding out the only entrance is a tunnel and your car is too big.  You came for something awesome and find yourself being shafted over something that seems trivial.

Of course, the reasons you gave for not changing the window sizes are perfectly reasonable, and I've dealt with my resolution with a minimal amount of eye-strain, so I'm cool with it either way.

[Fikes]

Nice to meet you too Steve, I think.

Kind of a negative sounding post... I mean this thread did get from 0 to 9 pages in a day and probably brought in a decent number of fans. I myself will be headed over to download it. If that is okay...

I believe any game benefits from its own fan base, regardless of the intention of the developer. For example, I don't think it was ever the intention of Dwarf Fortress to make stories but go check out Boat Murdered

What I am trying to say is maybe you should try identifying with people more and stand on your soap box less, much like Toady (the Dwarf Fortress creator) does. You should have your own priorities, it is your game after all, but to come down on potential fans for scoffing at UI issues seems both pretentious and counter productive.

So don't get down on people, say "Hey, that just isn't the direction I'd like to take the game" instead of

This isn't a commercial game and I don't need to try and cater for every resolution out there. I could spend weeks trying to get every screen with scrollbars or re-sizable but I have limited free time and I would rather be working on new features that I can use than something that would be no use to me. Besides, if I made the windows a lot smaller they would look ridiculous on my own system. I bought all this screen real estate so I really want to make use of it.

This is a free game and no one is making anyone play so I am a little surprised by just how upset some people seem to get about this. Sorry to be blunt but if you believe Aurora is a terrible, over-complex, badly programmed game with dreadful graphics and an awful install process then simply don't play it.

[SteveW]

I think you'll find that the bitterest people posting here are upset because the game is absolutely something they'd love to play but cannot due to screen real estate. We're certainly not in 'the game is too overly-complex' crowd here, though people will make their own opinions known about the programming involved. IMHO the game would cater to more people if it had more acceptable screen resolution and better documentation. I don't mind the UI it's not anything I'm not used to, and it seems that with the wiki there's an open effort to improve the "what the hell am I looking at" factor.

Other than that, I'd like to thank you for releasing an enjoyable game thus far for free. These are just words but I realize how difficult it is to do this in your own free time and see criticism of your baby. I have no doubts that the project is going wonderful places.

Experience has given me a thick skin so I don't mind the negative criticism. I couldn't do my day job if I was easily upset . I welcome any constructive comments and I just wanted to point out that I couldn't do a lot about the various install issues as they are Microsoft's rather than mine. The resolution issue has been raised many times over the last 2-3 years but the best I have managed is to keep it down to 1028x1024. There is just too much information being displayed to reduce it. One option for people who really want to play is to buy a larger monitor. These days you can get a decent monitor for not much more than a PC game. I am not trying to be difficult here but changing resolution would be a huge amount of work, even if I thought it would improve the game, and Aurora is fueled by my enthusiasm. If I don't see the benefit of a change, I don't have the enthusiasm and it doesn't get done. Obviously if I was trying to sell the game then I would try to make the program accessible to a greater proportion of those who want to play but it is just for my own amusement.

Steve

[E. Albright]

@E. Albright: no to all means the game rewrites files, as the way the question is worded it asks if you want to keep your old "newer" files. So you have to click yes everytime to stop it from writing over.

Erm, yeah. That's what I did then. Both options were offered and I did whichever left the newer files. I plead ditzy blondness in re: my prior post.

[KaelGotDwarves]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

+Coontz class Battlecruiser+ decorated with spikes of laser turrets

I'm pretty sure I messed up on the design somewhere, but this is just a practice run after the tutorial.

I'll probably start a Let's Play later.

[Magnnus]

Wow thats some really nice stuff; what year are you on?

[KaelGotDwarves]

Oh, if it looks too nice it's because I cheated. hahahahah

That was me this morning trying to follow the tutorials so it had you SM instant a bunch of stuff to learn how to design things. That's my first design attempt to counter missile fire. Pity it's so slow though.

[SteveW]

Yeah, I totally do want to play this game, it just seems too buggy at this point, at least on windows vista and up.

I believe there are some issues about Vista and Windows 7 being a little over-protective when you install new software into the program files directory, which doesn't just affect Aurora. There is a thread on the Aurora forum about how to avoid this. The program itself is fine, otherwise you would get bugs with every operating system.

Someone get this guy a copy of 7 or something.

If you want to send me a copy of Windows 7 I will be more than happy to check it out

Steve

[x2yzh9]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'll probably start a Let's Play later.

Oh?

"x2yzh9 has been ecstatic lately. He has read a Let's Play of Aurora recently."

[MrWiggles]

Yeah, I think most of the raeg is because it's kind of like going to Disney World and finding out the only entrance is a tunnel and your car is too big.  You came for something awesome and find yourself being shafted over something that seems trivial.

This pegs me exactly, though the reason to why I can't play is due to owning a lovely Mac. Although I'm not being all ragey.

This games looks absolutely fucking wonderful. I love 4x games, and particularly SciFi ones. I was mostly disappointed by MOO3, even with the various fan made patches to address its various issues.

I've been reading about this game for hours, and my computer is incapable of of running it.

Though buying games or reading about games I can't run is old hat for me. I have space ace, syndicate, fallout, wasteland, jungle jill, so on, that I can't run. (though dosbox does let me from time to time for some of them.)

[E. Albright]

However, there is just no way you are going to play this game on a laptop with a small screen. This isn't a commercial game and I don't need to try and cater for every resolution out there. I could spend weeks trying to get every screen with scrollbars or re-sizable but I have limited free time and I would rather be working on new features that I can use than something that would be no use to me.

This is, by itself, reason enough to completely preclude you worrying about smaller resolutions. Point made, and taken.

Besides, if I made the windows a lot smaller they would look ridiculous on my own system. I bought all this screen real estate so I really want to make use of it.

...which makes this seem more than a little petty. If you don't want to add scroll bars, that's fine, and as stated, you've already given ample reason for your not doing so. But given that it seems decidedly unlikely that adding scroll bars as a configuration option that could be disabled would be noticeably more difficult than adding them as a mandatory feature, this is frivolous sniping.

I do say that with all due respect, and fully noting that I agree with your conclusions about your development priorities.

[Gabeux]

That's interesting and weird altogether.
The sad part is that you are right, you are doing it for yourself.

Dwarves can't stand to see potential, rough gems taking a course like that, and keeping quiet.

I still believe you should give the UI some work in the future, maybe using scrollbars or something.
Maybe someday you'll change your mind, after all..fixing that issue would be great, a game being able to run only is some resolutions, for me, sounds weird.
But you're right about the "love it or hate it" style anyway.

Let's hope everything improves for everyone, and that someday it'll be easily playable without workarounds.

[Jay]

That is complicated as hell.

...

Awesome.

[SteveW]

Besides, if I made the windows a lot smaller they would look ridiculous on my own system. I bought all this screen real estate so I really want to make use of it.

...which makes this seem more than a little petty. If you don't want to add scroll bars, that's fine, and as stated, you've already given ample reason for your not doing so. But given that it seems decidedly unlikely that adding scroll bars as a configuration option that could be disabled would be noticeably more difficult than adding them as a mandatory feature, this is frivolous sniping.

I do say that with all due respect, and fully noting that I agree with your conclusions about your development priorities.

Yes, apologies. I will remove it. That last sentence should have had a smiley but that is a good point about scroll bars that I hadn't considered. I was thinking small resolution = small windows when I wrote that post. That whole post had frustration peeping around the edges. I believe I provide a good service for my users and I am very responsive to constructive criticism. I am less responsive to generic negativity about a free game. It would be understandable if people had paid for Aurora but the game is far more stable than many major game releases and the main issues except for resolution are related to the Microsoft install program and the overprotectiveness of Vista and WIndows7, none of which I can control.

Steve