First issue: Save games. VectorStorm, as a library, was built around the idea of emulating a fictional vector graphics game console on the PC, complete with a basic game engine wrapped around it. You can see this behaviour in many places, particularly how most of my games refer to the "A" and "B" buttons (which typically are mapped to the <space> and <alt> keys on the keyboard), because they're thinking about this fictional game console. Similarly, in the original release of MMORPG Tycoon, it had three "save slots", exactly as used to be done on old cartridge-based games.
For MMORPG Tycoon 2.0, I'm thinking about saved games again, and how they'll be handled. I see two possibilities; either I can continue with the way things are done now (which can lead to conflicts under certain multiple-user-accounts-on-one-computer issues), start storing the saves in per-user directories (maybe somewhere inside the "My Documents" directory under Windows, and the "Documents" or "Library" user directories under OS X), or else actually use a standard file selector box to save and load your saved games to wherever you want. This would, of course, mean that you could have as many saved games as you want, and put them anywhere you want. It would also mean that the standard OS GUI would encroach into the game.. so I'm a little hesitant about that. I guess I could also do a FPS-style "we pick a save directory somewhere and have an in-game file browser that lets you pick from anything inside that directory".
Second issue: The bloom visual effect. I really like the "glowing vectors" bloom pass that's automatically present in VectorStorm games. However, making that effect look good for glowing lines drawn over black has caused some problems for games which don't draw over black.. the issue is that it makes absolutely everything on-screen about 50% brighter than it would otherwise appear to be, so if anyone plays the game with bloom disabled, then the game appears extremely dark. I'm thinking about seriously toning back the bloom shader, to make bloomless-rendering appear closer to bloomed rendering. (On the other hand, I still want some glowing-wireframe-over-black sections in MMORPG Tycoon 2.0, so I'm not quite sure how to reconcile the two. Maybe I just require people to support bloom, in order to run at all?) You can see the problem if you go back and run 'Lord' with bloom switched off; it becomes a very dark game, because most of the light shades were only appearing due to the brightening of the bloom. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
Third issue: I'm arguing with myself over the user's interface to MMORPG Tycoon 2.0. Whether to give him an interface much like he had in 1.0 (omnipotent deity looking down upon his creation), or whether to give a more up-close interface; put him closer to the ground, looking forward. The big benefit of being closer to the ground is that you get more bang for the buck out of the 3D terrain and constructions, which can be much larger on screen, and can tower upward into the sky. The downside is that it really isn't what people expect from a "Tycoon" game.. and maybe it'd hurt gameplay, compared against a facing-downward, north-oriented view that can simply be panned across with arrow keys, as happened in MMORPG Tycoon 1.0.
Anyone have any input on any of these things? Am curious to hear any thoughts, to maybe kickstart something in my head. :)
