A few important suggestions regarding hotkeys.

[Blake]

It has been posted before in the HELP topic, but as a game developer I insist on some of them and I will add some more (my english sucks, sorry for that):

1. Hotkey ESCAPE to pop up the in game menu. Suggested before, but I must insist. Why? because all the games in the industry have this hotkey (maybe there is one who doesn't, bad choice though) . Even Call of Duty, being a movie and not a videogame as it is, has this hotkey. It is not a matter of "we already have another hotkey and we programmed the game so we are used to use F10 to go to the in game menu and we rock. Don't. For players it must be a big pop up in the middle of the screen which has the hability to tell you "you can quit at any time buddy" the fastest way possible and it must be a hotkey close to the left hand and it must be a key they know for a long time and make love with. Also, being 0.A.D an rts this ESCAPE key can't stop the game in multiplayer battles. In single player I have to say it will be better to stop the gameplay.References: Age of Empires 2, Age of Mythology , a lot of RTS more.

2. Hotkeys for buildings. We already use the inactive unit hotkey. We need all of buildings hotkeyed for fluidly go on with the gameplay. References: Age of Empires 2, Age of Mythology.

3. Repeat button in buildings. "Hey you can create as much units as you want by using shift-click and..." Don't. It is a cool feature, but if the 5, or 10 or 50 units are done, you have lost time going there and clicking for more and you also lose time in production because by creating more units you lose for creating some party sizes almost the entire game. If you click repeat, the selected amount of units will be created repeatedly as long as you have resources like in Age of Mythology. But this time you can also use shift for creating an infinite 5 pack of units, or a 10 pack, or 15, or whatever amount.

4.There is another problem I have encountered regarding the selection of workers. If you aim to select inactive workers only, you can't do it by clicking twice, because all workers in the area will be selected. It would be cool if you could select only those who are inactive in the area.So if you select one active worker, then you only select active workers and biceversa.

5.Also, my final suggestion is that if you want to select only military units in game when they are mixed with female workers, only select the military citizens. In Age of Mythology you can choose this option in the options menu, but as in 0.a.D. female workers dont' attack, then this feature would be permanent along with the suggestion 4. or at least pickable from the options menu.

6.Another extra suggestion that could've been planned/suggested before. Mini buttons close to the minimap for showing only resources and female workers, or only military units/citizens.... as in age of empires. And also a F-something key that shows the player the time played and the actual score of the players in the game in real time. Very important because by watching it the player feels like a god of like a dimwit (it depends on the score).

This game is indeed the best strategy game I've ever played, because it's easy to play and complex at the same time. With this features, the fluidity of the game will be greater.

Edited May 29, 2014 by Blake

[Lion.Kanzen]

It has been posted before in the HELP topic, but as a game developer I insist on some of them and I will add some more (my english sucks, sorry for that):

1. Hotkey ESCAPE to pop up the in game menu. Suggested before, but I must insist. Why? because all the games in the industry have this hotkey (maybe there is one who doesn't, bad choice though) . Even Call of Duty, being a movie and not a videogame as it is, has this hotkey. It is not a matter of "we already have another hotkey and we programmed the game so we are used to use F10 to go to the in game menu and we rock. Don't. For players it must be a big pop up in the middle of the screen which has the hability to tell you "you can quit at any time buddy" the fastest way possible and it must be a hotkey close to the left hand and it must be a key they know for a long time and make love with. Also, being 0.A.D an rts this ESCAPE key can't stop the game in multiplayer battles. In single player I have to say it will be better to stop the gameplay.References: Age of Empires 2, Age of Mythology , a lot of RTS more.

2. Hotkeys for buildings. We already use the inactive unit hotkey. We need all of buildings hotkeyed for fluidly go on with the gameplay. References: Age of Empires 2, Age of Mythology.

3. Repeat button in buildings. "Hey you can create as much units as you want by using shift-click and..." Don't. It is a cool feature, but if the 5, or 10 or 50 units are done, you have lost time going there and clicking for more and you also lose time in production because by creating more units you lose for creating some party sizes almost the entire game. If you click repeat, the selected amount of units will be created repeatedly as long as you have resources like in Age of Mythology. But this time you can also use shift for creating an infinite 5 pack of units, or a 10 pack, or 15, or whatever amount.

4.There is another problem I have encountered regarding the selection of workers. If you aim to select inactive workers only, you can't do it by clicking twice, because all workers in the area will be selected. It would be cool if you could select only those who are inactive in the area.So if you select one active worker, then you only select active workers and biceversa.

5.Also, my final suggestion is that if you want to select only military units in game when they are mixed with female workers, only select the military citizens. In Age of Mythology you can choose this option in the options menu, but as in 0.a.D. female workers dont' attack, then this feature would be permanent along with the suggestion 4. or at least pickable from the options menu.

6.Another extra suggestion that could've been planned/suggested before. Mini buttons close to the minimap for showing only resources and female workers, or only military units/citizens.... as in age of empires. And also a F-something key that shows the player the time played and the actual score of the players in the game in real time. Very important because by watching it the player feels like a god of like a dimwit (it depends on the score).

This game is indeed the best strategy game I've ever played, because it's easy to play and complex at the same time. With this features, the fluidity of the game will be greater.

Yeah is mess control military units and in my pc is broken military only idle because is Spanish config.

I do a post about that is a post about commands and GUI, were the last feature was the bell.

With the first ... I prefer F10

5- You can with alt and selection box and all females don't be included in the selection.

[iNcog]

I disagree with point 3. It doesn't add anything to the game, it would be annoying to code and there's no reason to queue the exact same unit constantly, it's often better to mix up the units you're making anyway.

Otherwise, yeah, hotkeys need to be added but there are solid ways to work around the hotkey limiations atm.

[niektb]

But when selecting a building it is possible to pick a unit to train with the hotkeys 'Z' till 'M' with Z corresponding to the first position.

[Blake]

I disagree with point 3. It doesn't add anything to the game, it would be annoying to code and there's no reason to queue the exact same unit constantly, it's often better to mix up the units you're making anyway.

Otherwise, yeah, hotkeys need to be added but there are solid ways to work around the hotkey limiations atm.

You can also mix with the repeat button: first 5 warriors, then 5 horses (infinite loop). I mean this as a functionality and not having to go again and again to your buildings an watching over the constant production once you have enough resources. The only thing that the player has to take care of is the resource depleting. Play Age of Mythology to see what is it that I am talking about.

Edited May 29, 2014 by Blake

[iNcog]

You can also mix with the repeat button: first 5 warriors, then 5 horses (infinite loop). I mean this as a functionality and not having to go again and again to your buildings an watching over the constant production once you have enough resources. The only thing that the player has to take care of is the resource depleting. Play Age of Mythology to see what is it that I am talking about.

Yeah I've heard of this feature in AoM and I think opinions about it were mixed. I personally don't like the idea however it's not for me to decide which features get implemented and which don't. Let's just say that everyone has his opinions: you think this would be good, I think it would be superfluous.

Let's just leave it at that. ^^ I agree with your other points.

[Blake]

Yeah is mess control military units and in my pc is broken military only idle because is Spanish config.

I do a post about that is a post about commands and GUI, were the last feature was the bell.

With the first ... I prefer F10

5- You can with alt and selection box and all females don't be included in the selection.

About the 5th one. You are right indeed but I think u misunderstood my suggestion . It is true that you can select only military and only female citizens, but you can't select different military units at once in a place where there are female citizens . This pickable option-feature-hotkey will give that to the game.

Yeah I've heard of this feature in AoM and I think opinions about it were mixed. I personally don't like the idea however it's not for me to decide which features get implemented and which don't. Let's just say that everyone has his opinions: you think this would be good, I think it would be superfluous.

Let's just leave it at that. ^^ I agree with your other points.

Nice.

[Oimat]

http://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/1598

http://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/1989

http://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/2407

[Blake]

http://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/1598

http://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/1989

http://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/2407

Oh. I didn't notice. Thanks for sharing. It was deep into the ticket realm of features.

[Oimat]

I know, it's really deep

But perhaps this thread will make the dev to commit them, perhaps