“War Log” notification screen
Knowledge is power. Information is power. The secreting or hoarding of knowledge or information may be an act of tyranny camouflaged as humility.
- Robin Morgan, American Poet and political theorist
Woah woah woah…. Hold your horses Ms. Morgan. And stop calling us at Reto-Moto “tyrants”! Alright?! Its not like we don’t want to give information to our players about the war and their assault teams, we just haven’t got around to making the feature yet…. Ok, ok – stop grumbling. I’m on it.
Sorry folks, you had to hear our little tussle with the political activist where she was complaining about the game not keeping players updated about important events in the war. But she just doesn’t get it! The game’s still in “Closed Beta”. Anyway, that’s not a good enough excuse. And we know it.
So, here goes a few words about us preparing a framework which stores all the important events in a war, which would pave the way for a “War Log” feature to be presented to the players in a future build. We’re starting out with a few select important events that are being tracked, such as:
- Player Login/Logout
- Players Joining an Action game
- Assault Team movement
- Assault Teams losing resources
- Assault Team’s supplies being created and when they reach the AT
- Assault Team initiating battle
- Assault Team retreating from battle
- Assault Team movement blocked
- Faction winning and losing control of Battlefields
That’s not to say it’s the end of it – more info will be added in the log as we go along. The framework is actually already in place and its recording some of the above mentioned info on the Live server – right this very moment! Here’s a sample of the raw data dump taken from the server (some pieces of info are removed, in order to adhere to mine and Reto.ogssan’s privacy):
Date/TimeEvent Description
27-06-12 9:27Player Reto.indusninja logged in
27-06-12 9:28‘GE-82′ arrived at Alzey
27-06-12 9:28commandnode US-62 lost 2 infantry type unit(s)
27-06-12 9:29commandnode GE-82 lost 3 infantry type unit(s)
27-06-12 9:29commandnode US-62 lost 2 infantry type unit(s)
27-06-12 9:29‘GE-86′ arrived at Rotterdam
27-06-12 9:30commandnode GE-82 lost 4 infantry type unit(s)
27-06-12 9:30commandnode US-62 lost 2 infantry type unit(s)
27-06-12 9:30‘GE-86′ arrived at Amsterdam
27-06-12 9:30commandnode GE-82 lost 1 infantry type unit(s)
27-06-12 9:30commandnode US-62 lost 1 infantry type unit(s)
27-06-12 9:31commandnode GE-82 lost 2 infantry type unit(s)
27-06-12 9:31commandnode US-62 lost 2 infantry type unit(s)
27-06-12 9:31commandnode GE-82 lost 3 infantry type unit(s)
27-06-12 9:31commandnode US-62 lost 1 infantry type unit(s)
27-06-12 9:32accesspoint A at Harwich captured by United States
27-06-12 9:32United States has won control of Den Haag
27-06-12 9:32‘US-6′ arrived at Den Haag
27-06-12 9:32commandnode US-62 lost 1 infantry type unit(s)
27-06-12 9:32commandnode GE-82 lost 1 infantry type unit(s)
27-06-12 9:32commandnode US-62 lost 1 infantry type unit(s)
27-06-12 9:35Player Reto.ogssan logged in
27-06-12 9:36Player Reto.indusninja logged in
27-06-12 9:40accesspoint A at Alzey captured by United States from Germany
27-06-12 9:40supplyline connecting Alzey and Mainz captured by United States from Germany
27-06-12 9:40accesspoint C at Mainz captured by United States from Germany
27-06-12 9:40Germany has lost control of Mainz
27-06-12 9:40United States has won control of Mainz
27-06-12 9:40‘US-91′ arrived at Mainz
27-06-12 9:40‘US-91′ arrived at Alzey
Currently we’re working on making sure that the framework is not storing redundant data, while making utilities so that the data can be accessed by the Flash client. No definite mockups for the UI of the war event log has been decided (although there’s a “very” early design layout done up by Reto.RedBjarne):
“War Log” notification screen
We’re also thinking along the lines of how Sid Meier’s Civilization V does their notification log, which has clear icons representing what the event is about, followed up with the written details of the event itself:
Sid Meier’s Civilization V notification logWe’d be especially interested in hearing from you guys about the look and info to be displayed in the war log, so get on the Heroes & Generals forum and give us all your ideas. ALL OF THEM!
