Fonts are killing me

[Darkspire]

ORIGINAL: StarWolf
It would be helpful if we knew what environment the game was originaly designed to run in (cleartype/no cleartype or anitialiasing/no antialiasing) so we can try to optimize the display of the fonts. Some people are not seeming to have an issue on their systems even at higher resolutions so maybe we just need to figure out what the difference is.

This sounds familiar to the Galactopedia problem, with it working on some systems and not others, at least the fonts work on mine [8|]

Darkspire

[lancer]

G'day,

1900 x 1200 Widescreen. Fonts are sharp and clear. My eyes aren't that young.

I have a decent graphics card. Perhaps that makes the difference?

Cheers,

Lancer

[Bingeling]

Graphics card should not matter at all on a computer able to run this thing. You probably have a decent screen and you sit close to it. Distance helps a lot.

I don't have issues either. Good glasses, and a 24 inch monitor with 1920x1200. It is a desktop, and I sit at desktop distance which is key in seeing all.

We live in a world where you can not assume that everyone sit that close to the screen. Or that everyone got good glasses

[feelotraveller]

I'm one of those feeble old men. [:D] Even at 1280x800.

Mind you I've got a 15 inch laptop LCD screen to look at.

The worst for me are the cost and maintenance numbers at the top of the design details screen. Makes me dizzy sometimes. Perhaps also the scrolling messages but I tend to just use pop-ups or the log so that doesn't bother me quite as much.

[lancer]

G'day,

Graphics card should not matter at all on a computer able to run this thing. You probably have a decent screen and you sit close to it. Distance helps a lot.

I sit one metre back (3 feet for the yanks) from the 1900 x 1200 screen and find everything readable. I'm in my 40's and don't wear glasses.

I have a Dell 'Ultra-Sharp' LCD screen so perhaps it's a screen quality issue on the higher resolutions.

Cheers,
Lancer

[Neotheone]

ORIGINAL: Wolfe

Although I have a 1920x1080 monitor I have found that playing in 1440x900 (changing my desktop resolution prior to launching DW) works best for me.

If there was a way to select resolution from within the game rather than having to manually adjust it each time I play it would be an advantage.

Yeah but that screws my desktop icons up when I go back to 1920x1080 and I have to re-arrange everything again so that's rather inefficient. Needs ingame resolution adjustments down to 1024x728 or even the good old 800x600.

[Neotheone]

ORIGINAL: lancer

G'day,

Graphics card should not matter at all on a computer able to run this thing. You probably have a decent screen and you sit close to it. Distance helps a lot.

I sit one metre back (3 feet for the yanks) from the 1900 x 1200 screen and find everything readable. I'm in my 40's and don't wear glasses.

I have a Dell 'Ultra-Sharp' LCD screen so perhaps it's a screen quality issue on the higher resolutions.

Cheers,
Lancer

wait it's coming http://www.hark.com/clips/ddkxhtybzc-my ... rickin-dah

[StarWolf]

ORIGINAL: Darkspire
Has anyone checked their GFX card settings?
Even if you have not set up a profile for DW the default profile for your card might have anti-aliasing on as default which sometimes can cause font problems, there a number of settings on later cards that can really muck up screen fonts.

Darkspire was right on the money. This did it for me. I created a DW profile in my Nvidia gfx card control panel and then tried a bunch of different antialiasing settings. After much trial and error, I found that using the below settings makes the really small thin font much sharpter and clearer to read. Makes all the difference for me. Those that are having similar problems might give this a try:

Antialiasing - Mode = Enhance the application setting
Antialiasing - Setting = 2x
Antialiasing - Transparency = Supersampling

I think it might be helpful at some point if the developer ccould put antialiasing options into the in-game options and start with some defaults so that there is a common starting denominator for all systems that run the game. it would probably go a long way toward helping a lot of the font issues. Sure, they may still be small fonts, but at least folks will be able to read them without having to do what I did to fix them.

[myros]

The font size has been one of the things keeping me from this game. Have had some eye problems the past few years which leave really small text harder to read than normal. It seems a few games recently have had this problem (shogun2 was another with some text just tiny), and developers show zero concern on how design descions like this impact real people. Its to bad as this seems to be an interesting game.

Hey Devs, adjustable font sizes 'for the win'.

Oh and also a geniune bundle with the game+expansions and a decent price would help

And while Im at it (lol, sorry) get your game on Steam, this self fullfilling "niche" philosophy is just losing you money Im sure. Lots of indy titles are selling well on steam.

Anyway, hope you address the font issue some day.

[Gelatinous Cube]

I do have to say that if DW was on Steam, I'd have bought it much sooner. Only reason I even noticed it was because I picked up Armada in the cobwebbed section of a gamestop and noticed an ad for DW inside.

[Darkspire]

ORIGINAL: StarWolf

ORIGINAL: Darkspire
Has anyone checked their GFX card settings?
Even if you have not set up a profile for DW the default profile for your card might have anti-aliasing on as default which sometimes can cause font problems, there a number of settings on later cards that can really muck up screen fonts.

Darkspire was right on the money. This did it for me. I created a DW profile in my Nvidia gfx card control panel and then tried a bunch of different antialiasing settings. After much trial and error, I found that using the below settings makes the really small thin font much sharpter and clearer to read. Makes all the difference for me. Those that are having similar problems might give this a try:

Antialiasing - Mode = Enhance the application setting
Antialiasing - Setting = 2x
Antialiasing - Transparency = Supersampling

I think it might be helpful at some point if the developer ccould put antialiasing options into the in-game options and start with some defaults so that there is a common starting denominator for all systems that run the game. it would probably go a long way toward helping a lot of the font issues. Sure, they may still be small fonts, but at least folks will be able to read them without having to do what I did to fix them.

Im glad ive done something right for a change [:D] If only someone would sort out the Galctopedia id buy Legends today, ive recoded about 25% of the Galactopedia now (using frames and CSS) so i can at least see it on a second monitor, not sure how much new content is in Legends but i would expect my 25% to drop to at least 10%, ill get on with coding the rest of it when i can stop bringing Morrowind into 2011 with new textures and meshes (Oblivion and Skyrim are better looking but there just built for console users, too dumbed down IMHO)

Darkspire

[feelotraveller]

ORIGINAL: Gelatinous Cube

I do have to say that if DW was on Steam, I'd have bought it much sooner. Only reason I even noticed it was because I picked up Armada in the cobwebbed section of a gamestop and noticed an ad for DW inside.

Well each to their own. If DW was on Steam I would never have bought it, ever.

[StarWolf]

ORIGINAL: feelotraveller
Well each to their own. If DW was on Steam I would never have bought it, ever.

Same here. I hate Steam.

[Gelatinous Cube]

Steam enables countless small developers to put things where gamers will actually buy them, as opposed to never get a chance to play them because they've been consigned to Matrix.com and the back shelves of a few gamestops (the few that even carry PC games any more).

I can't stand DRM, but Steam doesn't require you to use it. SotS2, for example, only requires Steam to install and update. Steamworks is never required for it. I used to hate what I thought Steam stood for (i.e. the "industrialization" of the gaming industry) but being a strategy game fan I can't help but notice the good that they have done for indie developers.

[Cauldyth]

I've got nothing against Steam, but it's a shame that it's so dominant that people won't notice, or won't want to buy, games which aren't on Steam. It makes for a very unpleasant situation for everyone. I use Steam regularly, but it's not where I find out about games, and I'll happily buy games that aren't on it.

Also, developers can't just snap their fingers and say "I want to sell on Steam." Steam can actually reject you. Anyone play SPAZ? Steam rejected them initially.

[Webbco]

Without wanting to continue off-topic too much [;)], I have used steam a huge amount over the past few years and have found it to be a good service. However, I read this post by Iain McNeil in the Matrix general Discussion forum:

"On the Steam arguments we're not convinced that the Steam audience is a good match for the majority of the catalogue. Take in to account also that Steam take 30%, you have to customise your code to use their system which is a significant amount of work for the number of games we're talking about and Steam absolutely require you to slash your prices. Overall you have to sell a lot more copies to just stand still in terms of revenues. It is not teh alm dunk that everyone thinks it is. It also fragments the community which has an intagible cost but something we are very aware of and reluctant to do.

Another thing to bear in mind is Steam get 200 submissions a week and only 1 person allocated to review them. I'd guess only about 1% of the games people try to get on steam actually get on steam. The vast majority are never looked at or rejected. I'm guessing the majority of our line up would slide to the "dont even review category ""

...So I can understand the hesitancy of putting DW on there.

[Cauldyth]

Thanks for the quote. Sheds a lot of light on things!

[feelotraveller]

There are better options than Steam. Gamestop is better (used to be Impulse). Gamersgate is even better again, no client software installed. Funnily enough, DW is available on Gamersgate. [:)]

[Cauldyth]

Plus, I'm happy to play with pre-release patches. I'm guessing that would be more difficult or impossible with a Steam game.

[Gelatinous Cube]

Well, there is a lot of truth in that quote.

Personally, I don't think you can sell DW like you would sell a regular game anyway. DW is a hobby. It's a build-your-own-space-opera kit. I could play with this for as long as a kid could play with Lego blocks. While I firmly believe that Steam would vastly increase the number of people that play this game, I am not convinced that they would understand initially what they were buying. This is something that is best enjoyed with LOTS of free time and a very open mind. Much more so than, say, the latest $5 Indie title on steam (which might be fantastic, but won't entertain me for years).

Conclusion? DW (and all the really good games that matrix sells, like Panzer Corps) are games that tackle entertainment from the hobbyists mindset. It takes some love. If putting them on steam would cheapen the game in the end by allowing less flexibility than before, then I suppose staying off Steam is a good idea. For DW. For most other indie games that aren't on this kind of scale, it is a fantastic launching point for a developer.