First impressions

[Mr.Mitchell]

hey guys, great mod you made. I just wanted to give you some feedback on my first impressions of the mod. They are mostly improvements I would like to see. Some are a bit nitpicky, but I think those items will improve the mod.

• The opening level really needs to be changed. Even if it only shows the logo for a brief moment it will be better than the skaarj with the machinegun. Duffers is just not about guns.
• The tooltips in the buttons in the main menu don't really fit with the Duffers theme. It might be better to have some kind of statusbar/helparea that displays those messages.
• I could not enter my Nickname since it has a dot(.) in it. Is this intend behaviour?
• Why is there a Fire to start at the begin of the course? It seems to be unnessesary.
• I just don't understand the aimmarker. Whats the % value mean, what do the red up/down arrows and the xx FT value mean?
• It would be nice if the current hole was highlighted in the scoreboard
• When zooming out after a put then the camera moves through the player which looks kind of bad. Maybe It would be better to hide the player or have the camera als spin around a bit so it will not hit the player.
• It would be nice to have see sand flying around when you are hitting the ball in a bunker.
• The flag makes you believe that there is a strong wind, but the environment is completely static, so it looks a bit weird. Maybe it is a good idea to make the trees move a bit. I noticed this post on the UnWheel forums that talks about animated trees (http://forums.beyondunreal.com/showthread.php?t=134325)
• In hole number 6 the ball fell through the level when it fell in the hole
• Water needs a splash when you enter it. BTW does the game normally continue when you are in the water?? It looks a bit funny that the guys is up to his waist in the water trying to hit the ball.
• It would be nice if the "Look" would go up a little higher. Also the stopping and returning of the camera when using "Look" is quite abrupt. I think it would be better to have a more smooth movement.
• When pressing ESC in-game pops up the menu with Exit Forfeit etc.. I have to press ESC _twice_ to close that window.
• In the 7th or 8th hole the ball got stuck in a bunker. It never switched to "hitting" mode again.
• The game is really quiet. I had no music due to the paths problem that is mentioned in another thread. But the other sounds I heard were only the ball hit and a plok sound when the ball falls in the hole. It would be nice to have at least some rewarding sound when you do a birdie etc... Also some environmental sounds would be nice (birds, wind,water whatever).
• The texts like Birdie are in the middle of the screen over the hole. I feel it always quite rewarding to see the ball in the hole, but that is blocked by the text. It would be nice if the camera could be tilted a bit up and the text moved up a bit so you can still see the result of your work.

It is quite a long list I hope you can use the info.

Just to make sure, I really love the game next to the 17 points mentioned above there are hundreds of great things. It is quite relaxing and good looking I especially love the menu with the horizontal scrolling. I am really looking forward to the complete version.

BTW: If needed I can provide screenshots of where the ball got stuck and I have the .log file from that session.

[Mix]

Great post!

I can discuss some of your points.

The opening level really needs to be changed.

We have a preliminary "entry" level, but it wasn't ready in time for this release.

The tooltips in the buttons in the main menu don't really fit with the Duffers theme.

The menus were actually originally coded for UT2003. 2K4 changes the GUI system quite a bit, so there are some rough edges.

I could not enter my Nickname since it has a dot(.) in it.

I believe the period was left out of the acceptable characters list by accident.

Why is there a Fire to start at the begin of the course?

It's one of the few leftovers from the default UT code. It will be changed.

I just don't understand the aimmarker. Whats the % value mean, what do the red up/down arrows and the xx FT value mean?

The '%' refers to the percentage of power you need to use in your swing to reach the aim marker's position with your ball. Currently the club power is not accurate. The up and down arrows show how far the marker is above/below your current height in feet.

It would be nice to have see sand flying around when you are hitting the ball in a bunker.

This is being worked on.

In the 7th or 8th hole the ball got stuck in a bunker. It never switched to "hitting" mode again.

Bugs like this are perfect candidates to be posted on our http://bugs.coilgames.com site.

Thanks again for your post. This is exactly the kind of feedback we're looking for.

[Mr.Mitchell]

Originally Posted by Mix

The '%' refers to the percentage of power you need to use in your swing to reach the aim marker's position with your ball. Currently the club power is not accurate. The up and down arrows show how far the marker is above/below your current height in feet.

So the marker is actuall pointing at the place where your ball will land. I did not understand that. It looks like its a HUD item that is flat, it does not seem to point at something that is far away.

[Spielberg]

Originally Posted by Mr.Mitchell

So the marker is actuall pointing at the place where your ball will land. I did not understand that. It looks like its a HUD item that is flat, it does not seem to point at something that is far away.

That's correct. The marker (which is invisible) is actually located where you want to aim. Hold down the "Look" button (default is E). The camera will rise above the player. If you keep it held down, the camera will jump to where the marker is actually located. This isn't very clear right now because of a bug in the way the marker's location is getting translated to the HUD for display. It's much clearer when you're zoomed in.

We're aware of the aim marker's faults, and working on making it look right in all camera modes.