[img width=640 height=187]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/379653803848237059/765358199481958420/Screenshot_20201013_013549.png[/img] New Steam Library Banner, courtesy of danivenk (Simutrans Discord User) WARNING: This post contains suggestions that could come to Steam depending on the feedback from the Simutrans Community. In no way those changes are confirmed, but can come to Steam at some point in the future. Simutrans is now updated to the last stable version. But my work as a new manintainer doesn't end here: there's a lot of things I can do to improve the way we ship Simutrans on Steam. It's time to look at the status of Simutrans on Steam, and to make plans for the future. I have a lot of ideas to improve Simutrans on the Steam platform, and I want to be transparent about it, discuss changes with the community, and gather feedback from you. This will be a pretty big thread, so I am making a index right there. If you are new to Simutrans, you probably won't understand some of the things being discussed, but that's ok, I'm expecting feedback from experienced users mainly. ____________________________________________________ 1. The Mac version 2. The Steam Preloader 3. The Steam Launch Options 4. The Steam Paksets 5. The Steam Store Page 6. Improving Standard defaults 7. Bringing non-Standard Simutrans to Steam 8. Summary of suggested changes ____________________________________________________

1 - The Mac version

Numbers show, that even with the Mac version currently broken, players are still trying to play. Number of Mac players are only slighty under the number of Linux players (which can actually play). We can say, that the Mac problem is currently a high priority problem, at least regarding the Steam version (we are getting some negative reviews because of this). Unfortunately, I don't own a Mac nor I have the knowledge to fix the Mac version. If someone wants to help Mac players, I have moved all the Mac bug reports to the Bug/Crashes Steam subforum https://steamcommunity.com/app/434520/discussions/search/?q=Mac&gidforum=357288572135186516&include_deleted=1 On top of the Mac usual problems, Steam informed me that Apple now request all applications to be "reviewed" by Apple itself, and I currently don't know how to do that process (and I really would want to focus on other priorities). Oh, and one more thing: the Simutrans preloader doesn't have support for Mac! Steam funcionalities on Mac are non-existent! Let's talk more about this and why we can't currently ship a Mac preloader. ____________________________________________________

2 - The Steam preloader

The preloader as it currently is. The Steam preloader is a museum piece. Source code has been lost, and I can't make modifications to it. We can only admire it, and respect that legacy of the past. Or we can get rid of it. Currently, the Steam preloader works as intended (except localization, at least for me the preloader doesn't load es-ES language files), so it's not a priority high on the list. But it's a matter of time, that we have to act to do something about it. The problem with the preloader is that: A) It contains all the code related to Steam. So now it's the only way to get Steam funcionalities working AND since it can't be modified, we can't add new funcionalities (Achievements?). B) It adds yet one more step for launching the game (like if we don't have enough with current steps...). Let's take a look at what benefits brings the preloader: 1. Fullscreen -> Very useful, but you can do that already from your system (at least on linux), from the simuconf.tab (not very user friendly tho), and it could be better implemented as an in-game option. 2. Sound & Music -> Not necessary. Both can be muted from inside the game. 3. Sandbox Mode -> Probably the only thing that justifies the existence of the preloader as a start menu right now. 4. Debug -> Not really valuable for Steam players. So, I ask myself if the Sandbox Mode is enough justification to maintain a launcher... But since we can't simply get rid of it without losing Steam funcionalities, we have two options: 1. Rewrite it from scratch when time comes, ideally with more useful options than before to justify their existence. 2. Add Steam related code to Simutrans (probably forking the sourcecode), and remove the preloader. I prefer option 2, but I opened this thread to gather feedback, so it's your time to comment. And now that we are talking about what happens when launching the game... ____________________________________________________

3 - The Steam Launch Options

Steam Launch Options Here we have, yet another startup step. I want to get rid of this screen, and I will explain why no one of this options makes sense to me (except, only a little, Steam Workshop Uploader). 1. Launch Simutrans (this should be the only default). 2. Launch as server -> Users can already load a savegame as a server from inside the game. Also, Steam DOES allow for command-line parameters to be specified at launch, and experienced users (like those who wants to set up a server) should be aware of that. 3. Safe Mode -> The only reason to select this option is to start Simutrans without the preloader, and thus, without Steam funcionality. If you want to play Simutrans without Steam funcionality... you cand do so with the non-Steam version. This option doesn't make sense to me, from a Steam player perspective. 4. Steam Workshop Uploader -> Now this is the interesting part. I have never seen a game implementing the "Workshop uploader" (currently named as SDK) as a launch option. This is not bad at all, but this usually comes shipped as a separate "Tool" or just implemented inside the game (I don't like this approach for Simutrans) - so I would prefer to ship the Workshop Uploader utility separately from the game. And maybe rename it to Simutrans SDK, just for consistency. I have yet to see how to do this. One important thing is that the Workshop Uploader is currently Windows-only. This a big problem, like the preloader, because source code is also not available, so we lack support for Linux & Mac. But it also means that I can get rid of those innecesary launch options on Linux, and so I did. Preloader is now what you get when you click Play. But let's talk about more interesting topics now. ____________________________________________________

4 - The Steam Paksets

[img width=640 height=376]https://i.imgur.com/1AcoXXI.png[/img] Description says: "A range of miscellaneous Paksets.". Can you guess what it contains? Decisions were made in the past, to bundle some paksets together in the same DLC. I don't agree with those decisions, and I think paksets developers also disagree. This is confusing for new players, is extra work for me when updating paksets, and, in the end, paksets don't get treated like they deserve. If no one is against it, I'll de-bundle the paksets and make a DLC for every pakset, as it should be. Now let's take a broad look at the Simutrans paksets, and their status, on Steam: * pak32.comic - Bundled in "Comic Paksets" https://store.steampowered.com/app/434632/Comic_Paksets/ * pak48.excentrique - Bundled in "Miscellaneous paksets" https://store.steampowered.com/app/435963/Simutrans__Miscellaneous_Paksets/ * pak64 - Available standalone https://store.steampowered.com/app/434520/Simutrans/ * pak64.classic - Not available * pak64.contrast - Bundled in "Miscellaneous paksets" https://store.steampowered.com/app/435963/Simutrans__Miscellaneous_Paksets/ * pak64.german - Not available * pak64.ho-scale - Bundled in "Miscellaneous paksets" https://store.steampowered.com/app/435963/Simutrans__Miscellaneous_Paksets/ * pak64.japan - Bundled in "Japan based Packsets" https://store.steampowered.com/app/435960/Simutrans__Japan_based_Packsets/ * pak64.nippon - Bundled in "Japan based Packsets" https://store.steampowered.com/app/435960/Simutrans__Japan_based_Packsets/ * pak64.scifi - Bundled in "Miscellaneous paksets" https://store.steampowered.com/app/435963/Simutrans__Miscellaneous_Paksets/ * pak96.comic - Bundled in "Comic Paksets" https://store.steampowered.com/app/434632/Comic_Paksets/ * pak96.HD - Bundled in "Comic Paksets" https://store.steampowered.com/app/434632/Comic_Paksets/ * pak128 - Default pakset * pak128.britain - Available standalone https://store.steampowered.com/app/434631/Simutrans__Pak128Britain/?snr=1_5_9__405 * pak128.cs - Not available * pak128.german - Available standalone https://store.steampowered.com/app/434633/Simutrans__German_Paksets/ * pak128.japan - Bundled in "Japan based Packsets" https://store.steampowered.com/app/435960/Simutrans__Japan_based_Packsets/ * pak192.comic - Bundled in "Comic Paksets" https://store.steampowered.com/app/434632/Comic_Paksets/ Curiously, there was a store page for Pak64.HO-Scale, but it is not published. Everything is here, but instead, Pak64.HO-Scale is bundled in "Miscellaneous paksets". To sum up, we have three paksets not available yet, and only three paksets unbundled. Previously to being maintainer I didn't even know pak64.scifi was being bundled with "Miscellaneous paksets", since it is also available on the Worskhop. This is a mess I need to solve, and also bring unavailable paksets to Steam. But doing a store page for every pakset is a lot of work, so I have had an idea... ____________________________________________________

5 - The Steam Store Page

[img width=640 height=203]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/765354844411527199/765355467547344916/Screenshot_20201013_003012.png[/img] Previous Library Header. You can see the new one at the top of this post While the Steam Store page for the main game is good enough, it can be improved, specially with screenshots. Screenshots are a bit dated, there's only a few of them, and can be a bit overwhelming for new players (too many info displayed on the screen). Screenshots are also showing only the default pakset, when I think they should show a range of diverse paksets, so the player inmediatly knows that Simutrans have different graphics sets available. A good way to improve the page would be also to translate it to other languages - specially german and japanese since they are the main players (see statistics). If someone want to help with translation of the pages, please contact me. But the worst of all are pakset pages. They lack a proper description (What is this pakset? What does include the DLC? Who are the creators?), and usually only show screenshots of on of the paksets if they come bundled. The Miscellaneous Paksets Store Page is specially bad. Like, the worst you can get presenting a game... What's the plan? If we split the bundles, we will have yet more pages to fill with screenshots. So, this a situation that makes a good excuse to celebrate a new Screenshot Showcase. Winners of the Screenshot Showcase would be displayed in Steam Store Pages. What do you think abuout it? ____________________________________________________

6 - Improving Standard defaults

A troll review Users on Steam are constantly complaining about Simutrans (note: we still have 3x more positive reviews than negative reviews). They mainly complain about: 1. Simutrans being difficult. This is one of the most recurrent complains. Players find too difficult to play the game, or find a lack of resources where they can learn how to play the game. Shipping a tutorial with the game is a high priority right now. 2. UI being ugly / not adapted to current display standards. Some of those problems have been already addressed by the Simutrans team recently (font, theme size, etc...), but there's still some complains about the UI. Today a user complained about the new modern theme, and I expect more complains about the UI in the future. Those little details are what make the difference for a lot of players. [quote]While I like the new look, light colored lines in charts are hard to see. Perhaps returning the background color of those charts t grey might help[/quote] 3. Graphics being dated. We can't do much there. We could ship a better-looking pakset with Simutrans by default to give a better first-impression, like pak128.german or pak192.comic (Ideally we would have a much modern pakset like pak256, but we don't). But that would deteriorate problem #1... Maybe pak192.comic developers or others would like to provide a dumbed-down version of their pakset? ____________________________________________________

7 - Bringing non-Standard Simutrans to Steam

The "beta branches" funcionality of Steam we could use to ship non-Standard Simutrans versions A thing I really would like to do is to provide Simutrans versions that are not the Standard ones, to make them more accesible for players. For example, one of the downsides of Simutrans Extended, is that you need to update it everyday. This could be easily achieved deploying Simutrans Extended in a beta branch, so Steam will take care of the update for you, and you could also play your already available paksets of Simutrans on Steam with it. However, including Extended into Steam also adds more complexity for players. Extended needs its own set of paksets to make use of extended funcionality. A way to simplify then would be to replace the pak128.britan with pak128.britan-ex when you are in the Extended beta branch. This is very easy to do. But, what happens with other paksets not available on Steam now? pak256 would need its own store page - or be packaged within Extended, but I don't like this approach because switching beta branches would bring hundreds of MB to download for the user. For the first option, adding a DLC that Standard players can't play does not seem like a good idea, it can lead to confusion. Another way to bring Simutrans Extended to Steam would be to ship it alongside Standard, then using Steam Launch options to select between Standard or Extended when you click play. This has the advantage of eliminating the need for beta branches and switching between them, but it also means we can't get rid of the Steam Launch options (although this time it would have a much better justification to exist). It would also expose more the non-Standard version of Simutrans to new players, so it can be a good option to consider. Other versions of Simutrans should be easier to deploy (OTRP and Nightly, which Misha has already requested). In the end I want you to help me decide how to do it: beta branches, or steam launch options? ____________________________________________________

8 - Summary of proposed changes

1. Fix Mac version (easier said than done, I know). 2. Get rid of the preloader (eventually) and implement steam funcionality into Simutrans itself - or rewrite the preloader (duplicate options, support for Mac is lacking). 3. Get rid of Steam Launch Options (depending on #7) and ship the Wokshop Uploader as a separate, installable tool. 4. Reorganize Steam Paksets: A Store Page for every pakset, and bring unavailable paksets to Steam. 5. Improve store pages with descriptions, translations, and new screenshots (for what a Screenshot Showcase may be useful) 6. Ship Simutrans with a tutorial. Maybe reconsider default pakset. 7. Deciding between shipping non-Standard version alongside the game or as a beta branch.

[ 2020-10-14 18:58:16 CET ] [ Original post ]