To be honest, while I assume good intentions, this thread was potentially misleading from the start.
You ask whether the next version should be named 1.3 or 2, which put down as this really is rather pointless. The actual question is, do you wish the game to stay close to where it came from (1.3), or would you really want it to be pushed onto something new (2), like porting it to another engine or undergo massive changes.
I personally do not want AC's core mechanics to be changed, nor do I want it to be ported to another engine. In fact, I do agree with Stef that advanced mapping abilities would most likely kill the current gameplay and it's the game's simplicity and straight forward style which keeps me coming back every so often.
Don't get me wrong, if a group of enthusiasts comes together and creates something like AC on cube2/tesseract/unreal/source/...-engine, I'd definitly give it a shot. Yet, I wouldn't want it to replace the 'classic' AC, which is implied in your either/or-way of asking.
The second question is also tricky, since it suggests that there have to be new/more features added. Why so, in first place?
Has it ever come to mind, that AC might just be trimmed down to a more userfriendly _arcade_ game, what it is actually advertised to be? There is so much functionality hidden in the back, stuff only being accessible through cube script. Those menus are a mess. The server browser itself feels like a weird management simulation game. I'd say we'd clean up that before adding even more to it.
Finally that third question is in fact provoking, rather than encouraging a dialog between developers and community, which is yet really the direction given by the title already. Expectations? Estimations?
It's this customer-damand mind set, which is not going to make any spare time dev listen.
No, we should be talking about what do we really like about the game in it's current state. What keeps us old guys playing? What did the later newbies make stay? Of course, we also have to adress what feels broken or problematic, in order to enhance the gaming experience, yet there's no reason to 'discuss' it over and over again, without giving reasonable alternatives.
However, I'm not intending to defend the devs here. I only want to encourage a more constructive way of discussing. Of course, there're always two sides to it and yes there should be more information on what current developement is going on or what is planned. Devs, don't expect us to hang around on IRC all day to catch up everything going on. Just share your submits compiled into a handy list and your overall vision here on the forum every now and then.
You ask whether the next version should be named 1.3 or 2, which put down as this really is rather pointless. The actual question is, do you wish the game to stay close to where it came from (1.3), or would you really want it to be pushed onto something new (2), like porting it to another engine or undergo massive changes.
I personally do not want AC's core mechanics to be changed, nor do I want it to be ported to another engine. In fact, I do agree with Stef that advanced mapping abilities would most likely kill the current gameplay and it's the game's simplicity and straight forward style which keeps me coming back every so often.
Don't get me wrong, if a group of enthusiasts comes together and creates something like AC on cube2/tesseract/unreal/source/...-engine, I'd definitly give it a shot. Yet, I wouldn't want it to replace the 'classic' AC, which is implied in your either/or-way of asking.
The second question is also tricky, since it suggests that there have to be new/more features added. Why so, in first place?
Has it ever come to mind, that AC might just be trimmed down to a more userfriendly _arcade_ game, what it is actually advertised to be? There is so much functionality hidden in the back, stuff only being accessible through cube script. Those menus are a mess. The server browser itself feels like a weird management simulation game. I'd say we'd clean up that before adding even more to it.
Finally that third question is in fact provoking, rather than encouraging a dialog between developers and community, which is yet really the direction given by the title already. Expectations? Estimations?
It's this customer-damand mind set, which is not going to make any spare time dev listen.
No, we should be talking about what do we really like about the game in it's current state. What keeps us old guys playing? What did the later newbies make stay? Of course, we also have to adress what feels broken or problematic, in order to enhance the gaming experience, yet there's no reason to 'discuss' it over and over again, without giving reasonable alternatives.
However, I'm not intending to defend the devs here. I only want to encourage a more constructive way of discussing. Of course, there're always two sides to it and yes there should be more information on what current developement is going on or what is planned. Devs, don't expect us to hang around on IRC all day to catch up everything going on. Just share your submits compiled into a handy list and your overall vision here on the forum every now and then.