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So in downloading RTS I noticed that it seems to written in visual basic. A language I am quite familiar with. We all think that RTS could use some improvements, so I'm going to make it my summer project to remake RTS.
Things that I hope to include:
Designated areas for Cards (No more just throwing cards where ever you want)
Program at least MOST of the rules in so you don't have to do everything yourself
Ability to install with one fill instead of, I believe 7.
Just cleaning up the GUI a little
Hopefully a more advanced deck builder.


I'm posting this thread because I want your input. What do you guys want changed from the current RTS to make it more user friendly and fun. Please note that I can't do everything you want, VB is a limited language. I'm looking to improve on what is there not make a whole new system that blows the current out of the water. I do have to start from scratch because RTS isn't open source but I'm first going to rebuild what they have then make my changes. Also note that this may not be 100% free to acquire. Don't worry too much about it, the most I will ever charge is 5 bucks for the whole system. The reason I have to do this is simple. I have bills to pay. I could be spending my time on projects that would generate a lot more income but this is something I want to do. I have to cover my costs but I'm not looking to become bill gates off this either.

Also when I get a little further along I may be looking for Alpha and eventually Beta Testers. The Alpha testers need to have at least some knowledge of visual basic and Object Oriented Programming. The Beta testers do not. This is just because, well I can't find all the bugs on my own and I'd rather find them before it goes live.

My semester ends next week. I will probably begin basic work on this project around then as well. Input is welcome and if the folks who made the original RTS are on the forum you're input would be extremely helpful to get this started faster. This is not going to be a be all end all solution to RTS, it's still not going to be cross platform as far as I know (sorry mac and linux users I feel you're pain I promise) but it will be better (I hope at least) and it's something to get me some experience in making games before I jump full on into that next semester.

So. Questions. Comments. Suggestions. Advice. All are welcome.

Someone, Mike Wolfe I believe, is already making Redemption Live, which will be the next generation of online redemption playing. Hopefully it's coming out soon, but I'm not sure on the progress, so your program might not be needed by the time you finish. There might also be some sort of copyright claim if you profit off making it...

I supposed the post title could be confusing I'm not actually updating the current RTS I'm making my own that builds off the useful things i've seen in the current one,I just didn't want people confusing this thread with something about Redemption live. My bad everyone

I don't see any downsides to the redemption community to this except for the fee. If your program is a lot better than the current RTS though, then people might be willing to put down $5 for it. Lost time is all I see that it can cost you if it doesn't catch on, or is quickly replaced by redemption live.

I hope it's good enough to warrant the fee. I would love to give it out for free it's really going to depend on if I am able to work on this and still cover all of my expenses at the same time. I don't want to put a fee on this, it's not going to be polished enough I don't believe, I'm just giving fair warning that if I need the money that will be how I recoup my losses.

First 2 ideas.

Have a start up screen with a deck builder, practice mode (offline, just playing against yourself probably like it is now. i dont know how to do AI) and then play now mode (thats the online) as well as a "tournament" mode (maybe)

Your hand is not taking up its full space the whole time. most of the game it will be just a 25-50 pixel strip on the bottom of the screen that only displays the top of the cards (name, brigade, numbers that kind of thing) then when you click on the top of that strip it expands to show you the whole cards. this will keep the territory less cluttered and will help out people with smaller monitors. that cards will always be the same size, so even on the smallest screens you can read it, but they wont be covering up the territory by remaining that size.

It would be nice if there was an ability to put a card on the bottom of the deck and to get a card from the bottom of the deck.

And it would be nice if the "pass your turn" button was not right next to the "draw cards" button.

the majority of the GUI is going to change. The title of this post is misleading I know. I'm not really updating the current system I'm just gonna make my own from scratch.

Or, if those buttons are near each other, make them larger button sizes then what is currently available. I do have experience with VBasic, and Java OOP so let me know if you want some help, or just need an outlet to bounce ideas off of.

definitely will do. im trying to write down the ideas as they come so this will probably be where they get posted until I get a giant whiteboard (hehehe) theres a lot of things that I want to do I just have to make sure VB is capable of doing it. only way I'll know is by guess and check really.

Isn't Redemption Live going to cost some money as well?  Anyone know how much?

These things are missing from RTS so we've had to find a work around:

Reveal cards from bottom of deck
Look at cards from bottom of deck
Look at cards from top of deck
Discard cards from bottom of deck
export excludes multi-color evil cards
Unable to add new brigades (Teal and Orange is all right now)
Unable to add new card types (Curses and Territory Class)
Show the number of Good and Evil cards while making a deck
Perhaps add a "shuffle hand" button?
Make it so when you shuffle a single card into your deck, your entire deck is actually shuffled. (currently the one card is randomly thrown in)
Make it so you can see cards that have been removed from game. This is a nightmare if you accidentally remove something.

Added some things.

And an "ANB button."  The icon can be a nuke.

I could just make the card the ANB button.....

I'd be willing to donate some money (not much, I have college to fund...) if you make it available for the mac. I've been deprived of RTS for quite some time now due to my new found love for mac.

I'll have to see. Right now the only programming language I know how to code in is Visual Basic which was a language made by microsoft. I'm not sure there's any way to make it cross platform. for that matter the version i'm using may already be and I just don't know it. I should probably google that.......*off to google*

Edit: After some googling there MIGHT be a way to do this. There is supposedly a program out there that can port my VB code in to RealBasic (Macs version of Visual Basic) which would be able to run on a Mac. However until I actually try this I have no way of knowing if it works or not so I have to leave my answer at a tentative maybe leaning towards yes. When I have the Windows version 100% done with all the bugs worked out I will try to port it and will have to test it to see if anything broke in the process. Which means i'll need a mac. darn.

Quote from: lp670sv on May 08, 2011, 06:48:22 PM

Quote from: Ring Wraith on May 08, 2011, 06:42:14 PM

I'd be willing to donate some money (not much, I have college to fund...) if you make it available for the mac. I've been deprived of RTS for quite some time now due to my new found love for mac.

I'll have to see. Right now the only programming language I know how to code in is Visual Basic which was a language made by microsoft. I'm not sure there's any way to make it cross platform. for that matter the version i'm using may already be and I just don't know it. I should probably google that.......*off to google*

This, folks, is why one uses Java.

Refer to the edit i made to that post

Being able to search by name would also be nice.