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Warn when viewing distance exceeds the distance of stuff
Posted: 11 Nov 2021, 18:51
by AnyOldName3
We're getting people turn up their viewing distance beyond the ECLD, and then not know they need to enable distant terrain etc. to make stuff show up, or misspell the setting name and think it's on when it isn't etc.. It'd be pretty simple to detect this and log a warning, but then users don't always look at the log, so maybe we want something more noticeable than that. E.g. we could turn something red in the launcher and in-game options when the slider's moved but the checkboxes remain unchecked. However, we still run the risk of people hand-editing config files and never seeing that redness, which could only be solved with a popup, and popups are irritating.
Thoughts?
Re: Warn when viewing distance exceeds the distance of stuff
Posted: 11 Nov 2021, 21:27
by ptmikheev
Maybe just enable these checkboxes by default?
Re: Warn when viewing distance exceeds the distance of stuff
Posted: 11 Nov 2021, 22:02
by AnyOldName3
Possibly also a good idea, but it'll still leave a hole if users change their settings accidentally.
Re: Warn when viewing distance exceeds the distance of stuff
Posted: 12 Nov 2021, 06:02
by Chris
AnyOldName3 wrote: ↑11 Nov 2021, 18:51
We're getting people turn up their viewing distance beyond the ECLD, and then not know they need to enable distant terrain etc. to make stuff show up, or misspell the setting name and think it's on when it isn't etc.. It'd be pretty simple to detect this and log a warning, but then users don't always look at the log, so maybe we want something more noticeable than that. E.g. we could turn something red in the launcher and in-game options when the slider's moved but the checkboxes remain unchecked. However, we still run the risk of people hand-editing config files and never seeing that redness, which could only be solved with a popup, and popups are irritating.
Thoughts?
In my opinion, as long as the config file clearly mentions needing to enable distant terrain, and the launcher provides appropriate feedback that distant terrain also needs to be enabled (e.g. with a red highlight or alert icon), users who manually edit the config file and ignore what it says just have themselves to blame. We can help them when they ask, but tell them to be more mindful of the options' descriptions if they're going to be editing it manually.
Re: Warn when viewing distance exceeds the distance of stuff
Posted: 12 Nov 2021, 14:48
by psi29a
Would it work that when the view distance get's bumped up so high that we just turn on OP as well?
Or... should we turn on OP by default and leave the option to turn it off?
I believe that only a minority of players that play Morrowind on OpenMW would want non OP behaviour anyway.
(Note: I believe keeping non-OP behaviour is preferable for those running on low-end hardware.)
Re: Warn when viewing distance exceeds the distance of stuff
Posted: 12 Nov 2021, 17:52
by AnyOldName3
as long as the config file clearly mentions needing to enable distant terrain
It doesn't. It's a config file. It's only got the settings in it that users have changed from the default, and no comments unless the user's added them.
settings-default.cfg, which users were
never supposed to edit,
did have comments, but now it's less obviously a config file (as technically it never was a config file as you weren't meant to configure things with it) in order to prevent users shooting themselves in the foot by editing it (which was the most common footgun injury we were seeing).