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"Pop-Up messages...pros and cons??"

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Denny (141 posts)
Aug-06-01, 01:20 PM (EST) "Pop-Up messages...pros and cons??" I'm looking for my fellow designers views on the pop-up messages that can be used in the activities. personally i'm not crazy about the ones in the default activities that "pop-up" just as your coupling cars. very distracting. i would rather see them at times that may add some direction over more difficult areas rather than coming up during every coupling as tho the person cant figure out that they have found the right cars to couple.
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Subject Author Message Date ID RE: Pop-Up messages...pros and cons... flarrfan Aug-06-01 1 RE: Pop-Up messages...pros and cons... ergobob Aug-06-01 2 RE: Pop-Up messages...pros and cons... tulsarailfan Aug-07-01 4 RE: Pop-Up messages...pros and cons... Denny Aug-06-01 3 RE: Pop-Up messages...pros and cons... flarrfan Aug-07-01 5 RE: Pop-Up messages...pros and cons... flarrfan Aug-08-01 6 RE: Pop-Up messages...pros and cons... flarrfan Aug-08-01 7 RE: Pop-Up messages...pros and cons... sniper297 Aug-09-01 8 RE: Pop-Up messages...pros and cons... flarrfan Aug-09-01 9 RE: Pop-Up messages...pros and cons... sniper297 Aug-09-01 10 RE: Pop-Up messages...pros and cons... scand Aug-12-01 11 RE: Pop-Up messages...pros and cons... biggg1fan Aug-14-01 12 RE: Pop-Up messages...pros and cons... Frin63 Aug-15-01 13 RE: Pop-Up messages...pros and cons... flarrfan Aug-15-01 14 RE: Pop-Up messages...pros and cons... Frin63 Aug-17-01 15

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Messages in this topic
flarrfan (253 posts)
Aug-06-01, 04:55 PM (EST) 1. "RE: Pop-Up messages...pros and cons??" How about eliminating pop-ups completely? They are unrealistic and not prototypical, as well as distracting. I'm toying around with the idea of an activity without pop-ups or even an F11 work order. Instead there is a WordPad file to print with your briefing and your work order, and you use the paperwork in a prototypical way. Any thoughts? Would you be interested in an activity that doesn't hold your hand all the way through and remind you of things a train engineer would know anyway? Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
ergobob (267 posts)
Aug-06-01, 07:04 PM (EST) 2. "RE: Pop-Up messages...pros and cons??" There was one activity where the author had pop ups but if you backed the train up at the beginning, there would be no pop ups.I like the pop ups when I first run the activity. I wish there was a key for turning them off when you don't want them.Is that possible?bob Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
tulsarailfan (17 posts)
Aug-07-01, 05:53 PM (EST) 4. "RE: Pop-Up messages...pros and cons??" I was the author of an activity in which you could turn the popups off if you wished (it's a Columbia Falls switcher, cfswitch.zip on www.train-sim.com). You could use them the first time or two to guide you through the activity, then dispense with them in the future.The way I did it was, I set the 'activation level' of every popup to 0, except the first one (a popup or any other event for that matter won't be activated if the activiation level is less than one). Then when the user pulls across the first location, it increases the NEXT location's activation level by one (from 0 to 1) so that event activates, that location in turn increases the next one by one, etc. So it's a domino effect or "daisy-chain." BUT, if you BACK UP, you hit a location event a little bit behind the train, that says "Messages are now turned off". This does only one thing: it decreases the activiation level of the very first location event, which would have displayed a popup message, to 0, so it never is activated, so it doesn't in turn turn on the next message, etc. There were some messages, communiques from the dispatcher about arriving trains, that I opted to ALWAYS display, so I set the activation level on those to 1.--Steve Davis Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Denny (141 posts)
Aug-06-01, 10:24 PM (EST) 3. "RE: Pop-Up messages...pros and cons??" flarr, i like the idea for the printed form for workorder and was going to include one in my accompanying files with my next activity. as to getting rid of the popups. just go into the activity in the editor and delete them.
denny Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
flarrfan (253 posts)
Aug-07-01, 08:10 PM (EST) 5. "RE: Pop-Up messages...pros and cons??" Denny, I know I can delete them from activities on my own system, but I enjoy creating activities for others to use, and I think Steve's idea is the best bet, telling folks in the readme file what to do if they do or don't want the pop-ups. I haven't paid much attention to activation levels until now, so maybe that's the next concept to learn as I play around with this thing. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
flarrfan (253 posts)
Aug-08-01, 01:24 PM (EST) 6. "RE: Pop-Up messages...pros and cons??" And sure enough, I screwed it up royally this morning. I made some activation level changes and now my events are showing Activation Level 666 (now I now who's corrupting my AE files), and there's a bunch of gibberish in the trigger text box, though I never put anything in there. Steve, anyone, HELP! Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
flarrfan (253 posts)
Aug-08-01, 10:32 PM (EST) 7. "RE: Pop-Up messages...pros and cons??" Okay, I checked my last successful activity and found my mistake, just ran my new activity and with a couple of changes sent it out for testing. Should be on the website this weekend. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
sniper297 (204 posts)
Aug-09-01, 02:10 AM (EST) 8. "RE: Pop-Up messages...pros and cons??" Just like to throw in my two cents worht about popups. The whole point of playing a lot of different kinds of games, especially a first person perspective sim, is the whole "You are there" feeling, which requires a whole bunch of "suspension of disbelief", a sort of philisophical term describing the process of putting the player's consciousness so far into the game that he forgets he IS playing a game and actually, in part of his mind, believes he really IS doing what the game is supposed to represent. For me, the popups, especially since they pause the game, are a distracting bit of UNrealism that chops my suspension of disbelief off, taking me out of the game by restoring the disbelief. It comes back again, of course, if you're really into it, but I have always left them out of my activities for that reason. If it was a discreet popup, at the bottom of the screen or something, that did not "freeze" what you are doing to call attention to yourself, it might be different. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
flarrfan (253 posts)
Aug-09-01, 07:07 AM (EST) 9. "RE: Pop-Up messages...pros and cons??" Personally, I totally agree with sniper. However, I get a lot of satisfaction from creating activities for others to use, and the concept you have in mind when designing an activity may be totally clear to you, but as I have learned from my testers' experiences, without pop-up guidance, they sometimes have no idea as to what to do next. If you are comfortable with the activity editor, just go in there, read the pop-up messages, make any notes you need, and delete them. That seems like the best compromise to me. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
sniper297 (204 posts)
Aug-09-01, 11:07 AM (EST) 10. "RE: Pop-Up messages...pros and cons??" Other option would be to include a workorder.txt file packaged with each activity, so we could just print it out. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
scand (78 posts)
Aug-12-01, 02:01 PM (EST) 11. "RE: Pop-Up messages...pros and cons??" There are a couple of activities that does that and it becomes very useful as a quick reference.Alex
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biggg1fan (24 posts)
Aug-14-01, 04:52 PM (EST) 12. "RE: Pop-Up messages...pros and cons??" So how else can you have the dispatcher communicate with the engineer DURING an activity? Printed work orders are fine, but what happens when there's sim-dependent messages? (e.g., if you're on time, Go in the siding at MP 75.00 and wait for the express to pass, but if you're late, go in the siding at MP 54 and wait...)Derek Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Frin63 (24 posts)
Aug-15-01, 05:28 PM (EST) 13. "RE: Pop-Up messages...pros and cons??" I tend to agree there. Pop-ups are nice if you don't want to tell everything in advance or want to make it run-time dependent. Still I find them very distracting because they freeze the sim. That's a killer for the immersion factor. I personally only use messages on location action with the 'train halted' option activated. They will only play with the train stopped and then it doesn't usually interfere with the driving and immerion too much.
It would be much better if we could activate wav files or display running messages without stopping the clock.. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
flarrfan (253 posts)
Aug-15-01, 06:53 PM (EST) 14. "RE: Pop-Up messages...pros and cons??" It would be neat to have a ProFlight type add-on that would replace the AI dispatcher that came with MSTS with a group of .wav files that would simulate dispatcher instructions to your train and eliminate the stalemates and collisions that the present dispatching lends itself to. I would pay the same $40 I paid for ProFlight if someone would hack the necessary code and get the appropriate license from MS. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Frin63 (24 posts)
Aug-17-01, 03:11 PM (EST) 15. "RE: Pop-Up messages...pros and cons??" This is the Boston Express, we request 1000 feet higher to avoid traffic... Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

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