Lord Thane
I have complained about it in the past, but here's my last appeal on the subject of secrets in the mechanics of the game. It's supposed to be a strategy game - how can people employ strategy when there's certain key things in the game that nobody outside of the devs actually know? We don't need the underlying code on how combat works, but full information on units and techs seems like a no brainer. I always go back to the racial techs, but it illustrates my point well. The human racial tech is explained in complete detail and has an example provided. That's great, it lets the person playing human fully understand what they are investing 175 hours of tech time into. Then you go to Undead, and all that they get is that Dark Knight gets more ranged attack. How much ranged, who knows? Keeper said in another post that it's "a lot". Is a lot 3, 4, 10, 30? Only he and you know, and how can that player that's about to invest 175 hours ever know? If it's 30 range then they would probably rush it right away, but if it's 3 range they might just leave it to the very end because they deem it isn't worth it. The important thing is that they don't know, and compared to the person playing human are now playing a completely different game. The human player is fully informed and the undead player is playing a guessing game, which feels really bad considering the time investment in the tech.
Is the areas of secrecy based on the original Thardferr? Why are we so hesitant to change that aspect of the game when we aren't hesitant to change other core aspects of the game? I would be curious to see a poll of current elf players and if they actually prefer not knowing what caragous does. I don't think the mystery matters as much to players as you may think it does. It seems like it's for nostalgia for the folks who've been playing the game for years - those players are going to continue playing regardless, and would be shocked if they stopped playing because all of a sudden they know how caragous scales. All it does is frustrates people who aren't in the know, and it will be a barrier for entry for new players.
Rant over - would be curious to see what other players think of the subject.
