Re: Improvement poll -- Alerts & Reminders
Posted: Tue Jun 18, 2024 7:16 pm
David:
To be honest, I hadn't thought about the mechanics of of how to implement alerts and reminders. I believe however, that the delivery system for alerts and reminders should be flexible enough to enable players with varying preferenes to activate/deactivate some, any or all alerts.
My rudimentary programming skills date back to obsolete languages of the 70's and 80's; so I don't have a good handle on what is easy, complex but doable, and/or too difficult to justify the time and effort relative to other requests. Nevertheless, I propose for consideration, three choices that i believe would be valuable for my style.
I think one choice would be a free-form text entry capability that triggers when defined conditions are met for reminders. The entry would include a capability to enable the player to choose how to deliver the reminder (An example would be setting a reminder for wheat sowing season beginning in one month.) The player would choose whether to send the message: 1) non-intrusively to the log, 2) as a pop-up window, or 3) as a voice alert such that the player's current activity isn't interrupted.
A second choice would be a scheduled report option. This option would enable the player to select from some pre-defined, common reports that trigger at some regular time or interval. Here, too, the player could choose to see the report in a pop-up, as a message in the log with a link to the report or as a voice alert indicating a specific report has been activated. My examples for this option are a report (top 10, bottom 10, etc.) showing: 1) firms or products with some type of major bottleneck such as demand exceeds supply for firm x for y length of time by z percent. A bottom 10 report would show the reverse -- retail product x in firm y shows sales value z. Many other reports could be defined to provide focused production and sales information.
A third option could be a checklist that is used by the player to customize which alerts, if any, to include in the logs. This is partially implemented already in the form of news alerts. Currently, news alert categories are all or none. For example, if a player wants to know when someone is buying/selling stock of interesting companies, e'g. subsidiaries, all stock transactions for all companies fill the log. An option to dynamically activate stock alerts for specific companies if/when they become desirbale would substantially reduce log clutter.
These are some things I consider valuable. I play the game more slowly than most players -- I use the "pause" constantly. Lots of alerts and interruptions are not major issues for me. But other players who prefer to play with minimal pause, could be annoyed by additional alerts. As such, any option for additional alerts should be accompanied by flexibility to selectively choose which, and how, alerts are displayed.
To be honest, I hadn't thought about the mechanics of of how to implement alerts and reminders. I believe however, that the delivery system for alerts and reminders should be flexible enough to enable players with varying preferenes to activate/deactivate some, any or all alerts.
My rudimentary programming skills date back to obsolete languages of the 70's and 80's; so I don't have a good handle on what is easy, complex but doable, and/or too difficult to justify the time and effort relative to other requests. Nevertheless, I propose for consideration, three choices that i believe would be valuable for my style.
I think one choice would be a free-form text entry capability that triggers when defined conditions are met for reminders. The entry would include a capability to enable the player to choose how to deliver the reminder (An example would be setting a reminder for wheat sowing season beginning in one month.) The player would choose whether to send the message: 1) non-intrusively to the log, 2) as a pop-up window, or 3) as a voice alert such that the player's current activity isn't interrupted.
A second choice would be a scheduled report option. This option would enable the player to select from some pre-defined, common reports that trigger at some regular time or interval. Here, too, the player could choose to see the report in a pop-up, as a message in the log with a link to the report or as a voice alert indicating a specific report has been activated. My examples for this option are a report (top 10, bottom 10, etc.) showing: 1) firms or products with some type of major bottleneck such as demand exceeds supply for firm x for y length of time by z percent. A bottom 10 report would show the reverse -- retail product x in firm y shows sales value z. Many other reports could be defined to provide focused production and sales information.
A third option could be a checklist that is used by the player to customize which alerts, if any, to include in the logs. This is partially implemented already in the form of news alerts. Currently, news alert categories are all or none. For example, if a player wants to know when someone is buying/selling stock of interesting companies, e'g. subsidiaries, all stock transactions for all companies fill the log. An option to dynamically activate stock alerts for specific companies if/when they become desirbale would substantially reduce log clutter.
These are some things I consider valuable. I play the game more slowly than most players -- I use the "pause" constantly. Lots of alerts and interruptions are not major issues for me. But other players who prefer to play with minimal pause, could be annoyed by additional alerts. As such, any option for additional alerts should be accompanied by flexibility to selectively choose which, and how, alerts are displayed.