HUCE- It's 21 Dec 1970 even in the Falklands Battleset scenarios

[Herman]

Originally Posted by burroughs

Alright, I think I have grown out of HUCE after I saw your comparison at the YT channel of yours and have been struggling to get through H3 UANW. At first it looked to me as the least intuitive and user friendly wargame/simulation I have ever put my hands on, but gradually I am developing my skills to go over the most adverse aspects of both the interface and the nuances of the gameplay. I have always suspected and now just think that any serious and decent simulation simply has to be demanding.

It surely does look impressive with the abundance of scenarios in the current Players' DB, the formation and mission editors etc. I have visited quite a few places on the net where the game is features and still have a couple of questions. may I ask them here or move to another thread or site? Harpoon for Dummies thread here perhaps? BTW, my sincere kudos to you and your long term and sustained support for the game community.

I started Harpoon via the same route as you. I played HCE until I finished every last scenario before moving on to H3, because I also felt that the interface was difficult to use. However, after learning the various hotkey commands and techniques to minimize any awkwardness, I found that the game flowed well enough. IMO, the crowning achievement of H3 is the multiple map capability, which allows me to customize the interface to show many different battles from different map locations at the same time.

I think that many games are demanding, but unnecessarily so due to poor original design. But, if you consider that the original Harpoon 2 forerunner released in 1994 (when Windows was fairly new and right mouse buttons did not exist for many), then you can see how far ahead they were planning. In general, your right hand controls the mouse for map adjustments while the left hand pretty much activates all the hotkeys. The real difference is that the hotkeys actually make things happen and send orders to the game. Most games with poor interfaces have hotkeys that only pull up displays and issue no orders whatsoever.

At this time, I am helping another individual enter the world of H3. He is well experienced in UI design and also sees the bold attempts made by H3 in terms of the user interface, in a time when the tools were so limited.

You can feel free to ask your questions at the site which you find most convenient. Harpoon for Dummies (https://www.youtube.com/user/HarPlonked) and HarPlonkHQ (http://www.harplonkhq.com/forum/index.php) exist to serve Players and will help all those who ask. We do not encourage players to leave their favorite sites like SubSim to seek help. We will come to you, if we can, and try to monitor most sites.

The only advantage of HarPlonkHQ is that you can attach files up to 15mB in size, for any questions you may have.

[burroughs]

I understand that the question I asked here may have put you in an awkward position, but obviously that wasn't my intention by any means. I also didn't want to show any sign of disloyalty towards the site here, I just thought it might be against the netiquette here to start a thread regarding HUCE and then just keep filling it with a content that refers to something else. Thanks for the answer again, I should resurface soon at most suitable place to carry on my investigation.

[Herman]

Originally Posted by burroughs

I understand that the question I asked here may have put you in an awkward position, but obviously that wasn't my intention by any means. I also didn't want to show any sign of disloyalty towards the site here, I just thought it might be against the netiquette here to start a thread regarding HUCE and then just keep filling it with a content that refers to something else.

There is nothing awkward at all, IMO. Some sites/people always ask you to 'come to their site' to discuss the game because they want to dictate who is allowed on their site. We have no such pretensions and follow the discussion wherever it may appear. Just be aware that not all Harpoon sites are freely open to the public.

We're here to serve you, as the player, and not the other way around.