81. An option to keep defs unpacked all the time (especially for adventure map objects which may get high in numbers with new resolutions).
Here’s why I even bother about it:
Actually almost all defs are kept unpacked (except creature animations in battles - they are too big).
Many, many thanks for all the new features implemented! Especially for those quoted above - they’re saving me from a lot of redundant actions. 
[size=75]And a not-so-urgent request :)[/size]
82. Possibility to change Music & Effects volume during battles.
And a question: Are the town graphics limited to what we see in the town screens, or are they by any chance actually extended, but covered by the bottom panel? I’m asking this because I noticed the town screen resource bar becomes actually redundant in resolutions above x600. And I was thinking of the possibilities of putting that available space to good use in the future… but it depends on the possibilities. 
EDIT - While waiting for the answer on the above, I’m already going to post the suggestion(s) I had in mind here:
- (NEW) Analyze if the resource bar in Town screen is indeed redundant on high resolutions; and if so, see if we can make better use of that space:
a) If NWC had extended town graphics, which now have their lower part covered by the panel, then it may be interesting to reveal some of them by removing the resource bar (chances are little though I suspect)
b) The resource boxes may be replaced by some buttons that may come in useful when in town screen, like Save/Load, Kingdom Overview, End Turn, etc. (see also suggestion #84 below)
c) Simply remove the resource bar, and by shrinking the Town screen, we would see more of the map behind
[size=75]This is a low priority suggestion for the far feature which I’m logging to make sure I don’t forget about it by next year, where such enhancements may be perhaps considered. 
:)[/size]
[size=75]Another feature suggestion (everything except 84.1. being low priority - though even 84.1. can be ignored if the whole thing is actually difficult to implement):[/size]
84. (NEW) Possibility to access Adv.Map side panel buttons while in Town screen, for high resolutions (or alternatively, perhaps enable their hotkeys to be recognized within Town screen).
Looking at the evolution of screen sizes, in a couple of years, when VCMI will be a ‘mature’ project, embraced by many H3 fans, I guess most of them will play the game in high resolutions looking like the screen below, where the Town screen will be just a “small” window in the middle of the Adventure Map:
i4.photobucket.com/albums/y104/Zamolxis/VCMI/VCMI%2007/th_2009-09-22_ThinkOfUsingSideButtons.jpg
With the Adventure Map buttons becoming visible next to the Town screen window, the temptation of being able to use them may come along. I’m not sure if allowing access to all of them would be useful, so I’m gonna list them below in the order of their added value (IMO):
HIGH:
84.1. End Turn. Perhaps not as useful in the final game as the next one, however for testing purposes this may come very much in handy at this stage. For example if we would like to test the town build-ups in 1 fast go through all the towns. It would take half the effort to cycle only between ‘build’ & ‘end turn’ commands, rather than adding also the ‘exit town’ & ‘enter town’ to the sequence of actions to be done every turn until the town is fully built. Eventually it may also prove useful in the final game (i.e.: build structure at EOD & pass turn to get the money to recruit the new creatures in the beginning of the next day)
84.2. System Options. Especially in the final game, it would be great if we could have access to Save also while in town screen. And also the other options (Load, Restart, Quit, Music Volume etc) would be a nice to have.
MEDIUM:
84.3. Kingdom Overview. May come in handy to check it w/o exiting the town screen, in case for example you need info on your income, in order to take some decisions regarding the next structures to be built.
84.4. Quest Log. Useful in case your quest is accumulating a certain number of creatures or resources, which again may request some strategic decisions in the town screen.
LOW:
84[size=84].5-10.[/size] All others. I can think of little to no use in implementing the rest. However, as said above, I also don’t see a problem with any of them (except for the time it may take the devs, if the case). So supporting the rest of the buttons would be fancy at best, nothing else. If I think of a relevant use for any of the buttons not mentioned above, I’ll edit this post later on.
Zamolxis, Great idea. It’s so obvious but no one before noticed that. I will only add 85. (NEW)] the possibility to move the town screen and 86. (NEW)] be able to open more then one town screen in the same time.
*[size=75]I added log numbers to your new suggestions. I also thought the possibility to move around the town screen may be a cool one, especially if we could play the adventure map behind it. Opening more than one town screen at a time sounds interesting (especially on very high resolutions, where we could put 2 next to each other), but I fear it will require quite a coding effort.
Zamolxis.[/size]*
Right now (VCMI 0.73c), we can start a map with multiple Capitols if set so from the MapEditor. And moreover, if we conquer an enemy town with Capitol, we can keep that one as well. Both of these behaviors could be kept as a modded feature (if enabled from the VCMI options), but I believe the basic game should keep the “1 Capitol per player” rule.
LE: After testing in H3C & WoG I was surprised to discover that H3 actually allowed more than 1 Capitol per player if built from Map Editor. It’s not sure if it was an intended feature, but nevertheless, that means we definitely have to keep this possibility, at least as a selectable option.
However, I think there is room to enhance a bit the gameplay, w/o having to alter the “1 Capitol per player” rule:
87. (NEW) In H3 the Capitol of a conquered town just disappears (if we have one already). Perhaps it may be interesting to actually get a message after conquering the town:
If we already have a Capitol: “While conquering your enemy’s town, you destroyed their Capitol.” (or more customized - “While conquering [town name], you destroyed [player color]'s Capitol”)
If we don’t have a Capitol: “By conquering your enemy’s town, you also gained control of their Capitol” or “By conquering [town name], your kingdom now gained a Capitol”
88. (NEW) A step further from the above, would be the open possibility to switch Capitols when we already have one and conquer another (it would represent minimal modding, but as it respects the 1 Capitol rule, perhaps it’s acceptable in the basic game). So I am talking about a choice message window after the battle: “While defeating [town name], you discover it contained your enemy’s Capitol. Would you like to destroy their Capitol or move your kingdom’s Capitol in the conquered town?”
The added value of implementing this, would be creating the possibility of better strategic decisions, for example in case the conquered town is placed in a location where we can provide better defenses as compared to the original Capitol town.
89. (NEW) And related to the above, for the same strategic purposes, it may be interesting if we would be able to dismantle a Capitol, in order to build it in another one of our towns.
I understand that this last suggestion starts to sound like WoG, but as long as we’re talking only about the Capitol, perhaps it’s acceptable. Otherwise we can just keep it in mind for when we’ll start working on VCMI mods.
It’s ok, Zamolxis. The more ideas there are, the better we can prepare the game for handling such mods and scripts. But it’s unlikely to talk about them seriously before 0.8 release.
I agree. Of all the suggestions above (82-89), only 84.1. - End Turn while in Town screen - would be nice to have sooner rather than later, as it would help with the testing. But I understand if even that’ll have to wait for 0.8. The next one in line that may be of some use during testing would be 84.2. (mainly the Save game while in Town part). All others can wait for 0.9 or later from my part, as they’re meant only to enhance the final game experience, but are of no particular help for me as a tester now.
You know, i was thinking of hi-res along ago, but i’m lazy or just haven’t time to post all my ideas, as they interfere with ideas (they pushed me to write my ideas at last) before this post, i will make separate log numbers
#90 (NEW) Remake all of interface to hi-res - this means : LARGE heroes portraits and towns images , this will take all of place “u-can’t-know-how-to-use” - more than 8 cells for heroes portraits, and all “empty buttons”- the row will be like this : high movement bar - for about 3000+ movepoints(old is for approx 2000) - large hero face - high mana bar - for about 200 mana(old one is for 100 only) - large town image(optional – remove up and down buttons for heroes completely and for towns make instead scrollbar ), all of buttons could be removed to somewhere or placed in 1 tiny column(no need to make wide buttons as it is now)
Hero/castle infobox - LET’S MAKE IT LARGER !!! large monsters’ thumbnails, large hero-stats images and so on )
And of course resbar could be larger - large font and large images it’s more optional than previous but when all takes new style then a resbar needs restyling
Of course all of this makes all the interface-panel larger and takes some place of map - so we have less map - less computer performance - less unusual for unfamiliars extralarge view of map (all S-sized map is shown with 1600*1200)
You know, all of this is mainly a point of realigning the panel elements, because VCMI takes values from settings.txt to put elements (not all of them) and for coders this will only be a matter of adding a workaround over new settings – i.e. take_large_hero_pictures=1
All of graphics – internal, moreover – no need to use low-res graphics – LESS MEMORY
so think about it
#91 (NEW) Let’s make not only some townview windows, or some herodialog window, or buttons accessibility from anywhere - let’s do the strategy interface – when needed windows are one–over-each-other with the X-closing – such windows are : system options menu , kingdom overview, advanced options menu (which actually may be removed to panel with all of buttons), unified herowindow and unified townview window
How I see it :
Somewhere we put a new panel – which represents a row(column) with buttons (truly - tabs) each button works as a switch – shows/hides appropriate window and window maybe X-exited
here should be surface/underworld switch, kingdom overview switch, system options switch, herodialog switch (and old place in hero-dialog for the rest of heroes just leave unfilled and switching among heroes - as clicking on new larger portraits), town switch – the same as for heroes, old advoptions switch or : puzzlemap switch, viewworld switch; and all other buttons which do not call any window just leave as buttons on a panel, of course the last switch which should have a hotkey – show/hide all of opened windows to see direct on map
This idea is an evolution and addition to #90 and is more complex, however implements only usual windows-like elements which are similar to any coder, and they call all of usual windows – already made or in a todo list
Oh that was about 40 minutes to create!!!
Respect to all of VCMI members !
(edited because i saw those log numbers are already taken by Zamolxis)))
Oh ! I remembered about one more feature request - #92 (NEW) please make an option somewhere – in txt or even in command line – to switch off animations in towns and maybe on map – because computer works quite slow with animations.
[size=75]*Edited to add (NEW) next to the suggested items, as they are enhancements, not original H3 items necessary for recreating the game.
Zamolxis*[/size]
Nice idea, but I have bad news for you: this is contradictory to assumptions we made when we implemented all windows. The assumption is that when a certain window is open, all changes in the state of the game come from that window. This means that once you open town window, interface of adventure map cannot be active as many of its actions change the state of the game. I’ll discuss it with Tow but I’m sure that implementation of access to more than ‘get info’ functionalities would be very hard and very bug-productive.
The added value of implementing #84 is not worth slowing down the project. It was just in case it wouldn’t require much coding effort. But if it’d be time consuming and risky, we better drop it.
//
93. Alt+Spacebar to open the window position dropdown menu for the VCMI Client window:
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y104/Zamolxis/VCMI%202009/2009-10-04_AltSpace_VCMI.jpg [IMPLEMENTED]
I actually thought Windows applications have it by default, because all other programs that I’m using have it. But I see it needs to be specially coded. This is again a kb shortcut I find more comfortable than the mouse, so it’d be nice if implemented. I would use it for the “Move” option, in order to be able to test resolutions bigger than my screen. Also, until Client window re-centering is implemented, I have to use the Move function every single time I start the game, because my default resolution, 1440x900, always opens partly out of the screen area.
94. (NEW) Keybindings for Hill Fort (1-7).
And we could also have a hotkey for the Upgrade All button (with or w/o dialogue window). It may be one or more of the following:
- A (from ‘All’)
- U (this is used also for single creatures in the creature screen when in town)
- 0 (zero)
- 9
- Up Arrow
We will think of it as soon as someone scripts this object and creates GUI for it
Implemented
95. How about implementation creatures abilities i.e. vampire lords draining life. Is there any list for creatures special abilities implementation status. Should we report this in Mantis?
I’m not sure if there is such a list. Some creature abilities are already implemented, though I don’t know if they are all supposed to work already. I’d wait for a confo from Tow or TowDragon before reporting them on Mantis. Especially these days - until the 0.75 release - I’d focus mainly on finding crash bugs, so that we have a pretty stable public release (if we go public…). 
EDIT: Alternatively, if it makes you more comfortable that you won’t forget, you can always create a report, but mark it as ‘feature’ and mention it’s actually of low priority in the description.
Yes, I get it. It isn’t urgent, I’ve just asked because I had battle with vampires so to not forget about it.
Certain abilities are implemented, other aren’t. There in no list if them, some abilities are marked to be implemented in code, some in commit descriptions. Please don’t report abilities that don’t work if you are not sure it should work (ie. you looked into the code or it worked in previous versions). But please report abilities that work wrong (eg. minotaur’s always +1 morale or more makes him always +3 or makes him deal no damage).
96. (NEW) Suggestion for a cheat which may help with testing: Remove the restriction of 1 construction/day in towns.
97. (NEW) Possibility to set EXTENDED PATHS for our hero, by considering both map levels, and perhaps even Monoliths or other teleporting structures.
This could be done for example by using the CTRL key (or ALT, or SHIFT). By holding the key while we click on a Subterranean Gate to set a path, not only would the path be set, but we would be taken automatically to the other exit of the gate (provided that was previously explored), and we would be able to further set that path, including correct calculation of necessary days to get somewhere.
And the above can be implemented in two possible ways (whichever you believe it’s more practical or easier to code):
- either after we are taken to the other side of the gate, we can lift the CTRL and only ESC or selecting another hero/town would take us out of the “set path” mode,
- or we can have it that we are in “set path” mode only while we hold the certain key (and removing the hold would recenter on our hero, or take us back to the entry of the gate for which we have set the first path).
98. Implement VICTORY CONDITIONS, so that we can complete a scenario.
[IMPLEMENTED]
99. (NEW) Implement CONTINUE PLAYING, after the Victory Conditions are met. This could be particularly useful for testing, however there are games which had such feature implemented also in the final product. For example in Civilization, after the victory conditions are met, the player gets a choice message, asking if he/she wants to continue playing (for the sake of completing exploring the map, defeating all enemies, etc).