Me included. Most games use escape to go to menu, then escape again to get back in the game. And yes, I know there's a Resume button down there. The problem is some people use ESC to open and close the menu as second nature in games and I don't think a check box option along the lines of "Disable ESC Quick Exit" would cause anyone's head to explode. I've built a lovely skirmish base before only to hit ESC to go to menu then ESC again to get back in. For me it's just like muscle memory to hit it once to go to menu, and then when I'm done with the menu my finger is still over the key out of practice and I end up kicking myself out of the game. I really hope you don't expect me to unlearn this just for CC, I love the game but not enough to do psychotherapy on myself.

ugh. youre fighting a losing battle.
yeah, a pause button would be nice, and will almost cirtainly happen later in CC's development, but i like the esc-quit option. also, though the shortcut changes, you can close things without confirmation pretty easily a lot of the time. ctrl+W closes your current tab in just about anything with a tabbed interface, and half the time its without confirmation. you just learn to NOT PRESS THOSE BUTTONS THAT CLOSE YOUR STUFF.
maybe data can put in a check-box that can toggle the current behaviour or a pause/return function.

I would actually like a ingame pause for issuing orders for a large assault, get my orders done, and call an artillery strike, and then have it all happen at the same time.

Hmmm.... that's actually a decent idea, give everyone Goto paths, call in several drop crates at once, a nice pincer movement and a few drop crates full of stick grenades into their base...

V.A.T.S. on epic scale?

It would only work well in a solo match though, but its a fun idea I must say.

yeah, it works well in age of empires 2, you can pause the game with pause/break and then order units about, to effectively micromanage your army without possessing any micro yourself

I realize we're off-topic now, but being able to at least do this during the build phase of a versus game would be nice, considering the first few actions of each match usually end up being seeing to the diggers and sentries, then queing up ordinance drops...

You know, it doesn't take that much brain power to remember that you only need to press the ESC button once, look at the bottom of the menu and press the Resume button.

This only happened to me once though.

I know this is sort of beating a dead horse, but people keep making these slightly condescending remarks about how "you just have to remember" not to hit it twice, smugly implying that if you can't do so you're somehow less-smart then the people writing the comments. They are missing the point.

Think about something like 'autosave' in google docs - sure, if you just remember to hit 'save' after each edit or when you pause to think about what you're writing, you'll never need an autosave. But why go to the trouble to do that when you can have it save for you? It's a matter of convenience, and it caters to non-power-users, which are in most cases (certainly in this one) going to be your largest audience. You don't make snide little comments about the lack of necessity for autosave, or call it a worthless feature, or suggest that users "just remember to hit the save button."

The point that they're missing is that no matter how little 'brain power' it takes to 'remember that you only need to press the ESC button once', 'not that much brain power' is always going to be infinitely more then 'zero brain power.' Good interface design allows the user to be lazy - lazy interface design frustrates users.

'Confirmation' or the 'Verification Principle' is one of the universal principles of design: "A technique for preventing unintended actions by requiring verification of the actions before they are performed." The reason I keep harping on this is not so much that I want the doubters to see that I'm right, but to see why I'm right - this isn't belief, it's science. There's research behind it, it's studied, published, and if you've got proof that it's actually beneficial, that "it's not a bug, it's a feature," I would love to discuss it.


... UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN: SERIOUS BUSINESS! ha ha



oh and P.S. - Geti's suggestion is on the right track - being able to start the app in 'developer' or 'modder' mode in order to quickly test new additions is a solid feature. Counter Strike is a good example of a game that lets you set startup flags (-dev -console or whatever) to tweak the game for mod testing - CC could do the same thing, and it'd even be easy to implement.

the larger point is that data doesnt really read the forums, and noone else has any power over the code.

Ahhhh, no, you're totally right - if no one is going to be building a buglist for the developers out of issues raised in the game's support forum, then that IS the larger point. Well, their loss, I guess.

All i'm saying is just practice on not pressing it twice.

EDIT: WAIT, that isn't all i'm saying.
You just said that DataRealms, had a "lazy interface design" of some sort.
You made, an ENTIRE RANT on "grrrr... can't remember to press that button only once" and then blame it on DataRealms for being "lazy".
Also comparing this little lazy feature to other full fledged games such as:

Dawn of War II, WarCraft III, Fear II, Red Alert III.
All these games are infact NOT Independant games, Cortex Command is an independant game, and you can't tell me they're not because there is proof, IGF.

And all I would be saying, if I were still arguing this point, is that I shouldn't have to.

for better results, email data. You can also PM him, though that has less success. he does check it, just less frequently.

Shard, dont quote huge blocks of text unnecessarily.

Ok, is it really that hard?
All you're doing is pressing ESC to pause and Resume to continue playing.
If you tried it shouldn't be that much of a problem and you wouldn't need to make an entire thread about it, and yes, you should practice on not pressing the ESC button twice.