Why did the game die/is the game dying?

[Go-TiME]

hey look gtfo boater.

[razorace]

Originally posted by Prime

I had a look at your demos, Razorace. Looks pretty cool. I have a few questions though. First, are you guys set to walk by default? The whole fight you are just walking around. Is that just to make it easier to follow? Secondly, it seemed to me that there were several times when the saber seemed to go right through the other player without there being any damage. Am I missing something there? Maybe I'm just used to seeing crummy collision detection. I love the fact that the saber damage was higher, and after a few hits, the other player was dead.

Thanks. No, we were walking to try to make it easier to see the blade collisions. The demo recording also makes the controls a bit harder to use, especially on the lag-o-mania JK2 is on my dial up. :|

Can you explain a little more what you are changing?

You mean specifically with the saber system? It's pretty complicated. I suggest you repost the question in the MotF Forum.

Hey look! More trolls in here!

I'm pretty sure it's just Break_DF with new account. They're acting the same, posting in pairs, and it's a brand new account. I've reported the bunch of them.

[Guest Jolts]

solo: first thing I would do is redo all the animations and the animations system. Second would be making sure I had an engine that supported ragdoll physics, karma or something else. Movement speed, weapons, models, sounds, music....I would want to redo it all.

 

Theres nothing in the original JO I would really want to keep, from the way the weapons fire to the way your strafe animation plays. It's a shame I'm under NDA can't talk about swg since I've been beta testing it for a long time now, and it would be easier to be able to compare to something else. Only other thing I have to compare with is obi-wan and most people just shut down after they read the name.

 

Sorry I can't give more detailed examples right now, just had my wisdoms yanked and I'm all high on drugs.

[ILR]

Originally posted by Jolts

solo: first thing I would do is redo all the animations and the animations system. Second would be making sure I had an engine that supported ragdoll physics, karma or something else. Movement speed, weapons, models, sounds, music....I would want to redo it all.

 

Theres nothing in the original JO I would really want to keep, from the way the weapons fire to the way your strafe animation plays. It's a shame I'm under NDA can't talk about swg since I've been beta testing it for a long time now, and it would be easier to be able to compare to something else. Only other thing I have to compare with is obi-wan and most people just shut down after they read the name.

 

Sorry I can't give more detailed examples right now, just had my wisdoms yanked and I'm all high on drugs.

 

*resists urge to ask questions about SWG*

 

I'll try to ask something as innocent as possible.... judging that you were wanting to compare JO's dueling system to SWG's.... is it or is not safe to assume that SWG will have a kind of saber dueling for would be Jedi? DON"T ASNWER IF YOU CAN"T!!!!!11111

 

btw.. aren't there mods at this forum? Last forum I was at Break would have been IP banned so long ago it's not even funny.

[Break_dF]

Too bad I'm not a Richard Simmons Junkie, huh RIL?

[Guest Jolts]

I was thinking more of other weapon comparisons, not lightsabers or anything like that. More design and keeping the feel of the movies.

[Solo4114]

Well, from the sound of it, you seem to be suggesting that SWG is going to be pretty true to the feel of the movies, something that I felt JO lacked in a big way.

 

I'm actually curious about Obi-Wan. Did that game ever come out on ANY platform, or did they cancel it altogether? And what was the combat system in that one like?

 

As for mods on this forum, if this thread is any indication, I'd say this forum is pretty much Thunderdome.

[Guest Jolts]

obi-wan came out on xbox. It was nothing that the original pc version was supposed to be, not even close. Only thing the same was you played as obiwan during tpm.

 

The controls were cool, could have used some work. Right thumb stick moved forward, left thumb stick controled the saber. That felt pretty good to me. Double tap up on the thumb stick to do a special saber spin in the hand trick. Hold back on the thumb stick to deflect a shot back at the person who shot at you and lose some force mana. You had a few saber force moves that were nothing special. Left trigger was the force modifier button and you used that with you normal buttons to use force powers.

 

Saber system in obi wan let you become much more accurate than JO. You could swing you saber left/right/whatever standing still or while running.

 

The limited force powers in the game jump/push/throw/pull/saberthrow and speed(slowmo bullet time) all worked out to be fun to use, and for me felt better than JO's. I like being able to just pull a gun out of someones hand, instead of pulling them down and the gun. In obiwan I can pull a gun out of someones hand, push them down, then throw something at them and kill them. Just felt better. Having ragdoll physics for powers like force throw also helped make the player seem more powerful.

 

Basic gameplay was the same as JO. You start out in a level with your mission objective and go from point a to point b killing everything. Obi wan actually had a little more ingame npc interaction, but thats not saying much. I have been digging around the obiwan cd tearing out audio files and other stuff and can see in some of the old scripts what was once ingame, and it would have blown JO away.

 

Obi wan actually had bigger more detailed levels than JO. What it didn't have was curved surfaces 1024by1024 textures and 3000 poly models. But it did have bump maps and pixel shading on water.

 

AI obi wan had better ai than JO, and again thats not saying much. AI would spread around you, avoiding getting to close, unless they were melee characters like tuskens or jin ha. They could do acrobatics you could, and moved in a more normal pace.

 

obi wan felt like star wars to me, while jo kind of felt like star wars. I could go on and on, but for me as a single player and ls dueling 1on1 game I had more fun with obiwan than JO.

[StormHammer]

Okay, how about people try to get on, eh?

 

Break_DF has been temporarily banned for flaming and trolling.

 

Go-TiME...the other members of these boards deserve respect. If you have a point to make, then don't flame. Any more posts in this vein will get you banned. I look forward to your cooperation.

 

As for everyone else, you all know the rules, so try to keep this discussion on track, or this thread is heading for closure...

[Go-TiME]

Originally posted by StormHammer

Okay, how about people try to get on, eh?

 

Break_DF has been temporarily banned for flaming and trolling.

 

Go-TiME...the other members of these boards deserve respect. If you have a point to make, then don't flame. Any more posts in this vein will get you banned. I look forward to your cooperation.

 

As for everyone else, you all know the rules, so try to keep this discussion on track, or this thread is heading for closure...

suck my **** douche bag

[razorace]

Woah, you don't need the Force to know someone's going to get permabanned real soon.

[Prime]

Originally posted by Go-TiME

suck my **** douche bag

 

You are the worst troll ever...

 

Toodles...

[Spider AL]

Originally posted by Solo4114:

 

As for mods on this forum, if this thread is any indication, I'd say this forum is pretty much Thunderdome.

The only difference is: here, the one who leaves has lost.

 

Originally posted by Solo4114:

 

Well, from the sound of it, you seem to be suggesting that SWG is going to be pretty true to the feel of the movies, something that I felt JO lacked in a big way.

I gotta few questions:

 

Was it just the flechette and certain Force Powers that made it feel non-starwars in your opinion?

 

It was comparable to the original JK which was also excellent, did you play JK1?

 

Is there anything that changed in JO that made JO less Star Warsy than JK?

[razorace]

Heck, JK1 was worse in my opinion. I did like Force Blind thou. Don't get me wrong, I loved JK1. It had a better story but it's force powers were a bit....off the path.

[Guest Jolts]

For me it wasn't just the weapons and force powers, it was a bunch of little things all combined. Weapon design was bad, the conc in jki had more star wars design to it.Raild det...eh, not really very starwarsy.

 

AI in JO was pretty bad. It didn't have to be smart to capture the sw feel. In obi wan they would offset shooting in characters, and while a few shot at you the rest would reposition They would also take about 3 shots rest and take 3 more. They didn't just see you, all start firing at the same time at 100mps with no let up. Everything in JO was very uniformed it all happend at once. In the movies you see things like 3 shots, wait, 3 more shots. Obi wan got that, JO didn't.

 

Everything doesn't have to move at 100mps in order to have fast paced combat, its awsome to have hardcore action but at the same time be able to see the whats going on and plan out some cool moves. You could do that in obi wan, in Jo I would be end usually having a trooper run into my saber blade while I was blocking the constant fire. SO many kills were robbed from me by that system.

 

Level design in JO really didn't feel like star wars to me at all. It had some star wars looking textures, but basically I could have been in the same imperial base the whole time and never really noticed a difference. For the imperial base levels that is.

 

The level textures were pretty bad, me and my friends did a run through of the game looking at textures and just calling out the obvious photoshop plugins and filters used for each one it gave them all hope of getting a job in the game industry. Doom giver didn't feel like a ship, it felt like an extention of the first 2 levels or something. Textures looked like concrete with lights stuck in them. Maybe if they updated the shader and lighting system they could have pulled off some nice metalic shaders.

 

But raven got jacked by that 1 year timelimit, so I can see how limiting that would be. That leaves no time for a second pass, or gameplay cleanup. Those are just a few things that didn't make JO feel that starwarsy to me.

[Spider AL]

Originally posted by Jolts:

 

For me it wasn't just the weapons and force powers, it was a bunch of little things all combined. Weapon design was bad, the conc in jki had more star wars design to it.Raild det...eh, not really very starwarsy.

Okay, you think weapon design was bad... Why? What about the weapons was bad? The energy weapons were all well-executed, thermals were still in, all pretty good. Which weapons specifically didn't you like?

 

Originally posted by Jolts:

 

Everything in JO was very uniformed it all happend at once. In the movies you see things like 3 shots, wait, 3 more shots. Obi wan got that, JO didn't.

In Obi Wan, as far as I'm aware, not having played it, one mainly used a lightsabre. In JO one had many gun battles too, so of course the combat has to be more challenging and all-out. As for "like the movies", once again I'm sorry, but being "like the movies" isn't as important as being challenging and dynamic. Playable, in other words. And "cool moves"? you want "time to plan"? where's the excitement in that? Where's the rush, the flow or the sense of danger? One might as well play on padawan skill and be done with it...

 

As I said before, JO was a natural sequel to JK, and it had a similar dynamic and scope, and was a touch slower even. So if you want big sweeping changes, the place for those is a completely different game. The Dark Forces series is made in a certain style, there are a lot of people who really enjoy that style, so frankly, quit trying to change it. Nothing good can come of such an effort.

[Tosh_UK]

I all ways wondered why JK2 on the CTF maps only had a few!!! was it because of trying to rush a game to the shelf? or did they look at it as something to upgrade after release, or just maybe let the gaming community mod more for them self's? as to me CtF is one of the best things about JK2 (as you don't have to be good at every thing to play well) but I think it was one with the least maps.

 

myself I need to maybe down load a CtF map mod and get to a server running them, as them same ol maps are making me go stir crazy LOL

[Rumor]

*sigh* its quite amusing (well not really) that everyone is accusing break of the extreme ego, when *gasp* they start in with "i am quite famous since blah blah blah" or "i was staff here and won this and that"

 

omg guys get a life!!! you are acting no better than he (only with more flair), yet you try to elevate yourself above the rest of us. i for one don't give a rats ass who you are and what you've done. i don't "respect" or "honor" people for their reputations, i respect them for the level of maturity they show, and many of you have shown little outside of polished writing skills. i mean, hell look at break (if you can bear to ). he may insult people, that is true. he grates against your very natures, but he doesn't try to disguise and sugar coat it to show off to his fanboys when he does, unlike a few i see here. (yeah you prime, spider al, and prolly a few others)

 

now, get back on the topic for christ's sake, and stay on it instead of taking offense at every comment that doesn't seem to conform with your ideas.

[Guest Jolts]

I didn't like the way the weapons, looked, fired, and played. I didn't like the effects on the firing and I didn't like the smell of them.

 

when I'm talking about time to plan that doesn't mean action is slowed down, that means while I'm hacking the first layer around me, I can watch the animations on the others and see where they are heading and what type of action they are going to do. Are they lowering down getting ready to fire? or are they getting ready to bring in something bigger?

 

As for being like the movies I was talking more as creating the atmosphere of the movies. Its hard to explain unless you've played it. And whats dynamic about running around blocking blaster shots that sound like your deflecting ping pong balls, while at the same time having storm troopers running into your lightsaber? Whats dynamic about a power that always knocks everything in your fov down at the same time while they all get up at the same time? Whats dynamic about troopers that just shoot and never stop? What is dynamic star wars game play? 100 weapons 100 force powers and a box full of troopers and at-at's standing still all firing at the same time?

 

Time to plan doesn't need to be more than a second, its lets push these 3 down, choke this one, then ninja flip around hacking the rest. Sense of danger doesn't always have to be 100 people running at you with autofire on. Undying had a constant sence of danger with not many cratures attacking at once. When it came, it came hard and fast.

 

The action in obiwan was just as fast and hardcore as jo, just more clean. But the whole thing me and solo were talking about was capturing the feel of star wars and what we liked. He had never played obi wan and asked what it was like. so I made some examples for him, thats it. Out of the 2 games obi wan had a closer to star wars feel from sounds to animation to weapon design to level design. And thats the only other game I can use to compare to JO.

[Rumor]

obi wan is an exellent game that is for sure

[Solo4114]

Al,

 

First off, I'd like to apologize for going off the handle with you earlier. I think that one of the reasons why I get heated up about this issue (and possibly why many of us get heated up, though I can't speak for everyone else) is that I saw such potential for this game, and I really WANTED it to be cooler than it turned out. Although many folks who've posted in this thread may want different end results, in that sense, I think a lot of us were let down. You seem to feel that, as far as MP goes, the changes implemented by Raven at the urging of one particular vocal part of the community ruined a game that could have been. Though I may disagree with exactly what I wanted the end result to be, I can definitely sympathize with the feeling of what could have been.

 

I think Jolt has hit on at least one of the major aspects of the game that led to it lacking the Star Wars feel I was looking for, though I did enjoy SP.

 

For MP, I suppose the level design came into play in failing to create that Star Wars feel. Some of the textures and environments seemed similar to the movie, but the levels just seemed kind of small and pointless. Run around, grab this gun, go kill a guy. That, however, is my main problem with DM play. It just doesn't really excite me that much. MAybe the problem with JO, for me at least, was that the CTF mode of play always felt under-supported. There really were only, what, 6 maps that were released by Raven? These maps were often just mirror image maps, which can be fun sometimes, but can also get boring after a while. Even if the maps hadn't been mirror image style maps, they still would've gotten old with only 6 of 'em to play, especially since some maps were less fun to play than others (Nar Shadda was always an irritating one for me -- nothing but throwing people off the runways on that one). I'd probably be singing the praises of this game if the CTF mode had had more support for it, more maps that were more interesting, and really just more people playing on 'em. Also, when you think about it, in terms of map design, approaches to the flag points were fairly limited, so coming up with creative strategies ended up being kind of pointless.

 

In terms of the guns, yeah, the type of projectiles that they fired was a big part of why they felt less "Star Wars" to me. Even if the EU says that the flechette gun shoots explosive charges, I just didn't think they'd look like bouncing balls. As for the heavy repeater, if it does fire a secondary plasma ball o' death (the one back in DF and JK1 fired a three shot round, more like a limited shotgun), I wouldn't expect it to be quite as big, or look the way it did in the game. As far as the other weapons go, the thermal detonaters were fine, as was the E-11 and the Bryar. The trip mines were ok, but I hardly ever used 'em. Same goes for the detpacks. The bowcaster is straight out of the films and previous games, and I had no real problem with it, it just never seemed very useful. The disruptor may be from the Star Wars EU books, but it felt like Raven just ripped it from Elite Force and stuck it into JO. The missile launcher was ok, there's nothing inherently UN-Star Wars about it, but when combined with how the other guns operated, it just felt like you were being given the same old smorgasbord (sp?) of guns that you usually find in an FPS. When I play a Star Wars game, I'm looking for something different.

 

Also, in terms of the guns, the LOOK of the guns lacked a real Star Wars feel to me. As I mentioned, guns from the films all look like real world small arms because they actually ARE real world small arms, just with various doo-dads stuck to 'em. Solo's DL-44 is just an old Mauser C96 with a scope and some other stuff attached to it. The E-11 is a Sterling SMG. The larger Stormtrooper heavy blasters or repeating blasters are old German WWII machineguns or British machineguns. The guns in this game felt more blocky, less sleek, and with less resonance to real world weapons (which the film guns had). Take the flak gun, for example. It looks essentially like a cinderblock with a pistol butt attached to it. Even the repeater changed from JK1 and DF, where it looked reasonably slim by comparison, to a huge bulky gun that looks like it'd be pretty awkward to wield. The missile launcher was ok in this respect (in terms of looks, I mean), though it too seemed a little bulky. Really, the only guns that were true to the look and feel of the films were the ones that were taken directly from the films or operated the same way.

 

As far as JK1 (and DF for that matter) goes, I did play both in their time. JK1 was somewhat better than JO. The concussion rifle had the right look to it, and I suppose shot the right sort of projectiles to give it the feel I was looking for in a Star Wars game. The bowcaster, thermals, E-11, bryar, etc. were all fine, just as they were in this game, and the other explosives operated much the same way as one would expect. The railgun was a bit weird, though, and felt somewhat out of place.

 

What I've always wanted, though, was something more true to the films. Weapons in Star Wars are less about shooting big explosive projectiles and more about shooting essentially laser bullets. As in the real world, you can have blasters that perform different jobs. Sniper rifle blasters, shotgun style blasters, pistols of different calibers (well, maybe not calibers, but different power), etc. With the exception of the bowcaster and the E-11, none of the other guns have ever really used this style. Take the fusion cutter from DF. That had NOTHING to do with anything anyone had ever seen in Star Wars. I still think you could put in nothing but blaster style weapons, with one or two explosive weapons (IE: the concussion rifle -- as the name suggests, it should shoot something explosive that produces a concussive effect; or some sort of light rocket or missile launcher). You could just have different guns that perform different tasks. A sniper blaster would be great at long range, but worthless in close combat, so you'd switch to your DL-44 (why did this gun only ever appear officially in MoTS??) or your E-11 or some other close quarters weapon.

 

As far as the force powers go, I can accept that some stuff has to be sacrificed from the films to make them fun in the game, although a lot of them seemed overused or ill implemented. Absorb in 1.2 is a classic example. It operated almost identically to how it did in later iterations, but it had the old blue glow, which made its use pretty much worthless, except as a means to buy time. When it changed, though, drain became kind of useless too. Honestly, I wouldn't have minded tossing BOTH these powers out the window (bring back throw, dammit! I miss tossing boxes at people) and instead having some sort of innate defensive power that will cancel force powers being used against you. Grip, lightning, push and pull seemed basically ok in theory, but were also implemented strangely. Push and pull were easy to spam, and could've used some sort of cool down period so you don't simply keep hitting push-push-push until someone is knocked down completely. Like, it'd take one or two seconds before you could push or pull again. Pull should NEVER have been able to pull a guy down, just take his weapon. Heal was poorly implemented in that it gave an instant boost (albeit a weak one, depending, or a costly one), where a gradual regeneration would probably have been more appropriate. I don't care if you're Yoda, it ought to take you time to close a gaping wound. Mind trick and seeing were only marginally useful (or at least, marginally used) in MP combat, and seem to be more useful for SP play. Jump and speed were basically fine. Rage had no business being in the game, and neither did protect.

 

Force powers in JK1 were kind of goofy too (IE: the old protect bubble, deadly sight, destruction, etc.), but it's been so long since I played that game that I don't really remember what all of them were.

 

Hell, I dunno. Maybe having fewer force powers, but implementing them better (or having other more innate force powers -- IE: ability to sense danger/enemy presence, ability to resist the use of the force against you, ability to block shots that don't always reflect back at the attacker, etc.) would've worked better.

 

Anyway, those are some of the reasons why I didn't like guns and force powers. The sabre is a whole other story which would take a long post in and of itself to explain, so I'll save that for some other time (or just not post it at all -- my posts do tend to run a bit long ).

[Spider AL]

Originally posted by Rumor:

 

now, get back on the topic for christ's sake, and stay on it instead of taking offense at every comment that doesn't seem to conform with your ideas.

We were already back on topic when you posted this, and if anyone's taking offence wrongly here, it's someone not a million miles away from you who's taken offence at posts not directed at him.

 

Nobody's trying to belittle you when they point out a troll's inadequacies, and people listing their own Jedi Outcast achievements in defence of accusations that they "know nothing about JO" really shouldn't have such a negative effect on you.

 

I'm not sure what you meant to accomplish by your post, but it just seems like another beginning to a flame war. Sigh.

 

In fact, are you BREAK? Very suspicious.

 

Originally posted by Jolts:

 

I didn't like the way the weapons, looked, fired, and played. I didn't like the effects on the firing and I didn't like the smell of them.

Yeah, I understand you didn't like them mate. What I'm asking for is your reasons for disliking them, things like "Flechette firing rate too high, made it too powerful etc." which other people have expressed. I can't see your point of view clearly unless you articulate it for me.

 

Originally posted by Jolts:

 

when I'm talking about time to plan that doesn't mean action is slowed down, that means while I'm hacking the first layer around me, I can watch the animations on the others and see where they are heading and what type of action they are going to do. Are they lowering down getting ready to fire? or are they getting ready to bring in something bigger?

I understand this. However, you're still talking about having a warning of what's coming next. Personally I find leaping into a hail of gunfire and having only my skill and reflexes to rely on, exciting.

 

And don't sell JO's AI short, it was fairly dynamic in that Stormtroopers attempted to surround you, and if an officer was present in their group they did so much more efficiently, and their morale was higher. I had a whale of a time taking out officers first and running after the demoralised stragglers. It was great.

 

Originally posted by Jolts:

 

Undying had a constant sence of danger with not many cratures attacking at once. When it came, it came hard and fast.

Undying was a suspense/horror game, and very good at its job too. Added to this, the creatures in undying were somewhat more deadly, to compensate for their relative numbers. And of course, there WERE moments when you were swamped with creatures in Undying, notably the levels full of howlers and undead leading up to Lizbeth's crypt. The DF series however, has always been about liquidating large numbers of foes using your leet skillz0rz.

 

I don't know about you, but I don't find stormtroopers suspenseful enough to occupy my restless mind when I'm not busy fighting them, which howlers from Undying, cyborgs from SS2 and face-huggers from AvP DID.

 

Lots of large-scale action is one of the defining characteristics that has made DF one of the most long-lasting, popular game series in recent years. Changing that would be atrocious.

 

Originally posted by Solo4114:

 

I'd probably be singing the praises of this game if the CTF mode had had more support for it, more maps that were more interesting, and really just more people playing on 'em.

 

An interesting idea about the CTF maps... But it's an important thing to remember that from a competitive point of view mirror image maps are the only ones that are fair to both teams. If the maps hadn't been mirror image, a lot of players would have been complaining that they were imbalanced, as if they didn't whine enough in CTF already. Ugh. "TEEEMZ TEEEMZ TEEEMZ r UNEVEN!!!11"

 

Re: what you disliked about the guns- personally, as I say, I'm less interested in making the game like the movies than I am in making the game good. If there were only energy weapons with a few minor thermals/tripmines, the sabre would be all-powerful. I know you'd probably say that was no bad thing, but I definitely would: Weak guns = worthless guns = sabre all the time = no point having guns at all. Re: the look of the guns, okay... the Flechette looked big and square. I can't say it bothered me that much, or that it seemed instantly "un-starwarsy". SW by its very nature was eclectic, and the set designs and props were all very diverse. I don't think SW had any underlying ideal surrounding its choice of scenery, tools or weapons. In reality, it was merely buck rogers on a better budget with a better cast.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge SW fan. I just don't have any illusions that it was divine in its message or continuity.

 

Originally posted by Solo4114:

 

Even the repeater changed from JK1 and DF, where it looked reasonably slim by comparison, to a huge bulky gun that looks like it'd be pretty awkward to wield.

Well it was a different gun. Heavy repeater, etc.

 

Originally posted by Solo4114:

 

As far as JK1 (and DF for that matter) goes, I did play both in their time. JK1 was somewhat better than JO. The concussion rifle had the right look to it, and I suppose shot the right sort of projectiles to give it the feel I was looking for in a Star Wars game.

I'm surprised that you say that. The concussion rifle was more devastating in JK than the heavy repeater, which you dislike, was in JO. From a practical standpoint the conky was massively "imbalanced" to use the parlance I dislike.

 

I'm getting the impression that the way the guns look is very important to you. I can't pretend to understand that, it seems trivial to me. As long as they don't look like big purple beach-balls, I'm fine with it.

 

Re: Force powers, I agree with some of your points, and if you cast your eye back over earlier threads, you'll see the same things being posted by myself, and many others. But the possibility that the DF4 dev will ever look on this forum is remote, so I'm not convinced of the usefulness of such sentiments. That's why I don't repeat myself anymore.

 

In the final analysis, I play games for a long time. I'm a long term player of a single game. Minor graphical concerns fade away quite quickly when you play a game a lot, and what's important is that the game has good solid gameplay. That's the most important thing that a game should possess. Everything else is window-dressing.

[Rumor]

Originally posted by Spider AL

In fact, are you BREAK? Very suspicious.

 

can i make complete sentences that are longer than three words?

[Solo4114]

Originally posted by Spider AL

An interesting idea about the CTF maps... But it's an important thing to remember that from a competitive point of view mirror image maps are the only ones that are fair to both teams. If the maps hadn't been mirror image, a lot of players would have been complaining that they were imbalanced, as if they didn't whine enough in CTF already. Ugh. "TEEEMZ TEEEMZ TEEEMZ r UNEVEN!!!11"

 

I see your point re: competitive maps needing mirror images. I do think you can play a competitive map, however, and have it be asymetrical, you'd just have to make sure that both sides of the map were (brace yourself) BALANCED! Just kidding. Well, sort of. By balanced, I mean fair to both teams. Neither side of the map would be easier to defend or attack, they'd just be different. Otherwise, you'd end up probably having one team be more on defense, and one on offense more, and if that's the case, why bother having two flags at all? Take, for example the Lavafort map in UT CTF. Granted, the approaches to the bases are identical, but the bases themselves are different, and may require different approach tactics to actually snag the flag and begin your run back home. To me, that's a balanced, but (minorly) asymetrical map. That'd be the kind of design I'm looking for in a good asymetrical CTF map.

 

Re: what you disliked about the guns- personally, as I say, I'm less interested in making the game like the movies than I am in making the game good. If there were only energy weapons with a few minor thermals/tripmines, the sabre would be all-powerful. I know you'd probably say that was no bad thing, but I definitely would: Weak guns = worthless guns = sabre all the time = no point having guns at all.

 

A good point. Don't get me wrong. I'm not looking to sacrifice gameplay fun for SW authenticity. Given the choice between fun and authenticity, I'd definitely pick fun (otherwise, why play the game in the first place?). I do think that you could still have more blaster weapons and have them vary in power. To help avoid having weak guns and unstoppable sabres, you could make one's ability to block a blaster shot dependent upon the relative strength of the shot. Your blocking ability could be tied to a.) how powerful the shot is and b.) how many shots you have to block. You could even tie it to whether you're standing still or moving (the game may have done that, I don't remember -- it seemed that at lvl 3 defense, it didn't matter much). The longer you've been blocking, the more likely it is that you'll lose your concentration and shots will slip through. In terms of the strength of the shot, the more poweful the blast, the fewer times you can block one. You could even bring back the concussion rifle and have it's shot be unblockable (but affected by force push so, if you were fast enough, you could direct it back at the enemy). I definitely don't want all powerful sabre wielders. If you're playing as a jedi type character, you should still be vulnerable to a great big explosion. Take the Geonosis arena battle, when the Geonosians bring out that gigantic cannon and kill, like, 5 jedi in one shot. Jedi should still be vulnerable to guns, but those guns should still have a Star Wars feel to them.

 

Re: the look of the guns, okay... the Flechette looked big and square. I can't say it bothered me that much, or that it seemed instantly "un-starwarsy". SW by its very nature was eclectic, and the set designs and props were all very diverse. I don't think SW had any underlying ideal surrounding its choice of scenery, tools or weapons. In reality, it was merely buck rogers on a better budget with a better cast.

 

See, to me, the look of the guns is important. Not necessarily as important as making the game fun, but if the guns look and feel more Star Wars, then the game will be more fun to me. Plus, when I'm playing a Star Wars game, dammit, I want it to feel like Star Wars. The whole point of playing a Star Wars game, as opposed to, say, Elite Force, or Quake 3, or UT2k3 or what have you, is because I want to play in that particular universe. Towards that end, the look, sound, feel, and function of the weapons in-game need to at least approximate, if not stay 100% true to their film counterparts. When things get tricky is when you include things not seen in the films to flesh things out and make the game more interesting. I've no problem with doing that, I just want them to function along the same lines and have the same kind of look as the films. Above all, though, the game should still be fun to play. As far as the design of the sets, props, etc. goes, it WAS Buck Rogers with a better budget, but if you look at the guns in the films, they look different enough to appear futuristic, but not so different as to appear totally alien to the audience. They look believable as guns, and when they fire, you're willing to believe that that's probably how they'd operate, given the environment in which the films occur. That's what I'm looking for: something that jives with the rest of the design theme (even if that theme was based purely on budget concerns) so as to maintain the believability of the weapons. I'm not sure if I'm explaining what I mean to say, though, so I'm just gonna move on.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge SW fan. I just don't have any illusions that it was divine in its message or continuity.

 

Well sure. Just look at that whole midichlorian thing. Where the hell did THAT come from? One movie we get zen buddhism in space, another movie we get, "No, no, it's little bacteria."

 

Well it was a different gun. Heavy repeater, etc.

 

Good point. I hadn't thought of that.

 

I'm surprised that you say that. The concussion rifle was more devastating in JK than the heavy repeater, which you dislike, was in JO. From a practical standpoint the conky was massively "imbalanced" to use the parlance I dislike.

 

See, I thought that it was balanced in terms of things like ammo consumption, rate of fire, etc. Sure it was powerful. Nothing wrong with having powerful weapons in a game. In fact, it makes things interesting. But it also had some downsides to it. The rate of fire was lower than other weapons, the weapon had no spread to it's shots, aside from the concussive blast when it made contact, and (if memory serves) it ate up more ammo than any other gun. To me, that's balanced. You have benefits, but they are offset by disadvantages. Balancing does NOT equal across-the-board nerfing. It simply means (to me, at least) that the weapon or action performed in the game has pros and cons to its use and that, while something may be powerful, there are counters that can be used against it, and it has disadvantages upon which an opponent may capitalize (assuming they have the skill, creativity, etc.).

 

I'm getting the impression that the way the guns look is very important to you. I can't pretend to understand that, it seems trivial to me. As long as they don't look like big purple beach-balls, I'm fine with it.

 

See above. Though, yes, big purple beach balls would be a problem.

 

Re: Force powers, I agree with some of your points, and if you cast your eye back over earlier threads, you'll see the same things being posted by myself, and many others. But the possibility that the DF4 dev will ever look on this forum is remote, so I'm not convinced of the usefulness of such sentiments. That's why I don't repeat myself anymore.

 

I dunno. If I was a dev, I'd at least want to guage fan reaction to prior games before developing a new one in the series. At the same time, I'd glance over forums like this, if only to see if someone there had come up with a good idea I wanted to use. Then again, if I were under a deadline to get a game out by X-mas and it's August, I might not look quite as thoroughly.

 

In the final analysis, I play games for a long time. I'm a long term player of a single game. Minor graphical concerns fade away quite quickly when you play a game a lot, and what's important is that the game has good solid gameplay. That's the most important thing that a game should possess. Everything else is window-dressing.

 

I agree that gameplay is paramount. And I too am a LONG time game player. I still play Star Control 2 and that's an old DOS game. The graphics are 2d and, while good for its time, are now HEAVILY dated, but because it's a great game with a great story, I still play it. But, if it's a game that's based on a license, and that game doesn't accurately caputre the feel of the licensed material, I may not be sucked in as easily and may not end up sticking around long. Also, at least in terms of JO, I found that the gameplay in its base form was not all that compelling so, even if the game had had fancy graphics, I probably would've gotten bored with it after a while. From the looks of things, though, there may yet be hope, if the mod community can start developing mods that do more than let you pick lightsabre colors and hilts, do pirouettes (sp?), and pretend you are a nerf herder from Dantooine.

[razorace]

Starcontrol 2 is a E ticket ride all the way.