txa1265 Posted July 1, 2003 Share Posted July 1, 2003 OK, I just finished MoH Spearhead expansion, and it made me glad we're not getting 'just an expansion'. I've become more fond of MoHAA over the last year - it still has that 'tight' feel to it, and I've forgiven the $$ to SP game length ratio. So I finally was able to get Spearhead cheap enough to justify it to myself. What I liked: - Same 'tight' feel. - Very solid WWII feel - felt like 'postcards from the front' What I didn't like: - Short. Really short. Like, 3 hours short. Did I mention it was short? - Too many babysit the idiot NPC sections, including the 'keep a certain amount alive, even though wee keep killing them through scripted events', the 'stupid captain who will stand there doing nothing in the middle of a courtyard for the 30 seconds it takes the tank turret to spin and gets blown off the face of the earth' and its' cousin 'save the captain who lures a tank towards you and then crouches in place while the tank turns its' guns on him', and let's not forget 'mow down 75 enemies, but if 1 crosses the 12" 'line' then panic, retreaqt and fail the mission. So what does this have to do with Jedi Academy? - I'm glad this game will be a full game, not an expansion. From what they are saying, we might get >20 hours out of JA. (personally, RtCW took me ~12, MoHAA ~8, Elite Force ~8, SoFII ~14, and JKII ~24). - I am all for 'team' segments, but I hope they can find some decent balance between using the team and these 'instant failure' frustration-fests (like protecting the droid across death's hallway). I like in the Yavin courtyard - if all of your allies die, you just have to deal ... - And anything they can do - dropping in familiar names, places, people, whatever - to make the game remind us of the moves will be very cool. Of course, since we know we see Hoth and Tatooine ... Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drivian Taluus Posted July 2, 2003 Share Posted July 2, 2003 Howzabout a mission to Endor to investigate some guys wanting to clone Vader? They escape in speeder bikes, you chase 'em down and blow 'em up, but the leader surivives and it turns out he's a Dark Jedi, so you duel with him. Swoops were confirmed, so speeder bikes are plausible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reprehence Posted July 2, 2003 Share Posted July 2, 2003 I'd prefer a mission to Endor where you have to kill every f**king fuzzy little Ewok freak on the planet. And what exactly is the difference between a swoop and a speeder bike? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burrie Posted July 2, 2003 Share Posted July 2, 2003 Swoop bikes Speeder bikes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
txa1265 Posted July 2, 2003 Share Posted July 2, 2003 Originally posted by Burrie Swoop bikes Speeder bikes OK ... let me see. Swoop - 3 meters, that particular one is more elegant, closer to speeder. Is it armed? Speeder - 4.4 meters, very fast, also has comm functions and a laser cannon. I think the basic thing we need to know is that the swoop is what Anakin drover in EpII. I'm still not sure if it has weapons. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toms Posted July 2, 2003 Share Posted July 2, 2003 i really hate "instant failure" missions Whether they are the "you have been spotted! mission over" or the "lando has been killed! you failed to protect him!" type or whatever, it is still very annoying and stupid. I would much rather that you could still complete the mission even if you were detected, or a team-mate was killed, but you would score less and miss out on extras. At ther very least, if an AI is a mission critical NPC that must survive, give them the sense to run like hell away once they get low on health... and give me the ability to heal them once i have dealt with the threats... oh, and some sort of measure of how well i/they are doinf (a timer, a health meter for them above my own, etc...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
txa1265 Posted July 2, 2003 Share Posted July 2, 2003 Originally posted by toms i really hate "instant failure" missions Whether they are the "you have been spotted! mission over" or the "lando has been killed! you failed to protect him!" type or whatever, it is still very annoying and stupid. I would much rather that you could still complete the mission even if you were detected, or a team-mate was killed, but you would score less and miss out on extras. At ther very least, if an AI is a mission critical NPC that must survive, give them the sense to run like hell away once they get low on health... and give me the ability to heal them once i have dealt with the threats... oh, and some sort of measure of how well i/they are doinf (a timer, a health meter for them above my own, etc...) I completely agree. If there were some sense to it - someone is held captive and they say in a cutscene that any attempt to infiltrate will result in that person being killed, for example - then I could understand it. One good thing from Spearhead - the objective was to get a supply truck, and the first time I played the area (at work, I actually played through twice simultaneously - at home and work) I went straight down the road, took some decent damage, but kept most of my team alive. At home I took the cover path through the hills, took much less damage, but also lost my entire team. Oh well, I still got the truck The theme so many of us keep harping on is choice. Like Lando's droid - let it give us the keycodes, but if we keep it from being destroyed we get to explore some extra areas or something. Also for choice - when you do have to protect an NPC, it would be nice to get a choice menu - they say "let me help you fight", and you can either say 'Sure' or 'get behind cover before you get yourself hurt, and put that gun away before you put an eye out' As for an 'NPC bar' ... I like that idea - I just played the demo of Neverwinter Nights for the Mac, and I had a NPC who joined me, and got a small icon with his picture and a 'life bar'. It would be great if you had a swuad with you, if on the side of the screen a small area with little green health bars came up, and as the team died the individual bars disappeared. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reprehence Posted July 2, 2003 Share Posted July 2, 2003 EF2 also had a life bar for NPC's that you had to protect. I don't mind instant failure missions to much as long as I get clued in to why I might have failed. I usually gripped lando and dropped him on the top of his ship. He usually stayed and wouldn't get too shot up. I think preserving npc's should be a pretty big reward if it isn't a must - like being able to get a higher force power level or something along those lines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
txa1265 Posted July 3, 2003 Share Posted July 3, 2003 Originally posted by Reprehence EF2 also had a life bar for NPC's that you had to protect. I don't mind instant failure missions to much as long as I get clued in to why I might have failed. I usually gripped lando and dropped him on the top of his ship. He usually stayed and wouldn't get too shot up. I think preserving npc's should be a pretty big reward if it isn't a must - like being able to get a higher force power level or something along those lines. The EF2 demo - THAT was the other place I saw it ... (I might just grab EF2 today, play a bit over the long holiday weekend). I like that feature. I also like the idea of a reward system for keeping, say, a percentage of NPC's alive. If you keep 50% alive, maybe you start the next level with 200 health and shield, more than 75% you get an extra 'star' (or whatever). As you can tell, I also like a progressive reward system - finding 10/11 secret areas and getting nothing ... a little frustrating ... Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Borlath Mon Posted July 9, 2003 Share Posted July 9, 2003 I've had an idea for a SW game lurking in the back of my mind for ages, but it sort of mixes the "good example" and "bad example" at the top of the thread. Follow me through on this: (For sake of this example, let's say that the game, which I will call "Borlath's Folly" for the rest of this post, is being played by two teams of six....no, seven people. I'll be referencing various games at different points, to give you a better idea) You start off a mission leaving your base (TIE Fighter) and must proceed to your mission waypoint, say, for example, a prison planet, to rescue hostages (Counter-Strike). In your flight group, there would be two starfighters (Using the X-Wing series flight sim cockpits and physics - no 3rd person Rebel Assault/Battle For Naboo cobblers), and a troop transport with one pilot and four troops. At the same time, the opposing forces can target your ships from ground emplacements, or from another flight group of a similar numbers. The starfighters become vital to the mission, in order to get the troops down on the ground - primarily for protection, but also to attack the enemy transport. If the transport gets destroyed, you respawn at your base again, but you've lost valuable time. Once you reach the ground, the troops come out, and it plays like any other class based FPS (RtCW) with one major difference...the starfighter pilots are still around, so when the Lieutenant calls for an Air Strike (as in RtCW) one of the pilots actually has to fly there to help, which can take time. Unfortunately, it's probably going to be a long time before we see a game like Borlath's Folly come out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reprehence Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 I want to add a force power called "Force Pop." It would work kind of like Mind Trick, except instead of making the target befuddled, the victim's head would begin to swell to 4x it's normal size. This would be followed by a popping sound and a bloody mess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Borlath Mon Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 Originally posted by Reprehence I want to add a force power called "Force Pop." It would work kind of like Mind Trick, except instead of making the target befuddled, the victim's head would begin to swell to 4x it's normal size. This would be followed by a popping sound and a bloody mess. Now -that's- a Force Power I'd like to see. You could do something like the Sabre Lock with it, too...if you keep clicking the button, the head swells up faster and faster, whilst the person with the swollen head has to keep clicking to shrink their heads back to normal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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