[BigInc]

Hi, I just was wondering on the progress I have been following the game for awhile now and I am very excited about the release.  Anyone, somebody please give an update!  I am a huge fan of freespace 2 and wing commander series.

Thanks!

[Hellraiser]

Well, i have been keeping track of it, but i don't know if it will need all the graphical upgrades from the FSOpen Project, but i know it is required to be installed at least for the new sexc or whatever it is. (FRED stuff i believe)

The Demo was quite good, but i have had severe problems with FSOpen lately so i hope it is all working when BWO is finished and released.

also, i hope this campaign has full speech in Command Briefings, Briefings, Debriefings and ingame speech, because a FS or FS2 campaign without speech is not a finished campaign. (IMO)

I could never play Derelict a second time because of that, i must have failed each mission 5 times trying to read what it says ingame and going onto the menu to read something is not my type of solution.

Derelict had a good story, but it failed in my mind because of lack of speech, otherwise it was good.

Either way, i just hope they sort out the FSOpen problems that have been coming up and i am also losing track of the new stable releases.

Well, i was abit off topic eh? sorry. :/

[NGTM-1R]

I can never understand why people have so much trouble reading the ingame messages. I've never had that kind of problem, I learned how to do that long ago when playing the single missions in FS1. It's not really that hard.

[kv1at3485]

To make reading the ingame messages feasible, the FREDder must ensure two things:

1) The length of the message is short enough so it can appear all at one time.

2) The time delay between messages is long enough to give the player time to read it in the first place.

Some FREDders forget these things, causing the player headaches.

[IceFire]

Our trouble is we have of dialogue.  Thats bad for voice actors and thats also bad for downloads and also also bad for reading messages in-game.

[BlackDove]

Days of 56k are over though. It was okay that we split hairs over megabytes two years ago, but it's a different world today.

People who can't get the voices today - tough deal. Almost everyone is on cable today, a standard for a couple of hundreds of megabytes should really be set.

[Primus]

Originally posted by ngtm1r
I can never understand why people have so much trouble reading the ingame messages. I've never had that kind of problem, I learned how to do that long ago when playing the single missions in FS1. It's not really that hard.

People who aren't good in english, might have trouble reading it.

[StratComm]

The problem with saying that - true as it may be - is that us native speakers would be extremely frustrated if all of the message delays were long enough to allow non-native (more specifically non-proficient) speakers to take their time in getting what is said.  Messages should take exactly as long to display as it takes their voice actor to say them, plus maybe a second.  No more, no less.  And that's a fairly concrete point to work from.

[Flaser]

Non-native/learning English speakers - F4 is your friend.

[kv1at3485]

F4 is fine when messages are relatively few.  But when you have whole chains of messages, it just becomes annoying.

And heaven forbid that the deluge of messages should happen during combat.  Not only does pressing F4 break the 'flow' of the game, but chances are you'll miss something important just the same.

[Moonsword]

And?  You don't have to do it if you don't want to.

Also, don't press F4 in a firefight.  Yes, that breaks the flow of the game.  Just do it after the dogfight's over.

[kv1at3485]

If one can be guarenteed that no important information was in messages, then I would agree.  Don't use F4.  Heck, don't even bother reading the messages in the first place.

But as it stands, messages are an important method of increasing the player's situational awareness, both in the context of the mission and sometimes for the whole campaign (like plot points and such.)

These cannot be ignored without having a detrimental affect on the playing experience.

As for F4'ing during a firefight...  Mission critical information is too important to miss, and you never know if something like a hint will turn up while you're madly trying to shake off a wing of pursuers.  (For example: A message from Command stating that reinforcements are now available for you to call in.  Reinforcements that you could be in need of IMMEADIATELY.)

In any case, causing the player undue distress is a sign of bad mission design.

[BlackDove]

F4 is not for BlackWater, because BlackWater does something different than any of the FS cannons.

This thing will need voices as a primary component, or it's not a finished campaign.

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by BlackDove
Days of 56k are over though. It was okay that we split hairs over megabytes two years ago, but it's a different world today.

People who can't get the voices today - tough deal. Almost everyone is on cable today, a standard for a couple of hundreds of megabytes should really be set.

They don't offer cable everywhere and my USB Key only can hold 128MB.

In principle, I agree with you. In practice, though, the voice files should be in a separate VP.

[Hellraiser]

Originally posted by Primus


People who aren't good in english, might have trouble reading it.

Well, that is also a very good reason to have speech in campaigns, but i was more referring to realism.

Granted this is a game, but i don't like the fact that i get splashed by a group of Shivan Fighters because i was trying to read something that realistically would be spoken.

I know for a fact that if BWO doesn't have speech at all, i certainly won't be playing it.

I am sure it has a good story, but having to go into the message log to see what this person was saying because you had to dodge several missiles and laser blasts is a real put off.

In the real military, i doubt they expect fighter pilots to read conversations.

For example:

a pair of US Fighters are patrolling an area and the leaders' wingman notices a stealth fighter behind the leader and sends the message (no speech), by the time he has read it, he is dead.

This is why speech increases the realism of it and it makes you feel like you are accually there.

also, if you lot are wondering that if you did speech the 56k'ers wouldn't be able to get it because the filesize would be high....well:

1: If anyone has 56k modems still, not our fault, us broadband speed connection users shouldn't be limited because of them, also, 56k'ers in the UK would find it cheaper to have broadband.

2: Either way, this campaign is gonna be 100MB+, which is gonna screw up 56k'ers either way. (speech or no speech)

Just do the speech and make it an optional component.

[pyro-manic]

Hellraiser: So you haven't played Derelict, or Sync, or Homesick then?

Demanding voice-acting isn't going to get you very far. We'd all like to see BWO released with full voice-acting, as we would any campaign. The problem is it's not easy to do. You have to find enough people to act the parts, and act them well, you have to edit all the voice files to fit properly, and you have to do a lot of editing to get Vasudan voices to sound right/add static etc.

As for the "realism" argument... Freespace is entirely unrealistic. It's a sci-fi game. The mods are done by people in their spare time, because we want to do it. We don't get paid for this stuff.

I know that the BWO team will include voice-acting if it's feasible, but if they can't, then you can't say they've done a half-arsed job. BWO is probably the longest-running project ever, and the team are known for their skill and the quality of their work. It will be excellent, voice-acting or no.

[Hellraiser]

Originally posted by pyro-manic
Hellraiser: So you haven't played Derelict, or Sync, or Homesick then?

Demanding voice-acting isn't going to get you very far. We'd all like to see BWO released with full voice-acting, as we would any campaign. The problem is it's not easy to do. You have to find enough people to act the parts, and act them well, you have to edit all the voice files to fit properly, and you have to do a lot of editing to get Vasudan voices to sound right/add static etc.

As for the "realism" argument... Freespace is entirely unrealistic. It's a sci-fi game. The mods are done by people in their spare time, because we want to do it. We don't get paid for this stuff.

I know that the BWO team will include voice-acting if it's feasible, but if they can't, then you can't say they've done a half-arsed job. BWO is probably the longest-running project ever, and the team are known for their skill and the quality of their work. It will be excellent, voice-acting or no.

I tried Derelict, but i kepted dying or failing the mission because i was reading something being said and no i don't believe in pressing 'F4' to see what was said, i technically shouldn't need to.

I never heard of the other campaigns.

Also, i was not demanding speech for FS2 campaigns, i just want a complete campaign. (ie with speech)

If there is no speech in the campaign, i might as well call it a book because you tend to be reading more then playing, especially if BWO is as intense with dialog as is hinted.

But i guess no one accually understood what i was trying to point out.

Either way, its up to the makers if they want to add speech to the campaign, i just said that if they don't add speech, i don't play it....its as simple as that.

I will just replay the main campaign over and over and over again.

[pyro-manic]

There has never to my knowledge been a fully voice-acted campaign released for FS. That should tell you something about the difficulty of the task.

If you don't want to play things because they don't meet your (somewhat unrealistic) standards, that's fine, but you're missing out (and will continue to do so). If you're desparate to have voices, then do something about it - join a campaign as a voice actor and record some parts yourself.

[NGTM-1R]

Actually, you can read something more quickly then you can speak it in most cases. For example it takes me about two seconds to read that sentence. I admit I read rapidly, so let's call it four seconds for most people. By way of contrast, it takes me about five seconds to speak it.

Yes, I did time this. Yes, I have no life.

[BlackDove]

Easy there people.

We haven't got to the voices yet, so there's still plenty of room for success in that area.