Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: Gold Leader on July 14, 2012, 10:02:21 pm
-
Hi all :)
It has been a very long time I have been here, kinda lost trace of this place, but I was happy to find it again :)
It was probably due to that I have Co-Founded a Descent gaming League with a good friend of mine named Descent Task Force, even that the place ran great for like 4 months, after these golden days my friend Celestial got ill and was MIA for 12 weeks, and during these days the activity of the Descent Task Force was bleeding.
So an other good friend of mine aka PigmyRhino aka PigmyMonoclonius from Red Dragons Squadron, Descent Rangers and I as Tylosaurus have decided to reboot the place with a new forum and 4 Admins, so if a few get ill there shall always be one around.
Our new place can be found here:
(http://i47.servimg.com/u/f47/17/57/90/43/pyro11.png) (http://descenttaskforce.forumotion.com)
Click to Enter!
So hereby we are seeking our old members and many new members too, our mission is to keep the Descent games alive this way.
The games we play use DXX-Rebirth only, this is most commonly used for Descent 1 & 2 multiplayer, Descent 3 players are also welcome, also if you are from a Descent clan or league you are also welcome, the DTF is here to make the Descent universe a happier one and pleasant one for all types of Descent players. D2X-XL can be played for single player, but multiplyer wise we can only accept DXX-Rebirth, since it's more stable and much more to the point when it comes to hosting games and such under various operating systems.
On December 17, 2012 , this year, Descent 1 will meet it's 18th Anniversary, this is the date the game officially launched as the 3.5" FDD Edition.
As Co-Founder of the Descent Task Force, I am planning this event to take place on December 17, 2012 :)
Let's take a walk down Memory Lane shall we :mrgreen:
Within the EUR it looks like this:
(http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/d/36269-2/Descent+1+EUR+FDD+Version+top.JPG) (http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/d/36267-2/Descent+1+EUR+FDD+Version+top.JPG) (http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/d/36276-2/Descent+1+EUR+FDD+Version+rear.JPG) (http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/d/36274-1/Descent+1+EUR+FDD+Version+rear.JPG) (http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/d/36273-2/Descent+1+EUR+FDD+Version+FDD_s+in+box.JPG) (http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/d/36271-1/Descent+1+EUR+FDD+Version+FDD_s+in+box.JPG)
Outside the EUR it looks like this:
(http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/d/36257-2/Descent+1+USA+FDD+Version+top.JPG) (http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/d/36256-2/Descent+1+USA+FDD+Version+top.JPG) (http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/d/36264-2/Descent+1+USA+FDD+Version+rear.JPG) (http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/d/36263-2/Descent+1+USA+FDD+Version+rear.JPG) (http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/d/36261-2/Descent+1+USA+FDD+Version+FDD_s+in+box.JPG) (http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/d/36260-2/Descent+1+USA+FDD+Version+FDD_s+in+box.JPG)
This day we shall host and play Descent 1 based games only, other versions of Descent like Descet2 & Descent 3 series shall not be hosted nor played.
That people still play an 18 year old game always surprises me greatly, this day will be seen a major one within the entire Descent community and I will pass this on, in almost every forum I am a part of, to draw the greatest attention to this great day, one many of us shall never forget.
So hereby I am looking forward to see multiple games being hosted on that day and night.
Happy Flying everyone and keep your wings leveled! 8-)
-
this reminds me, i was attempting to make it all the way through descent and D2 using rebirth a while back. i think i got stuck and frustrated in one of the levels and forgot about it. now i need to go revisit it.
never was much for multiplayer in descent though. i sucked something awful in D3.
-
D3 was the worst of the series they also changed the game's physics way too much, the sensitivity of the mouse and the Joystick is way off limits it's either too over sensed or it's too laggy, Outage messed up the controls for a lot of it, the feel of the game it's self is also too different compared to D1 & D2.
D1 is most tactical since you don't have an afterburner and you don't have a like over 20 weapons to kill your foes, the weapons in D2 are also less deadly, they decreased the hits points of the Quad Level 4's, since they have lvl 5 and lvl6 quad lasers, Quad lvl 6's do even less damage per shot than quad level 4's of Descent 1, Spreadfire cannon in D1 shoots twice as fast as the one of D2, it also does 10 damage points per ball over the 8 per ball D2 had. the Fusion cannon does 160 damage points with a full power shot if both blobs hit the target, in D2 it's only maxed out at 80 damage points.
D2 also has an afterburner this takes away the tactics for using Tri-Chording to gain extra speed, D2 was actually a map pack for D1, but they kind of simplified it with the lower destructive weapons and adding cheap kill guns like the Gauss Cannon, Helix Cannon, Phoenix cannon and the Omega Cannon, Cheap kill missiles like the Earth Shaker Missile, Mercury & Flash missile, all such things kinda ruined the game's good game play, so you'd probably only see me in a D1 game :)
By playing MP in Descent you can only get better by playing it more on the hardest difficulty mode, I always host on insane and here is how much fun we have, just to give you an idea :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjduWYhVvPk&list=UUmjeeuweZTi7VDRt5fgH4vQ&index=2&feature=plcp
-
So you should port Descent II's missions to Descent 1? :nervous: a retro-port of some type?
-
yea we had a community d2xxl event awhile back where many of us got online and had some games. problem was when we started playing the die hard descent players, we just got slaughtered.
-
So you should port Descent II's missions to Descent 1? :nervous: a retro-port of some type?
D2 had many features D1 didn't.
-
@Gold Leader -- My two cents having grown up playing D1/D2 on KALI:
Well, there's some merit to some of the features D2 added, although I can understand why they're controversial. Gauss Cannon was used like crazy in D2 matches, as were Mercury Missiles. However, I contend that trichording was NOT useless in D2 at all; in fact the Afterburner + Trichording in combination was THE best way to avoid an Earthshaker missile. Some pilots (not me though) were so good at doing this that they could evade an Earthshaker blast at point blank range!
I was a "Shaker pilot" (players who exclusively played on maps where the Earthshaker was the only weapon and you had huge open areas to avoid the bomblets). It was a load of fun. You either avoided the big blue bombs, or you died. It turned the game into a sort of strategic mind game where you had to cleverly lay down Earthshakers in the right spots to murder the enemy while simultaneously avoiding them doing the same to you.
I never liked trichording much, but admittedly, only because I struggled to use it properly. I learned how to use it + the afterburner in D2 to evade shakers, but in D1/D2 standard dogfight matches I was pretty horrible at dogfighting. I'd be that annoying guy lobbing Smart missiles down a corridor to kill two people already in combat, picking on other people's fights. In a 1v1, I'd fly suicidally, launching pretty much everything I had before dying. Occasionally I'd take someone out with me. ;)
It always did seem, similar to Quake 3 Arena bunny hopping, that if you mastered trichording, you suddenly entered into a whole new tier of Descent play. Since the only Descent players left tend to be the die hards who never stopped dueling, fighting them today is like fighting a bot on God Mode difficulty. :eek2:
I am very seriously considering attending this! I don't expect to win, but I'll try to make myself a difficult target to hit :)
-
Granted, I'm not a hardcore gamer, but I liked D3 the best. It was much more open (D1 was way too claustrophobic for me), and the missions had more objectives. It wasn't just, "go in, blow up the reactor, get out" over and over again. Weapons like the Black Shark were kind of ridiculous, but I do enjoy the variety; let's you pick the right tool for the job.
-
I think I'll try to attend this, I've been in love with the series since it came out in '95. (Oh man, the memories.) :)
Lately I've been doing a fair bit of D3 multiplayer, even against the crazies who are always playing on the public servers. They're insane, yeah, though I've gotten to the point where I can actually hold my own against them. Almost. :nervous: But I'll probably get my ass royally kicked in a d1 or d2 match. :V Should be fun!
-
I've actually played D1, DII, D3+Mercs, and D2X-XL. I think I will grab DXX-Rebirth, as D2X-XL has changed so much (in a good way!) that you can actually miss some of the original stuff. Although there may be a nostalgia mode for -XL, I don't know.
So, I loved the atmosphere of D1 (my first 3D video game; made the hair stand on the back of my head!) -- I played with Descent: Destination Saturn, an OEM variant of Descent that was more than the 5-mission demo, but less than the full 27 levels of Descent, sort of like FS2: Colossus.
DII -- got kind of confusing with all the weapons, and I really missed the original Vauss cannon, that rocked. And yeah, the lvl4 quads were nerfed. I remember being frustrated with that, not realizing that my quads weren't up to snuff like they used to be.
My favorite weapon in D1 was the Plasma Cannnon, due to it's high efficiency (1/4 energy per shot) and high rate of fire. Hmm, Moon's Descendarium (http://moon.descentforum.net/Descendarium/d1weapons.html) (Guide for Descent 1-3) disagrees with me on the energy per shot. wtf, thought I remembered that crystal clear.
Descent 3 I liked the awesome (for the day) visuals, and the more interesting mission types (instead of grab 3 keys, hostages if you have a heart, blow the reactor, get out in time, rinse, repeat x27). I didn't like that some of the missions (esp in Mercs) stretched out for an eternity
The one thing I really didn't like in all the editions of Descent: getting lost in a huge level and trying to figure out from the automap where to go. I wish there was a way to pick a spot on the automap, mark it in the automap, switch to normal view and turn on an overlay that has a line with arrows flowing drawn towards where you painted your spot on the automap.
EDIT:
http://descent2.de/
Although D2X-XL contains a lot of enhancements and new features, it is still fully backwards compatible to every other Descent 2 version and particularly to D2_Win98 and d2_3dfx (which constitute the reference for every other D2 version). As many fixes simply restore features of the original Descent 2 that were missing in D2X (like availability of all cockpit views, or working mouse steering), it is even closer to them than D2X itself. Keeping full backwards compatibility is my concern, and where I break it, it happens accidentally and will be fixed as soon as I notice it, or get notified of it.
In multiplayer games, all game-relevant features of D2X-XL (e.g. mouselook, dual missile launch, or the cockpit window 'radar') are completely turned off if the game host does not use D2X-XL. If the game host uses D2X-XL, he has full control over these features and can turn them on or off at his free disposal.
So, if you notice something wrong with D2X-XL in playing correctly, perhaps a bug report would be in order. It looks from that snippet that if DXX-Rebirth is compatible with D2, then D2X-XL is compatible with DXX-Rebirth, as D2X-XL is compatible with D2.
-
my main issue with d2xxl is that it has become rather unstable for me. though its probibly been a year or two since ive bothered keeping my copy up to date.
-
Yeah, get the latest version. It's always good to keep the copy that you're currently working with until you know the new one works perfect. I used to keep 5 or 6 revisions around just in case. Same with FS2Open - you never know when a mod is going to stall out because of a change.
-
I avoid shakers without the burner, it's quite simple, just chord around the warheads of the mini missiles that pop out, fly towards them and chord around them ;)
D1 requires far more skill that D2, it's by far the best ever, I have that with many games sequels always are less good than the first, the Afterburner, like many new weapons in D2 only simplified the game and this also resulted lesser skilled pilots, most skilled pilots I know and I still fly with are main D1 players.
As playing the series goes I was rather late with this, from where I am from, to be honest I never heard of Kali.net back in the day it was a major thing, just never played online, it was mostly too expensive and I only played on lans and computer clubs, but Descent it's self was mainly played in Singleplayer or I was just collecting it. The game it's self like Freespace was for me far more interesting to collect than just play it.
D2 was nice, but it's a simplified version of D1 and it's packed with cheap kill guns and primaries with reduced accuracy and hits per shot, sorry not my kind of thing, it will never be either, forget it xD :D
Freespace2 over Freespace1 is a different story, because as rare occasions goes this is certainly one of them, it was Freespace The Great War Done right, well the storyline is still brilliant and to me it's by far one of it's kind.
And yes I still have high hopes for a Freespace3 , what about you guys? :cool:
As D2X-XL goes it's okay fro Singleplayer, but if multiplayer is your thing please use DXX-Rebirth, it's simple and to the point, it also retains the game's original looks and feel, well for many people I play and communicate with it is like this.
The Descent Task Force, well we only use DXX-Rebirth as multiplayer goes, simply multiplayer wise, it's near to flawless and it's deadstable.
-
Oh hey Tylo/Obi/Gold Leader :)
Fancy seeing you around here.
Hope to see some others here in the mines too.
-
so i updated d2xxl and the improvements are huge. it used to run really slow with all the effects but its much better now. will need to play with it more.
-
Good to see an overlap of FS with Descent after 18 years to the games' release. It's not easy keeping an active community of players, aside from the community related to the two main source ports as aforementioned.
Hey there, Obi and Enzo. All the good fellas in all the good places. :)
-
Graphics does not interest people that play old games like Descent 1 & 2. Gameplay is the main thing that drives people's minds to play them.
At the Descent Task Force people don't care much about the graphics to be very honest and around D2X-XL there are not many good stories multiplayer & community wise, it's that I prefer to stay away from that even if my life would depend on it :nervous:
DXX-Rebirth is the better overall solution hosting games is simpel and requires little efforts.
Sorry, but I am no major fan of D2X-XL and I never will be, forget it. I fan the games for what they are and Rebirth is a neat modification and fix so we can play it on various OS'es without stability issues and Multiplayer it's the best thing that happened to Descent 1 & 2.
Descent with DXX-Rebirth retains it's original look, XL is like a new Descent 3, and the thing is we already have a Descent 3 :rolleyes: Sorry my opinion there and that is what it will remain.
-
my main interest in d2xxl is mod support and sp, not multi. to be frank ive never seen its multiplayer facilities work very well. it was always crash prone and the tracker never worked, we always just posted an ip addy for whoever was hosting. im not sure if these issues have been fixed or not. dxx on the other hand, i had heard of but due to dwindling interest in descent i never bothered checking it out, but if we can have another community wide event id gladly participate.
actually i was more impressed with the doom 3 descent mod, had epic atmosphere, kinda like what mwll did for battletech fanatics. it just never went very far and as far as i know is mostly dead. i even attempted a descent freespace mod tech demonstration. i took some d3 ships that somone ported over, wrote some tables for descent-style weapons. i attempted to create some levels. since it was just a tech demo i used some old quake maps i did, converted them to pof files, to serve as the level geometry (this makes me the only fs modder to convert a quake map to a pof file in an attempt to make a descent mod for fs2, dont ask how i did it i used to smoke a lot of dope back then). it kinda worked, but it mostly didnt. this was done way before we had scripting, or improved graphics quality, and back then i came to the conclusion that it wouldnt work very well. might be more likely in the near future, with differed lighting and scripting.
-
I'll have to keep this in mind. I have been playing these games since D1 came out and still play D2X-XL fairly regularly in singleplayer. There are a lot of good singleplayer map packs for it. The version I have is a few years out of date now but works well enough, and has a couple of minor changes I made. I would play D3 more but there isn't nearly as much user-made content for it available.
As far as weapon balance goes, all three games had their issues. D3 was probably the most balanced game overall, but it did have a quite different feel and movement mechanics from the earlier games. I played it a lot online back when it came out and occasionally join the current games, but they don't play the maps or game modes I like anymore. D2 had a lot of overpowered weapons, which are fun in singleplayer but mess up multiplayer balance. On the other hand, I don't like the lack of an afterburner in D1 since you need too much space to dodge homing and mega missiles without it. Trichording is essential in all three games. For keyboard players, many keyboards actually have trouble keeping up with all the keypresses you need to make that work correctly, while still firing weapons.
We had weekly games going on around here at one point 5 or 6 years ago. That might be fun to start up again.
-
id like to get in some d1 practice if anyone else is up to it, so il start a d1x-rebirth host. should come up if the tracker works.
it works, had some games with some old vets that reallt pewnd mah pyro.
-
im really starting to like the fact that the multiplayer tracker for dxx-rebirth actually works, and the game runs stable (d2xxl is more stable than it was, it only crashed on me 4 times today :D ). i played some d1x this morning and some d2x this afternoon. i just need some players that havent spent the better part of the last 18 years playing it. i just wish it had a map downloader built in, ive missed a couple games cause i didnt have the maps and had trouble finding them.
-
Anyone have a universal map pack? If so, throw it up on gameupdates.org, or post a link and I'll upload it there for you. FWIW, I made a map/mod pack for Descent 3 which can be had here (http://gameupdates.org/details.php?id=1670).
-
id we do another community wide descent event, that would be the way to go. but as it stands youre luckey to see games only a few hours a day, and then most of the time you can google the map and download it, sometimes you cant find it though.
-
Well I Co-Founded the Descent Task Force to give the Descent Community a place to play their games, I myself am still the Inferno Collector of the games mainly, I play them to keep games hosted for the players, but hey I never see it all to serious xD It's just called haviing fun and keeping others occupied in what they love doing most :)
If I die a million times, it never bothered me, you respawn anyways right, so there is never something to be worried about! lol,
-
One quick solution with classic (and cuby mostly) levels, accounted most frequently but seriously no exclusively in games on tracker (unfortunately, since there are many modern-perspective levels being made out there as we speak and yet they are ignored in favor of ole-time simple classics) are the map packs the Descent Rangers use, for Descent (https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3219613/temp/Descent.ranger-pack.zip) (500kB) and Descent II (https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3219613/temp/Descent_II.ranger-pack.zip) (5MB).*
Other than that, keep checking in with the Descent Mission DataBase (http://www.enspiar.com/dmdb/index.php) for what's latest in the level building world and well as the historical big entries like The Enemy Within SP campaign. There are other sources like Descent Valhalla (http://www.descentvalhalla.com/). That's a bout a big head-start. Enjoy.
*selections made by Icewolf with feedback from the Rangers
-
map packs help. i found dmdb yesterday while googling a map. and valhalla gives me an extra source. thanks.
-
here some other great places to get good maps from:
(http://www.pooterman.com/poot52.gif) (http://www.pooterman.com/)
(http://www.oocities.org/timessquare/alley/1420/images/sharklogo.jpg) (http://www.oocities.org/timessquare/alley/1420/levels.htm)
(http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/d/50007-1/D3+sector.jpg) (http://www.sectorgame.com/d3/)
(http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/d/45942-4/beauty.jpg) (http://www.descentrangers.com/public/templates/default/index.asp?page=pilots_levels)
(http://www.koolbear.com/Descent/images/banner_KoolBear_Descent_center.jpg) (http://www.koolbear.com/Descent/intro.shtml)
Click the pics to go to the websites :cool:
-
So, it would be nice to get all of the maps, 7z the crap out of them, and make a pack. :nod: Maybe I'll do that sometime this week or next.
-
I dunno...
There are a lot of bad, never played maps. Some of the ones rival Descent Levels Of The World's level of nonsensicality/nonsensicalism/whatever.
-
That's why I was hoping the community had a map pack of quality maps already selected and in a pack.
-
it would be better if dxxrebirth had a map download feature. so you could just join a game and the map downloads from the host. i mean the average descent map is a few k, and the game was meant to be played on a 56k modem or over a serial cable. the bandwidth requirements for a few k download which will complete in half a second is there. d2xxl has this feature, i just wish it worked :D
-
Re. D2XXL: I do not recommend using it for multiplayer. Even on my modern system the latest version is still unstable and crashes at least once per (single player) playthrough. Also, mixing source ports (some players in a game using D2XXL and others using Rebirth) in a single game is a very bad idea and can lead to a lot of weirdness in terms of game balance, missile behavior etc. The two developers are not collaborating with each other if memory serves (in fact I remember the two of them getting into massive flame wars). If Gold Leader mandates DXX-Rebirth, stick with that.
Given how quiet the Descent community is these days, it's easiest to just throw the levels you'll be using for a game revival event / tournament into a public Dropbox folder and share them that way before the event.
-
Don't tell Diedel/Karx11erx that. He will go aggro on you hardcore because he does not like people talking good about Rebirth or bad about his port.
Tried for a long time to keep from taking any sides on that issue but... :blah:
-
the descent community is really conservative. where he fs community is always trying new things with the engine and keeping it alive with new mod content. the descent community is kept alive with pure nostalgia. even going as far as hacking their old joysticks to work on their new computers. so in that community diedel is more or less an anomaly. you got to respect the guy though, hes doing, more or less by himself, what were doing with freespace. im sure if he had more users posting bug reports and more programmers submitting bugfixes, his version of the engine would be more stable.
-
It would also help if he wasn't a hugely antagonistic guy with a massive ego. I think most people in the community were initially very impressed by his work, but the personality issues drove them away from it.
And hey, there's good reason for the 3D Pro adapters. That stick is as smooth as buttuh. :D
-
yea they dont make em like that anymore. really they dont. to get a stick which is just as accurate you really need to shell out for a $400+ hotas. its sad how expensive joysticks have gotten over the years. but its a tribute to nostalgia that they build an adapter for their stick from scratch.
-
I've been meaning to pick up a backup for mine, in case it ever bites the dust. I know there's an old site out there that gives a method for fixing the increased amount of physical deadzone that the stick picks up as it ages.
-
it shouldnt pick up any deadzone, it uses an optical sensor. you might just need to go in there and clean the optics with a swab and some alcohol.
-
"Deadzone" isn't really the right term...I mean the increased amount of physical sway that the stick acquires around the center as it ages and gets broken in. This site had a procedure that involved putting a ring of latex-type substance around the bottom of the interior arm mechanism, to tighten things up.
-
damn, thats impressive. honsestly one of the first things i do when i get my 3d printer is design a joystick from scratch. its going to have everything from 16 bit resolution to buck skin grips.
-
Yuss...
Actually, if you're interested in playing with hardware, and you always are, I was playing with a ball-bearing roller the other day. And, it just happened to be the size of a thumb trackball. Replacing the thumb button or hat on a joystick with a trackball would be really damn cool, to say the least. I suppose pushing in on it could be the same as the right click.
-
i was thinking of something like a psp joystick or a blackberry trackball (theyre hall effect and sparkfun sells em). my idea is to put the thumbstick/mouse where the thumb button/hat would be, but also include a hat switch above it as well as a trim wheel to complete the cluster. high up buttons and switches on joysticks annoy me to no end. i want to bring them down so my thumb doesnt go numb during a game of mwll because of all the camera zooming you need to do. i plan to clip the whole top of of the joystick, having it go no higher than the trigger assembly. it means less space for buttons, but theres still room for pinkie switches, possibly a dual or staged trigger, maybe an analog trigger (variable speed gatling guns!), a rocker switch just above the trigger.
-
everything nuke is saying about a custom joystick
I love this idea. If I had the time, tools, knowledge and experience I'd probably just end up creating a simple replica of the Sidewinder 3D Pro with more buttons and switchable support between DirectInput and XInput -- because I just love that thing and for Descent I really think there is no substitute. <3 the 3D Pro. I'm planning on building a USB converter soon myself.
-
the was the panther-xl
(http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/1387/panbacksmall.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/507/panbacksmall.jpg/)
you can buy an update kit here :
http://assassin3d.squarespace.com/