Author Topic: BP: War in Heaven discussion  (Read 908378 times)

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Offline General Battuta

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
Allright then...

Then it's my poor understanding of english I suppose. It's still odd I never experienced such problems anywhere before.
However I really spotted some spelling issues here and there. I can't tell you right now where.. But in some briefings you mistyped words..

To give an unrelated example: The word "Birds" and you guys wrote "virbs".. Sometimes you mistyped letters twice in a word. Should I find these little issues again I will post them here.

I will check the Tech room right away.

Whoa...that sounds really weird. Yeah, please let us know if you see things like that, as they could be indicators of some kind of technical problem.

Though just fyi, 'materiel' is a correct spelling.

I'm several missions through now, and I have to say that, even though I'm only part way through, that this is a real masterpiece :)

One thing I did notice, though:
Spoiler:
In the mission where you attack the Meridian, you can order the Vilinus around. I believe that shouldn't happen?

fix'd'd'd
« Last Edit: May 25, 2011, 04:42:28 pm by Jeff Vader »

 
Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
Hi I have a problem when I start the game telling me I have 705 errors also, when he started the mission and the game will let me on the desktop I missing something?

thanks

 

Offline Aardwolf

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
That was ****ing awesome!

However I noticed in one place that a mission objective was "Mission Goal Text"... although I don't remember which mission. That, and in one of the missions with dialog choices there was a moment where I was supposed to choose whether to engage or not, and no prompt telling me which numbers to press to do what. Ultimately I pressed 2 and it did what I wanted, though... not attacking.

What was the model for that derelict space station? It looked kind of like one of the Luna City models, but I couldn't tell because of the lighting.

Also,
Spoiler:
I eagerly await the opportunity to kick that Steele fellow's ass for what he did with the Vasudans... even though we've yet to face hostile Vasudans in the campaign. One way or another, that sonnova***** is gonna pay.  :mad:

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
Hi I have a problem when I start the game telling me I have 705 errors also, when he started the mission and the game will let me on the desktop I missing something?

thanks

Go to the installation thread and make sure you've followed all the instructions there.

If that doesn't work, please generate and post a debug log. If you don't know how, see the troubleshooting forum.

Don't worry, we'll have it sorted out in a jiffy.

 

Offline Scotty

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
Quote
However I noticed in one place that a mission objective was "Mission Goal Text"... although I don't remember which mission. That, and in one of the missions with dialog choices there was a moment where I was supposed to choose whether to engage or not, and no prompt telling me which numbers to press to do what. Ultimately I pressed 2 and it did what I wanted, though... not attacking.

I can confirm the first one, since I saw it too, but can't remember the mission either.

As for the second, it's not a keyprompt.  Do what you feel like.

 

Offline Spoon

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
Spoiler:
I eagerly await the opportunity to kick that Steele fellow's ass for what he did with the Vasudans... even though we've yet to face hostile Vasudans in the campaign. One way or another, that sonnova***** is gonna pay.  :mad:
He already anticipated you would react that way and has the perfect plan ready to deal with you.
Just as planned etc  :p
Urutorahappī!!

[02:42] <@Axem> spoon somethings wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> critically wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> im happy with these missions now
[02:44] <@Axem> well
[02:44] <@Axem> with 2 of them

 

Offline ION3

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
Spoiler:
In the capship mission the turret selection by arrow keyes doesn't work for me. Pressing them nothing happens. Did I miss something or do you want the log?

  

Offline Infamus

  • 26
Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
I never gave a review on "The Blade Itself"

The mission title is well put and the ship controls where well played, but the turret controls were lacking

1) as you may have noticed there is no way to tell your turrets to hold-fire, please add that. and also I see no difference between the Lock and Track modes: please explain.
2) instead having all of the guns automated, give the player direct control - as well as automated; make the mode selectable - over the main guns and missiles, to make it easier to hit something like a subsystem
*add 'semi-tracking' for manual guns, this should let the gun fire like a turret, but not being automated (Semi-tracking is a forward gun's ability to angle the shot slightly to lead a target or hit it from a angle with out actually facing it, even though you are using a forward pointing weapon), I don't think this has ever been done, however.
*it may seem stupid but it can be useful, and fun, then again it is hard enough to see what is going on
*OH! IDEA! this may take some time, but make it to where objects that you cannot see because of your ship's obscuring your view are highlighted in the appropriately colored wire-frame, to make things easier to see, and of course this is only for large ships.

oh, one last thing! fighter 3D cockpits please! (don't forget to make the Physical HUD transparent and remove the textures so its just a peice of Transparent-Aluminum unless your are IN cockpit view. yeah, the last mod i played with those, their textures where improperly coded but i can expect your to be much better.

if you guize can get the cap ship control out of beta, just think what could happen: AWESOME ;7

Spoiler:
who are Xinny and zero?
« Last Edit: August 09, 2010, 01:50:30 pm by Infamus »
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH
BARRA
BARRA
BARRA CUDA
yeah

 
Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
So, I've been lurking these forums for... well actually years now... and finally WiH has put me over the edge and made me make an account, because I can't let this slide without reviewing it.

Genius, pure genius. To me personally, this is the best expansion of Freespace lore. Other takes on it are also good, often brilliant, but the Blue Planet take so far manages to balance out the pseudo-mysticism V built up around the Shivans with some ground-in-reality concepts, diluting it with wonderful pseudo-science and all makes sense so far.

To the campaign at hand:

Spoiler:
Story & overall feel:

Laporte was the most identifiable character of any campaign I played so far. This may not work for others as I have read already, but to me, her character arc was one I could relate to. The athmosphere and feel of the campaign together with sympathetic and believable characters like her and Simms (and also Steele in a way) made me so emotionally attached to everything, like works of fiction only seldom do.

When it comes to the battle of ideologies that seems to be raging even in these forums, I definetely side with the UEF more than with the GTVA - perhaps that also played a huge role in why I could really feel frustration and anger on every freighter lost, every capship sacrificed - and satisfaction for every little success.

While the Alpha 1 feel has been diluted, I never felt like a useless pawn, and the transcendant connection to the Shivans (I guess, I don't think those were the Vishnans talking with all the 'destroy to preserve' stuff) made me feel important and "chosen-oneish" enough. Rather than useless I felt like a necessary part of the greater machinery.

Talking of machinery, this campaign/mod - again more than many contemporary works of fiction - manages to show the harsh reality of war. In the way a work of fiction should - as an epic storyline of characters changing due to the influence of war. It shows that in war there is no moral high ground, there is no real glory, and you can't fight a war and still stick to morality. By that, not the GTVA nor the UEF are "evil", they just act by the necessities of war.

The focus on "real" strategy and plotting inside a war was a good thing to me. I was never too much a fan of the Alpha-1 "you will turn everything around single-handedly" feel. After all, there was a bit of that in here, too, in just the right dosage for my taste.

Steele is of course both awesome as a strategist, yet I personally was also compelled to hate him enough to reasonably put him into the "villain" category. Mainly the masterplan to alinate the Vasudans from the UEF made me both shake my fist at him and yet admire his grand scheme. His final trap was so masterfully implemented that I truly felt crushed. Defeated by myself more or less for even having the hope to maybe achieve a major victory against the GTVA there.

The use of music above all was perhaps what made this an "action-packed-thrillride" to quote every movie description ever made, yet this mod deserves it.

Gameplay -

Holy crap, this was hard... I played on medium, and I quickly realized that even a small mistake can cost you your life. Let a fighter behind you and one salvo can be enough to critically damage or sometimes even kill you. Dogfights are intense, and finally capships felt like they should feel (IMO) - a reasonable threat to fighters, instead of the sitting ducks I remember from retail.

The final mission took me forever, 20+ tries, and after 10+ I tuned down to easy and later even very easy. Especially frustrating to me was that I finally finished it once, came to the point where the tag appeared on your Beamblocker ship, and I accidentally was exactly in the line of fire of the green beam. The main reason it took so long though were performance issues. Dogfighting becomes very tedious when framerates drop and lag makes your aim nearly uncontrollable. Also I am curious on when exactly the beam overload event kicks in. Sometimes I managed to kill off every fighter of the last wave before it triggered, and sometimes it triggered almost immediately after they launched. Also the timing on when the second attack group warps in seemed a little sketchy/random to me at times - but never clearly broken like it happened elsewhere.

Besides that, the many fresh elements, dialogue choices, the customizable strike team against the corvette in one mission, the hostage situation, made clear this certainly wasn't just another FS2 campaign. All those options are also another reason I can't share the "you feel powerless to influence the outcome of missions" some seem to have got.

Besides the last mission, none felt frustrating enough for me to consider cheating, and I wouldn't call myself a very good pilot. But then again, I haven't had a chance to compare yet, as all my friends I tried bringing to FS2 were completely overwhelmed by the controls, as they were used to Freelancer as their only space game I guess.

Overall, I think this is better than most commercial games when it comes to mission design, story and characters. It has some minor flaws - performance issues and some bugs that are already being polished from what I got, so - kudos to you. To me you are awesome in many ways, including proving (again) that modders and hobbyists with a passion can sometimes even surpass standards set by the mainstream gaming industry.

Overall, better than AoA, better than everything else I played so far. To me it lived up to the hype.

Hm, pardon some minor language quirks that may appear above, I'm no native speaker, and my english tends to be over-stylized and complicated from what I'm being told, because I learned it mostly from literature and RPGs, later the internet, and not actual spoken english.

BTW: I hope this will eventually be VA'd, although I understand that this seems like an almost impossible task. It would just be a shame if it were never VA'd at all, as it would so greatly improve the game.

And I can't await Part 2.
Spoiler:
Damn those cliffhanger endings, especially when they mention AoA characters as possible major characters in part 2

 

Offline Aardwolf

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
who are Xinny and zero?

The pilots you fought in that one mission where some rogue GTVA pilots were trying to capture a transport.

Also, Alpha 3 and 4 in Into the Lion's Den.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
*SNIP*

Hooray! Thank you so much.

And your English is great, no worries.

 

Offline Vip

  • 28
Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
Okay, that was awesome. Congrats to the Dev team for creating such a wonderful campaign. I know you've heard it before, but you've made my day.

Great story, great gameplay. Finally, I see some tactics being used, it's probably the first campaign in which, instead of swearing at capship behaviour, I praise it.

Also,
Spoiler:
HOLY **** WHEN DID FS2 GET INTERACTIVE DIALOGUES AND CHECKPOINTS ?! I WTFed hard at this at first, but loved it. cRPG elements in a space sim ? Hell yeah. Checkpoints, while they are a nice idea, are a bit borked. It only activates during the first playthrough, and usually my hull is at like 20% at this point (I almost always fail hard at first playthroughs :P) and I have to restart anyway :P

Oh, and too much text. Chatter during battles should be short, think about the poor players who have to hit F4 every minute or so to learn what's going on...

Spoiler:
Great job with creating atmosphere during all those missions. Losing both the frigates in Collateral Damage left me really angry. And then next mission you kick the Meridian's arse and I felt good, even though I support the GTVA.

Then I felt creeped out during this whole psychologist eval; seeing the anxiety and NGRI spike so high made me shiver. And the messages in those containers plus the comm node... I sense actions of epic proportions in the next Act !

The Darkest Hour was very chaotic, as it's supposed to be. No time to mess around and wonder what's going on, you just shot down bombs and bombers like mad and hope that the station will hold. I barely made it and felt proud that the station was still standing at the end.

And then comes What Binds Us. I really, really, really hoped that there would be something good coming from this war. A single act of cooperation. Then that frigate jumps in, and starts blowing the hell out of the Deimos while I'm trying to shout "WAIT YOU STUPID SONOFA...". Got me all emotional.

And finally Delenda Est. Really, it was going so well (though I did play this one and the previous mission on Very Easy). I really believed the Carthage was ours. And then that Tev destroyer appeared and crushed my hope.  Damn you, BP Team, for making me feel that way. Hell, you made me sympathise with the Feds, even though I began this campaign as a GTVA supporter.

Also, damn you for those cliffhangers !!! Almost like watching Battlestar Galactica again :)
Lieutenant Commander Richard "Viper" Pred

 

Offline Kolgena

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
who are Xinny and zero?

Also, Alpha 3 and 4 in Into the Lion's Den.

THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT but then I figured they should be dead from old age by then.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
Checkpoints, while they are a nice idea, are a bit borked. It only activates during the first playthrough, and usually my hull is at like 20% at this point (I almost always fail hard at first playthroughs :P) and I have to restart anyway :P[/spoiler]

Thank you for the review!

On the checkpoints issue - you're only notified of the checkpoint activation on your first playthrough, but you should be told that the checkpoint is available every time you restart the mission. Is this not happening? (It should occur on m10, m14 and m15; m01 is currently borked.)

Or are you saying that your later playthroughs didn't get stored when you reached the checkpoint again? Because they should be.

(BTW you can repair your hull with the support ship.)

 

Offline Madcat

  • 26
Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
First of all, a big THANK YOU to the whole team for all the effort you put into this!

I've finished my first playthrough today and it has been an amazing experience. I think that WiH really achieved a new level of quality for a mod: storytelling, immersion, graphics, music, sounds... it all just hit home for me.
I loved the attention to detail in all the tactical and strategical developments in the theatre, there must have been alot of thought put into it and it shows in the quality.
Had to change my playing style somewhat too, because I couldn't just go all merry banzai on a capship to take out some turrets on a whim, as the antifighter screen was quickly ripping me apart. So I had to learn to follow orders more closely (like, being told to stay away from them! :D ). Capships finally are REALLY scary things.

To the story and other stuff:
Spoiler:
I'm definitely not the most critical guy when it comes to characters and character development.
I noticed I could identify quite well with Laporte from the beginning, mainly as soon as she noticed that she actually likes to kill... as that's pretty much me in front of the computer while playing.  ;)
Fly around, kill stuff, try to complete the objectives and don't worry to much about shooting my own kind.
I have to say I bothed the Vasudan help mission on the first try, because when the Corvette arrived with the fighters, I was very close to them when they appeared and had no restraints to open fire... things got pretty ugly in the debriefing.  :P

I liked the parts where there are dialogue choices.
Am I the only one to call out the Gefs on the bluff and not take a hostage in the mission with the Nauticus? Seems to me like most others took that route...

Loved the part where you call in the strike package, it really felt like "WTF how do I operate this comm unit, never done it before, damnit the Corvette's closing in where's the entry with the heavy hitters ARGH!". Total immersion right there.

The overall story was outstanding in my opinion, and sometimes really had a gut-wrenching impact on me whenever we lost a ship, or what seemed to be a victory got turned around in a bad way. So, contrary to my above statement about usually flying around and having fun killing stuff, WiH really managed to showcase that war is not fun at all. Great job!

The graphics are amazing now, Freespace has never looked better... especially capship explosions are magnificient. I think that just now they finally look like they really should. Even from 8 clicks away the red flash shows that something really, really bad just happened.

I am happy to say that I didn't notice too many bugs and got through the missions quite well on Easy; which I always play on, so IMO the missions in WiH are balanced quite nicely. I actually got through Delenda Est on the first try. But that was one hell of a ride, and here again the armor repairing support ship has saved my life.
I got the problem with Gamma Wing circling around me and colliding with me all the time in the mission with the Norfolk, which was a slight nuisance as I couldn't select them in the comm menu and tell them to **** off when I wanted to rearm.  ;) But at least they didn't kill the Norfolk...

Yes, I had to press F4 many a time to catch up on the messages. No way around it when playing a mission for the first time.

The reverse thrust is a great idea, but I couldn't use it much because to press Z and the afterburner button on my joystick at the same time I need to let go of the stick. But one time it helped to get a fighter off my six and into my crosshairs... great fun!

All in all, definitely the best and most polished campaign I've played so far. Easily surpasses many commercial game releases... I've said it before, you guys rule beyond description!


 

Offline Vip

  • 28
Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
Checkpoints, while they are a nice idea, are a bit borked. It only activates during the first playthrough, and usually my hull is at like 20% at this point (I almost always fail hard at first playthroughs :P) and I have to restart anyway :P[/spoiler]

Thank you for the review!

On the checkpoints issue - you're only notified of the checkpoint activation on your first playthrough, but you should be told that the checkpoint is available every time you restart the mission. Is this not happening? (It should occur on m10, m14 and m15; m01 is currently borked.)

Or are you saying that your later playthroughs didn't get stored when you reached the checkpoint again? Because they should be.

(BTW you can repair your hull with the support ship.)

I used the checkpoints in Missions 1 and 14. In both, it always reverted me to the first checkpoint ever made. So even though in Mission 14 I managed to disable the Deimos with 100% hull intact, only to get my PC crash due to overheating/performance issue (really, I'm looking forward to your assets being optimised, they are literally killing my PC. Then again, I'm playing at 1920x1080 with all details maxed :P). Each time I tried the checkpoint, I had 37% hull, like in the first playthrough of this mission.

Also, support ships repairing hull ? That didn't happen in any mission, and I did use the support ship whenever I could.
« Last Edit: August 09, 2010, 01:57:12 pm by Vip »
Lieutenant Commander Richard "Viper" Pred

 

Offline Infamus

  • 26
Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
@Vip, yes Support craft heal your ship to about 68/69% which is great, and you can do this UNLIMITED TIMES

@General Battuta, dude i had problems with the support ships, sometimes if i call them over they won't come; they confirm your order, the wait box says: "Busy" and then it disapears and the comm-box acts like I already called support, but this is not a major problem, getting the first one to leave and then calling another one fixes it.

Oh and if the the Feds have reverse ships, make some/all/new Tev ships have reverse thrust as well, oh and make them a bit tougher in the armor and maneuverability department, the USP Talon/Fang looking ship has no maneuverability yet it is an interceptor. (Heavy Fighter?) also the Nyx needs a tad more armor, just enough to make it heavy-fig worthy, not like a HercII or something like that but enough.

Edit: something to note, the graphics lag seems to be coming from the Centrifuges on the Frigates and stuff, oh and that is even at lowest possible graphics running at 1024x768x32 on a 512mb ddr2 ATI Radon X1650 and with a 2.6 core 2 duo overclocked at 2.74
« Last Edit: August 09, 2010, 02:16:24 pm by Infamus »
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH
BARRA
BARRA
BARRA CUDA
yeah

 

Offline Spoon

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
I noticed that when flying the Nyx, the support ship didn't repaired my hull. I take it this was intentional? (Finished that mission with 1% hull :p )
Urutorahappī!!

[02:42] <@Axem> spoon somethings wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> critically wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> im happy with these missions now
[02:44] <@Axem> well
[02:44] <@Axem> with 2 of them

 

Offline Madcat

  • 26
Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
I noticed that when flying the Nyx, the support ship didn't repaired my hull. I take it this was intentional? (Finished that mission with 1% hull :p )

I believe I remember reading somewhere that only the Fed ships have that kind of modular (?) armor which can be repaired by the support ship. So that should be correct.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
Checkpoints, while they are a nice idea, are a bit borked. It only activates during the first playthrough, and usually my hull is at like 20% at this point (I almost always fail hard at first playthroughs :P) and I have to restart anyway :P[/spoiler]

Thank you for the review!

On the checkpoints issue - you're only notified of the checkpoint activation on your first playthrough, but you should be told that the checkpoint is available every time you restart the mission. Is this not happening? (It should occur on m10, m14 and m15; m01 is currently borked.)

Or are you saying that your later playthroughs didn't get stored when you reached the checkpoint again? Because they should be.

(BTW you can repair your hull with the support ship.)

I used the checkpoints in Missions 1 and 14. In both, it always reverted me to the first checkpoint ever made. So even though in Mission 14 I managed to disable the Deimos with 100% hull intact, only to get my PC crash due to overheating/performance issue (really, I'm looking forward to your assets being optimised, they are literally killing my PC. Then again, I'm playing at 1920x1080 with all details maxed :P). Each time I tried the checkpoint, I had 37% hull, like in the first playthrough of this mission.

Also, support ships repairing hull ? That didn't happen in any mission, and I did use the support ship whenever I could.

I'll check out the m14 checkpoint, it was inadequately tested. Could you post a debug log?
I noticed that when flying the Nyx, the support ship didn't repaired my hull. I take it this was intentional? (Finished that mission with 1% hull :p )

Yes.