[Ace]

http://techreport.com/news/23535/diaspora-offers-battlestar-galactica-space-combat-for-free

I find the comment that the graphics are underwhelming a bit surprising but... *shrug*

[Aether]

Maybe I'm being presumptuous here, but after reading that article it doesn't seem like he's actually played the game yet. He probably just watched the trailer and decided to comment on it using other sources for info like file size and stuff. Youtube doesn't show the true quality of the game so I think he's just misinformed. He isn't even sure about the campaign missions "The single-player campaign appears to be complete [...]"

What I'm trying to say is, he doesn't really know anything about the game so his comment about the graphics shouldn't be taken seriously

Us voice actors, however, have been peer-reviewed and a lot of it wasn't that great.  And by "wasn't that great" I mean those were the words most bloggers used  A lot of double negatives like "not terrible"/"not too bad"/"have heard worse"

I'll obviously need to give it a bit more oomph for R2 

[karajorma]

I think the problem there is that they're basically comparing professional actors working in a studio against amateurs recording at home using whatever microphone they had at hand.

I don't think we got many professionals to do our acting, and that's one place where things were different. Many members of our staff make a living in the same field that they work for Diaspora in.

[Aether]

True enough I think we did quite well for amateurs (those of us who are), and there are quite a few people on the HLP boards commending us for it. (In fact, on youtube some frakker dissed the voice acting and was voted down in seconds! That, we call true fans He was probably a Cylon anyway! )
I suppose it's something we're only going to get better at and I'm definitely gonna work on it for R2.

The Oscars will create a new category for us! *And the award for Best Voice Acting Team In A Open-Source Video Game goes to... DIASPORA!* 

Ironically enough, I always thought Michael Hoban's voice acting in New Vegas wasn't exactly the best (forgive my blasphemy). But when you compare his performance in that to Col. Tigh then there's a huge gap between the two performances. Or maybe I'm just looking for excuses for myself

My self pity aside, the graphics are perfect! Anyone who's actually played the game already knows that.

[Lt.Cannonfodder]

http://techreport.com/news/23535/diaspora-offers-battlestar-galactica-space-combat-for-free

I find the comment that the graphics are underwhelming a bit surprising but... *shrug*

The comments below the article are full of fail as well.

[headdie]

http://techreport.com/news/23535/diaspora-offers-battlestar-galactica-space-combat-for-free

I find the comment that the graphics are underwhelming a bit surprising but... *shrug*

The comments below the article are full of fail as well.

slight obsession with joysticks

[Angelus]

http://techreport.com/news/23535/diaspora-offers-battlestar-galactica-space-combat-for-free

I find the comment that the graphics are underwhelming a bit surprising but... *shrug*

The comments below the article are full of fail as well.

Full of fail doesn't even come close.

[Aether]

Full of fail doesn't even come close.

One guy said he's going to wait two or three years to see if it's "still around" before he plays it... 

Who waits three years to play a free game?! And since when did waiting become a form of review?!

I'm gonna reply to him and tell him this... In two or three years...

[Angelus]

Full of fail doesn't even come close.

One guy said he's going to wait two or three years to see if it's "still around" before he plays it... 

Who waits three years to play a free game?! And since when did waiting become a form of review?!

I'm gonna reply to him and tell him this... In two or three years...

Personally, i don't care that much about such comments like on this site ( or youtube for that matter).
In most cases, judging a Book by the cover is wronger then wrong*.

It's their loss, so frak that. What i don't like however, is when false information is spread.
People who might have an interest, get an wrong impression ( the no joystick supported comment for instance).
Internet at it's best... 



*Judging things without trying them at least is, as i said above plain wrong.
Well, there are exceptions, i for one don't need to try to shoot myself in the kneecap to know that this is something i don't like and not gonna do on a regular basis.
If someone has seen BSG and doesn't like the setting and then comments: "not gonna play that as i don't like BSG", fine by me.

Play then judge, otherwise stfu.

[Aether]

Exactly! Don't knock it until you've tried it

It doesn't seem like a very popular site anyway, seeing as it gets most of its information from 3rd party sources. The no joystick thing has been spreading around alright. Not sure where it came from either because I have an ancient joystick and it's been working fine from Day 1! Just need to calibrate the throttle and I'm good to go.

I think a lot of people who have downloaded the game, reviewing it and are having problems are simply taking their grievances to the blogs rather than here on the HLP boards which doesn't help at all. All games have issues and there's tech support for them as there is with this game. Some people just don't think to come here for help.

Thankfully, these incidents are found few and far between the many positive reviews received so this shouldn't really be an issue.


*slowly lowers pistol away from his kneecaps* 

[newman]

*slowly lowers pistol away from his kneecaps* 

That's the spirit. Rational behavior means you come out the moral victor. Now if you'll excuse me, the guy said the graphics aren't good so I'm going to 12-gauge his kneecaps off

[General Battuta]

**** those comments

fe: the VAs did a fine job. A lot of the lines felt a little under-directed or in need of one or two more takes, but my experience with voice work for FreeSpace is that these are both impractical luxuries, especially under time crunch. It was really cool hearing Dorothy Conway as Harridan - I think she came to the FreeSpace community via auditions for ST:R, had a big role in Blue Planet, and then got keyed on to Diaspora somewhere thereabout.

For future voice work keep an eye on Calavera, who's on IRC sometimes and is absolutely awesome.

[An4ximandros]

Am I the only one who didn't pay attention to those comments? I mean, they are always trash and all that... and they never know how to appreciate things unless they are taken away from them.

[Ace]

**** those comments

fe: the VAs did a fine job. A lot of the lines felt a little under-directed or in need of one or two more takes, but my experience with voice work for FreeSpace is that these are both impractical luxuries, especially under time crunch. It was really cool hearing Dorothy Conway as Harridan - I think she came to the FreeSpace community via auditions for ST:R, had a big role in Blue Planet, and then got keyed on to Diaspora somewhere thereabout.

For future voice work keep an eye on Calavera, who's on IRC sometimes and is absolutely awesome.

The under-direction problem was because they were under-directed. Sorta hard to herd all of the VAs, but there's a few people that we'll probably tap for R2 who did good jobs. Dorothy was pretty busy and had a big part, so there was a lot of doing things in 1-2 takes with her.

Of course if anyone listened to a lot of the VA samples we received, they'd appreciate not making their ears bleed by not selecting them

One thing I will give credit on BtRL was that Oddaelan's own dialog (which she wrote and then VAed) came off as very natural and was one of the first things you hear. In-game we have a lot of the same actors doing similar performances but the briefing does hit with a major first impression.

Of course getting her to VA for us... is probably going to be problematic

[General Battuta]

You guys did a better job with the VA than anything else I've heard on HLP (also arguably better than older pro games like HL1). I know how much of a nightmare it is to harass an actor for a few months to get first takes - forget going back and saying 'well, you put a funny emphasis on this one, could we get another...'

If there's anything cruelly ironic about Diaspora it's that you guys pushed the quality envelope so far you're not being judged as 'a FreeSpace mod' any more; you're being taken to task for comparisons with triple-A games. It's a perverse kind of success, but hopefully more gift than curse.

[Ace]

Well one ongoing issue was we had people who were show fans but not familiar with the jargon so many takes were repeats of... okay emphasize DRADIS a bit differently.

Carom is like "CARE 'EM" not "KAR EM"

Similarly One Three Four Two versus Thirteen Forty Two and little things like that got a lot of attention to make things feel less silted. Overall though, as people should notice the VA gets better during the campaign which is partly intentional:
The characters are reading off scripts and aren't public speakers, they should sound a bit stilted. Then they should sound natural when panicked.

Of course... that's probably not the best thing for first impressions so for R2 the first briefing we'll aim for "loose but natural public speaker."

Watching people's youtube videos also give a good idea of changes needed to missions in R2 as well.

With infinite manpower and time the big changes I think a few of us would want to do based on the feedback is revamp the old GUI and make the control configs idiot proof:
i.e. FS type options buried one more menu down but have in the pretty new GUI three defaults:
Keyboard mouse
Joystick
Gamepad

Then spend a bunch of time optimizing the three separate default control configs for players.

So... *cough* scripters and 2d artists... find us... *cough*

[Swifty]

The interface problem isn't something that will be solved by scripting. We need a dedicated coder to be able to overhaul the interface code to be able to get the flexibility we and other FS-engine based games need. Scripting would just hack around the problem, not fixing it directly.

[Ace]

Quite true, I was trying to remember why we didn't fully go with LtC's scripted GUI idea to begin with.

Minus the Moon Nazis stealing him from us

[Angelus]

Quite true, I was trying to remember why we didn't fully go with LtC's scripted GUI idea to begin with.

Minus the Moon Nazis stealing him from us

but...they should be defeated by now...right?

[Lt.Cannonfodder]

I'm still blowing them up. There's such thing as Extended Edition you know. And a sequel. And prequels.