Author Topic: BP: War in Heaven discussion  (Read 905885 times)

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Offline Commander Zane

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
A minor dialogue nitpick, on the Pesedjet mission, they tell the Littman to go to the port dock, yet it docks on the ship's dorsal centerline.
Also with the Uriel's external points, is there anything that can be done about certain weapons hanging foward from where the pylons actually are, the Firestorm torpedos (Forgot what they're called this time) need to go back a fair deal I believe.

UEF Itano Circus is epic... :nod:

 

Offline Mobius

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
Spoiler tags anyone? :nervous:
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Offline Colonol Dekker

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
Congrats on two highlights in two days.
 
Still not got this yet.
 
Amazing how much a hangover can contribute to not wanting to do stuff. . . . . . It'll keep til I get at my high speed conn at work.
 
 
Checkpoints, choosing dialogue, few other bits I spied from the thread that interest my curiousity bone.
 
With regard to the VA issue. I'm old enough to remember Derelict without voice and I coped, I also managed with sync and Transcend and windmills.
This will not hamper my efforts to enjoy it.
Campaigns I've added my distinctiveness to-
- Blue Planet: Battle Captains
-Battle of Neptune
-Between the Ashes 2
-Blue planet: Age of Aquarius
-FOTG?
-Inferno R1
-Ribos: The aftermath / -Retreat from Deneb
-Sol: A History
-TBP EACW teaser
-Earth Brakiri war
-TBP Fortune Hunters (I think?)
-TBP Relic
-Trancsend (Possibly?)
-Uncharted Territory
-Vassagos Dirge
-War Machine
(Others lost to the mists of time and no discernible audit trail)

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Offline Commander Zane

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
Spoiler tags anyone? :nervous:
It's not like steps to complete the mission or critical information is being put out.

 
Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
I just finished the campaign, and words escape me. I'll leave it at  :jaw:

Spoiler:
I could just see the Indus becoming the next helpless Pyro :( . Descent 3 anyone?
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Offline Hellstryker

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
Okay, I usually don't do this, but this campaign warrants an extreeeeemely lengthy review, which I hope won't be breezed over completely.

First the good; the writing. Usually, (and by usually I mean 90% of the time) sequels fail to meet their predecessors expectations. WiH on the other hand not only matched but exceeded AoA in every way (And yes, believe it or not I did have my gripes with AoA). I kind of wish you had time to expand more on Noemi's childhood, and her supposed mental instability, and I definitely would like to have seen returning AoA characters - in particular the Sanctuary survivors. When I saw no returning characters, or any real mention of their exploits outside of
Spoiler:
the nebula mission
, I was very put off and expected there to be too much new content to properly flesh out, and that it would not feel like a true sequel.

In this I was right and wrong. War in Heaven did not actually feel like a proper BP sequel, but the writing was so insurmountably better that it blew my mind. The overall plot and mission design was rock solid, and more realistic than anything I've played since The Procyon Insurgency, and the characters were what did it for me. Noemi was alright, though as stated earlier I would've liked to have seen her expanded on more, but Wargods and the writing for Simms in particular was astounding, and would very much like to know who did the majority of the writing for her, as she was bone chillingly reminiscent of a very, very close friend of mine. I'll be very upset if she's killed off
Spoiler:
, but given the last 'mission' it's unlikely that she survives.

The Indus and Two Fleet felt like home, I can't think of a better way to word it. This especially sunk in during the push through the Hood/Serkr blockade at the martian gate, and the aftermath of that mission (Which was also easily my favorite in the campaign).
Spoiler:
You wanted to protect your comrades, you wanted to come home alive, and most importantly you just wanted it all to come to an end. I'm also can't say I didn't shed a tear or two when the Yangtze and company made their final stand, or when the Indus drifted into the sun.

All these factors came together to form the greatest emotional experience in a freespace campaign seen to date - my only fear is that the freespace engine provides far too much limitation to present such a rich and well fleshed out universe.

-----------

Annnnd then there's the bad...

My biggest gripe here is the UEF ships, as well as the starboxes. They taxed the piss out of my poor old vista burdened rig I'm running at the moment due to inefficient texturing and LoDs (Or lackthereof? I didn't get a good enough look through the 5 or so FPS I got whilst staring at even a single Karuna). Any mission with even *one* of those things absolutely killed me, as did the Uriel and Lao Tze. I actually had to cheat on the Hood/Serkr blockade mission and the last mission because I couldn't kill anything in time to save anything. The Lunar city mission also made my comp writhe in agony as well.

Please fix it. It's bad enough having to play an ugly game, but an ugly and inefficient one just makes me want to rip out things spines. I don't like having to rip out the spines of brilliant writers.

And last but certainly not least, I could give VA a spin in the future when you're ready to begin that aspect of the campaign. I'd probably be best for Captain Sorensen, or something like that methinks.
« Last Edit: August 08, 2010, 09:48:34 am by The E »

 

Offline Androgeos Exeunt

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
I just finished the campaign, and words escape me. I'll leave it at  :jaw:

Spoiler:
I could just see the Indus becoming the next helpless Pyro :( . Descent 3 anyone?

I didn't find it all that similar, to be honest, and yes, I've seen the intro for that game too. :nervous:
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Offline The E

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
My biggest gripe here is the UEF ships, as well as the starboxes. They taxed the piss out of my poor old vista burdened rig I'm running at the moment due to inefficient texturing and LoDs (Or lackthereof? I didn't get a good enough look through the 5 or so FPS I got whilst staring at even a single Karuna). Any mission with even *one* of those things absolutely killed me, as did the Uriel and Lao Tze. I actually had to cheat on the Hood/Serkr blockade mission and the last mission because I couldn't kill anything in time to save anything. The Lunar city mission also made my comp writhe in agony as well.

We are painfully aware of this. But we didn't have the ressources to get all the models fixed up in time, unfortunately. There is a new Karuna in the pipeline, and we've talked to a few guys who are willing to work on the other models.
We'll put them out there as quickly as we can, rest assured of that. In fact, if you (and I'm talking to everyone who might be reading this) can help us, just drop us a line and we'll talk about it.

As for the people of AoA:
Spoiler:
We left them out of this release on purpose, to allow us to concentrate on introducing the new characters properly. That said, they are still around and they will reappear (you have seen the end cutscene until the end, haven't you?), but for now, they are simply nowhere near Laporte, and War in Heaven is above all Laporte's story
« Last Edit: August 08, 2010, 07:22:04 am by The E »
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Offline Hellstryker

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
I don't have the right tools on here to assist with UV mapping or LoDing. If I would I could, believe me. Maybe in the future if somebody doesn't get to it first.

And, no need for the explanation on the AoA characters. I understood clearly once I finished the campaign. It was only early on that I was put off by it.

 

Offline m!m

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
I just finished this campaign and the only thing I can say is
 :jaw:        :jaw:        :jaw:
This is the best campaign I have ever played.
Everything was perfect, the plot, the characters, the models, the effects, the music, the atmosphere, ... everything!!
This campaign made me actually feel the emotions and the pain of
Spoiler:
Laporte. The ending is the perfect prelude to WiH part 2 and I just want to play it.(I hope I don't have to wait another year :nervous:)
Finally I want to express my thanks to the BP team and of course the FSU- and SCP-teams who have done an outstanding job bringing FreeSpace this far.
Thank you!

 

Offline matt007

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
I've never really posted on here, but I've been following the work going on for a long time, now I feel I need to share my thoughts on this wonderful campaign.

Spoiler:
Having played the Directors Cut version of AoA a few months back, I always thought it was at a similar level to Silent Threat and that user made campaigns had really become as good as they could be. Although I went into this with high expectations, I was absolutely blown away by what you guys have done here. In terms of character arcs and story goes, this campaign is simply unchallenged. Even the retail version of Freespace did not go into the sort of depth WiH does when it comes to the character you play. Her interactions with squad-mates (particularly Simms) and her strange schizophrenic personality all added to the experience.

The story of the war was superbly told, from the high points of catching the GTVA supply ship (the name eludes me) to the lows of Darkest Hour and the Carthage trap. The missions had a good variation of difficulty and were pretty much all enjoyable. The nebula mission with the Vishnan communication was really well done but the standout mission for me was Delenda Est. Not only was it epic in scale, with the number of ships and fighters present, but it was relentless throughout. The sacrifice of the Katana at the end was heart wrenching, down mainly to the superb character development throughout the campaign. I was half expecting a Vishnian ship to jump in and save the day during the final cutscene, but the appearence of a Fedayeen ship asking specifically for Noemi was an excellent twist.

The music, as with AoA was simply brilliant. You never realise how much difference in game music can make until you're sitting there in a tense space battle and you listen to it. Makes you feel the pressure of fighting the war and the need to kill or be killed.

There are a couple of niggles as with any campaign. The frame rate is one, which I see you've already mentioned. I have a very powerful PC, but even I was struggling to stay above 30fps at times. The other is the sheer volume of dialogue. Although necessary to tell the story in such detail, its quite frustrating to have to keep stopping and checking missed messages. WiH is already the best user made campaign I've played, but with voice acting it would comfortably be on a par with the retail campaign for me.

 

Offline Commander Zane

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
I finished it, I feel empty now.
Best campaign I've ever played, definately eager to see what Part 2 is like.

 

Offline Commander Zane

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
For those who are interested about Cockpit View, just grab the attach file.
Metaldestroyer: I'm sorry, but that tbm of yours will NOT be part of BP2. As you can see, you are losing the message senders, which is absolutely unacceptable for us. There's a code bug at work here which we'll have to track down and fix.
Aha!  Turns out the table needs a +noreplace right after each $Flags: line.  Otherwise (as far as I understand it) the "show ship" becomes the only flag, replacing everything including "fighter" and "player_ship".  All sorts of wonky behavior ensues.

So here's a fixed (afaik) attachment:
I snagged your attachment to see what the other ships looked like from the inside, seems the Uriel and Durga's panels don't come up (Missing texture?), and the Uhlan's interior is pretty shiny, but the rest look really good.

I want to fly the Narayana. ;7
« Last Edit: August 08, 2010, 09:35:22 am by Commander Zane »

 

Offline Ravenholme

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
Well, I loved that first cutscene so much I went and frapsed it, then uploaded it to youtube in HD (Recommend you watch it in HD and fullscreen it to read the dialogue, again)

Feel free to use it as a bit of advertisement here and there, as I think it captures War in Heaven perfectly (And set the mood so well)

Here
Full Auto - I've got a bullet here with your name on it, and I'm going to keep firing until I find out which one it is.

<The_E>   Several sex-based solutions come to mind
<The_E>   Errr
<The_E>   *sexp

 

Offline Kolgena

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
Spoiler:
-flashing images when you first go crazy went way over my head. I could make out that the first flash was an eye (that was probably 4:3 distorted to 16:9), but the subsequent ones were a little hard to identify from lack of vsync and stretch distortion. Was that Earth? Oh, what is INDG or whatever the 5th one was? Also, was a little annoying trying to keep track of messages and the status numbers at the same time. They're too far apart on my screen :(
Spoiler:
The fifth one was NGRI. Short for Nagari. See BP website, apparently links still appear in Spoiler tags. I didn't get what NGRI stood for either. When I realized, chills literally shot through my spine.
Spoiler:
Yeah no. I don't think I like the prospect of having Shivans in my head either.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
Okay, I usually don't do this, but this campaign warrants an extreeeeemely lengthy review, which I hope won't be breezed over completely.

Believe me, mate, we savor every words of these reviews. They really do make it all worth it.

Quote
My biggest gripe here is the UEF ships, as well as the starboxes. They taxed the piss out of my poor old vista burdened rig I'm running at the moment due to inefficient texturing and LoDs (Or lackthereof? I didn't get a good enough look through the 5 or so FPS I got whilst staring at even a single Karuna). Any mission with even *one* of those things absolutely killed me, as did the Uriel and Lao Tze. I actually had to cheat on the Hood/Serkr blockade mission and the last mission because I couldn't kill anything in time to save anything. The Lunar city mission also made my comp writhe in agony as well.

Please fix it. It's bad enough having to play an ugly game, but an ugly and inefficient one just makes me want to rip out things spines. I don't like having to rip out the spines of brilliant writers.

If you'll read the release post, you can see that we actually have a big glaring notice there about inefficient models, followed by a request for help. We did everything we could, but Blue Planet's philosophy has always been to work with public assets - we don't focus heavily on modeling new stuff. If these models are going to fixed up we have to reach out to the community. Which we've done, and hopefully we'll have a performance patch in the future.

 

Offline Ravenholme

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
Spoiler:
I just did the Combat Psyche Evaluation. I like how 'Ken' used nearly the same words as Bosch, about playing our part to the bloody end. A very nice touch, and stresses that Bosch was Nagari sensitive
Full Auto - I've got a bullet here with your name on it, and I'm going to keep firing until I find out which one it is.

<The_E>   Several sex-based solutions come to mind
<The_E>   Errr
<The_E>   *sexp

 

Offline -Sara-

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
Spoiler:
I'm curious about the Carthage and it's Admiral. I assume that Steele did not inform the Carthage of his plans to suddenly have a destroyer pop-up to come to the rescue so the Carthage's admiral (who cares a lot for her officers) might be rather pissed off. Not because she nearly died, but because many of her loyal officers were nearly sacrificed. Also the Carthage seemed to play fair with it's admiral stating that she would face this battle the way it went with intent to win, or otherwise accepting ending up like admiral Koth once did sacrificing herself (we don't know if she would have surrendered if that other destroyer did not come to the rescue). Maybe the Carthage and her admiral may rethink their position in this war. I hope so.

As for Simms, I'm guessing she dies and maybe that is not as bad as surviving for Simms, I couldn't see her go on living. 'Teaching pilots how to fly' sounds like awaiting for death to come, for real this time. If she died, then she died in Noemi's arms, maybe that was all she could have asked for after all which happened. For once she died and someone stayed behind, instead of the other way around. Also I'm not sure if the Feyadeen are so top-secret that they'll wipe out the Indus after retrieving Laporte, which would make a great catalyst for pissing the girl off even more.
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Offline Snail

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
Spoiler:
Admiral Anita Lopez knew that it was all part of a big plan. See this thread link

 

Offline SF-Junky

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
NOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooo... and I haven't been able to play Starcraft II so far, because my new PC hasn't been finished yet. For good's sake my girlfriend is on vacation with her best friend next week, so I have plenty of time. :D

Anyway, thanks for that birthday present. I love you guys so much. :D :) I am so excited!!