Author Topic: What do you want in the rest of War in Heaven?  (Read 186829 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline General Battuta

  • Poe's Law In Action
  • 214
  • i wonder when my postcount will exceed my iq
Re: What do you want in the rest of War in Heaven?
To clarify: if your reaction is "this/these character/characters think too much about the horror of war to be effective soldiers functioning in a genuine conflict", then that's exactly the point.

 

Offline NGTM-1R

  • I reject your reality and substitute my own
  • 213
  • Syndral Active. 0410.
Re: What do you want in the rest of War in Heaven?
We tried very hard to get this across with Laporte, who is emblematic of a society that is dangerously close to thinking itself out of existence.

That trying is part of the problem, because in trying so hard you've made it obvious that you're trying.

Hard to do when the story doesn't reflect the viewpoints of the authors.

It doesn't have to reflect the author's viewpoint. This isn't, in tropespeak, Author Tracting. It's the author failing to successfully conceal their presence in the story.  The fact that you don't agree is not a point in your favor when attempting to conceal your presence because it often leads to the author showing up because they disapprove and they want us to disapprove.

The pyschopathic tendacies thing, for example. By presenting classic symptoms bluntly, you get the effect I mentioned. The author does not approve and is showing they do not approve.

Be careful about confusing a character's statements with the narrative's statements; look deeper and you'll see there's a definite clash.

That you think you can successfully untangle those completely in a story being told effectively first-person is a trap in itself.
"Load sabot. Target Zaku, direct front!"

A Feddie Story

 

Offline General Battuta

  • Poe's Law In Action
  • 214
  • i wonder when my postcount will exceed my iq
Re: What do you want in the rest of War in Heaven?
The pyschopathic tendacies thing, for example. By presenting classic symptoms bluntly, you get the effect I mentioned. The author does not approve and is showing they do not approve.

As I've said, the narrative does not reflect the beliefs of the authors. That includes both approval and disapproval. Laporte's symptoms are what they are, and if a direct presentation seems blunt to you, that's because directness is often blunt. The fact that Laporte is unstable, or is good at killing, is not meant to suggest that she's a good or bad person; it simply is (though she certainly struggles with it at first). The campaign very much explores the utility of this trait, in fact.

Spoiler:
There's an interpretation that one player came up with re: the whole issue of her psychopathy which is very metatextual and paints the fourth wall beautifully, and which I'm very fond of. I'll see if it comes to you too.

I'm not really sure what point you're actually making here. This critique needs to get a bit more specific or you risk sounding like you're throwing off false positives.

 

Offline Fury

  • The Curmudgeon
  • 213
Re: What do you want in the rest of War in Heaven?
NGTM-1R, I know you haven't even played WiH yet because of your self-inflicted burn-out. So I view your commentary as a bit unfair speculation on what might be and what might not be. You played the first beta certainly, but things changed a lot since then. If you want to continue giving such commentary, please actually play the finished campaign of Part 1 first.

 

Offline General Battuta

  • Poe's Law In Action
  • 214
  • i wonder when my postcount will exceed my iq
Re: What do you want in the rest of War in Heaven?
NGTM-1R, I know you haven't even played WiH yet because of your self-inflicted burn-out. So I view your commentary as a bit unfair speculation on what might be and what might not be. You played the first beta certainly, but things changed a lot since then. If you want to continue giving such commentary, please actually play the finished campaign of Part 1 first.

Well I don't think he's actually really criticized yet; it's mostly just trying to get a good foodfight going.  ;)

Quote
That you think you can successfully untangle those completely in a story being told effectively first-person is a trap in itself.

I didn't say anything about untangling them; in fact I said the precise opposite. Read back.
« Last Edit: August 10, 2010, 12:36:19 am by General Battuta »

 
Re: What do you want in the rest of War in Heaven?
I already told that i want cutscenes (in game-cutscenes), now i few more points :)
I'm also a big Tev Fan, so it would be really interesting seeing and maybe playing the Tev side.
I also think it is really important that the player doesn't lose the big picture of the war, so even the player is participating in some "SOC" Missions, we should also get the big stratetigcal battles (Like in Battle @Saturn) and of course i'm hoping for a giant battle for Earth itself, and in this battle it would be ok if the player has a minor role.
The character stuff and the huge dialog is great, please don't change it, even if some people have problems reading all the text during battle . Only with the dialog we get the feeling and the horror of the characters and the war.

 

Offline Hellstryker

  • waffles
  • 210
    • Skype
Re: What do you want in the rest of War in Heaven?
Having the models optimized is really all I can think of. I rarely say this, and largely operate off the motto 'If you want something done right, do it yourself', but I trust the BP team to not screw it up.

Now additional ideas, that I can do. If you can find somebody to do rendered cutscenes, that would be amazing.

I would very much like to see a mission in which the UEF do a subspace missile strike of their own, just because it would be damn fun to do so.

A minicampaign on the Tevs or better yet Zod's side of things would be alright, but perhaps it would be a story better told in cutscenes?

That's all I can really think of for now. If more pops into my head I'll post here then.

 

Offline Fury

  • The Curmudgeon
  • 213
Re: What do you want in the rest of War in Heaven?
If you can find somebody to do rendered cutscenes, that would be amazing.
Personally this is something I would prefer not to see, ever. Part of the Blue Planet magic is that all cutscenes are done in-game and not pre-rendered. Expect to see even more awesome in-game cutscenes in Part 2 however. Axem who joined BP only a short while ago has begun working on Part 2 intro cutscene.

 

Offline Snail

  • SC 5
  • 214
  • Posts: ☂
Re: What do you want in the rest of War in Heaven?
If you can find somebody to do rendered cutscenes, that would be amazing.
Personally this is something I would prefer not to see, ever. Part of the Blue Planet magic is that all cutscenes are done in-game and not pre-rendered. Expect to see even more awesome in-game cutscenes in Part 2 however. Axem who joined BP only a short while ago has begun working on Part 2 intro cutscene.
I agree with this sentiment.

 

Offline Klaustrophobia

  • 210
  • the REAL Nuke of HLP
    • North Carolina Tigers
Re: What do you want in the rest of War in Heaven?
I didn't like the crosshair so much.  It was too small for me.  I like the more spread out crosses, gives me a wider reference.  The little dot drove me nuts when I'd get caught up in trying to get it perfectly on center.  I do REALLY like the idea of the custom crosshair though, and if possible you should definitely further expand into custom HUDs.  It adds a lot to immersion, making you feel like you're flying different fighters.  High-quality cockpits would be amazing, as long as they don't take up TOO much screen real-estate.  Most of us don't have TrackIR.  Putting working gauges on the cockpit would just be truly epic, but I sense that is at best a few years away, and not your department at all.  The cockpits themselves aren't really either.

To be completely honest, WiH was a bit too much story and not enough combat for my personal taste.  Don't get me wrong, the story is amazing and the delivery is also, but like a few others have said, if felt like a bunch of sit in the fire envelope and wait on the frigates to shred the hostiles with the wtfpwnage anti-fighter screen.  (I don't ever want to fly as a tev and attack a frigate) I felt completely ineffective and insignificant throughout the majority of the campaign, contradictory to the dialogue hailing me as a BAMF.  Having said that, let me now contradict myself by saying the space combat in WiH is almost exactly like what I always invisioned it should be.  Maybe I'm just still used to FS's traditional "superjuggernaught in a fighter" Alpha-1 pwnage gameplay.  I guess I can't have both.  But if you could step up the player's role somehow, that would help.

"Arming" the primaries I did not like at all.  It looks cool and all, but I seriously never would have seen that was happening if Battuta hadn't told me why my raiper wasn't firing right away.  I don't really get the premise either, why would the primary cannons even rotate in and out?  Why not just stay out?  The gattler I understand, but maybe you could add a spool-up sound?

Stupid IE and its scroll-jumping.  Had to switch to FF, and now I can't remember the last point I was going to make.  More forthcoming then I guess.
I like to stare at the sun.

 

Offline Snail

  • SC 5
  • 214
  • Posts: ☂
Re: What do you want in the rest of War in Heaven?
The crosshair I think was QD's request (probably wrong about this), because QD absolutely loathes FS2's crosshairs since they're off-center or something.

 
Re: What do you want in the rest of War in Heaven?
In Game Cutscenes are fine.
Model Optimization would be good, sometimes my frames drops suddenly, but most of the time everything is fine on maximum detail, but i read many other people have performance problems with WiH.

 

Offline Klaustrophobia

  • 210
  • the REAL Nuke of HLP
    • North Carolina Tigers
Re: What do you want in the rest of War in Heaven?
The crosshair I think was QD's request (probably wrong about this), because QD absolutely loathes FS2's crosshairs since they're off-center or something.

Like i said, i like the IDEA of custom crosshairs, but the current one is just freakin tiny.  It's like that damn little red dot they sometimes put in FPS games.  Not to mention it's pretty easy to get lost in clutter and then you have NO aiming reference.
I like to stare at the sun.

 

Offline ION3

  • 27
Re: What do you want in the rest of War in Heaven?
A new ship/weapon selection screen would be cool. Showing range, projectile speed, shots per second, hull/shield/subsystem damage per second, energy use per second, hull/shield/subsystem damage per energy unit, shield piercing, (maneuverability, tracking ability, lock on speed, lock on angle for missles) and everything else i have to know to select my loadout (shots fired in bursts, swarm size, cooldown, warmup time, ammunition, push effect, cluster effect, emp, energy drain). Same for ships: speed, afterburn speed, maneuverability (number), armor (number), shield/weapon/afterburner capacity, reactor strength, and everything else i need to know (reverse thrust speed, sensors, cloaking, ship geometry with subsystems and shield geometry (i want to know how easy to hit i am) plus a graphical representation of the gunslots complete with capacity for secondarys  just like in the weapon screen (combining weaponscreen and shipselectionscreen would be cool),

Most of this info could be derived directly from the ships. Only the section about anything else i need to know needs to be hand-written. No bad ship descriptions anymore for all mods (could go in the scp).

This in combination with the higher weapon diversity which is planned.

 

Offline Fury

  • The Curmudgeon
  • 213
Re: What do you want in the rest of War in Heaven?
Loadout info lenght is very limited. It's impossible to fit all that in there. However, weapon loadout details have already been improved.

 

Offline ION3

  • 27
Re: What do you want in the rest of War in Heaven?
Quote
Loadout info lenght is very limited

Yes. I was thinkig of programming a new info/selection screen. With scroll buttons and submenus and so on.

 

Offline The E

  • He's Ebeneezer Goode
  • 213
  • Nothing personal, just tech support.
    • Steam
    • Twitter
Re: What do you want in the rest of War in Heaven?
You go right ahead and do that, then.

Because that would take a lot of work in the engine, not to mention that doing it right now, before the interface system is rewritten, would be a waste of time.
If I'm just aching this can't go on
I came from chasing dreams to feel alone
There must be changes, miss to feel strong
I really need lifе to touch me
--Evergrey, Where August Mourns

 

Offline NGTM-1R

  • I reject your reality and substitute my own
  • 213
  • Syndral Active. 0410.
Re: What do you want in the rest of War in Heaven?
NGTM-1R, I know you haven't even played WiH yet because of your self-inflicted burn-out.

No.

You do not.

I made a couple early comments based on that, but I did play it after.
"Load sabot. Target Zaku, direct front!"

A Feddie Story

 
Re: What do you want in the rest of War in Heaven?
Model optimization, and maybe the introduction of the 113th Carebear Assault Squadron.

  :nod:

Or as a mission sim thing  :doubt:
« Last Edit: August 10, 2010, 09:20:21 am by Dr. Pwnguin »

 

Offline redsniper

  • 211
  • Aim for the Top!
Re: What do you want in the rest of War in Heaven?
I think I heard somewhere that FS2 Alpha 1 is dead in BP canon, but if I'm mistaken it would be pretty awesome to have a dogfight with the Blue Lions and their illustrious leader.
"Think about nice things not unhappy things.
The future makes happy, if you make it yourself.
No war; think about happy things."   -WouterSmitssm

Hard Light Productions:
"...this conversation is pointlessly confrontational."