Author Topic: Dev blog comments thread  (Read 35190 times)

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Offline KaraBulut

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Re: Dev blog comments thread
That mp3 is very nice.

I almost felt as if I was on a reconnisence mission.

 
Re: Dev blog comments thread
Is there no way to tie in the many storylines? Maybe more or less the story of you, a pilot in the BSG universe?
Frak.

 

Offline Fish

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Re: Dev blog comments thread
I like the idea of more-or-less independent chapters. Kind of says 'this is a taster of the wider universe', rather than attempting to show you comprehensively 'this is all there is'. Player continuity would just impose more constraints on timelines, etc, which seems likely to only hamper the release schedule. I'd much rather sacrifice the opportunity to develop my own pilot character in favour of actually having a variety of missions to play! Player development, whilst a very immersive thing, is also fairly generically obtainable in any number of commercially-available games. Playing quality Viper missions in the BSG universe isn't, so I think that's a more important focus for Diaspora.

Good to see an update to the blog ;)
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Offline Mr.Ferret

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Re: Dev blog comments thread
Hi their first post.

Great blog, nice too see hope it keeps getting updated.

Great looking project btw, cant wait to get my grubby hands on R1 :)

I wish you all the best of luck Diaspora team!  :yes:

 

Offline karajorma

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Re: Dev blog comments thread
Is there no way to tie in the many storylines? Maybe more or less the story of you, a pilot in the BSG universe?

Let me put it this way. Suppose we make releases based on being a pilot on the Pegasus during Razor, a 1st Cylon War release, a release where you play as the Cylons attacking the colonies or pursuing Pegasus or Galactica and then finally make a release based on the first season. Is there any sane way to tie all that together? :D

Now I'm not saying that's what we'll be doing since planning for R2 let alone anything after that is still at the "We should do an R2" stage but as you can see we don't want to limit ourselves to a single storyline for the mini-releases when there is so much we could do.

I like the idea of more-or-less independent chapters. Kind of says 'this is a taster of the wider universe', rather than attempting to show you comprehensively 'this is all there is'.


Yep. That's exactly how we feel too.

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Player continuity would just impose more constraints on timelines, etc, which seems likely to only hamper the release schedule. I'd much rather sacrifice the opportunity to develop my own pilot character in favour of actually having a variety of missions to play! Player development, whilst a very immersive thing, is also fairly generically obtainable in any number of commercially-available games. Playing quality Viper missions in the BSG universe isn't, so I think that's a more important focus for Diaspora.

Yep. But that doesn't mean you won't see character development within the mini-campaigns or campaigns that are linked. Just that we see no reason to impose that upon the releases and force them to all be linked.

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Good to see an update to the blog ;)

I do keep trying to get the others to post more. :D
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Re: Dev blog comments thread
I too like the idea of a compilation of "short stories" rather than a "novel", as it were. The players get a steady stream of content, the devs get an easier framework to operate within, it's a win-win! I don't know if it's been mentioned elsewhere, so my apologies if I'm asking something that's already been answered, but how many missions are you guys planning on doing for each mini-campaign? Or maybe it'll vary? For instance, I could picture the attack on the Resurrection Ship being one very long mission, rather than a series of missions.

 

Offline DragonClaw

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Re: Dev blog comments thread
The problem with very long missions is that if the player dies near the end, he has to redo the entire mission. I've played a number of games like this where it gets very aggravating having to replay through 'garbage'. To my knowledge the SCP doesn't have any kind of 'checkpoint' system implemented, though I think it would be a very good idea to implement sexps that save 'snapshots' of the mission at varying points that would allow the player to restart the mission at that particular point in the case of failure(with the option of restarting the mission entirely of course).

 

Offline Snagger

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Re: Dev blog comments thread
I too like the idea of a compilation of "short stories" rather than a "novel", as it were. The players get a steady stream of content, the devs get an easier framework to operate within, it's a win-win! 
It also gives a much wider scope with an awful lot more missions.  It builds-in game longevity - we all know what it's like once you finish a game: it get's put to one side while you move on to a fresh challenge.  Continuing stories and adventures will keep Diaspora going much longer than a single big release.

 

Offline karajorma

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Re: Dev blog comments thread
You don't just get more missions from the devs either. The faster releases get out there, the faster those of you who FRED can get to work too.

As for each mini-campaign, Shattered Armistice will have 4-5 + Training missions. After R1 we might start making them bigger. The goal is to make sure that the team are never sat around doing nothing nor holding up the release by working on a campaign that is too long.
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Offline Fish

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Re: Dev blog comments thread
So I suppose there's a tradeoff between the development of the next release, and the support of the previous? Do you have any plans on how long the previous release will be supported (troubleshooting, bug patching, general helpfulness on the forums) before beginning development of the next in earnest?

Also, is each release going to be stand-alone, or a patch? An option for both?

(FWIW, the BtRL demo was much easier than FSO to install, but still was a long way from everyday casual gamers being able to install it as easily as a commercial game. I think as you seem keen on lowering the barriers to success, this is something that should be given serious attention.)
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Offline Shade

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Re: Dev blog comments thread
We'll be supporting them as long as people play them.
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Offline karajorma

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Re: Dev blog comments thread
So I suppose there's a tradeoff between the development of the next release, and the support of the previous? Do you have any plans on how long the previous release will be supported (troubleshooting, bug patching, general helpfulness on the forums) before beginning development of the next in earnest?

I don't see any reason to not support an old release right up until the release of the next one. Hell, I'm still helping people on the BtRL forum with demo problems. Once R2 is out the first response is going to be to upgrade to R2 first though.

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Also, is each release going to be stand-alone, or a patch? An option for both?


Haven't decided. The problem with patches is that it's very easy for a latecomer to miss one and then end up with a broken game. If you download R1 and R3 you won't have access to the R2 ships and the game will almost certainly fail to work. The problem with making a single download for each release is that by R4 our oldest fans are going to have to download a package containing R1-3 even though they already had them just to get R4. The problem with doing both is that you have to ask people which one they have before helping them troubleshoot. Not to mention you get cases of people downloading the full game and then trying to install the patches on top of that. :rolleyes: :D

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(FWIW, the BtRL demo was much easier than FSO to install, but still was a long way from everyday casual gamers being able to install it as easily as a commercial game. I think as you seem keen on lowering the barriers to success, this is something that should be given serious attention.)

We will try to make it easier.
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Offline Lt.Cannonfodder

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Re: Dev blog comments thread
We definately made an effort to make the BtRL demo easier to install and setup. Of course it wasn't perfect and we learned quite a few things from that release.

 
Re: Dev blog comments thread
Haven't decided. The problem with patches is that it's very easy for a latecomer to miss one and then end up with a broken game. If you download R1 and R3 you won't have access to the R2 ships and the game will almost certainly fail to work. The problem with making a single download for each release is that by R4 our oldest fans are going to have to download a package containing R1-3 even though they already had them just to get R4. The problem with doing both is that you have to ask people which one they have before helping them troubleshoot. Not to mention you get cases of people downloading the full game and then trying to install the patches on top of that. :rolleyes: :D

I don't know how feasible it is, but why not use R1 as the basis for all future releases? That is, at any stage in development, a person downloads and installs R1. From there, they run an updater that will install all the latest releases. That way there's only ever one download for a new person, and questions about releases can be answered by, "Run the updater." It seemed like that was basically the system you had for BtRL.

 

Offline Echelon9

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Re: Dev blog comments thread
You make some valid points.

While that suggestion works well for the additional content of each new release (be that missions, new capital ships, textures, music etc) by simply getting each user to download a new .vp file, that system isn't quite so easy should a new release require updates to the core engine itself (that is the Diaspora.exe/Diaspora.app etc).

New engine releases might be required for a new SEXP (and so must be updated concurrently to the new missions in say, R3). Of course, engine updates are a total rip-and-replace, and I believe the possible support issues there are what karajorma and the team and trying to work through.

 

Offline karajorma

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Re: Dev blog comments thread
The problem with automatic online updating programs is that many users download on a work PC and then install on their home PC. BtRL had that problem with the patch. In addition it's not that friendly to make users download a 200MB initial download, get ready to play and then force them to download another 500-600MB in order to get the new releases.
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Offline Fish

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Re: Dev blog comments thread
I suppose you want the rather difficult halfway point between the flexibility of how Microsoft distributes service packs, and the hosting of BitTorrent... Tricky :)
« Last Edit: November 08, 2008, 03:45:01 am by Fish »
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Offline FUBAR-BDHR

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Re: Dev blog comments thread
About time you guys mentioned the multi testing.  I didn't know how much longer I could keep quite about it.   :D
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Offline Shade

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Re: Dev blog comments thread
Heh. I should've posted that yesterday, but then I ended up testing out taylor's new build with you :p
Report FS_Open bugs with Mantis  |  Find the latest FS_Open builds Here  |  Interested in FRED? Check out the Wiki's FRED Portal | Diaspora: Website / Forums
"Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh ****ing great. 2200 references to entry->index and no idea which is the one that ****ed up" - Karajorma
"We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct." - Niels Bohr
<Cobra|> You play this mission too intelligently.

 
Re: Dev blog comments thread
If you guys ever need more MP testers, I'm sure the community members would be more than happy to help.  ;7