Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Gamma39er on February 17, 2024, 05:14:32 pm
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So I was looking up the Freespace Developers and found that Duncan McPherson (level designer and voice of the untranslated Vasudan), has a blog. In one of those blogs, he shares level design mockups he wrote down, as well as his own node map, and his original Vasudan language document.
https://duncanmakesgames.wordpress.com/2017/05/24/from-the-vaults-of-game-design (https://duncanmakesgames.wordpress.com/2017/05/24/from-the-vaults-of-game-design)
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This is fascinating to read. Especially the nodemap! This sheds a lot of light on some of the idiosyncrasies of FS1. For example:
1) Ross 128 is treated as a frontier system in FS1, both in the intro and in the subtext of the story. And yet, on the official Volition node map, it's right in the middle of everything.
2) Many of the Node Inconsistencies (https://wiki.hard-light.net/index.php/Node_Inconsistencies) can be explained by referring to Duncan's node map. I wish the blog showed the full version.
And there are some tantalizing pictures of mission design and the Vasudan language. As Gamma39er noted, Yo'yeh (no) explains that death sound sent when Omega 3 is destroyed in "The Hammer and the Anvil".
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I'm quite sad about the engine upgrade effectively rendering everyone's missions unplayable. That's a really big "what could've been" right there.
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It's amazing how so many extra details on this series can come out of nowhere after a quarter of a century. That tiny bit of material coming straight from FS1's development does indeed explain some of the node inconsistencies mentioned by Goober earlier in this thread.
I wonder at this point if we can get some extra information on the matter, such as why some of the jump nodes were changed during late stages of development. (We may also ask for more pictures of those drafts.)
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I've messaged him. Hoping to hear back at some point.
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What kind of engine upgrade would make those missions unable to be recovered?
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It really could be anything. It could be something simple, like a change in format; or it could be something huge, like a change in how objects are represented. This comment in FRED could be a clue:
* 25 3/04/97 6:27p Hoffoss
* Changes to Fred to handle new wing structure.
That would be a reorganization, but it would be on the simpler side. Hypothetically, I could picture a situation where wings and the ships they contain would get all tangled up. They could be untangled with a little bit of effort, but it's certainly possible that the mission designers wouldn't know how to do that and the programmers would have more pressing priorities. As a result the old missions would never have been ported over.
I have a hunch that "La Ruota della Fortuna", which happened to be authored by Duncan McPherson, is the rebuilt version of the original mission. Just as described in the blog, the player expects one thing but arrives to find something completely different, and the mission quickly turns into a big furball.
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I really do hope he comes back and we get some expansion on pre-lore and maybe even the correct zod linguatome.
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I got a response from Duncan today. He's going to look for more of his notes on the Vasudan language, mission outlines, and he found an old floppy disk that has Freespace stuff on it, though he thinks it might just be FRED test missions.
Whatever he sends me, I'm super stoked. So awesome of him to respond.
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That's amazing news. Well ddone Gamma three niner, it'll be interesting if he sends us Fred missions..they might be salvageable?
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I don't see why they wouldn't, unless for some reason they moved to the text format from some binary format that's been lost to time. There really isn't much to a FS mission when you crack it open in a text editor. If it's something like "wing definitions used to be constructed from ship data but now have their own place in the file" it should be very fixable. I'd definitely take a crack at it :)
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Yeah, it shouldn't be that hard - what truly matters is ship coordinates, orientations, arrival cues, plus the events and messages. Briefings, debriefings and command briefings are also quite easy to export manually. This stuff can be altered via Notepad so even if those mission files have a format no longer compatible with FRED, something can definitely be done about it. :)
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I used to edit missions I'd set up on pc, on my Xperia x10 using a text editor at work back in 2009 ;D
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"Real FREDders use Notepad", cit. (but that would make them Notepadders :P)