Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - Standalone => Diaspora => Topic started by: Ace on September 26, 2012, 12:53:46 am
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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*
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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. :sigh: 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 :blah:
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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.
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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 :D He was probably a Cylon anyway! :D)
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!* :yes: :eek:
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 :lol:
My self pity aside, :P the graphics are perfect! Anyone who's actually played the game already knows that. :)
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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.
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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
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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.
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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... :blah:
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...
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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... :blah:
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... :nono:
*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.
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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* :nervous:
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*slowly lowers pistol away from his kneecaps* :nervous:
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 :P
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**** 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.
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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.
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**** 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. :p 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 :p
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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.
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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*
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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.
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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 :p
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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 :p
but...they should be defeated by now...right? :nervous:
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I'm still blowing them up. There's such thing as Extended Edition you know. And a sequel. And prequels.
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I'm still blowing them up. There's such thing as Extended Edition you know. And a sequel. And prequels.
...and eventual reboot
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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*
This IMO was my only real gripe. I used to be on the team for eternal silence which is a space sim/ fps hybrid on the source engine because of that our controls were all K+M with the joysick being a niche option I can go grab up all our conclusions/fails if it would be helpful in making a nice set of defaults. Main thing is keeping qwer and asdf clear for flying thankfully you don't need to squeeze in a "get out of ship" button.
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A and D for roll. W and S for throttle. Q and E for target enemy and target reticule. Tab for afterburners and space for glide when pressed. The default settings had to go.
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Fly with numpad erryday
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I always think some people have ''hide and not clear'' intentions making a review or a comment pretty negative without testing the game.
In the MTBS 3d forums they have an Oculus rift thread, where some people criticizes Palmer (the Rift creator) continously....than he discover that their IP address cames from a competitor company Light years far away from what Palmer is doing.
I think that could explain pretty much everything...maybe is not the same thing, but people can't admit that Diaspora is an High level product...especially you think is a freeware game. it should not to be perfect, but a lot of commercial games sucks 1000 times than this IMO.
In italy we say: make yourself a question and give yourself the answer :P
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I bet bigpoint and the BSG online team are going around trashing the game lol
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I bet bigpoint and the BSG online team are going around trashing the game lol
I doubt that.
In case you don't know, our art department did some models for Bigpoint a while back.
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Exactly. Our point of view was that BSGO and Diaspora are completely different styles of game.
All the huge publicity around Diaspora has shown is that perhaps there is a market for a space shooter after all, despite the large assumption that there isn't.
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Exactly. Our point of view was that BSGO and Diaspora are completely different styles of game.
All the huge publicity around Diaspora has shown is that perhaps there is a market for a space shooter after all, despite the large assumption that there isn't.
certainly the number of critic comments that Diaspora is the game that BSG fans have been waiting for in terms of quality and play style would support that
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Oh I agree, but I'd probably play the hell out of a good standalone BSG RTS too. And there's no reason I'd see one of those as competition for Diaspora.
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I believe there's a sins of the solar empire mod, but it didn't impress me last I looked...I'll have to give it another look see
I'm a level 4X in BSG:Online, I play because it's the first game I've been able to get my wife to play with me, and I've actually got a small wing that lans, so I'm familiar, and yeah, it's a very different market.
That being said, the pay 2 play model doesn't pay off in the slightest. In my opinion the game is abhorent and cheaply done. They (bigpoint) seem to be sucking what they can of the BSG license (because no one would pay to play it otherwise) without any intent on building a lasting community. They seem to be cashing out and the scuttlebut is that Universal isn't happy about it. They've got some new project manager (I think the last was relieved) and they've been throwing loot at the players going sorry sorry, trying to keep people playing, as Universal is thinking about pulling the license or such. I know they could do much better.
You did.
their model should have been EVE from the start, I dont know wtf they were thinking. MMO, not some cheap browser pay 2 play
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If I was in Univeral's shoes and looking at making another BSG game, I wouldn't go for a MMO again; there are universes that lend themselves better to that game type. There is a lot of untapped potential here and I just know BSG fans would love to experience the BSG universe from a perspective of a colonial marine, fighting centurions, or from the viewpoint of a colonial commander, managing and commanding his battlestar group from the CIC, sort of bridge commander like only more complex and better executed. Hell, maybe even a RPG - with 12 colonies and three periods (first cylon war, second war and the period in between) there's a lot of potential game settings there.
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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*
it's just this one site on the entire internet right?
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We got a few negative comments from other sites too, but mostly the feedback was hugely positive with the main drawbacks being those we've started trying to fix already (poor default control config, lack of multiplayer, etc).
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1. mix diaspora with planet side
2. profit
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Congratulations, you just missed the entire point of Battlestar Galactica.
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congratulations, you seem to be stuck inside a box
a persistent large scale war is the main idea of planetside, that's what I meant.
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i think Cobra is talking about step 2.
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...poor default control config...).
The control config is somewhat messy, though I can live with it. I would, however, at least recommend to clean it up and remove any unused commands, unless it's really possible to augment forward shields in the game. ;)
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A and D for roll. W and S for throttle. Q and E for target enemy and target reticule. Tab for afterburners and space for glide when pressed. The default settings had to go.
Went with something like this but most players had Q and E as roll or thrust left thrust right. Shift as afterburner as FPS tend to put sprint there, r and f as thrust up and down .
Cycling targets was on the scroll wheel with mouse 3 target in reticle.
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it's not letting me easily bind my mouse buttons (g700) but tonight I'm gonna have a go with a mouse and joystick setup and see what I can do.
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I haven't been able to use the other buttons of a Logitech mouse (g500 here) without actually installing the drivers in other games, so that isn't Diaspora's fault there.
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...Shift as afterburner...
*tries to pulse afterburner in a dogfight*
*sticky keys activate*
GODAMMIT!!
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There's a way to stop that from popping up, you know. :P
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...Shift as afterburner...
*tries to pulse afterburner in a dogfight*
*sticky keys activate*
GODAMMIT!!
Source engine played nice for once there.
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A quick Googling turns up:
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/window-on-windows/quick-tip-disable-the-sticky-and-filter-keys-in-windows/3910
Using those directions, you should be able to shut off whatever services you'll never use. ;)
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About reviews ive posting about disaspora un Angry Jow facebook, but it does not seem intereseted, strange, of all the people i was hoping to him to pay attention.
We got a few negative comments from other sites too, but mostly the feedback was hugely positive with the main drawbacks being those we've started trying to fix already (poor default control config, lack of multiplayer, etc).
yes, god, default keyboard config is very bad, playing with numpad is nearly impossible, what do i use is arrows in reemplacement of 8, 2, 4, 6, and 1, 2 of the numpad for turning clock and counter clockwise. so i can move and turn with one hand (i use the small finger for 1,2). Them use WASD for leteral movement, move acceleration to Q, and put glide somewhere else...
This is also good for joystick because joystick reemplaces all controls for the right hand easily.
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Problem is a lot of people play with the keyboard and are damned good at it... unless you're left handed. xD
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Ive played all my life with keyboard, for a normal FS2, reeplacing the 8, 2, 4, 6 for the arrows and set the 1, 2 of the numpad for turning clock and counter clockwise always did the trick.
Now with the add of lateral movement i need to add it in my other hand, so WASD(it ends up being VERY similar to the X3: Terran conflict keyboard control for ship movement), that means moving other controls, move acceleration to Q, and put glide somewhere else... Shift?
That at my stimation its the best keyboard map possible.
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The numpad control fig was patched out in 1.02, the new default is a modified WSAD since keyboards without numpads led to errors during training 1.
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I am prior military and it felt like I was in detail briefs and post-mission debriefs, so rest easy, voice actors, you succeeded. That guy can suckit.