Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - FS2 Required => Blue Planet => Topic started by: Darius on July 06, 2009, 09:53:28 am
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New piece up for people to read. (http://blueplanet.hard-light.net/rift.html) This one takes the viewpoint of the Vasudans and what they've been up to Post-Capella, as well as providing a general commentary on Vasudan society and mysticism.
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I really enjoyed reading the inferno prose yesterday night, who writes these? you Darius?
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Hah, thought the Lucifer-killers would have a role.
And where exactly is the FS1 PC now? :drevil:
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Battuta's been writing the Blue Planet stuff. The Inferno prose was a bit of fan fiction I wrote about four years ago that indirectly inspired me to make BP.
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Good stuff, although I'd always thought that the "Ancients dialogues" in FS1 were taken from the discovered artifacts/knowledge that you spend several missions retrieving. I suppose having them be a telepathic incident could work too. :)
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Does that mean, that the ancients are somehow connected with the Vishnans?
Or were they just "broadcasting" the history of the last victim of the Shivans, so the Humans and Vasudans could learn from their predecessors mistakes?
Somehow I got a feeling that after the Terran civil war is resolves, we'll get a Blue Planet 3 that will bring us into this final apocalypse against the Shivans....
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Yep, that has been pretty much confirmed. Not the apocalypse part, but the BP part 3 part.
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Nice :yes:
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No Vasudan mastered the union between the mystical and the secular more completely than Khonsu II. The Emperor took divination and mysticism into consultation as he planned the movements of battlegroups and the regulation of his prosperous economy. Terran scientists flocked to observe this phenomenon and concluded that Vasudan ‘prophecy’ was in fact startlingly reliable – perhaps an inbuilt, powerful form of analysis and intuition, capable of ingesting and synthesizing vast amounts of data in order to determine trends. The Vasudans, however, stubbornly maintained that prophetic abilities amongst their species (including those once claimed by members of the Hammer of Light) were in fact the result of communion with powerful alien beings (The term ‘supernatural’ is never used in Vasudan mythology; the Vasudan view is that anything which occurs is natural and scientific). Ironically, this attitude towards ‘higher powers’ is not dissimilar to that adopted by some factions of the Ubuntu Party Elders.
Have we been here before? :drevil:
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Sounds a little Mind Games-esque?
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Cool.
The Inferno pieces drew my attention more than BP though... but you might say "that's expected" depending on how you look at it...
Or maybe it's because I find Battuta's stuff a tiny bit harder to read (but that's because I'm no book reader and/or I'm lazy to think in-depth)... XD
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It's definitely dense. It's modeled after real historical texts.
I took a slightly more cinematic approach for stuff I did for other projects, and when I write narrative prose I try to keep it verb-heavy and streamlined.
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An engaging read. :yes:
With constant references to Khonsu II, does anyone know the average life-span of a Vasudan? If Khonsu does die, it's going to be interesting to see how the heirs might take the situation.
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Keep it up Batty, as I said before, this is the best stuff I've read in a long time!
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Who feels like playing around with some cryptology?
http://blueplanet.hard-light.net/rift2.jpg
This image contains a heading and subheading in Vasudan text. They are translatable to english, and are not just letters typed out randomly :P
Those who partook in 162 will find this a breeze.
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Aardwolf I managed to figure out on IRC that the thing meant "Medjai. To Honor Vasuda"
The Medjai are apparently a closely-knit military group of Vasudan admirals who report only to the Emperor, and are mentioned several times in the prose on the Blue Planet website. The significance of this is currently unknown.
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Using http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?action=printpage%3Btopic=57704.0 as a reference to translate the characters (manually I might add, since nobody could find the damn Vasudan font) it says:
MEDJAY
KALINGAH VASUUDAH
Which translates to: "Medjay, to honor Vasuda", and Wikipedia says an alternate spelling for that first bit is Medjai.
Edit: slimy shelled invertebrate backstabber!
Just kidding
Edit II: AWESOME! Battuta just accidentally said something about RC1 in the wrong IRC channel ;7
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Well done :)
Hrm..maybe I should have organised a prize or something before posting this up...oh well....
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Can I just say, your dev team is insane.
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Edit II: AWESOME! Battuta just accidentally said something about RC1 in the wrong IRC channel ;7
Yeah, concerning one mission, not WiH as whole.
Can I just say, your dev team is insane.
Well thank you. :) What you experienced was like changing socks to us. :p
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Vasudan admiralty. . . Hmmm, you know they all have "THAT" poster above their bunks right?
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....... Why is a Sesmu in that picture?
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....... Why is a Sesmu in that picture?
Well, why not? Is there some kind of issue with the Sesmu?
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Vasudan admiralty. . . Hmmm, you know they all have "THAT" porter above their bunks right?
Don't we all?
:nervous:
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Vasudan admiralty. . . Hmmm, you know they all have "THAT" porter above their bunks right?
They have a choice of three.
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Can I just say, your dev team is insane.
We like to call it creativity.
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Its good, but I hope you guys will please step away from using only Egypt terms for vasudans.
That narrowed approach for the Vasudan society gave me always the feeling for mutated Egypt flying in space.
Its custom for vasudans " to take on what they call a Terran name " that was after the great war and
"Because the Vasudan homeworld was primarily desert, the Terrans used Egyptian names to designate Vasudan warships during the Terran-Vasudan War and the Great War. After the defeat of the Shivans, the Vasudans insisted on maintaining this convention. The Emperor strongly identified with the history of Ancient Egypt, particularly the longevity of its civilization. Following their Emperor's example, Vasudans will take on what they call a Terran name from the myths and history of Ancient Egypt"
For the Military still okay, but not for the Vasudans as a whole, I mean after 50 ?? years of interchange, specially history, that its normal to see something like a female vasudan scientist calling herself "Marie Curie" or for civilian freighter "Makai" [HAWAIIAN WORD Makai: toward the sea]
And how the Vasudan thinks of that as an insult " to take on what they call a Terran name " that the stupid monkeys are able to distinguish our people.
I had never thought about the caste system but it would be real interesting to go deeper into detail.
Why, it could give an explanation why they recover relatively well and if your born into one or you can choice from an particular age.
I think to ability to choose fit better with the vasudans and why not more than one.
"the Vasudans are a civilization of philosophers, artists, and scholars rather than warriors" I would say there is now a strong military caste and good opportunity to show the diffrent approaches to war.
" The Art of War " fit them really well, instead of fixed fleet movements " Terrans art; Showing your womens womb" and more the fluent fleet movements "Vasudans art ; The Swordwind" sent out scouts and attack in one fluent strike ( Power OverWhelming ) that would give an explanation for the swarm tactics in the TVW !?.
Some **** like that.
"Showing your womens womb" Well, a kind way for the vasudans to satirical the terrans for this " to take on what they call a Terran name ".
Why I am writing this hmm, I am bored and would like to give a other point of view, I guess !
I really looking forward for WiH and Good luck!
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:wtf:
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That sounds like it would be incredibly forced.
I don't want to fight with the Akaleirabainhannah-seryo (if the light shining upon the ship at shipboard breakfast time is green, suffix changes to oryhhough, for other points on the spectrum see the attached guide) just so the Vasudans seem more alien.
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The quotation marks in this post are amazing.
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What does 'showing your women's womb' mean?
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No clue.
I have toyed with the idea of Vasudan slang that was picked up by Terrans before. "Know the shield" for example, a phrase similar in useage to the Terran "seen the elephant"; a slang term indicating one has seen combat, dating to pre-gunpowder Vasuda Prime. A warrior who fought in battle and survived, it was presumed, knew how to use his shield.
I've also found myself inventing new military jargon for the Terrans simply because it's improbably modern jargon would survive that long.
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Want to PM some to me? I always need more jargon, my ACM dictionary isn't really that great.
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What does 'showing your women's womb' mean?
:lol: It has no meaning, is something I come up with, but it could mean don't show your assets so openly!
Some random blub !!!
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Want to PM some to me? I always need more jargon, my ACM dictionary isn't really that great.
Done.
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some real good stuff in this one. only just finished all 4 of them.
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It sounds like the Jester's prophecy definitely involves the return of the Shivans, and its trigger for this 'unspeakably horrible' event will be the Terran Civil War.
This pleases me. :yes:
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How is War in Heaven coming along?
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Pretty well! We made huge progress this summer and we remain active.
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By all means, release it when you're ready. Although I must be one of the weird ones who enjoys reading the encyclopedic back stories as I do actually playing the games. The prose of Blue Planet is really great.
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Sometimes I've wondered if full-transparency development, with daily updates on exactly what we did, would be best. I mean, people get pissed about things like BWO because they can't tell if nothing's happening or if the project is just doing a huge amount of work.
And I do worry about the expectations. Because if we keep redoing our missions (I mean, heck, I'm tempted to redo a couple already), then we'd likely never stop.
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Redo only in response to feedback, it's the only sane way. :P
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By all means, release it when you're ready. Although I must be one of the weird ones who enjoys reading the encyclopedic back stories as I do actually playing the games. The prose of Blue Planet is really great.
amen, brotha
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...I must be one of the weird ones who enjoys reading the encyclopedic back stories as I do actually playing the games...
You are not alone!
:drevil:
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Sometimes I've wondered if full-transparency development, with daily updates on exactly what we did, would be best. I mean, people get pissed about things like BWO because they can't tell if nothing's happening or if the project is just doing a huge amount of work.
And I do worry about the expectations. Because if we keep redoing our missions (I mean, heck, I'm tempted to redo a couple already), then we'd likely never stop.
Maybe not *full* full transparency, I'd like to stay spoiler free. But I would like to hear about minor things. Like, what your inspirations for the story are, what goes into designing a good mission. You know, DVD commentary stuff.
I don't think repeating yourselves is going to be a big deal. I don't mind a few homages (Forced Ejection should be epic if its anything like the prior one).
All I'd really like is a return of the Shivans to GTVA one last time. Since so much thought goes into BP, I'd definitely like to see a possible end of the conflict between the Shivans and the Terrans/Vasudans. Plus I think'd it be fun to take down a ship that exceeds juggernaut specification by five fold. I think a series of quality missions around dropping the Dante would be as epic as anything seen in Freespace. Especially considering the Freespace universe is BASED around, "It got worse" situtations.
Lucifer? It got worse.
Ravana? It got worse.
Sathanas? It got worse.
80+ Sathanas fleet? It got worse.
SSJ Dante? It got worse.
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By 'redo' I don't mean 'repeat', I mean 'rebuild mission from the ground up because we think it could be more fun.'
Which is what happens when you play missions two dozen times with a critical eye.
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What does 'showing your women's womb' mean?
When I see that phrase, I imagine a Vasudan curiously logging on to the Terran internet and finding that 3/4 of it is pictures of women in various states of undress, engaging in various behavior related to reproduction, etc...
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No..................that's just not Zod behaviour, they'd be all
"ooh terran science, look at their basic language developement.......lollage"
So... BP2 nearly done? :nod:
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Grinding along. Progress!
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I was wondering if we could get some information about the public opinion of the GTVA civilians back home regarding the war with Sol.
Maybe even another prose?
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I was wondering if we could get some information about the public opinion of the GTVA civilians back home regarding the war with Sol.
Maybe even another prose?
As I have understood the story, they want a war like world did just befor WW1.
Because thats the way GTVA tries to unite them. By creating an enemy.
But I hope there wont be much war between earth an sol... because the shivans will somehow come back and they will have to unite themselfes.
If there would be nothin but war between terrans it would be pretty boring... BP is more than Inferno ;)
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I was wondering if we could get some information about the public opinion of the GTVA civilians back home regarding the war with Sol.
Maybe even another prose?
As I have understood the story, they want a war like world did just befor WW1.
Because thats the way GTVA tries to unite them. By creating an enemy.
But I hope there wont be much war between earth an sol... because the shivans will somehow come back and they will have to unite themselfes.
If there would be nothin but war between terrans it would be pretty boring... BP is more than Inferno ;)
I still say Inferno won't be able to compete with BP once WiH is out. Because they are (from what I've seen) more active and have been putting in tons of effort, if they're videos and updates are any indicators.
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It's not a competition. If INFASA comes out and is awesome, then we get more happy FreeSpace players who stick around for WiH. The reverse is also true.
Besides, Blue Planet is pretty different from most other campaigns. The thing that draws people to Blue Planet is the story - that, and the characters who tell the story.
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And the shiny ships. And music.
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WiH is like a trip, honestly it's just that awesome.
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:eek2: You've played it?
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I want to play it! :headz:
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Snail and NGTM-1R are beta testers, they have indeed played it.
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In response to the inevitable "Omg me want beta test too!" (noone in particular)
I'm keen to play it for obvious reasons, but i'm nowhere near patient enough with unfinished products. I'd go insane and launch my keyboard out the window before i'd bug tested a few missions let alone a whole campaign.
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You would indeed. Dekker is wise.
Beta testing is rough. You have to give up some of the magic.
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In response to the inevitable "Omg me want beta test too!" (noone in particular)
BP currently has no need for more beta testers, any requests will be rejected. Snail and NGTM-1R were privileged to this as they contributed much to story elements prior to becoming testers. They not only test missions, but perform sanity checks on story and plot.
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Beta testing = frequent crashes + freezes?
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Traditionally, beta testing FS2 missions is more about finding the showstopping sexping bugs than it is crashes and freezes.
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Yep.
Crashes + freezes are produced by code problems, not by mission design, and while BP has driven a couple code changes, it's not running on its own special version of the engine or whatever.
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Yep. Crashes on a mod or campaign using retail or mediavps data just shouldn't happen. It can get kinda interesting when you're using custom models, though.
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Will WiH have speech upon its release? Or will it be released without speech, with a voice acted version coming along later?
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WiH has way too much dialogue to make it even remotely possible to have voice acting in the initial release. In fact, there is so much dialogue it remains to be seen whether it can be voice acted at all within reasonable time.
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Good thing I read fast.
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Been waiting on this since it was announced... the previews make me want it even more.
Please finish before the year is over? :nod:
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Tall order, my friend.
Remember, work on this iteration of the campaign really only started in June. We've made pretty startling progress in the past five months, because we have a team now. We have a complete modpack, more ships than we need, lovely tables and weapons, and a complete and detailed knowledge of what will happen. We're just FREDding as hard as we can for now.
The previous version of the War in Heaven campaign was good (I played it!) but Darius felt he could do better with a team.
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Aww.
That's ok, I geuss. I have plenty 2 keep me busy... ;)
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Aww.
That's ok, I geuss. I have plenty 2 keep me busy... ;)
Trust me, it's worth the wait. :nod:
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I'm just glad there's real evidence that it's all getting done. The Blue Planet team seems to be a rather well oiled machine :p
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Yeah, as a fan, I know that that evidence is important for patience.
We continue to meet regularly, and as our beta testers can attest, we have indeed completed some fun missions. Nobody shows signs of dropping out due to Real Life (in fact, I can't imagine getting any busier!)
Darius' summer break is coming up, which bodes well. Every time one of our members gets some spare time we seem to go back into Mean Blue Machine mode.
It's frustrating not to be able to talk about the plot with the community right now. It's exciting stuff.
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Seeing (and taking part in) the discussions about the proses, I'm really looking forward to discussing the actual story too :D
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It's frustrating not to be able to talk about the plot with the community right now. It's exciting stuff.
I'll say.
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More prose always makes the wait more bearable. :P