Author Topic: RELEASE: Ancient-Shivan War, Act I  (Read 129455 times)

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Offline Commander Zane

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Re: RELEASE: Ancient-Shivan War, Act I
What does the skybox look like with this issue going on, I want to see what the problem looks like for comparative reasons.

 

Offline The E

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Re: RELEASE: Ancient-Shivan War, Act I
FSO already detects the max texture size supported by the gfx card. It does not, however, resize maps bigger than that.


Seriously, people, there's a reason why textures bigger than 2048^2 are in mv_advanced. Those should be optional extras, not something everyone uses.
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Offline Nuclear1

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Re: RELEASE: Ancient-Shivan War, Act I
Alright just played.

Well done, overall.  :)  This was clearly an ambitious mod, and you guys did well with presenting it.

The Good:  I personally had no problem with the interface (it appears some did).  The new artwork and comprehensiveness of it all.  The music was great (I could hear some Zerg Starcraft in there, but no biggie, I always liked those tracks :) ) and fitting.  Props on using the nightmare ships.  Missions weren't too difficult, but not easy either.  It's clearly been playtested.  The cutscenes were very well done.

The Bad:  (This might be a little long, but it's mostly pet peeves)  First off, Shiva is a Hindu god, from Terran history.  I was horribly taken aback when I saw a culture that existed thousands of years ago and galaxies away from even the most primitive of Terrans even coincidentally used the same name.  It would've really added to the depth if the Shivans had been given a different name by the Ancients. 

Other biggest problem I had with it is that there's not a whole lot of variation in the game.  There's a single scanning mission in the beginning, and the rest of the campaign was either holding off waves of bombers or blowing up everything on the map.  Lack of variety is just plain frustrating.  It shows a lack of originality on the part of the designers (which I know you don't lack--you even paid enough attention to detail to edit the rank structure--I noticed when I got promoted to Exarch :D ), and it makes for a very boring campaign in general.  Throw in a little variety and this would be amazing.

All in all, great job.  :)  If it weren't for the lack of mission variety and the Shivans still being called "Shivans", this would be the best campaign I've played in a long while.
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Axem -  I don't know what I'll do with my life now. Maybe I'll become a Nun, or take up Macrame. But where ever I go... I will remember you!
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Offline Commander Zane

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Re: RELEASE: Ancient-Shivan War, Act I
There's promotions in this mod? :eek:

 

Offline Mongoose

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Re: RELEASE: Ancient-Shivan War, Act I
The Bad:  (This might be a little long, but it's mostly pet peeves)  First off, Shiva is a Hindu god, from Terran history.  I was horribly taken aback when I saw a culture that existed thousands of years ago and galaxies away from even the most primitive of Terrans even coincidentally used the same name.  It would've really added to the depth if the Shivans had been given a different name by the Ancients.
I sort of viewed that particular element as being an artifact of the translation process that the mod seems to be founded on. Going by the opening cutscene and what the dev team has said in here, we're apparently looking at these events through the eyes of one of the Vasudan researchers on Altair translating the Ancient records there.  In that context, the term "Shivans" is being used as the translation equivalent of a corresponding Ancient-language term that conveys the same demonic idea.  It's the same way that a translation of an ancient text would refer to the Greeks as such, instead of something like "Hellenos."  YMMV, obviously.

 
Re: RELEASE: Ancient-Shivan War, Act I
The Bad:  (This might be a little long, but it's mostly pet peeves)  First off, Shiva is a Hindu god, from Terran history.  I was horribly taken aback when I saw a culture that existed thousands of years ago and galaxies away from even the most primitive of Terrans even coincidentally used the same name.  It would've really added to the depth if the Shivans had been given a different name by the Ancients.
I sort of viewed that particular element as being an artifact of the translation process that the mod seems to be founded on. Going by the opening cutscene and what the dev team has said in here, we're apparently looking at these events through the eyes of one of the Vasudan researchers on Altair translating the Ancient records there.  In that context, the term "Shivans" is being used as the translation equivalent of a corresponding Ancient-language term that conveys the same demonic idea.  It's the same way that a translation of an ancient text would refer to the Greeks as such, instead of something like "Hellenos."  YMMV, obviously.
Indeed. That's why some star systems have familiar names, too. Randomly generated names have been considered, but meh... That's when we put in the intro cutscene.

There's promotions in this mod? :eek:
:pimp:

 

Offline Colonol Dekker

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Re: RELEASE: Ancient-Shivan War, Act I
I could barely understand a word spoken in that intro.
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Offline General Battuta

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Re: RELEASE: Ancient-Shivan War, Act I
Aye. It was near-incomprehensible. You guys should get a real voice actor and do some audio cleanup on the lines.

 
Re: RELEASE: Ancient-Shivan War, Act I
Okay, noted. Is it the volume balance that makes it inaudible, or is the voice just crappy?
« Last Edit: January 11, 2010, 10:48:06 am by FreeSpaceFreak »

 

Offline Commander Zane

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Re: RELEASE: Ancient-Shivan War, Act I
I think it's the volume difference between the voice and the sound effects.

 

Offline Dilmah G

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Re: RELEASE: Ancient-Shivan War, Act I
Yeah, you really needed the voice louder, I could hear a few words, and that was it.

  

Offline Commander Zane

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Re: RELEASE: Ancient-Shivan War, Act I
Pretty much it was, "Our race was once a proud people blbehlehlelbblehlbelhlbl---*Incomprehensable dialogue continues*"

 

Offline Androgeos Exeunt

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Re: RELEASE: Ancient-Shivan War, Act I
Pretty much it was, "Our race was once a proud people blbehlehlelbblehlbelhlbl---*Incomprehensable dialogue continues*"




Shiva is a Hindu god, from Terran history.  I was horribly taken aback when I saw a culture that existed thousands of years ago and galaxies away from even the most primitive of Terrans even coincidentally used the same name.  It would've really added to the depth if the Shivans had been given a different name by the Ancients.

The only other name I can think of to give them is "The Great Destroyers", but that should come much later, once the Shivans have started inflicting massive losses on the Ancients.

Perhaps a name that's based on the phrase "coming out of nowhere" might be fitting.
« Last Edit: January 11, 2010, 11:48:58 am by Androgeos Exeunt »
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Offline TopAce

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Re: RELEASE: Ancient-Shivan War, Act I
Okay, guys. I have a problem. Apparently, it's something wrong on my end, because I couldn't find anyone asking about it here.

In the last mission
Spoiler:
The Demon jumps in with 7% hull. We - a proud lot of bombers :P - manage to take its hull down to 1%, but it's ship-guardianed. On my first run-through, I simply destroyed the Demon by ~K-ing it, then nothing happened. Apparently, you didn't intend that Demon to be destroyed, so with that in mind, I replayed the mission. Then the Demon jumped in with 1% hull(!) and I let it take down my destroyer and all my wingmen. Nothing happened again.

I received the "No debriefing for mission: blah" message both times in the debrief. No mission messages of any kind popped that told me what to do.

Okay, I played the mission again through the Tech Room and now it worked as it should have. I don't know what could have caused the problem, but it wasn't present in the Tech Room. Maybe it's variable-related?
« Last Edit: January 11, 2010, 01:29:44 pm by TopAce »
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Offline Nuclear1

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Re: RELEASE: Ancient-Shivan War, Act I
Pretty much it was, "Our race was once a proud people blbehlehlelbblehlbelhlbl---*Incomprehensable dialogue continues*"

You mean you don't know the entire Ancients monologues from FS1?  That's all it was. :)
Spoon - I stand in awe by your flawless fredding. Truely, never before have I witnessed such magnificant display of beamz.
Axem -  I don't know what I'll do with my life now. Maybe I'll become a Nun, or take up Macrame. But where ever I go... I will remember you!
Axem - Sorry to post again when I said I was leaving for good, but something was nagging me. I don't want to say it in a way that shames the campaign but I think we can all agree it is actually.. incomplete. It is missing... Voice Acting.
Quanto - I for one would love to lend my beautiful singing voice into this wholesome project.
Nuclear1 - I want a duet.
AndrewofDoom - Make it a trio!

 

Offline Commander Zane

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Re: RELEASE: Ancient-Shivan War, Act I
I know that's all it was but with the background noise you CAN'T HEAR IT.
I merely quoted what it sounded like as I watched the Intro.

 

Offline Mongoose

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Re: RELEASE: Ancient-Shivan War, Act I
I could barely understand a word spoken in that intro.
The only thing I couldn't get at all were the Vasudan names being used, which I just gave up on figuring out; everything else was fairly clear after another watch-through.  I legitimately liked the sound of the actor's voice, but his speech could stand with being somewhat clearer and more distinct.  I also found the lines taken from the FS1 Ancient monologues to be on the quiet side, but I'd imagine that was a side-effect of having to rip them from the cutscenes, and seeing as how most of us know those lines by heart anyway, it wasn't a huge deal.

And I'll second the issue that TopAce experienced in the final mission, although mine didn't turn out to be nearly as game-breaking:

Spoiler:
The Demon jumped in from the outset with 1% hull integrity, which I found puzzling, but it managed to successfully take down our destroyer, and the mission ended as designed.  I kind of shrugged my shoulders at it and moved on. :p

 

Offline Spoon

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Re: RELEASE: Ancient-Shivan War, Act I
Mine jumped in at 45% hull, both times I played that mission.
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Offline TopAce

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Re: RELEASE: Ancient-Shivan War, Act I
I think it's Special Hits-related.
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Offline Droid803

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Re: RELEASE: Ancient-Shivan War, Act I
Pretty much it was, "Our race was once a proud people blbehlehlelbblehlbelhlbl---*Incomprehensable dialogue continues*"

It's the other intro that is important (the one that replaces the FS2 intro cinematic). This one's just the FS1 monologue - you can get a transcript of it on FSwiki.
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