[Phantom Hoover]

Actually it did. There were a bunch of missions that had very little player agency and 'forced plot failures' of missions for the sake of storytelling.

I really don't see how a forced failure is any worse than a 'forced' success in that regard. Again: I really can't think of any particular instances where WiH missions railroaded you more than FS2 ones.

[manwiththemachinegun]

I don't think anyone is implying act 3 was a failure, but constructive criticism helps result in better design down the road.

People thought Act I and II were too derivative, and some think Act III was too much. I think a few folks have said the later acts aren't as extreme in their design.

You can't please everyone, but I don't think pointing out what was flawed from an audience perspective is bad. Those that love it still will anyway. Those that don't have other things to look forward too.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

A lot of your questions are explicitly answered in the campaign, whether in R1 or here - the scope of previous Fedayeen action or the precise nature of Gef capabilities, for instance. I don't blame you for missing some of it, given the sheer amount of information flying around, but rest assured these are all questions that were carefully considered and answered.

Laporte has certainly become more ruthless, but again, that's an arc that should have been profoundly evident even before you hit Sunglare.

That's... easy to say from a dev perspective, when you have all the arcs carefully lined out in front of you. From a player perspective, we have to find stuff out, puzzle clues together as we go - and by the responses here, there seems to be a significant amount of people for whom the clues were not clear enough.

But anyway, that's beside the point - I'm not so much seeking answers to questions, as much as wondering the fact that there are questions. I had very little doubts playing AoA or WiH:R1, but monumental amounts playing Tenebra. What changed?

I guess it might be the fact that, for the first time, I can't really identify with the main character anymore. Whether it's the all-consuming urge to kill, or simply the fact that she only seems to exist inside the cockpit and the Dreamscape - I don't know, maybe both.

Or it could be because Tenebra is so devoid of emotion. While AoA and WiH:R1 take the player on a grand tour through despair and hope, fear and audacity, sacrifice and heroism, Tenebra felt utterly empty in that area. Leaving the player to judge the story objectively and prick holes into it, rather than being part of it and being in awe of what happens.

It's just that I'm exceptionally confused as to why people are upset by there being (more) gameplay in a game.
I don't even feel that it came at the cost of any story depth, it's just that the story that is there is buried deeper within the optional texts and subtext and not presented to the player on a platter, so to speak. I feel that's the mark of a well-made game, where a rich story is there if you look for it, without getting in the way of the core gameplay.

I didn't make this thread because there's more gameplay per se (though apparently, some others are upset at it) - but because I do feel it came at the cost of storytelling. It's not even that the new gameplay gets in the way of the story, but rather I feel that the story has been neglected in favour of "fancy new features". A few accounts of daily life on board the Masyaf would have done wonders. Getting to know the people (including the new Noemi) behind the head anis. It is obvious that that daily life is there, given some mentions of showers and barbecues, but why not talk about it?

Yes, the Dreamscape made some effort towards exposing the characters - but it mostly felt like empty conversation to me. I play BP for entertainment as much as you do - entertainment, for me, is not trying to reconstruct some plot from shattered bits of information. That's archaeology. Presenting a story on a platter is not necessarily a bad thing, it eases immersion and boosts the overall experience - like in AoA and WiH:R1. From the Dreamscape, nothing really "stuck". Perhaps because there was a lack of imagery to stimulate the imagination, get the brain going... I vividly remember Lorna Simms standing next to the sparring ring, explaining how she thinks the war could be won by attacking the GTVA's logistics. It's as if I was there. The Dreamscape doesn't come even remotely close to that.

[Mars]

The characters are losing their humanity. Yes.

I think perhaps you are more on the Star Trek and less on the Solaris end of Science Fiction?

[General Battuta]

The things you see as mistakes are, I think, storytelling choices that didn't work for you. I can guarantee to you that the story was not neglected - the same people were involved, more raw time went into it. The same process that produced your favorite scenes from R1 was at work here. The story doesn't put its weight in the same places, however, because it's trying to talk about different things. And it sounds like those aren't things you're interested in.

I do find it a little frustrating to see you asking questions and then failing to actually ask them. Like this:

Getting to know the people (including the new Noemi) behind the head anis. It is obvious that that daily life is there, given some mentions of showers and barbecues, but why not talk about it?

Why, indeed? Why not talk about it? What point could there be in eliding the mundane humanity of the Fedayeen characters?

That's... easy to say from a dev perspective, when you have all the arcs carefully lined out in front of you. From a player perspective, we have to find stuff out, puzzle clues together as we go - and by the responses here, there seems to be a significant amount of people for whom the clues were not clear enough.

I think it's easy to say from a player perspective as well, since players have been so incredibly fast and talented at putting together the pieces.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

I think perhaps you are more on the Star Trek and less on the Solaris end of Science Fiction?

I like Star Trek

The things you see as mistakes are, I think, storytelling choices that didn't work for you. I can guarantee to you that the story was not neglected - the same people were involved, more raw time went into it. The same process that produced your favorite scenes from R1 was at work here. The story doesn't put its weight in the same places, however, because it's trying to talk about different things. And it sounds like those aren't things you're interested in.

That sounds reasonable, evidently you have a better view on the development process than I do... And like I said in OP, the majority of players seems to be very happy with the design choices, I'm just a disgruntled minority

Getting to know the people (including the new Noemi) behind the head anis. It is obvious that that daily life is there, given some mentions of showers and barbecues, but why not talk about it?

Why, indeed? Why not talk about it? What point could there be in eliding the mundane humanity of the Fedayeen characters?

Yet they still shower, they barbecue like ordinary people, and there does still seem to be some old-fashioned camaraderie between wingmen ("Let's see how much you can get out of me"). If you want to go the transhumanist route, why not go all the way?

That's... easy to say from a dev perspective, when you have all the arcs carefully lined out in front of you. From a player perspective, we have to find stuff out, puzzle clues together as we go - and by the responses here, there seems to be a significant amount of people for whom the clues were not clear enough.

I think it's easy to say from a player perspective as well, since players have been so incredibly fast and talented at putting together the pieces.

Some of the players puzzled some of the pieces together... You stated before that there are things nobody ever picked up on. Isn't that a valid reason to elaborate on them in subsequent releases?

[Killer Whale]

I guess it might be the fact that, for the first time, I can't really identify with the main character anymore. Whether it's the all-consuming urge to kill, or simply the fact that she only seems to exist inside the cockpit and the Dreamscape - I don't know, maybe both.

Well I can identify with her. I'm playing a combat based video game, the whole idea about this huge genre of video games is that killing people is in some manner "fun". Whenever I take down an enemy in freespace (Or in TF2, or WoW, Torchlight, XCom or whatever other combat game happens to be on my desktop) I feel a slight amount of satisfaction. I just overpowered that avatar, character or person and it makes me feel more powerful in a small and very subtle way. But I know I shouldn't; killing is bad, but with no obvious consequences I put my conscious out of the way and call it a game. War in Heaven made that connection with me in the very first mission (well... second): "This is actually kinda' fun".

Getting to know the people (including the new Noemi) behind the head anis.

New Noemi? This isn't a new Noemi (IMHO), this is the exact same Noemi I fought as in Act 1, but she has accepted her violent nature in part because she is surrounded by comrades who support psychopathy (I'm not sure if that word means what I think it means) and feels as if she needs to be respected by them (something I do all the time (feel the need to be respected by people I don't even like (not that she doesn't like them))). You could say she's almost peer pressured into being violent, but it's more that she as unleashed that part of her personality perhaps a bit too readily and hidden away her love because it isn't helpful in her current situation and because it hurts.

This instalment for me was a dive into the heart of darkness (another term I use and don't know what it means), it is dark, it is edgy, and it is absolutely frightening. Not even Universal Truth frightening, but frightening because it felt so right. To expand on that statement: Everyone on the census thread seemed to say they felt the deaths of the federation fighters was necessary, and I though so too. I'm (or at least my idea of myself is) a pretty peaceful guy and I would never try and kill anyone and always avoid confrontation if possible, but Tenebra asked the question when everything is on the line. Not a war, not a petty fued between two idiotic governments over land and ruling rights, but the very survival of the human race. When everything is at stake, how far would you go? Tenebra made me fear the answer to that question, fear it far more than rise.ogg, shivans or shadows in the dark.

IMHO

[Crybertrance]

-snip-

^This...all this right here...

[An4ximandros]

Psychopathy is a personality disorder that has been variously characterized by shallow emotions (including reduced fear, a lack of empathy, and stress tolerance), coldheartedness, egocentricity, superficial charm, manipulativeness, irresponsibility, impulsivity, criminality, antisocial behavior, a lack of remorse, and a parasitic lifestyle. ~ Wikipedia

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=what-psychopaths-teach-us-about-how-to-succeed

[General Battuta]

Some of the players puzzled some of the pieces together... You stated before that there are things nobody ever picked up on. Isn't that a valid reason to elaborate on them in subsequent releases?

The things nobody ever picked up on were clues like 'what is the Nauticus' cargo and why are the Gefs and Tevs both after it'. But a lot of your questions, like the changing scope of Fedayeen operations, were answered directly to you in CBs. 

[docfu]

Psychopathy is a personality disorder that has been variously characterized by shallow emotions (including reduced fear, a lack of empathy, and stress tolerance), coldheartedness, egocentricity, superficial charm, manipulativeness, irresponsibility, impulsivity, criminality, antisocial behavior, a lack of remorse, and a parasitic lifestyle. ~ Wikipedia

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=what-psychopaths-teach-us-about-how-to-succeed

This is me when I post negative reviews on a message board. 100% pure me.

When I said that I wasn't able to believe in WIH's story, it's not because the story is flawed. Act 3 definitely pushed the limits of Freespace but pushed them in multiple directions at once. That's not the problem. The problem is that I said it wasn't believable anymore.

Instead of playing myself and getting angry at the game for being difficult, I find myself, as some people have said, unable to connect to the main character, Laporte and the crazy situations this one character is getting pushed into. I'm not ripping into the dev's(at least, it wasn't my intention to) about how they've pushed Freespace to new limits. It's about how this one character, central to everything in the universe, is now in the "be everything, do everything" position that ultimately tips the scale of the war.


I said the character isn't believable because in my opinion she isn't.

That's no reason to throw out all of your work or start a huge flame war. It's just time to realize that "wow, not everyone gets it." Do you keep your work the way it is? Or change it to make it fit the people you are appealing to.

I go through this a lot with design. I do children's English learning materials in Japan. The one thing I've learned is that the more complex the directions get, even having a single piece of paper with more than one goal (such as write a word, vs choose when the word is used properly) things can go terribly, terribly wrong.

There are two schools of thought in education for a teachers purpose: one is to instruct the student, step by step, through a process. The other is to give the student a task and see if they can perform it on their own, then ask them what they've learned.

This may sound like it has little to do with BP, and that's true. But I have to point out: if the game's story is to be believable, I need to be guided through it with as little friction as possible. The goal with any science fiction story is to have the player give up as few notions of reality (aliens don't exist->shivans, everythings fine->we're all going to die) as possible while getting them into the action.

I can't be spending time trying to figure out the plot. I should, when I read the story, get a very clear understanding of the situation so I can enjoy the game. Even in a mystery novel, you'll see clues leading up to something, but if that something is not believable or if the clues aren't enough, it makes you want to throw the book in the trash and go find a new one because you've taken the readers relaxed understanding of reality and pushed it over the edge to where they look up and realize "I'm sitting here reading a book" instead of enjoying the story.

I'd like to go back and redo all of war in heaven and see where this stuff fits in, not because someone on the forum/dev team says it fits in, but because it FEELS like it does. That's a mighty high and lofty goal for me to set for you.

Don't worry about it though. I'm just a psychopath posting on your forum.

[Icefox]

Huh? It felt like everything fit in rather well to me. If you were paying attention everything was mentioned and fits together remarkably well. Try replaying Act I-III together and make sure you aren't just doing Act III and relying on year-old memory for the events of Acts I and II. As I understand it, WiH is meant to be played as a single game, not as a series of sequels over years, it's just happening to be released over long spans of time to - as has been mentioned - keep development going (I'd assume by keeping people motivated by mostly positive community feedback?). It's quite a brilliant plot, really, and I look forward to see how things tie into Act IV and V, and how part 3 proceeds from there. Perhaps they'll finally finish the entire trilogy by the time I'm old. *snicker*

I worry that what some people are calling for is essentially a dumbing down and/or gutting of the plot (whether or not they really mean it as such, "changing story direction" due to popular demand or vocal minorities nearly always results in this). I'd prefer you guys not change your plans due to that kind of feedback and want to add my voice to things as such. Please keep along your present path, guys. Very awesome work that I enjoyed immensely. That, and I have an ulterior motive - to keep your guys' morale up and add to the folks saying they in fact love the game, including Act 3. Gotta keep your morale up! Like watering a plant and giving it sunlight. Maybe it will spout more Acts err I mean petals, and if we're very, very lucky, perhaps flower into a big ole' Blue Planetia Third-partus - a very rare and exquisite specimen indeed. I'm all for constructive crit, don't get me wrong, but really, I liked Act 3 quite a lot and would have to think on it a bit to give much good constructive crit on it. I'm sure I could find some, but it was pretty dang satisfying to me at least.

Also I'm one of the folks that enjoyed the mission variety. The only one that was kind of weak to me was the turret defense one and it was still worth having for the variety and the way it challenged the player. As far as why it seemed kind of weak to me, well, it's a decent idea, but not so sure the FSO engine quite handles the concept so well in terms of UI and usability. Worth a try, glad it's part of Act 3, but I'm not sure I'd include more things like it unless you can get mouse control into it, or a smoother key-based UI. That said, one of the things I liked about the mission variety was how I was constantly being challenged with new problems and issues, and being asked to approach them from vastly different angles (with various new mechanics) - from the perspective of a wing leader, an assassin, a cap-ship captain, and a general. Very VERY nifty assortment. I'm even glad the tower defense bit was in there, even if the UI was a bit awkward.

I hope we see some of the mechanics in Act 3 make a return - especially fleet command like Her Finest Hour. The capital ship command was pretty cool too, I'd admit. It'd be nifty to have both going on at once - hoping you guys have a mission or two somewhere in Act IV or V in mind where you are both a capship captain and the fleet commander at once. It would be glorious. Though perhaps tricky to pull off without overwhelming the player, depending on the size of the engagement and the complexity of the capship under your command.

[Luis Dias]

Don't worry about it though. I'm just a psychopath posting on your forum.

docfu, I think you misunderstood An4 there. He was answering Killer Whale's question of "what is psychopathy", it was definitely not meant as a stab to you.

So, let me try to rephrase your problem. You think Tenebra jumped the shark with the suspension of disbelief for cramming to much new stuff without the proper fluidity? A curiosity from some of these complaints is that they share this sentiment of "too much too fast info", but they'll either say this about plot or about gameplay (or not at all).

[Woolie Wool]

As for the Karuna turning a 180 and getting shot at from behind, you are exactly right. I've never seen one freespace mission where a ship needed to physically turn away from the enemy and increase it's distance before jumping out. Being that impossibly close to the Carthage fleet, having turned a 180 and burning away isn't plausible.

Delenda Est.  The Yangtze and the Indus both do it right in front of you.

Being able to quickly maneuver and get out of a bad situation is one of the primary design features of the Karuna. They demonstrate over and over that they're not near-immobile wallowers like the Orions, so I don't understand why people would expect them to move like Orions.

[General Battuta]

I'd like to go back and redo all of war in heaven and see where this stuff fits in, not because someone on the forum/dev team says it fits in, but because it FEELS like it does. That's a mighty high and lofty goal for me to set for you.

I'm confident it's one we've met, though!

[docfu]

Being able to quickly maneuver and get out of a bad situation is one of the primary design features of the Karuna. They demonstrate over and over that they're not near-immobile wallowers like the Orions, so I don't understand why people would expect them to move like Orions.

Sorry, I want to clarify this, there is no reason a Karuna should be that close to an enemy fleet alone. Even with the other two ships it was with withdrawing, there is no tactical advantage to rushing a thick wall of enemy ships first only to get cut down and leave the artillery defenseless. In the case of Post Meridian, the ship jumped off course. That is believable. Even all 3 ships getting cut down would be believable...but jumping in to see a Karuna with it's tail to the fleet because it turned a full 180 while two artillery ships sit back and pound targets...that's a NOT BELIEVABLE situation for me.

Even with conservation of momentum(or glide) it would make sense for the ship to veer off to one side and strafe the enemy or in the case of Post Meridian again, for the ships to change angle and warp out (in the case of the multiplayer version on hard/insane mode.)

But again...a FULL 180?

As for the comment about being a psychopath, I didn't take it personally. I just identified with it like anyone truly objective should.

[Crybertrance]

Being able to quickly maneuver and get out of a bad situation is one of the primary design features of the Karuna. They demonstrate over and over that they're not near-immobile wallowers like the Orions, so I don't understand why people would expect them to move like Orions.

Sorry, I want to clarify this, there is no reason a Karuna should be that close to an enemy fleet alone. Even with the other two ships it was with withdrawing, there is no tactical advantage to rushing a thick wall of enemy ships first only to get cut down and leave the artillery defenseless. In the case of Post Meridian, the ship jumped off course. That is believable. Even all 3 ships getting cut down would be believable...but jumping in to see a Karuna with it's tail to the fleet because it turned a full 180 while two artillery ships sit back and pound targets...that's a NOT BELIEVABLE situation for me.

Even with conservation of momentum(or glide) it would make sense for the ship to veer off to one side and strafe the enemy or in the case of Post Meridian again, for the ships to change angle and warp out (in the case of the multiplayer version on hard/insane mode.)

But again...a FULL 180?

As for the comment about being a psychopath, I didn't take it personally. I just identified with it like anyone truly objective should.

Dude, did you even READ the briefing? The Serenity wasn't flying solo...it was Escorted by a whole bunch of cruisers (CruRon Alpha and CruRon Beta, each CruRon having atleast 2 cruisers each)... It was presumably deployed on the front-lines to attack the Carthage's Escort warships and to distract beamfire from the two artillery. Now by the time the mission starts...both CruRons have been decimated (some warped out, while others outright got gutted by beamfire)

Its good to keep in mind that the battle of HFH has being going on for some time now...and the Fedayeen were deployed because the "situation is (was) degrading fast"

[Aesaar]

But again...a FULL 180?

Yeah, Karunas tend to do it when running away from things they can't handle.  The Indus sure as hell wasn't facing the Imperieuse when it jumps out in Delenda Est.  And the Yangtze did a full 180 twice in that mission.

And like Crybertrance said, the Serenity wasn't alone at first.

[General Battuta]

Being able to quickly maneuver and get out of a bad situation is one of the primary design features of the Karuna. They demonstrate over and over that they're not near-immobile wallowers like the Orions, so I don't understand why people would expect them to move like Orions.

Sorry, I want to clarify this, there is no reason a Karuna should be that close to an enemy fleet alone. Even with the other two ships it was with withdrawing, there is no tactical advantage to rushing a thick wall of enemy ships first only to get cut down and leave the artillery defenseless. In the case of Post Meridian, the ship jumped off course. That is believable. Even all 3 ships getting cut down would be believable...but jumping in to see a Karuna with it's tail to the fleet because it turned a full 180 while two artillery ships sit back and pound targets...that's a NOT BELIEVABLE situation for me.

Even with conservation of momentum(or glide) it would make sense for the ship to veer off to one side and strafe the enemy or in the case of Post Meridian again, for the ships to change angle and warp out (in the case of the multiplayer version on hard/insane mode.)

But again...a FULL 180?

You're told exactly why the Serenity is where it is. Just pay attention.

As for the comment about being a psychopath, I didn't take it personally. I just identified with it like anyone truly objective should.

No one called you a psychopath, christ. They were talking about Laporte and the Fedayeen.

[Juno75]

As much as it pains me to be "that person" (meaning registering at the hlpbb just to post this), I feel I'd do this accomplished mod a disservice if I wouldn't try to give my honest feedback here. Allow me to explain:

Blue Planet has always been kinda unusual and I think there's no shame in acknowledging that past releases had their fair share of problems. Such as the convoluted story, being told through walls of text, endless (and unnecessary) exposition, doled out in (very) broad strokes and huge volumes. Or the heel/face-turn premise on which the whole storyline is based on.

Unfortunately Tenebra was (at least in my opinion) a move in the wrong direction on so many levels. Instead of tightening the overall game experience (less exposition, less wall of text, shorter and more focused missions, less "space magic"), the whole episode is bursting at the seams with new gameplay ideas and supernatural plot devices that it feels like a disjointed mess (let alone the protagonists god complex).

For the moment, let's ignore the core problems of infusing a quite down-to-earth (and therefore very approachable and still believable) scifi universe with all the supernatural stuff, thus straying far away from the premises of that original scifi universe. Let's say one can accept all these things happening in the "expanded universe" (as told by Blue Planet), Tenebra is just asking for too much suspension of disbelief.

It all starts with the fadeyeen premise: The fact that sol is so rich in resources that the UEF was able to construct a space navy able to withstand advanced (!) GTVA warships (designed to defeat much stronger foes) - very far fetched, but let's run with it for now. Now within that far-fetched premise there's a spec ops branch that not only has far more advanced technology than anything the GTVA has, computers that can predict the future through simulations and psychology, stealth fighters that are not only totally invisible (as long as they don't shoot), but have viral strikes that can shut down defense networks (and in later missions do whatever is needed for the sake of the mission or storytelling) because all GTVA systems have backdoors (as the hammer of light is much more powerful than ever thought). Whole battles are then won through deploying just 4 of those stealth fighters (with three of them always wearing story-armor).

Not only is Blue Planet asking the player to believe that all these things somehow fit into the quite reasonable (in scifi terms) Freespace universe, now it's asking to get away with even more outlandish ideas. But even that wouldn't be so bad if the gameplay wouldn't suffer for it.

There is a professional term for what has happened here and it's called a "designer's game" (or developer's game, take your pick). This happens if features or game mechanics are developed without the player (or majority of players) and their expectations and behaviors in mind, but only your own. Acknowledging that this is a mod done by volunteers using an engine enhanced by volunteers, that's absolutely understandable (expected even).

But I see so much potential and energy here that I hate to see it being wasted on bad design choices. The whole additional targeting/artillery/viral strike/etc mechanics are convoluted and could've been achieved without resorting to the deus-ex-machina viral strikes. The tower defense mission should've been scrapped entirely. The asteroid mission could've been done with the more interesting but underused mechanics of the original game (e.g. the TAG system), but should've been scrapped for the story premise alone.

It's quite simple really - if you ask your audience to believe a quite outlandish story continuation in an universe that was quite grounded, you shouldn't ask your audience to accept outlandish mission premises and convoluted mission mechanics at the same time. Do the story, do a mission with basic gameplay (but with high emotional stakes) to grip your audience, then do a more normal mission before showing off your magnum opus (the climax) which is followed by an aftermath mission. These are storytelling (and game design) basics. The previous chapters had their moments where these rules had been followed and they were better for it.

tl;dr: Even when ignoring the soap opera story riddled with deus ex machina plot devices, Tenebra is a convoluted albeit technically impressive mess lacking gameplay and storytelling focus and tries to shoehorn too many new mechanics and ideas into an established universe, thus straining the patience and willingness of less emotionally engaged players to believe in its premise.