Author Topic: RELEASE: The Scroll of Atankharzim, Part I  (Read 204046 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Re: RELEASE: The Scroll of Atankharzim, Part I
Was the Zod-speech generator ever released to the public?

 

Offline Goober5000

  • HLP Loremaster
  • Moderator
  • 214
    • Goober5000 Productions
Re: RELEASE: The Scroll of Atankharzim, Part I
No.  Sesq hasn't responded to my post in the internal forum.

 
Re: RELEASE: The Scroll of Atankharzim, Part I
He hasn't been around since September

 

Online Thisisaverylongusername

  • 27
  • This is fine.
Re: RELEASE: The Scroll of Atankharzim, Part I
In S1-05, the nebula is a very bright greenish-white, and I can barely read my HUD as a result.

Have an screenshot of this mess.

[attachment eaten by a Shivan]
If the opposite of pro is con, then is the opposite of progress Congress?

 

Offline Goober5000

  • HLP Loremaster
  • Moderator
  • 214
    • Goober5000 Productions
Re: RELEASE: The Scroll of Atankharzim, Part I
Yeah, this was a tough problem to debug -- not helped by the fact that things changed between 3.7.4 and 3.8 and the guy who changed them is no longer around.  A workaround will be in the next Scroll release, but in the meantime you can fix the brightness by turning off post-processing.

The next release is also planned to fix the positioning of the "determining location" box.

 

Offline Su-tehp

  • Devil in the Deep Blue
  • 210
Re: RELEASE: The Scroll of Atankharzim, Part I
Do you have a rough date of when the next Scroll release will be?
REPUBLICANO FACTIO DELENDA EST

Creator of the Devil and the Deep Blue campaign - Current Story Editor of the Exile campaign

"Let my people handle this, we're trained professionals. Well, we're semi-trained, quasi-professionals, at any rate." --Roy Greenhilt,
The Order of the Stick

"Let´s face it, we Freespace players may not be the most sophisticated of gaming freaks, but we do know enough to recognize a heap of steaming crap when it´s right in front of us."
--Su-tehp, while posting on the DatDB internal forum

"The meaning of life is that in the end you always get screwed."
--The Catch 42 Expression, The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast

 

Offline Goober5000

  • HLP Loremaster
  • Moderator
  • 214
    • Goober5000 Productions
Re: RELEASE: The Scroll of Atankharzim, Part I
Ideally within the week, but my estimates aren't always accurate.  Also, I had hoped to include the voice line fixes but Sesq hasn't responded to me this month.

The Scroll update should take less time than the FSPort MVP update, so I'll probably fix Scroll first.

 

Offline Goober5000

  • HLP Loremaster
  • Moderator
  • 214
    • Goober5000 Productions
Re: RELEASE: The Scroll of Atankharzim, Part I
New update posted on both Knossos and FSO Installer.  It contains a number of minor mission fixes as well as the nebula brightness fix.

 

Offline Antares

  • 28
  • Author of The Shivan Manifesto
Re: RELEASE: The Scroll of Atankharzim, Part I
Is there a changelog for Scroll (or other campaigns in Knossos)? I've seen multiple updates, but there's no way to look at what's changed.
We have returned to continue our purification of this galaxy. It is again your turn to be crushed beneath the great force that is the Antaran army. All your petty squabbling with the other beings in this galaxy is meaningless. The Antaran fleet will destroy you all, one by one. You may not surrender. You cannot win. Your only option is death.

 
Re: RELEASE: The Scroll of Atankharzim, Part I
Nope there isn't.

 

Offline Goober5000

  • HLP Loremaster
  • Moderator
  • 214
    • Goober5000 Productions
Re: RELEASE: The Scroll of Atankharzim, Part I
Well, there's the SVN revision log, but there are plenty of spoilers for Part II mixed in with the Part I updates.

If there is a major change of public interest, I'll almost certainly say something in the thread.  But the vast majority of Scroll updates are mundane tweaks or minor bug fixes.  The most recent update added MediaVP-style annotations for primary and secondary weapon banks to the Scroll ships, and the next update will add annotations to the Scroll weapons.

 

Offline Antares

  • 28
  • Author of The Shivan Manifesto
Re: RELEASE: The Scroll of Atankharzim, Part I
Among the confirmed kills in my pilot file: several pirate fighters and bombers, all listed as "Unknown#" Comanche, Navajo, etc., and one Asteroid#Large.  :p
We have returned to continue our purification of this galaxy. It is again your turn to be crushed beneath the great force that is the Antaran army. All your petty squabbling with the other beings in this galaxy is meaningless. The Antaran fleet will destroy you all, one by one. You may not surrender. You cannot win. Your only option is death.

 
Re: RELEASE: The Scroll of Atankharzim, Part I
and one Asteroid#Large.  :p

Good work, to hell with these Asteroid#Larges :D

 

Offline SF-Junky

  • 29
  • Bread can mold, what can you do?
Re: RELEASE: The Scroll of Atankharzim, Part I
I was surprised to see that I had actually posted in this thread back in 2017. Because I never got to actually play this campaign until a few days ago, which was a mistake.

Because this is a fine piece of FREDing. :)

The Scroll of Atankharzim clearly breathes the spirit of the old days, e.g. the player is a mute rather than an actualy character and you cannot oversee that the classic masterpiece of Derelict was a main source of influence on the authors. Yet, it contains plenty of modern-day SCP features to improve mission design which was overally flawless. I liked that very much. I don't think that you have to re-invent the wheel in every mission and TSoA proves it.

The campaign does a good job at not just telling the player but actually have him feel to fight in the wilderness, beyond the Frontier. The choice of music is just right here. Especially during the early missions you have a nice impression that something mysterious and wunderful is happening here. Yet I have to agree with Antares that this impression created by the score is somewhat counteracted by the tedious reactions of the player's copilots who are neither particularly excited about the discovery of the Knossos nor the appearance of the Shivans in general nor the Lucifer in particular.

By far the biggest point of critique I have is that story-wise the campaign does not exploit its potential. I understand that this is merely the exposition. Yet this beauty is 24 missions long and I think you could do a little more than show bringing up the questions of what is going on with those Shivans and introducing some minor background information which does not have any significant influence on what is happening in the campaign itself (e.g. there is something called the NTB or that the Sol Knossos is actually being built). While I don't believe at all that the lack of actualy characters is much of a problem, it certainly gives you, as campaign authors, additional opportunities to make your missions more exciting by adding interesting dialogue. I very much enjoyed the interaction between the Terran and Vasudan pilots in the first mission after the GVTA loop. Especially the first couple of missions, while feeling nicely feel a little anaemic and could benefit from denser dialogues. Let your copilots talk about what is currently going on, not only in-mission events like the discovery of the Knossos, but also political/economical/social background events, what they do in their free time, what they did before they joined their current assignment. This contributes a lot to world building and gives an impression that this is a world populated by actual people. I very much liked that ISF admiral and hope to learn more about him in the future.

Overall, however, despite the somewhat lean story, this is definitely a campaign I'd recommend to anybody to play. :)

 

Offline Goober5000

  • HLP Loremaster
  • Moderator
  • 214
    • Goober5000 Productions
Re: RELEASE: The Scroll of Atankharzim, Part I
Thanks for the kind words. :)

The Scroll of Atankharzim clearly breathes the spirit of the old days, e.g. the player is a mute rather than an actualy character and you cannot oversee that the classic masterpiece of Derelict was a main source of influence on the authors. Yet, it contains plenty of modern-day SCP features to improve mission design which was overally flawless. I liked that very much. I don't think that you have to re-invent the wheel in every mission and TSoA proves it.

This is very much in line with my thinking.  I still like the feel of some of those older campaigns, and we tried to keep the classic atmosphere and experience while bringing some new things to the table.

Quote
The campaign does a good job at not just telling the player but actually have him feel to fight in the wilderness, beyond the Frontier. The choice of music is just right here. Especially during the early missions you have a nice impression that something mysterious and wunderful is happening here. Yet I have to agree with Antares that this impression created by the score is somewhat counteracted by the tedious reactions of the player's copilots who are neither particularly excited about the discovery of the Knossos nor the appearance of the Shivans in general nor the Lucifer in particular.

Sesquipedalian found some really nice music, and of course credit should go to the composer of that music, who did a fantastic job.  I tried to evoke a sense of wonder in the first couple of missions, and I'm glad to hear it worked.  I disagree that the reactions of the Vasudans to the Knossos were "tedious"; I tried to communicate excitement in the in-mission dialogue and the following command briefing.  Maybe I should have made them even more excited? :)  I can, however, see that the Vasudans more or less took the return of the Shivans in stride.

Quote
By far the biggest point of critique I have is that story-wise the campaign does not exploit its potential. I understand that this is merely the exposition. Yet this beauty is 24 missions long and I think you could do a little more than show bringing up the questions of what is going on with those Shivans and introducing some minor background information which does not have any significant influence on what is happening in the campaign itself (e.g. there is something called the NTB or that the Sol Knossos is actually being built). While I don't believe at all that the lack of actualy characters is much of a problem, it certainly gives you, as campaign authors, additional opportunities to make your missions more exciting by adding interesting dialogue. I very much enjoyed the interaction between the Terran and Vasudan pilots in the first mission after the GVTA loop. Especially the first couple of missions, while feeling nicely feel a little anaemic and could benefit from denser dialogues. Let your copilots talk about what is currently going on, not only in-mission events like the discovery of the Knossos, but also political/economical/social background events, what they do in their free time, what they did before they joined their current assignment. This contributes a lot to world building and gives an impression that this is a world populated by actual people. I very much liked that ISF admiral and hope to learn more about him in the future.

These are some fair points.  There were supposed to be several more fiction viewer entries in Part I; I really hope that Sesquipedalian can one day complete them.

The NTB was originally not going to appear at all in Part I; they are much more important to the story in Part II.  I added them to Part I to provide foreshadowing and to give the player something to do before the jump node is discovered.  The Sol Knossos was actually intended to do exactly what you describe: add some additional depth to the story that goes beyond what you see in the missions.

I added the Terran-Vasudan dialogue for the purpose of demonstrating how far the relationship had come since ST:R and even FS2, more than just for the sake of the conversation itself.  But you raise a good point, there aren't many other conversations in Part I that are of similar length or density.  I'll keep this in mind for Part II.

 

Offline SF-Junky

  • 29
  • Bread can mold, what can you do?
Re: RELEASE: The Scroll of Atankharzim, Part I
Sesquipedalian found some really nice music, and of course credit should go to the composer of that music, who did a fantastic job.  I tried to evoke a sense of wonder in the first couple of missions, and I'm glad to hear it worked.  I disagree that the reactions of the Vasudans to the Knossos were "tedious"; I tried to communicate excitement in the in-mission dialogue and the following command briefing.  Maybe I should have made them even more excited? :)
I have to add here that I've played through the campaign once which means that I didn't have all details left in my mind when I was writing the review. I'll pay more attention to this next time.


Quote
There were supposed to be several more fiction viewer entries in Part I; I really hope that Sesquipedalian can one day complete them.
Since I don't know to what extent you plan on using the fiction viewer, please read this only as a general note. Even though I make use of the fiction viewer and other out-mission dialogue in Storm Front III, I think that FREDers should not overuse the fiction viewer. Simply because it's still a game and not a book. We should try to tell as much of the story as we can in-mission.

 
Re: RELEASE: The Scroll of Atankharzim, Part I
Sesquipedalian found some really nice music, and of course credit should go to the composer of that music, who did a fantastic job.  I tried to evoke a sense of wonder in the first couple of missions, and I'm glad to hear it worked.  I disagree that the reactions of the Vasudans to the Knossos were "tedious"; I tried to communicate excitement in the in-mission dialogue and the following command briefing.  Maybe I should have made them even more excited? :)
I have to add here that I've played through the campaign once which means that I didn't have all details left in my mind when I was writing the review. I'll pay more attention to this next time.

Well, I've heard that there might be even people on the modding team who played the campaign exactly once and omitted the GTVA arc entirely :nervous: :warp:

 

Offline Mobius

  • Back where he started
  • 213
  • Porto l'azzurro Dolce Stil Novo nella fantascienza
    • Skype
    • Twitter
    • The Lightblue Ribbon | Cultural Project
Re: RELEASE: The Scroll of Atankharzim, Part I
First of all, congratulations for delivering SA, I remember being a fan of it back in the day and I'm glad it's been released. I'm now playing through the ISF branch of this campaign.  :cool:

Spoiler:
I'm currently stuck in Lucifer's Cloak. I get to the point where I manage to scan *most* Shivan ships, and pull back to the AWACS in order to slain Arjuna wing with impunity. 3 out of 4 primary objectives are complete, yet the outcome of the mission is considered an unfavorable one, and I'm forced to play the mission again. I tried many times using both checkpoints, yet the outcome is always the same. I think I failed this mission 6 or 7 times already. What am I missing that's so fundamental about this mission? I haven't performed any searches using FRED because that'd kill immersion, at least from my perspective.
The Lightblue Ribbon

Inferno: Nostos - Alliance
Series Resurrecta: {{FS Wiki Portal}} -  Gehenna's Gate - The Spirit of Ptah - Serendipity (WIP) - <REDACTED> (WIP)
FreeSpace Campaign Restoration Project
A tribute to FreeSpace in my book: Riflessioni dall'Infinito
My interviews: [ 1 ] - [ 2 ] - [ 3 ]

 

Offline Goober5000

  • HLP Loremaster
  • Moderator
  • 214
    • Goober5000 Productions
Re: RELEASE: The Scroll of Atankharzim, Part I
The four primary objectives are the conditions for advancement.  So, if you've got 3 of 4, you need the 4th. :)

The other objectives will get you more information and more points, but they are not required to continue.

 

Offline Mobius

  • Back where he started
  • 213
  • Porto l'azzurro Dolce Stil Novo nella fantascienza
    • Skype
    • Twitter
    • The Lightblue Ribbon | Cultural Project
Re: RELEASE: The Scroll of Atankharzim, Part I
Spoiler:
The best thing to do would be restarting the mission right from its beginning, as the checkpoints repeatedly lead me to a condition (especially the second one) where the mission is essentially doomed to fail, yet I'm granted the possibility of doing something and obtain intel from the Shivan fleet. I tried many times right from the second checkpoint and it's extremely difficult to perform all scans before Arjuna's close approach. I'll give it another try.
« Last Edit: July 15, 2020, 02:47:00 pm by Mobius »
The Lightblue Ribbon

Inferno: Nostos - Alliance
Series Resurrecta: {{FS Wiki Portal}} -  Gehenna's Gate - The Spirit of Ptah - Serendipity (WIP) - <REDACTED> (WIP)
FreeSpace Campaign Restoration Project
A tribute to FreeSpace in my book: Riflessioni dall'Infinito
My interviews: [ 1 ] - [ 2 ] - [ 3 ]