Messages

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Fast-Travel, Vengeful Ghosts, Strategic Overlay, Citybuilding, Bosses, Etc

« on: September 13, 2011, 01:27:58 PM »

Wow, what a ton of information

This is sounding great and I'm looking forward to getting my hands on it. . . Sadly public beta's going to coincide with moving house and being without my computer for a while :p

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AI War / Re: AI War Beta 5.015, "Martyred Forcefields," Released!

« on: August 30, 2011, 12:49:29 PM »

Heh, very good changes in my opinion, although I'm still happy that I built my martyr hordes in my current game before this came out.

Out of interest what will happen to current Martyr asteroid mine thingies when we patch? Eg if I'm building martyrs on Reptite right now on my save, what will I find when i patch and load up?

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: A Few New AVWW WIP Screenshots: Rhinos, Crafting, And Early Dungeon Maps

« on: July 21, 2011, 02:30:05 PM »

In terms of other minor visual tweaks... I'd mostly appreciate it if people would hold off with those, to be honest.  They aren't helpful at this point, because they just get me chasing little polish things before the game is actually fully functionally playable.  Rounding the edges of the regions on the world map could look nice, and it's been discussed before, but it's not high on my list of priorities.

Cool, I was kinda thinking that might be best, but then I'd already typed my post, and thought I might as well throw my ideas out there in case they were in any way useful

Anyways the main thrust of what I was saying is that the finished bits look nicely slick for the most part.

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: A Few New AVWW WIP Screenshots: Rhinos, Crafting, And Early Dungeon Maps

« on: July 21, 2011, 01:14:36 PM »

Cool, looks promising. . . The bits that are complete and not placeholders look fairly slick.

Have you considered replacing the "Health", "Magic" and "Civ Level" texts with icons (e.g. a heart, some kind of magic missile type thing and maybe the wind shelter icon from the world map)? And maybe making them vertical not horizontal bars? And perhaps different colours more in keeping with other bits of the interface? Just throwing ideas out there as I'm not dead keen on how those bars look at the mo, but I'm sure they can be tweaked at any time (and perhaps aren't meant to be final right now)!

Also, maybe rounding the edges of regions on the world map would look nice (and the edges of what's visible where it boarders on blackness as well).

All in all though looking good, thanks for the screens.

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Quick Q: Comparison to other MMOs

« on: June 30, 2011, 03:31:30 PM »

Yeah, I capitalized that for that very reason.   

It's pretty interesting, because it really does give it more of a roguelike feel than it's ever had before, which I really like a lot.

Stop saying things that I like the sound of so much! :p

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Quick Q: Comparison to other MMOs

« on: June 30, 2011, 01:47:58 PM »

I haven't talked about this much publicly yet, but the game is really starting to emphasize Expeditions. Both preparing for and executing them. You have to have sufficient supplies to euro e the monsters and the terrain, accomplish what you want, and get out.

I like the way Expeditions has a capital E, like it's some thing:

[American salesman voice] A Valley Without Wind, now with added Expeditions [/American salesman voice]

But seriously I do like the sounds of that, like heading out into the wilderness is this structured piece of play that you have to prepare for properly for to get right.

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: A Valley Without Wind's Switch To Side View -- The Big Picture

« on: June 26, 2011, 02:34:29 PM »

hah, just had a look at Kaizo. . . Completely insane

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: A Valley Without Wind's Switch To Side View -- The Big Picture

« on: June 26, 2011, 02:11:32 PM »

Note: the hardest game 'I've played'.

I'm certain there are harder (whatever harder actually means) games out there, I just haven't ventured to play any of them

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: A Valley Without Wind's Switch To Side View -- The Big Picture

« on: June 26, 2011, 10:26:14 AM »

Spelunky's very cool, but despite the superficial similarities (side on 2D, procedural generation, perma-death), they're really very different. Spelunky's basically a platformer with roguelike sensibilities, and while it looks like AVWW takes some small inspiration from both of those genres, I don't think playing it will be much like either.

That said it sounds like fans of Spelunky will probably be looking forward to the lava zones, myself included there.

And there are some cool ideas in Spelunky that are worth looking at/nabbing

Also it's probably the hardest/cruelest game I've played bar none (Super Meat Boy, Dwarf Fortress, N and various standard roguelikes included)

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: A Valley Without Wind's Switch To Side View -- The Big Picture

« on: June 23, 2011, 03:06:11 PM »

is it just me or are most of the complaints about the animation quality?

Yea, I've already adjusted those in the code for the next video. The walking animation was too slow, just a timing thing, and for jumping I did something really different that looks a lot better. I also made things a bit more fluid, in that casting spells no longer causes you to pause movement, which also really helps.

Excellent, was hoping you would! 

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: A Valley Without Wind's Switch To Side View -- The Big Picture

« on: June 21, 2011, 03:39:28 PM »

I've been really tempted to respond to a few comments with "if you ever complain about developers not listening to you or talking to you, don't mention it to me or I'll have to laugh."  But, of course, that wouldn't be kosher directly to say to someone -- they'd be surprised and outraged at such a direct attack on them.  Don't get me started on the irony of that.

Anyway, still no job I'd rather have than being an indie game developer.  But this is one of those days that is absolutely worse quality than any past job I've had.  But that comes with making anything creative that is then sold to a mass audience, from the looks of it.  Compared to being Stephanie Meyer, I actually feel fairly safe.

Hah, the unfairness of it summed up in a couple of paragraphs! The internet is an awfully good place to take a quick glance at someone else's labour of love, decide it's not for you and then rip into it entirely unjustifiably and with great venom as well as complete impunity and anonymity.

That said, this change will put off and dismay some people that are not actually assholes and (as you clearly understand) you've got to take that in your stride.

I know you already are, but do keep in mind that unfortunately people who complain speak the loudest

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: A Valley Without Wind Alpha #12 -- Side View, Undergrounds, and Other New Mechan

« on: June 21, 2011, 03:22:57 PM »

Well so far a lot of reaction seems to be falling into two broad categories: people who've not read all the diaries generally quite negative and disinterested and/or think you've copied Terraria (see RPS), and those who have read and, with some reservations, are quite happy with the change and are looking forward to the game as much as before (or more).

I think the former is pretty understandable, as it was exactly my initial reaction (while I'm now much more in camp two). I'm not sure what you can do about that, apart from get those you can to try and read and understand the motivations for the change and then accept that some people are just going to be turned off by the switch.

There are a couple of points of consensus as far as I can tell though:

- The game is much, much prettier side on. Yay!
- However, the animations could definitely use some more work.

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: A Valley Without Wind Alpha #12 -- Side View, Undergrounds, and Other New Mechan

« on: June 20, 2011, 06:03:09 PM »

My pleasure.  Yeah, this plus forum responses has literally been my only task for the entire day.  Well, that and taking the screenshots.  It's been exhausting, but I agree it was important to do.

It is and we appreciate it

Well, it depends on what they are used for.  Sometimes those materials are used just to build a house or a platform, and I doubt we'll call them catalysts.  In the code we just call them materials.  But in terms of crafting a spell gem, it's a catalyst in the same sense as boomslang skin in a HP potion.

Ah makes sense, I'm sure it wont clash in game then.

Yeah, I was just answering the question I knew I was going to get from others, while I was at it with yours.  Did that answer your question, though?

Keith kinda did in the other thread, in that things work much as before, but side on instead of top down, which is enough info for me right now :p

Oh, I gotcha.  Actually, yeah, there have been a lot of changes there.  We're tending to do wider or narrower chunks now, so that the minimap fits nicer in the corner without taking up too much screen space.  It also sizes more dynamically, now.  The Points of Interest are also now completely invisible, both in the game and on the minimap, because they simply don't need to be shown -- as soon as you step into the part of the minimap that corresponds to them, then that whole section corresponding to that POI is revealed, so that's that.  Actually, the POI shifts were in #11, I think, or at least they were implemented before we went side view.

It doesn't show enemies or NPCs, but it does show you and other players.  At the moment it also shows light sources a little purple dots so that you can see those more clearly.  I'm also planning on doing a sort of popup map that will enlarge the minimap, since it can be hard to see details down there in the corner.  There have been some other tweaks to make the minimap more informative and easier to use on various screen resolutions, but nothing huge.

Ah yeah, that change was in 11, I'd forgotten. All sounds really good!

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: A Valley Without Wind Alpha #12 -- Side View, Undergrounds, and Other New Mechan

« on: June 20, 2011, 05:34:52 PM »

Gosh, that took some reading so it definitely must have taken some writing, but I think it was worth it  

As I never stop saying, thanks for sharing so much!

While part of me will always wonder what the top down game could have been (the same dumb part of me that wants a Freelancer sequel or for Morrowind to be made in the Skyrim engine), the switch seems like it was a positive decision that's going to result in a much better game. Visually it's gone from something that I quite like to something that I really really like, and if you guys are happier doing things this way and feel more able to reach the ambitious overall goals you've set then we can definitely all be happy  

Pretty much everything about the game play and game systems you've detailed above sounds great, especially the crafting changes and inventory systems. One tiny thing I would say is that I don't much like the term 'catalyst' for things like wood, metal or cloth. To me these seem like the things that things are made of, not the 'extra bit of help in the recipe' that the word catalyst suggest. However I admit I'm being totally non-constructive and can't immediately think of an alternative, just something to think about.

Also, I should have been more clear about what I meant by 'nighttime', which was just 'darkness outside' as opposed to in buildings or underground, rather than 'a day/night cycle', which I knew wasn't in the game (although this clears it up for others anyways!)

And finally I was totally unclear with what I meant by map, which was not the overground map (I assumed this was the same as no change was mentioned) but the mini map in the corner. I guess it now shows all the overground landscape and caverns you've explored? Are points of interest still marked? Does it show enemies now? That sort of thing :p but also thanks for confirming that the overground map does work as before, which some folks would probably have asked anyway!

Sorry for the lack of clarity!

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: A Valley Without Wind's Switch To Side View -- The Big Picture

« on: June 20, 2011, 04:43:27 PM »

Finally, just out of interest/curiosity, was it not insanely hard to throw away so much hard work on the top down version to make the switch?

A shockingly low amount of stuff had to change and/or is not still used, actually.  In any event, when Chris has a really clear idea of what he wants to do and is really motivated to do it, it always happens in less than 48 hours.  Wouldn't matter if it was making a new operating system or whatever, it'd just appear

Haha, that I'd like to see

Thanks for the reply