Messages

46

AI War / Re: Mercenary Ships

« on: March 28, 2011, 01:20:19 PM »

mercs for noobs, why ever pay 10x normal rates for ships? what you should be doing is sending your fleetships into battle to die and be rebuilt 10x

Well the extra cap is nice. So while I'm sending my ships to die 10x, I'm also building some mercs at my homeworld for extra defense, which don't affect the number of ships I can have on assault. But yeah the cost is pretty insane, as it should be.

47

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: A Valley Without Wind Pre-Alpha #7 -- Lighting, Lava, Deserts, and Interiors

« on: March 28, 2011, 01:12:44 PM »

It's intended to restrict visibility some, like blowing sand (except that it's blowing heat waves), so it's doing pretty much what it's intended to do.  We wouldn't normally go with an effect that restricts visibility in quite this sort of manner, but this is one of the most hostile environments, and it's meant to be one of many things there to put players a bit more off-balance than normal.

Mmmm I'm fine with things obstructing visibility if that's intended, eg the dark or the trees. I just don't think it's so pretty when it's that bright (although I like the effect in principal). The way the glow bleeds into the other objects is cool, just a little too much for me atm. . . But it's a minor point and others might disagree, so I'm not going to go on about it

With the lighting. . . Well if there's nothing you can do there's nothing you can do. I think the moving spells look kinda cool and stylized, but stationery light sources are going to look pretty horrid aliased like that, I wont lie, especially when the rest of the game is starting to look so stylish and pretty.

If (if) it's CPU intensive but not a ridiculous amount of work, couldn't you AA the edges of stationery sources, just so they don't have the jagged pixelated edges? This could then be optional, as people who turn the option off wont be able to see any more or less, they just wont have smooth edges to their light radii. I'll hush now as I know much too little about programming or graphics to make sensible suggestions beyond this!!

Edit: Just noticed something else. On the AVWW page on the main site, I believe the tree graphics posted down the side are the old versions with the white pixels at the edges. Not a big deal but as the game gets more exposure it's probably an idea to change them for the newer ones and/or some more interesting stuff like cars or enemies 

48

AI War / Re: Mercenary Ships

« on: March 27, 2011, 05:32:02 PM »

This is something I've always wondered too. Would be cool to maybe randomize it sometime in the future (or just have the option to do so for those attached to the current set up). Maybe have 1 random base game ship and 1 from each expansion active (plus the triangle ships obv). The current system seems at odds with the general philosophy of randomising everything but the triangle ships and star ships. . .

49

AI War / Re: Late game unbalance - Blade spawners

« on: March 27, 2011, 05:03:10 PM »

Well as I think as others will say, the game is designed to punish you and become a bit unbalanced if you try to conquer everything. It's certainly something you can attempt and have fun, but not something many will succeed at and the game is deliberately not balanced for this style of play. It's one of the many ways the game is designed in reaction to the usual RTS tank-rush-the-whole-map style of play.

However from what I've read and played I think you may be right that there's an issue still with blade spawners being quite a punishing ship for the AI to unlock. . .

50

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: A Valley Without Wind Pre-Alpha #7 -- Lighting, Lava, Deserts, and Interiors

« on: March 27, 2011, 04:56:07 PM »

Heh, time since last update made up for by huge amounts of info this time!

Glad to know a lot of the background stuff (or horizontal development) is done and it's time for more content, looking forward to seeing that.

The vast majority of what I see in the vid I like and it's plain to see that some great progress is being made, so don't take this as overly negative, but I've noted some bits of constructive criticism. Feel free to ignore!

- The lava background is cool, but I feel the moving glowyness, while also nice, is too bright and gets in the way of the other visuals where it's brightest.
- The moon lamps look useful, but I don't like the way it overlaps the walls. For instance at 0:23. I'm guessing it may not be possible due to the way you've done lighting, but it would be great if it didn't shine 'through' walls and only lit the side it was on.
- Also, you mentioned using Zwrite to do the lighting, which means you 'can't do smooth gradients', however it looks like you've done that for the 'eyesight' mode if not the moon lamps and spells, or do I not understand what you mean by 'smooth gradient'? While the spells look kinda cool as they are as they're moving so quickly, it would obviously look a lot better if something stationery like a moon lamp had a smoother 'anti-aliased' edge to it's light radius. Maybe I've misunderstood and you mean to add this :p
- With the world map: due to the small size of the tiles and the compression on YouTube it's pretty tough to see how some of them look. This lead me to think two things:
-- Is there an easy way you can make the original vids available to download so we can see them without compression? As we'll be playing the thing fairly soon this may not be worth it!
-- Does the world map need to be this 'zoomed out'. I don't know how much you need to see in practice, but perhaps it might be cool to be a little 'closer in' on this screen, and then you can keep the same style on the world map tiles. Of course having made the decision to change the graphics around you've probably already considered this!

Hope this is useful. . .

51

Game Development / Re: Arcen Games: PR and Marketing

« on: March 03, 2011, 02:57:37 PM »

Getting everyone excited about A Valley Without Wind.

Well you could start by getting the guys and gals on this forum excited ;p So far i have no clue what kind of game A Valley Without Wind is going to be. Too many things are still "unclear" "undeveloped" or "kept secret"

While understandable this makes getting hyped for it nearly impossible. Even with all the current coverage and after reading all interviews I am not entirely sure whether I want to play this game when its done or not. I see the potential but i am not sure whether it is going to aim at children or adults.

Huh? I don't really think there's much more Arcen could possibly share or do to get people excited about AVWW at this stage! They've pretty much told us everything they know at this stage, short of stuff that's only in an idea or possibility state (which it would be a mistake to reveal in case it can't be delivered on).

Personally I've found this both fascinating and exciting and I think they'll win a lot of fans by engaging people this early. Of course, there are people who will only really get exciting when things are concrete and they can get their hands on something playable, and that's absolutely fine, but at this stage there's nothing than can be done to engage those people except let them know (and keep repeating) that the game exists and when they expect it will be playable. . .

For a small company they've done a lot of PR and interviews and that should be applauded. They've shared a frankly unprecedented amount!

I think accompanying the RPS interview with such an early vid when the graphics were still such a work in progress was something of a mis-step, but I think that's been recognised and the interview itself was great so it wont have done much damage.

52

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: I really think you need some way of keeping track of things behind objects

« on: February 28, 2011, 01:43:11 PM »

This is pre-alpha, I wouldn't let anything bother you till BETA in all honesty. 

King

This, but looking at it now I also think it will be pretty likely that I'll be on the 'transparency behind buildings' when this does get to the playable stage. . .

53

AI War / Re: A few suggestions for new "Sound system" in this game

« on: February 27, 2011, 05:53:18 PM »

It would be cool if the spire had a few audio clips. . . It could just be something heavily distorted to sound 'alien' so it wouldn't necessarily require any brilliant acting to sound right, just like the existing AI taunts (no offense to whoever did them).

I also always imagine the neinzul flying around sounding like people on helium or Chipmunks, although this may be less well received if actually implemented in game. . .

I don't like the idea of the human ships or the humans talking. Apart from what BoB said, I am the humans and their 'character' is me, so I don't want them suddenly talking in someone else's voice!

54

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Achievements in AVWW?

« on: February 27, 2011, 05:43:21 PM »

Sure, but I think one of you is talking about goals set by the game developer and the other about goals set by the player. You definitely need one or the other, and most games have room for both.

In CoD (single player) you're almost exclusively working with developer set goals, whereas in Minecraft you're almost exclusively making up your own goals. For me (and this is just a matter of taste) I like games where there are broad, overarching developer set goals, but a vast amount of freedom in how to achieve them and what your immediate sub-goals are is given to the player. Hence I love AI War, Civ, Deus Ex, Bethesda's games the Total War games and the concept of AVWW. But conversely CoD and Minecraft appeal to me very little, being too far at either end a scale that I like to be somewhere in the middle of. . .

55

Game Development / Re: A big congratulations to Arcen Games

« on: February 27, 2011, 04:28:58 PM »

The real comparison with Sins (what I remember of it) was that is was also in part an attempt to transfer what was cool about a galaxy conquering 4x into real time clothes. And also that it shared the overall galaxy map mixed with individual planetary battlefields scheme. And was about epic space battles. So you can see why people make the comparison even if the games feel very different in practice.

56

AI War / Re: Combat Logging

« on: February 25, 2011, 06:31:51 PM »

E.g. 300 bombers have died here.

That's relatively easy.

200 had most damage done by fighters, 75 by bombers and 25 by frigates.

That's unspeakably hard   Because that requires doing some sort of check on every shot hit, to track the damage per type, etc.

Hah, stop replying while I'm typing! 

Thought that might be the tricky bit. . . See my edit 

57

AI War / Re: Combat Logging

« on: February 25, 2011, 06:26:51 PM »

This would be very cool and, I agree, probably completely unfeasible!

Maybe something like a per-planet (plus one galaxy wide) log of how many of each ship type have been killed and which ship types were the main damagers.

E.g. 300 bombers have died here. 200 had most damage done by fighters, 75 by bombers and 25 by frigates.

Then you can see what's roughly been going on and which ships have had the most impact. . .

Edit: Ninjad :p so maybe ships killed and what ship type made the killing blow is both feasible and useful?

58

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Week 5 - Multiplayer, The World Map, Regions, and Windstorms

« on: February 25, 2011, 06:14:05 PM »

Aye, it's hard to tell due to the compression, but it does look like near the end (1:08 to 1:12) the sky has shadows on it. Not that it bothers me personally that much: I didn't notice until I looked for them :p

59

AI War / Re: Very Long Term Game

« on: February 25, 2011, 02:55:13 PM »

I'll never play Eve again, I've got my life back, but flying with a well tuned PvP squad was a really gratifying experience. One of the best rushes I've had in online gaming.

This, 1000x this

60

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Week 5 - Multiplayer, The World Map, Regions, and Windstorms

« on: February 25, 2011, 02:45:18 PM »

Nice to see the visual variety increasing and good to hear multiplayer seems to be going well

One thing I noticed: where there's a 'lootable' object (those little glowy things) 'behind' a tree you're drawing them on top (e.g. at 0:44 in today's vid), so as to make them visible, as they're more important than the scenery, right? That's obviously important so that you don't miss items that are behind scenery, but do you have plans to draw them in a different way when they would 'realistically' be concealed.

For example drawing just the outline of the object or somehow blending the image so it looks like it's seen through the tree. . . That way you can see all the important objects without the the slightly jarring effect of them appearing in front of the tree (and thus looking like they're floating in the air).

You're probably sick of me saying this but thanks again for sharing so early in the process. . .