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Re: [Blade of Agony] Road to Wolfenstein Devblog Part 04 | p

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2019 1:05 pm
by Enjay
Edit: quoted 'cause new page
Tormentor667 wrote:[Road to Wolfenstein] Devblog 04 | NPCs with a brain

How terribly insulting it was for us to hear that most of the people playing the second chapter of Blade of Agony hated our friendly NPCs: Douglas and Ryan (well, the latter still for a reason) were a pain for the players. Instead of helping you, giving you cover, and being a new and interesting gameplay feature, they just - well - sucked. It was about time to change something here.

Improvements for friendly NPC followers

AFADoomer took the community's feedback very seriously, and started re-writing most of the code in order to improve sidekicks like Douglas, Ryan and Ascher, so that they were actually useful companions, rather than annoying obstacles that get in your way instead of covering you. They will now try to avoid being in your line of sight, they will try to move away from you if they are in your way, and most importantly, you can interact with them. Just like in Half-Life 2, you can "use" them once to make them hold their position, and then "use" them again to make them follow you. So if you want a sidekick following you, just leave everything as it is, and if you are more of a "James Bond" special agent who doesn't need or want support, simply leave them behind; it's up to you.

That sounds like it will be a great improvement. I look forward to seeing how they behave.

Accompanying NPCs are something that is very hard to get right; even commercial games get it very wrong sometimes. I'm sure we can all think of games where the so-called "helpful" NPCs just got in the way, preventing the player moving properly, getting caught in crossfire or just plain sucking. The worst types are the ones that need to be kept alive but who blindly wander in front of you as you fire.

NPCs can be very good and expand the world, removing the feeling of being totally alone against all the bad guys but if they become an annoyance, they can really detract from a game.

Re: [Blade of Agony] Road to Wolfenstein Devblog Part 04 | p

Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2019 1:54 am
by XLightningStormL
Why are there GE M134 Miniguns in World War 2? A weapon that wouldn't be seen in action for some 17-21 years after 1942? In Nazi German territory?

Re: [Blade of Agony] Road to Wolfenstein Devblog Part 04 | p

Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2019 9:29 am
by wildweasel
XLightningStormL wrote:Why are there GE M134 Miniguns in World War 2? A weapon that wouldn't be seen in action for some 17-21 years after 1942? In Nazi German territory?
Ask id Software in 1992.

Re: [Blade of Agony] Road to Wolfenstein Devblog Part 04 | p

Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2019 9:53 am
by Captain J
Ahahaha!... Good one, Weasel. Anyway it's not REALLY necessary to bash the logic against Wolfenstein Universe anymore, since Nazis in Wolfenstein got some Occults, Pseudoscience and even Klansman Allies to talk about than just Chaingun. To display how truly overwhelming and plain evil they are, and therefore you have to destroy them with your own hands(and with their own tools of destruction). This kind of Cliche goes around to all existing Franchise really.

What i'm saying is, don't get serious over a Video Game. I think it's just fine as long as it suits in the game.

Re: [Blade of Agony] Road to Wolfenstein Devblog Part 04 | p

Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2019 3:27 pm
by Gez
Enjay wrote:Accompanying NPCs are something that is very hard to get right; even commercial games get it very wrong sometimes.
I can't leave without my buddy Superfly!

Re: [Blade of Agony] Road to Wolfenstein Devblog Part 04 | p

Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2019 12:14 am
by Jeimuzu73
XLightningStormL wrote:Why are there GE M134 Miniguns in World War 2? A weapon that wouldn't be seen in action for some 17-21 years after 1942? In Nazi German territory?
Perhaps they’re based on this monstrosity from WWI: http://guns.wikia.com/wiki/Fokker-Leimberger
Even though the Jerries loved their Maschinengewehrs, there was a thing as too much dakka back then lol

Re: [Blade of Agony] Road to Wolfenstein Devblog Part 04 | p

Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2019 12:50 am
by Captain J
Wait wait wait. So Self-Rotating Minigun really existed many years ago? Honestly i'm super impressed, and i guess ID Software DID aware of World War History. Honestly this puts Gatling Gun to shame, although it wasn't proved to be very useful than the Gatling Gun.

Re: [Blade of Agony] Road to Wolfenstein Devblog Part 04 | p

Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2019 7:53 am
by XLightningStormL
Captain J wrote:Ahahaha!... Good one, Weasel. Anyway it's not REALLY necessary to bash the logic against Wolfenstein Universe anymore, since Nazis in Wolfenstein got some Occults, Pseudoscience and even Klansman Allies to talk about than just Chaingun. To display how truly overwhelming and plain evil they are, and therefore you have to destroy them with your own hands(and with their own tools of destruction). This kind of Cliche goes around to all existing Franchise really.

What i'm saying is, don't get serious over a Video Game. I think it's just fine as long as it suits in the game.
Sounds like a giant handwave for the sake of giant handwaves, but okay.

The Chaingun can be logically handwaved on the premise that it'd be a Wunderwaffe that was being developed in secret (in Castle Wolfenstein, whatever)

Still a GE M134 Minigun is still a GE M134 Minigun, regardless of WHATEVER argument one likes to pull out of their hat, the Chaingun is however, NOT a GE M134 Minigun.

GE M134 Minigun being used as a turret is yet another example of something that "sticks out like dog's balls" much like the infamous mashing of various models from various sources with Macin-Wolf resolution sprites, Wolf 3D/DOS sprites, etc

As for Occultic Elements, Pseudoscience, Black Sun Dimension, etcetera, fit because it was the type of crap the Nazi German "elite" would've actually, ironically believed (not to mention the mystique of being "confidential post-war information that wouldn't be released for the sake of people's heads not bursting like watermelons" etc) and thus can easily be ignored.

Also, technically there is no longer a single defined megalithic Wolfenstein universe, considering that Machine Games-era Universe is different from the iD Software universe.

Re: [Blade of Agony] Road to Wolfenstein Devblog Part 04 | p

Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2019 11:34 am
by jazzmaster9
XLightningStormL wrote:
GE M134 Minigun being used as a turret is yet another example of something that "sticks out like dog's balls" much like the infamous mashing of various models from various sources with Macin-Wolf resolution sprites, Wolf 3D/DOS sprites, etc
ohh and the 4 armed mutant and Giant mechs aren't ? okay... who says a German Super weapon cant look like a GE M134.
but obviously someone in the team needs to do some historical research for this historically accurate game.

out all the things to complain about, the usage of a chaingun turret. for god sakes.

Re: [Blade of Agony] Road to Wolfenstein Devblog Part 03 | p

Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2019 12:42 pm
by Ozymandias81
Ozymandias81 wrote:(...) everything you see on BoA is fictional so you are not going to play a Return to Castle Wolfenstein wargame simulator, neither happens on Wolfenstein 3d and Laz projects though. (...)
Think I gave you all an idea already, retrogames were cool (and still ARE) because of that.

Re: [Blade of Agony] Road to Wolfenstein Devblog Part 04 | p

Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2019 3:55 pm
by Scubbo
soo awesome, i'm finally back on deck after having a kid :shock: am keen to get stuck in, I see chapter 2 is "done" -- so keen to play my fav game again! :wub:

I tried the latest GIT and she crashes on both GZD stable 3.7.2~ and that, I see GZD-git has had some major changes to the back end theyre working through so perhaps thats why? any idea whats the best build to do testing with at the moment?

Re: [Blade of Agony] Road to Wolfenstein Devblog Part 04 | p

Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2019 11:49 pm
by Ozymandias81
Hey scubbo, happy to see you back here and best wishes with your little son! I got myself very busy as an uncle, so figures you eheh
Concerning crashes, recent builds have still several issues with BoA (even with actual github project builds) and 3.7.2 is unstable in some rare circumstances. But if you mean about C2 release itself, so not github repository BoA build, I suggest to stitch with the GZDoom version included within the standalone download, even if that had some issues on Headquarters.

[EDIT]: How did you test recent github build with GZDoom 3.7.2? Atm it crashes only when a follower crosses a portal, you need to download such version of GZDoom, move wolf_boa.pk3 inside it (or rename it wolf_boa.IPK3 if you don't want to use doom2.wad - this turns BoA as IWAD) and drag & drop the file over gzdoom.exe
Obviously old saves are not compatible :)

Re: [Blade of Agony] Road to Wolfenstein Devblog Part 04 | p

Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2019 4:27 am
by Enjay
Gez wrote:I can't leave without my buddy Superfly!
Heh, I've been trying to wade my way through that game for ages now. Every now and again I pick it up and get a little further. It's not as bad as its reputation would have use believe, but it's certainly not a great game.

Re: [Blade of Agony] Road to Wolfenstein Devblog Part 04 | p

Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2019 4:24 am
by Kinsie
Enjay wrote:
Gez wrote:I can't leave without my buddy Superfly!
Heh, I've been trying to wade my way through that game for ages now. Every now and again I pick it up and get a little further. It's not as bad as its reputation would have use believe, but it's certainly not a great game.
Grab the v1.3 fan-patch. Along with its many bug and compatibility fixes, it also enables the ability to disable the terrible AI sidekicks (and also enabling unlimited saving). Episode 1 is still really bad, mind, but a number of people (including the author of Dusk!) are quite big on the rest.

Re: [Blade of Agony] Road to Wolfenstein Devblog Part 04 | p

Posted: Fri Mar 01, 2019 10:35 am
by Tormentor667


[Road to Wolfenstein] Devblog 05 | Revamping Maps
While mapping is a very organic progress, you sometimes lose the objectivity when it comes to size and length. Instead of knowing when it's the right moment to stop adding new portsions you simply think "Wow, this is something I could add here as well". This is what happened to a lot of maps in Chapter 2, especially Operation Schlangenkopf (C2M3). While watching various gameplay videos online on Youtube (specifically ZikShadow and MrIcarus) we simply went overboard with putting more and more stuff into one single map. People needed almost an hour to complete one map. This is simply too much and absolutely not satisfying.

Shortening Maps
So what we did was checking all the maps (from the beginning of Tunis up to the Astrostein missions) and find out what areas are needed to keep the tension and gameflow, and what portions of the map can be removed because the are simply not climatic enough. C2M3 was a very good example. As soon as you collect the yellow key, you enter a huge area of containment and underground labs that simply doesn't add anything to the story or the gameflow. It's just there. Removing it was the logical consequence, and that's what we did with a lot of places. Instead we tried to add something in the spirit of the map, or tossed areas around to make the progress more fluid and organic.

Improving Maps
Sometimes if you play your own maps after a longer while, you start to thing of different approaches, different solutions, different possibilities to make the vision you had in the first place more convincing. Operation Astrostein is a very good example of how a map can still improve even though it was already finished. In this special case I don't mean the way to the portal but the second part of it being on the Nazi Moon (yes, this is a spoiler, I hope you played Chapter 2 already). When I first created the map, I had a very clean futuristic design in mind, just as the original Astrostein episodes. After visiting New Berlin again though I thought that this approach isn't realistic. I imagined this place to be more dirty, more dangerous, something between Coruscant and Los Angeles like in the blockbuster movie Blade Runner. And that's what I turned it into - and it's worth a second visit, I promise.

Finetuning Maps
Believe it or not: I actually watched almost every Let's Play video on Youtube - at least those with a language that I am aware of (sorry for skipping the polish, czech and russian ones) and for me this is the most useful feedback you can get on your own maps. You can see and hear how people react in certain situations, what they think and how they approach your creation. We listen closely to the feedback we get and there are hundreds of changes and improvements that we made according to the experiences, players made out there. So thanks a lot to all of you for sharing that - it got noticed!