Ashes Afterglow TC - closing the vault

[blakecasimir]

Vostyok: In my previous reply here I mentioned double doors that used a confusing texture, I can confirm now that it was one of the buildings near the half pipe the player has to jump out of while riding the bike in Escape From Atlanta. Again, because it uses that "broken black glass" texture, it just seems odd that it should be openable when 99% of the rest aren't. It should probably use a different texture imho.

[TheRedCrow]

Well, I "Finished" my first playthrough, here's a hint as to how that went: I am not very fast, and I usually only keep one or two saves.

Time for my next one! Definitely be a bit more sparing with the junk this time, I had like 400 at the end of this first PT.

[Kroc]

Could there be an "FAQ.txt" that could list the branch points so that we know where to keep a save and where to return to if we want to ferret out the other endings?

[Mechazaurus]

Vostyok: In my previous reply here I mentioned double doors that used a confusing texture, I can confirm now that it was one of the buildings near the half pipe the player has to jump out of while riding the bike in Escape From Atlanta. Again, because it uses that "broken black glass" texture, it just seems odd that it should be openable when 99% of the rest aren't. It should probably use a different texture imho.

I remember that part. I was stuck in that area for ten or fifteen minutes until I accidently shot my gun off and all the enemies starting streaming out the door. So yeah, I guess I'd agree that that's one thing that should be replaced in future updates.

[Mechazaurus]

I was curious if you were ever intending to monetize this? This is an amazing game and I can only see a few things that might need to change to avoid copyright strikes.

At the moment no plans to. It would require another vast overhaul of a lot of stuff. In future, any commercial episodes could be released on steam, say, with full original assets. However, so many people have worked on the original mods that I would feel very uncomfortable with releasing it as a commercial product.

What I may do is bundle them together as a standalone download that can be unpacked and run without any exterior downloads, and keep them as a shareware portion of the series.

If it can't be monetized then maybe it could be released on steam, itch.io and other platforms as a free game? I don't know if that would also have legal problems but it would help the game reach a wider audience at least.

[Ihavequestions]

I just noticed this weird bug in Afterglow (could not reproduce in Enriched):

When standing in front of a mirror and switching weapons from a modified Glock (glock2/glock3 internally) to any other weapon, a firing scavenger frame is displayed in the mirror.

When doing the same with some of the other weapons, a scavenger wielding a knife with his left arm is displayed in the mirror.

[atarumoroboshi18]

Okay, to the person who was on tripmine laying duty while making Ashes, let me say this from the heart: I HATE YOU. You got me so many times that I got jump-scared during a couple of them. I'm going through Prosperity missions right now and I've hit Every. Single. Tripmine. I've come across...

[Kroc]

Ironic bug: By auto-holstering the weapon in The Wall, you can no longer use your knife to break the bags to collect the junk in the area

[EddieNahui]

I had an idea and wonder if you would be willing to implement it but if it sounds like too much of a pain in the arse fair enough.
The idea is

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That i'd potentially like to see a secret ending which could be gained by finding all 100% secrets through out the game and have it be tied to that final part to where either lots of human settlements gets nuked or you nuke your current location and take out the scum mutants the 3rd option i'd love to see implemented would you be preventing the launch and rallying with the Soldiers to stop mutants in a huge battle which then could be a final map as a secret slaughter map but i'd also personally make this ending obtainable only for those who completed the game on Survival or Apocalypse so there is a reward for those who can beat it on the higher skills.

[ramon.dexter]

So, after a week or more, I've got some more experience.

This is something special. I mean, I love it.
The feeling, the atmosphere, everything hits the right spot. Excellent. Still haven't finished it, tho. I'm enjoing it bit by bit.

[Szary]

Finished my first playthrough on AA v. 1.02. I am in awe. And seriously intrigued about the story now, love the direction it's going into. I seriously can't wait to have time to have a solid chat with

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the General

in ep. 3 in a year or two! Missile Gap and Biodome are currently the most impressive gaming pieces I saw in a long time. Loved the finale and the tension of a race against time, the bike fragments IMHO get best when you don't stop every other minute to check for secrets and can really put the pedal to the metal. Loved the inclusion of custom ending screens.

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Was the guy annihilated by exploding submarine Smiley?

Encountered only one major bug:

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After fully mining the supplies of the Roamers in complete stealth I moved on to greener pastures. On the other side of the gatehouse, I met with a huge bandit posse led by "Commissioner" Graviato, who... congratulated me on a job well done, assured me that he'll soon take Prosperity over and handed me his premium armoured jacket. I have already received underarmour from Wheeler in Uptown and did not plant any poison in the water system - on the contrary, I sold it all to the Doc, but I had earlier shown the spores to the Graviato and played along with him up to that point. I was not engaged in any combat with any Roamer, or seen any being hostile.

After the conversation Roamers remained peaceful until I crossed the door frame, when they started to pluck away at them. I got the proper ending screen and apart from the dialogue everything progressed normally.

and can recall one minor:

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Wheeler, armourer in Uptown, is not willing to buy my videogame cartridge or to talk about it at all. May it be I only got it after agreeing to do a job for water baron and waited for the horde to pass?

One question for others:

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Are the "two secret levels" the "Return to the Spire" and "Haunted Soviet sub"?

[Mechazaurus]

A very minor thing, but I don't like how the mutant snipers seem to use the same aggro sound as monsters from DOOM. I just find it a bit distracting. I think it would be much more effective if you used that creepy laugh from the tease about them in the nuclear plant instead. Just a thought since you're asking for feedback.

[Plasmazippo]

Minor bug to report here: when Scav is in front of a mirror and turns 45 degrees to the side, his goggle lenses have no brightmaps in either rotation. They're there when looking forward and 90° to either side.

Tested on Ashes 2063 Enhanced, map03, in Kurt's bar.

[Vostyok]

Woo, so many questions!

On subject of doors - have currently made up a series of different door textures that are either barricaded or chained shut. Will be adding these sparingly to maps to denote doors that will never open no matter what. Of course, this won't help you if it is a door that will open later, and I absolutely want to avoid what I call Scooby Doo Syndrome, where much like the old cartoons where you could tell which part of the screen the ghost was going to jump out of due to the differences in art style, I don't want people to be able to guess ambush points by seeing which doors are locked and which aren't. Still... maybe that is a survival instinct we should encourage. I don't know. I just make mods.

On subject of monetization - I could make this more available somewhere else by making it standalone. Ideally a website or something. While this 'game' remains a TC it's a moot point but I will consider it for the future.

On subject of stealing from towns in EP1 - oh well, some sacrifices must be made. It always makes me laugh when you walk through these rpg game slums where everyone is complaining about how poor or hungry they are, but by rifling through the trash you can find enough supplies to afford several decent meals. At least it doesn't appear on your item count in the intermission - that would be cheeky of me...

On subject of player animations - I'll be looking into this more as I work on Afterglow. There are ways of blocking animations from triggering but it seems a little hit and miss. Maybe zscript could help out more with this but I'm still learning that stuff. I'll see what I can do but a lot seems to be hard-coded.

On subject of trip mines - ah, but when you do find them it makes a good reward yes? Don't complain or I'll rig the useable trash cans with booby traps as well. Bwahahahahah!

On subject of hidden endings - I'd like to do this but it has been a pain to rig up the endings as it is. I am adding a few new endings to the next release hopefully that should be fun.

On subject of walkthroughs/story guides - usually is a community thing. I'll see what I can do once the episode is "done". Still adding things atm.

On subject of Snipey Bois - Yes, we know. We said this before. The person who was originally doing their voices hasn't got back to me and I didn't have time to find replacements. Still, I managed to find someone who should be able to lend a hand in time for next update. Sorry about that.

Thank you once again for all the responses. It has been very helpful. Note that the upcoming V1.05 WILL ALMOST DEFINITELY break your save. This is completely unavoidable as Gzdoom will not accept a save loaded from a map which has been modified - probably for the better when complex scripts are involved. Nor will it accept a save where ACS or other internal script lists differ in size from the original. As much as we have tried to avoid this, the complex nature of the mod means that there is no getting around it. Future updates that replace minor things such as textures, sounds or monster/weapon behavior should be fine however. Always back up your previous version and saves before downloading.

[Mechazaurus]

On subject of Snipey Bois - Yes, we know. We said this before. The person who was originally doing their voices hasn't got back to me and I didn't have time to find replacements. Still, I managed to find someone who should be able to lend a hand in time for next update. Sorry about that.

Oh, I'm sorry I must have missed that. Also, I like the trip mines. It makes you pay attention to where you are going. I learned my lesson after the first one