Ashes Afterglow TC - closing the vault

[Plasmazippo]

Porcelain's DLC is most likely gonna revolve around the "lost station" alluded to in her dialogue and the map in her hideout, and other parts of the city that Scav couldn't reach. Heck, we may even see Sommerville!

[ButtonBoy]

Porcelain's DLC is most likely gonna revolve around the "lost station" alluded to in her dialogue and the map in her hideout, and other parts of the city that Scav couldn't reach. Heck, we may even see Sommerville!

I would love a resolution to porcelains little side story, my personal head canon is that she is probably going to be searching for that lost station or a way to get to the north side of Atlanta like she mentioned she was looking for, I do also hope the path to there will takes us through somerville and we get to see those wendigos

[DaemonXHUN]

How can I find the General's Camp in Ashes Afterglow (I assume it's a side quest)? I've done all the other quests, and my bike is ready, but I want to finish everything before leaving Undercity.

[Plasmazippo]

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Walker tells you, it's the apartment building in the Gap with a flag on the wall. It's the one apartment door with a bloodied handprint on the door, behind the bronze key gate on the east side.

Speaking of the Gap, is there a way to edit the shortcuts so they're not just one-way after you open them from the other side, or have them stay permanently open like in the Flooded District? The Gap is the most annoying map in Afterglow to scour through because of this, you have to do the whole circuit again to reach late-level locations.

[Vostyok]

Minor news update:

Yes, I would *really* like to explore Porcelain's story a bit more. Her athletic abilities and focus on sneakery would be an interesting change of pace. Also, Sommerville station is a planned place to visit at some point. This also include the nearby rail outpost which the scavenger didn't get to visit. Though we are probably going to following a different character for the next release. It depends who finishes their little project first.

I will see what I can do about The Gap and it's layout. I think I may have made it a little too big though. Ha.

Anyway, there will be a minor delay as I am going away on a little trip. I'll leave it to the rest of the team if they have anything they'd like to share here. But if not, I shall see you all in a week or so.

-V

[Plasmazippo]

Bon voyage, dude

[RKD]

Well, it must be like ten years since the last time I've posted a comment on a forum but Afterglow impressed me so much that I had to make an account and give my two cents, after who knows how many years lurking this site. It's that awesome, man. Love the work you guys have done!
This will be a lenghty post (apologies in advance), so I'll split it into parts to hopefully make it more easily readable.

First, a little optional backstory of how and when I met and played the mod:

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Back in 2018, after watching a review from Mr. Icarus on Ashes 2063, it immediately catched my attention. Not neccesarily the setting but the mapping, the enemies/weapons roster, the Strife-like dialogs with NPCs made it one of my fav mods ever after playing. It was wonderful enough, in fact, to keep the name of the mod stuck in my head. When DMW came out, I was excited but I decided to wait some more since I was short of free time at that point. Eventually, I forgor and at the end of this February I read somewhere (probably a random comment on youtube) that the 2nd Ep was, not only released already, but on its v1.10. So I looked that up, downloaded both Enriched 2063 and Afterglow and played the entire thing. Now, two evenings and a half later, I'm a different man. I walked down the road of desolation and trascended my humanity... Nah, just kidding. It was a really great experience, tho. Like, really.

My fav experience with Afterglow:

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Aside from the Dome standing out a lot in comparison with the rest of the levels (I liked them all, anyways, no joke), the most unique in my playthrough has to be Anomaly 210, the submarine level. I don't know how you did it but I never saw before that trick you pulled off with the monsters counter changing midways. It was magical, even if it was somewhat expected. I really love how this community always manage to surprise with something unique, at least from my pov.

Adding to that, I was expecting a boss fight to occur at the very end against the uber-ghostly captain of the sub or something along those lines, so I casually waited and walked normally after leaving the submarine, while the sirens were sounding loudly, and... died caught in the explosion. You got me there, very well done.

How my first (and only, for now) playthrough ended:

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- Michonne became a haunted place.
- Everyone in Prosperity got freaking murdered.
- A lone traveler also dead.
- Some scav being a serial killer.
- Apparently the scav didn't survive but I'm sure he totally did. I think I got to the bunker in time.

With this, I was devastated. Everyone was dead, even when I did everything I could to help on Michonne Circle and in Prosperity. I was so heartbroken(?) that I decided to look out if there was a reddit post or something discussing the ending, to check if my interpretations of it were right. They were not, and thank God. You see, at first I thought that the explosion in Sigma was so big that killed everyone else, which didn't make much sense when thinking about it a little more. It wasn't that big, c'mon! I ended up here on this forum and after an hour and a half reading posts, I realized there were multiple endings, that I shouldn't have let the Haunts alive when leaving Michonne (how these people even survived up to that point if they couldn't face just 4 monsters?!), that I did completely wrong the things in the Junkyard (whoops...), that the lone traveler wasn't the guy you rescue from a gang and meet again just before leaving Prosperity (it was Smiley instead, which is much better) and that the scav on a killing spree was... Silver? I thought that was the main character at first. Not sure why Silver is on a killing spree but... ok, I guess?

And now, the actual useful part when I mention some "issues" I had and my suggested solutions. In regards to the ending(s):

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I didn't realize at first there were more than one ending. Maybe I'm dumb and that's just it, but I do think that it would be useful if at the very last screen there were a message telling you that multiple endings are a thing. I would prefer something direct and clear like, for example: "Michonne Circle's Bad Ending. Try to get the good one next time!" or "Maybe try to not leaving them at their luck next time they open the tunnels for you, scavenger" but it could also be more cryptic and in wasteland-ish language (I can't think of anything right now but I suppose you get the point).
Some people mentioned that they would like a final stats count at the end. That would be useful too, but I believe the clarity in how well you played by the ending(s) you reached is more important. I know this is probably too late to do in Afterglow but at least I wanted to point this issue out, so hopefully you guys can implement this in the 3rd Ep.

Regarding the racing mini-game in Prosperity. First, correct me if I'm wrong but you can't attack with Lucy while on that race. If you can, then it probably was a bug on my end and what I'm gonna write next is pointless... but otherwise:

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My problem wasn't getting in first place, actually. I did end up winning on my 7th~8th attempt, when somehow I managed to take the vanguard right after the start and hold my position until the end. I don't know what I did different but it worked. Cheers! The problem with this race, instead, is that the rules were really misleading.

The "race woman" tells you that the rules are: Two laps. The prizes are for 1st and 2nd place and the rest only gets fame if they survive. Then she says that you win either by getting in 1st place or by hitting the other riders off their mounts. Then she goes even further by stating that she wants to "see some blood today". So my first thought was "I can finally use Lucy's attacks to ki-... err... incapacitate people. Neat!" But no, I couldn't use the acid spitting nor the leap charge in any of my attempts. I kinda assume it was a bug, because there's a puddle of water that probably was meant to bypass using the leap attack but dunno. Since after the first lap some snipers start shooting (only at you, the bastards...) I assumed that was the "blood" the woman mentioned. Was it really that? No clue now. Anyways, the other thing that bothered me was that this woman never said that stims were prohibited so of course I've used a brute stim on my 4th attempt! I thought I've found a legal hole! I thought "Aha! I'm so clever"! B-But no... it doesn't work. I just lost after reaching the goal.

Obviously, my solution to this would be to properly phrase the rules. Even if my race got bugged, I can confirm it's doable. At least that's something, I guess. Still, I would like the race to let you attack the others and if that is the case, then probably it could be a little longer too. Two laps pass by quite quickly, tbh. I think it could be four laps even to give you plenty of time to hit the riders. Winning by annihilation will always be more fun than just doing the race, and also it would seem like a homage to Death Rally or Carmaggedon. (?)

And finally, the last of the main issues I wanted to talk about... the Junkyard:

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I never realized that you could actually talk with the guys at the inner sliding door. I just napalm'd the heck out of them as soon as I saw them. How was I supposed to know?! Since I couldn't open the door, I wiped the side bunker thinking there was a hidden entrance or something there and later on I remember the technician guy said that I could use the pipes to get to other places, like the Dome or the Junkyard. So I break in that way and killed everyone, thinking it was cool to enter that way (which was, ngl). Sadly, by doing so, I doomed Prosperity. Poor lads.

In retrospective of this particular case, the reason I think that made me not even bother to try to talk to them was the very nature of the Doom formula: If something is marked as a "monster", it's hostile, which means that I have to kill it first... unless stated otherwise. Like in the case of hubs, when you expect everyone to be friendly or neutral (also, they never appear as monsters, very important giveaway). I'm pretty sure that not a single NPC dialog on the hub said that I could talk to those guys. If someone did, it wasn't clear enough, imo.
To give an example of the kind of things that I would interpret like they are gonna let me attempt some dialog, I can think of stuff like: "Are you looking for your bike? Why don't you go ask them. There's always someone at the door" or "The baron is a [redacted]. You'll be better allying with those morons in the Junkyard. They sure could use some help from you" or even "They may be morons but not barbarians. You can probably talk with those if you approach them". Maybe?

Just like with the ending stuff, it's probably too late for Afterglow, but I think this is something important to consider for the 3rd Ep. There has to be information clear enough in regards to main gameplay mechanics. It does not need to be hidden in a specific obscure dialog. Not everything has to be cryptic. The thing with Athena, fair enough. I think that's okay, since that's the reason why the player gets invested in trying to figure out what's going on and why. But simple stuff like "Hey, you see those guys over there that seem hostile? They are not. You can talk to them" should be presented in a more clear and direct manner, imo. I think this also helps to make it more accesible to casual players too and that can't be bad.

Alright, this was quite the walltext. Sorry if I got carried away with the typing. Pls, don't ban me.

To wrap this up, I honestly enjoyed the entire package of Ashes 2063 and I can easily say that Afterglow it's the mod I respect the most of all the mods I've ever played. The sheer ammount of love it has present it's mindblowing. It's almost a crime that this is free. You guys are really inspiring others in the community with stuff like this. Gotta love this part of the internet. Thank you for the experience and I'm gonna be starting my second run as soon as I'm free again. Hope this time I don't screw things up, haha!

Also,

I shall see you all in a week or so.

have a nice week off!

[venividivici]

I doubt its possible with GZDoom engine to have Porcelain to grab onto edges in gameplay.

Size of The Gap is fine, it is issue of layout and backtracking.

I honestly had worse time with The Flooded District.

I really like that The Gap is connected to The Flooded District and The Last Stop area.

Hopefully all areas Scavenger visited in Atlanta in Afterglow is where Porcelain can go check them too.

[ZikShadow]

Plenty of mods out there that have ledge grabbing, even Hideous Destructor have that in the form of its mantling mechanics. No clue where that doubt's coming from.
There's even a mod dedicated to purely movement-style changes with ZMovement in this very forums.

[Rex705]

Would be awesome to have a super sneaky stealth story for Porcelain. we don't get to see much stealth gameplay in doom. An epic action hero guns blazing with big explosions to make Michel bay proud story for Barret. Maybe even brawling.

[venividivici]

Plenty of mods out there that have ledge grabbing, even Hideous Destructor have that in the form of its mantling mechanics. No clue where that doubt's coming from.
There's even a mod dedicated to purely movement-style changes with ZMovement in this very forums.

Wasn't aware of ZMovement, cool. My thought was since GZDoom was 2D engine and that games that I remember having parkour were all 3D and had dedicated objects to ledge grab, wall run and so forth.

Seeing ZMovement, Splinter Cell could be possible.

[RubyEyeShabranigdu]

Plenty of mods out there that have ledge grabbing, even Hideous Destructor have that in the form of its mantling mechanics. No clue where that doubt's coming from.
There's even a mod dedicated to purely movement-style changes with ZMovement in this very forums.

Wasn't aware of ZMovement, cool. My thought was since GZDoom was 2D engine and that games that I remember having parkour were all 3D and had dedicated objects to ledge grab, wall run and so forth.

Seeing ZMovement, Splinter Cell could be possible.

Check out Doom Shinobi!
viewtopic.php?f=43&t=74677

[venividivici]

Check out Doom Shinobi!
viewtopic.php?f=43&t=74677

Looks cool, but its all action and no stealth.

[ButtonBoy]

Anyway, there will be a minor delay as I am going away on a little trip. I'll leave it to the rest of the team if they have anything they'd like to share here. But if not, I shall see you all in a week or so.

-V

Auf Wiedersehen mein Freund, gute Reise!, anyways I agree with RKD, it's honestly a war crime that ashes is free, there should be a PayPal or something we can donate to, like what the BOA creators did, because I'm sure there are plenty of people out there would jump at the chance to help out Vos and the team

[ZikShadow]

Plenty of mods out there that have ledge grabbing, even Hideous Destructor have that in the form of its mantling mechanics. No clue where that doubt's coming from.
There's even a mod dedicated to purely movement-style changes with ZMovement in this very forums.

Wasn't aware of ZMovement, cool. My thought was since GZDoom was 2D engine and that games that I remember having parkour were all 3D and had dedicated objects to ledge grab, wall run and so forth.

Seeing ZMovement, Splinter Cell could be possible.

GZD is absolutely not a 2D engine. The mapping may have 2D sensibilities, but the engine itself is anything but.
You don't make something like Total Chaos in some 2D engine.