[MusicallyInspired]

I know it's the first update because the armour shards look different and light up more which I believe was one of the things mentioned by someone when it was first released. I'm at work right now and can't check the log.

[Mr. Tibbs]

PC Gamer: The joy of returning to the early days of the FPS in Ion Maiden

Quote

Duke 3D was pretty much built on the principle that if something exists you should be able to mess with it, and that's the same for Ion Maiden. The result is a far cry from the non-interactive nature of most modern shooter level design, which might have a handful of physics-enabled objects but few crafted details to play around with. You feel a flash of connection with a game's designers when you realize they foresaw that you'd want to hit an office chair with a nightstick to push it across the room, and that they thought to make it visibly damaged before being completely destroyed.

And then there's the size of the levels. Ion Maiden's scale is ridiculous, with everything too wide and too tall, but that's totally fine because of your equally ridiculous run speed and jump height. You don't need special abilities to traverse the world, not even a sprint meter, because you can just run everywhere. Ion Maiden has the old school's vital kineticism, a sense of speed that more earthbound modern shooters has forgotten. I'm not saying that making everything fast is ideal in all cases, but when environments are this enormous zooming through them feels great.

[Jblade]

No mention of Voidpoint though, just Interceptor which is a dumb oversight to make.

[Hendricks266]

Jblade, on 17 April 2018 - 12:20 PM, said:

No mention of Voidpoint though, just Interceptor which is a dumb oversight to make.

Yeah, Gggmanlives made the same mistake in his video. Can people comment on this article to point out the mistake?

[Forge]

So I broke down and asked Tx for the update, and he was nice enough to hook me up.

I'm enjoying queen of the hill, but I don't know if I'll get much farther than stage 6. My poor little 2gb 650ti & fx 8320 start choking in the middle of it when there are too many enemy on the screen.

Still having fun though.

Be cool if this mode had several different arena styled maps to choose from.

[Forge]

-the trick that worked for me to keeping the fps at a reasonable rate is to stay off the top of the hill until most of the enemy are dead.
I got to phase 8 until I died from wounds - I think with enough practice and position control, I can probably finish it.

[Micky C]

Forge, on 17 April 2018 - 07:27 PM, said:

My poor little 2gb 650ti & fx 8320 start choking in the middle of it when there are too many enemy on the screen.

Don't worry, by the time Update 2 comes out at 3DR, Update 3 with improved performance will be ready

[TerminX]

Can someone who bought the game on the 3DR site confirm the update is appearing now?

[Danukem]

TerminX, on 17 April 2018 - 09:50 PM, said:

Can someone who bought the game on the 3DR site confirm the update is appearing now?

Yes, update 2 is live, I'm downloading it now.

[Jimmy]

Why does 3DR have such a hard time giving Voidpoint credit? It's pretty embarrassing.

[NightFright]

Wow, they even fixed the broken download display and put the new version on top!

Even though I still don't understand why they keep version 1.0 there. I severely doubt anybody will want to get that. OK, it's labelled "update 2", but afaik you don't need to download v1.0 first before updating. All the files you need to play are in the new release. Anyway, I hope the guys at 3DR finally woke up and will be able to respond faster in the future. Nobody expects them to be as fast as Steam, but a reasonable timeframe of maybe 2-3 days would be desirable.

One way or the other, I appreciate the service provided by TerminX for those that couldn't wait. It's the kind of support this game deserves and many other companies fail to provide.

[Zaxx]

NightFright, on 17 April 2018 - 11:39 PM, said:

Wow, they even fixed the broken download display and put the new version on top!

If they keep this up they'll become the next Ubisoft!

It's a bit disappointing to see how long it takes for 3DR to get its shit together.

[Sanek]

Jimmy, on 17 April 2018 - 10:40 PM, said:

Why does 3DR have such a hard time giving Voidpoint credit? It's pretty embarrassing.

Maybe because Voidpoint is just a developer-for-hire? They don't own the IP, they don't have any other games under their belt, and most publishers don't give the proper credit to the developers unless the team is already well-known across the industry. Heck, even the well-known studios don't get the credit they deserves. It just happens that Voidpoint owns the port, have extremely talented people on board and 3DR obviously don't have the budget for the likes of Nerve or other "professional" developers. Why pay more for less? As far as Build Engine games go, you can't find a better team than this one.

[Micky C]

I've tried out Queen of the Hill. Couldn't find the last 3 enemies in round 2. It's not as exciting as I thought it'd be. You spend too much time actually searching for the enemies, all the while the anxiety of the counter ticking down, as opposed to in combat. War of Attrition's challenge mode is much better in terms of the appropriateness of the level layouts, and the visibility of the enemies. Plus its powerups make it much more dynamic. Queen of the Hill feels incredibly rigid by comparison.

[necroslut]

Micky C, on 18 April 2018 - 02:33 AM, said:

I've tried out Queen of the Hill. Couldn't find the last 3 enemies in round 2. It's not as exciting as I thought it'd be. You spend too much time actually searching for the enemies, all the while the anxiety of the counter ticking down, as opposed to in combat. War of Attrition's challenge mode is much better in terms of the appropriateness of the level layouts, and the visibility of the enemies. Plus its powerups make it much more dynamic. Queen of the Hill feels incredibly rigid by comparison.

Wave 2 is the worst in that regard. After that you start getting a lot more enemies, which also gives you more time so it's much less of a hassle once you get past w.2.

[Zaxx]

necroslut, on 18 April 2018 - 02:57 AM, said:

Wave 2 is the worst in that regard. After that you start getting a lot more enemies, which also gives you more time so it's much less of a hassle once you get past w.2.

Yep, wave 2 is the "hit or miss" part of QotH, after that the timer stops becoming a problem.

[oasiz]

Wave 1-2 need tweaking indeed, a future patch will address a bunch of small things with qoth

You should never really run out of time and that wasn't the intention. It's just there to prevent camping in a corner really.

[Forge]

oasiz, on 18 April 2018 - 04:25 AM, said:

It's just there to prevent camping in a corner really.

then you can claim victory. mission accomplished.

What this mode needs is more maps. I'm going to assume that once I've beaten it, I'll probably never touch it again for a year or more.

[Zaxx]

Forge, on 18 April 2018 - 07:13 AM, said:

then you can claim victory. mission accomplished.

What this mode needs is more maps. I'm going to assume that once I've beaten it, I'll probably never touch it again for a year or more.

I think the main problem is the lack of variety: horde modes like this are pretty boring in fully developed games too so there is not much you can do if it's part of a demo. The enemy variety is limited, you have only one weapon, only health pickups and armor, no power ups.

The thing is though that Ion Maiden's combat is fun so a mode like this could be great in the full version with enemy variety, more arenas, power ups etc. and there is a bit of co-op potential here too.

[Mr. Tibbs]

3DR uploaded their PAX panel:

[Jimmy]

Sanek, on 18 April 2018 - 02:32 AM, said:

Maybe because Voidpoint is just a developer-for-hire? They don't own the IP, they don't have any other games under their belt, and most publishers don't give the proper credit to the developers unless the team is already well-known across the industry. Heck, even the well-known studios don't get the credit they deserves. It just happens that Voidpoint owns the port, have extremely talented people on board and 3DR obviously don't have the budget for the likes of Nerve or other "professional" developers. Why pay more for less? As far as Build Engine games go, you can't find a better team than this one.

How does the first and second part of your post even make sense together in your head? If there's no better team to develop for BUILD you would think they'd be shown a little more respect.

[Zaxx]

Jimmy, on 19 April 2018 - 11:51 PM, said:

How does the first and second part of your post even make sense together in your head? If there's no better team to develop for BUILD you would think they'd be shown a little more respect.

The way I see it it's just hard to explain to the general consumer what EDuke32 is, what Voidpoint is, where this whole thing is coming from = why the dev team is the most important factor in the game's quality. Saying "3D Realms = Duke 3D = Ion Maiden" is a much simpler message and hell, it may even be more effective. It's just the way it is for now but if Voidpoint ships the full game and the full game will be awesome (and of course it will be but keep in mind that IM is Vp's first commercial product) that "3D Realms" message will quickly turn into "Voidpoint".

[MusicallyInspired]

I've heard them drop the name "Voidpoint" a couple times.

[NNC]

I'm not sure what the game's development state is now, but I recommend the 4 leveldesigners to make their own zones/episodes to give them a more characteristic layout. If every zone is done by everyone, they can easily blend into something common even with different themes. Usually an episode by a singe author flows better than an episode by multiple authors. Just my two cents.

[Micky C]

Nancsi, on 20 April 2018 - 05:54 AM, said:

I'm not sure what the game's development state is now, but I recommend the 4 leveldesigners to make their own zones/episodes to give them a more characteristic layout. If every zone is done by everyone, they can easily blend into something common even with different themes. Usually an episode by a singe author flows better than an episode by multiple authors. Just my two cents.

You'd be surprised of the kind of variety a single author can pull off when they want to though.

[Mike Norvak]

There is a spot in the preview campaign where the shift in style is too noticeable, the outdoor area where you need a keycard to go down an elevator, that part is too blocky compared to previous and later areas, I don't know if it was made by another mapper. Just saying, not nitpick or anything.

[NNC]

Micky C, on 20 April 2018 - 06:01 AM, said:

You'd be surprised of the kind of variety a single author can pull off when they want to though.

Of course, but people are at their best in their own style. And there is little room to do experimental stuff in a commercial Build engine game which selling point is to do high quality maps. I still encourage that at least 4 of the planned 7 zones should be one man's vision.

[Sanek]

Jimmy, on 19 April 2018 - 11:51 PM, said:

How does the first and second part of your post even make sense together in your head? If there's no better team to develop for BUILD you would think they'd be shown a little more respect.

I respect the makers of the game but no matter how good they are, nobody ever heard of them until Ion Maiden was announced.
It's just that Vpoint don't have any brand recogntion, while 3DR is a legend. It's that simple.

[Micky C]

Voidpoint are the ones who are actually developing the game. I gather TX is directing the project, and Voidpoint has a lot of control over the creative decisions, i.e. what makes the game fun.

[Hank]

^ It’s not that simple. Voidpoint needs 3D Realms and vice versa, methinks? Could be wrong, as most of the time.

I ask my girl to keep me awake watching this soporific video again. (post 1476) One person in the audience was definitely sick (person with purple hair). Thus, perhaps the Vice President of 3D Realms and Scott Miller were sick, or sickly, tired and stressed out? Let’s (or I will anyway) give them some time to promote this awesome game.

I prefer Bombardier over Queen of the Hill, but hey, I’m an old fart, so if you like Queen of the Hill, I love you still.

Best Wishes to all involved, super ecstatic for the game. Go forth guys and win - winning is a nice feeling.