[Micky C]

Mark, on 23 January 2019 - 06:07 AM, said:

I used to think that would happen with other releases like Dukeplus, WGR, HHR, Duke Forces, etc... A few at first then nothing. I hoped someone would use Graveyard or Decay to try and make even better maps than I did. but no.

Ion Maiden has been designed from the ground-up to be modded, and you can pull off some incredibly sophisticated effects without any new coding.

It also has a very extensible and versatile tile set which allows for a large variety of environments to be created, and the many alt pals enhance this further.

What can you build with WGR2? Some medieval stuff? A bit of natural terrain? It’s a drop in the ocean compared to the number of environments you can do in Ion Maiden. I once tried building a map for Duke Forces (an outdoor one), and I very quickly realised that the tile set was nowhere near sufficient to do what I wanted.
The high-red projects you mentioned wouldn’t have done much for mapping as the textures are not as general-purpose as low-res counterparts. Grass can only be grass as opposed to green carpet etc.

[Mike Norvak]

Yeah, completely different things. A new game versus mods. It would be really cool to have some enemies from AA by Sebabduke20 for example in an Ion Maiden mod in the near future though.

[Mark]

I guess I should clarify. I'n not saying that a whole community of mappers from around the world are going to be flooding the servers with new maps for those old TCs/mods. But the almost total lack of people interested in mapping for those projects gives me the impression that there is a chance of the same thing with IM. For the reason you gave about IM designed to be mapper friendly we hopefully see more than we did with past projects. I remain skeptical of it opening a whole new realm of mappers. I hope I'm wrong. I haven't seen the maps or texture sets yet so I don't have an opinion on how versatile and varied they are.

[Micky C]

Nobody knows whether or not a large number of mappers will jump on board. I probably won't myself. Another thing to consider is that Ion Maiden has extremely high visibility in the wider gaming community. Furthermore, this visibility is prominent in the field of 90's FPS throwbacks, which are exactly the kind of people who would want to come back and try their hand at mapping. I'd say overall the more oldschool TCs like WGRealms 2, the AMC TC and DNF 2013 didn't too bad in terms of drawing in new mappers to map for them.

Finally, I'm sure Ion Maiden will have excellent documentation, both in terms of manuals and in-game help.

[Forge]

Heskel completed
killed everything & 6/8 secrets

there are a few minor decoration issues - like floating bloody footprints and some faux deco long black and steel window on the wall, opposite the posters, & next to the very first elevator at the beginning of the map that clipped in and out of the wall.

Nice lighting/shading and decoration. Good texture set. Well constructed and a smooth, logical layout. Somebody likes sos/ror.

I understand it's a show-piece for more weapons and enemy demonstrations, but the amount of firepower (ammo) was a bit over the top. Not difficult or challenging, but still enjoyable enough.

[NNC]

I'm just wondering how Ion Maiden art would meld in a Duke 3D map (or vice versa for that matter). I can see some posters or textures would fit in well with the Duke atmosphere, particularly from the subway map.

[Jblade]

Really love the new content (the usable jukebox was awesome) and the new weapon fire modes are excellent - one question about the map though, it looks like it's using TROR for stuff like the exterior - does this mean you guys fixed the problems with polymost mode, or is it something else?

[MetHy]

There is a bit of TRoR in the map (the fireplace near the blue key, and another one that's hardly worth mentionning) but everything else that looks like TRoR is IM's skybox system, the same one you could find in some places in the Preview Campaign and which was explained in The 1st dev blog entry.

Forge, on 23 January 2019 - 08:30 PM, said:

Somebody likes sos/ror.

SoS is a love/hate relationship. Mostly you love the stuff but you hate yourself for wanting to work with it.

Nancsi, on 23 January 2019 - 09:45 AM, said:

And of course the autistic question. Who designed this map?

It's a tough situation where, even for some of the devs, it's become impossible to tell who between Vita and I did what in some places. I'm not sure everybody would be able to be in this situation as it demands to park your ego.
Since I'm sure Vita would hate to see people think I'm to be given credit for something he did, and vice versa, I wish I could provide a thorough answer someday... but even then it's not that simple.
All I can say for now is that there are varying degrees of my involvement depending on what you're talking about in the map, but I've been involved in everything if only at least for a little bit, even regarding the basic layout and progression that I changed, or the basic architecture that I made wider and bigger in most indoor places. The exceptions being the things Oasiz mentionned (anything above the glass in the small skybox at the end and the jukebox which is all his, as well as the bowling alley that I took from an old concept map of his and that I rigged).

So in short, if you thought it was complicated to tell who did what in the Preview Campaign, it's even more complicated here. The lesson is that in a commercial game credit isn't as simple as in a map, in fact, I believe there are many things we don't know about in other Build games that we'd tend to attribute to some specific mappers.

[NNC]

MetHy, on 23 January 2019 - 11:59 PM, said:

There is a bit of TRoR in the map (the fireplace near the blue key, and another one that's hardly worth mentionning) but everything else that looks like TRoR is IM's skybox system, the same one you could find in some places in the Preview Campaign and which was explained in The 1st dev blog entry.



SoS is a love/hate relationship. Mostly you love the stuff but you hate yourself for wanting to work with it.



It's a tough situation where, even for some of the devs, it's become impossible to tell who between Vita and I did what in some places. I'm not sure everybody would be able to be in this situation as it demands to park your ego.
Since I'm sure Vita would hate to see people think I'm to be given credit for something he did, and vice versa, I wish I could provide a thorough answer someday... but even then it's not that simple.
All I can say for now is that there are varying degrees of my involvement depending on what you're talking about in the map, but I've been involved in everything if only at least for a little bit, even regarding the basic layout and progression that I changed, or the basic architecture that I made wider and bigger in most indoor places. The exceptions being the things Oasiz mentionned (anything above the glass in the small skybox at the end and the jukebox which is all his, as well as the bowling alley that I took from an old concept map of his and that I rigged).

So in short, if you thought it was complicated to tell who did what in the Preview Campaign, it's even more complicated here. The lesson is that in a commercial game credit isn't as simple as in a map, in fact, I believe there are many things we don't know about in other Build games that we'd tend to attribute to some specific mappers.

No, it wasn't complicated at all in the preview. Everybody did their segment in their own style. It was a bit tricky here, because 2 of you were working on it. I think you two will be credited like Tom Hall and Sandy Petersen, as one started, and one finished it.

I still hope we can see some distinct segments of mappers in the final game, like in the Preview. Using ideas from others like a small bowling area is fine, but sizable segments should keep their distinct style.

[oasiz]

There are whole distinct maps by mappers. DNV's stuff is more of an exception due to not being done. Credits can get more complicated and maybe later we can go through this stuff in more detail.

[Forge]

Jblade, on 23 January 2019 - 11:51 PM, said:

the new weapon fire modes are excellent

there's one thing I didn't quite figure out.
holding the alt-weapon mode key while using the loverboy pistol
Shelly puts her hand on the hammer like she's going to go old-school western 6-shooter with it, but I never could get it to fire.
also:
Could have been me because holding that key while walking around is a bit awkward, but the movement seemed a bit sluggish or slowed down.

[Hendricks266]

Hold, aim to lock-on, release.

[Master O]

Zaxx, on 22 January 2019 - 09:53 PM, said:

Man, seeing the tagline from the DNF "announcement" trailer brought back so many bad memories.

So you're saying you want this to be called "Ion Maiden Forever"?

[Zaxx]

Master O, on 24 January 2019 - 10:56 AM, said:

So you're saying you want this to be called "Ion Maiden Forever"?

No but I'm hoping for a secret boss called Duke Nukem Forever. It's going to be a twisted, perverted version of Duke voiced by a drunk Jon St. John, he'll throw his own shit at you as a ranged attack and piss on you for melee but he won't be a tough opponent because in the middle of the fight he'll just bug out and commit suicide.

It's gonna be like Robocop 2 in Robocop 2:

[Micky C]

Hendricks266, on 24 January 2019 - 08:14 AM, said:

Hold, aim to lock-on, release.

That mode is extremely fun to use!

Could you clarify what exactly the minigun's alt fire does?

[Hendricks266]

Micky C, on 24 January 2019 - 02:16 PM, said:

Could you clarify what exactly the minigun's alt fire does?

It spins up the barrel, so you can press and unpress fire as you need without waiting for spinup and spindown each time.

[Micky C]

Hendricks266, on 24 January 2019 - 02:17 PM, said:

It spins up the barrel, so you can press and unpress fire as you need without waiting for spinup and spindown each time.

Is there anything more to it? I mean doesn't that alt mode make the original mode completely redundant?

[Hendricks266]

Do you know what a truth table is? Here is one:

Fire Held, Alt-Fire Held, State
F, F, Idle
F, T, Spinning
T, F, Firing
T, T, Firing

Without the Fire button, the gun won't shoot bullets. Without the Alt-Fire, the gun will return to idle whenever Fire is not held. There is no redundancy.

[Forge]

Hendricks266, on 24 January 2019 - 08:14 AM, said:

Hold, aim to lock-on, release.

the alt-weapon for the revolver threw me off - because I like to test the alternative weapons and fire modes before I actually try to use them in combat.
With no enemy present, it didn't do anything, other than the visual of the hand on the hammer.
I thought it was either an unfinished event, or it was meant for a possible second weapon/ammunition type for that slot that hadn't been added yet.

Thank you for clarifying. It's a nice feature.

[Hendricks266]

I had to be told what to do the first time too, and so have many others. We're looking into how to help the user understand better, because it's clearly confusing.

[Forge]

Hendricks266, on 24 January 2019 - 02:39 PM, said:

I had to be told what to do the first time too, and so have many others. We're looking into how to help the user understand better, because it's clearly confusing.

when an enemy is "locked" on - it presents a yellow box with an X
if no enemy is "locked" on have it show a partially transparent red box with an X a bit off center of where the crosshair would be

[Hendricks266]

One idea I had was to make the crosshair rotate or change color while alt-fire is held. We're not sure yet.

[Zaxx]

I don't think it's that confusing, it's pretty much the "mark & execute" feature of one of the newer Splinter Cell games without the slow mo and I think RDR2 has something like this too. It's just a bit weird to see it in a classic shooter but people will get it without shoving tutorials in their faces I think.

[Forge]

Zaxx, on 24 January 2019 - 02:46 PM, said:

I don't think it's that confusing, it's pretty much the "mark & execute" feature of one of the newer Splinter Cell games without the slow mo and I think RDR2 has something like this too. It's just a bit weird to see it in a classic shooter but people will get it without shoving tutorials in their faces I think.

.......aaaaaaaaaaaand I've never played either of those........

[Zaxx]

Hey, the guy who has the same stuttering problem that I have reported back on the Steam forums:
https://steamcommuni...01877493495283/
What he's saying is not right though: sure, since the problem usually appears at save points disabling auto saving will help but auto saves are not the cause, saving / map loading is.

[Forge]

Zaxx, on 24 January 2019 - 03:27 PM, said:

....since the problem usually appears at save points disabling auto saving will help but auto saves are not the cause, saving / map loading is.

Are you implying that the program has a buffer problem and can't read from & write to the hard drive simultaneously?

[Zaxx]

I dunno what I'm implying, all I know is that it seems to do something with accessing the HDD.

[Micky C]

Hendricks266, on 24 January 2019 - 02:23 PM, said:

Do you know what a truth table is? Here is one:

Fire Held, Alt-Fire Held, State
F, F, Idle
F, T, Spinning
T, F, Firing
T, T, Firing

Without the Fire button, the gun won't shoot bullets. Without the Alt-Fire, the gun will return to idle whenever Fire is not held. There is no redundancy.

But why not just hold alt fire with the mini gun all the time, or just have it spinning all the time without having to press alt fire? There seems to be an advantage to using it and no disadvantage. I’m sure there are practical reasons for it in real life, but this is a video game.

[Jblade]

Micky C, on 24 January 2019 - 10:21 PM, said:

But why not just hold alt fire with the mini gun all the time, or just have it spinning all the time without having to press alt fire? There seems to be an advantage to using it and no disadvantage. I’m sure there are practical reasons for it in real life, but this is a video game.

I have no idea why you're making a thing out of this man because holding right-click constantly would be annoying. If it was a toggle I'd agree but it's not, so having to hold down a button to fire at will is a disadvantage.

[Echelon5]

New bowling bomb behavior makes them feel somewhat unreliable. Being able to toss them quickly and being confident they'd home in on an enemy was a treat. Now it feels like a wild card as to whether they'll just bounce around or actually seek out an enemy.

Ion Bow is cool as shit though! Loved the new level. IM's gonna be one of the best games of the year if the preview campaign is any indication of overall quality.