[Aristotle Gumball]

The Battlelord, on 12 July 2019 - 09:31 AM, said:

I think that the genre of a person does not matter so much, is more about how some people are influenced by society or grew up in some particular situations.We think that a girl must grow up by playing with dolls and similar things to act like a sweety woman and mom in the future, then, what happens if she is free from the start and can choose things that she really likes?I mean, we are really sure that a girl, without any suggestion, will choose to dress in pink, 1496793 shoes, dolls etc?Same thing can be applied to men, am not sure that we will choose stuff "made for us" without somebody that says "hey, this is a doll and is made for girls, here, take this Action Man this is for boys, dude" .

This is social constructivism. On average those differences you mention (girls play with dolls, boys with cars, etc) are biologically driven. Individually people will vary of course.

[Jimmy]

Gaydar, on 12 July 2019 - 07:30 AM, said:

Shelly is one of the better female leads of 2019, which is why I don't complain about her too much. But she's certainly not built on the image of great female leads of the past. It is so ironic how left-wing influence, which was supposed to empower female leads, has resulted in them having completely forgettable personalities. They are simply women who act like men.

And they're not even good at acting like men.

I tend to agree that Shelly is a shitty character, Voidpoint has done their best to improve her for their game. But 3DR's whiny libtard baggage has definitely hurt perceptions of the game, while Voidpoint has very smartly kept their mouth shut about extraneous political tripe and tried to let the game speak for itself.

I'd like to see what Voidpoint could do with their own property. 3DR is terrible at public relations, which is ironic considering their obsession with it.

[xMobilemux]

Can those who actually like Shelly explain why you actually like her and why you think she's a good character?

Not having a go at anyone, I just want to know what they see that I don't.

[----]

I haven't played Bombshell and only a very little bit of Ion Maiden (first beta) and watched most trailers and gameplay footage without sound, so I don't know anything about her as a character.

I would have written her as a cynic (as said above, don't know if that is already the case) and her one-liners describe how (mentally) tiresome it is is to her to fight and kill all the enemies. To describe what I mean: in the original Star Wars princess Leia is very cynical about Luke and Han when they save her, but she is never telling anyone what a great person she thinks she is (that's what makes her work opposed to Holdo, for example).
For Ion Maiden I would have projected that cynism at the enemies.

It is no problem to fight all the countless enemies, but she makes no fuzz about that or herself but is cynical about the enemies and their agenda and the world and society in general.

Don't know why, that's just how I feel she should be from the gameplay.

[oasiz]

We're happy with the character, taking inspiration from terminator and robocop from example and putting our own spin on it.
I'd honestly just wait for the full version, preview is just a small subset of everything, there is quite little to work from compared to the full thing as many key events just simply don't exist there.
There are a lot of opportunities that are simply missing, just like trying to develop Duke based on first few levels only when a lot of the stuff he is known for happened in EP2/EP3.

Our goal is not to make her a part-time female Duke stand-in and with the same, this game isn't intended as a stand-in for "Duke Nukem 4D", but it doesn't mean that we don't care, we just want to make a cool build engine game that can stand on it's own. Although we're not denying heavy inspiration, coming from the d3d modding itself.
FYI, we practically just ignored 2016 Bombshell when it came to this character, aside from VA

Aanyway.. what I am saying here is that maybe wait a little more for the full game and you can better gauge then.

[MusicallyInspired]

xMobilemux, on 12 July 2019 - 09:16 PM, said:

Can those who actually like Shelly explain why you actually like her and why you think she's a good character?

Not having a go at anyone, I just want to know what they see that I don't.

She's not overbearing or annoying to listen to and she's pleasing to the eyes (not in that way, I just happen to like her appearance so much better than Bombshell 2016's).

I also like that there's no obnoxious attitude or lines like "never send a man to do a woman's job" or anything like that. She just kicks butt, end of story. And I buy that she's as tough as gameplay suggests. I'm just not put off, that's what it comes down to.

[John Brown]

For me, it's a combination of gameplay overriding the character, and the character herself not necessarily being good, but being significantly better than what she used to be.

I'm of the opinion that a lot of "TOP 10 BEST GAMING CHARACTERS" are massively overrated, particularly characters like Doomguy or Gordon Freeman. They have no character value in their games whatsoever, but their games were good, so by extension, the player characters are winners by association. Ion Fury/Maiden/whatever, at least in its preview build and compared to all the countless retro FPS pretenders out there, is a good game. So for me personally, Shelly doesn't have to be a "good" character, she just has to be the body attached to the right hand that holds those weapons that shoot when I click left mouse. She occasionally has funny lines and really that's all I need.

Also, it's not that Shelly in her current incarnation is "good" rather than she's a hell of a lot better than she used to be. The original Bombshell reveal version of her was just awful. The version of her that actually made it to market in Bombshell 2016 was a little better but still boring, bland, and the few times she did speak, she had horrible lines that made me want to mute the game (and going to my above suggestion, being the lead heroine of a disappointing-at-best game did not help). In Ion Maiden's preview, I thought her lines where nowhere near as cringey as they were in Bombshell, at worst case they were just bland exposition.

I don't think she's a good character, but I do think she's a "good enough" character. I much prefer the 90's version of Shelly (or the Alien Armageddon version) but really I'm with MusicallyInspired, inoffensive seems the best way to put her.

[Forge]

judging by the small sampling in the preview campaing; Shelly is bland and milquetoast. Her lines are delivered with the authority of winning at canasta, instead of surviving shootouts.

Appearance is adequate & appropriate for the setting. A little dull, but better than the other end of the spectrum with 7.2 richter scale boob-physics & dental-floss short-shorts.

[Sledgehammer]

Can some of you guys post the new original artwork?

[MrFlibble]

Also will the press kit be updated? Would be nice to have all the brand-new screenshots in lossless quality - the JPEGs on the official site (and GOG and Steam) have all the usual artifacts including faded colours (most notably reds) and mosquito noise.

[Sledgehammer]

John Brown, on 13 July 2019 - 03:37 PM, said:

I don't think she's a good character, but I do think she's a "good enough" character. I much prefer the 90's version of Shelly (or the Alien Armageddon version) but really I'm with MusicallyInspired, inoffensive seems the best way to put her.

This attitude doesn't surprise me with the current state of the industry, I kind of feel the same way about certain western games too (just like about some Japanese games except for different reasons), but the main reason why I'd like to see a better improvement in that aspect if that's possible is because Voidpoint actually put good efforts and love into their game.

Though now that I think about it more, considering Bombshell belongs to 3DR and since they can do whatever they want with the character, perhaps it's fine the way it is, though compared to original Bombshell, Shelly in Ion Furry is a significant improvement and the game is still basically a demo version. It would be much better if Voidpoint came up with the original character they would own themselves and in any case, I hope Voidpoint make a better potential franchise with a strong character that won't be compared to others as a copy/rip-off that would be completely theirs.

[DavoX]

The press kit is this one, not the one posted a couple posts above.

https://drive.google...342TUpGvslxx9-G

[Sledgehammer]

Any chance to get PSD too for the second key art?

[MusicallyInspired]

Ah thank you. I was waiting for that.

[Mark]

 Forge, on 13 July 2019 - 04:23 PM, said:

...Her lines are delivered with the authority of winning at canasta...

[TerminX]

I think you guys will be happier with the character in the full version. I wrote most of the dialogue myself and didn't run it by anyone for neutering approval before having it recorded this time.

[Sledgehammer]

Don't forget about the story (text or other necessary stuff) itself too.

[Aristotle Gumball]

I have faith in your abilities.

[Mark]

I don't have any issues with her dialog and delivery. I just quoted Forge's post because it struck me as funny because canasta is an old card game and I wondered if anyone else recognized it or had to do a Google search.

[MusicallyInspired]

I remember some old person in some old movie mentioning Canasta as if it was something old. lol

[Micky C]

 Mark, on 16 July 2019 - 12:40 PM, said:

I don't have any issues with her dialog and delivery. I just quoted Forge's post because it struck me as funny because canasta is an old card game and I wondered if anyone else recognized it or had to do a Google search.

I know what it is, and I'm a young whipper-snapper. Well, I used to know what it is; I played it with my grandma about 15 years ago and have forgotten the rules

[brullov]

Can't wait to get into the map editor. I won't play the game till I investigate all the textures and sprites.

[Truck Stop Santa Claus]

 brullov, on 17 July 2019 - 01:13 AM, said:

Can't wait to get into the map editor. I won't play the game till I investigate all the textures and sprites.

Who isn't
I hope that it brings new life to Build Engine modding
Tired of Doom builder over shadowing us

[Truck Stop Santa Claus]

But I'm going to play the game through though at lest once first

[Micky C]

The problem is that mapster’s keyboard-driven interface comes with a steep learning curve that serves as a barrier to people starting mapping. Everything done so far to improve the interface has been like stacking layers of bandaids on top of each other.

It probably doesn’t help that Ion Fury’s levels are incredibly intricate and detailed. It’d take people years to be able to understand the engine and editor well enough to pull off that kind of design, and more importantly, to become fast enough to build it within a relatively short period.

[TerminX]

 Micky C, on 17 July 2019 - 06:43 PM, said:

The problem is that mapster’s keyboard-driven interface comes with a steep learning curve that serves as a barrier to people starting mapping. Everything done so far to improve the interface has been like stacking layers of bandaids on top of each other.

It probably doesn’t help that Ion Fury’s levels are incredibly intricate and detailed. It’d take people years to be able to understand the engine and editor well enough to pull off that kind of design, and more importantly, to become fast enough to build it within a relatively short period.

You can still do Duke3D-style levels in IF, though. Most of the effects originally used in Duke3D work exactly the same as they always did and nothing prevents anyone from making maps that only use those simpler effects.

Remember, AHB and Levelord made the levels in World Tour using Mapster32 and it had been 20 years since they had touched the original DOS version of the editor. I think you are underestimating what people who are determined to make something can do.

You aren't wrong about the interface in general, however. Maybe if IF sells well enough that making another game on the engine seems worthwhile we can put some of the revenue toward a UI rework.

[Truck Stop Santa Claus]

Mapster32 is still less buggy than Hammer to me

[Radar]

 TerminX, on 17 July 2019 - 06:55 PM, said:

You can still do Duke3D-style levels in IF, though. Most of the effects originally used in Duke3D work exactly the same as they always did and nothing prevents anyone from making maps that only use those simpler effects.

Remember, AHB and Levelord made the levels in World Tour using Mapster32 and it had been 20 years since they had touched the original DOS version of the editor. I think you are underestimating what people who are determined to make something can do.

You aren't wrong about the interface in general, however. Maybe if IF sells well enough that making another game on the engine seems worthwhile we can put some of the revenue toward a UI rework.

Is multiplayer planned for the August 15 release?

[Micky C]

 TerminX, on 17 July 2019 - 06:55 PM, said:

Remember, AHB and Levelord made the levels in World Tour using Mapster32 and it had been 20 years since they had touched the original DOS version of the editor. I think you are underestimating what people who are determined to make something can do.

Don't get me wrong, the current interface is fine if you're familiar with it; keyboard shortcuts are faster than a purely mouse-driven interface and always will be. What I'm not underestimating is the tendency for generation Z to avoid software that isn't incredibly intuitive and self-explanatory, as well as give up on things after a short period of time

Of course, young whipper snappers aren't necessarily the target audience of IF, rather people who are craving the attributes of old-school shooters such as good level design among others. Hopefully it will draw in younger people too, since as Voidpoint has said, you're simply making a good game that happens to run on the build engine, as opposed to an explicit 'build engine shooter'.

After all, if the mapping community is going to be sustainable long-term, we'll need to constantly be drawing in new young mappers. We can do this by emphasizing eduke's strengths over more modern engines, namely the relative simplicity and speed of the mapping process. We'll need to make the entry as smooth and painless as possible however.

 TerminX, on 17 July 2019 - 06:55 PM, said:

You aren't wrong about the interface in general, however. Maybe if IF sells well enough that making another game on the engine seems worthwhile we can put some of the revenue toward a UI rework.

I sure hope it's successful enough for an entirely new game after IF. The trailer showed that the game is on a whole other level compared to the preview, showing amazing interactivity and set-pieces as well as fantastic and interesting-looking levels. If that doesn't create sales, I don't know what will.

[Lunick]

 Gaydar, on 17 July 2019 - 07:14 PM, said:

Is multiplayer planned for the August 15 release?

No, it's always been a post-release thing