[Danukem]

 Micky C, on 08 March 2018 - 10:14 PM, said:

Seriously though, this is great. One of Shadow Warrior 2013 and 2's biggest problems was that it made certain fights mandatory and dragged them out (with bullet sponge enemies). The more freedom the better IMO.

If they were boring fights with bullet sponge enemies, then they were badly designed fights. So you seem to be saying that it was good to be able to skip them because the intended gameplay was bad. While I suppose this does make a case for allowing skips, it makes a much stronger case for better gameplay design.

[Mblackwell]

Just so you're aware - most of the regular kinds of skips are prevented in Ion Maiden, most of them automatically. There are a few skips with SOS and the like that are pretty much impossible to account for however. Additionally there is a speedrunner on the team, and there were more in testing, and there were some skips and tricks (or kinds of skips) that have been left in place purposefully to let that community have a bit of fun in their own way.

[Danukem]

 Mblackwell, on 08 March 2018 - 10:31 PM, said:

Just so you're aware - most of the regular kinds of skips are prevented in Ion Maiden, most of them automatically. There are a few skips with SOS and the like that are pretty much impossible to account for however. Additionally there is a speedrunner on the team, and there were more in testing, and there were some skips and tricks (or kinds of skips) that have been left in place purposefully to let that community have a bit of fun in their own way.

That's all good. What I don't like is an attitude that I come across sometimes of "don't fix it cuz speedrunning is cool bro!" and I was getting a touch of that from some of the other comments.

As anyone knows who has ever been involved in the development of a project that has complex levels, preventing unintended skips is just part of the testing and revision process. There does come a point where the effort required to prevent a skip is no longer worth it (because the skip is hard to prevent, the skip is very minor or the skip itself is hard for the player to do), but to suggest something like "hey man don't worry about it because freedom == more ways to play == good!" is just fucking stupid.

[Forge]

Speed runs are great and have a sort of "tradition".

That being said, the glitch where the door clips the player into the room with the elevator that goes to the basement should be fixed. It's a bug.

[Altered Reality]

 Trooper Dan, on 08 March 2018 - 07:19 PM, said:

I know speed running is very popular these days, but you guys need to add some invisible walls or something.

So people are gonna bitch that it's linear like DNF.

[Mike Norvak]

IMHO the main point they need to tear in mind is wether or not the glitch was intentional, is the player looking for exploits? well it's ok, speedrunners will always find a way, is the player accidentaly transported to other area/stuck/dead after a glitch? that's definitely unintended behaviour and need to be prevented.

[oasiz]

We do take running in to account and test for bugs quite heavily, not to mention that we know a ton of ways to mitigate stuff, hell, I used to route duke3d and used to speedrun actively myself a couple years back
Goal is to patch anything that is a harmful bug, anything that gets left in (i.e. a clever skip) generally gets embraced and some times thought gets put behind. This is why you can skip the red key through the bathroom window, not much of a speed increase but you can be clever there and with a risk/skill tradeoff you can skip about a minute worth of game play.

Keep in mind that build engine is what it is, whenever you introduce SOS, there WILL be a way to clip. Even original duke/RR/etc.. are full of stuff like this.
Many can play the game for years and still never encounter a proper skip, but the tricks aren't hard.. Watch a video and almost anyone can do those.
After you know how it works, it's really easy to keep finding new spots like this. Just the nature of the engine and collision code

So yeah, harmful bugs (getting stuck) are definitely something we don't want. If any get left in then you really should have to work your way intentionally to get to this situation.
Luckily in this case the teleport doesn't leave you stuck, it just prevents further backtracking.

Bottom line: No, we don't want to have a broken game just because

NOTE: In this case the "left in trick" is not a SOS clip. It's just one way to use bowlingbombs.

[Micky C]

 Trooper Dan, on 08 March 2018 - 10:41 PM, said:

As anyone knows who has ever been involved in the development of a project that has complex levels, preventing unintended skips is just part of the testing and revision process. There does come a point where the effort required to prevent a skip is no longer worth it (because the skip is hard to prevent, the skip is very minor or the skip itself is hard for the player to do), but to suggest something like "hey man don't worry about it because freedom == more ways to play == good!" is just fucking stupid.

I can appreciate that as a modder who develops games in his spare time, you would like people to enjoy every aspect of the game that you worked hard to produce.

However, keep in mind that Ion Maiden is a paid product that people also fork out hard earned cash for, and should be allowed to play the game anyway they like, particularly since this game is based on an era where ultra-quick speed runs are a notable factor.

Yes, Shadow Warrior 2’s bigger problem was having boring fights with bullet sponge enemies at times, however the frustrating thing is that it advertised itself as having relatively open-world levels with a lot of freedom, and then completely disregarding that during these fights.
What I’m saying is that Ion Maiden’s priority should be to make the game so interesting that you wouldn’t want to speed run (and miss the juicy gameplay), other than for the sake/challenge of it, or if you’ve played it for the 1000th time and want to do something different. At times like these, freedom == good, and Voidpoint has the skill, resources, and motivation to pull it off. Of course, these are all opinions, which can’t be right or wrong.

[Doom64hunter]

I think a bug like this should be fixed if it is frequently triggered by a player through no fault of his own, and/or if it can affect the player in some negative fashion.

In the case of clipping to the exit, I do see a problem in that he's prevented from backtracking without noclipping if he hasn't gotten the key yet. That would definitely annoy me if it happened.
One solution would be to add another vent inside the area that leads outside (the vent being inaccessible from outside of course), or having a fire extinguisher to blow up part of the wall.

[MusicallyInspired]

 Trooper Dan, on 08 March 2018 - 07:19 PM, said:

I know speed running is very popular these days, but you guys need to add some invisible walls or something. Maybe some mandatory encounters other than just the final boss. It's cool but it also makes a mockery of the game.

I don't understand this viewpoint at all. Nothing has been hated more in video game development than invisible walls. I also fail to see how being able to speedrun makes a "mockery" of the game. I'm no speedrunner, but I can also see some backlash at the idea of actively attempting to prevent speedrunning from happening. Look at the differences between Metroid Fusion and Metroid Zero Mission. They're both great games, but so many more people appreciate Zero Mission and not just because it's easier to speedrun.

[necroslut]

 MusicallyInspired, on 09 March 2018 - 08:07 AM, said:

I don't understand this viewpoint at all. Nothing has been hated more in video game development than invisible walls. I also fail to see how being able to speedrun makes a "mockery" of the game. I'm no speedrunner, but I can also see some backlash at the idea of actively attempting to prevent speedrunning from happening. Look at the differences between Metroid Fusion and Metroid Zero Mission. They're both great games, but so many more people appreciate Zero Mission and not just because it's easier to speedrun.

I think there's a significant difference between padding every corner other than the main path with invisible walls and putting up a couple where the player really was never meant to go. Ion Maiden already offers a freedom of movement and exploration beyond what I can remember seeing in a very long time. I also don't think preventing a few major skips is really "preventing speedrunning from happening".

For a game that's already taking some flack for "being a 40 minute demo", really short speedruns this early after release possibly could negatively affect it.

[Doom64hunter]

I don't think the quickness of a speedrun says much about the quality of a game. In fact, I have never ever seen anyone judge the quality based on how quickly the game can be completed in a speedrun, not even on cesspits like /v/.
To give you an example: The new Prey is critically acclaimed, yet has a glitch that makes a speedrun of the whole game possible within minutes. Same case with TES: Oblivion.
And the Build engine is a special case anyways, since it is after all the game engine famous for doors that can and will crush you without warning, so bugs like these are kind of expected. (maybe even welcome?)

When it comes to other issues, I would rather worry about the experience the average player is going to have, rather than what a speedrunner experiences.
The former just wants to play, the latter wants to break it in all forms imaginable.

[Forge]

 Doom64hunter, on 09 March 2018 - 07:40 AM, said:

I think a bug like this should be fixed if it is frequently triggered by a player through no fault of his own, and/or if it can affect the player in some negative fashion.

In the case of clipping to the exit, I do see a problem in that he's prevented from backtracking without noclipping if he hasn't gotten the key yet. That would definitely annoy me if it happened.
One solution would be to add another vent inside the area that leads outside (the vent being inaccessible from outside of course), or having a fire extinguisher to blow up part of the wall.

^This

I have nothing against speed-running a map within it's allowable parameters. I don't do it myself, not my cup of tea, but it's cool that it can be done. It has it's own genre of people that compete against each other, creating another aspect of the game.

I'm more of a slow-walker. I'd be competing for the slowest time it takes to get through levels. If I accidentally clipped to a section of the map where I couldn't backtrack, and I hadn't saved for quite some time, I'd be pissed that I lost all my progress and had to restart from some distant point of time in the past, or be forced to find some cheat codes.

It shouldn't be some kind of vendetta to seek out and fix every exploit, but this is still in pre-release demo phase, and obvious bugs should be fixed when brought to light.

[Fox]

This sort of glitch is part of the engine charm. Cut it off guys.

[Forge]

 Fox, on 09 March 2018 - 12:49 PM, said:

Cut it off guys.

is this a circumcision innuendo?

[NNC]

 Forge, on 09 March 2018 - 08:47 AM, said:

I'm more of a slow-walker. I'd be competing for the slowest time it takes to get through levels. If I accidentally clipped to a section of the map where I couldn't backtrack, and I hadn't saved for quite some time, I'd be pissed that I lost all my progress and had to restart from some distant point of time in the past, or be forced to find some cheat codes.

It shouldn't be some kind of vendetta to seek out and fix every exploit, but this is still in pre-release demo phase, and obvious bugs should be fixed when brought to light.

Me too... when I play a good level, I don't even want to leave ti, and play it as it is intended to be played.

[Mr. Tibbs]

The Game Informer Show spent around 6 minutes discussing Ion Maiden and the current state of 3DR (at the 45:30 mark) in their latest episode.

[MrFlibble]

I haven't had the time to check out the game on hard difficulty. However I had a thought, what if, in the street area at the GDF HQ, instead of climbing the ladder and sniping the bad guys with the revolver, I would take cover behind cars and slowly approach the turret at the entrance, like in those old cop movies with street fights among impromptu barricades made of cars? (e.g. Predator 2)

And this made me think, will the be NPC allies in the game, a la NAM etc.?

[KareBear]

Are there any plans to add sprites for dropped SMG 9000 magazines like there are for spent shell casings or the ability to restore health by drinking water from broken fire hydrants like in Duke 3D?

[Micky C]

Now that there are some commercial resources behind eduke32, is there any chance of getting someone to finish polymer? I know dynamic lighting (at least as part of the level lighting) wouldn't fit Ion Maiden, but I recall people saying that Polymer would be faster than Polymost when finished. Plus an optimized Polymer would be useful for other projects.

[Mark]

Its been brought up multiple times about people willing to contribute money to get someone to finish optimizing Polymer and it never went anywhere past posts of " Great idea, I would help pay for that".

EDIT: Actually there were more replies. Like the code was so messed up nobody really wanted to tackle it.

[Micky C]

 Mark., on 10 March 2018 - 05:30 PM, said:

Its been brought up multiple times about people willing to contribute money to get someone to finish optimizing Polymer and it never went anywhere past posts of " Great idea, I would help pay for that".

EDIT: Actually there were more replies. Like the code was so messed up nobody really wanted to tackle it.

This isn't about people donating a few bucks. 3DR has many full time people at their disposal for example. Give me some credit; I wouldn't bring it up unless something had changed.

[Lunick]

 Micky C, on 10 March 2018 - 05:15 PM, said:

Now that there are some commercial resources behind eduke32...

Are you saying you know how much money the game has made, 30% of what goes to Valve, the amount that goes to 3D Realms and the amount split between Voidpoint and the people contracted to work on it?

[Forge]

 Lunick, on 10 March 2018 - 09:06 PM, said:

Are you saying you know how much money the game has made, 30% of what goes to Valve, the amount that goes to 3D Realms and the amount split between Voidpoint and the people contracted to work on it?

after taxes?

[Micky C]

 Lunick, on 10 March 2018 - 09:06 PM, said:

Are you saying you know how much money the game has made, 30% of what goes to Valve, the amount that goes to 3D Realms and the amount split between Voidpoint and the people contracted to work on it?

I'm saying Fred said there'd be multiplayer, so I'd assumed that 3DR was investing into that at least. They're clearly investing resources into the art assets. Since performance of the game has been so relatively poor, particularly given their low-res nature, it's in their best interests to do what they can to make the game run faster.

[Bloodshot]

Finding this reference has elevated my opinion of the preview campaign from really good to great

[Doom64hunter]

"Where's that big head of yours? Don't answer."

[Mark]

Do you see the back sides of those sprites when you look from the outside?

[Merlijn]

I only just finished the preview campaign today, so I'm a bit late to the party.

I can't add much to what has already been said, but overall it was a great experience!
Really took me back to the 90's and gave me the same feeling I had when playing those old build games for the first time.
I hope the entire game will live up to this.

The level design is fantastic, especially the first map hits the exact balance between linear/unlinear.
It does give you objectives and the need for keycards, but still offers quite a bit of freedom and of course there are secrets everywhere. I still haven't found them all.

Spoiler

I did find the "cops are pigs" one. Holy shit that one requires some clever platforming.

I especially enjoyed the gameplay on the upper level of the GDF building. You can pretty much make your own route through all the offices, the cantina etc.
But since it feels like a real building rather than some kind of maze, it never gets confusing.

On the subject of level design, the shadows and lightning are extremely well done. Best I've seen in the build engine. I think it's worth pointing that out.

As for negatives, my only big issue was the performance. I was playing on a laptop so I played on classic mode. But the framerate still dropped very low at times.
I didn't have this issue with World Tour or Eduke, so it should be possible to fix this.

I also think the enemies can benefit from having a few special moves. In DN3D, most enemies had a few extra tricks up their sleeve which made them more memorable.
For example: the red guys could have a charge attack which they only use at random times and only when they're close enough.

[Zaxx]

Armor shards just got a lot more visible in the beta patch. Performance seems a bit better too along with much smoother mouse movement. Nice!