Planet Descent
Community => Mess Hall => Topic started by: NUMBERZero on April 14, 2010, 03:16:25 PM
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http://www.interplay.com/about/article.php?id=44
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TELL EVERYONE WHO IS NOT A DESCENTER AND WHO HAS A WII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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DO WANT!! :o
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Like I say on DBB.net-
"Squii!!!!!"
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Holsh!
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a decent reason to blow the dust off the Wii upstairs. Thing really isn't useful for much to be honest at the moment.
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MsmackyM said: cool. looks like a reason to dust off my wii
Seeing how many times people say this, they must have some dirty houses
Quoted from Gametrailers in the Red Steel 2 reviews. :P
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Descent remains the most popular 1080º 3D blasting game.
1080 degrees???
Sounds like a good idea, though. I got no use for the wii as it is. The kids like it, though.
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Pitch, roll, turn. 360 X 3 = 1080
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Exciting news. If this sells well, then...
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...D4, here we come! :D
But first, the WiiWare. :)
I need to tell my little bro. He's the one with the Wii. :P
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I love neoseeker.
http://www.neoseeker.com/news/13613-descent-making-a-return-on-wiiware/
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Squii!!!!!
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My Wii isn't dusty - Between Dead Space: Extraction, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl... Yeah it sees a lot of action. It's second only to my old Nintendo 64 as my favorite console I've owned. ;D
On-topic:
EPIC. WIN.
Sounds like a ton of fun! Can't wait!
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So, this means that everone will be using the same type of controller. This will be interesting.
Bee
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Not sure what kind of confidence I have in the reliability of the Wii for multiplayer. Playing SSBB it seems a bit skippy.
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You havent tried The Conduit I see. :) The multiplayer is amazing on that. Though, you will run into a few laggy people sometimes, but thats their fault. :P
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:o
I saw Matt's post this morning and I didn't have time to reply, but you said exactly what I was going to say in the first sentence!
*cue Twilight Zone music*
Anyway, X2 ;D
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Descent multiplayer on a Wii...wow, what an idea, I hadn't even considered that possibility. :D
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Ohhhh boy. I'm going to start practicing somehow with all of the possibilities on how to play....Or I could figure out how to get my JS to work and dominate from there. Call me maniacal, but.... jk :P
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Descent multiplayer on a Wii...wow, what an idea, I hadn't even considered that possibility. :D
Remember, though, the press release doesn't say anything about multiplayer being included. It could just be a singleplayer-only port for all we know.
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That thought crossed my mind as well, but hey, one could also reason that there's no proof that they aren't. ;)
We'll just have to wait and see. Either way, this is really exciting, knowing that they are doing this. :)
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Well, the reason I add that caveat is that I'm not sure if any other WiiWare titles have full-fledged multiplayer support, or at least I haven't heard of any that do. I'll have to do some digging on that.
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I've been afraid of that myself. I have heard of a few small games having multiplayer, but not a full fledged game like Descent. Infact, I have never heard of anything as big as Descent on WiiWare.
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My kids play avatar on the wii. Multiplayer means two players on the same machine, third person view. They have to stay in the same area, of course. We were able to get connected to the internet through an unsecured wireless lan, but there doesn't seem to be any way to connect to a secured lan.
There also does seem to be some options for online play but we hav'nt exploered them as the wii only connects to wii official servers, as far as I can tell. We didn't go any farther than any point where they wanted a credit card. Which isn't very far.
My greater concern with Descent on the wii is the dumbed gameplay. Every game I've my kids have... Zelda, Metroid, Avatar the gameplay is pretty retarded. Basically, you shake the controller and the game plays for you. Except for Guitar Hero, in GH you need to make some pretty specific button presses at the right time. So there is hope, it is possible to have real gameplay. We also have Backugon(sp?) but I haven't tried it.
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The reason I find this so great people are to see it that never have seen Descent and go this looks kinda fun. That might go on youtube and check it out. I so I think it's going to bring more players to Descent. Because it was on Gamespy and IGN when interplay announced it.
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I have to agree with you on that! But will they be able to play on a server with real Descenters?
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Metroid was one of the best IMO.
The old players will have an advantage by knowing what the ship can and cannot do. They will know all of the advanced tactics. Just making the ship do that with the Wiimote will be the challange.
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Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is one of the finest groundpounders ever made in my opinion. I use it on advanced controls though... If you used basic controls WillyP, then yeah, it pretty much plays itself. ::)
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Personally, I think Descent would work pretty good on a Wii. I mean, we can all agree that Descent is best played on the device it was originally meant to be played upon, the PC. This is because it's got more buttons, controls, etc. Gaming consoles have far less in that department.
The Wii, however, is different, because it incorporates motion into it as the controls, and it can theoretically be programmed to move in any direction, so that alone can cover for most of the motions Descent is capable of doing.
It won't be perfect, of course, and it would take some getting used to either way (that much is clear) but it's pretty dang close. So I think putting Descent on a Wii will be a good move. :)
And anyway, whatever happens, this is big for the Descent franchise. This is like the first official Descent...well...anything that has been released in a long time. It'll be great to see Descent get a second chance for fame again. :D
And Blackwolf's right, I think Interplay's real goal for doing this is to gauge what kind of audience still exists out there for Descent. It's not just about pleasing us long-time fans from the old days (tho that's certainly a big plus) but it's more about see if there's still enough interest in Descent, what give them that interest, and above all, if the newer generation of players will have any interest, and if they can garner new players.
So in short, it's a publicity stunt for Descent, so to speak, but in a good way. :)
And, just for the record, while multiplayer is a big part of Descent, it is not the ONLY part of Descent. Therefore, I think that if this Wiiware doesn't have much in the way of multiplayer support, it won't be that big of a loss.
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If you used basic controls WillyP, then yeah, it pretty much plays itself. ::)
I heard it called baby mode :P
Scyphi, I can definately see myself getting carpal tunnel now. :P
Indeed it does seem like a publicity stunt. At least it'll be cheap. You don't need to burn time by making an entirely new game. Just get the controls working and port it and you will be set!
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Well if there is another way to play I'm not aware of it. Then again, I didn't read any instructions, just did what the kids told me to do. :D ;) :o ::)
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Indeed it does seem like a publicity stunt. At least it'll be cheap. You don't need to burn time by making an entirely new game. Just get the controls working and port it and you will be set!
Just keep telling yourself what I've been telling myself. If people like the Descent on Wiiware, then they'll probably like a Descent 4. ;)
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but there doesn't seem to be any way to connect to a secured lan.
Of couse there is. It's in the wii settings.
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My kids play avatar on the wii. Multiplayer means two players on the same machine, third person view. They have to stay in the same area, of course. We were able to get connected to the internet through an unsecured wireless lan, but there doesn't seem to be any way to connect to a secured lan.
There also does seem to be some options for online play but we hav'nt exploered them as the wii only connects to wii official servers, as far as I can tell. We didn't go any farther than any point where they wanted a credit card. Which isn't very far.
As Matthew said, there's a page for connection settings in the Wii's options menu, and it includes options for handling secure networks. I think our wireless router is WEP 64-bit encrypted, and our Wii connects to it just fine. I'm assuming the credit-card point you found was in the Wii Shop Channel, where you can buy both classic Virtual Console titles and new WiiWare games; that would be where you'd buy Descent when it's released. Multiple Wii titles, such as Super Smash Bros. Brawl, do support true system-to-system multiplayer, though you have to take the somewhat-awkward step of exchanging 16-digit Friend Codes before you can play. There's even an Internet Channel that you can freely download and is essentially a stripped-down version of Opera.
My greater concern with Descent on the wii is the dumbed gameplay. Every game I've my kids have... Zelda, Metroid, Avatar the gameplay is pretty retarded. Basically, you shake the controller and the game plays for you. Except for Guitar Hero, in GH you need to make some pretty specific button presses at the right time. So there is hope, it is possible to have real gameplay. We also have Backugon(sp?) but I haven't tried it.
I can't speak for most third-party titles, which are largely lackluster, but as other people have stated, I know for a fact that Metroid Prime is far from a "waggle-and-forget" game, and I'm fairly certain that the Wii version of Twilight Princess falls into the same camp. There was another Wii-exclusive FPS called The Conduit which supposedly had a good control scheme, and I know I heard high praise for the Wii port of Resident Evil 4. There are plenty of quality Wii titles mixed in amongst the party-game shovelware, and they all require as much skill as a game on any other platform.
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Credit card info is not stored on the wii, so you can buy points without fear of your children buying more without permission, too. At least I'm pretty sure.
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TG, I did find the screen to enter some code for connecting to our secure network. I've connected my wife's lappy, and that works but I could not get the wii to connect.
We did get it connected to a neighbor's unsecured network, and the kids were able to watch videos on You-Tube, and access some (apparently Nintendo approved) websites.
On the subject of gameplay, I have to admit I didn't really play very much of any game. But to give an example in Avatar, there is a scene where you are fighting and flying. So you fly... but not really, all you can really do is shoot and doge back and forth. You have no control of speed and your path is locked on a very specific track. So then you shoot at something in front of you, and after a while you switch positions and it is behind you and you have to dodge some shots. Whether or not you shoot or doge matters little, would not want to make the kids unhappy by having them actualy get shot down. No, the flying and fighting continues and at some arbitrary point your enamy goes down in flames and the kids are happy because they think they shot it down. The whole game is pretty much like this. There is only a narrow path the characters take and if you don't do something right the game will tell you how. It's not how I like to play a game, remember Space Quest and other games from that era? If you failed you were told you were a loser in no uncertian (but usually humerous) terms. Descent 3 headed in this direction with unlimited lives. I've made two single player levels, ReFactor and IceFactor, where you only get three lives. Even in Co-op! Three lives total!
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The parents or guardian can have the Wii set so that it requires them to input a "PIN" number before allowing purchase transactions. Having said that, it is then incumbent of the parent or guardian to manage how well they (the parent or guardian) protect the PIN and supervise the times it's asked for.
As for wireless connectivity, the Wii is capable of WEP, WPA, and WPA2 ... Though I've had to allow it to use AES and TKIP encryption types (at the wireless router). If you're using a wired connection, the encryption/protection is only as good as your in home networking.
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WillyP, I'm not sure if you wrote down the WEP code (I'm assuming that's what you're using, it's fairly typical for home installations), if you did, just type it in on the screen and you should be good to go. It will look like essentially a long arbitrary mix of numbers and letters. If you didn't right it down, assuming your router is on default settings, in any web browser connected to your network, type in 192.168.1.1 in the address bar. This should prompt you for a password, most likely Admin Admin, which will take you to your router. Look around (but don't change anything) for your WEP code. It will almost certainly be under some security-related tab.
Keep in mind this is all assuming that every router is the same as mine, which is a linksys. And no my password is NOT Admin for my router, so don't don't launch into a security lecture TP. ;)
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On the subject of gameplay, I have to admit I didn't really play very much of any game. But to give an example in Avatar, there is a scene where you are fighting and flying. So you fly... but not really, all you can really do is shoot and doge back and forth. You have no control of speed and your path is locked on a very specific track. So then you shoot at something in front of you, and after a while you switch positions and it is behind you and you have to dodge some shots. Whether or not you shoot or doge matters little, would not want to make the kids unhappy by having them actualy get shot down. No, the flying and fighting continues and at some arbitrary point your enamy goes down in flames and the kids are happy because they think they shot it down. The whole game is pretty much like this. There is only a narrow path the characters take and if you don't do something right the game will tell you how. It's not how I like to play a game, remember Space Quest and other games from that era? If you failed you were told you were a loser in no uncertian (but usually humerous) terms. Descent 3 headed in this direction with unlimited lives. I've made two single player levels, ReFactor and IceFactor, where you only get three lives. Even in Co-op! Three lives total!
Well, yeah...the Avatar game is based on a (very good) cartoon series. Other than Goldeneye 64, has there ever been a licensed game for a current movie or TV series that can truly be called excellent? :P
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Just to clarify, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, like it's predecessors, really doesn't rely on combat as much as it relies on adventure elements. It's true that fights sometimes devolve into waggling (or button mashing on the Gamecube version, which I have), but the game is certainly more taxing on your brain in other areas (though the game is indeed entirely too easy).
Metroid Prime 3 can be BRUTALLY difficult simply on Veteran difficulty with the controls set to Advanced mode. There's no waggling there - you have to have a steady hand and a quick trigger finger to fight. Sure, you can lock the camera to an enemy, but should you take damage while locked on an enemy (which is almost inevitable), you'll lose the lock. Most of the game revolves around the ability to enter "hypermode," which makes you invincible and gives you some wicked-awesome firepower, but at the cost of a whole energy tank (100 hit points) and at the risk of becoming corrupted and severely harming yourself (if you don't use all your power up within a certain amount of time). Boss battles are massive and take more than a couple of minutes to defeat (in Metroid Prime 2, I remember one that took me around 45 minutes to beat). Sure, you technically have "unlimited lives," but that hardly makes it easier. It's an absolutely massive game with an absolutely wonderful control scheme that makes constant use of the Wiimote's abilities without ever feeling gimmicky. Metroid Prime 3 sits on my list as one of the finest games in history, period, and possibly as the greatest groundpounder ever made.
I beg you, WillyP, to sit down one day when the kids are gone, set the difficulty to veteran, go to the options menu and set your control scheme to "advanced," and play. If you like good action games, I can pretty well guarantee that you'll be hooked. ;D
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Keep in mind this is all assuming that every router is the same as mine, which is a linksys. And no my password is NOT Admin for my router, so don't don't launch into a security lecture TP. ;)
OK, I won't ... however I will say that WEP is not very secure (these days it's easily hacked within a short amount of time). WPA is better, WPA2 is even better (of course).
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Keep in mind this is all assuming that every router is the same as mine, which is a linksys. And no my password is NOT Admin for my router, so don't don't launch into a security lecture TP. ;)
OK, I won't ... however I will say that WEP is not very secure (these days it's easily hacked within a short amount of time). WPA is better, WPA2 is even better (of course).
Assuming of course that you can get within the about 10 feet of my house you'd need to get a signal from the rotuer in the basement.
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WillyP, I'm not sure if you wrote down the WEP code (I'm assuming that's what you're using, it's fairly typical for home installations), if you did, just type it in on the screen and you should be good to go.
Matt, I have done this about a half dozen times, the raw numbers, the key, tried changing on the router and entering the new numbers... so far no luck.
TopGun, the game, unfortunately, is not based on the fabulous cartoon 'Avatar, The Last Airbender', but is based on the movie 'Avatar, Which Has Great 3d Graphics But Is Otherwise Pretty Lame'. ;)
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Hmmm... Did you double-check the router's access point name and make sure you have the correct security type set? Otherwise I've got no clue, sorry. Techpro?
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There was no place to enter the router access point name or security type.
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TopGun, the game, unfortunately, is not based on the fabulous cartoon 'Avatar, The Last Airbender', but is based on the movie 'Avatar, Which Has Great 3d Graphics But Is Otherwise Pretty Lame'. ;)
Oh...well, that explains it even more. I heard that even the 360/PS3 game based on that movie was lousy. :D
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I thought the movie was great, but I heard that the game was terrible. Infact, almost all games based off of a movie are bad...Except Spider Man 1 and 2. Those were some real good ones.
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There have been very few, but a few outstanding examples include Goldeneye 64, Alien Vs. Predator 2, and Transformers (the one based on the TV series, not the movie). Video games based off of movies or television series (and vice versa) tend to just cash in on the franchise's success. Unfortunately, it works. ::)
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I agree.
Movies and Games should NOT be based on eachother.
Okay, we kinda went off-topic
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The Transformers Armada game was the best!
Lol. Off topic. Oops, my bad. :D
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I just came across this... The only compelling argument in favor of the wii:
(http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/6641/girlsgaming.jpg)
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Heh... The DS girl is the best anyway :P
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Yep, every 6 levels, you must destroy a boss robot and escape, but before that, you must destroy the reactors and escape. (In Descent 2)
lol
Darc! I am ashamed of you! It's every 4 levels! :P
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Oops. :D
Fixted. ;)
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BUMP!
Ok, fall is officially over. Where's the Descent for my wii? >:(
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Interplay recently changed the date to winter 2010, but beyond that, I can't tell you.
I DO know Descent for Wiiware exists, though. The maganize Nintendo Power did an article about it (I've seen it!). So it's actually being made. The questions that remain is when will it be released? I somehow doubt Interplay's going to meet the Winter 2010 deadline. :-\
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How hard is it to port something that old and small? If you don't have all of the addons, I'm pretty sure that it'll fit in the Wii's little pea brain. My default D2 folder is only 234MB.
And that reminds me of the "CRAZY" installment option where you install an additional 64mb or something. XD
*2010*
"ArE YOu CRAZY!?!?!?1/1/1//1"
"YEA!"
*installs an additional 64MB on a computer that can handle 200GB*
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They should have streamlined and ported D2X-XL to the Wii. 8)
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I think that's a good idea. Streamlined as in, remove remove most of the options? ie, maybe have two modes, one for 'nostalgia' and another with all the bells and whistles you've added.
It takes longer now to go through all the options than it does to play through a level... ;) I don't think typical wii gamers have that long an attention span. I'm just kidding of course. Actually my kids love spending too much time customizing whatever they are playing. On the wii, it's their mii character.
"Dad, wanna play wii bowling?" "Ok" "We gotta setup a mii for you... What color hair do you want?" "I don't care let's just play the game." "Ok, I'll give you brown hair... What color eyes do you want?" "I don't care, just pick one and let's play!" "Ok dad, I gave you green eyes." "Fine, can we play now" "I'm gonna change them to brown, ok?" " ARRRRgh.....
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As I understand it from reading that Nintendo Power article (wish I could find a picture of it or something so to show you guys), Descent for the Wii is just a port of D1 with a few bug fixes, a few tweaks to work for the Wii, and a few bonus, fan-made (I presume, the article wasn't too clear) levels thrown in for a total of 60 some-odd levels, counting the original 27 of D1, nothing more than that, so I don't know what the delay is, other than Interplay possibly being the poor buisnessmen that they are as usual. ::)
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How hard is it to port something that old and small? If you don't have all of the addons, I'm pretty sure that it'll fit in the Wii's little pea brain. My default D2 folder is only 234MB.
And that reminds me of the "CRAZY" installment option where you install an additional 64mb or something. XD
*2010*
"ArE YOu CRAZY!?!?!?1/1/1//1"
"YEA!"
*installs an additional 64MB on a computer that can handle 200GB*
Hey, in the days the game came out, it was common for people to be running on systems with 100mb to 512mb hard disks. The "CRAZY" installment was no joke. It was a "CRAZY" awesome thing to have a hard disk big enough to spare that much space.
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2010 and only 200 GB? ancient! :P
The crazy install option becomes more reasonable when I look at my 386 and it only has a 124 MB hard disk (but that computer isn't descent-compatible). (with the install listed as 262 gb in the D2 installer, it probably would be crazy to install that onto anything 2 gigs and less honestly)
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"Dad, wanna play wii bowling?" "Ok" "We gotta setup a mii for you... What color hair do you want?" "I don't care let's just play the game." "Ok, I'll give you brown hair... What color eyes do you want?" "I don't care, just pick one and let's play!" "Ok dad, I gave you green eyes." "Fine, can we play now" "I'm gonna change them to brown, ok?" " ARRRRgh.....
D'OH! (Shudder) I've been there. takes longer to figure out and set up the darn wii mii that it does to learn and play a game. I hope they didn't port the wii mii's to Descent. ::)
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people have 1 T or larger, (1000 GB). I am probably still good at just using 40 GB, yes 40!. But my laptop is 320, and awfully empty.
I remember the "insane" option in D2. It's funny, but yeah, at the time, it was something.
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How hard is it to port something that old and small? If you don't have all of the addons, I'm pretty sure that it'll fit in the Wii's little pea brain. My default D2 folder is only 234MB.
And that reminds me of the "CRAZY" installment option where you install an additional 64mb or something. XD
*2010*
"ArE YOu CRAZY!?!?!?1/1/1//1"
"YEA!"
*installs an additional 64MB on a computer that can handle 200GB*
Hey, in the days the game came out, it was common for people to be running on systems with 100mb to 512mb hard disks. The "CRAZY" installment was no joke. It was a "CRAZY" awesome thing to have a hard disk big enough to spare that much space.
When D1 first came out, I built a new system, and I got the biggest hard drive anyone had ever heard of... 120mb! Everyone though I was mad! They didn't think I'd ever need that much space.
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I had a 500 MB hard drive, told my former boss and he said I'd never fill that up.
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Nowadays one game is four times that.
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2010 and only 200 GB? ancient! :P
Actually it is 400, but I have 200 open.
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...I look at my 386 and it only has a 124 MB hard disk (but that computer isn't descent-compatible).
Huh?
I first ran Descent on a 386SX-16 (that's one of the weaker 386 models) with 80Mb on the hard drive.
Descent certainly is/was playable on a 386.
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Ran on a 286, too, but sucked having a monochrome monitor. IB was talking about D2, maybe that needed more?
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Heh, that's odd. I'm having trouble getting my 386(sx? can't remember offhand)-20 to run anything, pretty much. I should try loading Descent on that thing, then.
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What os are you using? I had DR-DOS on mine, ran great.
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I ran MS-DOS 5 and Win3.1 on my 386. It had 1Mb of RAM, I believe.
Get the sound settings right (IRQ/DMA), and run Descent under DOS. Should work fine, even if you have to hit the "-" button to shrink the screen a bit to get playable framerates.
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The machine runs MS-DOS 6. It's usually decently fast until you start doing something really intensive.
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oh wow, people on here went off topic :P imagine that. lol
I went to the interplay site and saw this:
http://www.interplay.com/games/comingsoon.php
may still be good news. says descent will be available in the first quarter of 2011.
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Hopefully they'll meet the deadline this time. ::)
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yeah. I don't know the earliest they said they'd do it, but having a delay is better than having it cancelled. as long as it's not the year 2017 and they say "first quarter of 2018"
I was having fun, playing Call of Duty: Black Ops - zombie mode on my PS3, and I thought "Could Descent even be on the PS3?"
Could it? Wouldn't some features be hard, impractical, or impossible? I could see the Wii working better with 360 degrees of freedom and not the PS3. and I could see the weapons work better on the PS3 than the Wii.
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Hopefully they'll meet the deadline this time. ::)
Hey, at least they aren't valve. ;P
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Vanguard, can you use your controller to play Descent on the PC? I challenge you. I'll show you why it can never be...
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yeah. I don't know the earliest they said they'd do it, but having a delay is better than having it cancelled. as long as it's not the year 2017 and they say "first quarter of 2018"
That sounds more like something Ubisoft might do with Trackmania 2... it seems every month they push it back a year. I bet they'll set an incredibly far release date, finish the game far ahead of time, and then just decide to sit on it for two years to torture trackmania fans.
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Vanguard, can you use your controller to play Descent on the PC? I challenge you. I'll show you why it can never be...
the ps3 controller hooked up to the computer? is that possible? even on a linux or mac?
I'm sure it's not possible. Descent certainly had a lot of buttons to deal with.
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Yeah, the Wii version is probably going to push it still in that department.
Didn't the original Descent and Descent II also get released on the original Playstation? If so, I'd imagine it couldn't be too hard to work out a control scheme for a PS3...
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yeah, you're right. Descent: Maximum I think. never had the chance to play it though :(
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The Descent Maximum levels are available for PC now. They're small but fun.
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Since the controller for the GameCube works on a Wii ... using the GameCube controller can make is fairly easy to adapt to Descent ... the only thing that would really require getting used to is that a control would have to serve as the weapon selection switch. Instead of being able to select directly to a weapon, you'd have to hit the switch repeatedly until the weapon you wanted was selected.
Most of the other controls you'd need can be handled by the GameCube controller.
I still wouldn't want to use it.
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I tried a game controller (not a console controller, but similar) with descent once... I found it horrendously hard to get used to after a joystick.
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Descent Maximum's Level 1 is an absolute JOKE! I've literally done it with my eyes closed. (Using lasers as a sonar through the, what, THREE rooms of "Petra!" LOL
Lessee if I can recall the names of all the Descent Maximum levels... Haven't played or laid eyes on it since 01... Here we go.
1: Petra
2: Agartha
3: Reuchlin
4: Ako
5: Lilofee
6: Lomonosowa
7: Ausonia
8: Xosa XII
9: Sinha
10: Orlock
11: Fuld
12: Thrane
13: Widorn
14: Ate CXI
15: Rog
16: Eliers
17: Porphyro
18: Rosalinde
19: (I forgot)
20: Semele
21: (some name with an apostrophe)
22: Nipponia
23: ALZHEIMERS!!!
24: Sajaan
Okay, so MOST. Anyone know the missing ones?
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Yeah, I've played the Descent Maximum levels on the PC, and the first few are pretty darn easy. :P Curiously enough, though, I actually kind of prefer them over the official D2 levels, because the Maximum levels have a certain amount of charm and creativity that the official D2 levels seem to lack. They also seemed more D1-ish in feel than D2 most of the time, particularly in the first eight or so levels.
Which makes me wonder which was built first...D2 or Descent Maximum...probably D2.
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Which makes me wonder which was built first...D2 or Descent Maximum...probably D2.
You're correct.
I remember the Interplay.com Descent2 page, and seeing them post an "Upcoming: Descent Maximum for PlayStation!" ad.
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I remember seeing it a couple of times at Canadian Tire, of all places.
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At a Tire place?! And they say that they didn't advertize XD
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The same copy was just sitting there for months... I'm not sure they ever actually sold it. Of course if they had, I'd look pretty stupid asking them about it (I've considered it a few times).
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I own descent for the playstation and maybe it's just me but i find it near impossible to play it with the PS1 controllers. I much rather prefer the pc version. And this is the first i ever heard about Descent on WiiWare, so hopefully whenever they get around to releasing it it'll be decent enough. Either way, good or bad, I will end up getting it.
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I wonder how the Wii controls will work.
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I DO know Descent for Wiiware exists, though. The maganize Nintendo Power did an article about it (I've seen it!).
And now I have proof of this article's existence! My little bro found a copy of said magazine with the article in it, so I quickly scanned it in. :D
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Coolness.
I saw this same page on the Interplay forums a month ago too.
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Yeah, that's where I first saw it, too, but when I brought it up, I couldn't find it again. ::)
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Now I just need to get a Wii (seriously, there are a lot of Wii games apart from this I want to try as well... Sonic Colors for one...)
If this does get released I might start saving my money for one.
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Oohoo, Sonic Colors...probably the best Sonic game since Sonic Adventure. :D
I'd get Descent for the Wii at the very least to try out the wiimote controls. Probably would have to relearn the game all over again, but if the game meets my expectations, it could be worth it.
This is making me want to D1... :P
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Now I just need to get a Wii (seriously, there are a lot of Wii games apart from this I want to try as well... Sonic Colors for one...)
You could also get Super Smash Bros Brawl since it had Sonic in it (ironic isn't it?) (and it also had Solid Snake from Metal Gear (Solid) in it)
Anyways back to the subject,
I did also see that scan on Interplay's forum but it's slightly in a different rotation
EDIT: one more post untill 100 replies in this thread!
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Now I just need to get a Wii (seriously, there are a lot of Wii games apart from this I want to try as well... Sonic Colors for one...)
If this does get released I might start saving my money for one.
There's going to be a trackmania game coming out later this year for the wii, too.
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Yep, I knew that (it may be already out in Canada, we got TM United in 2006 before the states. I've been asking around about that but no response yet.) I'm happy with TM United Forever right now though.
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it said it would include levels from its expansion packs, descent 1 had expansion packs?! I thought only D2 had Vertigo and Levels of the World does NOT count as a expansion pack imo. If they use levels from that, that is just sad. However, I wouldn't mind them using Vignettes. *grin*
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Well, prepare to be disappointed, then, Darkflamewolf, because Levels of the World is the most obvious level set to include as a bonus to D1. In fact, alot of the pictures shown in that article are from Levels of the World levels (like Super Station in the top right pic, if I'm not mistaken).
I don't see what's to be disappointed about, though. Some of the best D1 levels ever are in Levels of the World. And I'm sure the makers of these levels would be very flattered to have their works included, by default, in Descent Wiiware.
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LotW is random, but I certainly remember it being marketed as an add-on to D1, and Scy is right, some of those levels are pretty good!
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Yes, "Demon Bridge" is awesome. And I think there was one by Luke Schneider as well with custom music and everything else he's famous for (the particular custom level song was used again in EonX level 4).
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DFW! Push for the Vignettes! Tell em, show em!
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DESCENT strikes back!! A good reason for me to pick a Wii :D
Any chance for level editing??? DLE-XP support maybe?
LoLz:D:D
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Too bad Nintendo's earnings and profits are in "free fall" due to declining sales. However, Nintendo is expecting Wii software sales to be up some from previous.
Unless Nintendo revitalizes their offerings, they will continue to slide for a while.
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DFW! Push for the Vignettes! Tell em, show em!
How the heck do I do this?
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I have no idea. Post on the interplay forums and they might see it in a few generations :P
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well, I did it, I also put my plug in. But between you and me, these corporate big wigs have already made their minds up and it won't be included. Even if it wasn't too late in the process it probably wouldn't be included.
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Somehow, I have my doubts that interplay would be quick to jump into fan-generated work. Even to this day, they don't seem as nice as say, id, who back in the day licenced Final Doom from two different mapping teams, and even went ahead and included community-made deathmatch levels in the iphone port of Doom.
Maybe I just haven't paid enough attention to Interplay though.
Also, NZ, your spelling of genius at the interplay forums makes me cringe.
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well, I did it, I also put my plug in. But between you and me, these corporate big wigs have already made their minds up and it won't be included. Even if it wasn't too late in the process it probably wouldn't be included.
Bummer.
Well, that was worth a shot to include an awesome level set into WiiWare Descent.
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Apparently, G1M2 is making the WiiWare port of Descent. I emailed them asking if they would be so kind as to include Descent Vignettes in their level compilation. I actually got a response:
"Dear Darkflamewolf,
We are developing Descent for WiiWare!! We would love to check out the
levels that you recommended and consider including them in Descent for Wii.
By the way, would you be willing to sign some type of agreement so that we
can officially include the levels??
We noticed that the vignette.txt file included with the levels mentions two
other authors. Can we get their permissions as well?? We want to make sure
that everyone involved in the creations of the levels gives us clearance.
We could include you guys in the credits if we use the levels.
We are almost finished with the development, so we need to move quickly if
we are to get these levels included.
Let me know what you think!!
Talk to you soon,
Scott Hawkins"
I never expected a response, let alone one that was this encouraging. So there might be a chance yet that Vignettes will be playable on the Wii! But that means I need Pumo and Sirius to get their butts to this thread insanely fast and say yes. Because I don't think they'll press forward until we have the entire Vignette crew onboard with this. I gave them an email back stating that I'm sure it would be okay, especially since you guys made the levels for me (and the set) anyway, but I'd confirm with you two first.
EDIT: My email:
"Well since our correspondence is online only, I'd be hard pressed to sign 'anything' physical. But I can of course endorse any usage of these levels in the official release of WiiWare Descent. I am 99% positive that both Sirius and Pumo (the authors of 3 of the 27 levels) would be more than willing to allow these levels for official use; and here is why: I started the Vignettes project and made a call out to level designers, these two answered and supplied me three levels. They were more than willing to have these levels be distributed under my name with the only stipulation that they get some credit in the txt file, etc. for what they did. So honoring that, you see their names in the txt file. It is not like it was a secret in the community who made what.
The main Descent Vignettes file is: http://www.enspiar.com/dmdb/viewMission.php?id=207
You can download it there. It is meant to be a stand alone mission of 27 levels played one after the other. Let's not break up the levels into individual set pieces, it is designed to be an entire 27 level package with secret levels branching off of levels 11 and 19. Feel free to look at them and consider them for WiiWare. There really has been a big push in the Descent community to have this level set included (just check the Descent Interplay forums): http://www.interplay.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=4243&start=70 (look towards the bottom of that page)
Just let me know what I can do to help this along further and I'll get right on it. I've already sent emails and contacts out to get ahold of Sirius and Pumo for you so they are aware of this and see what they think. But I'm pretty sure their answers will be positive.
-DFW"
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Just like Sirius did on D2X-XL forums, I also give permission. In fact it would be a honour for me to have a level of mine on that Descent release! :D
Also if there's something else needed (to sign something, etc) tell me.
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On a side-note and regarding Vignettes soundtrack, I suppose it won't use the included MIDI soundtrack as it has lots of midis from some other VGs, alright? (would be much of a mess due to quality and copyright issues).
But if at anytime they use some of the soundtrack or at least part of it, they may do it as I gave 3 songs made by me for Vignettes (the ones for levels 7,19 & 20) as you may remember. ;)
So if that's the case, I also give permision (if needed) to use those 3 song compositions. :)
Also, as I suppose it won't use MIDI, I can send those songs in full-blown hi-quality OGG or MP3 format to the developers if they wish to (plz tell them, tell them! ;D )
I would also love to hear that couple of songs of mine there! ::)
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Well I sent them an email with permission from both authors (and me) plus fixes to the level 25 crash bug plus the option to utilize the soundtrack included or rip it out and utilize the standard Descent 1 soundtrack. I'm awaiting a response. All we can do now it wait and hope.
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Wait a minute. Some of those songs are from other games like Metroid Prime in Level 21. I hope that there isn't a copyright issue on that, especially since that theme for Lv 21 fits SOOO WELL. Stressful level deserves intense music that really makes you feel like you are backed against the wall!!!
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already taken care of, I mentioned that issue to them. More likely scenario: they'll rip out the music and just keep the original D1 soundtrack. So those awesome fitting songs will be leaving.
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That's great news that Vignettes is being on WiiWare Descent, sorry to hear about the soundtracks (I know most are VG sountrack based midis (which are taken from sites like VGMusic.com) and few of Pumo's)
To reference the TF2 Heavy:
DFW is credit to team!
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its not even confirmed yet it'll be part of the download package, let's not jump the gun yet! lol
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I persume that we all have patience until we get a confirmation.
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If this goes well, perhaps there's a chance we'll be seeing more classic yet high-quality releases going on to the wii. That might be pretty interesting.
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I had some ideas for achievements when you clear all the levels on the different planets. If you know anything about planet/Roman god mythology these are so punny you'll hate me for them.
1: Lunatic -- Clear the moon of infestation.
2: Beautiful Work -- Destroy both Venusian mines.
3: Speed Demon -- Blast through Mercury.
3 1/2: Hyperpowered -- Blow the Mercury Core boss.
4: All-Out War -- Exterminate the Martian infestation.
5: Like Thunder -- Clear all the Jovian mines.
6: The Harvest -- Reap all the bots on Saturn.
7: Like Wind -- Blow the Uranus mines away.
8: Drowner -- Wash the infestation from Neptune.
9: Out of the Underworld -- Rise from Pluto.
9 1/2: Quick Bomber -- Ace the Charon mine.
And you can probably guess where the last one came from :P.
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Well, got a response. So Pumo, Sirius? PM me contact info? I'm really not sure what he is wanting here, honestly.
"Hi DarkFlameWolf!
I am checking with our other team members to see how challenging it will be
to address the issues that you raised. I am thinking that swapping out the
music should not be too bad because we have been having to deal with that on
other level sets. The other issue may be more challenging - and it brings
up an important issue that we need to make sure that all of the maps play
properly and do not introduce new crashes. We have limited testing
resources, so Interplay might be resistant to adding levels this late in the
development cycle if there is a chance that they could create problems that
we cannot catch before shipping the games.
With that being said, we think it would be great to include your level set
and we are seeing what needs to be done to make it happen.
I am thinking that we might need to create a quick one-page written
agreement that can be signed, scanned-in, and emailed that gives us official
permission to use the maps. I am checking with Interplay on this. Written
permission over email might be enough - as soon as I have more details, I
will let you know.
Talk to you soon,
Scott
P.S. - Can you send me your official contact details as well??"
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EXCITING!!!
I'd bet that they are really going to be impressed with Lv 6 and Lv 14.
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On a side-note and regarding Vignettes soundtrack, I suppose it won't use the included MIDI soundtrack as it has lots of midis from some other VGs, alright? (would be much of a mess due to quality and copyright issues).
But if at anytime they use some of the soundtrack or at least part of it, they may do it as I gave 3 songs made by me for Vignettes (the ones for levels 7,19 & 20) as you may remember. ;)
So if that's the case, I also give permision (if needed) to use those 3 song compositions. :)
Also, as I suppose it won't use MIDI, I can send those songs in full-blown hi-quality OGG or MP3 format to the developers if they wish to (plz tell them, tell them! ;D )
Remember I've already mastered the level 19 song and sent it to you (in very high quality ;)) I've also mastered the level 20 song (though I haven't done anything with it yet). It could save you some time ;).
Of course if you master them yourself please send them to me! I loved all three of those songs!
Three songs isn't enough for 25 levels though...
This will only work if they don't use midi: Right now I have a whole lot of new songs (from after the TEW soundtrack) that aren't being used anywhere and I could send them in to make the soundtrack more "complete". I know Kaiz also has many very good songs that aren't being used anywhere. I'll PM him about it in the morning.
So if you could tell them that there is at least one other composer in the community (and possibly a third) who is willing to contribute some already finished but unused/unreleased tracks to this mission that would be appreciated (and it would make Pumo's work more likely to be accepted too I think). You might also want to mention that the music style is a kind of like the D1/D2 midi feel combined with the style of Autopilot's music in D3. You might want to mention as well that I've scored some community missions for D2 and D3 in the past.
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Oh, this rocks! Awesome news!
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Did anyone saw the Wiiware version of the Pyro-GX hud?
It looks rather interesting (the screenshots are rather small though) (scroll down within this url)-
http://www.interplay.com/games/wiiware
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Wow that is very cool. :o
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Looks like they made vast improvments to the HUD. Looks awesome.
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Afterburner and MULTIPLE key lights? Hmmm.
And I think that screenshot was recent. I looked a couple of days ago.
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Can we agree on "they made some improvements to the HUD"? All I can see is some "prettification".
Afterburner and MULTIPLE key lights? Hmmm.
:D
I hope MetalBeast is going to finish the 3D cockpit he started to build for D2X-XL. ::)
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Haven't heard back from Scott in almost a week, so I honestly am not sure if Vignettes is a go. It very well not be a go.
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They had better include it, and make it the default mission. I cannot see those stinkin' old First Strike levels anymore. :P
On the other side do I wonder why you are so greedy to throw your work at them for free, and have them make money off it - just for attaining some questionable and short-lived attention. I mean, who will bother to read the credits, or even remember them? :'(
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Popular demand in this thread :P.
We all want to see it in there.
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then you must have misread my intentions Diedel. Its not the attention I want. Its the joy I get from other people enjoying my levels. The more people who view/play them, the more people who enjoy them, the better off I'll be. I'm just happy that people play my levels. So utilizing WiiWare to give Vignettes a more broader audience, the better. It is not for my own fame and glory, it is for my own personal satisfaction that others are enjoying my work, regardless if they know it was I who created it or not.
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Hmm, afterburner in D1...I'm not sure I like the sound of that. Part of what made D1 fun and unique was the fact that you DIDN'T have things like an afterburner. That was always D2 and D3's bit, and in those instances, the levels were built to keep that into consideration. Not so with D1.
If they're going to surprise us, though, and also include some D2 levels (which, judging from what they've shown us thus far, I somehow doubt), then I suppose I'd be okay with that.
@ Omega: Actually, I think the extra key light you're seeing is just the bomb counter, but I suppose I could be mistaken.
@ Diedel: I agree, that new HUD definitely looks different, but as far as I can tell, it's just "prettification" and doesn't actually have any improvements. I think I might actually prefer the old dashboard more.
In fact, now that I look at it, it looks to me like they took a pic of the old dashboard and tried to make it look more sleek, which I don't like because it robs it of that robust feel Descent has. Furthermore, that new dashboard actually feels more like a step backwards the more I look at it. The shield and weapon screens look inferior in comparison.
Hopefully, they'll include an option that allows you to switch back and forth between the new and old dashboards. Y'know, like a "classic" view option. :D
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Its not the attention I want.
Well, be that as it may: Your efforts have been outstanding, and I am looking forward to your next production.
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Well, I think the motivations for anyone who gives their labour of love away for free speak for themselves.
If the game I'm writing were suddenly thrust into the limelight, I would be very pleased that people were seeing my work and I really couldn't care about being remunerated.
Any exposure or an increase in the number of supportive emails that I get would be a very pleasant byproduct.
The graphical polish of the Wii version do seem to have been raised quite nicely. I have no love for consoles but I would be interested in giving this a spin.
The cockpit is a definite improvement if only in cosmetic terms but I can't remember whether the original Descent had the afterburner powerup as the Wii Descent seems to have.
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Scyphi is correct, the original Descent did not have afterburner. Seems odd that it would be shown on the HUD.
In any case, I'm looking forward to this. :)
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Yea, there was no afterburner, which FORCED tri-chording... And those Escape sequences were much tense... (Level 13-Europa Mining Colony- had the longest run as I remember... If not correct me :D) - Yet a good couple of burners is good to have :)
I also join Schypi about the new cockpit. All those punctures looks UGLY, and that energy counter looks less readable thanks to its size. And that bluish tint on the left&right screens was really necessary?
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Yea, there was no afterburner, which FORCED tri-chording... And those Escape sequences were much tense... (Level 13-Europa Mining Colony- had the longest run as I remember... If not correct me :D)
Yes it was. I believe the strategy guide said level 9 had a terribly long and convoluted exit run but when I played it, it was short and easy. In fact level 9 is one of the easiest in the game.
I've beat D1 on rookie without tri-chording, now I'm working on doing hotshot -- I'm on level 11. I'm finding a lot of battles on hotshot easier than they were on rookie because the robots tend to come at you one at a time. I've almost beaten D2 on hotshot as well (I'm on level 24 with 85 lives, but for some reason I haven't come back to it in a while -- probably because I don't like that level).
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on one hand, i like the cockpit. It looks like it's a bit better. "However", it doesn't really give me that "Descent" feel, and I think that's what's no good about it.
The classic had a neat design. That's my opinion.
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There's a wierd split in the cockpit support beams. That was never there before. Not even in the cutscenes.
I think they should have just completely updated the original cockpit to today's standards.
Something (exactly) like Bubba's cockpit.
(http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/9692/gxcockpit01.jpg)
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I cannot see much of todays standards in that. It just looks like a more angular and high resolution version of the original cockpit.
A true 3D cockpit - that's what would be more of today's standards.
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And that's what we're getting in D2X-XL soon.
We will have one, it just isn't "Interplay official". I actually think the new cockpit in the Wii version does look very cool, and we don't know that it's 2D.
@Schyphi If you look closely at the secondary weapons display in the screenshots you can see the bomb indicator there, so that's not what the fourth "key light" is.
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Wazz, I mentioned that it was the 4th key light. Scyphi was the one to point out that it was the bomb light.
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That's what I meant. If you look at the secondary weapons display you can see that the bomb display is there, underneath the missile indicator, which means that the fourth "key light" is probably not a bomb light.
Maybe it's an "objective light" that turns on when the reactor/boss bot is destroyed.
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Hmm...it's a mystery. They must have had some reason for adding in the light...
As for the cockpit...heck, I'd be happy to have just something like Bubba's cockpit (which I again agree with Diedel as being okay but better could still be done) than that ugly thing they've slapped into D1Wii, which is why I'm hoping against hope that using it will be optional.
I think Vanguard nailed it when he said that it lacks the Descent "feel."
Of course, when you really get down to it though, the full graphical cockpit was for effect only, and when played in game, actually hinders your view a little or more. Actually might be better to play the game with that turned off, something I know many people, including myself, are already doing.
Darkflamewolf: seeing that you've already got a contact with the developers of D1-4-Wii, maybe you could inquire if the classic cockpit will still be available for use, and if not, suggest they keep it in, as I'd think that'd be the best thing to do to please all the fans.
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I never ever turn the cockpit off even in multiplayer. I only do that for D3 since its cockpit....just...makes no sense.
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In D1&2 the cockpit shrinked your view dramatically. In D3 the cockpit was more "glassy" which solved the issue. I still turn it off though, and have texts instead of graphics...
Well, in my opinion bubba's cockpit looks a more "Descent"ish than the Wii version. It simply needs some work on it.
@wazzazle:
Yea, Level 9's Exit wasn't the longest one, its just a short sprint throught the upper door... Level 13 gets you cross almost half of the lower levels... And if you are fast you can perform a "last second" hostage rescue :)
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If I could get ahold of them and ask about having a 'legacy' option, I would. But right now, Scott hasn't replied back in well over a week, so he's either really busy. Or Vignettes has officially been written off and its not happening. I haven't a clue what's going on over there.
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Well, I like the new cockpit HUD at least. Of the many things that needed to be up-res'ed, the cockpit has to be near the top. The original is ugly.
I think that the controls would map to the Wii Remote fairly well, at least as far as Descent 1 is concerned. Descent 2 suffers from severe button overload.
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Well, if D2's bad in the button area, imagine how D3'd be. :P
I only do that for D3 since its cockpit....just...makes no sense.
In D1&2 the cockpit shrinked your view dramatically. In D3 the cockpit was more "glassy" which solved the issue. I still turn it off though, and have texts instead of graphics...
I think that was done on purpose for D3. I think the developers realized that the cockpit in D1-D2 hindered the player's view, and since they had to design new cockpits for D3, took the chance to fix the problem. And they did, you view is hardly hindered at all in D3 with the cockpit turned on, at least for me. Granted, I, too, play with it turned off, but that's more because it just got turned off at one point and I never got around to turning it back on. :P That, and I always have a rear-view window opened on screen, which is also because it got turned on at one point and I never got around to turning it off again. :P x2.
I will also grant that while D3's cockpit fixed the problem, their solution was...shall we say...creative. I never thought too much about it, as it still fit the futuristic theme of D3, and they still applied some good ideas to it, but yeah, I guess when you really think about it, it is kind of...odd.
I still say D1Wii needs a classic cockpit option at the very least, because as we've already evidenced, not everyone likes the new cockpit, and it seems illogical to force everybody to have to use it when they have it turned on. Furthermore, if they really wanted to update the cockpit but not make the jump to building a 3D one, they could've just ripped the hi-res cockpit from D2 and apply it to this. I'd be plenty happy with that.
Yes, I'll probably be bringing this subject up repeatedly in upcoming posts, just don't know when to let a matter drop. :P x3
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I had a bizzare dream last night about Interplay... all of a sudden this feels sinister.
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Embrase their sinisterness, at least we might get Descent on the Wii.
#1 reason why I don't like D3's cockpit: Shrunk the MFDs and the rear view and cameras were smaller.
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Even on a modern plane, the instruments would be projected onto the glass anyway.
I suppose the D3 cockpit was astep in the right direction.
Anything that means less screen being wasted by instruments when it could be showing you the enemy gets my vote.
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Embrase their sinisterness, at least we might get Descent on the Wii.
Thank God for this epic milestone in the history not only of Descent, but the entire gaming industry. What would life be without this game's first version's timeless and inspiring graphics and level design. The world is longing for it, even though it doesn't even know. Life will never be the same after this.
No, really: The hype around Descent for Wii is ridicoulus. "Oh, something new is happening in the world of Descent!" What's so great about having it on the Wii? If you want to play Descent 1 or 2 with acceptable graphics, you are having two source ports at your disposal; and both of them open the door to thousands of add-on missions. True, many of them are crap, but there are still like 200 - 300 good and great ones among them.
Imo the main reason people keep playing D1 and First Strike (and sometimes even with the low screen res and pixelated looks of the past) is that they want to relive the bliss and excitement from the days when they first played this game, and when 3D games were fresh and thrilling. These feelings are actually just memories, and digging them up again is a second hand experience at best. Maybe 3rd hand only after 15 years. Looks like old people happily remembering the days when they were young and strong and life was still powerful in them to me.
Nah people, nothing new is happening here.
Interplay should start doing something that is really new instead of polishing this 15+ year dinosaur and putting it on a console in a feeble attempt to milk some more money out of it's glorious past.
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Embrase their sinisterness, at least we might get Descent on the Wii.
Lol it's not like it was realistic at all...
Lady Macbeth had taken over Interplay and the wiiware titles were her first step towards taking over the world. I was trying to stop her, after I wiretapped her office and found out -- this is a normal dream for me.
I've heard about the kind of dreams a lot of other people have and my only thought is "realism is boring". Why would I want to have reality in dreams when I can just as easily experience the fantastic? (Waxes philosophical then shuts up).
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Embrase their sinisterness, at least we might get Descent on the Wii.
Thank God for this epic milestone in the history not only of Descent, but the entire gaming industry. What would life be without this game's first version's timeless and inspiring graphics and level design. The world is longing for it, even though it doesn't even know. Life will never be the same after this.
No, really: The hype around Descent for Wii is ridicoulus. "Oh, something new is happening in the world of Descent!" What's so great about having it on the Wii? If you want to play Descent 1 or 2 with acceptable graphics, you are having two source ports at your disposal; and both of them open the door to thousands of add-on missions. True, many of them are crap, but there are still like 200 - 300 good and great ones among them.
Imo the main reason people keep playing D1 and First Strike (and sometimes even with the low screen res and pixelated looks of the past) is that they want to relive the bliss and excitement from the days when they first played this game, and when 3D games were fresh and thrilling. These feelings are actually just memories, and digging them up again is a second hand experience at best. Maybe 3rd hand only after 15 years. Looks like old people happily remembering the days when they were young and strong and life was still powerful in them to me.
Nah people, nothing new is happening here.
Interplay should start doing something that is really new instead of polishing this 15+ year dinosaur and putting it on a console in a feeble attempt to milk some more money out of it's glorious past.
I'm sure you're being sarcastic. You are getting after the fact that something old is being re-polished when you have that d2-XL or whatever upgrade.
I think old games are fun. I understand about memories. Did that mostly with movies, and sometimes music, I suppose some games too. You buy it back, only to see it in the trash in a week because the fun just isn't there, just memories.
but some games are just old and fun. I got my iMac, and popped in Call of Duty 2.
I still enjoy it.
I think Descent would be fun. on a wii? I don't know about that. PC or maybe PS3 would be fun though.
I really only have three major game series, or interest. Call of Duty, Descent and Penumbra.
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Why would I want to have reality in dreams when I can just as easily experience the fantastic?
I completely agree with that, but apparently, my subconscious disagrees, because that's rarely the kind of dreams I ever have. :P
Being more on subject, I think the real reason most of us are excited for D1Wii is not so much for it being the game on the Wii, it means that something in the Descent franchise is moving forward again. Yeah, it's not a huge step forward, but considering for how long Descent hasn't budged in status over the years, it's still very much noteworthy AND, even more important, proves that Interplay still has interest in Descent. It has already been agreed once before that D1Wii is more of a test to see how much of a market for Descent there is still. If there's a good market for it still...then we MIGHT get that long-overdue D4.
THAT'S definitely something to be excited for in my book. The possibilities are fairly open at the moment. You can't help but be at least a little optimistic.
Besides, a lot of old games have been getting ported to the Wii, and has been fairly successful. Interplay's just cashing in on that, and while it is cashing in nonetheless, business-wise, it's a fair move considering it's Interplay we're talking about. That, and it just seems to be the natural thing to do.
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I'm sure you're being sarcastic.
Nooooooo! Really?
it means that something in the Descent franchise is moving forward again.
It does WHAT??
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Okay, now you're being unbearable, Diedel. :-\
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Okay, now you're being unbearable, Diedel. :-\
No - you are out of your mind. I mean, what has to happen to wake you up if you cannot immediately see the contradiction between "publishing D1 on Wii" and "moving forward". It could hardly go any further backward.
Apparently you also haven't read or understood what I said earlier. You are so excited that just something is happening regarding Descent that you completely lose your minds over it, so it seems. The kind of optimism that loses ground contact seems to be somewhat the hallmark of the Descent community though.
"Unbearable".
Kids on forums. ::)
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Okay, now you're being unbearable, Diedel. :-\
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*is not talking to Diedel anymore*
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Whoa, guys. CHILL.
Diedel is correct that Descent for WiiWare brings nothing new to the table. He's right, it's an attempt to dredge up a few $$, not a developmental "step forward", and it's certainly not worthy of being mentioned alongside the incredible Descent ports.
However, Scy is also correct, in that Descent for Wii might actually renew a bit of latent interest in the Descent games... and it might be fun for a little while.
So, guys... chill out.
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I see it as something nice. an old game on the wii. Descent has to be good enough, or popular enough for it, right? Even if it's just for the money. If no one really liked Descent, and few ever bothered with buying D2, and D3, there would most likely be no reason to even consider it on the wii.
kind of what foil said. I am not all hyped up and thinking this will move Descent into a whole new light. on the other hand, hey, it's Descent, let's grab our gear and head into the mines. :)
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I would say I mostly agree with Diedel (and Foil).
Having Descent on the Wii doesn't necesarily means a step forward.
As an example: Interplay published Earthworm Jim for the Wii and NOTHING at all happened after that. The fans were expecting that this would indeed motivate the making of a new EWJ title soon, but nope, that didn't happened.
Also as much as I really love D1 (even with it's pixelated ugly look, that's why sometimes, although rarely, I play it on DOSBox), I would be only happy if Vignettes makes its way to the Wii, just for the sake of the community,
but if it's only D1 First Strike with LOTW, It's definitely more exciting having DOSBox, Rebirth and D2X-XL (and even for free!) on my PC than having Descent on the Wii. Sorry. :-\
As Diedel said, on those ports (and I would also add DOSBox as a 'port') I can install high-quality missions whenever I want, and let's not forget we can even customize the game using those ports,
and of course, I would add that nothing beats the PC controls at all. ;)
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*is not talking to Diedel anymore*
Still holding your breath? ;D
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An all-new Descent would certainly be a more exciting prospect but Interplay are doing what they can by bringing a good game with (what look like some improved graphics) to a wider audience.
If they were to make an all-new Descent, where would they go with it and how much development time and resources would it consume and for what percentage improvement over D3?
Another thing is that D1 and D2 mission style is too single-minded to be recreated in an all-new game. A D4 would have to be more similar to D3 with varied mission styles and objectives. I think that's a general expectation among modern gamers and personally, I found the D3 formula more engaging and realistic. In that respect gamer dumbing-down is a myth.
So I don't see a lot of point in them creating an all-new program that mirrors D1 and 2 for the console because it would be money wasted to an degree.
So, I think Diedel is right but I can't be upset about it because I think it's logical and unavoidable. I certainly don't think that it's right to malign Interplay over it either because a successful release might unlock a genuine, PC-release Descent 4.
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It's not that i disagree with you diedel. I am sure this won't trigger any effect on making more Descent games and/or movies. But according to some people, somewhat me, I think what you mentioned earlier could have been a bit more graceful/tactful.
and yes, there are kids in here, I am sure. I'd be nervous if most are in their 40's and 50's, like everyone.
We have different ages. We have people that would love to see Descent move forward and possibly have more games and movies out.
one can just say, as I said, "I don't expect this to take off and see more descent games/movies become available, but, one never" knows.
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I wasn't taking this all too serious, nor was I all that serious when posting. ;)
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noooooo, really? :)
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Ummmm .... no.
;D
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An all-new Descent would certainly be a more exciting prospect but Interplay are doing what they can by bringing a good game with (what look like some improved graphics) to a wider audience.
If they were to make an all-new Descent, where would they go with it and how much development time and resources would it consume and for what percentage improvement over D3?
Another thing is that D1 and D2 mission style is too single-minded to be recreated in an all-new game. A D4 would have to be more similar to D3 with varied mission styles and objectives...
I think the Interplay is making a wise decision. As their aim is more "fresh" audience, D1 is the optimum choice, because it has the simplest game mechanics and concepts. It would be an ideal "acquaintance game" for those newcomers and, if the controls are sorted out okay, it may actually have a good lifespan.
As for the graphics, the Wii games themselves has a slightly lower quality than the other consoles, due to the nature of Wii itself (Or so I've read somewhere...)
...a successful release might unlock a genuine, PC-release Descent 4.
Now THAT would be THE forward motion we are looking for HAY? :D
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...a successful release might unlock a genuine, PC-release Descent 4.
Now THAT would be THE forward motion we are looking for HAY? :D
Oh yessssss. :D
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As for the graphics, the Wii games themselves has a slightly lower quality than the other consoles, due to the nature of Wii itself (Or so I've read somewhere...)
I have seen this on Klixovann's Wii -- he also owns a 360 and a PS3 so I was able to compare.
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It's kind of frustrating, actually, to see some games look beautiful on other consoles, then see it doesn't look as nice on your Wii game.
But yeah, Nintendo had a good reason for doing it that way; they couldn't fit in enough graphics processing power into the Wii on top of the motion-sensing programming.
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Most Wii developers arent trying hard enough, as far as graphics go. I know of one game (The Conduit) that pushes the Wii's limits, but some would say it's just not enough. I still think it's nice though.
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This is true, too, but thankfully, not for every game. I've seen some very nice looking Wii games, so I know they're out there.
What's most frustrating is when said game appears on more than one console. It always seems like more effort was put into the versions for the other consoles, then just reverse-engineered to also work on the Wii. :-\
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Guys, the Wii just isn't as graphically capable as the other two consoles. For one, the Wii doesn't do HD. Also, the renderer just isn't as powerful.
There are good reasons graphics often have to be chopped down in order to be playable on the Wii.
[Of course, the same applies when comparing the PS3 or XBox 360 to PC graphics. PC games often have to be chopped down graphically to play on those consoles.]
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I think we already established that the Wii isn't that powerful, Foil, and we're just discussing different games.
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And my point was that these games that are produced for multiple consoles often seem to be built more specifically for those other consoles. The versions for Wii feel like they've just been quickly "reversed-engineered" to work on the Wii and come out as feeling just not as good graphically. Which, yes, must be done, but as Darcshadow said, most publishers don't push these games to really try the Wii system.
Games built and released exclusively for the Wii, however, don't seem to have this issue, though. Look at Super Mario Galaxy. Look at Sonic Colors. Graphically speaking, they look spectacular, despite using the weaker rendering system. And I'm sure they're plenty more games that are like this. That's my point. :)
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So perhaps the Descent for Wii version will have graphics that are optimized for the Wii?
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Actually they would have to boost the graphics :D
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Yep, considering that the original Descent ran at something like 320x200 by default, they could easily increase the render resolution.
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Another plus for D1Wii. :D
I actually forget how we got on the topic of the Wii and it's "lessor" graphics. :-\
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^^^^^^because of me hehe :D
Allright I got a Wii now, and preparing for Descent... ONCE MORE!
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Got a reply back:
"Hi DarkFlameWolf,
We have been extremely impressed with the levels that you provided. We have
been able to get them up and running on the Wii and they play VERY well. We
will have to do further testing to make sure everything works, but we want
to try to include them in the Wii version of the game if possible.
We talked to Interplay about it. They seem open to it - although they will
want to have a written agreement in place which will require that each of
the level designers / contributors sign some type of agreement giving
Interplay the rights to include the levels in the Wii version of the game in
exchange for including each of you in the credits. I know you mentioned
that the other authors mainly work with you online, so we will have to
confirm that you guys are ok with giving me your email addresses and signing
off on an agreement with your real names. Ideally, it should be something
as easy as printing out a word document, signing it, scanning the signed
version in, and emailing it back to me. If you do not want to use your real
names in the game, that is fine as we can include your aliases or whatever
you want to use in the Wii credits.
Let me know if you think this is something we can do!!
Talk to you soon,
Scott"
So give me your emails ASAP and I can get this going!
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Rock on, DFW!!
Whose contact information do you still need?
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Finally! :P
Glad it's still probably a go.
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Uber cheers for DFW! ;D
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This is awesome. Congrats DFW
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Good one, DFW! Keep 'em coming! ;D ;D
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(http://files.fraterslibertas.com/Images/War/churchilldv.jpg)
(http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:YYMr3fOj4gJa_M:http://lightofjesus.net/lojc/data/1totalvictory%20comp.jpg&t=1)
(http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:97ogtKq1ndrhYM:http://firekragthorpenow.com/images/500_we_win_cheers.jpg&t=1)
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Lol at Omega's pics. :P
Congrats DFW! :D
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That's really awesome to hear, congrats 8)
I wish I could make a contribution to a video game one of these days.
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You could try Miner Wars... though the community is divided over whether it will ever get released or not.
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You could try Miner Wars... though the community is divided over whether it will ever get released or not.
Yeah, I checked it out and there are plenty of opportunities to contribute, although taking part in the content for a Descent game on Wiiware would be like a dream come true for me :D
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"Hi DarkFlameWolf,
I received an email from Interplay this morning saying that they need all of the full names and mailing addresses of each of the people that are going to sign the agreement to have the Descent Vignettes levels (and the music we are going to use) included in the Wii version of Descent.
We will not release this information publicly, but can you please send it to me??
Talk to you soon,
Scott"
So Sirius and Pumo, PM me the information and I'll pass it along discreetly. And Wazzazzle, if you want your music included, you get in on this too and PM me your info. ASAP, something tells me there are nearing the end of their development cycle!
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DFW, I'd suggest PM-ing all three of them, if you haven't already. Given the apparent hurry, you probably don't want to just wait for them to see this thread.
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...And Wazzazzle, if you want your music included, you get in on this too and PM me your info. ASAP, something tells me there are nearing the end of their development cycle!
I'll get all the music together right now (on some web hosting site) and then send you an email with links to all the music and also my full name and mailing address. I already have your email address of course.
EDIT: I've sent you an email with a link to the music (lots of it :D) and my name/address info. I sent it to your Yahoo account.
There's some other info in the email about some particular songs (that might affect their choice of where to put them/whether to use them) so I'd appreciate if you could pass that on.
Now I'm waiting for the document for me to sign.
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Great! Will send my full name ASAP.
On a side-note, glad to know Alter-fox will make the new soundtrack, (great news :D) ,but I got a question , this new soundtrack will also include my 3 songs I made for vignettes?
I ask this so I can make better versions of the songs (not MIDI).
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well, sent in all our info. Haven't heard a thing back. So I'm going to give it a few more days still before I give a pimping email to make sure it hasn't gotten off track.
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@Pumo I hope they take your music. One of the reasons I volunteered mine was to make them more likely to take yours (by giving them more to work with than 3 songs :P).
My advice would be to make the high quality mixes now, and get Wolfie to send them in -- the way I understand what Wolfie posted is they're asking for the music now... if you wait much longer it might be too late. (Make sure to post them here too :D).
Incidentally if you send them in then they'll have exactly 20 songs for the mission (as I've sent in 17), so they'll have the option to use your songs in the levels they were originally intended for.
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OK, i'm making the new mixes now. Hopefully they will be done tomorrow or Thursday at most. (hope it's not too much time).
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Pumo, PM me your full mailing address. Your email isn't enough they said. They need full mailing addresses for everyone. Yours is the only one they didn't receive and right now is stalling the inclusion of Vignettes. (not that I'm putting pressure on you or anything! :P)
Also, the new soundtrack inclusion is iffy at best, so don't go expecting miracles there. Its a miracle enough that Vignettes is getting a look-see.
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:-\
But that's my main E-Mail address I use.
The only thing I can do is giving my other alternative e-mails (@ GMail and 3d-get.de).
But that's all, I don't have any other E-Mail addresses.
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Pumo,
DFW means that they are asking for your physical mailing address.
I'm guessing the Interplay guys need some legal document physically signed by the creators, so they need to mail it to you.
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Yes, indeed.
They need your city and street address.
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Oh, so it was that.
Now that makes things more clear.
Although Wolfie said they only needed my E-Mail address and that they would send me the document in digital form for me to print, sign it, scan it and then send it through E-Mail again.
Will ask her more details about that.
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they clarified, that online version isn't going to work. They need street and mail address.
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OK, NP then. Will send my address ASAP.
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OK, address sent to Wolfire,
and i've sent also the pack with my 3 songs for Vignettes to her E-Mail,
just in case it gets included along with Alter's songs.
And just for the sake of it, and for testing my Soundcloud account, here's a link to listen to one of the songs with the new sounds from MIDI to full-blown track! :D
http://soundcloud.com/r-a-m-land/alteration-descent-vignettes
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Okay, not sure if its going to be through email or via mailing address, but be expecting some sort of agreement letter soon. Fill it out ASAP and return mail it.
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And just for the sake of it, and for testing my Soundcloud account, here's a link to listen to one of the songs with the new sounds from MIDI to full-blown track! :D
[url]http://soundcloud.com/r-a-m-land/alteration-descent-vignettes[/url]
Now I want to hear the other two even more... I'd also like to know what you used for the Hi-Hat... can I have the sample? :P
Because this mix of Alteration sounds so awesome. I like the popcorn synth and industrial style drums especially.
I'm following you on Soundcloud now... it seems everyone and his dog is getting an account there :P.
@Wolfie: I'll be watching my email for it too, though if the soundtrack will not be included I probably won't be getting the email.
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[url]http://soundcloud.com/r-a-m-land/alteration-descent-vignettes[/url]
The bass sounds horribly exaggerated on my Bose system.
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I think it sounds GREAT!
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Ditto that. :)
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What are you hearing, Diedel? An imbalance (i.e. too much bass), or distortion? I can't tell from here at work...
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Way too much bass. I've checked my bass speaker's bass boost setting to make sure it's not rooted there, and it is set to neutral.
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I'm listening on my headphones (which have pretty good quality), and I don't hear any imbalance in bass vs treble... if anything it has less bass than a lot of Pumo's music (including the songs in Pumo Mines). I noticed that downloads were disabled... but I managed to get it...
@Pumo I'm curious about the level 7 music: it sounds like a remix of your song "My Wishes" from Round Universe. Was it intended as one?
Last night I finished one last song that could go into this port... I made it with level 22 in mind. Needless to say no one here has heard it yet. It sounds very alien. I uploaded it into the folder on Mediafire that I linked to in my email to Wolfie. I also added a text document which suggests a song for each level (up to level 22).
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Speaking of Pumo Mines, is there someplace that I can download all of the music? My favorite is the first level.
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As far as I know he hasn't released the entire soundtrack yet. However you can find four songs (including at least two you probably haven't heard) on this page in the D2X-XL forum http://www.descent2.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=596&start=120 (http://www.descent2.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=596&start=120)... it's the third post from the bottom of the page (page 9).
You can find some on the top-left player on his R.a.M. Land page: http://pumosoft.3d-get.de/documents/ram_land.html (http://pumosoft.3d-get.de/documents/ram_land.html)
And if you look around on his newgrounds account you can find some more (http://pumo.newgrounds.com/ (http://pumo.newgrounds.com/)).
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Well, here I've checked with both my Sony mega-bass speakers set (that's the one I use everyday on my computer) and with headphones and the bass level sounded good to me. Must test also on my hi-fi system and on the Sharp X-bass system.
Regarding Pumo Mines I have not released the full track yet, and I have done (fully) only up to Level 12 song. But if you're interested I may upload the songs here on my PD's user gallery.
@alter-fox: BTW, i've finally checked out Clawed Hunters and I must say it's pretty good!! As by now it's my favorite song of yours. Great work you did in it. The sounds you used on it (including the speech synth and the filters) as well as the progress throughout the song it's perfectly done. I already added it as favorite on Soundcloud. ;)
I really hope it makes its way up to the Descent Wii release.
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Regarding Pumo Mines I have not released the full track yet, and I have done (fully) only up to Level 12 song. But if you're interested I may upload the songs here on my PD's user gallery.
I know I'd like that. What does everyone else think?
And thanks for the compliment ;D.
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OK, i've uploaded some Pumo Mines songs (up to level 6 song and briefing) for all of you to listen to. :D
Will upload the rest ASAP.
And back to topic:
I'm still awaiting some reply from the Descent Wii developers.
Any news Wolfie?
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Nope, no news at all. Its been dead for almost two weeks. (dead as in, no contact from Scott)
-
My folder on mediafire still shows no downloads for any of the music files (though if they just dowloaded the entire folder I'm not sure if that would show on the statistics for the individual files).
-
Well let's hope they do what they promised, I've yet to receive anything from Interplay about signing an agreement. Usage of Vignettes is still up in the air honestly.
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Thank god I bought a Wii last year :)
-
same here, but I got my own in December 2009
-
I got mine a couple of weeks after the release of Metroid Prime 3 (and ironically, your current rotating avatar is on Samus)
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We got one last year. I'm just waiting for somthing worth playing. (wii fit just doesn't cut it) ;)
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Sirius, Pumo, Wazzazle, did any of you get any Interplay agreements letters? I haven't yet...
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No.
I'm thinking NUMBERZero may have declared victory too soon...
-
The same here. I haven't got any letter from Interplay.
-
Hopefully all that work you guys did with Interplay doesn't go to waste.
-
So again, when this "new" D1 is coming out??
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Last December....yeah...
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Now they're shooting for sometime this year.
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@Wolfie: I read over the contract and sent you what you asked for, I also sent a you separate email with some requests and general information that I'd like you to pass on to them - one thing in particular could make their job a lot easier when they're matching music to levels. You can just forward them my email if you want, to make things less complicated.
@Everyone: We finally recieved the agreement letter from Interplay. Needless to say I'm excited and I think the others are too - probably moreso than me considering they submitted levels - and in one case levels and songs. You should be excited now too :P.
There was a statement near the beginning of the letter that implied Interplay is planning to do something with D2 as well - in the legal agreement the word 'Descent' is meant to stand for both D1 and D2. Very interesting. There was no mention of D3, but that doesn't mean anything - even if they were planning something they wouldn't have bothered in this agreement because the levels as they are would be unusable in D3.
Of course, they may have written the D2 part in "just in case" they decide to do something in the future.
But my theory is more exciting.
Anyway, I wonder if this means that the song that I intended to be the theme for the Thiefbot would be the official theme of the thiefbot now.
There was nothing about that in the letter. Not that anyone asked.
-
well the letter has been sent off. Let's hope all things turned out okay such as:
- the crashing bug in level 25 - fixed hopefully
- all songs matched up to their proper levels
- due credit given to those involved
We'll just have to wait and see.
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Did you forward my other email to them as well?
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@Everyone: We finally recieved the agreement letter
Seriously?! Awesome!!
-
- due credit given to those involved
They'll do that one at least, the last thing interplay wants is to be sued.
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No.
I'm thinking NUMBERZero may have declared victory too soon...
Gotcha ;P
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not a word, not one peep since I turned in the agreement letter. Not sure what's going to happen, honestly.
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Well, now that the agreement letter has been turned in, they may consider it a done deal now, and have nothing left to say.
Granted, though, that's not really that polite... :P
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Take it from someone who works in software development (me):
Development moves in bursts, with intermittent delays and occasional flurries of forward movement. It's just how it goes. Don't get too high or low about it. :)
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**Still not on the shelves!!!**
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**Still not on the shelves!!!**
Will never be on the shelves.
Technically...
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NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Thought I hadn't see the fine print?!!?
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(http://www.clicksmilies.com/s1106/spezial/Fool/gaz.gif)
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(http://www.prepare4descent.net/slider_popcorn.gif)
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Why do the smilies have to be either reading the newspaper or eating popcorn?
I do both at once. All the time. ;D
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it should be watching a movie or playing a game and eating popcorn.
i don't quite understand techpros animation.
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He says "check for the news!" ;)
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My first impression was just someone on the toilet, reading a paper. then someone walks up behind him. then I became more clueless
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Just a smilie (male) reading the paper ... (bored? maybe) ... and the female smilie (notice the blue things on her? perhaps a bow in her hair?) comes up and talks to him. He just blinks and returns to his paper.
That's about how I feel right now regarding the Descent for WiiWare possibilities. Just waiting to hear about it in the paper (so to speak).
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I thought it was blue hair, like a clowns hair. Reminds me of the pointy haired boss in Dilbert.
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Just a smilie (male) reading the paper ... (bored? maybe) ... and the female smilie (notice the blue things on her? perhaps a bow in her hair?) comes up and talks to him. He just blinks and returns to his paper.
That's about how I feel right now regarding the Descent for WiiWare possibilities. Just waiting to hear about it in the paper (so to speak).
Doesn't change the fact that I'd be eating popcorn while I read it (I'm addicted to popcorn!).
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someone passed the evil number ;D
I like popcorn but like to share it, like with my girl friend. I generally think it's too much to eat alone. I think once in a great while, am I able to eat the whole bag or nearly all of it.
Here at my job, we have bags of popcorn. I'm guessing we still do because a certain "Wazzazzle" isn't here :)
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Well, I always find eating popcorn a bit... "boring" for some reason. In fact, I never buy them myself... only eat it if someone's offering me...
I prefer eating them fresh, instead.
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(http://gagadailyboards.com/images/smilies/popcorn.gif)
(http://smileys.emoticonsonly.com/emoticons/s/sharing_popcorn-1245.gif)
(http://www.one2onefun.com/iforum/Smileys/default/popcorn2.gif)
(http://i475.photobucket.com/albums/rr120/Angelintown/Smiley%20diversen/smilie_essen_199.gif)
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that bottom picture is my girl and I watching a movie
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You guys are such a cute couple. ;D
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thanks ;D
although we're not quite that sloppy............or are we? yeah, I may drop a popcorn or two
oh well, that's popcorn for you.
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thanks ;D
although we're not quite that sloppy............or are we? yeah, I may drop a popcorn or two
oh well, that's popcorn for you.
That's why I have dogs ;)
(I totally thought of Scarecrow's business "partner" in Dark Knight when I said that ;) )
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You guys are such a cute couple. ;D
can't say much now. i got the "just friends" talk last night. I am so not happy right now. I only got four hours of sleep and I have to be at work soon again. Thank goodness it's Friday here, being I have Good Friday off.
okay, back to the original topic....
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no word yet again, so we'll just have to wait and see when its finally released on WiiWare.
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When is it coming out?
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Read the thread.
We don't know.
Sounds like you're either 5 years old, not a real person, or being purposefully annoying. We'll take you seriously when you say something that doesn't give everyone that feeling.
Good day.
Edit: I'm just going to keep this post here and you can pretend I made it sooner.
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Read the thread.
We don't know.
Sounds like you're either 5 years old, not a real person, or being purposefully annoying. We'll take you seriously when you say something that doesn't give everyone that feeling.
Good day.
Edit: I'm just going to keep this post here and you can pretend I made it sooner.
I don't understand you. Don't take it personally. I don't understand anyone at this hour.
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I don't understand you. Don't take it personally. I don't understand anyone at this hour.
Huh?
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I'm just going to keep this post here and you can pretend I made it sooner.
i dont get it. pretend you made it sooner?
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Still not out yet! :(
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OK. I pretended. Now what? ;)
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Hopefully it will be out by the time I get back
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we'll see. I am just happy to be able to play the classics again on the computer.
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Read the thread.
We don't know.
Sounds like you're either 5 years old, not a real person, or being purposefully annoying. We'll take you seriously when you say something that doesn't give everyone that feeling.
Good day.
Edit: I'm just going to keep this post here and you can pretend I made it sooner.
I don't understand you. Don't take it personally. I don't understand anyone at this hour.
Uhm... I responded to the guy's post after he was already banned. So I'm telling you to ignore that.
The post felt satisfying. Then I felt like an idiot when I realized the guy was banned already.
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not much an update, but here it is:
http://www.interplay.com/games/comingsoon.php
It looks like the list is in order of when they're doing it. The first is already available. The second, is Descent. Now instead of "First Quarter of 2011" it's only "2011."
A couple more down is in "May", which is obviously this month. So, I don't know. More waiting I guess. Not a whole lot of May left.
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They seem to have gotten MDK2 out, though. Don't really care about that game, but that was Interplay's other Wii-port game, so this at least proves they're serious about releasing these things.
But for some reason, something keeps holding our beloved Descent back... >:(
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It's official. They completely revamped the cockpit. (Scroll down a bit)
http://www.interplay.com/games/wiiware
Each pic has an afterburner indicator.
The shield indicator now turns blue, yellow, and red for shield status.
Hey, bottom left corner picture. Arn't those D2 lava textures?
Discrypshun sez dat u can haz classic controller.
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Is that going to be strictly single player?
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They only site having 30 levels. Either the press release is outdated or the Vignettes will not be included.
:(
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Hey, bottom left corner picture. Arn't those D2 lava textures?
I don't think so, that texture was in D1 but I don't remember it being used.
I'd perfer the classic cockpit, but the current one isn't that bad, really. The lighting in the screenshots looks weird, though.
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I think that lava is from Descent 1, and maybe even the second. I did that small map "vanguard' (I know, I'm so creative with names ::) ) and I thought I used that lava before.
Those pictures are starting to look less like Descent and more like something else :(
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They only site having 30 levels. Either the press release is outdated or the Vignettes will not be included.
:(
Probably outdated. They've said before they will include user-made missions and most of the screenshots on that page are not from D1 First Strike (in fact I don't know some of those levels).
And that lava texture was in D1.
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Highly advanced artificial intelligence with creatures that actually learn, adjusting their actions based on your tactics. They'll plot, wait and ambush you from all sides.
Unless they have changed the AI significantly (which I doubt), this is a plain lie. D1 and D2 robots do not learn from and do not adjust to the player actions (in the sense of learning). There are several AI classes, each of which has a behavior repertoire a robot will chose from (the sniper will try to stay away from the player and shoot from a distance, "melee" attack robots like the Diamond claw will approach the player to attack him, trying to evade shots, etc.), but robots do not change their AI class (you can give a robot type a different AI in the level editor, but that's the only way to change a robot's AI from its default AI). That's it and that's all about "adjusting to the player".
"Learning", pfff.
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And they aren't even creatures, either, they are robots.
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The "adjusting to tactics" thing has been around since the release of D2, actually. I'm trying to pull up a wayback link right now but navigating a mid-90's site using a very slow service is not very fun.
Edit: http://classic-web.archive.org/web/19970414180754/www.pxsoftware.com/products/descent.html (http://classic-web.archive.org/web/19970414180754/www.pxsoftware.com/products/descent.html)
EDITII: uh... look at that screenshot... the vulcan cannon has a level indicator. I love beta screenshots
:P
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I know. They just posted the same old slogans from the times of D2. They had been wrong then already though.
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Maybe Vignettes is holding it back? Anyway, if Vignettes isn't included, then all that work a few months ago was a big waste. Bleh. We'll have to see.
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EDITII: uh... look at that screenshot... the vulcan cannon has a level indicator. I love beta screenshots
I noticed the other pic also listed the laser as being at level 14. That must be some laser. :P
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Perhaps they've introduced a more sophisticated lighting system. I think the new cockipt is very smart. I think they've done themselves a credit there. I am surprised that the weapon indicator sprites haven't been updated because they look a bit incongruous with the new instruments.
I wonder if originally there were 40 laser levels with the 10s representing colour changes and the units inbetween representing minor increases in lethality/stopping-power.
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The lighting in the screenshots looks weird, though.
Looks like typical per vertex lighting artifacts.
The explosions look like they've done nothing about them. They're not even additively blended in the screenshot.
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Yeah, additive blend always looks great for exposions and weapons-fire. That would look very pretty. Not hard to do either.
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But of course, it's Interplay. They can't put too much work into this. :P
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Yes, I seem to recall that they originally went bust thanks to being sued for their contractual non-performance or something along those lines.
I can imagine the development arm of such a company being recalcitrant.
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The lighting in the screenshots looks weird, though.
Looks like typical per vertex lighting artifacts.
Yeah, I see what you mean... but from my memory the data for lighting was a lot better in the original... Perhaps I never paid enough attention. It's the second screenshot, in particular, that looks the worst. I don't know what room that is to compare though.
It also looks somewhat "flat" in screenshot four, but that's mostly unavoidable, I think.
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The pic in screenshot two is from a custom level, one from the Levels of the World set. I've played it before sometime ago, but I can't remember the name of it...
I believe the player just got hit in that screenshot too, so there would be a red tint in place on the screen as a result. That might explain why it looks off to you Insanity
Screenshot four doesn't look flat to me...but maybe that's just me.
Except for the cockpit, (which I still have mixed opinions about) I'm actually okay with how the game's looking anyway. It may not be very enhanced for the times, but it still appears to have the "classic" D1 feel, and that's good enough for me. :)
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I can't understand all this excitement about the "classic" look. I mean heavily pixelated 320x200 screen res? WTF?
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Hmm, you'd think the models and textures would only benefit from 640x480 at least.
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It may seem strange to you, but I actually like oldschool-like 320x200 graphics (though I don't care when the view is actually rendered at a higher-resolution, like Rebirth with the low-res graphics at high-res modes, and games like Minecraft). I don't really like graphical overhauls for these older games, it just makes it feel weird to me.
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Sometimes I go back and play Fury3. It outputs at 320x200 and it's a crying shame because it's obvious that the models and textures would be perfectly adequate to support 640x480. With the lower resolution, it is diffcult to observe the features and details of the various well-designed air and ground targets plus the attractive environments.
It is insanely blocky and a crying shame. To be quite honest, the Descent robots are not as detailed or interestingly textured in comparison, so you might get away with it but Fury3's lack of increased resolution option is genuinely infuriating.
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It may seem strange to you, but I actually like oldschool-like 320x200 graphics (though I don't care when the view is actually rendered at a higher-resolution, like Rebirth with the low-res graphics at high-res modes, and games like Minecraft). I don't really like graphical overhauls for these older games, it just makes it feel weird to me.
that's kind of how I am. Rebirth isn't too bad, but ZDoom (for the classic Doom) seemed a tad weird.
I like detail/graphics. It's cool to see something stunning, but, the classics, big deal. They were fun before, and they can still be fun.
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It's nice every now and then to play something like Descent with improved resolutions, but I have to admit, it's great to give in to nostalgia and play it the way you remember it. :)
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320x200 on a 56" TV? No thanks, pixels should be smaller than my finger...
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*considers this*
Okay, I guess I didn't think of that. :P
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Obviously the difference between 320-across and 640-across is pretty large but past that, you're into the land of diminishing returns with every increase. I mean 720p is a fairly sharp image and you're not going that far beyond 640x480 with that.
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I've played PSX games with a resolution of 256x240 (possibly 256x224 actually) on giant TVs before. It's not that bad...
:P
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Depends on the game, I think.
With Descent, where it's a 3D title and we've seen with D2X-XL how far you stretch its rubber band, there is a kinda ... expectation of a modern PC resolution.
I mean some modern graphics cards won't render anything as small as 640x480. I know that's true of some high-end Nvidias.
X-Bomber looks good on 40" with 800x600 as long as you don't stretch it. That kinda ruins the look of the ships.
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no news, just saw the Descent support page from interplay. Isn't it sort of deceiving to have the Descent 3 pictures and then talk about Descent I & II?
what else I find odd is their top picture that doesn't look all that Descent at all, except for the sphere to the left.
Sorry. bored. just....um...yeah...sorry.
http://www.interplay.com/games/descent.php
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That is rather deceptive. I'm disappointed in Interplay with their handling of D-Wii so far.
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It'll arrive, don't worry.
The fact we haven't heard a lot recently is probably good news, right? You'll not hear about it again for months and suddenly *bam*, there it is on the shelf in GAME.
I just really hope those extra levels go in to make the game the best value possible.
I know D3 is tough to get to do anything with technically because it was made by a dev team that was at war with itself, but the awesomest thing would be Descent3 on the Wii.
I still think the variety of missions and environments and objectives would be even more satisfying to people, like now.
And even the Wii could handle it computing-power-wise, right?
I noticed that they're doing an "MDK2 HD". Wouldn't it be nice to have Descent3 HD? Ooooh yes.
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"D-Wii" ...*snicker* That just sounds funny. :D
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Sounds kind of French. :P
...their top picture that doesn't look all that Descent at all...
About that, no one really knows what the deal is behind that pic at all, save that it's probably concept art, maybe from a past Descent game, but some of the more optimistic have suggested it might be (or might have been) concept art for a supposed D4, but there's no way of really knowing unless Interplay fesses up to the pic's backstory.
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Even then they could be lying to please the masses...
Not that I think they'd do that.
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I would.
I mean, c'mon, it's Interplay. They let us down on a regular basis these days. ::)
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If they do say something... I'm just saying I don't see any reason for them not to tell the truth... and telling the truth would be less effort on their part (they don't need to come up with a lie).
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Good news everyone! I got an email back from Scott Hawkins!
Hi Darkflamewolf,
Sorry for the long delay in this response. I wanted to send you a quick email to let you know that we are still continuing with Descent for Wii and that I have received your email with the signed agreement.
I am hoping to have more updates for you very soon (including a fully executed agreement).
Talk to you soon,
Scott
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Excellent news!! :D
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Can I get a "Hoo-rah!"
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Huhuhuhuuuu my timing was perfect over at the Interplay boards. I just asked for some official news. Nobody has replied yet. But this is GREAT NEWS!
Hoo-rah!
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Hoo-rah...finally.
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Yay! :D
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I don't even have a Wii, but if this comes out, I JUUUUST might get one! I'd LOVE to see what they're going to do about the music!
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I hope they actually are going to use the soundtrack Pumo and I gave them for Vignettes...
Seeing as I signed that agreement and everything...
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I hope so too, but they haven't really said anything.
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As long as i can figer out how to get the midi working (I diden't get it from gog) i'll probaly be playing more of this http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Descent (http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Descent)
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Hey! Got an email from Scott Hawkins saying the agreement letter has been executed. So Vignettes is a sure thing it seems with the Descent release. Not sure if it'll be available up front with the main mission or be an unlockable. But good news!
however, They are having some transparency issues with the walls at the start of level 1 in terms of rendering, so if Zico or Diedel have answers to this to help speed their fixes, that'd be obliged.
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If the *full* agreement letter has been be executed, that means the music too, so I can quit worrying now :P.
Great news.
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Good news indeed, always nice to hear that the project is still going. Taking it's dear sweet time...but still going. :P
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Excellent news!! :D
Regarding the transparency issues, I'm guessing it's a texture thing. If they haven't already figured it out, you might start looking at the textures they say are transparent, to see if there's anything different/unique about them.
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Did they explain what the issue was? I remember when trying to play Vignettes in Dosbox, I noticed that, with the central pillar in the starting room, that the windows in the distance were overlapping the windows right in front of me. I'm wondering if it's the same issue here.
EDIt: a good look at that issue:
(http://basementnet.us/ryan/descentr_019.png)
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Could be a visibility culling problem, paired with not using Z-buffering (which the original engine doesn't do).
If I am right that would be a clear indicator of a very poorly and unprofessionally done port. It would also mean that there is no easy fix for this.
Foil,
I doubt it has to do with transparency info in a certain texture. That would lead to the texture always being rendered as transparent. The original (palettized) Descent texture btw do not have an alpha channel, but a color index of 255 for a pixel means "this pixel is transparent".
I think the problem is rather rooted in a bug or flaw in the port than in a texture or in the level.
Unless one can debug the issue and look into all data and processes involved this can however only be guess work.
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Has anyone tried this on the homebrew port of Descent for the wii?
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Karx notice how Insanity pointed that out above, and how that's obviously not on the Wii port, unless he's been holding out on us.
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Yeah, that's why Karx said the Wii port is poorly made, as the issue Insanity showed is from the Dos version, and so if the Wii version also has it (as Wolfie said they told to ther) then it's not a so good port as they are not fixing stuff like that.
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Nah, I'm not a secret Descent for WiiWare beta tester, I haven't even touched my wii in ages. I'm assuming, however, providing that they did a straight-up port to the Wii, that may be the issue they're running into. Depending on how they're doing the port, whether they're moving to a different renderer or not, that may or may not actually be the issue they mentioned.
So, this may or may not be the issue, but considering that it's pretty much a "transparency issue" at the start of level 1, it kinda fits their description.
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I know what InsanityBringer said and what he did not say.
Since faces are transparent/invisible/rendered after faces behind them in the Wii version, what I said still holds right.
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Well, even if you're right, it's something I can live with. At least the game probably will still be playable, that's all I really care about at this point.
If it isn't, then I'll have a bone to pick with Interplay.
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Oh, Scyphi can live with it, so it's ok.
It's ok to have bugs in the Wii port that renders certain levels faultily.
Sure.
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Well, what can I say? I'm not a perfectionist. :P
Seriously, though, this see-through wall thing is just a graphical glitch, right? It doesn't really affect gameplay (at least, it shouldn't), and at this point, that's all I'm really interested, so I would likely live with it. Obviously, I shouldn't expect everyone else to live with it too, though.
This isn't to say that it's excusable for Interplay to let this slide, though. Of course they should be professional and fix this glitch. But it's also Interplay. Can't say I'm surprised they're cutting corners. So it's not like I'd hate them forever for it. I'd just be a little...miffed.
And anyway...the port is SOOO long overdue...I'm tired of waiting, I just want to PLAY the darn thing now, at least ONCE. :P
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If v0.99 has it, maybe v1.0 has it, it's kinda ok, but this factor is reduced by the fact that they know about it.
If it starts making it past v1.2 and even into v2.0 though, you might want to start questioning what's up.
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I've seen that in other old games. Is not really good enough even if it isn't a total showstopper.
If this official port still isn't ready, I would think this would be pretty high on their 'to fix' list.
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Well, whatever the case, I guess our best option no matter what is to wait and hope for the best.
As usual.
...
I really am getting tired of waiting for this. Not that I don't want to rush Interplay into getting this out before it's ready, but...we were all hoping they'd have this out by now. :(
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I think that the main reason the port is overdue is that the porting team had to use the original code from scratch, chew through it, and make it use a completely different rendering API. I am dealing with the Descent code for over 7 years, and I have said it recently in my forum that in my eyes it is a piece of amateurishly hacked together rubbish. It has no structure, often it is unoptimized - it looks like bloody beginners who just knew their 3D math well and had basic coding knowledge wrote their first big program here. At the time when Descent was conceived, C++ had already been mature, Design Patterns had been around, structured programming was nothing new anymore. You find nothing of that in the Descent code.
In retrospect I could slap myself in the face for having wasted so much time to get some code and engine up to scratch that could never be really fixed instead of doing a complete rewrite.
I have also seen the Quake 1 code (when fixing a crash bug in Nexuiz), and despite it being standard C it is worlds apart from the Descent code in terms of clarity, structure and conciseness.
It also took me a real long time to understand some concepts used in the program that were implemented there w/o any useful comment and often w/o using any useful variable names, like e.g. the visibility culling system. Other code (like collision detection), was flawed because it hadn't been thought through to the end.
Really, that code is a heresy against all doctrines of good programming and should be burnt on the stake.
I can understand that porting it took such a long time. From a legal and marketing point of view I can also understand that the company/people porting it never asked for help from people having a lot of experience with the open source versions of Descent, but from a practical point of view that probably was a folly.
It would have been easy to reduce D2X-XL to a sleeker version with a less heavy data footprint and bring it to the Wii in 6 months. D2X-XL is almost completely OpenGL ES compliant and on top of it has acceptably well coded (imho) shader support. With my help - no big deal. One certainly could have also used Rebirth; but D2X-XL is C++ now and uses a lot of class based code making debugging it much easier. It also has a lot of bug fixes and optimizations under the hood Rebirth hasn't.
Oh well.
Scyphi,
that isn't just a "graphical glitch". It hints to a general problem of the renderer that may crop up in arbitrary other missions.
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...just knew their 3D math well...
That's better than me! Whenever I hear the term '3D math' it sounds like a technology from a super-advanced alien society :P.
And I almost failed 2D vectors in high-school physics (but I enjoyed almost failing it).
My best guess to what 3D math is is 3D vectors... Don't correct me if I'm wrong. If it's something more complicated than that I'd rather be delusional.
I do agree with you though Karx, if they can fix it then it definitely should be fixed. And that they should have used the code from one of the ports -- and with all your optimizations and clarifications to the D2X-XL code it would have made the porting a lot easier for them ;).
To be fair though, we don't know what changes they've made to the code already. Maybe it is possible to fix.
Personally I'm just glad they can do this port even if Interplay goes under again though. I do have a kind of personal investment in this port now... which I really want to be able to put on my resume. Naturally with such a large investment (19 songs! 6 months work at least!) I'd like it to pay off. Even though I won't actually get to play the port.
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Well, Scott Hawkins from G1M2 (the company doing the port) has already contacted DarkFlameWolf about talking with me, and I hope I can help to get this bird to finally take off.
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>>>Well, Scott Hawkins from G1M2 (the company doing the port) has already contacted DarkFlameWolf about talking with me, and I hope I can help to get this bird to finally take off.
Looks like I'll have to buy a Wii sooner than I thought. You're definitely the best person for them to talk to about it.
@wazzazzle - what you must be feeling is a combination of frustration and legitimate entitlement because you've given without receiving and you want to see the end result. I certainly don't blame you for it.
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Well, Scott Hawkins from G1M2 (the company doing the port) has already contacted DarkFlameWolf about talking with me, and I hope I can help to get this bird to finally take off.
Cool, I didn't think they'd actually do that, just because they're the alleged "pros" at this sort of thing and have egos to care for, and that I didn't think the Interplay bureaucracy accept outside help like that, even though it would (obviously) be a great help. But if they're actually looking to you for help, Karx, my opinion about them just got bumped up a couple of notches. :D
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...But if they're actually looking to you for help, Karx, my opinion about them just got bumped up a couple of notches. :D
x2
Karx is an extremely skilled coder and he knows the Descent code inside and out. They'd be fools not to accept his help. :D
This is definitely good news. And maybe Interplay is finally toning down their bloated ego (I've felt for a long time that that was their main problem as a company, actually. Scyphi nailed it). Or maybe this is just G1M2.
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lol Karx is just going to blow in, fix their game, and blow out like a boss.
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LMAO! Hell yeah. Get it get it!
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Sorry people,
but I cannot see a bloated ego in professionals being reluctant to reveal their work to non professionals or to get help from them. Things like that have more to do with work processes, team formation and maybe protecting your work. Valve or id Software don't handle this any different. They just have better communication with the fan base and appear more supportive (they have a different financial foundation though). So G1M2 and Interplay would be doing themselves a favor with talking and socializing a bit more with the fans of their games, but you won't get much more from them than that.
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I didn't mean a bloated ego in this specifically.
I think a lot of Interplay's current and previous problems show a bloated corporate ego (e.g. suing other companies when they really don't have the money to be taking that risk, putting their lawsuits before the games they're trying to publish).
I meant that, if they're asking for your help,then maybe that shows they're toning down their ego a bit, which gives me a bit more faith that they can survive (and don't start misinterpreting the word "Faith" now, this has nothing to do with religion).
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any word karx?
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Scott has contacted me and has asked his lead developer to get me a few screenshots showing the issue, but so far no screenies have arrived.
They don't seem to be too much in a hurry about it.
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But have they been in a hurry about anything with this entire port? :P
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Noooooooot eeeeeeeexaaaaaaactlyyyyyyy .........
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Well, they haven't set an exact release date yet, just a vague statement of "sometime 2011," so it's not like they have a solid deadline to adhere to. :P
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There is a difference between taking the time to get it right, and just wasting time. Portal 2 was an example of the former. I get the feeling this is an example of the latter :P.
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This makes me wonder what kind of game Valve could produce if they were to ever get the rights to Descent... ;D
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I just hope that they wouldn't use their Source engine for it. I think that it's too flimsy.
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Even I don't know when it'll be released and I've been in continual contact with Scott at G1M2. He just says it'll be 'soon.' Which could be any amount of time, honestly.
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Well, I had asked for a screenshot of the issue to be able to judge where it might stem from, but so far I haven't even received that.
This makes me wonder whether the lead dev doesn't want external help and may even have been offended by that suggestion.
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Do you think they're watching our forum and may have been butt-hurt by some comments?
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I haven't seen any Wii port related comments here so far of which I would say that they were disrespectful and not reflecting the truth. If however some G1M2 people should have been offended by being told that they seem very slow and unresponsive, then they would probably have a problem with hearing unconvenient truths about this port. So far this is however only speculation.
If I had a year's time, a Wii and dev kit, I could have ported D2X-XL there alone - and it would look and play greater and offer more than a vanilla port of the original Descent code. Not to speak of having a full OpenGL port and a ton of related bug fixes already.
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I haven't seen any Wii port related comments here so far of which I would say that they were disrespectful and not reflecting the truth. If however some G1M2 people should have been offended by being told that they seem very slow and unresponsive, then they would probably have a problem with hearing unconvenient truths about this port. So far this is however only speculation.
If I had a year's time, a Wii and dev kit, I could have ported D2X-XL there alone - and it would look and play greater and offer more than a vanilla port of the original Descent code. Not to speak of having a full OpenGL port and a ton of related bug fixes already.
Then why don't you go apply for a job at interplay instead of swinging your superiority around like a bull-roarer?
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Germany is not in southern California. No matter what movies "taking place" in Germany would have you believe :P.
"Swinging around your superiority" is always fun anyway -- especially when you have a legitimate reason and your opponent doesn't.
I love it when a turning driver gets pissed off at me for crossing the street when I have a walk light and thus right-of-way. Sure, they can get pissed off at me, but they can't actually do anything else about it. It makes me feel powerful, if you know what I mean.
This seems like it could be much the same thing.
Personally I think they should have asked for Karx's help at the beginning of the project instead of after it was already overdue. So I think Karx is justified... and if he's having fun with this it's only because he deserves to.
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IHateHackers,
What I said is simply a matter of fact and the result of sifting through the Descent code, cleaning it up and rewriting huge parts of it for seven years. If you compare to having had to deal with badly written code that is over 15 years old for a year, it is nothing but a logical conclusion that I could have done this faster. I also believe that a D2X-XL port to the Wii would do more justice to the hardware and the times, and would be way more attractive to play than the original game.
The Bible says that what comes out of you makes you impure (because it comes out of your heart, i.e. what you really are), not what goes inside. So if you look at my actions and can see nothing but arrogance, that probably has way more to do with you and your perception of the world than with me. Your interpretation of my words say a lot about you and the concepts about other people you have, and the concepts you don't - and you definitely have no concept for the kind of person I really am, since apparently you have no concept of a person just stating the facts he sees without any implications of superiority or inferiority. You also seem to be incapable of as little self control as would be needed to just ignore me, if you don't like me and can't help yourself from attacking me at every second occasion. Again, that says a lot more about you than about me. It also says something about you that apparently you have developed a deep and persistent antipathy against me you are willing to live out again and again. May I hint to the fact that it was you who had attacked me two times in this forum already without any reason, and that it is you who is responsible for the replies he has reaped from that. Again, your denying that responsibility would say something about you.
It's a pain in the neck that on the internet, adult people (like me) have no chance of getting immature boys (like you) out of their way when they're trying to talk to other adults and to accomplish something.
You will certainly perceive this reply as incredibly arrogant again. If so, that would be because you lack the humility to accept criticism and judge yourself in its light.
Now leave this thread if you have nothing worthwhile to contribute to it. Since you have no clue and no say about Descent coding I doubt you have.
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Maybe not so much the fighting, but I can begin to see what going on here. An example here; if I have some argument or whatever with some girl, a friend of mine would always make it sound like a bad thing. 'I'm telling you, that's how girls are." yada yada yada.
tell another friend something happened, and he/she is more sympathetic, may give advice, may tell me their story a while back, or whatever.
I don't think karx says anything bad, he's just adding fuel for IHateHackers to say something. It's like my friend. I say nothing bad, but he will take it, twist it to make it sound bad, and use it against me.
That's why I don't say much to him anymore. It's like when I told you about this girl I am with. I thank all of you for giving me such advice, pointers, whatever. my friend, he'd say dump her. she's nothing. I don't deserve to be put in any pain.
If anything; that's an example of what my friend would do though. I've heard enough of his so called good advice.
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lol, some friend!
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yeah, tell me about it. I'm getting tired of my "friend". he is nice, and has been there, but I am sick of hearing the "depressing" stuff; his 'horrible' ex-wife, how any girl will treat me if I got married. how I should do this, do that, and how I seem to do things wrong, because he has the 'right' advice. ::) I wonder if that's why I love hanging out with my girl friend. she's such a sweetheart.
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Sounds like your friend doesn't truly know what he's talking about in terms of relationships, then, because that's all very bad advice he's given you. Good thing you aren't following it. :P
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So, about them Dodgers!
>_>
<_<
Anyhoo, hopefully they can fix this so they can release it finally.
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@Vanguard,
It certainly sounds like an interesting friend but it might just be, like you say, what he would do in your circumstances. In which case, that's a reflection on him.
It mightn't be an attempt to sabotage you by intentionally giving you bad advice.
In a way I feel a little sorry for the guy. Maybe he just doesn't want you to endure the same kind of experience as he had with his ex.
But like the song says, "be careful whose advice you buy".
Just because he's given up doesn't mean that you should.
Anyway, I believe Karx could do it and, seriously, you should offer your services to them. You've shown that there's nothing stopping you from working where you are (ie. from home). You should be there working on Descent 4.
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He isn't as bad I am probably picturing him. I just don't care for all of that so called good advice.
My girl friend is great. and I think that's why he is bothering me some now. I don't want to hear any depressing bs about his ex, and how it'll be the same for me.
But, I really just brought this up because I can see karx and ihatehackers as me and my friend; in the sense that nothing bad needs to be said for the other to just go after them, or tell them their faults, or whatever the case may be.
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...So I think Karx is justified... and if he's having fun with this it's only because he deserves to.
x2.
I've seen IHateHackers a bit fussy regarding Diedel's (Karx') posts as of lately.
I also think that if IHateHackers doesn't likes Karx, he shoud simply ignore him, instead of putting uncalled comments like the one he posted here :P.
And yeah, it seems the situation between Karx and IHateHackers is similar to what Vanguard is telling about his 'friend' :-X .
And back to topic, as Wolfie said, I just also hope that the bug gets fixed soon.
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Well, I had asked for a screenshot of the issue in the beginning of this week, and haven't received anything. Scott Hawkins from G1M2 seems to be willing to accept my help, but I wonder whether his lead developer might not.
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...Bosses...
And not the video game kind.
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Well, the weekend has passed and I still haven't heard from the Wii version lead developer.
Maybe I will hear from them, but I'm not gonna hold my breath.
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internal strife or another variant of the DNF 3DRealms team?
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[Edit] Scott has told me that his lead dev believes that he has fixed the bug.
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in other words, the lead dev didn't want outside help? lol ::)
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So it seems.
I hope he has really fixed it.
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I want to see him turn around and say "uhh, we didn't fix it" so that we can laugh at the game companies.
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I could use a good laugh. :P
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I had asked about the state of this matter last week, and haven't gotten any reply.
Now the project leader sits in California, and his "lead dev" in Argentina. The dev doesn't respond to any prompts by the project leader to provide resources needed to assist him. Instead he claims he has fixed the issue two weeks later, but hasn't delivered proof of it (he may have done so now - I simply don't know, since my last inquiry in the issue hasn't gotten a response).
Count this together with the insanely long time to make this port and very poor responsiveness of G1M2 to the community.
My guess: Small company consisting of young guys spread over half the world, "lead" dev probably a student or whiz kid with a half assed computer education (if any at all) who (probably therefore) has no interest to let anybody look into his work and above that doesn't comply with instructions given by his superior (who doesn't seem to have any real means to make his dev comply ... ouch). I also don't think there is more than one programmer working on this, and I have the suspicion that the guy doing the port just sucks at it.
This would fit well into the meager financial resources Interplay very likely has and their desperate scrambling for just any source of income (like a port of a stone age game to a game console without polishing the game more than most superficially).
The Wii is slowly dieing, and I wouldn't hold my breath for this to see the light of day before the Wii is dead for good.
Of course this is again all speculation.
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Interplay is scrambling to eat the rats before the other hungry dogs can, you mean.
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LOL! Probably.
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Well I figured this may be the case with how things are being run, but I'm still hoping for the best that this will see the light of day.
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Well, hope dies last...
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Speculation aside, you're right that the Wii is about to bite it. The moment the new Wii U (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_U) comes out, the Wii is going to become a thing of the past, phased out and forgotten as it usually happens with Nintendo tech. Of course, this is going to Wiiware, which both consoles can support, but obviously it's meant and geared for the original Wii. Interplay has until then (late 2012 on Nintendo's current time tables) to release this. Afterwards, they'll have likely missed their best window of opportunity for the best sales, most likely.
And darn it, that irks me. This is Descent we're talking about, it deserves another shot at the big times, and this Wii-port was probably going to be it's best chance for that shot, but Interplay doesn't seem to want to do it. At this point, it's just them squeezing for money, which we already kind of figured, it's just now clearer than ever. :-\
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The question is probably less whether Interplay wants it than whether G1M2 can do it; and I wouldn't even start talking about a reasonable time frame - that has passed already.
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Speculation aside, you're right that the Wii is about to bite it. The moment the new Wii U ([url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_U[/url]) comes out, the Wii is going to become a thing of the past...
lol... maybe Sony will scoop it out as all this procrastination continues and is finally released on "Playstation 8"
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I think Nintendo have made whatever money they ever will with Wii, I agree with you.
The sales on the Wii slumped massively several months ago in the UK and haven't recovered.
It's slightly surprising since it came out later than the XBox 360 and PS3 and looks to be on the way out sooner.
It's also highly unsatisfactory from the point of view that the Wii costs a similar amount to the XBox and people won't get a product that is current for any length of time.
How long-abouts have they been working on this port, do people know?
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About a year?
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Could be worse, I guess.
I think Nintendo will be crazy if whatever they release next hardware-wise isn't fully backwards-compatible with the Wii programs.
I don't think many people will stump up funds in this economy for a new Nintendo console having so recently bought a Wii unless it is considerably faster and has some groundbreaking new feature.
If it had no backwards-compatibility with such a recent predecessor, that'd be the nail in its coffin, I suppose.
Anyway, fingers still crossed for a successful release and new recruits to Descent fandom shortly thereafter.
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Wii U is backwards compatible with Wii games, which really makes sense when you think about it. It is NOT, however, backwards compatible with Gamecube games like the original Wii was, so if you've been using your Wii to play Gamecube games and get a Wii U, don't get rid of the Wii.
Wii U will also feature hi-def graphics, something the Wii has long lacked (and could possibly attribute to it's slacking sales as of late). It also has a seemingly do-it-all controller (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_U_Controller) and of course I'm sure it's got various processing upgrades it's predecessor didn't have. Beyond that, though, I don't really know the Wii U's specs.
It's actually gotten a bit of a mixed reaction from the public, so I guess we'll see if the Wii U pulls through.
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Well, if it does proper 1080p High Definition, that will be something that the X-Box and PS3 very seldom manage with their games.
Though you have to bear in mind that even the PS3 only packs the equivalent of a single 8800GTS/X, and the X-Box 360 ~ a 7900GTX. They do a fair bit with not a great deal quite honestly.
I mean, the 1080p HDTV is the only TV resolution sold above 32" nowadays and people see that and think - "Well, do I want a console whose resolution was only designed to feed a 32" CRT feeding my 46" LCD behemoth?" So I think you're absolutely right.
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Well, it's not just the hi-def, but the original Wii always was a little backwards in terms of graphics. Both the PS3 and the Xbox 360, as I understand it, both out-preformed the Wii in that department. I suspect that it was the fact that the Wii's revolutionary motion-sensing capabilities was what has redeemed it for this long. But now that the Wii's competitors have also adopted motion-sensing capabilities that reportedly go above and beyond the Wii's, it's losing it's charm now.
That's just a guess, though.
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Well they started selling Goldeneye for the Wii and apparently the framerates collapse under the extreme weight of the 'insane', 'staggering' computer-time requirements of this ... 10-year-old plus (?) ancient, original Playstation title.
Apparently the system nearly ground to a halt anytime a few people were in a room shooting at you. That was according to some review show on Freesat a while back.
Not a very convincing performance then although they had made some steps to improve the original Goldeneye graphics slightly but it still looked very ropey to me, TBH.
Maybe it just wasn't a very good port but how bad a port would it have to be to make such an ancient game not work on a modern console?
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The original GoldenEye was a Nintendo-64 game, as I recall. I remember the framerates getting pretty bad on that console during heavy action (especially when playing with 4 players), too.
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Ahh, yes N64, sorry. Even so, same sort of time. I even remember playing it once with that very cool trimaran controller thing it had.
I've never been much into consoles.
I got the impression that these reviewers were playing it on single.
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I mean, the 1080p HDTV is the only TV resolution sold above 32" nowadays and people see that and think - "Well, do I want a console whose resolution's was only designed to feed a 32" CRT feeding my 46" LCD behemoth?" So I think you're absolutely right.
I'm sorry, what? I don't see how that's nintendo's fault or even relevant.
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I mean, the 1080p HDTV is the only TV resolution sold above 32" nowadays and people see that and think - "Well, do I want a console whose resolution was only designed to feed a 32" CRT feeding my 46" LCD behemoth?" So I think you're absolutely right.
I'm sorry, what? I don't see how that's nintendo's fault or even relevant.
Fine - I'm not gonna get heated over it but I do wonder if you could use a lesson in manners.
It's nothing to do with Nintendo how manufacturers make their TVs. I don't remember saying it was.
You don't think that it has an impact on their sales? - No problem.
I'd forgotten how we'd all taken a vote and made you the moderator of the forum.
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Though you have to bear in mind that even the PS3 only packs the equivalent of a single 8800GTS/X, and the X-Box 360 ~ a 7900GTX. They do a fair bit with not a great deal quite honestly
You need to know that game consoles (at least after they've been around for a while) are programmed "to the metal", i.e. by circumvention of vendor or manufacturer supplied drivers, directly programming the hardware on assembly level so to speak. You can squeeze a tenfold performance increase out of the hardware that way, so I have been told. Since a game console's hardware consists of a single set of components that do not change and only have one well defined interface, programming them that way is a feasible and proven approach.
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Well they have no API layer to work 'against' with the consoles. DirectX, Windows and every other abstraction layer effectively rob even the strongest PC of a fair bit of its power. You're absolutely right.
It's just a practical demonstration that the special purpose computer wins over the general purpose one every time in that specific area - (especially when you factor in performance combined with cost).
The PS3 is only £215 now. What kind of PC could you build for that money with new components?
I'm just saying that if you ever wonder why the consoles don't often give you 1080p on your 1080p TV, it's because the hardware is fair but ... generations old from the desktop perspective.
I haven't compared the benchmarks to find out but I would think that if you took a desktop 8800GTX and a 580GTX, you would probably see a good 100% performance gain, easily.
I'm not entirely convinced though that the gains of console hardware design are anywhere near as pronounced as 10-fold. I just can't see it. If you have a single radeon 5870 (which is pretty mainstream, probably only about twice the PS3's 8800GTX equivalent), you should be able to play anything at whatever settings you wanted at 1080p; far beyond what a console can output.
I saw an absolutely crazy article which I suspect was quoting much the same figures as you've seen. It said "The desktop is 10x as powerful as the console" (yeah right - if it were a brand-new 580GTX SLI killer desktop you might be talking about 4x to 5x). "So why aren't PC graphics 10x better"?
Well if you had that powerful a machine, you would be talking about 4x as much power but graphics-wise you'd be seeing an (admittedly qualitative) 2-3x improvement in terms of how much FSAA, Anisotropy etc etc you could leverage.
- Still a fair margin but nowhere as big as some people seem to think.
I was reading interviews with Carmack and one of ATI's lead techs and they were saying that they were nowhere near plumming the depths of the XBox 360 capability. With the PS2 they basically reached the point where they said "We've nowhere left to go with this. Any further exploration is only gonna get us very minor gains".
I think with the 360, it's so complex and well-designed too that they'll be milking worthwhile performance tricks out of it for ages.
You've gotta remember though that Carmack is at the top of his industry. He got that desktop-quality FPS running on the iPhone and so-on.
I'm not sure it's fair to expect programmers to engage in that level of magic just to create a good game.
You're effectively going to be squeezing developers out of the market if you're forcing them to engage in 'ultra black magic' and hacks to get their games to work on 2005 hardware as far away as 2015.
That doesn't strike me as good for gaming.
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I mean, the 1080p HDTV is the only TV resolution sold above 32" nowadays and people see that and think - "Well, do I want a console whose resolution was only designed to feed a 32" CRT feeding my 46" LCD behemoth?" So I think you're absolutely right.
I'm sorry, what? I don't see how that's nintendo's fault or even relevant.
Fine - I'm not gonna get heated over it but I do wonder if you could use a lesson in manners.
It's nothing to do with Nintendo how manufacturers make their TVs. I don't remember saying it was.
You don't think that it has an impact on their sales? - No problem.
I'd forgotten how we'd all taken a vote and made you the moderator of the forum.
So now I'm not allowed to participate in a discussion? I must've missed that vote as well. I certainly don't see how it impacts their sales in comparison to the XBox or PS3, considering that they all face the same limitation. If you care to elaborate, I'm all ears.
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I'd intervene in this imminent argument if I knew what you were all talking about. :P This subject has officially gone way over my head.
IHateHackers, you probably didn't mean to cause any trouble, but your original comment was sounding harsh and rude. You have a knack for commenting seemingly carelessly, insensitively, and harshly, and it's obviously been causing trouble. If you want to avoid arguments you don't want to get caught up in, this is something you're going to have to work on.
This doesn't mean we don't want you here, though. Everybody's welcome at PD so long as they adhere to the rules and don't purposely go looking for a fight. :)
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XBox and PS3 can output in 720p high-definition or 1080p high-definition (normally the former). The Wii can do neither, as far as I'm aware.
So the limitation is not global across the three consoles.
I don't think the Wii even has an HDMI cable, which is kind of a pre-requisite for outputting a high-definition signal.
I'm not trying to push anyone out - It's just that what you said came as quite a ... surprise.
The problem is, from my experience, (and I'm talking about other people here, not you) that whenever you get into an argument with someone and you win it, their first bitter resort is to claim that what your saying has no relevance anyway. I just have a slightly adverse kneejerk reaction to that kind of thing.
And it hasn't any relevance to the thread, I suppose. I mean we are talking about Descent here not ... which console have which advantages.
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I'd intervene in this imminent argument if I knew what you were all talking about. :P This subject has officially gone way over my head.
IHateHackers, you probably didn't mean to cause any trouble, but your original comment was sounding harsh and rude. You have a knack for commenting seemingly carelessly, insensitively, and harshly, and it's obviously been causing trouble. If you want to avoid arguments you don't want to get caught up in, this is something you're going to have to work on.
This doesn't mean we don't want you here, though. Everybody's welcome at PD so long as they adhere to the rules and don't purposely go looking for a fight. :)
I just wanted to say for the sake of argument on both sides of this, that in the past, I would say a lot of things without intending to hurt anyone, but then I'd end up hurting someone's feelings and just totally be bewildered as to what was wrong with me? "Bah! Those sensitive pricks! I'll say what I want!" I still do it every now and then, but not as common as I used to. I used to be real high strung, say, 10 years ago, than how I am today, and would lash out more. I have found that the less stress free I was, the less high strung I was, the less I unintentionally pissed people off.
IHateHackers, I feel for you. You're probably going to be like, "WTH??? Someone ELSE getting pissed off with what I said?" Just let it slide, laugh about it, and move on. I harbored a LOT of these resentful feelings afterwards, but what really straightened me out was I moved in with my ex-girlfriend and she had 2 kids of her own. I lived with her for 20 months and had to learn EXTREME patience. At times, we got along, but other times, it was like living with the hounds of hell. I finally couldn't take it anymore, broke up with her, moved back home with my parents, and NOW, I am an expert at handling stress. Sure it still gets to me at times, but I let it slide off easier than before and I'm not as high strung.
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I have to say that I did not perceive IHateHackers above comment as offensive or provocative.
Problem is that he has built a certain reputation here already and so perception of his statements is easily influenced by that. I do however think that posts should be read as they are, and not with a negative expectation already lingering in the background.
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I think I still lack a thick skin. After all the corruption and BS and lies I've tripped on in life it hasn't toughened one bit. You just become more bitter and disillusioned on the inside.
Whenever I see a message starting "I'm sorry, what?" or when people take a very direct approach, that unfortunately puts my point defences on alert.
It is the product of unfortunate experience of having to defend your reputation to the last.
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Speaking of defending reputations... Can we get back to the topic at hand, and please explain what you're trying to get at with 1080p and the Wii U, because I honestly don't see where you're going with it.
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We're not going anywhere with the Wii U. I'm just saying that the existing, original Wii is the only one of the three consoles that outputs no hi-def; 720 or 1080, and I think that and its focus on casual gamers (ie. Non-gamers ;D) leaves it adrift in the market.
On a separate point:
I would be absolutely dumbfounded if the next Wii didn't offer full 1080 alongside a much faster GPU to address the present difficulties of its predecessor and if it runs original Wii apps as well then they should have another winner.
It'll also mean that the Descent devs aren't porting into a format with only a couple of years life left in it at most if you can take the game with you when you upgrade.
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Correct me if I'm wrong somebody, but I think nintendo has confirmed both 1080p and backwards compatibility.
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It'll also mean that the Descent devs aren't porting into a format with only a couple of years life left in it at most if you can take the game with you when you upgrade.
It's true, I see it as accessibility. Other (short-sighted fools-) people might see it as "The Wii was so LAST WEEK! I'm not buying any games that are made for IT anymore! What's with INTERPLAY, that company has to be totally BACKWARDS?"
[/teenage voice impression]
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It'll also mean that the Descent devs aren't porting into a format with only a couple of years life left in it at most if you can take the game with you when you upgrade.
It's true, I see it as accessibility. Other (short-sighted fools-) people might see it as "The Wii was so LAST WEEK! I'm not buying any games that are made for IT anymore! What's with INTERPLAY, that company has to be totally BACKWARDS?"
[/teenage voice impression]
I don't really know anybody that would do that because it wasn't on the Wii U. They'd do it because it was on a nintendo system.
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It's true, I see it as accessibility. Other (short-sighted fools-) people might see it as "The Wii was so LAST WEEK! I'm not buying any games that are made for IT anymore! What's with INTERPLAY, that company has to be totally BACKWARDS?"
Obviously, not many of us think that here. I mean, think about the game we all support by coming here. Blows the Wii out of the water in terms of age. :P
Correct me if I'm wrong somebody, but I think nintendo has confirmed both 1080p and backwards compatibility.
Yes they have, the Wii U supports 1080 hi-def and backwards compatibility with original Wii games, according to my sources. I do not know how much faster it's CPU will be in comparison to the old Wii, though.
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It's true, I see it as accessibility. Other (short-sighted fools-) people might see it as "The Wii was so LAST WEEK! I'm not buying any games that are made for IT anymore! What's with INTERPLAY, that company has to be totally BACKWARDS?"
Obviously, not many of us think that here. I mean, think about the game we all support by coming here. Blows the Wii out of the water in terms of age. :P
Correct me if I'm wrong somebody, but I think nintendo has confirmed both 1080p and backwards compatibility.
Yes they have, the Wii U supports 1080 hi-def and backwards compatibility with original Wii games, according to my sources. I do not know how much faster it's CPU will be in comparison to the old Wii, though.
Quite significantly faster. 2-3 times faster I think, and 1.5-2 faster than the PS3 or Xbox. I think.
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It's true, I see it as accessibility. Other (short-sighted fools-) people might see it as "The Wii was so LAST WEEK! I'm not buying any games that are made for IT anymore! What's with INTERPLAY, that company has to be totally BACKWARDS?"
Obviously, not many of us think that here. I mean, think about the game we all support by coming here. Blows the Wii out of the water in terms of age. :P
Well, that's why I could say it (short sighted foolz). I knew I would not be risking offending anyone ;).
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It's true, I see it as accessibility. Other (short-sighted fools-) people might see it as "The Wii was so LAST WEEK! I'm not buying any games that are made for IT anymore! What's with INTERPLAY, that company has to be totally BACKWARDS?"
Obviously, not many of us think that here. I mean, think about the game we all support by coming here. Blows the Wii out of the water in terms of age. :P
Well, that's why I could say it (short sighted foolz). I knew I would not be risking offending anyone ;).
I am offended by your comparison of short-sighted people and fools.
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It will be an outstanding thing if the Wii U is that fast because it will give developers an excuse to code for it rather than them having to search for a reason.
They'll want to exploit that power without having to resort to exotic 'tricks'. It means that we'll get a truly modern performance console before 2015, which is when the XBox is slated to last until.
I think Nintendo were naive in a way to sell a less-powerful machine on the movement detecting feature alone, which was so easily copied by Microsoft (and a bit less effectively by Sony).
But then Microsoft and Sony were naive to invest so heavily in machines that had to last 10 years each and be sold at a loss with the games recouping the outlay in order to turn a profit.
Although the strategy seems to have worked well for Microsoft going from their recent profits.
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It's because microsoft finally made something good.
I'm planning on buying a 360 after this year at the U of W.
Right now though, I need to pay for my classes (not being sponsored this year).
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Well, I don't know, Crash, back in it's hey-day, the Wii was a pretty good seller. And I remember being in awe about the whole motion concept, so much so, I wrote an article about it in my local newspaper stating as such (I was writing for a teen-writer page back then). This was a big deal for me, because I had shown next to no real serious interest in gaming consoles until the Wii came along, so that says a lot about the Wii if it impressed me that much in concept alone, and I know I wasn't alone at the time.
And I didn't know, realize, or really care that much that the Wii had inferior graphics until a couple years down the road. And I haven't been that impressed with Sony's and Microsoft's attempts to best the Wii, either. Sony's Playstation Move was quite obviously mimicking the Wii in nearly every way save it had an unsightly glowing orb on the end of the remote, even though it does seem to preform better, and Microsoft's Kinect is a revolutionary idea, but imperfect still, and still not entirely sound on what it can be used for, nor has it preformed quite as well as it's competitors in terms of sales, though it's done well enough.
Point is that the Wii may have been lacking in some areas, but it was and still is a very revolutionary console, and clearly it paid off. As of July 2011, it still leads the current gaming generation, and holds the record for best-selling console in a single month. So the Wii can't be ALL bad.
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That's very true and hindsight is always 20-20.
The Wii was always pretty inexpensive from the start as well. Whereas the PS3 started at about £700 or something crazy like that.
Looking back at allsorts of things it's astounding how little business acumen businesses sometimes show. I guess that comes from expecting them to act like people; actual individuals not just legal individuals.
Actually the PS3 was a steal for university research and science number-crunching because you got a 'kind-of' 8-core CPU and a big GPU for about £500 a while after and people just hooked them together to make supercomputers on the cheap.
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Honestly I think the Kinect is pretty cool and impressive, but it has different good uses than the Wii does.
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The Wii now sounds like a high-tech piece of video exercise equipment! lol
FIRST POST IN AUGUST!!!
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The Wii now sounds like a high-tech piece of video exercise equipment! lol
FIRST POST IN AUGUST!!!
Did you just wake up in 2008? The wii moved away from that a long time ago. The Kinect on the other ahnd still seems to be in that phase.
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The most high tech console system I have is the Super Nintendo. After discovering Descent, I never needed a console system ever again!
I HAVE had a PSX and PS2, but they broke. I do have a PSP though.
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just a PS3; and an old Atari 5200 and Nintendo
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My brother owns a Wii. He used to own a Gamecube, but he gave it to a friend.. He also owns a Game Boy Advance SP, and my two other siblings own regular Game Boy Advances. Me, I own a Game Boy Color (that I never really use) and my laptop (which I prefer as a gaming platform, honestly).
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I'm mostly a PC guy but I actually want to get vintage consoles and games so I can drop my emulators (well, somewhat :P). I do have a Wii at home, but I never play it, and my brother took my PlayStation II
Also, I should start looking into handheld consoles, from the normal ones like game boy advances and psps and nintendo dses and from those awesome handheld consoles that are completely open source and run linux and a lot of other things.
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The most high tech console system I have is the Super Nintendo. After discovering Descent, I never needed a console system ever again!
I HAVE had a PSX and PS2, but they broke. I do have a PSP though.
Hey, I wish I had a super nintendo. Those things were awesome!
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I had one; brand new. Played "Super Mario World" and "Contra III" like all day.
Next day, was no longer working.
Bought another, got those two games again. lasted a bit longer, but is gone again.
Contra III was easy; and can be played in 30 minutes. I'm sure less for those who love to speed test games
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Silly toys. The best ever handheld game was this:
(http://www.bigredtoybox.com/articles/football.jpg)
More info (http://www.bigredtoybox.com/articles/fbindex.shtml), for those who do not know.
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Oh wow, I haven't seen that in awhile (we used to have one lying around the house, but I think we finally got rid of it).
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I don't remember what it looked like exactly, but I want to say it was one of those type devices, maybe larger, but it was hangman. at least I think it was.
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News on Descent WiiWare goes back a ways:
http://www.interplay.com/about/article.php?id=44
This was posted in this very thread at the very start; by the way. it's nothing new.
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I love how that article is like 50% content 50% disclaimer, lol.
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Oh wow, I haven't seen that in awhile (we used to have one lying around the house, but I think we finally got rid of it).
I still have it, it still works.
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Good news! It's nearing completion!
Here's the post that I read on the Interplay forums:
http://www.interplay.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=20579
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there seems to be no date associated with their response. But let us hope it is soon.
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"We hope it will be finished soon..." I don't know, doesn't looks promising to me..?
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Yeah, seems to be just more of the same old, same old half-hearted promises.
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I'm not holding my breath anymore for this. I just know it's coming in the next couple of soons.
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so when they said release for December 2010, did they actually mean December 2011?
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I'm not holding my breath anymore for this. I just know it's coming in the next couple of soons.
Well we hope.
@DFW
:P
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But if they release this and the next generation of "wii" comes out, that shouldn't matter right? Cuz I mean, it'll be downloadable on the "wii network" or whatever it's called, right?
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Assuming it ever gets released, yes. ::)
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Once again, it's on that list, with "Battle Chess" before it.
That was a fun game. I remember playing that long ago.
according the the first page on here, that link, it says:
Descent is expected for initial release during Fall 2010 and is planned for electronic distribution through Nintendo's WiiWare™ service.
wow, a year ago. some of you are hearing from them though, right, about music or whatever; that they're still working on it, right?
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Yea. And my Wii is collecting dust at home.
I've grown tired waiting for it... Wake me up when it comessszzZZZ..?
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I keep forgetting about it. I don't have a Wii, that may be part of it. Talk of the old D4 is another I guess.
If they start by saying:
"It's not about the quantity, but the quality..." that ought to say something.
D3 sure can be fun, especially online
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But there's a dearth of single player levelz?
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Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
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I'm afraid my interest is still somewhere else.
Commercial:
"Now you can play the classic Descent games on your very own console!"
me:
"hm.. cool."
Commercial:
"Play all of the classic Descent maps, including fan favorites! Also! Descent 3 with Mercenary!"
me:
"I'm going to have to go and get that. sounds cool!"
next commercial:
"For free, get three wallpapers of your favorite Call of Duty game!"
me:
jumps out of bed, "oh my!!!!!! YAHOOOOOOOOOOO!!! C.O.D. BABY!"
sorry. Descent is good, and if I knew how and if they had it available; I'd buy it for the PS3 in a heartbeat. $60 bucks each? I'd do it.
Call of Duty and Descent have really been the top two games that I really like. Only problem is, some Descent games are harder to get going on my PC, and no new Descent games.
sad actually. It would be fun to play new maps.
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Honestly vanguard it's really kind of your fault for refuse to use windows, which is after all what Descent was made for...
And COD? Bleh.
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I could have Windows, but then I'd have to deal with a lot of the b.s. on it, and I don't think it's worth it. I have Descent I and II going, and may get D3 going if I can get the mac discs.
And COD? Bleh.
What about COD? It didn't take. I don't know why :)
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And COD? Bleh.
The multiplayer is fast and good and it takes quick reflexes and skill, but the campaign has gone the way of "press A to continue."
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The only multiplayer I play are those zombie maps.
I got hooked when I tried the demo to the ORIGINAL Call of Duty.
I don't know what you mean by "Press A to continue". it sounds like an XBOX; "X to continue" for us, but still, what does that mean?
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Uhh, yeah, I play on the Xbox too. God I could have sworn that "press A to continue" would have been well known even without an explanation.
How to explain it..... Oh, the newer the CoD games get, the more "on the rails" action sequences you get and they generally involve holding down any kind of button "to continue."
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I could have Windows, but then I'd have to deal with a lot of the b.s. on it, and I don't think it's worth it. I have Descent I and II going, and may get D3 going if I can get the mac discs.
What BS, exactly? Download a decent antivirus and don't do sketchy things and there's no BS to speak of.
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That's what I thought, too. Just didn't want to participate in another faith war about which OS is the only one to go. I prefer a pragmatic approach. For me, MS Windows has always worked fine (since the days of '98). Linux is more of an enthusiast thing for me. You never know when the next kernel update will break something ... ::)
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there's no war. I have installed Windows, and then a game, and it'd bog down too quickly.
No internet. no added software. nothing. installed OS, then a game, and it just started to bog down
I might buy Windows one day; but thing is, I am not that big into games to purchase a computer with Windows just so I can play a game.
update: My original idea when I had my laptop, was to have Windows and Linux on that, and have the iMac desktop.
one day, it may happen.
I have nothing too against Windows. Windows XP was a very nice OS. I just don't know if I want to spend $400 or more on a computer just to play a game or two.
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...but thing is, I am not that big into games to purchase a computer with Windows just so I can play a game...
...I just don't know if I want to spend $400 or more on a computer just to play a game or two.
To me, these are good enough reasons to not pursue Windows at present.
IHateHackers does raise up one good point though, and that is the fact that Descent was always a Windows game. Yes, it came to other systems (always after the fact), and it works on those other systems, but...I don't know how to explain it exactly, but it always felt...at home...on Windows, if you get what I mean.
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Actually the first two games were entirely for DOS. Eventually Descent II received a Windows 95 port using DirectX and all of that magic, but it's not very useful anymore as it suffers the same problems DOS Descent II does on fast computers :P
Descent III so far is the only Descent that was on Windows first.
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Oh yeah, you're right, of course. Silly me, having forgotten that... ::)
Of course, I haven't played Descent on the DOS in ages, so that might have something to do with it. :P
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I know what you mean. some OS can just give you that 'home' feeling. I'd like to say, I left home to go to a better place.
I want to be clear about something. I am NOT attacking Windows. In a nutshell, at least with XP, I don't hate Windows. I DID like XP (Pro) for the most part. It was a solid OS, and 99% of the time, it worked great.
If someone gave me a laptop or a desktop with Windows on it, preferably Windows XP or 7 (never tried 7 but hear it's good), I'd do a dual boot with Linux and Windows.
For this conversation though, I don't need Windows. To be able to play Descent I and II for the most part on my iMac and to play the classic Call of Duty games, is good enough for me. I am not the gamer I use to be. The games I'd love to play aren't even on a computer or a PS3. They're too old.
The only benefit with Windows right now is to maybe play Descent 3. That's about it. Descent 1 and 2 work fine on the iMac. My Plants VS Zombie game is on the iMac. Call of Duty, the expansion pack and Call of Duty 2 are for the iMac.
So yeah, Descent 3. nice game, but if I can get that on the iMac, I am all set.
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Yuo don't have to buy a computer with windows. Just install windows and dual-boot.
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I only have an iMac
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No difference. An IMac these days is reaching the level of being nothing more than a generic computer powered by an Intel x86/x64 processor, and there are ways to easily and reasonably install Windows onto an IMac :P
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What he said. Except for ancient iMacs, the hardware inside is exactly the same as a PC (although in a worthless proprietary formfactor, but you only care about that if you're opening the case, which you won't be)
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so you think linux could even be installed on it? this is a pretty new OSX. I know it doesn't tell you how old it is, but I got it this past February.
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so you think linux could even be installed on it? this is a pretty new OSX. I know it doesn't tell you how old it is, but I got it this past February.
Yes, you could. However, best that you visit some of the Mac forums to check up on the "ins and outs" of doing that with your model first.
What he said. Except for ancient iMacs, the hardware inside is exactly the same as a PC ...
Not true, but you can go ahead with that belief if you wish. I won't stop you. I'll just wait for you to learn better.
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so you think linux could even be installed on it? this is a pretty new OSX. I know it doesn't tell you how old it is, but I got it this past February.
Yes, you could. However, best that you visit some of the Mac forums to check up on the "ins and outs" of doing that with your model first.
What he said. Except for ancient iMacs, the hardware inside is exactly the same as a PC ...
Not true, but you can go ahead with that belief if you wish. I won't stop you. I'll just wait for you to learn better.
I thought that was the whole point of Apple switching to Intel processors was to make it work like a real computer?
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Motorola CPUs >> Intel CPUs.
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I thought that was the whole point of Apple switching to Intel processors was to make it work like a real computer?
The Mac had already been a real computer for many years (since the first one). At the time Steve Jobs announced Apple would switch over to the Intel processors, the Mac was being made with the PowerPC chips (and performed quite well IMHO). The reasons Apple switched to the Intel processors were multiple, and we can mostly only speculate, and Steve Jobs himself said there were directions they wanted to take the Mac OS but at the time it was far easier (thus less expensive) if using Intel chipsets. It also allowed the Mac to directly interact with a wider range of components. Thus there are more options than previously. Today, it is common to be using a fine (but slightly older) Mac, but cannot run certain software or add-ons because the new software or add-on requires the Intel processors (different programming codes required). Often necessitates upgrading to a new machine.
The current systems from Apple are very consistently great performers (equal or better than most Windows systems), excellent displays, reliable, with very little (if any) need to upgrade or change the internals. Run multiple OS systems with ease, rock stable (in my experience), and thus a fine choice.
EDIT: The Mac hardware uses a proprietary firmware that contains a number of core/key components to the OS, removing a portion of the overhead needed to run the system. This is a significant performance improvement, increases stability, and avoids certain problem tendencies that have always plagued the Windows architecture. The drawback is the proprietary nature. Take it or leave it.
Motorola CPUs >> Intel CPUs.
Quite so, though Apple did make their choice.
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I say leave it. Computers are meant to be interchangeable, if hardware prevents other operating systems or programs from working on it, regardless of the "benefits" (I've never seen a mac that performed noticeably better than my PC at home, not even those fancy new multi-1000$ flat-panels, but maybe school IT staff are just that bad. But the PCs at school, despite being older, ran just fine.), then I don't want it. From an IT perspective... The only way to fix something proprietary is to buy the parts at whatever price Apple thinks they can charge (I don't pretend I know what that is). And if my client decides he needs some extra power for whatever he's doing, I have to buy a whole new $1000 Mac or tell him to suck it up?
I'm not saying Windows is perfect (I'd personally like to strangle whoever can't figure out how to make windows NOT slow down over time), but at least it runs on the same hardware as everything else.
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In my experience, it's not exactly fair to be making opinions about computers from what you've seen of them in use in things such as schools, because school computers get put through a whole lot of crap from their multiple users that a home computer wouldn't, and thus suffer a heck of a lot more strain. How much depends on the computer, but more on the system, how it's used, and how it's maintained. The age of the computer can also play a factor in this, and that goes two ways, better or worse.
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In my experience, it's not exactly fair to be making opinions about computers from what you've seen of them in use in things such as schools, because school computers get put through a whole lot of crap from their multiple users that a home computer wouldn't, and thus suffer a heck of a lot more strain. How much depends on the computer, but more on the system, how it's used, and how it's maintained. The age of the computer can also play a factor in this, and that goes two ways, better or worse.
I agree. it all depends on the age, and the amount of abuse. I am told, never had one myself, that rental cars get a fair share of wear and tear. they are abused way more than a car that someone owns.
and the thing is, with computers, everyone is different. 99% of what I do on a computer, can be on a windows system, mac or linux. It just varies on the actual software that one may like over the other.
Windows can't run everything Linux or Mac can
Mac can't run everything Linux or Windows can.
Linux can't run everything a Windows or mac system can.
It boils down to the person themselves, and what system suits them the best (assuming dual booting is NOT an option)
Linux suited me the most, next the iMac.
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Mac = proprietary = greater cost + less choice.
Some people love that though. The quality is good but at a ridiculous price for what you get.
The latest versions of OS X are supposedly a bit sluggish because of the glitz and how many features are tacked on.
Windows would be fine if we could only get rid of the registry like they promised us and make every damn application portable.
A lot of problems I have when using Windows have nothing to do with Windows; bad drivers and bad support for hardware by companies, BS anti-piracy complications...
Other things are Window's fault though like "Why can't I use my own midi controller in Win7???".
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Mac = proprietary = greater cost + less choice.
Some people love that though. The quality is good but at a ridiculous price for what you get.
The latest versions of OS X are supposedly a bit sluggish because of the glitz and how many features are tacked on.
Windows would be fine if we could only get rid of the registry like they promised us and make every damn application portable.
A lot of problems I have when using Windows have nothing to do with Windows; bad drivers and bad support for hardware by companies, BS anti-piracy complications...
Other things are Window's fault though like "Why can't I use my own midi controller in Win7???".
Like how Windows inevitably slows itself down over time without installing anything new?
Getting rid of the registry would cause all kinds of problems, not least being how many thousands of programs there are already that rely on it. People like backwards compatibility, and removing the registry would be very un-backwards-compatible.
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Heh... I must admit to making all of my programs store config data in the working directory and never in the registry.
In retrospect I should tweak it so it stores to your user application data folder in case it can't write to the working directory :P
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That's very true (about getting rid of the registry would be a step backwards). Early versions of Windows (like ver. 2 and 3) didn't have the 'Registry' as you know it, and programs used "ini files" to detail their needs and settings. VERY problematic, slow performance, limited abilities, poor integration, incessant disk buffering, blah, blah.
No one, and I mean no one, wants to go back to that. It is worthwhile to note that the other OS contenders (like Mac and Linux) also use a 'system database' in much the same way as the registry. Why? It has been the right choice.
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Like how Windows inevitably slows itself down over time without installing anything new?
That may not necessarily be the OS's fault, but the computer's. Sometimes a computer just needs a good cleanup and/or defrag, and it'll preform remarkably better on that alone. It's hard to say sometimes.
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I got the .iso image of Mandriva, but I can't burn the image. I thought I did it right the first time for a friend, but now all I get on the DVD is the single ISO file.
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When did this thing go off topic?
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probably 2-3 pages ago, and my fault probably.
let's end this win-mac-linux conversation.
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So... What is the current status of Descent for Wii-ware? (as far as we know)
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Like how Windows inevitably slows itself down over time without installing anything new?
That may not necessarily be the OS's fault, but the computer's. Sometimes a computer just needs a good cleanup and/or defrag, and it'll preform remarkably better on that alone. It's hard to say sometimes.
Defragging/cleaning up is a function of the operating system to fix problems caused by the operating system. I (and all windows users who use default settings) defrag my computer weekly. It's not enough. Now I'll admit I have faulty hardware somewhere, but every time that hardware causes windows to crash, booting takes slightly longer. And I know it's a problem with the windows somewhere because a clean install of windows makes it boot fine (until it inevitably crashes and builds up whatever gunk is slowing it down again). Is it an unusual situation? Probably. But windows should be able to handle that without slowing down (except immediately after crashing, I can understand that booting slower, but when I first installed even rebooting after a crash was fast.)
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So... What is the current status of Descent for Wii-ware? (as far as we know)
no clue. I'd be shocked if something happened.
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Last I heard it was...um...oh gee look at that, no change. ::)
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You need a registry cleanup, not a (hard disk) defrag. Try CCleaner (crap cleaner).
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It looks like Battle Chess is next. was a nice old game I use to play. The Queen looked rather....opps. not that kind of forum :-[
*cough* anyways;
Descent is after that. I have noticed though, some even after Descent say stuff like Second or Third quarter of 2011. They're behind too I guess.
There's always hope. I'd be concerned if those games in the list become available, and not Descent; and that more games are added on and then available.
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And delete all those worthless startup programs in the system tray that everything tries to install.
You can do that in CCleaner too.
That'll speed you back up.
But I have to confess that I've only experienced Windows to slow down once you start installing a significant number of things on it.
Another thing you have to bear in mind is that the hard drive will never perform as well when full as it is does when empty nomatter how well defragged and ordered it is.
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>>> In retrospect I should tweak it so it stores to your user application data folder in case it can't write to the working directory.
- But people love that now. The trend is portable software, not things that install and intertwine themselves with the registry and can never be successfully fully removed.
Nowadays the use of read-only memory formats is less because fewer people bother with compact discs / DVD-ROMs. It's all thumbdrives, SD cards and 2TB disks. I can't remember the last time I burned anything other than a BIOS/Firmware/Operating System Installer/just general file backups onto an optical disc.
But I agree that storing data in the user's folder is an important option to include and I will bear it in mind more myself in future.
But that's not even the same as programs chucking their settings in the registry (which to my mind is just wrong).
Where TechPro says that programs constantly write to INI files to store data - that's just bad design on the part of the program if they're constantly writing data to anywhere on anything resembling a disk. That's what *memory* is for. The probability is that they do that *and* use and clutter up the registry anyway. There should be no performance difference, that I can see, between writing to an individual file local to the application (which makes structural sense) and writing to the registry (apart from the fact that the hard disk may have to seek a little less with the latter).
The registry should be restricted to system configuration and very little else to make it less prone to bloat.
The trend towards portable software will effectively kill the registry stone dead and it will eventually go back to being what it was, which was just a hive for Windows configuration and driver settings.
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I am still not holding my breath for the Wii Descent even after Battle Chess comes out. At least if it ever DOES get released, we will have some great community levels in it.
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yes, a few people already have vested interest in its release due specifically to those community levels, namely myself, Pumo, Sirius and Wazzazle.
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I personally haven't given up hope for Desecent for Wii, but I'm no longer holding my breath about it either.
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Haven't given up here! When it arrives, I will seriously consider buying a Wii just to have a go!
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Buy a Wii to play that totally outdated game version you can have in the same pixelated glory (cough) almost for free on the PC?
Tsk.
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but there is nothing quite like playing a game on your own home console. PC can't really emulate this feeling you get when playing a game on your console system.
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may depend on the game; for the most part, I agree.
I'd rather play Call of Duty 2 on my PS3; but it's not available on that; only XBOX (and maybe other formats).
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>>> Buy a Wii to play that totally outdated game version you can have in the same pixelated glory (cough) almost for free on the PC?
- Haha, I see your point very well but I'm mostly interested in how it's controlled.
I think flying the ship with that wireless Wiimote thing must be quite a new thing. Maybe it'll be clunkier than I'm imagining.
Those Wiis should be pretty cheap now. Could always bag one second hand or use the ladyfriend's one maybe.
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I always imagined it being controlled like this:
Control stick - up/down = accelerate and reverse // left/right = slide left/right
Pitch down/up = Pitch
Yaw left/right = Yaw
Roll left/right = Roll
That covers most of the aiming for the remote itself. But for the other buttons,
B button = primary fire
A button = secondary fire
C button = bombs
Z button = afterburner (if applicable)
- button = automap
+ button = pause/save menu
control pad = selecting primary/secondary weapons.
Hopefully they do something similar to this.
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I think that sounds like the best option and very intuitive.
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How do you go forward then? Or backwards for that matter? ;)
Admittedly, that's probably the biggest reason why I'm interested in D14Wii, so to get to try out playing the game with the motion-sensing Wiimote. You can't do that with your PC, y'know.
...
Well, okay, with a little rigging up, I've heard you can, but this way I don't have to do any rigging. :)
And anyway, Descent is still Descent, and as the fan that I am, I feel obligated to support it anyway possible. :D
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Right at first I thought: "Well, that's a stupid question! You just push it towards the screen to go forwards and pull it away to go back".
And a split-second later I thought: "That's gonna get insanely annoying if you have to keep waving it towards the TV to cruise forward.
So, now that strikes me as a very good question!
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part of the reason I never got into the Wii games. my sister knows I love Call of Duty, so she got Call of Duty 3 on the Wii.
I had to keep my hand up at chest level to shoot the germans. If I dropped my arm, the gun drops.
VERY ANNOYING!! "MUCH EASIER" on a PS3, or XBox, PC..
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Much better than RL, rather than holding up a rifle you can let both arms rest on a desk and slouch back in your chair.
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when my sister, friend and I first started playing Wii Bowling, we'd take our steps and pretend to actually throw the ball. at some point, I think it was my friend, that just sat on the couch and motioned throwing a ball and it worked. all that work we did for nothing :D
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I always imagined it being controlled like this:
Control stick - up/down = accelerate and reverse // left/right = slide left/right
In case people are missing the point. Accelerate and reverse IS going forward and back. You use the control stick for that. I already accounted for all manner of movement.
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I already accounted for all manner of movement.
Sorry, DFW, you didn't account for up/down slides.
Without those, there's no trichording. Can't have a Descent title without trichording. :)
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I don't have a descent title? :'(
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The problem with moving the control stick to move your ship is that you have a very limited range of motion (compared to a pyro at least). You can only move your hand so far forward before you hit the edge of your reach (or the TV if you walk forward).
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Ah Foil, quick change then: control stick is the sliding keys, all directions. Z button is reverse, C button is accelerate. The bombs are shifted to the down on the control pad. Switching weapons is left/right on the control pad. With pressing up to toggle between switching between primaries or secondaries. Does that fix things?
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Sounds good to me, in fact I like the sound of that control scheme even better than the first. :)
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IHH, you're correct about using the motion-sensing for movement - it won't work well because of the limited range of motion. However, I assume that players will be able to use the pointing/aiming functionality for rotations, which I think would work well.
DFW, that's pretty close to what I would choose for a Wiimote control scheme. In fact, it's not too far from what I use on PC (thumb on a D-pad for slides, forward/back on left hand, rotations and firing controls on the right).
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You use a gamepad, Foil? I tried that once, could never get the hang of it. A joystick is what I've always used, and pretty much all I can use. It's too hardwired in my head to use anything else.
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You use a gamepad, Foil?
Oh heck no. I've tried using a gamepad (PlayStation Descent), and it just doesn't work well.
As I posted in another thread (http://www.planetdescent.net/index.php?topic=859.msg12160#msg12160), I use a Belkin N52te controller + MS Sidewinder 3DPro joystick on PC.
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'lo all. I'm the guy who made the wii homebrew port (which I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned here...)
When I started working on the controls it quickly became apparent that using motion was hopeless. The wiimote (or nunchuck) just doesn't allow accurate control. It's fine for detecting large movements like swinging or shaking, but for fine movements like turning or acceleration it just doesn't cut it. The sensitivity provided by the motion plus expansion is probably a lot better but it's also a lot harder to write code for and I couldn't really be bothered. ;)
The pointing control doesn't really work well either. The pyro is meant to fire into the center of the screen so the gameplay changes too much (and gets a lot easier) if you can just point at what you want to hit instead. If the game doesn't have directional shooting and only uses pointing for turning, it still feels unnatural because your shots aren't going where you're looking - you have to watch the cursor onscreen that shows where you're pointing to prevent moving the wiimote out of range.
So, in the end I just made (nearly) all the buttons available for reassignment and kept the game's original "configure controls" dialogs. I really don't find it that bad, the homebrew port supports multiplayer with dosbox clients if anyone wants to try pitting their joystick skills against it.
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I've played Metroid Prime 3 and The Conduit. Without the motion pluss, the controls were super sensitive and accurate and allowed for precise actions.
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Hello tueidj!
I was surprised it hadn't come up. I know a small private forum where your Descent port has gone down quite a storm. They were amazed that Interplay was going to do one themselves.
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The pointing control doesn't really work well either. The pyro is meant to fire into the center of the screen so the gameplay changes too much (and gets a lot easier) if you can just point at what you want to hit instead. If the game doesn't have directional shooting and only uses pointing for turning, it still feels unnatural because your shots aren't going where you're looking - you have to watch the cursor onscreen that shows where you're pointing to prevent moving the wiimote out of range.
Yes, that would be weird, but that's not what I was suggesting. My idea would be to use the pointing control for rotation, not reticle aiming.
It would work something like Freelancer mouse controls (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUcMsPt68Ws), where the position on the screen determines the turn (point left to turn left, point up+right to turn up+right, point middle to stop turn, etc.). Firing would still be in the direction the ship is pointing.
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The pointing control doesn't really work well either. The pyro is meant to fire into the center of the screen so the gameplay changes too much (and gets a lot easier)...
I personally don't see what's wrong with making it easier.
The game is still plenty hard even if you have perfect aim on every shot you ever fire. And anyway I see aiming more as a skill thing than a difficulty thing. If the wiimote motion handles like a joystick (instead of like mouselook ;D ) I don't see any problem.
Or even if it handles like a mouse without mouselook, though I can see that getting awkward fast (constantly needing to move the remote, yet a fixed turn speed... bleh).
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The hard part with using the wiimote like a joystick imo is that you have no physical feedback of where center is, and I can personally see myself losing track of where center was in a hectic fight and spiraling into a corner and getting blasted to death.
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Yep, that's also related to another issue regarding using the wiimote to control the ship - it gets tiring very fast if you have to hold the wiimote pointed steady at the middle of the screen or in a perfect upright+flat position just to fly in a straight line. Doesn't happen with joysticks and mice because their idle position requires no effort.
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Hmm, glad to hear all of this nonetheless, as it gives one an idea of what to expect if and when Interplay ever releases D1-for-Wii.
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Yep, that's also related to another issue regarding using the wiimote to control the ship - it gets tiring very fast if you have to hold the wiimote pointed steady at the middle of the screen or in a perfect upright+flat position just to fly in a straight line. Doesn't happen with joysticks and mice because their idle position requires no effort.
I agree. My sister bought Call of Duty 3 for the Wii, and in a short while, I was getting sick of holding my arm up to shoot.
Wii's are good for sports, or something of the sort. I never figured they were good for anything else.
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For some reason Vanguard's post gives me deja vu.
Maybe something I overheard on the bus?
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My GOG.com copy/D2x versions will do me just fine. Not a big Wii fan to be honest.
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For some reason Vanguard's post gives me deja vu.
Maybe something I overheard on the bus?
that, or I said it earlier in this topic:
part of the reason I never got into the Wii games. my sister knows I love Call of Duty, so she got Call of Duty 3 on the Wii.
I had to keep my hand up at chest level to shoot the germans. If I dropped my arm, the gun drops.
VERY ANNOYING!! "MUCH EASIER" on a PS3, or XBox, PC..
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You make me think how much I'm looking forward to the next time I do paintball.
I guess I got your post confused with something similar I heard a girl talking about to her boyfriend on the bus. Apparently she's a big fan of COD and Halo.
Personally I don't like cod. Or tuna. But any other fish is fair game! When it comes to sardines I eat them like a dolphin who hasn't eaten in months.
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I have; but don't use it anymore, a user name on the PS3 called C.O.D_Veteran.
I don't know how many times in that Call of Duty zombie map that I hear people on the mic calling me "Cod."
It's C O D, as in Call of Duty, like the game we're playing!
Only ONE person said "Call of Duty Veteran". I'm like, thank you! Now I am Vanguard with some numbers at the end.
I know, it's not for everyone. My girlfriend doesn't care for it, but she doesn't care for those games anyway, to my knowledge.
she doesn't even like Linux. that hurt! :'( ...........okay, just being sarcastic. I don't mind.
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Wii's are good for sports, or something of the sort. I never figured they were good for anything else.
It is beyond me why anybody would mistake anything you can do with a Wii for sports.
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My thoughts exactly.
One part of your body getting slightly more excersize than it would by playing another game system, does not a workout make.
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I am sure he meant sports games.
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When I say sports, it's tennis or bowling, baseball, something like that. I am not talking a workout game. The real thing is always the best, but if you can't, it's the only thing that I find practical in Wii.
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'Real games' or sports games on computers and consoles have always mystified me when the real game/sport itself is a viable and real alternative.
I mean, it's not as though you can train at tennis in the winter by playing Wii Tennis.
I think the only real exception I can think of is some of these football games where you're playing with simulated sports stars as part of a team. I can see how more sports-minded people than myself would enjoy that.
Unless it's taking to a far-flung galaxy or putting you in the middle of a conflict, I don't really see it as being a genuine game by my standards. It also helps to have a good story as well.
I know that's a bit strong but ... does anyone see what I mean?
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I think computer sports were invented for the people who want to play said sports but can't. Like computer football for the wimpy people, basketball for the short people, baseball for the people with no hand-eye coordination, and so on. :P
As for the Wii, I actually have a great deal of the respect for it as a console for two reasons: it's the first of it's kind to use motion as a part of gameplay so effectively, and because it was literally THE FIRST gaming console (besides a good ol' PC) that ever grabbed my interest. The Wii's motion-based gameplay is by all means NO replacement for actual exercise, and there are a number of games where it just doesn't apply too well, but there is no denying that the Wii is a step away from it's motionless sister consoles, and has paved a way that, should it continue to be pursued, revolutionize gaming as we know it.
Granted, this is a bit optimistic thinking, but hey, you can't deny that it IS a possibility.
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Did it occur to you that maybe it's simply for fun? Most people don't have a full-sized tennis court, and even if they did they'd get maybe twice over the net before somebody missed.
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Sports games on the computer or console were (and are) made for three reasons....
- for the money
- for fun while learning computers and computer programming
- for the money.
;)
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if you like it, you can buy it, if not, don't.
People have their preference. Like PS3 VS XBOX. Personally, I don't care. I chose the PS3. I have played games on the XBOX. To me, same thing. online is where it can vary. If you have an XBOX and love it over the PS3, that's fine.
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>>> Did it occur to you ... Most people don't have a full-sized tennis court.
Did it occur to you that you can visit one?
I don't own one personally but I know where I can join a club and play for real.
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Did it occur to you that maybe it's simply for fun?
Exactly... not for me, personally, but lots of people find the game enjoyable. Not to train, or as a serious sport, or a replacement for real sport, but just a way to pass an hour or two, just brain dead entertainment. Don't over-think it, if you enjoy it, fine, if not, no matter.
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Did it occur to you that maybe it's simply for fun?
Exactly... not for me, personally, but lots of people find the game enjoyable. Not to train, or as a serious sport, or a replacement for real sport, but just a way to pass an hour or two, just brain dead entertainment. Don't over-think it, if you enjoy it, fine, if not, no matter.
thank you. that basically is it. My sister, friend and I would have fun on it, laugh about whatever. you may get a tiny work out, but nothing close to the real deal, but then again, it depends on what we're doing. You don't get a real workout in real bowling.
here's an example. last thursday, I was with my girlfriend and we wanted to go bowling. real bowling. We went to one place and it was JAMMED PACKED. Each lane was taken up, and it was some sort of 'all you can bowl' or 'only x amount of dollars per game.
We went to another. parking lot there was FULL. I saw a driver going back and forth looking for a place. I went around a section, and figured, too busy.
There are times it can be nice to have a Wii bowling, or tennis or whatever.
I don't believe it should be the new way to play sports. real sports beats ANY gaming sports hands down. but if one just can't do it; or can't play any game because it's busy or just too late at night; what's wrong with the Wii?
like WillyP said, don't over think it. Sad if you replace it with the real deal, but if not; it's just fine.
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I think my point was more how its advertized. At least here in Canada, the advertizements seem to imply that "With Wii sports now you don't need to go to a gym, ever!"
"With Wii weight-training you can have the satisfaction of lifting a 16-ton barbel, without any of the physical exertion!" (OK well that was made up. But I wouldn't be surprised.)
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I am sure anywhere in the world, there are some people who may think they no longer have to go out and go bowling, or play baseball, tennis, Frisbee golfing, or just plain golfing. It's not the game, it's the person.
I used this example the other day with something else, a tshirt I like on Happy Gilmore. "Guns don't kill people, I kill people."
Some will use the Wii only if it's winter, and can't be outside, no tennis court or baseball field around. bowling places are packed.
you name it. others, let's just stay indoors and never go out and do anything.
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A big problem I see with a lot of modern people is that they want to find a way to stay fit...without actually doing anything to stay fit. And think they actually can get away with that.
Biggest. Contradiction. Ever. :P
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I see that a lot, or even the "eat whatever you want and lose weight!"
always the "easy" way to do things, not the "hard".
If it's easy, pleasant, lazy sounding, it sells.
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>>> Did it occur to you ... Most people don't have a full-sized tennis court.
Did it occur to you that you can visit one?
I don't own one personally but I know where I can join a club and play for real.
Yeah but when you've got friends over you're not just going to randomly up and go to a tennis court, especially if they've never played tennis you'll just end up chasing balls around and probably end up frustrated. If you've got friend who are willing to join a club to go play tennis on a whim, more power to you. For everything else, there's Wii tennis.
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Thread derailment?
Man, this thread is already leaving earth orbit!
:D
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Descent for WiiWare is one thing, but going from Star Wars to Star Trek >:( x 3
okay, not really mad...just...yeah..
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Thread derailment?
Man, this thread is already leaving earth orbit!
:D
"already"? It's on page 38 and we're still on the topic of the Wii, I think we're doing pretty good.
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Thread derailment?
Man, this thread is already leaving earth orbit!
:D
"already"? It's on page 38 and we're still on the topic of the Wii, I think we're doing pretty good.
you have a point. we could start off by talking about different meats and ending off on going to the moon
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Well now we're on the topic of thread derailment :D.
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Descent for WiiWare is one thing, but going from Star Wars to Star Trek
That wasn't my fault, somebody else shifted the subject to Trek, and I just ran with it. :P
Matt's right, for a thread of this length, we have been doing pretty good at staying on subject (more or less) until now.
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This thread has now become self-aware.
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Someone started talking about Trek and I thought "goldmine - time to monopolise on it!"
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I think you guys can tell, I know nothing about Star Trek. When they said "Go where no man has gone before." I got scared, turned off the tv and crawled under the bed for 5 hours.
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LOL! I'd +1 that if I could.
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Star Trek makes me want to play StarFlight. The game reminds me a lot of Star Trek, partly because it's set in space with an interesting storyline involving boldly going and exploring strange new worlds, but mostly because apparently at some point you actually encounter the original Enterprise in the game, heh.
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Is it even possible to start making bets on when Descent Wii will come out?
I'll go for late November, around the time of my birthday.
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Dec 21, 2012, day of Armageddon. j/k :P
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I gave up believing it would ever come out a long time ago. Karx-elf-erx's revelation that there was just a single guy working on it (out of his home, it sounds like) was pretty much the final nail in the coffin.
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Uhm... I'm not sure that was meant literally.
If Karx does know that for sure then I'd like to know where he got that information -- because I'm pretty sure said statement was intended as speculation.
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Sure it's speculation, but based on his interactions with them. As a professional in the same industry I find it a very believable scenario. The iphone/app store boon has made it possible for anyone with half decent programming skills to start publishing apps, ports of old games are especially seen as low hanging fruit so there's plenty of companies like G1M2 masquerading as "development studios" when they're actually just some hobbyists with a devkit.
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It was a conclusion from what the G1M2 "head" said about his "lead dev". I reckon there are, or have been, more people working on it, e.g. to create the cockpit graphics. While I have no proof, my impression however is that there is only one coder working on it.
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Is that entirely a bad thing, though? If they still release a satisfactory product, what is there to complain about?
...
This is probably where Karx reminds me of how much of a coder I am not. :-\
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Is a question of the work ethic of the small number of 'developers' involved, I suppose.
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Well, back in the old NES days, games were made up by a group of 4-6 people, max. So the fact they are a small band of 2-3 doesn't surprise me.
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I'll go for late November, around the time of my birthday.
Off-Topic real quick... When in late November is your birthday? Mines Nov. 26.
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27
Also going skydiving that day.
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Mine is June 20th if anyone cares. :P
As for this, Scott hasn't responded anytime recently to my emails, who knows the status of it now.
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Quiz number #1; and prize comes from Alieo himself if he cares :)
Question: My age is his least favorite number. Of course, my profile would probably say it anyway :P
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- Traditional PD topic derail -
Darn, I keep checking this thread hoping to see something about the game might actually be coming out soon, but it's still off on some other random topic, I guess the best I can do is to just use this thing http://product.half.ebay.com/Techmedia-3D-ZoneMaster-Game-pad-4-button-s-wireless/46842470&tg=info...
- You may resume your some other random topic now -
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Quiz number #1; and prize comes from Alieo himself if he cares :)
Question: My age is his least favorite number. Of course, my profile would probably say it anyway :P
Aha! You're 28A! It's okay. 30 will come rescue you soon enough and everything will be JUST FINE! :P
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Quiz number #1; and prize comes from Alieo himself if he cares :)
Question: My age is his least favorite number. Of course, my profile would probably say it anyway :P
Maybe I shouldn't attempt to answer because I kind of know you're 29.
And you will be 30 when I'm 22.
Wait... I think I messed up my "shouldn't attempt to answer".
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(http://www.prepare4descent.planetdescent.net/p4dfiles/derail-flag.jpg)
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new forum.............new rules? we're in trouble
(edit: I can't believe I was looking at that picture for a few seconds before realizing what that meant)
I have a feeling WillyP is going to know where that picture is saved on the harddrive/server. :D
Okay, on track (no real pun intended with picture), I still see Descent one behind another game. no first/second/third quarter, just 2011.
not much left of the year.
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If I really wanted this thread back on track, I would have used the one below, as the one above is used to intentionally de-rail a car, the one below gets it back on track:
(http://www.prepare4descent.planetdescent.net/p4dfiles/reRail.jpg)
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ah, that's the one you'll be using a lot ;D
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(http://prepare4descent.planetdescent.net/p4dfiles/foot.jpg)
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I don't know if that last one is totally random or a death threat (:P), but I think the topic is more de-railed after that picture then before it...
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I'll show YOU topic derailment!!! Mwuahahahaha!!! >:-)
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I'll show YOU topic derailment!!! Mwuahahahaha!!! >:-)
wrong picture, that's a death threat.
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And now for something completely different.
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@ Alieo: Now you've done it. You've brought the ponies (http://www.discodiscord.com/?video=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DYRx_iXgLAyw&bpm=125) into the matter... :o
If I could embed flash, I wouldn't have stopped there, so consider yourself lucky. ;)
Oh, look at the time...
(http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/239/4/7/look_at_the_time____by_metalbeersolid-d47ypkf.gif)
I gotta go.
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. . . . .. . . . . . ..,/. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ”:,
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .`=-,. . . . . . . . . .,%`>--
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(http://static.divbyzero.nl/facepalm/doublefacepalm.jpg)
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LMAO!!!
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Is it even possible to start making bets on when Descent Wii will come out?
I'll go for late November, around the time of my birthday.
Nope, still no signs of life.
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Well I emailed Scott recently, but no response. I think this might be dead...which sucks.
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Battle Chess and Descent are still pending. No change, dang
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...and still not much change. Stonekeep's now gotten released before D1-4-Wii. >:(
On a side note, though, I am semi-pleased to see that it's at the very least not the only game that's been consistently delayed. Both Clayfighter and Legendary Wars: T-Rex Rumble, two games Interplay has been advertising their work on for awhile now, almost since their "comeback," (the latter slightly more than Descent even) have both been delayed, and assuming the order Interplay lists them in is chronological, both are now to be released after D1-4-Wii.
But, you know, other than that, still no D1-4-Wii. But also still no word that they've actually stopped working on it, so...I guess we're supposed to consider it still ongoing until Interplay says otherwise.
If they don't pull it off though, I think it'll hurt them, seeing that they have been going through all the trouble of advertising it like they had every intent of releasing it.
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I think if they either don't release it, or they go under again, we need to push them to sell the rights to the series to... someone who might actually do something with it (my first thought is THQ/Volition, but...)
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DEAD
dEAD
DeAD
DEaD
DEAd
deAD
DeaD
DEad
dEAd
DeAd
dEaD
Dead
dEad
deAd
deaD
dead
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That's ... A awful lot of effort just to say a four letter word...
But I do like the upper-case, lower-case pattern ya got there. ;)
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Klaus Nomi - Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vXR5gjRMPk#)
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DEAD
dEAD
DeAD
DEaD
DEAd
deAD
DeaD
DEad
dEAd
DeAd
dEaD
Dead
dEad
deAd
deaD
dead
Now say that five times fast!
It looks like the word is writhing in the throes of... well you know...
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I think if they either don't release it, or they go under again, we need to push them to sell the rights to the series to... someone who might actually do something with it (my first thought is THQ/Volition, but...)
Concurred, Interplay clearly isn't being too quick to get Descent back into the gamin arena, and frankly, it's waited long enough. If they aren't going to pull through, give it up to someone who will.
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I think if they either don't release it, or they go under again, we need to push them to sell the rights to the series to... someone who might actually do something with it (my first thought is THQ/Volition, but...)
Concurred, Interplay clearly isn't being too quick to get Descent back into the gamin arena, and frankly, it's waited long enough. If they aren't going to pull through, give it up to someone who will.
Agreed. Let's ask them for a price to the rights and own the sucker ourselves already! ALL of us! Let's rescue that dying Pyro-GX from the sun once more like the Mars Red Acropolis team once did for MD!
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To be totally honest, I don't think selling it to us is the greatest idea.
Our fan-sequels have gone nowhere fast (or in some cases, very very slowly). I joined the Flight Back team just in time to helplessly watch it fall apart. We've had 13 years to make a fan-sequel to D3 but so far we've barely even made any real singleplayer campaigns FOR D3 (Army of Haloon notwithstanding). So, I doubt selling it to us would be any better move than just keeping it with Interplay.
It needs to be sold to some company that will actually have the time and the will to make something good out of it (and yes, that rules out EA -- and us).
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You're forgetting the Descent4 project which was only shut down because of copyright issues, AFAIK.
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Would it have been finished if it wasn't shut down though?
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Technically no, because after Interplay (or whoever it was) had them pull the plug, they repurposed project into a Descent clone game of their own creation and started working on that.
Last I heard, they never finished it, and the project dead.
Kaiaatsel's right, selling it to us is probably not a good idea. We all would have good intentions, but they never seem to come to light. :-\
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Well *I* wanna know how much it IS. Maybe if we DID buy it, maybe we COULD sell it to someone that WANTS to do something and not drag their feet like Interplay does, dag nabbit!
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How would you sell it to a community in the first place? We're not a company.
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Well, for one thing, for those who "want" it, we would put our money together to buy such rights. (But I'm just going with this idea until I get scared off from the actual price of the "rights.") If the price is nowhere near what I think it is, I just may scoop up the rights myself! AFAIK, buying rights should be similar to buying the title of a car, and if I legally needed to be a "company," that's $12 to file for the birth of a business at City Hall.
If I DID get the rights, I'd develop some sort of contract with YOU guys and put together a development team for D4, and we'd have the D3 source code finally. (Imagine, D2 on steroids, AKA, D2X-XL, looks BETTER than D3, but imagine if we had that D3 source code and we gave IT steroids... hello D4!) This would basically be a project our own community would work on in their spare time. Once it's all done and we get it to hit the market, then we go for sales and start dividing the commissions!
We have music developers, level builders, level coders, THE WORKS, and we could do it if we really wanted to. Another option to "putting money together" is, if we had that D3 source code, we could make the project open source, so not really "for profit" and be free to make up all kinds of storylines using REAL Descent characters because the baby would be OURS... OUR rights to use such names!
And then Kiaatsel could legally get his name changed to E-Bandit! I'd let him have ALL rights to THAT NAME! LMAO!
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While that plan sounds very nice, it's not the first time I've heard it, and more often or not, those same plans never come to light. I don't mean to sound negative when I say that, but that's just usually what happens. :(
And personally, if I had the rights to Descent and started work on a D4, I would start building it from scratch, rather than building off of D3, for a number of reasons, actually, but mostly because I think it'd be great to start fresh, even if it did mean more work. That and the fact that I've got a very vivid vision of what I'd expect from a D4 that I don't think D3's engine could pull off without virtually reworking the whole thing, so starting from scratch actually would sound slightly easier when looked at it from that perspective.
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Incorporate this community! :P
An easier way to do it, though, is just make sure Interplay sells it to the right people. Last I heard Volition has just had Red Faction cancelled -- maybe it's time for them to go back to their roots 8).
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Ok, I seriously need to be honest for one second. Sorry if this comes off as being overly crude, but:
Do people here honestly think we're capable of doing better than Interplay with Descent IV? Yes, we got musicians. Yes, we got level builders. We have an artist here and there. What we don't have are the coders that would be required to bring the engine up to modern specs. We have a low success rate for big projects using the Descent 3 engine (and honestly, from my own experiences the Descent 3 engine is a mess to work with when compared to other engines of its era)
A modern game has a huge team of people working on it for a reason: They have tons of content they need to generate, and a lot of this content is very complex. Their level design is quite complex (the layouts can leave something to be desired though, meh), and going in with my earlier notion about the Descent 3 engine being a mess to work with, D3Edit would probably be a horrible tool for generating this type of content, at least in my opinion. They have many many people hammering out constantly at the various needed assets to try to create them in a reasonable timeframe.
At last glance, we have a few musicians here. A few capable level builders (though how much experience they have in more modern environments, I don't know). An artist here and there. People like me who can write a little code, but it isn't very good code. A few great coders, busy with their own projects.
If we're going to try to get anything done with the prospect of getting Descent out of interplay's hands, the best option would be to sell it to a group of developers somewhere. And even then, this implies that they want to give it up and that there's motivation in this group to want to take on a unique style of game.
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Well I had this idea that we could be doing the negotiations on both sides so that we can make sure that we get something out of it -- and also to make everything easy for Interplay and whoever else.
And just because we're not making the game as a community doesn't mean those of us with the talent (and those of us who just like to play games) won't get to put anything into it. Especially those of us with some experience in the industry -- off the top of my head there's Kyorryu, Luke (if we can get in contact with him) aand um... well me soon. And probably a bunch of other guys who I don't know about.
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On what basis would 'WE' get to be in on the negotiations?
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...the fact that I've got a very vivid vision of what I'd expect from a D4 that I don't think D3's engine could pull off without virtually reworking the whole thing, so starting from scratch actually would sound slightly easier when looked at it from that perspective.
So true! We could totally start from scratch. Just as long as we had the RIGHTS to the Descent name and all the names of the mines, characters, and robots, we could do something COMPLETELY different with it! Maybe create a completely different genre of video game!
We all know about the Super Mario franchise and how it started out as a 2D platform game and grew to other things like, Mario Paint, Mario Kart, Mario Golf, etc. Who says the next installment of Descent would have to be about going into a mine and blowing up the reactor and getting out of time. I'm thinking out of the box here, but remember that story I was beginning to write? Well, I was thinking more along the lines of making a completely different genre. We have all these blown PTMC mines... why not have an installment of Descent that focuses on REBUILDING the mines as deep space commercial venues -- Sim City style! You start of with the CED's already rebuilt-from-damaged site of Lunar Outpost and try to make it a tourist attraction so it makes money.
Okay, then go through the other 25+ mines, blah, blah, blah, and at the end, you have that one mine you couldn't repair throughout the whole game at the old site for Level 7, Mercury Core, because the Superhulk was rebuilding and making a more advanced virus. THAT would be Descent 4.
Then, Descent 5 would be more like the 007 games where MD is a secret agent and you go through these rebuilt mines (which are now hotels, shopping centers, communities, etc.) and MD would have to discern between people and robots you can and can't trust and do various missions.
Or, scratch all that, let the above description for D4 just be either an "extra" game published aside without carrying the D"4" label, and let it be the backstory to the description of D5 as D4... OR combine the two and make it one whole game. The way you rebuild your mines in the above plan for D4 can affect the different gameplay outcomes of the above said description for D5, but this ALL would be one game.
In this next installment of Descent, I see ALL PLATFORMS of gaming to be introduced. You can: walk around freely and interact with characters with built-in A.I. so you can just type what you want to say to the characters rather than select from a menu, go to various venues like movie theaters and watch old clips from the previous Descent series, play old Descent games on THIS game at the arcades, play golf, race Star Wars style in Phoenix Interceptors... just a variety of different genres in ONE game, like a total virtual reality universe, with the BEST A.I. and graphics. It would be like Grand Theft Auto meets Driver meets Star Wars racing meets D1 meets ALL GENRES OF SPORTS GAMES meets Star Trek meets 007 meets... you get the idea.
If I only had the rights, I have the idea, and I'm sure all of you have your own ideas as well to pitch in to WTF the next Descent holds in store for us.
If I only had the damn RIGHTS. "WE" or "I" wouldn't have to MAKE all those ideas. Bottom line is, if one or several of us had the rights to Descent, and we have an idea, and a damn good one at that, all it takes is for ONE development team with the means and resources necessary to BUY those rights from us and cut US a check for the idea, and if it's a huge success, well, then we'd all be a little happier now wouldn't we. I know I dream big, but I can't help it.
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I have an idea for a D4 story IF it's a remake of D1. It's like D1 to D3 mashed together and with more of a plot that makes more sense.
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Yeah that's another thing they can do is elaborate on D1's story and bring it back with a whole new modern gaming engine! I like that! THEN focus on D5!
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I've actually have been putting a lot of thought into a D4, especially in terms of storyline, and think I have something worked out that would please most of the Descent fans, and hopefully interest newbies, so much so that I had thought about writing it all down to show off and see what responses I get.
Basically it's a post D3-story that takes place in the aftermath of what transpired with the PTMC's collapse. Only the matter's still not done, because ever-calculative Dravis had some of his mercenaries lie low when it started to become clear everybody was onto him and faced getting it bad, with the idea that they could take charge and continue his plans assuming something happened to him, which was of course exactly the case, and this is exactly what happens, the mercenaries take charge, especially one in particular (I was thinking the same mercenary from D3: Mercenary, seeing his end fate was never solidified) and have in engaged in a game of cat-and-mouse with the CED as they work to carry out some plan to revive things for them. Meanwhile, Red Acropolis is rebuilding with the CED's help (seeing they caused them most of the damage) and have been given the task of refining their anti-virus to use to wipe out the virus once and for all...only to encounter a strain of the virus that the anti-virus has no effect on, and is spreading...
That's the basic premise at least. More details on demand.
As for gameplay, I've been envisioning a hybrid of all three Descents in terms of appearance with a new "edge" given to it to update it to the times and make it feel new, and has a very destructive environment (aka you shoot at a wall, it takes visible damage). I was also thinking, that since the fanbase didn't seem united behind any one Descent gameplay style, I was thinking of compromising by taking a page from Sonic Adventure and split the story into three, each focusing on a different character and sporting differing gameplay styles. One would sport classic D1-D2 style gameplay, one would sport D3-objective-based gameplay, and the third would feature D3:Merc-stealth-based gameplay. Ships would include everything from the GX to the Black Pyro and then some, and in terms of weaponry, would have everything from all three games and then some as well (but you wouldn't have the ability to use them all on one ship, of course. Again, more details on demand).
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But I'm already working on a Sonic Adventure clone with Descent references!
Maybe I should write down my story idea (strangely or not so strangely, I think it could co-exist with yours, Scyphi). After I finish the fiction I'm working on now though. (And by now I mean immediately, I think everyone here knows there's plenty of other fiction I'm "working on" but won't find the time for for a long time). But this fiction shouldn't take longer than the end of next week :P.
To be totally honest I think the sort of mission-based gameplay with distinct levels that D3 had doesn't lend itself well to any kind of serious story. I really think, if the series is going to go forward then there needs to be a lot more humour -- it's a story that can't really take itself seriously without looking stupid. I think that's why the books were actually good -- they realized that even though the game stories (especially D3) didn't.
Oh and the Mercenary pilot did have more of a fate in the novels. He was captured and gassed by aliens, and they took him away for some revenge (he killed a lot of them for Dravis), or so it was implied...
One new thing I think the pyro should definitley be able to do is "mount" large machinery (or large vehicles) and operate or pilot them. This could also make for some cool bosses (mercenaries piloting a robot?).
Oh, and do you guys think this D4 discussion should be split from the Wiiware thread so that it's easier to find it?
I really have got to stop this habit of thread-derailing.
Did I tell you about the time I derailed a thread about a list of bugs in Trackmania to talking about why the cars had no drivers (they all died of radiation poisoning before the race could start). All with just one silly statement in an otherwise on-topic post!
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Oh, and do you guys think this D4 discussion should be split from the Wiiware thread so that it's easier to find it?
I really have got to stop this habit of thread-derailing.
Did I tell you about the time I derailed a thread about a list of bugs in Trackmania to talking about why the cars had no drivers (they all died of radiation poisoning before the race could start). All with just one silly statement in an otherwise on-topic post!
Well if I recall, Karx declared this thread as:
DEAD
dEAD
DeAD
DEaD
DEAd
deAD
DeaD
DEad
dEAd
DeAd
dEaD
Dead
dEad
deAd
deaD
dead
...and then we started talking about gaming rights and various D4 ideas. Descent for Wiiware is dead. HELL the wii ITSELF is dead! All the cool games are on XBOX or PS3 now, right? Besides, Descent for WiiWare is still going backwards... back to the thoroughly re-redone D1. Let's get D4 off the ground already!
I LOVE those ideas you both have, Kaiaatsel and Scyphi. Now, what I want to know is, how MUCH do rights cost for a dead and unpopular game like Descent? Surely they don't care too much about it if they don't want to do anything with it!
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... Now, what I want to know is, how MUCH do rights cost for a dead and unpopular game like Descent? Surely they don't care too much about it if they don't want to do anything with it!
Sure, they may not actually 'care' about the game anymore, but that's not what determines the value of the code for the game. What is important to them is how much revenue they would not get should someone manage to produce a profit making product using the game's code after they give it up to someone.
It's about the money they might not get, not what they are not getting right now.
It's backwards, it's stupid, but that's the way corporate bean counters look at it.
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I'm in and out of this forum and the topic, so I apologize in saying something that is basically obsolete.
I have no knowledge in level building, making music, designs, art, etc. No idea how the business works, or more specifically, who has rights to the game, etc.
Some here say we should make a D4 game, or something of the sort. Others are saying we don't have the capability, or maybe even the rights to doing that.
My two cents is this, we (may) have a choice.
1. Make a D4-like game. It may not be close to what a real company can do. But hey, something is better than nothing, right?
2. We simply don't make a D4-like game.
I can't do nothing, but maybe give some people ideas. My idea of D4 consists of night vision. I'm not hinting to anyone that option 1 is the option. It may be best to do nothing. I just read that some don't think we can make D4 that great. May be true, but sometimes it's nice to have something.
Frictional Games, not very big at all. But I like some of the games they came out with.
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... Now, what I want to know is, how MUCH do rights cost for a dead and unpopular game like Descent? Surely they don't care too much about it if they don't want to do anything with it!
Sure, they may not actually 'care' about the game anymore, but that's not what determines the value of the code for the game. What is important to them is how much revenue they would not get should someone manage to produce a profit making product using the game's code after they give it up to someone.
It's about the money they might not get, not what they are not getting right now.
It's backwards, it's stupid, but that's the way corporate bean counters look at it.
Sign a profit-sharing contract? It wouldn't be unheard of, to be sure. Instead of paying money up front, pay a portion of any profits made. It's a popular sales model.
I have all the microsoft products game developers use... But I have almost no coding knowledge, and absolutely no knowledge of game engines, graphics, etc. Microsoft products are good and helpful, but not THAT helpful.
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But I'm already working on a Sonic Adventure clone with Descent references!
And you're welcome to it. I only borrowed the multi-character storyarcs aspect. The rest is still 100% Descent, so it's more of Descent with a Sonic Adventure reference. :P
To be totally honest I think the sort of mission-based gameplay with distinct levels that D3 had doesn't lend itself well to any kind of serious story.
Exactly why I opted to try and accommodate all three, because I know there are people out there who would disagree with you. With my idea, that way nobody's excluded and there's something for everybody.
I really think, if the series is going to go forward then there needs to be a lot more humour -- it's a story that can't really take itself seriously without looking stupid.
On this I disagree. I like humor as much as the next guy, but I always thought the Descent series as very serious. If it's falling short of that, then adding more humor to it wouldn't necessarily help it any at all, and possibly make it worse. It of course depends on how much humor you use. The fact it's scientifically unsound in areas doesn't really make that big a difference either simply because it's a video game, and if there's one thing I've noticed about video games, being scientifically sound is very much optional, and is frequently "fudged" for the sake of making the game more fun to play.
Oh and the Mercenary pilot did have more of a fate in the novels. He was captured and gassed by aliens, and they took him away for some revenge (he killed a lot of them for Dravis), or so it was implied...
Yes, but that's the novels, which are only based on the game, and are thus whether or not they can be considered canonical is highly debatable. Seeing that not every Descent fan has probably read said novels (I certainly haven't) it probably wouldn't be too good an idea to base a D4 too much around it's mythos anyway. Taking inspiration from it isn't a bad idea, but in terms of continuity, it would probably best to stick with what story the games provide. Besides, my idea sticks mostly with the tale as told by the games anyway.
At any rate, I suggested the Mercenary pilot simply because his end fate, according to the games at least, is very nebulous. Some have argued that he was probably one of the mercenaries in Dravis's sanctuary, but there was also more than one in there, so what if it wasn't? I mean, we don't really know anything about what happens to him after level four of D3. Furthermore, seeing that Dravis apparently had a small army of these mercenaries, how do we know we really got them all anyway? I just suggested the Mercenary pilot so to also take the chance to wrap up his storyarc better, to give it some closure, but it doesn't have to be him. Could easily be an entirely new character filling in the role.
One new thing I think the pyro should definitley be able to do is "mount" large machinery (or large vehicles) and operate or pilot them. This could also make for some cool bosses (mercenaries piloting a robot?).
I like the idea, but I can also immediately see the Sonic inspiration from that, so finding some way to shake it up and make it different would probably be a good idea.
Oh, and do you guys think this D4 discussion should be split from the Wiiware thread so that it's easier to find it?
I really have got to stop this habit of thread-derailing.
Hey, this is PD, ALL threads get derailed sooner or later, especially the longer they last. And it's not like this particular thread hasn't gotten derailed before already anyway. :P
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it feels like last year, Descent was 3rd or so from the top in the developing list. It is still getting bumped. Games above it gets released, and Descent is still number 3 (or 4).
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One new thing I think the pyro should definitley be able to do is "mount" large machinery (or large vehicles) and operate or pilot them. This could also make for some cool bosses (mercenaries piloting a robot?).
I like the idea, but I can also immediately see the Sonic inspiration from that, so finding some way to shake it up and make it different would probably be a good idea.
Yeah the boss idea is Sonic inspired :P, but the general idea isn't -- I think the game needs to have something like the vehicle parts in pretty much every modern shooter even though in this case the entire game would be inside a vehicle.
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Well, if we can't have D-Wii, and we don't have the coding experience to make our own D4, somebody should learn javascript and make a minecraft mod...
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Well, if we can't have D-Wii, and we don't have the coding experience to make our own D4, somebody should learn javascript and make a minecraft mod...
Guys, I'm not saying that we have to HAVE coding experience, etc. All we need is to have the idea, then pitch it to whoever wants to do something with it. HELL, let Interplay keep said Descent rights, come up with a FIRM idea about D4, then set up an appointment to meet with the developers in person and see if they like the idea! If they like it, and they think it'll sell, we've got ourselves a D4!
But don't forget to whisper loudly as you leave their offices, "If you build it, they will come."
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Well, if we can't have D-Wii, and we don't have the coding experience to make our own D4, somebody should learn javascript and make a minecraft mod...
Surely you mean just plain java, heh.
The problem with the proposed idea though is that we need to find a team that's willing to do it. I'm sure there are a few out there, but many are going to be occupied with their own projects already.
On the subject of a minecraft mod, however:
(http://basementnet.us/ryan/2012-03-01_19.38.20.png)
heh
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New creeper?
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It's actually a pig, as it was easiest to just replace the renderer of a creature with my custom model. It could easily be a creeper, though.
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Was kind of a joke referencing the fact that in D3 they are kamikaze drones.
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Surely you mean just plain java
Sums up how much I know about code. ::)
Awesome Minecraft drone is awesome.
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Was kind of a joke referencing the fact that in D3 they are kamikaze drones.
Yeah, I figured that, but I hadn't thought of that at the time.
It would be easy to fix that little mistake, though!
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Back to the topic of Descent-4-Wii, just found an article (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/168721/MDK2_console_dev_done_with_Nintendo_after_WiiWare_loss_9month_certification.php) that talks about Interplay's recent MDK2 port to the Wii and the developer's struggles to get it out and the such. Descent isn't mentioned anywhere in there, but it might clue us in on why Descent-4-Wii has taken so long to get as far as it has, because developing a Wii-Ware game isn't a quick process...
At any rate, it's pretty much a moot point by now. Even if Interplay does manage to pull a rabbit out of a hat and release Descent-4-Wii before the year is out, it'll be too late. Alieo wasn't joking when he called the Wii a dead console some posts back. I've noticed game developers have already stopped paying any attention to the Wii, and have turned their attention to the upcoming Wii U, which is scheduled to be released by the end of 2012, and by the sound of it, it will NOT be using Wii-Ware, at least not in the same sense as the Wii used it. So even if Descent-4-Wii does get released, I don't expect it to do well at all, simply because the attention isn't there anymore, so it might actually just be better for Interplay to cut their losses now and not release it at all.
Or take what they have for the port and bring it to another console. Like it's native PC.
...Actually, that's not too bad an idea. :) Pity I can't see it happening at this point.
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What I wonder is WHY Interplay even considered teaming up with Nintendo in the first place. Descent and Descent Maximum came out on Playstation 1, so wouldn't it be wise to stick to the SAME console that originally got (some) fans (because most of us started on PC) interested in the franchise? Actually, in my case, D1 Demo game with my aunt's BRAND NEW Aptiva Windows 95 computer and I played it on there and I was hooked... but when I searched for it in stores, I found it on the Playstation, and I was like WOOHOO! Then Descent Maximum came out and I got IT. But I don't get why Interplay chooses to partner with Nintendo even in 2012... *ahem* ...2010, when they had two releases on PSX in the past. I don't have a Playstation anymore, but isn't there a "network" type place that Playstation has as well?
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Most likely just because the Wii's control system would work reasonably well for Descent (better than a pad controller anyway).
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Oh, that's right. I forgot about that.
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Most likely just because the Wii's control system would work reasonably well for Descent (better than a pad controller anyway).
Depending on who you ask... My wrists hurt just thinking about it.
Also, @Scyphi, how can you port a PC game to PC?
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That's because you're wasting your wrists on other things... J/K J/K :P
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Also, @Scyphi, how can you port a PC game to PC?
Step 1: Say on the box somewhere that it is a port
Step 2: Ship it to stores
Step 3: Make money
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Also, @Scyphi, how can you port a PC game to PC?
Step 1: Say on the box somewhere that it is a port
Step 2: Ship it to stores
Step 3: Make money
As if interplay actually has the money to release a game on physical media :P
@Alieo: Golfing. Ever tried bending your wrists back with the full force of your entire upper body behind them as your club smashes into the ground way harder than it's supposed to? Yeah... It hurts for a day or 2.
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So no news is good news, right? Right? RIGHT? :)
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So no news is good news, right? Right? RIGHT? :)
Means it hasn't officially been canceled I guess.
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Also, @Scyphi, how can you port a PC game to PC?
Very carefully. ;)
Actually, what I meant was that to purpose what they were making for the Wii and release it for the PC instead. Seeing they were building it with the Wii in mind and not PC, they might have to make a few tweaks to do it. But at this rate, that sounds like the more sensible plan to me.
Unfortunately for all of us, since when has Interplay done the sensible thing?
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Very carefully. ;)
Like hedgehogs?
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If you're trying to give them hugs, then yes. :P
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...
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Hedgehog hugs for everyone!
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I honestly have no idea if either of you got my reference. But I guess that's ok, it was a lame reference.
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Also, @Scyphi, how can you port a PC game to PC?
Very carefully. ;)
Actually, what I meant was that to purpose what they were making for the Wii and release it for the PC instead. Seeing they were building it with the Wii in mind and not PC, they might have to make a few tweaks to do it. But at this rate, that sounds like the more sensible plan to me.
Unfortunately for all of us, since when has Interplay done the sensible thing?
I still don't see how taking what we already have and releasing it again is at all helpful.
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It'd be like an official D1X for one thing. (not to say there's anything wrong with the ones we've already got, of course, but still...)
Furthermore, Interplay clearly had some new bonus things planned for it and various other tweaks that we probably don't already have, so it'd be nice to have those things...
You're probably right that it wouldn't be a BIG release for Descent if it came to PC instead, but it would be better than nothing, I'll tell you that much.
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Thread resurrection time.
With the release of the WiiU, I think it's pretty safe to say Descent Wiiware is long dead and will never see the light of day. But don't despair, we've got a brand new console with a nifty touch screen gamepad to run homebrew on and since I ported Descent to the Wii it's only fair to bring Descent2 to the WiiU.
Keeping the details reasonably quiet for now, but I'm interested in hearing people's thoughts about how best to utilize the gamepad. For the unaware it features an additional 16:9 480p display with a touch screen (not multi-touch), enough sensors to track all movement/orientation fully in 3D space, stereo speakers (independent of the TV), microphone and front-facing camera (in addition to the obvious controls - 2 sticks, 2 sets of triggers, D-pad and ABXY buttons). Any ideas on how to make use of all this nifty stuff?
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I think the only way to know for sure would be to load it up and try out various configurations. And let individuals do there own keybindings too... assuming that is possible.
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For the buttons, sure... but I'm after some ideas for the gamepad display/touch screen, like whether it should just constantly show the automap or be used for weapons selection, guided missiles etc. There's even the possibility of multiple players on one console by using two separate gamepads, although that's a long shot at this stage.
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I've never seen this pad so I don't really know. Sounds like a lot of interesting possibilities. Maybe hit a button to toggle between map and hud. Although i guess if it was on the pad, it wouldn't be a 'heads up display' as it would be a heads down.
Discussion with my kids results in these suggestions: Display weapons choices, using touch to select. Primaries down one side, secondaries down the other, with a larger icons in the middle show which is currently selected. Tap (somewhere on the screen) to bring up the map, again to show weapons.