[ACTIVE] Another Story in Halcyon

[MegaTuga]

Alright, it seems I came to find about this very late and only until now I am looking at everything O.o

Anyway You want my opinion? I wish I could have your talent. No, really. This is just... epic.

However I have my own opinions of this, I hope you don't mind.

Firstly, and from the videos I saw the ruins seem much more to the side of survival horror. Yeah I've always wondered why in legends games the ruins are so well illuminated, at least in MML2 and TMOTB there would be darkness in a long corridor but this doesn't happen in MML1. And the lightning ... it creeped me out like I was expecting everything to jump on me at the next corner O.o
Not that it is not cool, it just doesn't seem too much Legends to me. But then again it's "Another Story In Halycon" so it had to be different.

Second, you don't imagine how I was excited at seeing this. It was amazing and had all elements on Legends games taken to another level (I especially liked one video where the digger grabs the refractor and suddenly all ruins seem to shut down) But.. grenades? Flares? Now it looked like a battle first person shooter... but, it's still cool.

Another thing I liked was the laser aim, very useful, and I hope there is a possibility to increase the buster energy for it to shoot more before it overheats, it would be cool. But more cooler (if you allow the suggestion) would be an option to use some sort of auto-aim.. you know.. it kinda makes me miss the Lock-on target we see in MML2, sure, it seems the reaverbots have many spots to hit and each spot makes something different. So hear me out.

With this option turned on, while aiming the lock-on target automatically aims at the reaverbot, but if you keep aiming at that reaverbot, the target will start to move into weak points. Perhaps three or five seconds of aiming are enough? Keep aiming to the reaver and the Lock-on target will change colour when it will shoot at a weak spot (I remembered of this while playing The Godfather in my PS2 since it had a similar if not identical function)

yeah probably you are all just going to ignore this but I just wanted to saw that.

That will be all.

~Tuga

[JMC47]

The item system will be more along the lines of an action adventure game when it's done. Think of the grenades like a specialized tool than a generic high damage weapon, like in an FPS. They usually do a large amount of damage to a reaverbot, exposing internal parts, rather than destroying them, allowing you to kill them in one buster shot, at least in the case of the Foo Roo.

And about the lock on; the reason I don't have it on at all is because it made the game harder to play. Everything in ASH right now is faster, and you're facing more targets at once, so a pure lock on where the laser aims for you at the reaverbot doesn't work - in fact it's more likely to screw up any lead you had on your shot at any sort of distance.

We came to a temporary conclusion, that, we can't really add lock-on to a game designed around manually aiming like Legends had a manual aim feature on top of lock on.

In earlier builds, when not in laser aiming, we'd do an MML1 styled lock on, in which if you were aimed somewhere near a reaverbot, it'd try to autocorrect your aim and hit it. We haven't tried a lock on button with onscreen display yet, but, I don't imagine the results would be much better.

The fact of the matter is that the entire ruins is going to be at your disposal while playing. Broken Reaverbots become barriers, bombs, distractions, lures, we even have an item that lets you call reaverbots to a location using their own alert protocol! Anything the reaverbots can use against you, eventually, you'll be able to use against them. I think that's why, when there are few items available, it may feel a bit limited and more like a first person shooter than action adventure.

I hope this answers all of your questions, and we'll further inspect that style of lock-on as per your suggestion. Thank you.

[Dash]

Actually, the lock-on suggestion Tuga made was good, though I would change it slightly. Initially, lock-on wouldn't be available (and if it were, it would be the MML1 lock-on). But as you progress and destroy more of the same enemies (Foo Roo's in this case), then the lock-on would become progressively better.

Basically, it could be made to where you have to find certain weak points before the lock-on became truly effective. This would help the player progress a bit faster through enemies they've already encountered, and leaves more room for figuring out other Reaverbot weaknesses later in the game.

Though I can see why a lock-on feature just wouldn't work at all. I just felt like giving my 2-cents about his suggestion.

Don't spend it all in one place.

[JMC47]

Hey everyone, I know I haven't posted in a while, but that's because we're working on a few big surprises that'll be coming up in the next set of videos. I don't know when they'll start; a few really big pieces need to be put in, then I'll be able to put one out every week like before. The particle engine, the AI overhaul, rendering overhaul, and even a physics overhaul so it can handle the new functions of the game.

Now that the boring stuff is out of the way, let's get onto the more fun stuff, we've gotten the second edition into the dynamic deformations on the reaverbots. Now, instead of mere texture damage... you get this!

The buster's energy can vaporize the reaverbot to reveal the pieces inside, allowing you to damage a bot depending on what internals you hit. For instance, using the familiar Foo Roo above as an example, shooting its internals underneath the fins allows you to hurt its ability to move. If your goal is to steal a working eye from a Foo Roo, you could take out all of its fins so it can no longer fly. On the contrary, if you want other pieces, you can simply shoot the eye and retrieve the rest unharmed. If you damage it's core sphere, you can hit the bomb it uses to attack with and blow it up, as per usual. Because of the change compared to the older builds, the Foo Roos armor will be weakened considerably.

It isn't much, but I didn't want to go too long without an update, so I hope it's enough. We're still looking for designers/artists to help with ruin layout, feel, and texturing if anyone is interested. We also have spots available for reaverbot design, as well as helping with texturing and designing internals to reaverbots.

I'll try to keep the updates more regular, even if they're smaller, while the engine is in this rewrite. Feel free to ask any questions, leave comments or make requests for future updates, we're always listening for input. Thank you for your time.

[Dashe]

Forgive me for this, but...

Hahahahahahah, you're rewriting the engine again? I distinctly remember you saying this was the last engine build. Poor Fenix. He is still your coder, right?

Now that the playground antics are out of the way, that part targeting mechanic sounds tricky and cool at the same time. Seriously, you ought to show up for iScribble sometime this weekend right when it opens and announce an ASH development night.

[Mikéy]

So we'll get to take apart reaverbots and use their insides for various things? Definitely something I wish we could have done in Legends!

Except when a certain amount of a certain part or object is required to move forward in a game, and that item is typically difficult to obtain, whether it's the fact that it's hidden too well, or whatever drops it is never around/has too low of a drop rate. If any of that made any sense.

Hopefully I didn't give you any dirty ideas on that matter. Things are looking better, even with a lack of videos. Keep it up!

[JMC47]

I've been hopping onto iScribble as of recent the past few weeks, maybe one night I can catch up with everyone and gets some ideas down. Also, this is part of the same rewrite I mentioned; it's just still going. We took a break to add features to do the first set of videos. I hope that explains the rewrite in more detail; it more or less has been a complete renovation of the engine to make it release worthy.

With the whole collecting parts thing; reaverbots always carry the same parts, what you can harvest merely depends on what you damage/destroy during the battle with it. Also, I was thinking more along the lines of our variant on buster parts and special weapons to be the reason for collecting reaverbot parts more than using them as plot coupons. As someone who likes action adventure games, I don't mind searching everywhere for something as long as it isn't mandatory, so I'll be going more on that principle. So, once you know where a reaverbot is, you don't have to worry about droprate as much as understand where the components are located within it so you don't damage whatever you're after. Think of it as an extra layer of depth on top of the whole, trying to not die thing.

[Rockman Striker]

It's good to start over again and rewrite the engine, that way you erase every possible bug and improve the game even more, just ignore Dashe, she doesn't know how much work is needed for this kind of job. (please don't punch me in the face miss dashe!!!!)

You make me stand and applause one more time, I didn't even thought of the possibility of destroying reaverbots part to part, I'm amazed.

[Dashe]

*Punches Striker in the face. Just kidding. Maybe.*

JMC and I tussle over polish vs. progress so often it can really only be described as playground antics. He knows my production nagging's coming as much as I know that he will be running around in circles as technology advances faster than he can get anything done.

[Dash]

Yeah, technology is constantly advancing. Trying to keep up with it and create a game at the same time, to me, seems impossible. Work with what you got and get something finished.

Also, that was said without trying to side with Dashe and make her feel all special 'n stuff...or something.

Regardless, this added "depth" is pretty damn amazing. Something like this could actually open up side-quests for NPC's who need specific parts from specific Reavers 'n such. It has kind of a Fallout-feel in that regard, but it's being implemented better than Fallout for sure.

Still, I would add in rare Reavers that are hard to track down, even if you know where they "live," so to speak. That way it gives an added difficulty to obtaining OP-parts to upgrade with.

[JMC47]

The engine rewrite was kind of necessary. We kept stacking features on top of the old base engine, and the minimum requirements to run everything at full speed is a high end Corei3. Core2duos (And Quads, since the game runs on a single core) lag during explosions or bigger battles and Pentium4s will lag during regular gameplay. By rewriting the physics and rendering with the new features in mind, as well as adding multicore support for things that are taxing, we'll be able to push the requirements all the way back down to the original Pentium 4 (or AMD equivalent) that we wanted without sacrificing any of the features we added. There are also optimizations to make the game perform better on midrange graphics card AND it will open up the possibility of adding other new features that are necessary for a demo.

Basically, I didn't command the rewrite, it just needs to be done.

[JMC47]

Hey everyone, it's been a while, but I'm back with some good news for the project.

This is a stepping stone to the main project, especially with a staff this small, we're producing something using the engine that doesn't require all the resources of a full blown game.

As you've seen in the videos, we have a fully functional, albeit drab, system of randomized ruins to test combat. We're thinking of using what we have and rather than waiting for other pieces of the game to come together, and producing a full fledged game based off of the system.

Think of it as a chance to experience the game, give feedback and opinions before we move onto the main course. Don't expect a video right away; as we still have some work to do even on this before it's presentable again, but, keep your eyes peeled, I'll try to keep smaller updates posted to the forums instead of trying to save things up for big videos.

And as always, we're still looking for new recruits, so if anyone out there wants to help, leave me a message!

[MegaTuga]

Man, I wish I could do something but... I can't I really can't.
... Unless I can translate to Portugues-*pelted with tomatoes*

...*cough*
Anyway, if you want people to stick their interest on the project I think that' a better choice. Experience tells me that if you take too long to say something about it -not necessarily something new- people start to loose interest...
...
That's how the internet works, people never have to patience to wait and give things as dead when in fact those projects take a whole lot of time and the staff behind them has real life to attend as well.

[Loken]

Hmm, I'm not exactly sure what you are saying. Are you making a super duper awesome demo-like thing? If so awesome!
I'm glad to hear from you about the project, Chiz asured me it was being worked on but it's nice to see something official.
I'll be sure to give feedback on whatever you have for us.

[General Specific]

I like the idea—once I try it out, I'll assess my situation over at Project Legends and see how much I might be able to eli you with ruin layouts.