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	Re: Not so eternally bored after all
	Posted By: Steve Levinson	Date: 8/13/04 7:18 a.m.
	In Response To: Re: Not so eternally bored after all (Forrest of B.org) : Thank you for the compliments on the story. The idea about allowing players : to choose a 'master' (none of them are really your 'master' exactly in a : story context, they all need you) is interesting but would require the : creation of significantly more maps, so it probably won't happen. It also : goes sort of against the idea portrayed in Eternal of the "one true : timeline" - that things NEED to go a certain way, with very little : room for variance, otherwise the universe will eventually, sometime down : the road, end in disaster. However, not all branch points are time-based - : some of them depend only on what terminal you take out of the level, : effectively being "which master you choose", and others on : entirely other factors like whether or not you complete optional secondary : objectives. Forrest, have you played Ben Potter's Marathon Fell? There are two major branch points in his scenario, both of which involve player choice. Unfortunately the first of these is so asymetric (the choice to follow the first AI involves incredible risk, and there are no PB's at all on the affected level) as to make it possible for only the most dedicated to go down one of the pathways. The second branch point is near the end and much more obvious. Unfortunately, the choices of pathways lead to different endings and the only way to recover from a bad outcome is to replay the game. Ben is aware of these issues and if he ever has the time to revise Fell, will address them. The point of all of this is to explain that it is indeed possible to give the player choice while still providing one true timeline - they just have to keep going back and repeating things over and over again until they get it right. Speaking of which, although there hints all over the place in Moontanning, I fear that some players still won't get it and will give up in exaspiration. I'm not sure I have a fix for this, however, nor would I necessarily want to. : Good point about the terminals/chargers/etc. That's a fairly easy thing to : fix too. Also, did you not notice that there ARE a good number of : different materials used? The texture sets all feature combinations of : eight "widgets" (the different shapes/things on the texture), in : three "materials" (in the Marathon set, these are a canvas : wallpaper, stone/concrete, and metal), and five colors. Maybe I just need : to make the distinction between the three materials more noticable. I did notice the different materials, but still found them to be more similar than different. The metals tend to be over-textured in general - making them more smooth or giving them a more subtle, brushed appearance would help. The corregations in the metal, however, are consistent with the original Marathon. : The drop-away wall is easy enough to fix. As for getting lost, one problem I : know needs addressing is the utter lack of maps in the terminals. I : intended to put them in many places and, once again, just ran out of time : to do it right. Hmm... does the #CHECKPOINT terminal section work in Aleph : One? Would make inserting maps much easier... Checkpoint terminals are problematic, but they can indeed be used in both Infinity and AO. Evil is a good example of this - see Mark's comments on this in the volunteers series for Evil. : Right, the dead end has been fixed. This level used to be a lot more : interesting in an older version, when it was a Lava level (which is why : there are so many chargers all over). I had the story excuse that : overflows had jammed up some of the doorways, so even though you knew : exactly where the chip was, you couldn't just walk straight through to it, : some doors were partly blocked, you had to run around (hence the outer : corridor, which was itself partly blocked in places), and once you got : into the vat with the chip, the only way to get out in the right direction : (toward the recepticle) was to swim through the lava across some channels : connecting the vats. When D.M-A retextured it (the Lava set is used : exclusively for Lh'owon and the end-chapter dreams now) he adjusted the : floor heights so that all the doors were passable (makes sense, since it's : no longer lava), and since the media is nondamaging now, the inter-vat : channels made it easy just to swim straight to the chip, and the level got : very short. So I guess I gotta think up some new excuse to make the level : less easy to get around in. Any ideas? Go back to lava! This would be an incredibly cool level if it were a lava level. I understand the difficulties with the different texture sets, but it would be worth having an extra texture set just for this level. The level you described with lava sounds like it would be much more interesting to play and Chapter 1 could use a lava level - it would help to restore the feel of the Marathon. Yes, lava that is overflowing where you don't want it, that you must bypass or swim in would be great. Doors and obstructions to be avoided would feel much more like the Marathon. My advice is to keep the positive changes made to the original plan, but to restore the things that made it cool. I cannot overemphasize how cool this level would be with lava! : Hmmm, the symmetry thing is gonna be a big problem. In general, I make : smaller vessels (ships, small spacestations) more symmetrical, and larger : areas (the Marathon, outdoors on Lh'owon, etc) less symmetrical. I've : already got a lot of Pfhor levels built very symmetrically, some of the : best levels in the game IMO (Gamma Knife Therapy is probably the best map : I've ever made, you won't see it until Ch3 though). I thought I fixed that : untextured door, someone reported it before release. I'm also aware of the : two untextured surfaces in the opening room that I never noticed because I : always run like hell at the start of the level. And good to know that the : ambush is too hard on TC, cause the Enforcers CAN kill you now. :-) And : which Juggernaut bay do you mean, the one you start in or the : "funhouse" with all the colored bars containing idle Juggies? : Either way, thanks. I realize that it's too late to make the ships really asymetric the way the Pfhor would, but you can modify certain walls and reposition hallways to give a more asymetric feel. You can mitigate the difficulty of the initial ambush by providing a shield recharger down below in one of the safe areas where the player drops down. I would still recommend a PB just prior to the start of the level however. And I liked the funhouse area, but here is a real opportunity to give it a more asymetric feel. Do something different with one half - perhaps the left half could be a jousting ring where the Juggers test their skills against one another - this could be very entertaining. : Yeah, the random triggers on this level really really bugged me, but I had to : have a level 5, so I took what Bill gave me. Oddly enough some people : actually liked them, said it felt like the original Marathon with Durandal : being all wacky. But I'd rather be without them if I could. This'll : probably be the first level I'll have Adam redo when he starts revising : Ch1. The original Marathon may have seemed more random, particularly the fist time through, but all switches were generally located near the things they controlled - just on a different floor. I think level 5 is salvagable, but the randomness of the triggers needs to be addressed and the flow made more obvious. And it needs to be much more interesting and less tedious. Less is more - perhaps removing some of the less critical areas would help, and adding more eye candy to make it more worthwhile to play. I have confidence that Adam can fix these things - if his parents don't take away his computer privileges again. : Already lowered the monster regen some (by half), but I guess I need to lower : it more. A lot more. Take my advice - drop it by at least a factor of 10 and add more monsters elsewhere in the map to help compensate. Also, consider a trick used in PF and Rubicon - a switch that can be used to cordon off some of the monsters "spawning" areas. He's in Italy? But yeah, I definitely want more maps from him. And everyone : else too, grr! [snaps whip] Don't make me put on my pleather chaps! Erm... : sorry, wrong forum... Yes, Adam posted that he was leaving for a trip with his parents just yesterday. I told him to watch out for pickpockets - children are often the perpetrators over there. : This is another one of those levels that I wanted to be completely redone, : but didn't really have time to. Tycho's comments that "this area has : been repurposed many times and is currently nonfunctional" are : basically my tongue-in-cheek way of saying that this is one of the oldest : maps in the scenario, it's been changed around a billion times (in Forge : you can still almost see the resemblance to a TOZ-T in profile, hence the : old name), and I'm sorry it's such crap. One question: how did you manage : to fall down the center of the pillar? The whole thing is supposed to rise : as one piece. And I'll turn down the respawn rate as in level 6. The center pillar doesn't fully lower, which is a good thing as it can be used as a shield and to hide behind. If the player jumps onto it once the outer platform reaches its height, however, they will be trapped on it as the outer platform(s) continue to rise. Since the surrounding polys are untextured, the effect is really weird. : I'll give those ideas some consideration, or more likely tell Adam to give : them consideration when he's revamping Ch1, but in my defense are, I : intentionally placed the entire plot (at least, the "success" : branch) outside of areas that could influence the original Marathon story, : so as not to screw up that timeline. Before the netsplit, you're in an : area that the Pfhor have been cutting sensors in; after it, the netsplit : has isolated your area from the rest of the network, and then you : purposefully isolate it further. All this, from an outside-of-the-story : author's perspective, is to make sure that nothing you do affects the : original Marathon timeline. The "failure" branch is a failure : BECAUSE it does change the timeline. Even Tycho's destruction... he was : "destroyed in the initial attack" according to Leela in M1 : (which is still going on when we leave Marathon in Eternal), and then : later "assimilated" and reassembled by the S'pht in Durandal's : image. The way Tycho was destroyed in Eternal, and he even mentions this, : is in a way that large parts of his program are recoverable, frozen in : memory, though he could not be recovered the same. Hence the different : Tycho we find in M2, rebuilt by the S'pht under Pfhor command... Thanks for this explanation. I did mean to mention that it was really fun to work for a pre-Pfhor Tycho - it gives an entirely different perspective on him. I did not realize that all of Ch 1 takes place well before most of the original Marathon plot. Although we don't want to alter that timeline, I don't think it would hurt for the player to venture into areas or to see areas that are familiar to them. For example, we know that The Rose was free of Pfhor prior to Duranda's letting them in, so there would be no harm in venturing through this area on the way to something else. Or Engineering etc. It would simply help to solidify the relationship to the Marathon. : The second point is, as I have mentioned before, Eternal is not about the : Marathon. Chapter 1 is, and making it feel more like Marathon would be : good for the atmosphere of that chapter, but it's not a pivotal point for : the entire scenario. From here on out we go father and father afield, : though chapter 3 does see a return to some familiar sites. I realize that but, well, did you ever see the Back to the Future movies? It would have been really strange if Michael J. Fox went back in time and found his hometown to be nothing like it was supposed to be. I am assuming the timeline hasn't been altered prior to this point, so the Marathon should still be the same ship. Continuity is a good thing - not essential, but it adds legitimacy to the plot. : As an aside, have you read the Story Synopsis? If not, please don't... I'd : like to see someone's unspoiled reactions to how the plot develops. I read it some time ago and even commented that you shouldn't try to unify Marathon with Halo. I trust that you've made substantial modifications since then and I've largely forgotten most of it, so I'll be sure to refrain from reading it again. : But should Marathon AI cores be primitive compared to the Pfhor? We're told : that the Pfhor have pathetically primitive AIs compared to those on the : Marathon, and there has been much suggestion that the Marathon AIs were in : fact based on Jjaro technology. The wires you smash are referred to in : Eternal as "cyber-neural nets", and though it's not explicity : stated, in the Eternalified Maraverse in my head, they are specific : circuits just for AI processing. These are not just general-purpose : computing centers, they are dedicated AI brains. Maybe based on Jjaro : technology? I don't know. But I think they look cool. :-) Oh, I think they look cool, too. But there is a fundamental discrepancy in Bungie's Maraverse - Pfhor AI's are supposed to be far inferior and not really self-aware and, yet, Durandal seems to be able to move into Pfhor hardware and make himself feel right at home. In fact, he talks about the incredible technology. I have to assume that the Jjaro technology that Strauss may have incorporated was more an issue of software than hardware. Still, I think you can assume whatever structure you please and it will be fun to play. : Thanks! I feel a lot better now :-) Good!

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Replies:

	Not so eternally bored after all	Steve Levinson	8/12/04 12:06 p.m.
	Re: Not so eternally bored after all	Yossarian	8/12/04 12:38 p.m.
	Re: Not so eternally bored after all	Mr. Cactus	8/12/04 8:06 p.m.
	Re: Not so eternally bored after all	Forrest of B.org	8/12/04 9:13 p.m.
	Re: Not so eternally bored after all	D-M.A.	8/13/04 5:50 a.m.
	Re: Not so eternally bored after all	Steve Levinson	8/13/04 7:18 a.m.
	Re: Not so eternally bored after all	Forrest of B.org	8/13/04 11:46 a.m.
	Re: Not so eternally bored after all	Steve Levinson	8/13/04 12:13 p.m.
	Re: Not so eternally bored after all	Forrest of B.org	8/13/04 12:49 p.m.
	Re: Not so eternally bored after all	Steve Levinson	8/13/04 1:29 p.m.
	Re: Not so eternally bored after all	Ben A. Potter	8/13/04 2:02 p.m.
	Re: Not so eternally bored after all	Forrest of B.org	8/13/04 4:26 p.m.
	Re: Not so eternally bored after all	Blayne	8/13/04 2:01 p.m.
	Re: Not so eternally bored after all	Forrest of B.org	8/13/04 4:30 p.m.

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