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	Re: RED Volunteers: How big's your can?
	Posted By: Steve Levinson	Date: 4/20/04 6:54 p.m.
	In Response To: RED Volunteers: How big's your can? (Mark Levin) : That said, here's the list of changes I would make: Might as well get started on it now: : Too tired to kill: : Add a briefing to the first terminal, in the room where you wake up, : instructing you to talk to Ian in the hangar. This would make it : explicitly clear that you have to tab characters in the game now, as well : as showing that that panel is in fact a terminal, something that's done : inconsistently for the first few levels. Not high on my list, but it wouldn't detract from the scenario. Perhaps we could also add a "talk to me" label in map mode similar to the one in Marathon Dissent (or the Battle Cat's "secret room" label in D-Day)? : Make the door to Hydroponics take less time to open (seriously, it's just : annoying right now). I never minded this, but if it makes you happy :) : Add a briefing to the two Hydroponics terminals, again to make the player : realize there are terminals there for the revisit later. Agreed - there should be consistency here, with terminals being present across levels. : Noises in the dark: : Prevent the door to the main infected area from killing the player. One thing - you'll never make this mistake twice ;^) : Make the 1x recharger in the southern area more obvious. You mean it isn't already :P : Remove any "sticky" areas in the catacombs to the east. Definitely. : Needs more duct tape: : Remove infinitely regenerating Beasts; the Beetles are bad enough. Agreed! : Remove switch in fake door out of first room. I don't know - it's a cool effect, but I missed reading the terminal entirely because of it. Agreed. : Pattern buffer, terminal, and health charger in reactor control room would : always be active. To balance this, the chip quest would be required to : complete the level- inserting it would open the exit teleporter. One of the most important changes in the scenario IMHO. : Why did it stop? : : Prevent the player from cheating by tabbing the switch through the wall : without going through the underground passage. Agreed. : Add a 1x health canister immediately after the elevator, possibly in the : ladder room. Definitely. : Make the switch that raises half the elevator shaft raise the entire : elevator shaft, to fix the suicide trap that would occur if you fell back : into the beginning of the level. Sure thing. : Move the level exit teleporter from directly in front of the pattern buffer : to an alcove off to the side, which can be designed to be more obviously a : teleporter. Also, re-jigger the Beetle ambush so it is possible to reach : the PB (but not the health) without getting attacked. I don't like the aesthetics of having the transporter off to the side. Maybe instead the teleporter poly should be much more obvious - raise it slightly and make it a glowing white. The beatle ambush does serve an important purpose to speed the player up - maybe tone it down a bit. : G3 Sunbathing at 300Mhz: : Add an oxygen charger to the airlock leading to the bridge. Delete errant : canister on top of level. Oh, I wouldn't wait until the final room to provide an O2 power-up. Maybe it could be the only obvious one, but there should be an O2 canister on each level of the sequence - if nothing else, a secret one - to prevent the player from becoming trapped with an unplayable saved game. : Fix trick recharger, either by turning it into an oxygen charger or making : it properly display the 1x armor texture. Fine, but not critical. : Nothing's too big to Nuke: : : Delete or prevent access to debugging switch room. Definitely - that room wrecked my first play through the level : Floating in Agony: : : Retarget terminal teleporter to put the player somewhere with a proper view : of the room and its contents, instead of facing a wall. OK : Medatron of the Void: : Add a PB to the "front desk" area. Again, this is one of the most important changes in the scenario. : Delete the pit under the front door to the power station. You fell in it too? :P : Add a 1x canister somewhere before going up the stairs to the second floor, : possibly in the small "office" immediately inside the entrance. This is a must. : Fix rubble in room with annoying door so you don't get hung up on it. It'll take more than removing the rubble to make that annoying door fight playable without either being deadly or boring. The best thing would be to make the door stay open a bit longer each time. : Remove infinitely regenerating head bots. Agreed !!!! : Add return elevator to at least one of the alternate underground paths, so : John can collect all the ammo :P And we wouldn't want him to miss any, now would we? : Move Metalloids around in "run like hell" room so it's more likely : that attempting to run through actually works. Well, maybe make it successful on the second try. : Change 1x charger in final "home base" to 2x, replace dangerous 2x : charger with 3x powerup farther away in the room. Sounds good. : Burning down the park: : Shotguns teleport in immediately (not after a little running around : outside). Well, you could always go back for them, like I did. : Add 1x health canister to ammo pile near southeast switch. Good idea. : Figure out why the Gunners cause crashes, fix if possible. Simple - use AO instead. : Looking for Floaters: : Add better instructions on completing the level to the "diagram" : terminal. Seems pretty clear to me. : "Broken" door near end is always open (don't need to explore dead : ends to trigger it). Good. : Replace Gattler in final battle with Michael. Much better. : Last Minute Shopping: : Make it possible to reach the 3x recharger without using either of the : secret weapons (c'mon, everyone deserves that :P) If they can find it in the first place :P : Make it easier to get out of the water in the basement area. It's not that difficult now - if you have the mace :) : Add something to the balcony area above the clusterfuck room to make it : worth exploring (right now it's just empty). That one sounds like it's for me. : Heads or Tails: : Remove silly login message on first terminal. It's not that silly - and we have to leave something of artistic license to Ian unless he's embarassed by it now. : Remove brothers ambush in bridge area. Why? There's a pattern buffer just before it, so it's not a suicide trap or anything. Although I have to admit, the first few times I really did try to kill the brothers (and as someone else commented, actually succeeded at least with one of them - something that could really wreck the rest of the story). : Adjust ammo to make sure that shotgun shells are always available at the : bridge. But I thought that they were, thanks to the regenerating shotgun ammo nearby. : Jagermeister's Nightmare: : Place 2 mine packs at the location of each breach point, so it's no longer : easy to run out of mines before then. Absolutely necessary. : Change first terminal message to be more clear about returning to that : location, then change final terminal message to instruct player explicitly : to go to "secret" level exit. It already does tell the player to return, but it's not at all clear how they are to do that. Perhaps there could be a more direct exit rout to the "secret" exit. : Tastes Like Evil: : Tone down infinite Beetle supply to remove monster lockdown cheat. Which I never realized could come into play here in the first place. : Add pattern buffer directly before blood run. Since it is definitely : possible to make the run without knowing about the switch, and most of the : frustration would be removed by not having to do the level again on each : failure, I no longer think it needs any more changes. Just adding a pattern buffer - any pattern buffer anywhere, would make this level playable. : Can we say MOSH PIT: : Add mechanism for determining if Ian has been killed and altering terminal : accordingly. Same thing happened to me, too, so I definitely agree with this one. : To the Liver: : Tone down infinite beetles again. No problem with that one. : Argue about what to do about the fusion mace. And that is the crux of it, isn't it? I doubt that we'll get full agreement on this, and Ian hasn't chimed in yet. My vote would be a combination, it it's possible - limite the maximum charge to 3X shields and make sure that no area is free of ghosts on future levels. Also, as compensation, make the mace recharge shields no mater where you are or which way you look. : Re-add pattern buffer before blood run. Agreed. : Chaos Inc: : Add the Rebellion flag and a complete set of Reaver weapons to spawn point, : to allow the player to resume the story after Up from the Depths. : : Up from the Depths...: : : Add proper terminal and teleport back to Chaos Inc to giant Ian clone. Yes to both. : That should be enough to start discussion... I'll try to think of any other problem areas that need fixing. I think the question of what to do about the mace will likely dominate the discussion - at least until you demonstrate something that works.

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Replies:

	RED Volunteers: How big's your can?	Mark Levin	4/20/04 11:16 a.m.
	Re: RED Volunteers: How big's your can?	Dr. John Sumner	4/20/04 1:35 p.m.
	Re: RED Volunteers: How big's your can?	Mark Levin	4/20/04 2:17 p.m.
	Re: RED Volunteers: How big's your can?	Dr. John Sumner	4/20/04 2:21 p.m.
	Re: RED Volunteers: How big's your can?	Steve Levinson	4/20/04 5:09 p.m.
	Re: RED Volunteers: Questions, and questions...	Ernie	4/20/04 6:57 p.m.
	Re: RED Volunteers: How big's your can?	Dr. John Sumner	4/21/04 4:06 a.m.
	Re: RED Volunteers: How big's your can?	Steve Levinson	4/21/04 5:30 a.m.
	Re: RED Volunteers: How big's your can?	Dr. John Sumner	4/21/04 6:08 a.m.
	Re: RED Volunteers: How big's your can?	Steve Levinson	4/20/04 6:54 p.m.
	Re: RED Volunteers: How big's your can?	Mark Levin	4/20/04 9:31 p.m.
	Re: RED Volunteers: How big's your can?	Steve Levinson	4/20/04 7:12 p.m.
	Re: RED Volunteers: How big's your can?	Mark Levin	4/20/04 9:35 p.m.
	Re: RED Volunteers: How big's your can?	goran	4/20/04 9:45 p.m.
	Re: RED Volunteers: How big's your can?	Callie21V	4/21/04 5:43 p.m.

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