: Yes, I'm back, but as I mentioned in my e-mail, I'm going to be very, very
: busy during the coming month and will be out of the country and without
: any Internet access for most of February. I cannot lead a volunteers
: series on Eternal, but would be happy to contribute to it, at least during
: January. I do have a reservation about a volunteers series at this point,
: however - two levels are still missing and the series will be incomplete -
: unless you seed us some betas of these levels. I've also been meaning to
: e-mail you with more of my thoughts and a few more bug reports. I still
: think you way overdo the regenerating monsters - some levels are just not
: enjoyable on TC because of it. And as much as I was amazed by Mark IV,
: Mark V was a bit of a disappointment, though I'll reserve judgement until
: the missing chapters are done. I guess I just didn't fully understand the
: story of that last chapter.
Yeah, I was a bit afraid that the last chapter would be a bit too jarring, because the monster types AND terminal personalities (AIs, etc) change completely there; none of the monsters or characters in Ch5 are found elsewhere, or vice versa. It's like a whole different scenario within a scenario. I was also finding it really hard to get the neccesary story information about that chapter conveyed without gettting overly expositional on the part of the Watcher; the Watcher would presume you already know all of this, and thus have no reason to explain it all to you. Maybe if the terminal from Floating in the Void was a little more clear, perhaps?
I realized when doing the final test run through before release that it's not even very clear where exactly you are in Ch5 - a planet? A ship? Some kind of spacestation? What? *I* know what it is, of course, but is it discernable from the terminal texts?
If you have any ideas for how to make the transition into Ch5 any smoother, please let me know. I'm considering making some new monsters for Eternal X which might cross over between the chapters. Maybe just having the proper sprites for the Ch5 enemies would make it make a bit more sense. I wish I had some way of bringing other characters (AIs, etc) along from previous chapters, other than the dream sequence in Meta Omega. There will also be more exposition in the epilogue level after Ch5, which might help to explain some things.
One more thing, for you Steve - about the regenerating monsters, are you referring mostly to the unending hordes in Ch5? The idea there is supposed to be that you can't stand and fight them - they just keep coming. You have to run. Weapons are only useful for clearing a path, which is why you get the Electro Jjaro Thunder Bowler to knock 'em down out of your way. It's a plot element - these are the things who defeated the Jjaro, and if their entire civilization couldn't win against them, neither can you. All you can hope for is that they lose too, when you do. Mutually assured destruction.
