[Campaign 4] Release & Development topic

[Rman Virgil]

.

What I failed to mention in my last post as a tentative conclusion was this: the foregoing goals can be achieved without the player being formally offered divergent, create your own story, branches.

.

[Goth Zagog-Thou]

Ah.

Well, I am unable to compile 3.2 on my Windows XP install. Hrmph. Since compiling it on Linux also failed, I guess I'll have to wait for the Buildbot to get fixed.

Meanwhile, I'll keep designing on 3.1 -- and wait on some of the more ambitious structural/framework changes.

Armed with the above discussions, I think I have enough to go on.

[Goth Zagog-Thou]

So far so good. Research-wise, things are finally working as intended, thanks to the discussion that begins here. Kudos to NoQ and Iluvalar and Per for their assistance and attention.

Going to implement the rest of the weapon groups, tie up the mission paths and make the Release for this cycle.

Please note: The first time the player enters Nexus Prime, the game WILL lag until the base structures are loaded into GFX memory. It lasts 5-10 seconds, and may occur up to 3 times. Not much I can do about it besides reducing the number of defenses there ... and I'm happy with the number. It's supposed to be difficult, after all.

[Iluvalar]

Kudos to NoQ and Iluvalar and Per.

Np.

By the way, what is your reaction to the fact that there is no working accuracy in 3.2 ?

[Goth Zagog-Thou]

Not using 3.2 yet, so I've no experience with that behavior. If accuracy isn't working, methinks it's a BIG problem and should be fixed (and likely WILL be as the Dev Team is able to get to it).

I wasn't aware that there was anything wrong with accuracy to begin with in 3.1 to warrant changing it .. ?

[Rman Virgil]

So far so good. Research-wise, things are finally working as intended, thanks to the discussion that begins here. Kudos to NoQ and Iluvalar and Per for their assistance and attention.
......

In reading over the last several posts of that thread, quantum computers and quantum programming came to mind - and their central feature of qubits or quantum bits, which can take the values 0 and 1 simultaneously (a principle called quantum superposition). Not that this has any essential application in the context of the JS API, WZ and CAM 4 (or does it ? ) but rather to say that there does exist a useful exception to the conventional doctrine that it has to be this or something quite different - as in it's both, so to speak.
.

[NoQ]

I had a feeling Goth was thinking of something SQL-like. He was probably imagining two consequent SELECT queries in the research table or something along these lines

[Iluvalar]

(and likely WILL be as the Dev Team is able to get to it).

They did, they removed the accuracy from the game.

I wasn't aware that there was anything wrong with accuracy to begin with in 3.1 to warrant changing it .. ?

To make thing short : 20% of the misses hit anyway and if the target is big enough (like python or 1x1 building) the accuracy suddenly jump to 100% without any warning.

[Goth Zagog-Thou]

I had a feeling Goth was thinking of something SQL-like. He was probably imagining two consequent SELECT queries in the research table or something along these lines

Actually that's an accurate observation. I was treating it like I would SQL. That's the breadth of my experience dealing with data structures -- I toyed around with my own personal World of Warcraft server for a long time, and to make things work sometimes I had to hand-edit SQL databases. I treated the research tree like that.

To make thing short : 20% of the misses hit anyway and if the target is big enough (like python or 1x1 building) the accuracy suddenly jump to 100% without any warning.

I see the logic. There's really no way one could miss an object of that size or larger whilst aiming at it .. up close anyway. I served in the military when I was much younger (Desert Storm days, and for a few years afterward). One does not miss a target of that size unless you are more than 50-60 feet away. But I agree that needs to be fixed nonetheless.

[Iluvalar]

There is no logic there, it's a bug that behave somewhat logicaly. However, it was not intended nor fixed on anything rational. And above all it's an abrupt change : One could miss 50% of his shot on a 57 pixel wide model and suddenly hit 100% on a 58 pixel model.

It was "fixed" in 3.2 by turning all the accuracy of all the weapons to 100% and by modifying arbitrary stats that are still not playtested. There is no intention to "fix" it they way you may refer to that concept.

I'm wondering, you that is making a campaign over those changes, what you feel about those ?

[Per]

Iluvalar, this is not the thread for discussing your ideas about accuracy. If you think Goth missed something, then kindly refer him to the relevant thread. Don't hijack other people's forum threads.

And it is just plain wrong to say that we turned "all the accuracy of all the weapons to 100%". You know that indirect fire weapons were not changed, since you were quite active in that discussion and looked at the changes. So why do you keep saying such nonsense? This is just mean, and totally unnecessary.

[Goth Zagog-Thou]

I'll defer to the Dev Team in that matter.

Moving right along, I plan to have Weapon Paths fully implemented today. Lotta work but I want to get it done. After that, I'm going to work on tying up the Missions according to the discussions over the past couple of days (@ above), and that'll be Release-18.

[NoQ]

Balance changes have nothing to do with campaign, as it is not ever supposed to be balanced in that sense.
The classic campaign is known to be completely unbalanced in any sense you could have imagined.
Also, accuracy was not removed; it's only changed on the level of stats, so mods are completely unaffected.

[Rman Virgil]

.....

Moving right along, I plan to have Weapon Paths fully implemented today. Lotta work but I want to get it done. After that, I'm going to work on tying up the Missions according to the discussions over the past couple of days (@ above), and that'll be Release-18.

Been meaning to ask Goth - how many missions ?

=======>

In a real sense campaign is driven by acceptable imbalance (or a non-level playing field till the very end). That whole thing we discussed about "a way out" is what makes it both keenly interesting and acceptable. Once "a way out" does exist it's a matter of the challenge(s) in discovering it not being discouragingly obfuscated; making CAM mission design both art and math, and resolving the tension between compelling interest and frustration, the artful meta balance sought after in the play-testing and tweaking.
.

[Goth Zagog-Thou]

That's been one of the goals -- to make it a challenge without making it tedious. To take what the original campaign did and add several layers and flavours, without making it too drawn-out (as the original campaign could become).

We're looking at a nice 12-mission hub on the first map, and 8-10 for the second map. Obviously not meant to be played in one sitting, since most of us actually have lives and other things we need to attend to during the course of any given day.

As today has not been the day for me to work on the game (as I had hoped), I'll simply say "I'll keep plodding away on it until it's ready".