Comments - CMDKeen

Heads up, your devblog link is broken.

Isn't it a little too soon? I mean, it's been so many years, but development was stalled for quite a while. The only real content the game has is the previous game...

That's a fair assumption when you use something a big copyright holder owns, particularly when they are as trigger-happy as Zenimax, but in this case the game is far older than Zenimax's ownership of the franchise. Would you reconsider making a fan game because a decade from now someone could sue you?

Buying a franchise and C&Ding; preexisting fan works is a **** move no matter how you spin it, especially if you wait half a decade before doing it. Zenimax is in the position to gut the entire community around original Doom, and they might be actually willing to do that it seems.

Wait a minute, is this a static light on the skybox, or an actual star that is physically in the game? Either way the per-voxel lighting looks amazing.

I'm honestly not sure if I prefer this new sound. The AK does sound better, but the gunshots of the second gun just blend together into one long unpleasant noise. Are you planning to change the sounds?

So that was a throne room? Huh, I thought it was some kind of a space temple... Either way I'm really digging the interior, very stylish. I wouldn't even mind too much getting assimilated by something nice-looking like that!

I would back it in an instant, but unfortunately Kickstarter makes it impossible to pledge for me because it doesn't accept my payment credentials. Is there any other way to pledge?

Either way, good luck with the campaign!

I was also reminded of Arma and its problematic menu system. Dslyecxi is a well known and respected Arma player who's been pointing out the flaws of the system for years. The linked video is concerned more in general with the flaws of the engine rather than solely the menu itself, but it might still be relevant.

From my own experience playing Arma, the context menu starts to get unwieldy once you have more than three or four options since you spend a lot of time scrolling between the options to get to the one you want. It's also a problem when you are in a rush for any reason, since it's easy to accidentally select a wrong option.

In regards to terrain generation, you guys should take a look at this: Decarpentier.nl

I think this is a great idea. Community DLC, User-created DLC, or any other name to stress it's paid content and separate it from mods. The word "mod" has grown to mean something free made in spare time as a hobby, and making some of them paid and some not is bound to create outrage and confusion.

Wonderful! It's good to know we'll be able to play the game this soon. The only thing I worry about now is that I'll notice the opening of alpha too late and won't get an item of my own :D I really like that idea, by the way, great motivation for backing but no ingame advantage or unique items.

By the way, will the game be released outside of Steam once development is finished, or will it be Steam-only? I would much prefer to avoid Steam if possible.

Holy hell, now that's some great background art. Art money was definitely spent very well!

This is not about RCS engines, but doing RCS with main thrusters. You can the right thruster (and only that thruster) on to turn left and so on.

I also liked F and P the most, so I'm glad to hear you've chosen these two! I really like the way F did the robots, making the robot icons so large helps in recognition at a glance too, even for newbies since the guns, drills and legs are very easy to recognize. Of course, a mass of robots may blend together, but it's hard to say how much from the screenshots given.

I think the biggest advantage of P is not the robots but the walls. In all other tilesets they are either too distracting or don't look like an actual obstacle (like the "glass pane" walls in A). P does them really well, though, solid but not grabbing attention, as they should be. Its doors also looks quite well. I think I would love to see F as robot design and P as the environment...

I wonder how will items fit into all this, though. So far we've only been shown a key...

Does this mean fully automated attack drones can now be built?

ASCII is great for clarity, but I find letters too familiar to properly convey any ingame meaning. Capital D just fails to tell me there's a dragon I should be afraid of, because I'm too used to seeing it every day. Identifiable shapes are indeed very important, but so is keeping it simple I think and almost all styles presented feel unnecesarily detailed to me. I would love to see something with the clarity of ASCII yet unique and easy to associate with the symbol's meaning, but I may be wanting too much here, haha.

Ah, it would be nice, but it seems there's already enough on your plate. I wonder what the chainsword style would look like if used for the tiles, though... if that's possible at all.

All the tiles feel either too retro (as in late 80's) or too cluttered for my tastes. I really, really like Linus Chan's work on the guns, though. It's a nice improvement on the original ASCII but still remains very clear and easy to read.

That altar creature is strangely adorable. No wonder it is worshipped enough to have altars built! :)

It's amazing to see how much detail you put into these civilizations, and especially how graphical URR is for an ASCII game. It's becoming a true Dwarf Fortress game in its own right, purely by being so lovingly and intricately crafted. I can't wait to see where it will be in a year.

It's amazing to see the various parts of random generation intertwine and form a lively whole like this. The way everything blends together feels much better than even in DF :)

Why do crossbows share their skill with bows instead of guns, though? Both crossbows and gunpowder weapons are pretty much point and click in usage and fast to learn, while bows are unique and take years to use effectively. Is there any special reason for this?

That actually isn't that bad! Especially Sean's voice, considering you had to voice a young female dragon yourself. It's not release worthy, of course, but it's far better placeholder material than you could find elsewhere.

SinKing has a good point that big blocks of text in the tutorial are pretty boring. They are fine in the rest of the game where you can find interesting information on the game world and the plot, but in the tutorial, players want to start playing already instead of having to read several paragraphs. If you can, show and don't tell. If you can't, make the text short. Very short. A couple sentences at most. Also, several short hints are better than one larger block of text.

The new phone is a really interesting addition, but I could see it become annoying after having to deal with it for some time. Including some key shortcuts may be a good idea here.

Whoa, didn't expect to get it right! I only thought of player rotation because of that giant "4SALE4 sign turned 90 degrees.

Those are some strange angles in the picture. Let me guess: 6 DOF player rotation and ship rotation?

Yeah, it's more convenient to have the video here, but if the problems persist, there may not be much of a choice. Maybe try contacting the staff about it?

Aw, that's a shame. Is there any probglem with Youtube, apart from it not being a ModDB video?

I just watched the whole video again. You can't stop me! =p

Eh, I'm still not convinced the video compression isn't hiding the details. The realistic normal maps are very subtle, and even in 720p the compression artifacts are noticeable.

Perhaps it's the combination of the subtlety of the effects in combination with the video compression that makes it so hard to see? I watched it in 720p fullscreen and it definitely helped, though it still seemed somewhat flat and unnatural. Perhaps can only really be seen when playing with the engine...

By the way, what about displacement mapping? (like in Http.developer.nvidia.com except less pronounced) It seems it would help with materials that have lots of height variation, especially at grazing angles, like Rptd.ch or Rptd.ch

Really great editor, the ability to customize pretty much anything and see how will it look in the game looks really handy. The only thing I'm missing is not seeing a preview of the object you are trying to place.

Does the engine support normal, displacement and specular maps? The city is looking great, but livening it up a bit with these techniques would go a far way to making it look comparable to modern games.

Also, seeing the Shield Liger in the city really changes one's perception of scale. I knew it was big, but not that big!

Every single time I think I can't possibly become more amazed by an engine, I get proved wrong. Really, this would be hard to believe if I didn't see the proof right before my eyes.

This is beyond amazing. Just yesterday I was wrestling with ribbon trails in NeoAxis and wished there was an easy way to do it, but all the possibilities Dragengine gives are unbelievable. I really can't wait to put my hands on it!

By the way, does the damage readout screen in the Liger actually correspond to how much you shot it up, or is it just a texture?