What do you think D1 beats D2 at?

[Alter-Fox]

The green military platform bots...

Military? Where'd you see that?

What's the most interesting part to me about D1 vs D2 is levels vs music. Every time I've played through D1 there are a bunch of levels that don't look really different from each other (level 5, level 9 and level 18; level 4 and level 19; level 1 and level 2; level 6, level 7, level 13 and level 14 etc)... and the thing that made the levels really feel different from each other was the music, especially the way each planet had its own style and instrument set. In D2 each of the levels had a completely different art style (even though the planets all had the same 'pattern') it didn't need all the music tracks in the same way D1 did (it should still have had more anyway ) because each map felt so different from each other one (Quartzon in particular but also all the other planets...).

And I loved Portal 2... ( I'm such a conformist )

[Top Gun]

I sadly have to confess that, to this day, I have never sat down and played D1 all the way through start-to-finish. I didn't do much with it on our ancient Windows 95 box, as I was young then and didn't really know what this "DOS" thing was. Attempting it with the old D1X versions ran smack-dab into the framerate-dependent homing issues, to the point where Super Hulks were literally impossible to deal with. I've been meaning to get Rebirth set up and finally run all the way through it, but I haven't managed it yet. Even with that limited experience, though, I agree with a lot of what Krom said. D1 is a flat-out scary game, even on the easier difficulties, and the memorable robots are the biggest part of that.

[Alter-Fox]

Why the **** did D1 have Europa on fire though?
I have never found a satisfactory answer.

And I have a warning (not that I think I'll need to use it):
Anyone who talks about how "kids today are into this new-fangled technology like Redbook music, High-Definition, the Source engine... blah blah blah" or similar, has forfieted their right to not be laughed at.

[Firewheel]

Something else I recall (from single player) is that homing missiles in D1 seem a lot stronger than D2, especially when robots are firing them at you. Those green Centurion things or whatever they're called from D2 are way less dangerous than D1's red hulks.

[Alter-Fox]

Really? I have about the same amount of trouble with either of them.

D2 didn't have its homer bots on every single !#$!@#$!@ing level though. I count that in its favour too .

[Enzo-03]

May or may not have been mentioned (Yes! A tautology! That way I can't be wrong about it!) but I found D1's robot behavior to be much more entertaining and menacing than D2's. D1's seemed to stalk me more than anything else. D2's robots.. well maybe that really small blue robot with machine guns would chase me a bit. I loved how sometimes on the harder difficulty levels a robot might get little more than a glimpse of me but not be able to get a shot off, so they'd sometimes actually go to the general area, and suddenly lurch forward and pop into sight and unload onto me. In the case of the D1 driller I'd be turned into Swiss cheese. I just don't get that feeling with D2. Seems more like they slowly peek around the corner and then slowly come out. The only robot encounter I really liked in D2 was the first Diamond Claw in level 3 - coming out of the darkness and impossible to see till it's in your face.

[Alter-Fox]

Well by D2 the robots are scared of you. They know what you did to them in D1 right? So they want to be more careful. Not that it helps them.

[Behemoth]

Everything.

[Naphtha]

I really liked a lot of the new robots and graphics in Descent 2; the unpredictability the improved AI lent itself to was a great way to keep things interesting for me (yes, I even like the addition of the thief). But like just about everyone else, I didn't like the balance issues which came from nerfing the old weapons from the first game. I'd really like it if there were a .HAM for D2X-Rebirth that at least corrected the Fusion Cannon and Laser power, if nothing else, because those two seemed to take the biggest hits. The Fusion is my most-used primary in Descent 1, and probably the least-used (even less than the Phoenix!) in Descent 2. But seeing as the new robots seem to have higher HP than the Descent 1 bots, why did they also have to cut the Fusion's power in half? If they had to reduce it, why not to just 50 instead of 30? That raw power was the main reason I used it so much in spite of all its drawbacks, but without that, it's just not worth trying.

I really liked a lot of the vibrant new textures in Descent 2 and the atmosphere they brought to the game. That might just be because as an artist, I'm more attracted to those saturated colors and noticeable contrasts, but the texture schemes do complement each other very well in my opinion. I do think that the Descent 1 textures look more like actual mines and facilities, but the Descent 2 schemes are a great fit for levels that are supposed to read as new territory.

I'd actually prefer Descent 2 to Descent 1 as a whole, but one of the biggest problems comparing Parallax's missions is the stark contrast in size. Level 10 was probably the biggest in both missions, but just compare the two. In Descent 1, Level 10 had a few huge rooms as a design motif, but no single leg of the level seemed to take too long. Level 10 of Descent 2 sent you on a lengthy chase for every one of the keys, throwing in a lot of traps and distractions to slow down your search even further. All of Brimspark suffered because of its ridiculously oversized levels, and just because of how time-consuming the game is, my interest in finishing "Counterstrike" quickly dies off. No wonder the furthest I've made it on the campaign since switching to Rebirth is only Level 12.

[Sirius]

Thinking about that, I'm not sure it gets any better. Levels 13, 20 and 24 aren't that big, but for the most part, they reach their largest sizes around level 7 and they stay that way.

[Xfing]

If I remember correctly, the Coralbank Quarry of Quartzon is the biggest D2 level overall. It's just soooo damn expansive.

As for the modded .ham file, I've got one at the ready. It made lasers as strong as in D1 (and consequently, super lasers even stronger), and un-nerfed the Spreadfire and Fusion. I'm stuck with no further edits, though, as I can't run haxmed32 due to dll issues which I can't seem to be able to solve.

[Sirius]

File size: level 9, 206787 bytes
Cube count: level 16, 663 cubes (level 7 is second at 658)

[Alter-Fox]

Yeah, the last two ice levels were enourmous even by D2's standards.
But that tends to happen with ice levels in any game it seems.
And the last four levels were almost comically small compared to what came before. But they were full of enemies that made them even more nerve-wracking, so maybe that's a good thing...

[Xfing]

Hmmm, that may well be... I don't yet remember the layout of the ice levels very well, since I've not played through them one tenth as many times as I have through the D2 levels. I do remember they were real big, though. But for now , level 7 is synonymous with "big size" for me.

Speaking of level design, the levels 3 and 5 of Vertigo are masterpieces when it comes to design. Those remind me of the fondest moments in D1, both in terms of geometry and texture choice.

[Alter-Fox]

I loved level 11 of Vertigo. It really makes you realize that the set isn't just called Vertigo...

And I remember the layouts of all the ice levels in D2 because they're my favourite levels in all Descent. Probably just because they're ice and ya know... I lovez the cold.
But my favourite ice level ever has to be level 7 of Obsidian. No matter how evil the robots were in that level the design was just... beautiful and the music was exquisitely dark. And now it has a cover. It deserved one sooner.
Speaking of Obsidian music I think I may have found one of the people (Doug Hale) who wrote some of the tracks.

[Sirius]

Interestingly, Vertigo was even more economical on level design; biggest one there was level 4, 558 cubes, and most levels were in the 300s to 400s - with quite a few in the 200s, even late-game. Level 19 was one of the smallest levels in any of the games, with only 183 (but it was also a pretty short level, on second thoughts).

Descent 1 levels quite often ran close to the game's cube limit. Level 7 used 786 out of a possible 800 cubes - it's actually substantially larger than any Parallax-built D2 level.

One of the fun things about Obsidian's ice levels was that they were the ones that didn't have to share music - nine songs, fifteen levels, so the first six were on repeat, but the ice levels got theirs all to themselves. I think they were among the later level designs, as well - which probably helped. All of them had earlier versions which we subsequently rebuilt; personally I had some kind of epiphany around about where I was building the anarchy/flag set Supernova, brought on most likely by seeing Entropy 2 and Pyrocide, which made me start to think about designing levels in a different way. So the two ice levels I had weren't up to quality any more, and Cygnus 61 Military Base (was on a bit of a D1-theme naming binge back in 1998) was rebuilt into Beryllium, and Cygnus 61 Military HQ was rebuilt into Cerulea. I think both levels have small fragments of the original design left over - but only a couple rooms each at most. I don't recall the original name of Pelorus any more (wasn't my level, which probably makes a difference) but I do recall some bits of it. I think it was shifted to its final position from later in the level set actually.

I think there is still a surviving example of one of the super-early Obsidian levels out there from back when it was called Catacombs of Shadow; Koolbear's site has/had a level called "Alpha V Military Base" (seeing a theme with these names yet?). I believe that was probably the first one I built from early 1998 - it used to be level 2. Wasn't as good as the rest of the set and needed replacing, but I didn't want to touch it, so DH did it instead and built Acceleration... be damned if I can figure out why I didn't rebuild it myself, it's not like he wasn't right. Anyway. Pretty sure the earliest level that actually made it into Obsidian is level 5, and it probably kinda looks it too. But it wasn't that bad, and we couldn't keep rebuilding stuff forever, so it stayed put.

Nice to hear you've tracked down Doug Hale. He should pop around and say hi
It's been a really long time since I've seen any of the old crew. Would be kind of cool if we could get some of them back together and do something new, actually... though I'd probably want to invite a good half-dozen to dozen other people from the current scene as well, because quite a few are at least as good.

[Alter-Fox]

I think I may have found him... there are a lot of Doug Hales, and all I know about him is that he did some of the music for Obsidian... but this person does look more promising. Mostly because he's a sound engineer.

The level names from Obsidian were epic. I sometimes quote them for no reason (like calling a vortex "brazen" or building an ice race in trackmania called "The Beryllium Connection" ... not to mention this: http://united.tm-exchange.com/main.aspx ... 65564#auto).

I am going to be looking for some help with my project (you know which one) starting in September probably. And the list of things I'll need is probably going to be more extensive than any other Descent mission to date.

And the neighbors across the lane are blasting what sounds like Russian party music. It's not bad but when I'm trying to write a song about diving into a literal or possibly metaphorical furnace from which you may never return, it doesn't help.

[Xfing]

Interestingly, Vertigo was even more economical on level design; biggest one there was level 4, 558 cubes, and most levels were in the 300s to 400s - with quite a few in the 200s, even late-game. Level 19 was one of the smallest levels in any of the games, with only 183 (but it was also a pretty short level, on second thoughts).

Descent 1 levels quite often ran close to the game's cube limit. Level 7 used 786 out of a possible 800 cubes - it's actually substantially larger than any Parallax-built D2 level.

Well, this is all as long as "large" equals "utilizing many cubes" to you. Level 7 isn't technically a very large level, I'd say it's mid-to-large in size. Seeing that a cube can be expanded substantially, the actual size of the level isn't dependent so much on the number of cubes as on their geometry. Levels with great numbers of cubes are mor often than not simply very detailed. It is possible to make a really compact level coming close to the cube limit if its architecture is detailed and creative, (vide the first chamber behind the blue door in D1 level 7 for instance).

[Alter-Fox]

Yep. We've all seen The Enemy Within and Descent Vignettes (though some of us never finished Vignettes...)

[Sirius]

Right, D1 levels were like that though. Not actually all that big in terms of space to explore and number of rooms, they just blew a lot of cubes on things like the D1 level 7 boss room.

[Alter-Fox]

And in D2 they seemed to be learning to use the engine more efficiently for one thing. A lot of rooms look a lot more complex than D1 but with fewer cubes.

[Xfing]

Yeah. Too bad that D2 just didn't feel like D1. It had its advantages in the atmosphere, but it also lacked many of D1's qualities. But for me, the things that contributed grandly to the overall D1 experience were the title screen music, briefing music and well duh, the rest of the music. also some textures, which sadly didn't see much use in D2, mainly talking about the white lab wall textures like those of level 2, 18 or 25.

[Alter-Fox]

D2 felt like D2 and I kind of liked that better . Now I'm a heretic.

[Sirius]

You're not entirely alone - after everything's taken together, I'm more of a fan of D2 than D1 as well. Most of the XL community seemed the same way, and probably roughly half of the Rangers.

Edit: ...though I may be talking about a different thing. The feel of D2 thanks to textures isn't something a lot of the above paid attention to, save the XL level designers. But it does open up more options. I think I liked building in it more because the levels seemed more memorable, but I was pretty happy with some of the results I got out of the D1 texture set too.

[Naphtha]

To tell you the truth, I had more of a beef with the design and flow of the levels in Descent 2 than the textures painted on them. As I said before, I'm a sucker for those vibrant, high-contrast textures so in my level designs, I'm trying to look for more ways to use them tastefully or combined with Descent 1 textures (for example, D1 metal textures with D2 Limefrost Spiral or Puuma Sphere textures for a facility on a planet's surface). But I also stand by the idea that texturing is easier in Descent 2 because there's a lot more to create certain environments, compared to Descent 1 where there were very few ice textures, a lot of the fire textures looked the same and there were plenty which were hard to place anywhere.

But what I've noticed is that First Strike's levels tended to be based more around particular structural motifs, such as the facility textures and computer monitors in Level 2, the spheres and cylinders in Level 7, the general huge dogfighting areas in Levels 10 and 11, the domes in Level 25 and the grated tunnels in Level 26. Counterstrike had a few conceptual levels with Level 2, Level 24 and the secret levels being the most obvious, but a lot of them felt like a real mishmash of ideas with less focused direction. The size is still an issue for me with some of the worlds, too, and is part of the reason why my favorite level is Level 14. The ice theme is always great, but that level in particular just feels the right size.

Balancing also feels weirder and more unfocused in Counterstrike than First Strike. The control panels for secrets were a great new idea in Descent 2, but some of those early puzzles were way too easy, especially since you could get the two most game-breaking primary weapons before leaving Zeta Aquilae. Descent 2's weapons seem more single player-oriented compared to Descent 1's weapons balance, but it's really a matter of figuring out the appropriate times to give them out in the mission that can make things a lot fairer, and Counterstrike didn't have that.

So basically, I really like Descent 2's mechanics, but not so much how they were implemented in Counterstrike. But hey, fans have had more than 15 years to find better ways to work with them, and that's something.

[Xfing]

Well, my greatest pet peeve of Descent 2 is that it cut some D1 content from its .PIG files. And there is no way to put all that content back in without simply replacing existing content. If one could simply throw all the D1-exclusive textures back into the six .pig files, I'd be the happiest guy in the community, hands down.

The most annoying example of sloppines in making cuts is the monitor with the rotating red spider robot. If you leave it be, it's fine. But if you shoot it, not only it displays the wrong shattering animation, but leaves an even more wrong shattered texture (from a rectangle, through truncated rectangle, to large rectangle). Also, having the D1-exclusive texutres clumped together, I do agree that many of the ones which were left out were redundant or ugly. But there were also several which were great and memorable back in D1 and their removal was not a good decision. Perhaps it was due to them being too affected by the palette swaps between the various .pigs, who knows.

My point being: Descent 2 should logically be all that Descent 1 is and more. Not more of something in exchange for less of something else. You can't, for example, have all the super-memorable D1 monitors in a pig along with all the D2 ones, but you can have half-half. Which I'm working on currently.

[Alter-Fox]

To be fair, D2 had a lot of textures and you're never going to use them all in one map (unless that map is Anthology... ).
As long as you figure out which textures you're definitely not going to be using it's not a problem to replace them with D1 textures.

[Xfing]

To be fair, D2 had a lot of textures and you're never going to use them all in one map (unless that map is Anthology... ).
As long as you figure out which textures you're definitely not going to be using it's not a problem to replace them with D1 textures.

True. But that's slightly inconvenient

[vision]

Just replace all the headache-inducing Baloris Prime textures with D1's. Solved.

[Naphtha]

Either that or acquire a taste for them.

Somebody else brought up the AI for the Descent 1 robots when they're placed in D2, but I might not have actually paid enough attention to notice a real difference across the two games. For the most part, I like the new settings and options that D2 introduced for robots, but what exactly was lost from D1? Is there a coder who can peer into the data to help?

[Xfing]

Either that or acquire a taste for them.

Somebody else brought up the AI for the Descent 1 robots when they're placed in D2, but I might not have actually paid enough attention to notice a real difference across the two games. For the most part, I like the new settings and options that D2 introduced for robots, but what exactly was lost from D1? Is there a coder who can peer into the data to help?

D2 introduced prediction firing, which takes a lot of practice and intuition to learn to dodge. And that's a good thing I think, unless we're talking Stalkers on Insane, their mercuries are pretty much undodgable for someone who isn't a master pilot.

[LightWolf]

no, no.. what do you mean by "both kinds"? of what? aexit sequence WITH the secret level exit/entrance?

No, I mean that we want to include both secret levels accessed by teleporters and by alternate exits. In D2 it's not physically possible to create alternate exits per se, but it is possible to create invisible teleporter cubes hidden behind doors coded to open upon the destruction of the reactor.

It is actually totally possible. Just make an exit, and change the trigger to secret exit.

[Xfing]

no, no.. what do you mean by "both kinds"? of what? aexit sequence WITH the secret level exit/entrance?

No, I mean that we want to include both secret levels accessed by teleporters and by alternate exits. In D2 it's not physically possible to create alternate exits per se, but it is possible to create invisible teleporter cubes hidden behind doors coded to open upon the destruction of the reactor.

It is actually totally possible. Just make an exit, and change the trigger to secret exit.

No such thing as a "secret exit" flag in D2. It would have to be the teleporter flag.

[ThugsRook]

D1 just has a certain feel to it, and is uncluttered.
D2 didnt need all the extra FAT, or the change of "barely compatible" to D1.
D1 just needs the high-res MAC HUD and itll be perfect


hey, is that Duperman?

[Alter-Fox]

Could you explain a little less?
I'd love to have an interesting discussion about why D1 has that je-ne-sais-quoi for you but D2 is the game that has that je-ne-sais-quoi for me. But does discussing why ruin the je-ne-sais-quoi-ness? And if the je-ne-sais-quoi-ness is ruined, does that even matter?

Should we even get into philosophy in this thread, or should it merely be fact-based?

[ThugsRook]

^ id like to explain more, but its hard to describe.

dont get me wrong ~ i love D2 too, its D3 i dispise

[Duper]

D1 just has a certain feel to it, and is uncluttered.
D2 didnt need all the extra FAT, or the change of "barely compatible" to D1.
D1 just needs the high-res MAC HUD and itll be perfect


hey, is that Duperman?

Yes it is.

Personally, I like each on it's own merit.

The one major difference between one and two was/is AB's. That changed the game, but as I started playing on-line only after D2 hit, I really never "bonded" like many with D1.

The puzzles were better in D2 as was the architecture.; especially Infinite Abyss.

Try my version of Thumb's "C.O.D." in Descent 3 if you like mood.

Texture and lighting were different enough in D2 to change the feel as well. The colors were brighter over all. The greens and blues in particular.

[Alter-Fox]

Try my version of Thumb's "C.O.D." in Descent 3 if you like mood.

Or wait for the full version of Army of Haloon, where you'll find a version of it with actual scripting and ability-to-be-finished-ness.
I like D3 singleplayer but I don't really think there were many user-made levels that took advantage of the thing that actually made it fun -- drawn-out dogfights with small groups of enemies. That was definitely a change from D1 and D2's short dogfights with large swarms of bots.

Mercenary was definitely a better singleplayer campaign than Retribution. If only it was longer...

[Duper]

"scripted". It can't be scripted the way I'd like it to. They also added a bunch of stuff I'm not particularly fond of. Also, It's been like 5 years or better since they added COD.

When is that project going to be done?

[Alter-Fox]

It's still being worked on. Slowly.
We got a couple new levels in recently and we're also trying to complete the whole thing for the next release instead of just releasing another five levels (at least I think we're doing that).
I've been far more consumed with my work on LUX and the Sol Contingency lately though, so I haven't been able to check in on that project as much as I'd like.