BFDD's save Descent 3 thread

BfDiDDy · Post by **BfDiDDy** » Sat Jun 05, 2004 9:49 am

Since all this PXO henny penny stuff has been going down, Iâ??ve decided to write my own â??save Descent 3â?

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sat Jun 05, 2004 11:17 am

It is already too late BFDD. One comment tho, a while ago they mentioned that it could be possible to release the PXO code and domains to the public. If we did that, the chat room could be transported to a different IRC server. The game tracker could be deintigrated from PXO directly and would allow TCP/IP joins. And the whole thing would likely be much more reliable.

Suncho · Post by **Suncho** » Sat Jun 05, 2004 12:46 pm

BFDD, I completely agree with everything you said... except the modified ship models...

I've never heard of Gamesurge before, but that's cool! Thanks for the tip!

We tried to break into the leagues and ladders world, but that was when PXO was still up. The GGL has since removed Descent 3 because of a seeming lack of interest. But once we know for sure that PXO is gone for good, I'll ask them if they can put Descent 3 back on for next season! Thanks for the links to the other leagues too. =)

kurupt · Post by **kurupt** » Sat Jun 05, 2004 3:44 pm

gamesurge used to be gamesnet, been around for years. thats where we played quack.

Suncho · Post by **Suncho** » Sat Jun 05, 2004 3:54 pm

Oh, gamesnet ok! I know what gamesnet is. =)

Top Gun · Post by **Top Gun** » Sat Jun 05, 2004 4:35 pm

I agree with everything except for deleting singleplayer. "From my cold, dead hands!"

Suncho · Post by **Suncho** » Sat Jun 05, 2004 4:38 pm

Nobody's gonna delete YOUR singleplayer. He's just saying that it would be nice if we could distribute a free version of Descent 3 with no singleplayer.

kurupt · Post by **kurupt** » Sat Jun 05, 2004 4:39 pm

i think he meant deleting single player from the freely available version. most of you probably don't know, but gearbox software created and recently released a custom standalone version of halo because they couldn't get microsoft and bungie to support the game anymore. now they support this new version by themselves and have made significant upgrades to an otherwise dead game (from a developer standpoint). i think he was suggesting taking d3 this route as well.

Skyalmian · Post by **Skyalmian** » Sat Jun 05, 2004 5:43 pm

now they support this new version by themselves and have made significant upgrades to an otherwise dead game (from a developer standpoint)

Yeah, the first and last. They gave up less than 3 weeks after its release.

Top Gun · Post by **Top Gun** » Sat Jun 05, 2004 6:10 pm

I did mean that. I know nothing can affect my use of singleplayer, but I don't want it taken out of D3, even a freely downloadable version. While D3's singleplayer may not be up to the high standards of such games as Freespace, it can still be pretty fun, and whenever someone started a co-op game on PXO, it quickly filled up.

(Just as a footnote, would anyone be interested in hosting a dedicated co-op server?)

kurupt · Post by **kurupt** » Sat Jun 05, 2004 6:42 pm

the important thing about removing the single player is that its probably less than 100 megs for multi only and what, a gig for both?

Top Gun · Post by **Top Gun** » Sat Jun 05, 2004 7:17 pm

Either way, I doubt it would ever happen. However, if it did, I wouldn't really object to it if it was a help to the community.

BfDiDDy · Post by **BfDiDDy** » Sun Jun 06, 2004 9:29 am

BFDD, I completely agree with everything you said... except the modified ship models...

There is a reason why I put that in there. D3 is a 5 year old game, and while its a labor of love for us. For someone else its just another game. You have to realize other gamers buy games just because they are "perty" or have lots of "eye candy". If D3 can handle the extra polly's then I think it should be manditory that we use better looking ship models, and wepon effects.

I did mean that. I know nothing can affect my use of singleplayer, but I don't want it taken out of D3, even a freely downloadable version. While D3's singleplayer may not be up to the high standards of such games as Freespace, it can still be pretty fun, and whenever someone started a co-op game on PXO, it quickly filled up.

This idea isn't about you or me, its about the greater good of all of D3...the chances of someone downloading a game at 100mb vs 1gb+ is vastly increased. If we could get 17,000+ downloads to download a 100mb file vs 1,000 or 2,000 to download the 1gb wouldn't that be better?

Darkside Heartless · Post by **Darkside Heartless** » Sun Jun 06, 2004 10:24 am

I say ditch the SP for the downloadable version, my brother plays on my computer periodicly, and he's never touched the SP part of D3.
Personally, I love the SP part, but it dosn't add a whole lot to the community, other than the occasional question and coop missions.

Kyouryuu · Post by **Kyouryuu** » Sun Jun 06, 2004 11:00 am

BfDiDDy wrote:There is a reason why I put that in there. D3 is a 5 year old game, and while its a labor of love for us. For someone else its just another game. You have to realize other gamers buy games just because they are "perty" or have lots of "eye candy". If D3 can handle the extra polly's then I think it should be manditory that we use better looking ship models, and wepon effects.

The problem is that it looks inconsistent and ugly, in my opinion at least. What's going to attract people into downloading Descent 3 is not prettier ship models, but prettier everything. A 2,000 polygon ship contrasts badly against an environment that only seems to have 300 polygons at any given time. People won't oogle over ships, they'll oogle entire environments. Would dropping 5,000 polygon player models into Quake 1 make you want to play Quake 1? Probably not. It's not something that hurts, but it's effect probably isn't as huge as one would hope.

BfDiDDy wrote:This idea isn't about you or me, its about the greater good of all of D3...the chances of someone downloading a game at 100mb vs 1gb+ is vastly increased. If we could get 17,000+ downloads to download a 100mb file vs 1,000 or 2,000 to download the 1gb wouldn't that be better?

Theoretically. But, it would be more difficult than you realize to seperate singleplayer from multiplayer. All of the weapon, player, and robot models are stuffed into the same package. You'd also have to rig a way to not allow the player to start the singleplayer campaign. This isn't as simple as "well, just take out the levels." The singleplayer maps, uncompressed, amount to just about 250 megs. I would suspect they would compress to about half that. I think gamers would be willing to endure that extra load, on top of the 100 meg (your estimate, not mine) package, when they know they are getting the complete and full game. Either players will want the game or they won't. If they want it, they will leave their 56K modems on overnight to get it. In any case, it's vastly less than your inflated 1GB+ figure. The only way you can get to 1GB is if you bundle the movies with it, which I just can't see happening because they add so little to the game relative to their size. But 200 megs is reasonable. Map packs for Unreal Tournament 2004 are this size. And more game demos today are just above 100 megs. If you're getting a full game for your time, I think most gamers will see 200 megs as worth it.

Suncho · Post by **Suncho** » Sun Jun 06, 2004 12:51 pm

Kyouryuu wrote: The problem is that it looks inconsistent and ugly, in my opinion at least. What's going to attract people into downloading Descent 3 is not prettier ship models, but prettier everything. A 2,000 polygon ship contrasts badly against an environment that only seems to have 300 polygons at any given time. People won't oogle over ships, they'll oogle entire environments. Would dropping 5,000 polygon player models into Quake 1 make you want to play Quake 1? Probably not. It's not something that hurts, but it's effect probably isn't as huge as one would hope.

Yes. Exactly. Not only that, but people who bought the game will have different ship models. We've already seen that alternative ship models can cause weird side effects. For example, the Pyro-GX for Pyro-GL MOD allows the player to fly through cracks that the Pyro-GL can't ordinarily fly through.

Also, remember that the simpler our graphics are, the more people can run our game. If we go for the latest in graphics and polygons, that drastically cuts down our audience. There's a reason why first person shooters don't make any money. It's because they target high-end users and by the time everyone can play them, they're already in the bargain bin.

Kyouryuu wrote:
Theoretically. But, it would be more difficult than you realize to seperate singleplayer from multiplayer. All of the weapon, player, and robot models are stuffed into the same package. You'd also have to rig a way to not allow the player to start the singleplayer campaign. This isn't as simple as "well, just take out the levels." The singleplayer maps, uncompressed, amount to just about 250 megs. I would suspect they would compress to about half that. I think gamers would be willing to endure that extra load, on top of the 100 meg (your estimate, not mine) package, when they know they are getting the complete and full game. Either players will want the game or they won't. If they want it, they will leave their 56K modems on overnight to get it. In any case, it's vastly less than your inflated 1GB+ figure. The only way you can get to 1GB is if you bundle the movies with it, which I just can't see happening because they add so little to the game relative to their size. But 200 megs is reasonable. Map packs for Unreal Tournament 2004 are this size. And more game demos today are just above 100 megs. If you're getting a full game for your time, I think most gamers will see 200 megs as worth it.

We should remove the levels just in case so they don't accidentally play the singleplayer. We wouldn't want them thinking D3 sucks.

Suncho · Post by **Suncho** » Sun Jun 06, 2004 1:32 pm

irc.gamesurge.net

Channel: #Descent3

See you guys there!

Clayman · Post by **Clayman** » Sun Jun 06, 2004 9:04 pm

We should remove the levels just in case so they don't accidentally play the singleplayer. We wouldn't want them thinking D3 sucks.

I see somewhat of a problem in this part though. I know that if I were going to get into a new game and play multiplayer, I would want to have the single-player mode to learn how to move, fire, etc. There's little chance of me personally wanting to have to learn competence with the controls in multi, and I'm sure many others would feel the same way.

Suncho · Post by **Suncho** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 1:29 pm

I was just kidding.

Testiculese · Post by **Testiculese** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 1:42 pm

A 2,000 polygon ship contrasts badly against an environment that only seems to have 300 polygons at any given time. People won't oogle over ships, they'll oogle entire environments.

We have environmnts to oogle over. BTC..Moria..Chasm. and that's just OtherOne. They look better than Halo, and even UT4's levels in some aspects. If [average d3 loser] would stop playing Abend, maybe this would be realized.

Suncho · Post by **Suncho** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 2:02 pm

word!

Grendel · Post by **Grendel** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 2:33 pm

I wonder if Interplays demise changes the Descent (c) situation.. Suncho, any ideas ?

Suncho · Post by **Suncho** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 2:47 pm

It could potentially affect the rights. I'll let you know if anything happens.

Trackball · Post by **Trackball** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 3:10 pm

Come on people. There have been no good Anarchy games up all day. If you want to save D3 come play!

Suncho · Post by **Suncho** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 3:28 pm

Yeah well what if I play CTF? =)

Trackball · Post by **Trackball** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 3:35 pm

Both are good...just I've been in the mood for Anarchy.

Suncho · Post by **Suncho** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 3:48 pm

see you in damage

BfDiDDy · Post by **BfDiDDy** » Tue Jun 08, 2004 12:58 am

One of the huge hindrances to the Descent community is its elitist attitude that we donâ??t need those that use a mouse and groundpound. That attitude will only diminish our numbers into obscurity. We HAVE to embrace what everyone else considers â??normalâ?

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Tue Jun 08, 2004 4:19 am

Descent 3 levels do still have some issues looking acceptable though...

First off, half the multiplayer levels that have been released are just plain ugly. Honestly, there were 1996 games with better-looking environments than a few of them - bring your average 2004 player in, who is used to stuff like RtCW, Call of Duty, BF1942 and UT2004, to see what Descent 3 looks like, and they'd practically run away screaming the levels are so bad. Designers by the likes of OtherOne would help buck this trend, but even then the levels are a little lacklustre thanks to the limitations of the D3 engine.
Talking of which, there is the little aspect with the terrain. Honestly, Descent 3 has shocking terrain on steep slopes.

The fact that D3Edit is so arduous to actually get a level finished with doesn't help. The only software that makes anything polygon-by-polygon any more is modelling software (like Blender I think). There are reasons why not once in 5 years has there been a single-player campaign for Descent 3. (I think Descent 2 had about a dozen major campaigns in the three years before it was superceded, and many, many more that didn't get widely played.)

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Tue Jun 08, 2004 7:19 am

I Spent about 2 hours actual work time on this in D3edit, more then half of that was just thinking about how to make things in the level look. Once I had a plan, implimenting it took almost no time at all.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Levels can be fixed easly.

Suncho · Post by **Suncho** » Tue Jun 08, 2004 10:37 am

Hey! You updated JazzyBox!

DigiJo · Post by **DigiJo** » Tue Jun 08, 2004 10:48 am

you know what the realy good thing is that came with the pxo-downage? people here on this bb start to post about descent again

btw great work krom.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Tue Jun 08, 2004 2:24 pm

Dont ask me if I am ever going to release the update, I have not decided yet, for that matter, I have not decided if I am done playing with the level yet either.

However, theres something to think about.
before [----] after
2 [rooms] 2
49 [faces] 498
70 [verices] 494
17230 [bytes in lightmaps] 34892

Sage · Post by **Sage** » Fri Jun 11, 2004 1:41 am

Yeas, releasing a free Descent 3 would be great! And for the people that want to play the singleplayer mode there can be a single player expansion pack for only $5.99(USD)

But yeh it should have new player ship models and the Pyro GX! Wouldn't that be sweet? It would be just like the Pyro GL so no one would worry about balancing or whatever. The Pyro GX is just so cool.

JazzyJet · Post by **JazzyJet** » Fri Jun 11, 2004 6:59 pm

WoW Jazzybox! Very shiny. I didn't knew anyone besides me had the level! Righteous. Help yourself to making it beautiful and perfect cause that lil box was a stretch of my D3editing abilities hehe.

Vertigo · Post by **Vertigo** » Sat Jun 12, 2004 5:47 am

A possible way to 'revive' Descent somehow