DescentBB

This looks like it has a lot of promise, and it might actually force me to buy an FPS game. I've posted news about it on PlanetDescent, and I'm eagerly awaiting further developments.

The flare will do you in, but not bumping into a wall.

Alright, looks like the flare is now a "weapon" doing 1s of damage . I think we'll still keep 0s = dead since it makes calculations slightly easier (avoids off-by-one stupidities).

Thanks for the additional attention, Top Gun. All we have to do is hit up planetDOOM as well and the circle will be complete... I can post it for myself at PCNC as well .

By the way, if any of you would like to discuss stuff live, we do have a chat channel now, #IntoCerberon on irc.gamesurge.net. Myself, I'm going to be there almost perpetually (anytime I'm awake and at a 'puter, basically), and the other team-members are also hanging out. All of the changes that went into req v4 were discussed there, for example, although I don't think we need to put out a req v5 yet - next step should be some actual game-related work like prototyping the weapons effects and ship models.

Also, in humour-related news, it looks like you guys here at DescentBB predicted Into Cerberon's arrival.... phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=6417

We're always lookin for ways to give interplay the finger.

Hmmm...methinks Duper might have come up with an interesting idea for a logo option.

yeah... the "We're number 1!" gestor! hehe

I find it a bit ironic that Doom3 could "breath new life" into Descent when Descent itself was created out of spite of Quake.

Doom 1/2, Duper... Quake wasn't released yet when D1 came out.

Descent shields work by fixed-point notation anyway (32 bit number, 16 bit integer and 16 bit fractional). Thus although the display might show '0', that's just rounding and it may be, for instance, 0.2375. I'd have to check the source code to be sure, but exactly 0.0 shields probably IS dead in Descent. If you're using floating-point numbers here (I have my doubts Doom 3 uses fixed-point), the effect will be at the very least practically impossible to distinguish anyway, unless you have very precise weapon damage.

Doh! that's right! thanks!

HeXetic: no tri-cording for the hardcore fanatics.

"The focus of Into Cerberon multiplayer should be on navigating the levels, hiding, dodging fire, and aiming properly - not about using bizzare movement systems to get a tiny upper edge.

iceheart agrees with me on this. Unless someone can present a good case other than "the hardcore fanatics want it", it's not going in - we'll update the Doom³ code that normally prevents "double-chording" to prevent "triple-chording" as well."

I wont be able to tri-cord with my feet. Help!
Do we know about mouselook yet?
Joystick support at release of online multi player?

So if I'm reading this correctly, they're making a "Descent" mod... and immediately throwing away one of the core gameplay elements?

No tri-chording? What?
Tri-chording is Hardcore? HOW?

Trichording is as integral to Descent as Jumping around like a spastic hopped-up dervish with a rocket launcher is to just about every other FPS game. In fact, it's so basic to the game that one of the easiest ways to tell a newbie is by whether he is chording or not. It's the cornerstone to effective movement, dodging and aiming. It essentially permeates the entire gameplay experience.

And you want to omit this feature? How's that again?

Here's what I call 'bizarre': Shooting a high explosive rocket at your feet to increase your jumping distance, but somehow you don't blow your lower legs off. How's that for a 'bizarre movement system'? Or the movement system in UT2k4... or the movement system in Tribes?

In fact, let me ask you a question: If you were doing a Doom3 "Tribes" mod, would you omit "Skiing"?

Hey, I got an idea: Since you don't think your mod should have "Descent" gameplay, why not ditch the "descent" concept and have your mod feature a Tank that can drive on the walls and ceiling instead?

Additionally: If you think Descent is about "circle-strafing" you're sadly mistaken. It's one option in a handbag of tricks, but most skilled Descent players will destroy a dedicated circle strafer with a well-placed fusion blast.

First of all, when I say Into Cerberon will update the anti-double-chording code to prevent triple-chording as well, I mean that it will do so by default. We can certainly put in a little server-side cvar like "ic_allowTripleChording" for people who want that kind of motion - just like we'll have cvars related to how matches are scored (e.g. by kills alone or by kills minus deaths). So there's really no need to jump up and down like this.

Secondly, I have to point out the very clear difference between tri-chording and "skating" in Tribes. Only one of them can realistically be called a 'feature'. Skating was part of the Tribes documentation and if I'm not mistaken it was even featured in the movement tutorial for that game. On the other hand, I challenge you to find an official reference to triple-chording anywhere in an official Descent document (manual, README, D3 tutorial, PTMC briefing) that most or all players would have seen.

Even the comparison to rocket-jumping isn't quite correct in my view. Rocket-jumping is putting two and two together: you can jump 'up', and rockets push you away from where they explode. So, gee, jumping up and firing a rocket at the ground should blast you into the air! And since rockets don't blow off your fingers, arms, or head when they explode near you (at least not in old-school FPS games), why would they blow off your feet when you shoot one yourself? It makes a certain amount of sense in the warped physics of the Quake game-world.

On the other hand, think about tri-chording in the game-world of Descent. The ship has these two huge thrusters at the back of it and no clear way for it to propel itself side-to-side or up-and-down - the likely explanations being either little "mini-thrusters" hidden on the ship or thrust vectoring on the part of the main engines (which just begs the question of how you can reverse, but whatever). It seems likely, therefore, that the fastest way to get from point 'A' to point 'B' would be to point your ship directly at 'B' and let those big rocket engines do their work. Tilting to the side and sliding along at an odd angle in order to go faster just doesn't make sense if you believe the fiction of the Descent universe, and that's why iceheart and I think it shouldn't be the case in Into Cerberon.

As I said first, however, there's no reason to become so acerbic. Take it easy; the project's barely started, so discussion should be simple at this time. I'm a big fan of customization, so we can certainly create a console variable to short-circuit the speed-limiting routines for those of you who can't live without triple-chording. I'll add it to the next version of the requirements - but I want to add that iceheart and I both feel it should be 'off' by default.

TriChording is the art and beauty of Descent

Leon

HeXetic wrote:First of all, when I say Into Cerberon will update the anti-double-chording code to prevent triple-chording as well, I mean that it will do so by default.

I totally disagree. If you're going to make something default, make it the Descent behavior.

I challenge you to find an official reference to triple-chording anywhere in an official Descent document (manual, README, D3 tutorial, PTMC briefing) that most or all players would have seen.

I'm not going to bother looking.

But Trichording was quite clearly a feature -- it's why they kept it in the later games. Again, it's just putting 2 and 2 together -- in games like DOOM, you could increase your speed by running in 2 directions, and in Descent, you have 3 directions available. Hmm, perhaps we should try moving in 3 directions!

Also, the game developers (many who posted here during D3's development) used the feature as much as anyone, and they talked about it on here. Unfortunately, our archives don't go back that far, but I know more than one of them referenced it here.

I think you missed the point of the trichording / rocket jumping analogy. It's not "this makes sense" vs "this doesn't" -- it's a question of how integral it is to gameplay. Descent without trichording isn't descent, just like Quake without rocket jumping (or general kangaroo-hopping) isn't Quake. You'll never find a veteran Quake player who doesn't know how to kangaroo his way around, and you'll never find a veteran Descent player who doesn't know how to trichord.

You probably can't find official game documentation that says "you should hop like a kangaroo in order to avoid getting shot" -- but it's a core part of the gameplay, and taking it out (even with an option to put it back in) would mean you're not really playing the same game.

HeXetic wrote:Secondly, I have to point out the very clear difference between tri-chording and "skating" in Tribes. Only one of them can realistically be called a 'feature'. Skating was part of the Tribes documentation and if I'm not mistaken it was even featured in the movement tutorial for that game.

Skiing was an "unplanned feature" in Tribes1.
Chording was an "unplanned feature" in Descent1.

Both became an important gameplay dynamic in their respective games, and were embraced by the developers.

HeXetic wrote:On the other hand, I challenge you to find an official reference to triple-chording anywhere in an official Descent document (manual, README, D3 tutorial, PTMC briefing) that most or all players would have seen.

Furthermore, tri-chording is prominently mentioned in the Official strategy guide, with extensive instructions. I am not at home right now, but I can almost guarantee that mention is made of chording in the retail manual as well. You can look for yourself, there's a tips and tricks section in the rear of the retail manual that I believe mentions it several times.

HeXetic wrote:Even the comparison to rocket-jumping isn't quite correct in my view. Rocket-jumping is putting two and two together: you can jump 'up', and rockets push you away from where they explode. So, gee, jumping up and firing a rocket at the ground should blast you into the air! And since rockets don't blow off your fingers, arms, or head when they explode near you (at least not in old-school FPS games), why would they blow off your feet when you shoot one yourself? It makes a certain amount of sense in the warped physics of the Quake game-world.

Yes, in the warped physics of the Quake game-world... It makes a certain bizarre sense. Oh...weren't we talking about how bizarre it is? How 'bout that. Guess we agree after all.

HeXetic wrote:On the other hand, think about tri-chording in the game-world of Descent. The ship has these two huge thrusters at the back of it and no clear way for it to propel itself side-to-side or up-and-down - the likely explanations being either little "mini-thrusters" hidden on the ship or thrust vectoring on the part of the main engines (which just begs the question of how you can reverse, but whatever). It seems likely, therefore, that the fastest way to get from point 'A' to point 'B' would be to point your ship directly at 'B' and let those big rocket engines do their work. Tilting to the side and sliding along at an odd angle in order to go faster just doesn't make sense if you believe the fiction of the Descent universe, and that's why iceheart and I think it shouldn't be the case in Into Cerberon.

Antigravity. A simple word that justifies Bi-chording. It would probably only take a few more to justify Tri-chording, but it should not even be necessary. TRI-CHORDING is part of Descent, one of the defining features of the Descent experience.

Regardless:

Your antipathy towards tri-chording really only underlines your essential lack of understanding of Descent gameplay mechanics. Have either one of you played Descent in open multiplayer to a moderate skill? I'm not trying to attack you personally here, but the fact that you think Tri-chording is an optional component of the game leads me to question your 'street cred'.

I don't think there should be an option to DISABLE trichording, so it should go without saying that it's a bad idea to have it off by default. The fact is, with it ON, everyone can fly their own way. Those who don't know how to use it (among whose numbers I can only surmise you reside), will have the option to learn, or to continue flying straight and level. Those who know how to use it will continue to do so. I applaud your endeavor to create this mod, but by all means do it right or not at all.

Ultimately you will do as you wish, but you asked for our input, and here it is. I would be very surprised if many others don't speak up in agreement.

Chording is documented in the D3 manual. Also it's one of the few real physics elements Descent features -- added thrust of movement on different axis. Take it away and nobody who ever played any original Descent will play the mod, it may look pretty but that would be all about it.. Chording is THE key element of Descent gameplay.

I'm too busy to really digest your opinions right now (at work), but rest assured that the team and I will be talking this over tonight. I'll certainly also check my D1 and D3 manuals for any reference to moving in three directions at once being faster than just one. In the meantime, here's a quote I was looking for by John Romero (re: DOOM strafe-running)

http://www.gamers.org/pub/idgames2/docs ... alk400.txt

---

-> <_Avatar_> and how will the great DOOM control system be improved upon?
-> Is it possible?
-> <Romero> combat in Quake isn't as fast as in DOOM, we've slowed
-> the player down a little to make combat a little more strategic.
-> <_Avatar_> slowed the player down..
-> <_Avatar_> no strafe run?
-> <Romero> yes, strafe-run.
-> <_Avatar_> you can?
-> <Romero> but not with the goofy 45 angle bug

---

i.e., sure you can move sideways and forwards, but not faster than you could just move sideways or just move forwards - a correct maximum velocity should be used.

Point: HeXetic.

Except that "feature or bug" status in Doom is irrelevant. I happen to agree that it makes no sense in Doom, BTW. However, this is Descent we're discussing. Where what might have been considered a bug in D1 became a developer-embraced feature.


[edit] go check my second? post above... and clicky linky, it's in the official strategy guide from Brady Games.. the "official" D3 strategy guide, not the "sorta official" strategy guide, or the "unofficial" strategy guide.

You could try talking to Suncho, or one of the other beta testers of Descent 3 also. He's usually in chat. Ask him what he thinks of a descent without trichording.

If you can give me the developers or their quotes saying that they embrace tri-chording as not-being-a-bug, then please do.

HeXetic wrote: I challenge you to find an official reference to triple-chording anywhere in an official Descent document (manual, README, D3 tutorial, PTMC briefing) that most or all players would have seen.

At the Manual of my Descent Copy (european version), it says (page 46):

"Dreifach-Schlag: Bewegen Sie sich gleichzeitig in drei Richtungen. Zur Seite gleiten, nach vorne flitzen, Ihr Schiff nach oben neigen und Ihren Kopf nach unten halten. [...] Sie können mit dieser Technik sehr schnell werden [...] Wie es funktioniert? Der Schub eines Turbos, der Gleitschub zur Seite und der nach unten zusammen bringen sie vorwärts."

I try to translate this, but my english is very crappy

"Tripplepunch:
Move in three directions simultanious. Strafe to the side, move forward, raise your pitch and head downwards[...] With this technique you can be very fast [...] How does it work ? The Speed of your Turbo, the strafing force to your side and to your lower will take you forward together."

Straight from my D3 Pilot's Manual:

D3 Manual, pages 43-44 wrote:Movement/Dodging tactics compliments of 'Solidair'

Triple-Chord
Move in three directions at once. Slide to the side, turbo forward, point your ship up and push your hat down. You travel at a 15 degree angle with your nose up. You can get some good speed and dodge homers more effectively using this technique. It takes practice and can be rough on your hands but worth the effort. How does it work? Think of the thrusters from the turbo, thrusters from the slide to the side and thrusters from the slide down working together to move you forward.

If that isn't describing tri-chording, I'll eat my hat.

Even if I don't have one.

From the same general section:

D3 Manual, page 44 wrote:"Try to practice quiet flying, tri-chord around as much as you can. Turbo if you must, but stay as quiet as can be. TRY NOT TO HIT ANYTHING!!! If you hit the walls and other things in a game its like giving a radar screen to you opponent with your blip on it.

D3's robots follow this behavior--I've seen the bichord and trichord to get away from you.

The success of any descent 3 mod/new game is dependent on the new game having the same flight physics, including trichording. Without that feel, its not descent.

You can download the D3 manual from replacementdocs.com.

In this case, at the bottom of page 43 and the top of page 44, you can find this text:

Movement/Dodging tactics compliments of â??Solidairâ??

Triple-Chord

Move in three directions at once. Slide to the side, turbo forward, point your ship up and push your hat down. You travel at a 15 degree angle with your nose up. You can get some good speed and dodge homers more effectively using this technique. It takes practice and can be rough on your hands but worth the effort. How does it work? Think of the thrusters from the turbo, thrusters from the slide to the side and thrusters from the slide down working together to move you forward.

Granted, SA isn't part of the actual D3 dev team, but the fact is, they published the manual and they had no problem putting this in it.

Not sure why everyone thinks it's a bug -- it probably wasn't designed that way, but if you apply the thrust vectors to the ship mathematically you'll exactly get what Parallax got w/ the 1st Descent. Since this survived into D3, it must have changed state from "didn't think about that" to "feature". I doubt nobody at Parallax thought about it since it's a pretty obvious feature. Implication is that it's sanctioned behavior.

HeXetic wrote:I challenge you to find an official reference to triple-chording anywhere in an official Descent document (manual, README, D3 tutorial, PTMC briefing) that most or all players would have seen.

From "The 'official' Descent 3 FAQ v. 1.4 - 05/11/2000":

[5.16] What is triple chording and how does it affect my gameplay?
------------------------------------------------------------------

Triple chording is a method used to increase the effective speed of
the ship. The ships allow for travel in three directions,
forward/reverse, slide up/down, and slide left/right. By combining
any three directions you effectively increase the speed of the ship
to 1.7x. If only two directions are used then the increase is 1.4x.

For example, if you move forward while sliding up and to the right
you will move at a much higher speed than forward alone. This
requires that you tilt the ship, in this case down and to the left to
continue toward your target. This requires a bit of practice, but can
be the difference between life and death in a multiplayer game.

wow.. I've been watching this from work and I'd say you've struck a chord. ... hehehe .. ok ok.. bad pun.

The D3 tutorial before the first level in single play does indeed teach you how to slide. Descent was created with the specific purpose to allow this kind of movement. Descent was created, infact, thumbing it's nose so to speak at all the other FPS of the day.

What was not anticipated was the extra speed you got when you used all three axis. Some kind of math "bug", Parallax found it and decided to leave it in. It was left in, in D2 and was coded into D3 (the engine was completely different)

(ah.. just read what Grendel posted. I remember reading that it was discovered early on. It wasn't a bug on release with a "Oh Hey! That's cool! no need to patch that..")

One other thing. If trichording is offered as a playerside option, those who are not using it will get very thoroughly owned by those who are. I use so many keys all at the same time that I could not explain to a person what I was doing during a game.

btw, Descent 1 did not have afterburners. That was added as a powerup in Descent2 and became a ship feature in D3.


or...what the last 3 or 4 guys said. Slow Gren and Lothar.. Great posts guys.

It was never a question of making it a player-side variable. I first said we would correct the mathematical error - and make no mistake, in the absence of explicit justification from a developer (beta-testers and expert players explaining their tricks doesn't count) it must be labelled an error. It's the exact same kind of matrix-multiplication error they'll dock you 2 points on a 5 point question on an exam in linear algebra or computer graphics programming, and I seem to recall there being just such a question on the exams for both those classes when I was in University.

Additionally, I'd like to point out the guy who's running this show - me - is already quite well-known at my workplace for busting the chops of the establishment. The terror of Development, the guy who's been there the longest and is known for walking in on people and going "What are you doing, man??" (say it with a Serbian accent) before opening up an emacs window on them, is even starting to rue seeing my face in his doorway as I ask why thing X is as it is and why it shouldn't be different.

3 out of 5 team members surveyed are very against tri-chording. I'm against it in principle, but willing to accomodate a server operator's preference, especially seeing as how it's such a minor piece of code to allow toggling it.

So, for now, in the absence of any real actual mod for anyone to test and give genuine feedback on, I'm going to go with my established status quo: that the default behaviour of Into Cerberon will be to normalize movement vectors so players will not move faster along a 2 or 3-D diagonal than they would along one of the cardinal directions. I will provide a server-side console variable that will cause all players to skip the normalization step of computing movement vectors, which will allow players to "tri-chord" around at a fast speed exactly as they can in the Descent series.

But, really, is it worth getting so worked up on a mod that is barely even started, let alone close to a public release? Let's see what we've got so far: threats of a boycott by quote true Descent fans unquote, intimations that surely I must suck at Descent to want to rip out tri-chording, expressions of regret over unasked-for benificence, claims that tri-chording somehow represents the pinnacle of 6DOF skill, and accusations of kow-towing to the "ground-pounder crowd". It's almost amusing. Let me take a moment to say I won't be blackmailed or berated into making any deicision about the mod, but I can certainly be reasoned with, as for example about the Fusion Cannon.

I and all the Into Cerberon team are doing this mod based on our memories and our dreams. Neither my memory of playing Descent nor my dreams about how it should play include tri-chord speed-boosting, so it is not hard to imagine that I plan to play without it. I'm more than happy to build in the ability for others to play the mod the way they want to as well, but blatant dogmatism about how Descent should and should not be played is really quite ridiculous. I'm reminded of the following Non Sequitur comic strip:

http://www.planetcnc.com/staff/hexetic/ ... parade.jpg

Another thing to remind people here of, and I really feel I must do this, is that for every 1 of you that still plays Descent to this day and/or feels passionately that tri-chording is absolutely necessary for any Descent mod, there are a few hundred people who remember playing Descent at some point in the 90s, would be interested in seeing it remade in a modern engine, and could care less about this rather specific issue. I want to listen to you, because you're all stake-holders in any Descent-related game, but it becomes difficult to do so reasonably in the face of such venomous zealotry. Please try to remain calm and civil, especially at such an early stage of the project. I want to please everyone, but since I and the other team members are doing this for our own amusement, you'll understand if we seek to please ourselves first.

It seems he dosen't understand... *sigh*

Please don't talk about me as if I wasn't here. If I "don't understand", let me remind you there are three other people on the team who also "don't understand", so the fault likely lies on the part of the "people who tried to make them understand".

btw ... again. Helicopters can tri-cord.

I apologize, I didn't mean to insult or offend, and I do not mean to offend you further by what I am going to post... but if you or your team actually played the game to the level that I or other past posters have, it would be apparent. Tricording is an intergal part of the game. If you make it an option that can be turned off and on, you will divide the player base. Old school players will NOT play on a server with no tricording. Newbs will not learn the "ART". Like oil and water. You don't want that do you? I applaude your doing this but do not change a core element of Descent. I am not a programer, or level builder or a computer professional of any kind, I am just a Descent enthusiast. I don't understand the math of the game or most of the mechanics of what goes into making a game. I am just a user. Just my opinion... there are not that many of us still playing Descent so I imagine our opinions are not a great concern.

i encourage you to play (or observe) some descent 3 multiplayer, or play descent 1 on a higher skill level for a while, it might help you to see why tri/bi-chording is so important.

i just want to point out that trichording is not simply a cheap hack/bug used make you go faster. trichording is a technique that takes lots of time and skill to master. if you took it out, well, as many have said, descent just wouldn't be descent. it would no longer have that special flow to it. it's pretty hard to explain to someone unfamiliar or unexperienced with the concept of trichording, but try to think of it as riding a bike. most people learn to ride a bike with training wheels, and yeah, it's great riding that way for a while. but when you eventually learn to ride without training wheels, you don't go back and put them on... you know? once you learn to trichord, or even bichord, you'll never want to put the training wheels back on, and go back to mono-chording. it becomes such an essential part of the game, especially in multiplayer. i couldn't imagine playing multiplayer without trichording, it would be awful, you'd be like dodging missiles in slow motion. it needs to be there, it really does... if you take it out you'd be handicapping the more experieced players.

"but blatant dogmatism about how Descent should and should not be played is really quite ridiculous"

Hex, you did ask for feedback. The community would love to see Decent continue in some form. The overwhelming feedback regarding tri-chording is to leave it in. It doesn't matter if it wasn't intentionally put into the game. It is an integral part of the game whether you like that idea or not. The Descent community is a passionate one. You're going to get passionate responses. You of course can do whatever you want because its your project but most of the players that will play this mod are the ones in this forum and they DO know what they're taling about.

Duper wrote:btw ... again. Helicopters can tri-cord.

Helicopters also have a little thing called "preservation of momentum" that is quite distinctly absent from Descent.

well yea. Descent is a Videogame.

HeXetic wrote:It was never a question of making it a player-side variable.

Of course not -- it should be uniform for everyone in a game.

I first said we would correct the mathematical error - and make no mistake, in the absence of explicit justification from a developer (beta-testers and expert players explaining their tricks doesn't count) it must be labelled an error.

It's not an error. The easy justification is "when they coded a brand-new engine for D3 from scratch, they intentionally included the behavior from D1 and D2." Clearly, they felt being able to add 3 thrust vectors together and gain additional speed was important enough to code a second time.

Unlike in a ground-based FPS where you only have one pair of legs to provide yourself with thrust (where chording clearly *is* an error), here you have a ship that, at least in theory, could have multiple thrusters. The fact that you can get more speed by using 3 thrusters than you can by using one is not surprising. The D3 dev team, knowing full well how D1 and D2 behaved, coded the ship as if it had multiple thrusters. It seems they considered it integral to the game mechanics.

Perhaps one of the DBB members who has contact info for the D3 dev team can ask one of them to clarify this for you.

3 out of 5 team members surveyed are very against tri-chording.

Do they have any better justification than you've provide here?

I mean... you don't object to saying that people are being "dogmatic" by suggesting something you yourself say is trivial and that you "don't remember", yet you don't object to being dogmatic yourself by suggesting the behavior should be not trichording, by default.

If it's trivial, then why not make the default behavior match up with what the serious Descent crowd says the default should be? Remember, we're not dealing with people where the only propulsion system is a pair of legs -- we're dealing with mechanical ships that can have as many thrusters as we want to imagine them having. Since they behave like they have thrusters in 6 directions, it seems fair to make them behave that way in the mod as well.

Neither my memory of playing Descent nor my dreams about how it should play include tri-chord speed-boosting

Your memories don't include tri-chording, and you thought fusion was BFG-like, yet you object to the statement that you must have sucked at Descent?

Seriously though... if it's a well-made mod, I'll play it either way. But it would be more true to Descent if it had the triple-chording behavior all three Descents had, and I think it would play better.

Trichording is fun and all, but... You can beat the game easily without it. You can score kills easily without it. The vast majority of people who play the game never learned how to do it. Come on guys. It's not that big of a deal. HeXetic, please do with your mod what you want. It's your creation.

To start, HeXetic, I want to thank you for your and your teammates' efforts in marrying my beloved game with bleeding edge technology. Doom 3 does seem a natural fit to fuel Descent gameplay.

Now to the issue at hand... I do not quite feel the urgency that most do with regards to "correcting" what is most certainly a developer-endorsed - and, as has been noted, officially published and documented - feature, since it will at least be made a server-side option. This I feel is a worthwhile tradeoff (especially since any server admin worth his/her wits in the Descent world would be damned not to run their server without the option activated, but that's just my feeling).

I understand that you may feel unfairly an "elitist" pressure applied by what apparently to you is an extremely niche online "clique" of Descent players, and that the silent majority of the Earth's Descent'ers would prefer not even to have to deal with this long-standing staple of Descent multiplayer. Although I don't understand how leaving chording in would suddenly negatively affect this unseen and unheard of majority's perception of the game, I concede that that "majority," of whom you seem intimately representative since your generous development team are the sole voices we've heard from that side of the fence, does feel that chording is a bad thing.

After all, including this "erroneous" feature as activated by default would only make the mod further mimic its three established precedents, about which although its most widely publicized online community (existent on Kali, Planet Descent, here, and countless other sites over the years) have discovered the at-first-unpublished tactic of tri-chording and, curious rather than appalled, have attempted to learn and adapt it into their playing style, a far, far greater majority of players world wide, whom have never seemed to oppose this development in any manner that was visible to the active minority except now via your two teammates who oppose it, would loathe to see the feature in action.

All told, and I'm sure you can understand this, it seems a little spurious to me and certainly to others here that you can seriously claim to represent the vast, vast majority of Descent'ers on this issue (few hundred to 1 was your hyperbolic statistic), considering that we have only heard of three definitive voices on the matter (and all via you). But, innocent 'till proven guilty... It wouldn't be the first time that the majority surprised me. And I certainly appreciate the fact that the mod exists at all, and am deeply grateful that you are developing it - whether or not I can tri-chord on whatever game I happen to jump into (though I'll probably be gaming with the minority in that respect). I know it'll be fun as hell (Doom pun intended)!

Thanks again for your work on this! I look forward to the first playable release.

... since it will at least be made a server-side option.

Thank you that someone finally got that! We ARE going to do that so if all server admins activate it THERE IS NO PROBLEM! And everyone can go home happy .

iceheart wrote:

... since it will at least be made a server-side option.

Thank you that someone finally got that! We ARE going to do that so if all server admins activate it THERE IS NO PROBLEM!....

There is still one problem, which is the same one as plagues every other server-side option that significantly changes gameplay.

It splits the game community.

If there's no good reason to allow both sets of game mechanics, all you really do by including both is you make it so people who prefer trichording won't play those who don't, and vice versa. You effectively create two mods with half the player base each.

In particular, if you choose the default option to be "no trichording", you make it very likely that everyone here will make their servers with the trichording option set, and everyone else will make servers without it (and since we're likely to be the most enthusiastic about it, we'll probably have as many servers as they do, or more.) Then people will learn to play on one server type and will stay off of the other, and you'll cut the player base down for both versions of the mod.

If you make the default "trichording", chances are, hardly anyone will ever shut it off, so you won't split the player base at all.

The way I see it, here are your options (in order of my preference):

1) Don't give anybody a choice, everyone trichords. That makes us happy, bugs a couple of your developers, and most players don't care. I seriously doubt anybody outside your dev team and the hard-core Descenters would even know the difference.

2) Don't give anybody a choice, nobody trichords. That makes us unhappy, makes your 3 developers happy, and most players still don't care.

3) Make the default option "everyone trichords", but allow the choice. Pretty much everyone will stick to trichording, so you don't split the user base. But you make your own life more difficult in terms of balancing basically everything (especially homing weapons)...

4) Make the default "no trichording", but allow the choice. This is the absolute worst option you could choose, IMO. It all but guarantees there will be a split among those who play -- our whole community will create trichording servers, and everyone outside will create default servers, and users will either get confused that the game keeps changing the way it feels and quit playing, or they'll only join one type of server or the other.

From a purely community-driven perspective, I'd recommend anything *but* making "no trichording" default. That's the one thing that's guaranteed to split the user base, and that's a bad thing for everyone involved.