DescentBB

It was purely deliberate on Parallax's part.

The games' releases were separated only by a year or so, Descent 1 in no way became obsolete with Descent 2's launch.

So the differences had to be kept to a maximum in order to still give people an incentive to purchase D1, simple as that.

Keep in mind that initially there wasn't supposed to be a D2 - the plan was to make a "CD-Enhanced" version of Descent, which would likely have worked as an add-on and been much closer to D1 in appearance. But Parallax was wise to notice that taking two steps would greatly increase their profits - Step one: make a standalone sequel rather than an add-on. Step two: maximize the aesthetics and mechanics differences between the two products so that people will keep buying both.

It seems so clear in retrospect. Descent 2 was deliberately made to only partially accomodate D1 content. The cut sounds and texutres could very well have been kept (the D2 PIG files have more individual textures in them than Descent.PIG, so I don't think they had to deal with a limit). As could the D1 palette. D1 robots could have been used alongside the new ones in Counterstrike. But that way, D2 being everything D1 was and better, no one would buy D1 anymore.

Vertigo then followed, with a more reconciliatory approach, but it still didn't tamper with the game content and instead went for something new altogether, borrowing from both D1 and D2. Another smart move, as playing Vertigo doesn't mean one can predict his experiences with First Strike or Counterstrike.

So basically, recent developments such as Pumo's D1 palette for D2 and my sound patch would have been very, very much against Parallax's policy at the time. Hell, they might still sue us for all we know! haha

Not likely, it's not 1996 anymore.
19 years does a lot to put these things in perspective.

Alter-Fox wrote:Not likely, it's not 1996 anymore.
19 years does a lot to put these things in perspective.

Well, they still have enough juice in them to ★■◆● at teh Sol Contingency team for infringing on copyrights, so what do you know

That wasn't Parallax.
We never heard anything from Volition, although personally I'd have liked to...

Oh riiiight. I forgot Parallax was not the publisher, that would be Interplay. And they have reacquired the rights to the franchise, right? They really should contract some studio to whip out a new title. Descent has the potential to be at least an AA franchise.

That's what the studios behind Descent : Underground wants to accomplish: http://descentbb.net/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=21878
Or so they said, I hope they will achieve their goal so we can see a new quality Descent game!

It appears Interplay owns the trademark "Descent", and the other stuff necessary to make a title, but Parallax (or its successor entities these days) retained the designs and various other elements from the implementation of the game. This appears to make things a little complicated. I'd have to figure not insurmountable though; neither Volition nor Toschlog and whoever else owns the Outrage half of the enterprise show any interest in using that IP, so they may be willing to license it somehow.