DescentBB

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Killing the Material Defender is part of the cover up. PTMC doesn't want anyone to find out they are responsible for the damage caused by the alien virus.

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typematrix wrote: ↑Tue Mar 19, 2019 2:34 pmBut where did MD find that out in D1 and D2?

Nowhere, but that's the implied subtext. Here are key points:

PTMC is a massive corporation (largest bureaucracy in human history), but they do illegal and immoral things, for instance, the Pyro-GX has "illegally" modified lasers. The PTMC wants the mines destroyed with no regard for the human hostages. The Material Defender is a mercenary who also does illegal and immoral things, like "putting down the humans-first strike" (admits killing people). The PTMC has a military division, but are not themselves the military. Dravis refers to the "robot invasion force" converging on Earth. but there is no mention of getting the military involved, which means they are keeping the whole thing secret.

All of these facts imply the PTMC has made some kind of horrible, illegal mistake and wants to cover it up. And as we've seen from countless examples in fiction, tying up loose ends by killing those who do your "dirty work" is almost expected.

Of course, you could say that in the end of D2, Dravis sounds generally concerned for the well-being of the Material Defender. I don't have an answer for that. We can pretend that Dravis had to "act" concerned for whatever reason, but there is no evidence to support this.

You just gave me an idea... (no I'm not saying what )

Also a couple decades is long enough for something to not be a spoiler :3

Huh, that's an interesting perspective Vision.
Could just as easily imply that PTMC doesn't want anyone to find out that they let things get so far out of control (and the virus really is from somewhere else).

Heh, the Material Defender even calls what he's doing Dravis's "dirty work" at one point.
Would be a lot clearer if the games ever gave you a look at the world *outside* PTMC, but even D3 didn't really do that -- while there are a few other organizations involved, everything they do in the story still revolves around the company.

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Game Dravis is an idiot and that level was clearly built before the story got written. Probably one of the first of the game judging by the relatively simplistic geometry and objectives compared to other maps. From all the different ways you can interact with robots and matcens and props and switches in different rooms it's more than likely to have originally been a testbed for the objective and scripting systems which later got expanded into a full mission. A Proving Grounds for the game engine before it was ever one for PTMC.
The book has a better story scene in its place which explains Dravis's character and motivations more than the game does, but without the fighty giant spider robots.

Best to ignore the story in that map and just play it cause it's actually a pretty cool level otherwise.

It has some decent music. It also leads to one of my favourite secret levels, the High Velocity Weapons Research. At least I think that's what it's called.

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The whole D3 story is completely unnecessary, IMO. Then again, I never cared for stories in games.

Descent 3 and the majority of its levels were largely completed in 1998, there are a couple listed as 1999 (levels 4, 5, 9, secret levels) and the production notes seem to indicate levels 3, 8 and 15 are very early in the design process. It's worth noting that there are were about 3-4 guys working on levels in D3, so it would be hard to say which ones were completed first.

The levels you see in the final product are not how they started. Many of the levels were rebuilt several times as the engine kept changing and things were falling apart, being put back together again, etc.

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One of most satisfying things is sneaking up to a super hulk and destroying it without it ever shooting you.
Now that's an assassination right there.

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