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Messages - TonPhanan

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1
I remember him having a crush on her in the beginning, she put him down very quickly though. There were some slight innuendos here and there, but they mostly reduced it to them being close friends AFAIK. 

2
Okay, I got what you are saying there. I should probably state, that its entirely my opinion. So my bad on that.
and while I agree with you on the VICE angle he does bring up a good points however. He is also a senior reporter on gaming with having 10 years of experience in the field. So while the number might not mean much it is enough to put faith in his article on what he is saying is correct. And with those examples he said that they have to be the literal best in their field or else they fail. Which I agree on, if it was just mediocre or even if it was good but missed the market it'd fail.

No offense taken ;D, didn't mean to shred your opinion either. Yeah, he has some points but IMO jumps to the wrong conclusions there, furthermore in a very dramatical way.

The gaming market is a relatively young and exponentially growing one, which inherently suffers from the same problems things like cinema suffers from atm - lack of ideas versus way too high expectations, coupled with way too much money and thus has people on top that tend to work more with numbers than dreams (well, games back in the day didn't devour millions of dollars AFAIK, comes with the territory I guess). The whole MP angle is also relatively new, even a few years ago most people on this planet didn't even have a connection good enough to play anything or let alone had any at all. On top of that, every time a new thing hits the market, there were always the naysayers, talking about how the old thing is dead and will never come back, yadda yadda. There was a time when RTS were dominant, then FPS, then RPG, then MMO, etc. Doesn't seem to me like any of them are dead, especially with the indie movement filling the niches. I just hope that, and there I agree with the author, better sooner than later all the loot box and micro transaction stuff gets way more regulated and stays at a level where it won't feel like an attempt to just make some extra bucks by sucking little kids into gambling and selling people half-a**ed products that feel more like a slot machine than an immersive story. Thankfully, there are still very few examples that tried that though. Well, and I mean to each his own cup of tea, but that certainly isn't mine :P. In the end I think it will be like with everything else - take as an example the super hero movies DC and Marvel put out over the last years - as long as the cow gives milk, they gonna milk it, until the customers get bored of the same old story being sold for the 54th time, so they've to invent a new thing to get our hard-earned cash :D.

Let's just hope the BF2 SP is good and they create a cool game with the assets they already have from Visceral. BTW, I'd really like a new KOTOR to happen, hehe *fingers crossed*. ;>

3
I didn't mean to defend Visceral Studios or paint EA as the bad guy here, the information provided simply doesn't give that much input regarding what the game was, what they intended to do or what EA disliked about it... so there isn't anything beyond mere speculation what has driven them to trash the current version of the game or close down Visceral in the first place, besides them apparently being a money sink. At least they didn't can it completely, and jumping to conclusions, like the VICE article does, is just clickbait in my opinion... SP isn't dead, like he writes in his own article: stuff like Uncharted still gets put out, Witcher 3 was a big hit, the new Assassin's Creed probably will be. It's one of the reasons I dislike some of what VICE does, their articles are mostly purely opinion pieces from people who sometimes don't seem to have a clue about what they're writing. Doesn't mean they don't have the occasional good documentary once in a while, although a few years back they were definitely on a better course.

4
Hmm, there's still BioWare left and they didn't do that badly ;>. Seems that after their BF Hardline disaster, they were kept on a short leash already. Though, I would've liked some old-school linear action game without any of the sandbox and lootcrate elements nowadays' games all seem to include - the statement they've given is the typical, ordinary PC version of "visceral didn't do what we told them to do" with not much to take from it other than the cancellation itself, who knows if it was really that bad, didn't fit the EA concept of milking players dry (hehe, I had to ;>) or if their test players were just delusional. However, with the new movies being released over the next years, I dare to claim we won't have a shortage of SW games anyway ;>, so maybe they put the good elements of it to good use in other upcoming titles. 

EDIT: Wow, VICE has become even more hipster. Didn't know that was possible.

5
Star Wars Discussion / Re: Your Most Bullcrap Star Wars Moments
« on: October 16, 2017, 05:48:40 AM »
That story with the force-sensitive droid on board of the Jawa sand crawler, Mount Sorrow, some of the numbers regarding crew and ship sizes, C3PO doing a song for Han, the sun crusher... oh, and The Force Unleashed was also cringeworthy. There's a lot of stuff that doesn't make sense in Star Wars, and usually it doesn't have to since it's fiction anyway... but some things are taking it a bit too far, even for my imagination ;>.

6
Imperial Civil War Tech Support / Re: Multiple Installations Possible?
« on: October 14, 2017, 05:51:12 PM »
Normally should be no problem at all, you can have different mods installed all at the same time, since they are saved in different folders. You just have to adjust the shortcut with the respective folder name or, after they now added mod support in the ingame menu (options -> mods), you can easily select the one you wanna play in FOC itself.

7
You could just replace an existing one or edit the planets.xml, if I remember its name correctly.

8
The Lounge / Re: How Do We Feel about J.J. Abrams' Star Trek Reboot?
« on: October 07, 2017, 04:41:04 PM »
To me, it's mostly like the new SW movies, they have some sort of other feel to it. Doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy or even hate them, they just feel a bit off in comparison to the older ones since they kinda create another sort of atmosphere and focus more on other aspects of the respective universes, meaning that especially the ST reboots feel a lot more action-packed and non-'philosophical' than the older ones - the SW sequels lack a bit of that fairy tale thing the original trilogy had a ton of, which even the prequel trilogy managed to capture (despite the horrible dialogue :x). As I said, don't get me wrong, they ain't bad movies, at all IMO. Or maybe it's just due to the directors changing, dunno. The first time I saw either of them, I had to get accustomed to them, but after that, and seen as a stand-alone thing, I quite enjoyed them all. Definitely not as bad as other reboots we had to endure due to Hollywood lacking any imagination ;> - and way better than the abysmal trainwreck with spock's brother searching for god. That was awful.

9
I believe Corey and I will be going through the planet lists at some point (for both ICW and FotR) to identify where additional maps would be useful - either specific planets which deserve bespoke maps or more generally planet types/biomes which need more variety.

One thing to bear in mind when working on your maps is things like civ spawns can restrict where a map can be re-used - not only in terms of species (Bothan, Mon Calamari, Ewoks etc) but also factional affiliation (some planets were very pro or anti- Empire even decades after Endor).

Okay, thanks for the info. I'm gonna restrain myself and do some more generic themed maps first or - if - only the ones I have a good idea (or at least what I think is one) for. Though, first and foremost ;>, I'll finish the one map I'm currently working on to show it to you guys, if it even fulfills your standards ;D and fits into your overall concept. I hope that I can streamline the process in the future to approach mapping a bit more effectively, so I won't spend half a decade creating a single one... thank the force xD for Wookiepedia though, it actually helps a lot evaluating what could fit and what not.   

10
Tom: I don't think the map editor is too bad for a dev tool. She's a pain, naturally- and every bloody autosave makes me drop a patch of soft rocky ground onto my clean and immaculate roads- but she gets the job done. I'd like more assets for it- a cafe fresco prop would be nice, a few normal houses, a few farm props to make crop fields, a bunch of knick-knack props... But as is she works. She even crashes rarely- about once per day is my standing average (and I am abusing the poor girl; every day of texturing seems to increase the time needed to save or load... I'm around the load time of Belsavis right now, which is bad). I dunno; it is a tool never meant for public release. I'm pleasantly surprised by it; I've seen far, far worse in my travels.

I'm kind of exaggerating a bit, of course ;>, though the height tool is a pain in the ass, hehe. Regarding props - yeah, more variety is always nice, but I understand why they only have their limited assets, since, as you said, it was most likely primarily a tool used by their dev team and only second meant to be released to the public (and why waste time and money on stuff you ain't gonna use anyway). The only frustrating aspect about that is the lack of options regarding creating your own props, since the alo-tools aren't supported anymore. I also trashed 2 or 3 maps already due to the fact that 1) they came out too small or too big and 2) I went a bit overboard with details ;D. Though it feels nice to do some stuff like that again, haven't touched these kind of tools in years. Only had it crash once yet, but I'm not sure what caused it, maybe some sort of overflow. Hopefully, and if I find some time the next days, I'll be able to finish my first map - I'm also curious what you came up with :D, happy mapping!

EDIT: BTW, is there some sort of spreadsheet somewhere, with all the new planets added by ICW that would need a new map?

11
Discussion, Suggestions & Feedback / Re: economy buildings
« on: September 27, 2017, 09:05:24 AM »
Both of what you said is already included in 2.2 demo. You can now build only 3 mining facilities on a planet + there is an upkeep system present.

Yes, I vaguely remember listening to one of Corey's videos and him mentioning they improved a bit on that and balanced it even more though. Also interesting to me is how the overall GC's all look like and how big they are, since, if one would expand e.g. on the planet-specific builds mentioned here, the placement and availability of production centers would be core to balancing them right and if an overall rework of the income model regarding all factions should end in the same for everyone or in a more asymmetrical one, representing the dwindling resources of the remnant over time and the initial struggle to acquire any credits for the rising NR etc. - balancing is hell :D. TBH though, I was more referring to the original EAW with my statement, ICW has already improved so much on all the shortcomings and unexplored possibilities vanilla unfortunately had ;P.   

12
Discussion, Suggestions & Feedback / Re: economy buildings
« on: September 27, 2017, 06:35:07 AM »
IMO what's missing in EAW is some basic upkeep cost, meaning the larger your fleet gets, the less income you will have. Also limiting the number on mining facilities in the galaxy or at least planet-wise. Let's see what the guys thought of for the final release of 2.2 :>.

13
Imperial Civil War Tech Support / Re: Cannot get FOC To Launch From Steam
« on: September 24, 2017, 11:20:09 AM »
That's a weird issue... do you run any beta version of the steam client? Did you try to deactivate the overlay and checked the properties if you somehow run it with any command or whatever :? It sounds more like an issue with Steam itself rather than one with FOC, since you can start that just fine from its directory...

14
Discussion, Suggestions & Feedback / Re: Planet-Specific Shipyards
« on: September 24, 2017, 08:27:07 AM »
Biggest problem is that modeling a ship isn't as easy as it sounds and most of the models available for EAW are made for specific mods, meaning you can't just tear them out of the existing mod without e.g. permission of the author. Next thing would be the overall look, like texture-wise, you'd have to adjust that too. NEXT obstacle would be the balancing, besides multiple ships fulfilling the same role you'd have to take into consideration the slight differences between them and tune their stats and price accordingly. That's a big chunk of work, if you ask me :D. Though I'd cosign your idea everyday, since a lot of sweet ship types have been thrown under the bus due to these facts and implementing this planet-exclusive thingy is relatively easy (you just have to adjust their build values AFAIK), the next issue is the limited availability of modeling tools for EAW - only way to create the models is with an ancient version of 3dsmax, which even doesn't run properly on modern PC's. Though I wouldn't cramp all the new ships on planets which never had a big space station or yard available (would be weird to have a big variety of starships above Dagobah ;D), there's also the possibility to diversify the build queue over existing production planets, meaning that special ship types could be exclusive to sectors where the corresponding manufacturer had a big presence. Don't get me wrong, I'd also love to partake in creating such variety, though I have almost no prior modeling experience and thus would need to learn that first and also find someone with a working copy of 3dsmax 9, to at least convert the models into .alo's for me. You wouldn't even need to add any Imperial ships to the NR roster, since there's such a mass of different ships you can easily fill their roster without them.

It's one of the coolest features AotR has (the amount of units), but also IMO its greatest problem. I'd love to see your idea realized someday, but considering the big load of work behind that wouldn't count on it, tbh :s.   

15
Discussion, Suggestions & Feedback / Re: economy buildings
« on: September 23, 2017, 04:01:46 PM »
Oh Petroglyph...

I shall ignore the silly fantasy in my head of writing to them and getting them to help with this. If if I wasn't ignored, it would probably result in a cease and desist. 

While you're at it, ask them why there's no shortcut for the pause function, would you ;>?

16
There's a lot you can criticize in EaW, but I really don't think map design is one of those things, especially aesthetically. I've not seen any maps, from any mods, which have ever really come close to being as good as the base game maps (especially in base EaW- I don't love some of the FoC maps, like Muunilinst, because they jumped on the bigger is better train that a lot of mods, including us, fell into). Ground battles are bad because of other reasons. Sure, there wasn't much extra prop variety for other people to create new maps with, but really, making extra assets so other people can make maps isn't really their problem, and people barely used what was there anyways.

Of course, it wasn't the major problem ground battles had, more the horrible/cheap balancing, but I personally felt that the uniqueness of many planets didn't really come out the way I would have liked it. Dagobah or Dathomir, for instance, didn't look like they were supposed to look (at least in my eyes), making me feel more like I'm about to visit forest planet no. 14763 than the iconic landscapes described in many novels and the movies themselves. Still, they didn't do an overall bad job and it was still enjoyable, but, as another example, what you guys did with the space battles (raid fleets concept e.g.) could have complimented vanilla in so many ways... and of course, I'm nitpicking, but I feel like exposing any shortcoming, however small it may have been, in a forum for a mod dedicated to make EAW an even better game, is warranted, isn't it ;>?

17
The prop you're talking about was made by Petro the base game Utapau map (unless AotR has changed it from when I last saw it- it's definitely how the base game map worked)

Whoops, seems like I have to stop bashing Petroglyph that much, at least a little ;>. Been a while since I last played the base game, I really couldn't remember... still, it's a nice map to learn from.

18
Maybe meant Utapau?

I used the file name, but sounds right - I can't check right now though, I'm not at home. They basically used a custom prop to  create thst chasm in the middle of the map, in a way that I had to click on it to determine it's not the real thing :D. That's also why I was kinda sad that building custom props is so damn difficult nowadays, let alone all the missed opportunities with many of the planets, for which Petroglyph almost always used the same props. I think much of the dislike for ground battles stems from the maps usually being bland and almost carbon copies. they wasted a lot of potential there :\.

Thanks though, Corey, guess I'll just need to practice :).

19
Thanks for the replies, guys. Yeah, figured that much, I was just holding on to the hope that there was a better workaround that I somehow overlooked ;D. For the beginning, I'll stick to some 'simpler' concepts like Dagobah, but at one point I'd love to remake something like Coruscant, maybe using custom props to fill in some of the blanks... but before that I need to get a hold of 3dsmax9, which is nigh impossible nowadays, hehe. Fingers crossed that Petroglyph will have some mercy and re-release the ALO-tools for a more modern version or make it a standalone converter, one can dream ;>. The most impressive use of creating the illusion of multiple 'terrain levels' I've seen so far must've been on one of the maps coming with AotR, UTAP. How they've missed to make the engine capable of doing so in a game which literally plays in space still eludes me though :D. For the moment, I'll stick to study some of the maps and - hopefully soon - will be able to produce some nice looking results.

I don't wanna squeeze you guys that much, but if I'm allowed I'd like to ask another question: Is there an easier way to create, let's say, 45° slopes or ramps, than fiddling around with the height tool until I'm tempted to punch my monitor?

This editor is just a little new to me (but surprisingly user-friendly. She even auto-saves, much to my aggravation) so I'm not exactly flush with all its tricks yet.

More like this editor is limited af ;D.
 

20
Biggest question to me: How do I create 'platforms', meaning a texturizable level floating in the air? I've seen it before, like with the base on the Bastion map, but I really can't wrap my head around how it's done :|.

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