May 2000
May 31
I played a few games of Heretic
II multiplayer today, and I think I'm getting the hang of it. People
have been saying in the forums that there are some players who only use
one weapon or combination of spells, like the iron doom or the morph ovum,
but I don't see how that's possible because ammo for these weapons runs
out quickly. I usually use whatever I think is best for the situation,
like the phoenix bow or firewall in corridors or the sphere of annihilation
in an open space where there are often groups of opponents. Sometimes
I flood the halls with acid rain and lightning with the storm bow, and
sometimes I have a circle strafing match with the thunder blast spell.
There are just so many varieties of attacks in that game.
There's yet another senior ceremony
tomorrow, for some honor award or something that I'm sure I already got.
It never ends, near graduation time. There wasn't really much going
on today, so I decided to take a little break from computer games to catch
up on some lost sleep and to look through my school stuff. I did
happen to see a review of that Dragonmech level series that I made for
Drakan. The review,
by Arokh's Twin, gives it 7 out of 10. It would have been higher
if it hadn't been for a few bugs, but most of the bugs are caused by Drakan
itself and I didn't really know how to avoid them. For example, AT's
computer crashed 6 times while fighting the giants. This happened
to me too sometimes, but it never crashes when fighting giants in the retail
game. Also, I really wish I had 3D Studio Max or something so I could
make new building models, but I chose to just use ones from Tropical World
Common. There aren't any reviews of multiplayer levels on that site,
or anywhere else, so the only feedback I have for those is how much they're
played.
I've been going around reading
game forums and it seems the more hype a game gets, the more divided its
fans and non-fans are. For example, the much-hyped Daikatana, which
has gone through many delays and changes of staff at ION Storm, is the
basis for many flame wars on the forums. Some people hate the game
before they play it, expecting that everyone else will. Others love
the game no matter what, forgiving the graphics and all the flaws in the
first episode. It seems there are more people who come up with these
instant reactions than there are people who judge the game after really
looking at it. Other games, like Heretic II, weren't hyped as much,
so gamers seemed to judge it with a more open mind. I've never seen
a flame war on the Heretic II forums that was about whether the game was
good or not. But then again, I wasn't there during the early days.
I was around on the Drakan forums when that game was released, though,
and there wasn't the vocal opposition between fans and haters that there
is with Daikatana.
I finished Shock Arena Classic
and tested the level set online with three Drakan players: beilana AFW,
Adromada, and Sapphire Night. I also sent the levels to a few other
players but they didn't come to the testing server - but the testing was
only going for an hour and a half, so they might have just missed it.
We had a blast, literally, and I think the level set is good to go.
So, now you can download Shock Arena 2 from
my site.
The floating platform map, Shock
Arena 2-7, is done, and so is the final arena, 2-8. That one has
a bit of everything and is good for team play. There's a pond where
you can get an invisibility ring, a forest where you can do battle and
try to find speed potions, a mountain with boulders you can hide behind,
and a house on top of a cliff where you can get health, armor, and ammo
and fire at players in the forest. The series is almost done.
My last project will be Shock Arena 2 Classic, which is just like the first
SA but with the new weapon, powerups, and textures.
Here is my Question of the Week,
which actually ran for 2 weeks, and the answer it received:
| Question of the Week: Is it a good idea to make movies out of computer and video games like Doom, Tomb Raider, and Final Fantasy? Do you think the movies will be adapted well, or will there be some things that just can't be translated to film? |
| Answers:
Most video games should translate well (but expensively) to film but the only successful one I can think off is the first mortal combat movie. Maybe because they worked with their genre rather than looked down on it. In any event, I found it a rich fantasy movie that made me wish that half the "heart" of Mortal Combat was put into a fantasy movie based on a book or legend. So yes, I think movies based on video games can work but the right attitude and team is required. SteamTeck |
I think it would work as long as the producers don't try to follow too closely to the game, because most games don't have many of the elements of a good movie. For example, Super Mario Bros. was a good game, but the movie didn't have much direction because most of the stuff from the game didn't translate well, so they had to make a lot of changes. A game like Metal Gear Solid would make a better movie because it has a good plot and more variety to the action. The Doom movie, however, will only work if they base the setting, theme, and basic story on the game and fill in the rest with a solid plotline.
I made Shock Arena 2-5 and 2-6
into a separate series, Shock Duel, and added a third map which is like
the other two but the duel arena is a rocky crater. I finished the
levels which are now called SA 2-5 and 2-6. They are larger then
the other ones, and 2-6 has high cliffs where you can stand and snipe players
on the ground below. I'm now working on 2-7, which is the low gravity
arena with floating platforms.
Shock Arena 2-5 and 2-6 are done,
but they're basically the same level with different object placement.
2-5 has more sparse objects with more open space, while 2-6 has a lot of
gravestones and pillars to hide behind. They are both duel-style
levels where you can play one-on-one or just have a free-for-all.
I've decided to make 9 levels instead of just 8 because of some new ideas.
2-7 will be the high jump platform arena, 2-8 will be a field surrounded
by sniper towers, and 2-9 will be a big level , like the original Shock
Arena.
Shock Arena 2-4 is finished,
so the level set is halfway done now. I can't wait to play this one
with other people, on a lag-free server, of course. I have a feeling
that this type of play won't hold up too well under laggy conditions.
That means I won't be trying to host on my 56K modem, but I'm sure someone
will add a few of the SA2 levels to their list. Lately I haven't
been able to play games much because there are only 5 more school days
for me to finish my art projects. I drew a horse from one of my Costa
Rica pictures in colored pencil, and now I'm working on turning a photo
of a tiger into a metallic caricature. Also, I got more information
on my homestay family in Japan. You can't tell much from a sheet
of paper, though, so I'll say more about them after I've met them.
I may even be able to update my page from Japan, or at least post on the
Drakan forums.
Today was another busy day, but
not for work, I'm afraid. First, at school, I went to a few art museums
on a field trip. The Bell Museum has mostly wildlife sculptures,
and the Minneapolis Art Institute is a bigger place with art from different
time periods. There was a new Star Wars: Magic of Myth theme in a
special exhibit, but I didn't get to see it. After school, Mr. Nelson,
our counselor in Utah, took our field study group to see Mission: Impossible
2 because there was a short scene at the beginning that was filmed near
Moab. I thought the action scenes were cool, but there wasn't much
of a plot. Later I went to the bookstore to look for gifts for my
host family on my upcoming Japan trip. I haven't said much, if anything,
about the Japan trip yet. It's a two-week trip in the second half
of June, and this time it's not for the School of Environmental Studies.
It's for my Japanese language class.
I started Shock Arena 2-4 today.
It's another snow level, this time with trees and boulders, and it will
have 2 force armors instead of just one. Shock Arena 2-5 will be
more of a duel-style level, with a one-on-one battleground and no armor.
I haven't decided about the three after that. Now I can finally start
working on these again, because the "house" part of school is over and
now it's wildlife painting, all the way. Today I had to attend a
ceremony for some academic award, though, so I didn't get to do much else.
Now my Costa
Rica journal is really, truly finished. I took all the pictures
from the picture page, copied them, and placed them in the journal.
Each picture is displayed under the entry it illustrates. The display
board, with a copy of the journal on paper, is also done, and I plan to
bring in my collection of photos as a visual aid for the presentation.
I also finished my legacy passage assignment, which is something we do
at the end of the year. It's another one of those reflection and
deep thought things they're always having us do.
My Costa
Rica journal is done now. At least, the text part is. I
still have to add the pictures to the pages, but that shouldn't be too
hard. The hardest part will be fooling with the spacing on some of
those narrow, tall pictures, but those will be placed beside several of
the others. I'm not going to do captions, though, because the Costa
Rica page is due on Tuesday and it would take too long. Maybe later,
during next weekend or sometime, I could add the captions. Another
thing you may notice is that I have mentioned absolutely none of the other
students in the group by name. This is because it's a formal trip
log, and the trip was not about socializing. It was about the ecosystem
of Costa Rica. I could do a page with a list of students and their
personalities, but since they are not mentioned in the journal, you would
not be able to make the connection between any specific student and anything
in the trip log. Picture captions would be the only way to do this.
There's that rift in the space-time
continuum again, just like the one that happened during Bioblitz.
This time, I missed yesterday's entry because I had to take my college
placement exam, so I stayed the night in a hotel. Rather than come
up with some useless filler material for yesterday, I decided to work on
my Costa Rica site, and now 7 more days have
been completed. I just need the last four, plus all the eco-profiles
and daily reflections, and then the pictures, and I'm all done! This
thing is due on Tuesday. I have to make it into a display and put
it on a board... this will take a while. I should continue working
on it first thing tomorrow.
If you want to know almost everything
there is to know about coffee farming in Costa Rica, now is your chance.
It's on the March 1 page of Costa Rica Adventure.
I haven't added the pictures yet because I'm going to do that at the end,
once all the journal entries are put together. My journal, as it
is, is kind of a jumbled mess in some places, so I want to have the final
revised version before I decide what to do with all the pictures.
There's not really much else to say, because nothing else has been going
on. I think I did well on the AP Environmental Science test because
I knew most of the answers. After all, I've been going to an environmental
school for the past 2 years.
I've studied for my test tomorrow,
and some other school stuff has been cleared up, but I still have to take
my college placement exam on Saturday. It's in Wisconsin, so I'll
have to leave on Friday because the test in the morning. I did some
work on the Costa Rica page, changing the design and splitting up the main
page and the journal. Also, I might keep the picture page on there,
just so people can search through the images if they want.
Shock Arena 2-3 is finished now,
but I won't have time to think about that for a while. I have my
AP Environmental Science test the day after tomorrow, but I think it won't
be as hard as the others. We learned most of the stuff in our normal
classes anyway, and the only way we could miss it is if we were zombified
sleep-deprived... oh, wait, we are... especially me! Sigh... I should
do fine anyway, because I am really going to get some sleep tomorrow, and
if it means neglecting this page, then I'll have to do that. I can
never think of anything to write anyway, except for all these updates on
my projects. I used to have opinions about things, but lately I've
been feeling kind of depressed and my opinions would all be nihilistic
rantings. Don't feel sorry for me, though. Go out and live
your life. I have my schoolwork and Drakan levels to keep me occupied.
Tomorrow, I'll have more Costa Rica stuff done.
The Costa
Rica picture page is done! Now all I have to do is FTP all the
image files to this site. By the time you read this, it should be
done, so feel free to check it out. Beware, though, for these thumbnail
images are bigger and at a higher quality than the ones for Utah, and their
combined size is twice as much as even my own Utah picture page.
This is because, in the finished Costa Rica page, I plan for them to be
split into about 14 different sections instead of all being on one page.
I converted all the Costa Rica
pictures from their original format to the thumbnail JPEGs today.
Now I have to get some sleep so I can be awake for Valleyfair tomorrow.
That's right, I'm skipping school to go to an amusement park! Just
kidding - actually, it's for physics class. We're doing applications
of gravitation, momentum, and Newton's laws, and the best way to do that
is to hurl ourselves around a track with a stopwatch and a measuring string
for triangulation. I hope that's the only kind of hurling that happens.
Tomorrow I'll have the Costa Rica picture archive up, and who knows, I
might just copy some more of my journal to the page.
Once again, it is time to see
about my Question of the Week and any answers it may have received.
| Question of the Week: How much does the visual quality of a game matter to you? If the story, controls, and interface are well done, and the game is fun to play, does it matter if the graphics aren't cutting-edge? |
| Answers:
Good graphics are nice. I can just screenwatch things going on in Drakan or Heretic2 and be entertained, but they certainly aren't everything. Darkstone for example has decent but not great graphics but succeeds for me by very engaging gameplay. On the other hand, a bad interface ruins a game no matter how pretty it may be. Eye candy is therefore a bonus but only one part of the fun package. kindly, SteamTeck |
I think gameplay is definitely more important. Impressive graphics are good for novelty and for showing off what your computer can do, but they don't make the game. For example, System Shock 2 is a great game even though its graphics aren't as flashy as other games. Conversely, all those full-motion-video games that came out when the technology was first around didn't do too well because the gameplay was limited.
This is bogus. In fact,
this is beyond bogus. Drakan 2 is official for the Playstation 2,
but there's no mention of it whatsoever for the PC. It is appearing
less and less likely that there will even be a PC version at all.
If this is really true, then I think that's a really bad move. Drakan
won't be as good on a console system as on a PC. There's less multiplayer
capability, no room for an editor, and no hardware upgradability.
This kind of format switch has happened before, but always between different
console systems, never from PC to console.
After creating the hill landscape
for Shock Arena 2-1 and exporting objects from other databases to be used
as obstacles, I decided to do the second phase of Costa Rica picture posting.
I converted all the BMP files to JPEGs, and now all I have to do is create
the thumbnail sketches, put them all on a web page with links (sorry, no
individual caption pages this time). After that, I'll start copying
my journal, taking all the pictures and incorporating them into it, until
finally there is no more need for the picture page. It will combine
the order of the Florida page with the abundance of the Utah page.
I saw the movie Gladiator today,
and it was good. The battle scenes in particular were very well done.
The opening scene used the no-motion-blur technique used in Saving Private
Ryan and had flaming arrows and cannonballs burning up the forests of ancient
Germania. Later, in the Colosseum fight scenes, there was sword and
mace fighting, with buckets of blood and gore, and it looked like something
right out of a computer game. The story was interesting and moving
sometimes, but it didn't really get into the characters' backgrounds.
I would recommend this movie, especially if you like a lot of action.
Lately, there has been a lot
for me to do, from the Costa Rica web page to Shock Arena, and now I'm
afraid something must be postponed. I won't be able to do the Dragonmech
walkthrough until I'm done with all these other projects. Sorry about
that if you were waiting for it.
Shock Arena 2-2, the one in the
Rage arena, is finished. The Shock Cannon effects have been polished
to be more visually impressive. Now, all I need to do is make the
other 5 arenas. SA 2-1 is going to be a hill with armor on top and
objects to hide behind, like the original Shock Arena. One level
is going to be a small arena where one-on-one Shock Cannon duels can take
place, and another level will have air currents over the ground for higher
jumps.
I have gotten several e-mails
over the past few weeks asking about Dragonmech and its secrets, so I've
decided to make a walkthrough of the 3 levels, from the beginning of the
Desert to the final battles in the Mountain. If you haven't found
the Stormblade, the Gunbow, or the Dragon Armor yet, you can see where
all those things are hidden. I'll try to get some useful screenshots
for some situations so you know the place I'm talking about in the level.
I had some trouble with differential
equations, but I think I did all right on my calculus test. There's
no AP test for me tomorrow, and there won't be until next Thursday.
I do, however, have a seminar on Brave New World to do tomorrow, and I
came up with some notes for that, but that didn't stop me from working
on Shock Arena 2. Today, I changed the graphics so that it really
looks like an energy beam, and the shock cannon itself looks more metallic
now. Also, I lowered fall damage and fixed up some places in the
Rage-based level where there were instant-kill slopes. Now the only
way to die, at least on that level, is to be hit by a shock blast.
I'm done with my first AP test,
and I think I did well on the multiple choice section but not the free
response. It's hard to write those because I'm not very good at organizing
my thoughts. It's like I'll have a good idea, but I won't know how
to express it, so it looks like I don't have any good ideas at all.
I hope my essays don't get used as examples of low-end scores that future
classes should avoid. Tomorrow I have the AP Calculus test, and I
feel more prepared for that. I already know how to do most of what's
needed, and I did well on the practice exam.
I've decided to make Shock Arena
2 into 6 levels instead of just 1. The first will be the Rage arena,
and the second will be a standard "control the hill" level. I'll
make up the other 4 as I go along. So far, the new Shock Cannon looks
good. It fires light energy bolts instead of the minimal exploding
arrows of the first Shock Arena.
The big test for AP Literature
is tomorrow, and I want to get to sleep earlier than usual so I'll be well
rested. The problem is, I also had a lot of physics homework to do,
so that took up some of my study time. So is writing this web page,
so I'm afraid I can't do much for Drakan or anything else. The big
calculus test is the day after tomorrow, so I'll need to prepare for that
too.
To put the Costa Rica pictures
on this site, I have to convert them to JPEGs and make even smaller JPEG
thumbnail images for the links. Also, I'll have to make space on
here, and unfortunately that means taking Dragonmech off my site.
You can still find it on Surreal-News.com, though, so it's not lost.
I've started Shock Arena 2, the
sequel to the first Drakan level with the instant kill weapon based on
Unreal Tournament's enhanced shock rifle. I'm going to use the Rage
architecture for this one because it has a lot of hiding places and will
take more strategy than the simple control-the-hill tactics of the first
level. Also, the shock cannon will have much better visual effects.
It took me 4 hours, but I scanned
in all the Costa Rica pictures I'm going to put on my site. Unlike
using all the pictures like last time, which gave me a total of 188 of
my own, I only selected ones that were recognizable and not just blurry
or dark rainforest pictures. That means I had to get rid of all the
pictures of faraway things I thought would look closer in the photograph.
This time, I only have 84 pictures of the trip.
I got a response from Steamteck
to my Question of the Week. It's been a while, and I'm kind of running
out of ideas for questions, but I'll try to think up a new one for this
week.
| Question of the Week: Have computer games lost their innovation? Have all new ideas been explored so there are no more, or are there some ideas that have not been incorporated into a game but would work well in one? |
| Answers:
Sorry, didn't mean to let you down on your question. I just think it's a no brainer. There is soooo much unexplored that nearly infinite possibilities are out there. Relatively new titles like Drakan itself or Omikron or Messiah certainly show innovation and new approaches. Good luck in the level design contest. late regards Steamteck |
I too appreciate the occasional game that does something new instead of just blending in with the sea of first-person shooters and strategy games. The trouble is, a lot of them are experiencing a lot of delays, and they aren't usually as popular as they could be. For example, Heretic II is a good game that does something new with the series, but it didn't sell very well.
After a complete sky texture
reworking, addition of even more new weapons, and some landscape tweaking,
Cliffs
is now finished! The new sky is a radical change from the usual nondescript
clouds or uniform color of most Drakan skies, and you might love it or
you might find it too busy. I think it really adds to the atmosphere.
I successfully turned the Costa
Rica picture into a sky texture, and it looks great in my new Cliffs level.
If you have the fog at maximum closeness, though, the draw-in can be distracting,
but I don't think anyone plays with the fog that close. I'll show
you the sky in a screenshot when the level is finished. I'm adding
some new magic weapons that work well with the original ones. So
far there are 4, but I might make a new random spawn super weapon to replace
the Dreadnaught Minor.
My Question of the Week has been
up here for a few weeks now, but nobody has answered it, not even Steamteck.
Maybe I need a new way of doing things, or more people reading my page.
I know some people do, because the Surreal-News staff saw my Orpheus and
Rage levels on here. They haven't seen Edge yet, but I was planning
to announce my latest bunch of levels all at once, to save time.
I'll send news of my levels out as soon as Cliffs is done.
There's not much happening lately.
I'm working on a new Drakan level, a battle on some cliffs in the middle
of a forest. I'm using another new sky texture, like in Orpheus,
taken from one of my Costa Rica pictures. Lately my page has been
really good if you like multiplayer Drakan but really useless if you don't.
Over the weekend, I'll do some more work on my Costa Rica page, so be sure
to check on that.
I finally came up with a weapon
upgrade system that works in Drakan multiplayer and implemented it.
Then I put the finishing touches on everything, and now, Rage
is completed.
My latest Drakan experiment,
Rage, isn't working out too well. I just can't get the weapon upgrade
system to work! The normal weapons work fine, and the simultaneous
detectors work too - in single player. When I test the level in multiplayer,
the detectors or spawners are disabled for some reason. I was really
looking forward to having this upgrade system, but if I can't get it to
work at all, I'll just have to go with another plan. The alternative
that I think would work best is to have all the normal weapons on the outside
without using the multiple collision powerup thing, and have the generator
in the cave randomly spawn one of the rage weapons.
It's a new month, and a new time
to start some new projects. But first, there's the issue of the Costa
Rica page. The truth is, I haven't really had much interest lately
in putting together that page, but things like that get better as soon
as I really get into the task. I'm working on yet another Drakan
level. This one, Rage, has a power shrine that replaces your current
weapon with a "rage" version, which is more powerful and looks different.
The only problem is that to implement this system, I had to make it so
you can only carry one weapon at a time. This level is highly experimental.