Author Topic: AVWW Beta 0.580 "Volcanic Gangs" Released!  (Read 10404 times)

Offline Itchykobu

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Re: AVWW Beta 0.580 "Volcanic Gangs" Released!
« Reply #15 on: February 23, 2012, 09:31:42 pm »
Awesome. Just ran a lava escape mission and completely failed. It was awesome. So much excitement trying to find the right path, even if I did die!

Offline x4000

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Re: AVWW Beta 0.580 "Volcanic Gangs" Released!
« Reply #16 on: February 23, 2012, 09:34:44 pm »
Glad you like it!  I'm quite fond of them, too. :)

Reminds me of an old Atari classic called O'Reilly's Mine.  I used to play that a ton when I was ages about 4-6.
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Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: AVWW Beta 0.580 "Volcanic Gangs" Released!
« Reply #17 on: February 23, 2012, 09:38:14 pm »
Getting the lava moving was fun.  Does me proud to see it get a kill ;)
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Offline eRe4s3r

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Re: AVWW Beta 0.580 "Volcanic Gangs" Released!
« Reply #18 on: February 23, 2012, 10:41:42 pm »
So, sorry about posting the previous post in the wrong topic (the one with the graphic) to remind, when "camera follows mouse pointer" the camera follows the mouse pointer even in dialog windows or crafting windows....

More Text about Tutorials/ things / Image follows ;P And yeah, i just had to glow to that, wouldn't make my signature happy otherwise ;p



Well the reason for my "graphic" is that in battlefield the "following health orbs" are a huge exploit, i am literally invincible unless i do something silly. Because these glow things clump together and follow you every time you take damage.

Hence my "proximity animation absorb fade" suggestion.

So i played the latest version entirely until my first battlefield mission was completed and already i noticed something else

Where to get NPC's from? ;p Tutorial should mention that explicitly, as it seems this is the first vital thing to do.. bu to revisit, the tutorial definitely needs to give us something to do besides reaching the village.

Also reaching the village should get us a proper "Well done, you hero!" screen/popup and first reactions of NPC's should probably be a bit more.. uh, extended ;)

What are those essence containers and what does 30% to next enchantment mean, how do i use it if its full? (Tutorial should pop-up on first pick-up)

Intro tutorial mission does not explicitly state to enter the "intro mission building" ;p (nor is there any kind of barrier to make sure players DO enter it)

Health Upgrade stone need specific explanation on pick-up (they should probably not sit around in the tutorial area anyway maybe as reward for reaching the village or defeating the last boss instead?)

When first opening the spell-gem thing its absolutely vital that there is a help box explaining what this window does and what the gem stuff we collect is for in relation to that. Also, i might have mixed it, but where exactly do we craft the platforms? I have run out ;/ And probably missed the mention of that in the tutorial..

When first approaching Guardian power stone... you know the drill. tutorial popup, explaining what it does and how missions and buildings play into this ;)

When first leaving the village, tutorial popup explaining what is a good mission to go for at the beginning
Also tutorial popup when first contact with difficulty shrine, seems to me pretty vital ;p

Feature Request

The quickbar should display in small format but very very clear text the key / button that the box is assigned to when we mouse over it. (meaning, when we mouse over the bar) For Mouse buttons M1 to M9 (not that i know of a mouse with that many buttons) and keys too ,p

Anyhow, apart from all that wall of text, the game is shaping up nicely and is already great fun, albeit very confusing despite the "help" tab (the problem with that is, we don't know the questions for which we need answers for)  ;p If we know what to look in that we already know what we look for....

Anyhow ,)
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Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: AVWW Beta 0.580 "Volcanic Gangs" Released!
« Reply #19 on: February 23, 2012, 11:26:36 pm »
Actually, the staging room from the lava escape missions has a heatsuit waiting right for you. :)
Does it have a sign saying "take this, it's dangerous to go alone"? ;)
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Offline BobTheJanitor

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Re: AVWW Beta 0.580 "Volcanic Gangs" Released!
« Reply #20 on: February 23, 2012, 11:51:49 pm »
Going to be the grumpy one and say that I'm not too happy with the lava escape mission. I wasn't expecting to spend 15 or 20 seconds climbing up to find I was in a dead end and my only option was to drop down and die in the lava. That's not really fun. Death by poor play, great. Death because the random cave generator wasn't on my side? Not so much.

Offline x4000

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Re: AVWW Beta 0.580 "Volcanic Gangs" Released!
« Reply #21 on: February 23, 2012, 11:53:43 pm »
Actually, the staging room from the lava escape missions has a heatsuit waiting right for you. :)
Does it have a sign saying "take this, it's dangerous to go alone"? ;)

It may as well, but doesn't. :)

Going to be the grumpy one and say that I'm not too happy with the lava escape mission. I wasn't expecting to spend 15 or 20 seconds climbing up to find I was in a dead end and my only option was to drop down and die in the lava. That's not really fun. Death by poor play, great. Death because the random cave generator wasn't on my side? Not so much.

There are definitely dead ends, sure.  But if you have enough of a head start on the lava, you have time to run back in almost all cases.  If not, then make sure you have an elusion scroll.  It's not just about being faster than the lava, it's about being so much faster than the lava that you have time to turn back a couple of times when you make wrong turns.
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Offline BobTheJanitor

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Re: AVWW Beta 0.580 "Volcanic Gangs" Released!
« Reply #22 on: February 24, 2012, 12:08:41 am »
There are definitely dead ends, sure.  But if you have enough of a head start on the lava, you have time to run back in almost all cases.  If not, then make sure you have an elusion scroll.

Actually had an elusion scroll on my hot bar. I was madly clicking it and watching it do nothing when I died. If that's supposed to work in mission areas, then I'm not sure what happened. That's part of why I was judging it as being so unfair. If the scroll is supposed to work, that's no so bad. Although I did have a pretty good head start, but crawling up a few lengthy dead ends in a row can waste a lot of time. I don't suppose the random cave generator can be coaxed into making some slightly shorter dead ends?

In an unrelated note, my new character's name is "Aryan Steven." I know, these all came from lists of valid names, but I'm afraid the place most people's minds go to as soon as they see the word aryan is not a good one.  :(

Edit: Just noticed elusion scrolls have a mana cost... I'm going to bed before I start ranting about that.
« Last Edit: February 24, 2012, 12:18:31 am by BobTheJanitor »

Offline x4000

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Re: AVWW Beta 0.580 "Volcanic Gangs" Released!
« Reply #23 on: February 24, 2012, 12:19:07 am »
Regarding walls of text with suggestions: please put those in mantis appropriately filed.  Otherwise we have to, and we really don't have time to at the moment -- it's a mad scramble these days on our end.  Suffice it to say that telling us that various bits of tutorial text are needed is not news, we have a lot of stuff planned out for the next few days, we just haven't had time to implement it yet.  Patience please!

Regarding elusion scrolls, those were disabled in missions in the prior release, but not the new one for just that sort of reason.

Regarding the size of dead ends, 90% of the time they will be much shorter.  You were just very unlucky with that one, sounds like.  With any procedural system, you're going to have outliers like that -- hence being surrounded two-deep by mark IV planets in an AI War map in rare circumstances, or whatever. ;)

And in terms of the random name generator, the odds of anyone ever seeing that again are pretty low, but "aryan" in itself isn't even a bad word.  It's a legitimate thing, that just got tainted by the nazis.  Kind of like how the word fuhrer is used as an epithet in all languages except German, where it only has a bad connotation when used in the meaning of "leader" rather than "guide."  I think if we try to weed out anything with a connotation, we're going to be at this for quite a while; legitimately bad words, sure, so hence getting rid of the russian ones that apparently meant things like "pony." (yikes on that) :)

And... new release before I head for some sleep: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,9922.0.html
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Offline eRe4s3r

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Re: AVWW Beta 0.580 "Volcanic Gangs" Released!
« Reply #24 on: February 24, 2012, 01:02:39 am »
I guess I will try for once to use Mantis..  :D

But seeing as theres only like 30 people on Mantis... i have the looming feeling you get minority opinions on some of the less critical issues. Which is why I prefer the forum... anyway ;)
« Last Edit: February 24, 2012, 01:18:34 am by eRe4s3r »
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Offline zebramatt

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Re: AVWW Beta 0.580 "Volcanic Gangs" Released!
« Reply #25 on: February 24, 2012, 08:02:02 am »
Actually, the staging room from the lava escape missions has a heatsuit waiting right for you. :)
Does it have a sign saying "take this, it's dangerous to go alone"? ;)

Post of the century!

Offline zebramatt

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Re: AVWW Beta 0.580 "Volcanic Gangs" Released!
« Reply #26 on: February 24, 2012, 08:05:41 am »
I guess I will try for once to use Mantis..  :D

But seeing as theres only like 30 people on Mantis... i have the looming feeling you get minority opinions on some of the less critical issues. Which is why I prefer the forum... anyway ;)

There's a self-defeating argument if ever there was one!  :)

Offline Dizzard

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Re: AVWW Beta 0.580 "Volcanic Gangs" Released!
« Reply #27 on: February 24, 2012, 08:11:12 am »
Going to be the grumpy one and say that I'm not too happy with the lava escape mission. I wasn't expecting to spend 15 or 20 seconds climbing up to find I was in a dead end and my only option was to drop down and die in the lava. That's not really fun. Death by poor play, great. Death because the random cave generator wasn't on my side? Not so much.

I haven't played the lava escape game yet but this sounds like a real turn off. :/

Offline zebramatt

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Re: AVWW Beta 0.580 "Volcanic Gangs" Released!
« Reply #28 on: February 24, 2012, 08:19:16 am »
So don't play it!  :)

Offline x4000

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Re: AVWW Beta 0.580 "Volcanic Gangs" Released!
« Reply #29 on: February 24, 2012, 09:53:56 am »
I guess I will try for once to use Mantis..  :D

But seeing as theres only like 30 people on Mantis... i have the looming feeling you get minority opinions on some of the less critical issues. Which is why I prefer the forum... anyway ;)

There's a self-defeating argument if ever there was one!  :)

Number of users on mantis: 576.

Going to be the grumpy one and say that I'm not too happy with the lava escape mission. I wasn't expecting to spend 15 or 20 seconds climbing up to find I was in a dead end and my only option was to drop down and die in the lava. That's not really fun. Death by poor play, great. Death because the random cave generator wasn't on my side? Not so much.

I haven't played the lava escape game yet but this sounds like a real turn off. :/

Exactly what zebramatt said.  Read my release notes on the rationale: all parts of the game are not meant to be enjoyed by all players (that's impossible unless the focus is very narrow), but at the same time you lose nothing by skipping the parts you don't like.  That's the beauty of it!  Same with AI War, I don't like the hard versions of spirecraft and golems, but others do -- what does it cost me if there's a feature that they like that I don't?  There are actually probably 30% of the feature sin AI War that I don't actually like and never play with, but which others really love so were added.  That way everyone can have an experience that is what they want, and that is fun and interesting for them.  Expect the same with AVWW; there will be even things in AVWW that I won't like, at some point, I'm sure.  Not at this point in time, but eventually it will grow large enough that my own personal taste won't be able to encompass it. ;)
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