What happened to the Midnight Squadron Projects?

[jshaner]

From http://www.descent4.org/midnightsquadron, they listed several projects that i have never heard of.

Midnight Squadron Projects
Project Vertigo: This was to be Descent 4 after the ODS failure. It was felt that the title Descent 4 held some stigma, so it was changed to Project Vertigo. It was led by Jd "Capm" Dallas.

Helios: This was the graphics engine for Project Vertigo, it was led by "DescenterAce" Davidson.

D++: This was to be a complete graphics overhall of Descent 3. It would update the models, textures, and effects used in the game. It would not change weapon nor ship mechanics. It was led by Bubbalou.

GOV: This was a mod for Descent 3 led by Kevin "Messenjah" Mikesell.

Did any of them ever come out? What happened?

[Top Wop]

Judging by the over-ambitious nature of the projects from reading the descriptions, I doubt they made much progress.

[[]V[]essenjah]

These projects were all started in an effort to revive Descent 3. We began development on these around the time that the community and other modding projects began to fade. I actually partially taught a few of the mod designers a lot of things. DescenterAce actually wrote the Milkshape 3D or MS3D to ORF tool you can find on Planet Descent, which I helped to fund.


Helios WAS over-ambitious. I knew that from the get-go so I selected to avoid that particular project but I wanted to share art back and forth with the team. We all developed whatever we wanted for whatever project we wanted. There were a lot of problems with Helios and we just didn't have enough programmers to do what was necessary.


D++: Very feasible plan but we didn't have a decent 2D texture artist at the time and the rest of us were pretty much pre-occupied. Good idea however. I think if he and I ever got together, it would still be a very promising project. However, there just isn't enough of a call for such a project anymore. I even tried with a few models I made about a year ago.


GOV: Most of the models for this were actually complete. However, my texture experience and resources were terrible at the time. I led this project with the help of Darkside Heartless, Stryker, and DescenterAce. I wrote a rather in-depth storyline for *I think* something like 5-7 levels. I can't remember the exact number of levels now. It was meant to take place after the events of Descent 3 and was primarily story-based with lots of planned in-game dialogue. Most of the modeling for this project was mostly completed as well and we were prepping the demo when I shut the project down. A picture of one of our ship models was released and received poor reviews. I have since then, learned how to create proper textures and have obtained the proper software but I no longer have time or the need to continue such a project since the community is so small and has such little modding support at this point. Personally, it made me stronger so it wasn't a loss in the end.

Hope that will provide a little bit of insight. It was a very talented team. Judged far too soon. We even worked on some of our own modding tools.

[jshaner]

That's too bad...The projects sounded really promising.

Do you think that there is any possibility of getting such a community up again in the future?

[ccb056]

I thought Cougar wrote the storyline:
http://www.descent4.org/cougar

[Kyouryuu]

I swear, there is some kind of unspoken rule of mod design: \"He who starts by modeling random props is lost.\"

You could look up and down the Valve Wiki and find the same story over and over again.

[Narfig_Agar]

I swear, there is some kind of unspoken rule of mod design: "He who starts by modeling random props is lost."

Sage advice indeed.

[[]V[]essenjah]

I thought Cougar wrote the storyline:
http://www.descent4.org/cougar

Nope. I can't remember if he was on the story board or not. I know he made some music and the like. I think I had him review it. I discussed it a lot with Cougar and Darkside Heartless. It was inspired a lot by Cougar's music however. I kept it in mind when I designed the story.


Most of that was written in my head, while working in a grocery store, produce cooler, stocking freight at 4:30 in the morning. I had a lot of time on my hands and I've always had the writing bug. The stories would pretty much just start flowing. I also had, had a REALLY nasty breakup with a girl I was close too for about 2 years that I was very depressed about and used that frustration to fuel my work. Most of the modeling was done on the weekends and at night. The story was written right after I would wake up and sometimes before I would go to sleep after I got home from work so it was fresh in my mind.

How the heck did the wiki gain access to my script? Did they download it from Capm?

I could probably dig up a few old model pictures sometime for it too. Might even have the original script unless I deleted it.


Don't mind it being on the board but I would like the correct credits on there.

[[]V[]essenjah]

I swear, there is some kind of unspoken rule of mod design: "He who starts by modeling random props is lost."

You could look up and down the Valve Wiki and find the same story over and over again.

That statement is true but only semi-true in this case. I was the only one that really kept track of GOV. I designed the darn thing, wrote the story/script and turned in the paper work to Capm to review the idea. Can't remember who made the logo. I and Darkside both did almost all of the modeling for the project. I had everything modeled for the demo mission on my end. I couldn't get any help on the mission development end though. Where it failed, was that everyone else was developing for EVERYTHING else and the team was spread to thin and other people lost track of their own work in other projects. I pretty much remained steady, working only one project.... GOV.


The mistake I made, was that I was using GIMP and Milkshape for everything. You can't create anything Descent with Milkshape and GIMP is very difficult to learn. I was also trying to develope this while I was still on a 56k modem.

I doubt we will ever see such a development team again. At least for Descent. Darkside and I once talked about developing a mod for UT2004 after the bad reviews. I ended up working on some models for Core Decision for a while however and later left. Now Darkside is I believe going to school to become a professional CG artist (last I heard but I may be wrong), Stryker is working in web development, and I am a professional computer tech/internet installer. I still work on CG art and write concept stories every once in a while. Just haven't found the right spot yet.

I would have liked to have actually finished GOV.


By the way, GOV stands for: Ghosts Of Valhalla. Valhalla stands for "Tower Of Fallen Heroes", hence, the second mission. I wanted to refer back to Descent's roots with that mission, while introducing new enemies.


Yuck, I can see a lot of errors in my writing.

I think Cougar was more involved with D++. Don't remember that he contributed a lot other than opinion.


Update: Darkside just reminded me, he did contribute a bit to the music.

[Sirius]

Properly scoped projects are many, many times more likely to come out than grandiose visions, as much as the latter may appeal. It seems to work better to start with something small and then add on as time permits.

[[]V[]essenjah]

LOL, the GTVC Avatar wasn't part of the project I don't think. At least I don't think Grim intended it to be that way.


By the way, Meathead IS Darkside Heartless. You can see renders from both myself and Darkside.

Who runs that website? I'd like to contact the author to have some things clarified. I would like credit to go where credit is due.

List of things to correct:

Messenjah as author of GOV storyline and project leader.

DescenterAce's contribution with the MS3D to Orf converter.

Cougar's contribution with soundtrack support and story support. (mostly proofreading and story advice)

Darkside Heartless aka Meathead's support with storyline.
(proofreading and story advice.)

There are also a couple of other missing pieces of VERY good concept art.
You should also list Capm as MSDS lead and for his web support and his source database support.

Vox, I believe also made a nice logo for GOV as well.

[Capm]

Some of the file attachments in the old forums got lost because they were remotely linked rather than uploaded, which is why alot of the images are missing. A few got lost in a server move and incomplete backups, etc.. but a great deal of the data is intact there on the old forums.

[ccb056]

LOL, the GTVC Avatar wasn't part of the project I don't think. At least I don't think Grim intended it to be that way.


By the way, Meathead IS Darkside Heartless. You can see renders from both myself and Darkside.

Who runs that website? I'd like to contact the author to have some things clarified. I would like credit to go where credit is due.

List of things to correct:

Messenjah as author of GOV storyline and project leader.

DescenterAce's contribution with the MS3D to Orf converter.

Cougar's contribution with soundtrack support and story support. (mostly proofreading and story advice)

Darkside Heartless aka Meathead's support with storyline.
(proofreading and story advice.)

There are also a couple of other missing pieces of VERY good concept art.
You should also list Capm as MSDS lead and for his web support and his source database support.

Vox, I believe also made a nice logo for GOV as well.

I run the website, send me a PM and I'll work on updating it.

[[]V[]essenjah]

Cool, I'll get you a response soon. Too busy right now though.