DescentBB

At ZBriggs request, a topic for discussing whether you can learn to play 6DoF games by adding one axis at a time.

me, I don't think so. But then, those who have played against me know that I never really learned to control 6DoF anyway, so my opinion is of limited value.

Have HO specified what the training mode will be like?
There are lots of vehicles in FPS games these days. Seems to me that limiting pitch to +/- 90 degrees and taking away roll would turn the CD 'Pyro' into an FPS-style flying vehicle. I don't think the turning rate would be a problem since FPS vehicles usually don't turn as fast as 'mouselook'.

It might help. It could with some. Until they get owned! I think that in a multiplayer they would get through a game or two and realize that they need to switch. Like when I went from a mouse to a sidewinder. It took a LOT of practice to master 3 axis on one stick.

Please see the other thread before reading this.

First off. This can be a multiplayer function. There will servers of this type out there. We will probably host some of our own as well. But you have to remember, if this is not the kind of gameplay you want, then don't log onto the server with all the newbies or the one with the restrictions. We are talking about 25% of the servers out there. Use the other 75%. It's no different then playing on a server that doesn't allow smart mines. If you don't like it don't play on that server.

For clarification, by server I mean, hosted game.

Zach

They are going to get torpedoed by the experienced players no matter what. The question is how badly they will be shot down with it vs without it, I think they will fare better with a ship that is always level then one that ends up twisted sideways pointed in the wrong direction.

Honestly this all makes good sense to me. I remember all to well how I felt the first few times I played, when vertigo hit the first time I didn't try Descent Demo for a month after that.

But I stayed with it long enough, and I'm afraid many people don't.

Matter of fact I remember in the good ol'days setting the handicap on my shields way down just so I could have more fun. This is the same thing. Except I have a freedom of choice or at least the new users will.

Since it doesn't affect my gameplay one way or the other I say Hell it's a Great Idea!

We really should close one of these two threads.

KoolBear wrote:We really should close one of these two threads.

Fine by me!

KoolBear wrote:I remember all to well how I felt the first few times I played

yeah, this is the biggest problem we have to overcome to have a popular 6DOF game. The STEEP learning curve. I hope the new CD method will work.

I think this would work. I agree with Koolbear about getting discouraged the first time I couldn't find my bearings... I started playing d1 modem to modem against a few old friends. It was aweful them knowing the controls and me sitting there not being able to see what way was up or down. Something else that would be nice. d3 had that training... if there was actual useful training... like how to trichord and such it would make people learn a bit better. Most games now have a training portion of the game. D3's was rather short for the amount of controls that are offered with 360dof. I know single player missions are not going to be offered. But perhaps training on how to make the ship move to its full potential would be worth spending a little time on.

The worst part of acclimation would seem to be not knowing the level. When you are upside down pointing at a wall, which is hte ceiling, which is the floor? If I get hit with MD in Kata, I can instantly reorient and get out of the way of the second shot. If I was to get tagged in a strange level, I'd get disoriented.

Perhaps newbie levels with differentiated walls/ceiling/floor and all the controls would be better than restricting controls. No fancy architecture, just Skybox-like layouts.

At the least, this sort of training would get people who would never think of sliding, rolling, etc., used to the idea of using all controls available. It think it's a good idea, though as Strife said, trichording would be a good addition.

I think combining the two suggestions of newbie-friendly levels and limiting one or more axis (through a changable-on-the-fly keyboard toggle) would do the trick. We need to keep these people interested in 6DoF flying first and foremost! Otherwise CD will be one of the 70% of games that fail in their first year - and nobody here wants that!

With the nursery newbie levels - maybe make them small, narrow and tunnel-like so they have to get the hang of flying and navigating in two dimentions first. Then they gradually get wider and larger with bigger rooms to fly in (...I note the first few levels of D1 had this characteristic - on reflection, that wasn't by accident ).

The only way to decide this one is to create both versions, grab a dozen total noobs and give them one version to play with for a while - then swap. Afterwards you ask them two questions: which one made it easier to learn to fly; and which one was the most fun to use?

If the newbies are having fun playing the game, even from the earliest stages, then they wil stick with it and improve. The minute that the game stops being fun, you've lost them - probably for good.

Cause remember - CD won't ahve a single player game to start off with, like D1 did. Who here bypassed D1 single player altogether and lept straight into multiplayer? Probably mot many of us. In a multiplayer game, all that embarrasing learner-flying happens in the public arena. And last time I checked, being embarrassed and having fun were mutually exclusive.

Its true. To this day i still mess around with the trichording door tricks in minerva and athena in d1/d2. If you know what I'm talking about you know that unless you are trichording to full potential you WILL NOT make it throught the doors. That most definately gave me the ability to be called a cheater when Im running circles around people because I trichord correctly

Please remember that a lot of keyboards out there have problems when more than 2-3 keys are pressed simultaneously. Some time ago I tried to habituate trichording - and then suddenly I noticed that I was actually just bichording, because my keyboard was ignoring the third key (no matter which one I used). Since then I saw a few different keyboards which had this limitation!!!

Trichording may be an important feature, but I assume that a lot of people will not buy a special (expensive) keyboard to avoid this limitation. Besides most manifacturer don't say how many keys can simultaneously be pressed. I tried to find one, but the only one which definitely states the number of possible keys (10) was the \"razer tarantula\" which costs about 110 euro...

Any comments to this problem?
Maybe games could use an option for limited keyboards which makes bichording faster (but not as fast as true trichording)...

Ages ago the Police Department I do computer work for sometimes was throwing out some old computer stuff and among it were several keyboards, each one can handle 5 key presses at once. I took them all.

But true, finding a good keyboard can be a pain sometimes.

Bichording's not as bad as what my old computer does ... 4 or 5 keypresses will make one of the keys stick down - usually a slide key that pins me against the wall while the bot I was trichording around kills me.

Ages ago the Police Department I do computer work for sometimes was throwing out some old computer stuff and among it were several keyboards, each one can handle 5 key presses at once. I took them all.

*jealous*

could help imho.
one could make kind of a race level where a newby can check how far he is away from the optimum (against a computer enemy)

Making newbie levels and having the different walls, floors etc a different texture so they can easily orientate themselves would help. Then make levels for mid users which are a bit more complex and have levels for advanced users like people who've played Descent before where it's full blown anarchy.

This has always been the hardest thing to get people interested in 6DOF games. It's to hard to learn and the average person doesn't want to spend 3 months getting good at it.

i guess it wouldnt hurt putting it in

having objects (such as signs, buildings, lights, etc) in our levels will tend to give it a sense of which way is up, especially for beginners. Your feedback and insights are noted

Jared wrote:having objects (such as signs, buildings, lights, etc) in our levels will tend to give it a sense of which way is up

Yes, good point. The "City" level of d3 is one of the least disorienting, and yet it doesn't eliminate learning how to move in all 6 directions.

Kilarin wrote:

Jared wrote:having objects (such as signs, buildings, lights, etc) in our levels will tend to give it a sense of which way is up

Yes, good point. The "City" level of d3 is one of the least disorienting, and yet it doesn't eliminate learning how to move in all 6 directions.

...does this mean there will be outdoor levels in CD - or perhaps giant underground cities full of Martian settlers? (which - apart from being really COOL - would also make a bit of sense, given the climate. This already happens in one rural Australian mining town, given the typical 100+ degree daytime temperatures in the region).



...giving away secrets there are we Jared?




...tell you what - when it comes time to show your investors the demo (hopefully soon), just let us all know and we'll happily put on the "Anarchy display to end all Anarchy displays" for them all - showing them just how amazing this game will be once they write you a big fat cheque.

Am I right in saying this folks? Anyone else here willing to put on a display or two of fancy flying for Jared's investors?

a relatively \"flat\" level is good to help the transition.

Look at varicose viens in D3, for example. Something like that can make it feel much less daunting a task to fly with 6dof then lets say... an old school level like Steel Vapor. (and i looooooved entropy steel vapor)

Gekko71 wrote:Am I right in saying this folks? Anyone else here willing to put on a display or two of fancy flying for Jared's investors?

I call dibs on Zach.

I call dibs on MD-2389.

I call dibs on Merlin... Only cause hes Canadian though.

I call dibs on me... wait, what are we doing?

While I think the newbie removed-axis option is a good segue way into the multiplayer scene, it probably needs to be taken a step further, especially if the game in question is going to be multiplayer-only.

I stated somewhere else - If we're going to have any kind of PXO/Vortex-type system for it, make it so that you log into it with a user ID that allows you to unlock the veteran servers after you've reached certain plateus on # of kills or the ability to perform certain moves. Maybe even have 'trials' servers that are instanced and allow you to prove you can do certain things to advance your rank in the system. And once you've achieved a certain in-system rank, you're no longer allowed to venture into the servers intended for starting players. Make it a guantlet that the online gamer has to run so that they get a sense of accomplishment, with the side-effect that it segregates the learning players from the seasoned ones.

Threadspace: Hyperbol, a recently-released Steam game, has an architecture similar to this, and I consider it pure genius.

And personally, to help alleviate the risk of alienating players, I think those in the Descent community that still play and have some existing 6dof skill should be allowed to create IDs in the system prior to the game's release and either run the guantlet beforehand, or automatically be given a certain rank to keep them away from starting players. But that's just my line of thinking. There will still probably be the small portion of the playerbase that preys upon the weak and will find a way to circumvent the system in place, whatever it is. But the less risk, the better. It would also have the added benefit of allowing us to reserve our treasured nicks so that they don't get swiped out from under us when the game's released.

As successful as the Arena seasons are in WoW, I think a built-in ladder competition architected on top of this PXO/Vortex system would promote a desire to run the gauntlet, so to speak. Special ship models or decals as rewards for your achievements... titles added to your pilot name in the score listings... You could even have competitions according to whichever rank you've managed to obtain. Sorta like featherweight versus heavyweight boxing.

Hmm... tanks versus tanks.. GL's versus GL's... MD-lovers versus MD-lovers... /slaps himself and wakes up

Edit: The idea of gauntlet progression is kinda nice, but using it as a mechanism for segregating players may be more trouble than it's worth. Dunno. I'm torn on the idea.

You know, I don't think they'll appreciate being crippled too much... there are some parts of 6DOF that can be disorienting, but you can fix them by

1) Carefully-designed levels (okay, not that careful - it's fairly easy to create a level that doesn't use much vertical, or uses it conservatively)
2) Alter the turning system to work like a more standard FPS game; forward/back for pitch, left/right for rotation around Y axis (unlike Descent, which rotates around the ship's local up-axis, V), and no banking. The beauty of this system is that for the majority of the levels in the Descent series it would work anyway, especially in multiplayer; only the ones that don't fit 1 above will be difficult to play with such a control set.

Edit: haha, ok, in essence I am advocating combining the suggestions of De Rigueur and Krom.