Nexus demo, DiRT's Descent, and Hector's Cove !

Anything that isn't directly related to Age Creation but that might be interesting to Age developers.

Re: Nexus demo, DiRT's Descent, and Hector's Cove !

Postby melvin » Sun Feb 16, 2020 3:28 am

Has anyone found a use for that fire marble energy ball that you can take out of the mole machine with the spinning blades..? Your avatar can carry it around, & there is a use for the glowing blue crystals; after you pick up the stick in the start cave where he nearly breaks his neck on the slippery rocks, he creates a torch which when you stand still he shakes to light up the place much better.
As for save games, when I load one the avatar turns into the invisible man..!
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Re: Nexus demo, DiRT's Descent, and Hector's Cove !

Postby Sirius » Sun Feb 16, 2020 5:34 am

That's some kind of power core from the Worm digging machine (the machine you take it from).
There isn't any use for it in this demo AFAIK. But from what Tweek wrote earlier and classic puzzle games tropes, my guess is that it was supposed to power the Scarab digging machine (which isn't in the demo). Since Worm is stuck but its power core works, you take the power core to Scarab which I guess is not stuck but lacks energy.

melvin wrote:As for save games, when I load one the avatar turns into the invisible man..!

Yep, that's a bug Hoikas mentioned earlier:
I have noticed that sometimes the avatar becomes invisible if you load a game that is still above ground (Descent).
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Re: Nexus demo, DiRT's Descent, and Hector's Cove !

Postby sarpedon2 » Sun Feb 16, 2020 9:49 am

Sirius wrote:Agreed. DiRT was made in the weird era where "tank" steering was the norm. Controllers eventually brought more natural third-person steering where the avatar runs in the direction you're pushing the joystick, which is much better.
Fixed camera angles kinda went out of fashion in more recent games though...


I suppose what could be considered a good arrangement is have the option to use the fixed camera angles that are effective in that they show the age as the developers intended for them to be seen, and an option to have 360 degree-controlled third person camera.

Off-topic from what we've usually talking about, but I watched a recent video with Rand or maybe Robyn in which they discussed the design process for Myst, and I think they had said they had designed the ages and puzzles by having DnD style sessions where they would take players through the areas and would refine the design from those experiences. I wonder whether Uru had a similar design process? I also wonder whether this is actually a good way of designing a multiplayer adventure game?

Uru is still a fantastic concept for a videogame mmo, the idea of persistently developing world, affected by player actions (where they simply involve themselves in the story and push its direction rather than through quest completing or leveling up) is very arresting. But it always seemed that having large-capacity servers always spoiled this, many players were spectators rather than participants in what would be for them, a very pretty chat room. Having a large amount of small-capacity servers would be a better way of involving players and could tie in with what we already know about Myst-lore, the idea that each age is just another branch of the Great Tree of Possibility and that there may be many D'ni's on which different responses are taken by players when confronted with a storyline development.
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Re: Nexus demo, DiRT's Descent, and Hector's Cove !

Postby Aloys » Tue Feb 18, 2020 4:56 pm

The camera work in this demo was great; much better than in Uru. And not just the camera work, the whole "cinematic feel", the lighting, the extra avatar animations.. What they eventually did in Uru worked, but was not as.. stylish, for lack of a better word.

Rand or maybe Robyn (...) said they had designed the ages and puzzles by having DnD style sessions

Yes, that's one of the great things of these kinds of game is that you can "simulate" a lot in the design phase; without needing to actually prototype anything in the real game. You can't do that with many other kinds of video games.
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