Heavyporker
25-10-04, 16:43
Ok. i've transferred two of my old Saturn characters to NC2 this last Friday. Both popped up in the Dome.
The first one, a hybrid Gentank with a quite nice bit of footspeed. The second a spindly droner with merely passable speed. But that one came over much later.
Let's start things. Oh, and a note - I'm taking a 3d sculpture class, so I'm seeing a lot of interesting things in terms of modeling, architecturally, at least. I won't even touch 3d people, though I will have to speak on some issues about them. I'm using 1024*768. ATI radeon 128 mb card.
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Initial Impressions:
DoY Starter Apartment - VERY impressive ambiance. Quite run-down and depressing, but you can't beat that feel for grittiness. I liked that touch of the fallen cabinet that was still usable. But honestly, if you're going to have wooden crates, they should be usable. Oh, and with those huge cracks in the ceiling, I'd expected to see rain streaming in and pooling up (easy to code in, though).
RPOS - While it's new and different from NC1, I have to say, in a lot of ways, it's a long step back from the usability of the NC1 rpos. A lot of FAR TOO SMALL AND FIDDLY buttons and tabs. And the green on green makes it far too difficult to read many things, especially when there are drastic contrasts (i.e - F5 leveling window - many times, you can't read what exp you have when the bars are edging on the numbers). Do not fucking get me wrong on the Gene Replicator Window. Yikes. Fuckers. Please, re-skin this one at least. The worst ergonomics I've seen so far, Buttons all mashed up. Tiny-ASSFUCKERSCROTUM text. At the very least, with all the gr rules and such, I'd expected an editable gr list (rearrange order of grs, or delete old or unused/unusable grs) and an usability rating (accessible, non-accessible). Let's move on.
The Dome - KK.... if nothing else, you have done AN AMAZING JOB OF BUILDING A CITY!
It's HUGE. MASSIVE. SKY-REACHING. Everywhere I went and turned, I could hardly breathe as I took in the details. Ambiance by the truckloads. Ruination everywhere, evidence of an once proud and strong city, flush with citizens. Man. The arcing cables! Girders! Vents and smokestacks! Jeez lord, and the 20 story-tall gravlifts and skyscrapers. That one made me come, btw. And like 10 minutes just to cross each city zone on the fleet-footed GenTank?! WOW!
If only Neocron City had that scale. Well, on a realistically usable basis. I mean, one DoY city sector would swallow up three of Neocron's! And that was if you laid them side by side! DoY's height would need about five of Neocron's stacked up!
I really liked the touches of shattered windows and rubble in the corners. But honestly.. couldn't there have been more rats, roaches, and spiders scurrying about in the corners? Even after a radioactive diaster, they'd be flourishing.
And the sidestreets are too far and few. Nice layout, but sere, bleak, empty, starkly bare. Dear Crahn, how empty. Someone leave some food out there so the vermin will multiply. The watercleaning plants look quite cool, but, alas, far too empty as well. Really, there needs to be more rats and spiders in the sidestreets, and more plants (far more, dude!) and roaches in the watercleaning areas.
NPCs abound, but really, I'd liked to see more plain citizens. It seems that the smugglers outnumber the somewhat more straitlaced citizens.
There's vast potential for trade, RP, and just plain livin' it up in the Dome of York, plainly. I'll definitely try to do my part.
Wastelands - So far, the gentank has only managed to get around in the desert and get a few OP grs. I'll say this... the vegetation took my breath away. GRASS WAVING IN THE WIND! *drool*. And the water. Wow.... reflective water.... that's very impressive, though in many situations, it looks off. The sky... dear Crahn, the sky!!! That's gorgeous. I've not seen any of the thunderstorms (remember? In NC1, when you were out during one, you'd see the neat jagged lightning in the distance.)
I miss the abandoned villa (where you had this enclosed stucco villa, and broken holosigns and skeletons inside everywhere) a LOT. The twister club is intriguing, but hardly makes up for the loss. Maybe I got it wrong, and the abandoned villa is still there, but I'll have to look around again.
Oh, and before closing in on the Cities, I've not seen the *PROTECTIVE DOME* or the *SKY-REACHING SKYSCRAPERS* from the distance! That's fucking criminal! Edifices in a megapolis should be visible from a LONG WAY IN THE DISTANCE. Even a sky effect (smog/smoke wafting outand drones/planes flying around over the Entry Gates of either city) would have helped!
And KK... I'm very disappointed you didn't update the water in the MainSewers and Outzone. The new water effects would've dazzled in these places. Especially, and I note this - especially if you could touch up these waterfalls with spume and spray. I'm going to check out the Gaya Mines - and if that large 'water" area before the Mining Engine didn't get updated as well, I'm going to get grouchy..
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Initial Advice
- make text scalable by the user. This will be critical when someone's using a large screen resolution.
- By Crahn... it sure is hard to find some noob stuff, eh? Eh? Maybe make them really abundant? Huh?
- make sidestreets level 2 and 3, put them on the higher levels of the Dome (like 3 or 5 stories up). Maybe only flying mobs like 20/20 bats, flying roaches, and maybe even a dragonfly now and then exist on those sidestreets - you have to walk around on long bridges, girders, and catwalks!
- beggars and mutant scouts (the below-10/10s) would do awesomely in the sidestreet level 1s. I mean, look! You have all those niches with mutant cooking pots and bedding!
- more mobs. Far too few in the DoY newbie areas, and quite too few in the open desert. I know I said the wastelands should be wastelands, but when one runs through about 7 sectors near the Dome and the highest threat is a terrormauler, one reconsiders his position. Leveling a driver definitely will be hellish, especially if you're from the Dome. I don't know if Neocron City still has those verdant plains dotted with mutant encampments and the Swamps are still the lush mid-level places that I cherished...
The first one, a hybrid Gentank with a quite nice bit of footspeed. The second a spindly droner with merely passable speed. But that one came over much later.
Let's start things. Oh, and a note - I'm taking a 3d sculpture class, so I'm seeing a lot of interesting things in terms of modeling, architecturally, at least. I won't even touch 3d people, though I will have to speak on some issues about them. I'm using 1024*768. ATI radeon 128 mb card.
-------
Initial Impressions:
DoY Starter Apartment - VERY impressive ambiance. Quite run-down and depressing, but you can't beat that feel for grittiness. I liked that touch of the fallen cabinet that was still usable. But honestly, if you're going to have wooden crates, they should be usable. Oh, and with those huge cracks in the ceiling, I'd expected to see rain streaming in and pooling up (easy to code in, though).
RPOS - While it's new and different from NC1, I have to say, in a lot of ways, it's a long step back from the usability of the NC1 rpos. A lot of FAR TOO SMALL AND FIDDLY buttons and tabs. And the green on green makes it far too difficult to read many things, especially when there are drastic contrasts (i.e - F5 leveling window - many times, you can't read what exp you have when the bars are edging on the numbers). Do not fucking get me wrong on the Gene Replicator Window. Yikes. Fuckers. Please, re-skin this one at least. The worst ergonomics I've seen so far, Buttons all mashed up. Tiny-ASSFUCKERSCROTUM text. At the very least, with all the gr rules and such, I'd expected an editable gr list (rearrange order of grs, or delete old or unused/unusable grs) and an usability rating (accessible, non-accessible). Let's move on.
The Dome - KK.... if nothing else, you have done AN AMAZING JOB OF BUILDING A CITY!
It's HUGE. MASSIVE. SKY-REACHING. Everywhere I went and turned, I could hardly breathe as I took in the details. Ambiance by the truckloads. Ruination everywhere, evidence of an once proud and strong city, flush with citizens. Man. The arcing cables! Girders! Vents and smokestacks! Jeez lord, and the 20 story-tall gravlifts and skyscrapers. That one made me come, btw. And like 10 minutes just to cross each city zone on the fleet-footed GenTank?! WOW!
If only Neocron City had that scale. Well, on a realistically usable basis. I mean, one DoY city sector would swallow up three of Neocron's! And that was if you laid them side by side! DoY's height would need about five of Neocron's stacked up!
I really liked the touches of shattered windows and rubble in the corners. But honestly.. couldn't there have been more rats, roaches, and spiders scurrying about in the corners? Even after a radioactive diaster, they'd be flourishing.
And the sidestreets are too far and few. Nice layout, but sere, bleak, empty, starkly bare. Dear Crahn, how empty. Someone leave some food out there so the vermin will multiply. The watercleaning plants look quite cool, but, alas, far too empty as well. Really, there needs to be more rats and spiders in the sidestreets, and more plants (far more, dude!) and roaches in the watercleaning areas.
NPCs abound, but really, I'd liked to see more plain citizens. It seems that the smugglers outnumber the somewhat more straitlaced citizens.
There's vast potential for trade, RP, and just plain livin' it up in the Dome of York, plainly. I'll definitely try to do my part.
Wastelands - So far, the gentank has only managed to get around in the desert and get a few OP grs. I'll say this... the vegetation took my breath away. GRASS WAVING IN THE WIND! *drool*. And the water. Wow.... reflective water.... that's very impressive, though in many situations, it looks off. The sky... dear Crahn, the sky!!! That's gorgeous. I've not seen any of the thunderstorms (remember? In NC1, when you were out during one, you'd see the neat jagged lightning in the distance.)
I miss the abandoned villa (where you had this enclosed stucco villa, and broken holosigns and skeletons inside everywhere) a LOT. The twister club is intriguing, but hardly makes up for the loss. Maybe I got it wrong, and the abandoned villa is still there, but I'll have to look around again.
Oh, and before closing in on the Cities, I've not seen the *PROTECTIVE DOME* or the *SKY-REACHING SKYSCRAPERS* from the distance! That's fucking criminal! Edifices in a megapolis should be visible from a LONG WAY IN THE DISTANCE. Even a sky effect (smog/smoke wafting outand drones/planes flying around over the Entry Gates of either city) would have helped!
And KK... I'm very disappointed you didn't update the water in the MainSewers and Outzone. The new water effects would've dazzled in these places. Especially, and I note this - especially if you could touch up these waterfalls with spume and spray. I'm going to check out the Gaya Mines - and if that large 'water" area before the Mining Engine didn't get updated as well, I'm going to get grouchy..
---
Initial Advice
- make text scalable by the user. This will be critical when someone's using a large screen resolution.
- By Crahn... it sure is hard to find some noob stuff, eh? Eh? Maybe make them really abundant? Huh?
- make sidestreets level 2 and 3, put them on the higher levels of the Dome (like 3 or 5 stories up). Maybe only flying mobs like 20/20 bats, flying roaches, and maybe even a dragonfly now and then exist on those sidestreets - you have to walk around on long bridges, girders, and catwalks!
- beggars and mutant scouts (the below-10/10s) would do awesomely in the sidestreet level 1s. I mean, look! You have all those niches with mutant cooking pots and bedding!
- more mobs. Far too few in the DoY newbie areas, and quite too few in the open desert. I know I said the wastelands should be wastelands, but when one runs through about 7 sectors near the Dome and the highest threat is a terrormauler, one reconsiders his position. Leveling a driver definitely will be hellish, especially if you're from the Dome. I don't know if Neocron City still has those verdant plains dotted with mutant encampments and the Swamps are still the lush mid-level places that I cherished...