Topic: Will Interplay Ever Release a Descent 4?

[Sidhe Priest]

The point is, a sci-fi game has to have a lot of sci-fi detail, and not necessarily be limited to combat either. Many space games used to have (and have now) upgrade stores and a merchant/social element. It's rather boring otherwise, all there is is blasting robots and flipping switches and getting objects. Pretty much the old Doom formula.

[Matthew]

D3's Fusion engine already has blastable/deformable terrain. And destructable brushes in levels. Just not used that much.

It does?! I've never seen deformable terrain used in D3, nor even heard of such a thing being possible.

[Sidhe Priest]

The feature is there, it works, but it's never been used in the D3 campaign. A weapon has to have a terrain damage value specified in the table. By default no weapon has that, but well, you could dig hideouts with, say, the fusion cannon. Terrain damage size/depth per shot are valid weapon flags. Modify them in a table and see for yourself... There were screenshots and a discussion years ago, maybe someone even used the feature in a mod.

[Foil]

Interesting! Does it work well?

[VANGUARD]

I think it was used more in Merc, right? You activate some sort of mine cart thing and it blows up boulders below, or the use of napalm in D3, L14 on those trees.

It's no Red Faction though.

[Kaiaatzl]

No I don't think that's what he was talking about.  And neither of those examples are Merc.
In answer to your question, it sounds like an unfinished feature that was never used in Retribution or Merc.  After all, Mercenary didn't introduce any new weapons that could have had the flag enabled.

Scripted environmental destruction is something different entirely.  Lots of games (heck I'd say most games) have that.

[Sidhe Priest]

Try it yourself, it's just a couple fields on any weapon.

[Scyphi]

That's what the experimental warpcore is for

Emphasis on EXPERIMENTAL. After it's performance at the end of D2 (matters of deliberate sabotage aside) I'm sure it's marketable credibility was shattered.

Seriously, though, I did completely overlook the warpcore in all of that, and now that you bring it up, I like the idea. In my own mental visions of what I'd view as the perfect next Descent game, I kept trying to fit the warpcore in there, but never could figure out a good way to do it. This would fix that.

I have to say no to any slow sightseeing routes, though. I don't know why anyone would want that in a game. And I don't see how the slow sightseeing routes would add anything to Descent, except slow it down unnecessarily. Personally, I think Descent works best when kept simple. Make it too complicated would take away much of it's thrill. Again, I want to say that these aren't bad, but if used in Descent, I would think they would need to be used wisely and/or sparingly.

(have you noticed in every videoclip the Pyro spawns next to a planet, not inside the planet's atmosphere? - maybe the warp mechanism has to avoid strong gravity pulls)

If that were true, then the ship would have to appear even FARTHER away from the planet, because the location it's always portrayed at appearing is still very deep within said planet's gravity well (I think a lot of people don't realize just how far an object's gravity well can reach). I think Kaiaastel is right to say that it was more likely a theatrical device, but if a logical explanation is really needed for it, it's possible that the warpcore just doesn't mix well with atmospheres. Maybe the warpcore process runs the risk of igniting the gasses in an atmosphere, or an atmosphere provides too much interference.

...neither Zeta Aquilae nor Brimspark actually have an atmosphere.

Not necessarily. Just because it doesn't appear to have an atmosphere, doesn't mean it doesn't have one. The moon, for example, actually DOES have an atmosphere, it's just really, really, REALLY thin. That said, with all of the volcanic activity that clearly takes place on Brimspark, I can almost guarantee that is has a thin atmosphere of some sort, likely volcanic gases spewed out from eruptions.

Many space games used to have (and have now) upgrade stores and a merchant/social element.

The day Descent becomes an RPG is the day I leave the fandom, no joke. And just because all the OTHER sci-fi games seem to be doing it doesn't mean Descent has to follow the crowd. Indeed, I would think most of us would want it to continue to stand apart from the others as it has always done. There are other ways to add the complexity and detail you speak of WITHOUT going the RPG route.

The feature is there, it works, but it's never been used in the D3 campaign. A weapon has to have a terrain damage value specified in the table.

Makes sense to me, and certainly seems within D3's capabilities. I've never heard of it before, but I can't doubt the residual coding is there and works. Although I'm sure it's buggy beyond all belief (why else would it be so unused and obscure?).

Scripted environmental destruction is something different entirely.  Lots of games (heck I'd say most games) have that.

I'd even go as far to say that all big-title games have that now, and when they don't, it runs the risk of falling behind as a result.

So what would be really cool would be to include that same kind of realistic environmental destruction WITHOUT having to script it all fall a certain way. Gaming tech, as it happens, is getting real close to doing this.

[Matthew]

So what would be really cool would be to include that same kind of realistic environmental destruction WITHOUT having to script it all fall a certain way. Gaming tech, as it happens, is getting real close to doing this.

There are already games that have unscripted dynamic environments.

[Scyphi]

Eh, true, some that I've seen, but always lacking in details here and there, and still bear a degree of scripting to kind of...guide...the event through it seamlessly. What I'm speaking of is slightly more capable and...encompassing...than that. I don't really know how to explain it.

Although I suppose it is possible that there is more than one recently released game that has this already that I just don't know of yet. It would actually thrill me to no end to hear of such a game.

[TechPro]

Heh,  . The Poll is tied.


No, I didn't do it.

[Matthew]

We have 20 active members? o_0

[Kaiaatzl]

And I can't figure out whether that's good or bad for the community.
Scary.

[Scyphi]

Darn thing keeps doing that, getting itself tied...

[Sidhe Priest]

How about a new topic/poll? "Will Anyone Ever Release Anything Like Descent 4?"