Topic: [News] Rare, but nasty D2X-XL bugs fixed

[Kaiaatzl]

Pfffft.

I agree about a total, that makes much more sense than a fraction.

[karx-elf-erx]

I think it would be better to just show you a total of how many +/- somebody has. For example I'd have 5 instead of... wait wtf? Wow. From -1 to -7 in 1 day? Aren't you overreacting just a little bit, Karx?

I didn't give you 6 power-downs. Are you overreacting a bit here?

As we are on overreactions: Do you want me to publish your last PM to me? Or do you think sending insults via PM is ok because nobody else will see how low you really are? If on my forum someone had addressed another member in a PM like you addressed me, and I'd have found out, that person would have been banned for two weeks to get some time to think it over (without a warning - forum rules are clear enough about that).

Now I propose you shut up and stop this already. That other thread is closed and you have said by PM what ever you thought you had to say. It is over.

[Kaiaatzl]

I got the impression he was joking when he implied it was you.
But I apparently don't know the whole story.

It's so hard to tell online, we need big signs like this guy uses:

[Scyphi]

In regards to the powerdown I obtained at some point...I don't know where it came from either, but it's been there for awhile now.

Yeah, that was enlightening.

Seriously, though, I never pay attention to the darn thing. I was against it being there from the beginning and still am. I'm with Karx on the matter when he says it can be abused. It'll only cause trouble in the end.

But...thus far, nobody's listened to me. Instead they all keep giving me powerups whenever the subject comes up. It's kind of a running gag now.

[karx-elf-erx]

These rating systems always are a two edged sword, and usually are rather used out of sympathy or antipathy than with sound and sober judgement.

It's so hard to tell online, we need big signs like this guy uses: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijIq_-8HJo8

ROFL!

[D2Disciple]

Let's not get into that here, folks. Even if the relationship is somewhat tenuous, just shake hands and move on, so to speak.

The power-up/power-down system was implemented mainly for fun. Scyphi's never understood the reason for their existence, so it's become a board inside joke to power him up at every opportunity. I'm sure someone gave him a power-down just to be funny.  

+1 for Scyphi.  

It's so hard to tell online, we need big signs like this guy uses: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijIq_-8HJo8

X3!

[karx-elf-erx]

+1 for Scyphi.  

X2!

LOL!

[Scyphi]

Scyphi's never understood the reason for their existence

Oh I understood just fine, I just also saw that they'd could be abused, like it obviously was in the end.

[Alieo]

@Karx: What kind of D2X-XL update would constitute a version number of 1.16 instead of another 1.15.X? What would constitute a 2.0??? LOVE D2X-XL by the way. Some may criticize it as not being original, but I'm sorry, when better graphics come out, why NOT implement them into a revitalization of an old favorite game? Muchos kudos! Your efforts are MUCH appreciated over here. Some people, no one I know here really, don't know what they're missing out on!

[karx-elf-erx]

1.16 would e.g. be a completely new shadowing system (e.g. full fledged shadow maps with all the extra maths you need to make it look real good), or deferred lighting, i.e. a significant new feature, or a significant improvement of an existing feature that has required a significant amount of coding.

2.0 would e.g. be a completely new rendering engine, i.e. a major change in the technical foundations of the game.

As far as being original goes, there's two approaches to that: Gameplay and appearance wise.

Gameplay wise D2X-XL is 100% the original when you turn off certain extensions. If you turn them on, it gently expands on the original gameplay, but never leaves it - all these features aren't a dramatical change from the proven formula, but build on stuff already in the game (like e.g. the rotating missile lock indicator around the currently targetted object when having a homing weapon equipped).

Graphics wise D2X-XL has changed the game somewhat, but less than some people seem to claim: The hires textures mostly look like their originals, just in better quality. Colored light certainly doesn't hurt the game. Who wouldn't like the new hires ships? The rest is all effects, like smoke, lightning and stuff. Now most people wouldn't say Descent 3 wouldn't be Descent anymore because of its better graphics, and D3 has changed the gameplay quite dramatically (and to the worse, if you ask me) from the D1/D2 formula.

Actually quite a few (if not most) people that claim D2X-XL wouldn't be Descent anymore do so because they are having something against me more than against the program. Then there are some who are angry they can't run it on their low-end computers (which was never intended by me, and I have done my best to remove that issue).

Anyway, since you can turn off each and every enhancement in D2X-XL there is no reason to claim it wouldn't be true to the original (if you want it to be).

Well, to each his own. I regret that not everybody uses D2X-XL, but that is for the simple reason that right now we are having the D1/D2 community split in two, particularly regarding multiplayer, resulting in too few players for well filled multiplayer games taking place regularly on both sides of the fence. I tried to alleviate this by making XL and Rebirth UDP protocols compatible on the basic (i.e. vanilla D2 compliant level), but alas, it shouldn't be.

[Scyphi]

Well, actually, the colored lighting, when applied to old classic levels, can alter the "feel" of the level ever so slightly. Depends on the lighting, really.

And after having played D1 Rebirth and compared it to D2X-XL's D1 gameplay, D2X-XL's D1 gameplay does feel ever so slightly...off.

But other than than these nit-picky details that I think really aren't worth arguing over, I'm in complete agreement, there's not really anything D2X-XL has done that is a betrayal to the game, and any modifications to gameplay can be turned on and off easily. And a lot of those modifications aren't really that big a deal anyway. Like the targeters you mentioned. really, they don't really ADD anything to the game, they're there mostly because they seemed like a cool idea.

And anyway, if one really DOES have something against D2X-XL, there's no need to bash the game so much. You don't like it, then just switch to Rebirth.

[Matthew]

I've heard some people the ship handling in D2X-XL feels different, but I'm not really sure how true that could be.

[karx-elf-erx]

There are three ship types available in D2X-XL now, but if you chose the standard ship, there will be no difference.

[Kaiaatzl]

I say it improves D2 with the new gameplay feeling .
The standard ship can feel different if you alter the keyboard ramping or the ship drag settings.  If you leave those at default settings there's no difference - unless you consider un-nerfed fusion a difference (though you can turn that off too, like I do in any level that has robots that fire fusion cause I'm pathetic).