Topic: Cascade Aqueduct

[Kaiaatzl]

Huh, triggers for turning out lights usually *do* work; the ones in Counterstrike (like at the beginning of map 16 or the middle of 22) and in the map I'm building work.

I know you guys don't like D2X-XL but I have a reason to prefer it...

[Maki]

It's true that I don't like D2X-XL.  A game from the late 1990s is never going to look comparable to a modern game.  So why even try?  Why not, instead, embrace its abstract style for what it is?  It's not unusual for source ports to add little touch-ups here and there, but I feel you need to exercise some discipline with it.

I also don't care for DLE-XP.  I appreciate that Sirius tried to make it somewhat more user-friendly, but the simple fact of the matter is that I wish we had a straight-up port of DMB2 on modern Windows in addition to DLE-XP.  I've contemplated asking Aamot about releasing the source code so something like this could be possible, but I have a feeling this wasn't something Interplay approved in the first place.

[Scyphi]

I have a feeling this wasn't something Interplay approved in the first place.

Can't be. DMB2 was packaged in with the Definitive Collection, wasn't it? I seem to recall that's how Techpro and I got our hands on it, originally.

DLE-XP takes a little getting used to because the UI feels totally different, but once you get past that, it's actually really not that different at all. And it does help cut down on clutter significantly. If anything, though, it's just more stable. Just wish somebody would hurry up and do the same thing for D3Edit. I mean, Atan's adjustments to it have helped, but the darn thing really needs a complete overhaul from top to bottom.

As for D2X-XL, it's actually not a case of me not caring for it, and more I just sort of moved on. I'm perfectly okay with it, and part of me feels bad I'm not really supporting it anymore because of it. The real reason I stopped using it was really just a matter of simplicity; it was easier to install Rebirth than D2X-XL. Much easier. And Rebirth was guaranteed to run smoothly on my system with next to no tweaking whereas D2X-XL could require, at it's worst, hours of tweaking to get it to work right, and even then it always seem to have that one little niggle I couldn't ever resolve. Otherwise I like what D2X-XL's achieved, though I personally wouldn't use all of the features (never liked the cell-shaded rendering mode, and the shadows I found were usually more trouble graphically than they were worth and never looked that great). But that's what's cool about D2X-XL; you can personalize it your own tastes.

However, in comparing it and Rebirth with the raw original (kindly provided by Steam), I have found all that streamlining and flash and pizzazz does affect gameplay somewhat. Not really in a good or bad way, it just plays differently overall. And at the end, I decided like Maki that, while all the add-ons were cool and fun to toy around with, you couldn't really improve on the originals that much.

That said, looking at it now, and some of the graphical improvements don't seem as snazzy as they had when they were new.  And I miss the OLD energy trail effects, from back in the early days.

[Kaiaatzl]

Yeah, I kinda agree with you there; I don't feel like D2X-XL is actually trying to look as flashy as a modern game.  I'd compare it more to a remake of an old comic book...  Which might be why I like the cell shader...   It's trying to look somewhat different but what separates it from Rebirth for me is that it actually succeeds at that.

Rebirth tries to look like the old DOS versions but even with its small enhancements turned off it never gets it quite right.  And every time I play it I have a nagging feeling in my head that it looks wrong.

[Sapphirus]

DMB2 was packaged in with the Definitive Collection, wasn't it? I seem to recall that's how Techpro and I got our hands on it, originally.

Yes it was

[Maki]

Part of DLE-XP's problem is that I've never found any kind of robust, definitive documentation for it.  Diedel documented the things he added, but not so much the things he quietly changed.  The navigation, in particular, just feels wildly inconsistent between how you move versus how the selected thing moves.  The first-person mode, while a good idea on paper, only adds to that wonkiness.  I also don't care for how manipulating sides stretches their textures.

I'm not saying DMB2 was perfect - none of the editors are.  They all somehow manage to make the process of creating a Descent level unnecessarily convoluted.  DEVIL's esoteric nature could be blamed on how MS-DOS editors were traditionally nightmarish with UI because people didn't know better, but for something like DLE-XP, the amount of weird little hacks and shortcuts you're expected to know befuddles me.

An appropriate comparison would be the newer Quake editor, Trenchbroom, which has the same single 3D view but uses WASD, mouselook, widgets and manipulator handles to make editing fast and easy.  Widgets, in general, would make things infinitely easier.

[Kaiaatzl]

Rewinding this thread a bit, I finally got around to watching my own video (I know, I know...) and in that room around 9:00 - 9:20 the lights did go out.  The coronas disappeared and then I was killed right away but when I go back into the room later it's definitely darker in there.