Crystal Arrows

[Springheel]

The poll is up. I think we need to get this settled.

[New Horizon]

Yes sparhawk, that is a TDS rope arrow. All the components are there in T3Ed for it, the animation, the object, everything. They seem to be having trouble getting it to work though.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yup, ascottk and str8g8 were working on it. The animation files were already there but they had to create a new .psk file so the animation had a skeleton to work with. It's looking like they'll get rope arrows working in some form or another this way.

[oDDity]

You shouldn't have put an option for including both in the poll. If you put both types in the toolset, of course they will all choose the arrows that were in Thief, because they're all die-hard fanatics. Making the mechanical ones at all would be a complete waste of time.

Have either one or the other.

[New Horizon]

Have either one or the other.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I'm inclined to agree. No straddling the fence. Make a decision and then live with any warts.

[Springheel]

People should only choose that option if they really want both, as I said. I don't see why it should be invalidated as an option. Some people may actually prefer that we include both in the toolset. If you don't agree, don't vote for it.

[sparhawk]

You shouldn't have put an option for including both in the poll. If you put both types in the toolset, of course they will all choose the arrows that were in Thief, because they're all die-hard fanatics. Making the mechanical ones at all would be a complete waste of time.

 

You should have more faith in the FM authors.

 

Let's see:

 

1) You exist.

2) You are NOT a fan of the cyrstal arrows because you prefer the mechanical explanation above magical ones.

3) You are a fan stealthgaming yourself

4) There hare at least hundreds of stealthgaming fans and FM makers.

 

These four facts proof one thing. There exists at least ONE stealthgaming fan that is opposed to crystal arrows and would use the mechanical ones in his own FM.

 

Now comes the hard part. Since we already proofed that there is ONE fan with these characteristics, we can make a simple assumption based on these facts. There are MORE than ONE stealthgaming fans, who prefer mechanical explanations above woo and this in turn means that there will be other people also making FMs with mechanical arrows.

 

So stop worrying other poeples heads.

[oDDity]

The bottom line is, that is doesn't matter if we include crystal arrows, becasue others will defintely make the instant the toolset is released..

It gives us a bit less work, moves us away from another contentious grey area as far as copyright goes, and puts another stamp on this as our own game.

[Springheel]

Judging by the number of votes so far, there are plenty of people who prefer the mechanical to the crystal, so the same will be true of FM authors. Doesn't mean we shouldn't provide the option though, since it is a toolset, and is relatively easy to do.

[Darkness_Falls]

Judging by the number of votes so far, there are plenty of people who prefer the mechanical to the crystal, so the same will be true of FM authors.

This isn't a valid assessment. I didn't vote for "crystal", yet I prefer it over mechanical. I actually voted for "both" because of the reasons I've already given. If it were just between "mech" and "crystal", i would've voted for crystal.

 

Current figures:

1. Crystal Arrows [ 1 ]  [8.33%]

2. Mechanical Arrows [ 5 ]  [41.67%]

3. We should include both and let FM authors decide which they want to use [ 6 ]  [50.00%]

4. I don't care but I want to see what everyone else said [ 0 ]  [0.00%]

[Springheel]

Don't be ridiculous. Of course it's a valid assessment. Of the ten people who had voted when I posted that message, 50% of them prefered mechanical arrows over crystal AND 'both'. That counts as "plenty" in my book, whether your vote was one of them or not.

[Darkness_Falls]

Ahh, actually your statement can be read a couple different ways. I read it a way you didn't intend.

 

Yes, obviously if mechanicals got 5 solid votes, then obviously there are FMs who will prefer them. Sorry, mis-read your analysis.

[Domarius]

Spring, how can you provide both? The only way I can see this working is to provide def files for each, and the FM author has to enable them in their mission, which means they can only have those arrows in their entire mod. Doesn't seem worth it.

[oDDity]

I don't think that's really a problem. We can call them different names. Fire arrow, and fire cyrstal arrow, gas arrow, gas crystal arrow etc.

[oDDity]

This is a crystal fire arrow.

I was devising a way to solve the problem of crystal suddenly becoming an arrow when you find one in the wild. With this, the devious and well prepared thief can attatch the crystals he finds to the arrow shaft on the fly. It's pretty obvious how this works from looking at it, you just pop the crystal in and tighten the screw bolt, and you have youself an arrow in seconds.

The player should have to buy these crystal holders, there's no reason why he should get an unlimted supply for free. They would not count toward any maximum arrow limit if we have one. It would just be nice on general principal to make the player aware of them and their purpose.

 

My new thoughts on the contentious arrow issue are this -

 

We should inlude both types of arrows, both types of arrow should be inlcuded as default on the buy/sell screen ,and you can choose to buy the mechanical version or the crystal version.

The disadvantage of the crystal versions is that they are more expensive to buy, being natural and rare, while the mechanical versions are being knocked off production lines at the inventor's factories, so they're cheaper.

The advantage of the crystal versions would be that they're far more potent than ther artificial counterparts. The fire arrows would do more damge, the gas arrows would knock a wider radius of people out more quicky, the moss would disperse over a wider area -I haven't thought of why the crystal water arrow would be better, since my gelatin arrow outperforms it in every way, but we could make the crystal have the gelatin properties (silent, less mess ect), and make the mechaniacl verison just a balloon filled with noisy water.

 

This would make finding a crystal more exciting as well, since now you have something to compare them to - in Thief, a fire arrow was just a fire arrow like any other, but in TDM, finding a crystal firegem would be a big deal, since you know how expensive, rare and potent they are compared to the manufactured fire arrow you're currenly carrying.

If it's a multimission, you should be be allowed to sell your discovered crystals if you want to, you shouldn't be forced to attatch them to your arrows.

When you find a crystal you should be able to choose to attatch it to one of your crystal holder arrows if you have any, or keep it to sell, and it can be added to your loot total.

 

 

[New Horizon]

This is a crystal fire arrow.

  I was devising a way to solve the problem of crystal suddenly becoming an arrow when you find one in the wild. With this, the devious and well prepared  thief can attatch the crystals he finds to the arrow shaft on the fly. It's pretty obvious how this works from looking at it, you just pop the crystal in and tighten the screw bolt, and you have youself an arrow in seconds.

The player should have to buy these crystal holders, there's no reason why he should get an unlimted supply for free.  They would not count toward any maximum arrow limit if we have one. It would just be nice on general principal to make the player aware of them and their purpose.

 

  My new thoughts on the contentious arrow issue are this -

 

    We should inlude both types of arrows,  both types of arrow should be inlcuded as default on the buy/sell screen ,and you can choose to buy the mechanical version or the crystal version.

  The disadvantage of the crystal versions is that they are more expensive to buy, being natural and rare, while the mechanical versions are being knocked off production lines at the inventor's factories, so they're cheaper.

  The advantage of the crystal versions would be that they're far more potent than ther artificial counterparts. The fire arrows would do more damge, the gas arrows would knock a wider radius of people out more quicky, the moss would disperse over a wider area  -I  haven't thought of why the crystal water arrow would be better, since my gelatin arrow outperforms it in every way, but we could make the crystal have the gelatin properties (silent, less mess ect), and make the mechaniacl verison just a balloon filled with noisy water.

 

  This would make finding a crystal more exciting as well, since now you have something to compare them to - in Thief, a fire arrow was just a fire arrow like any other, but in TDM, finding a crystal firegem would be a big deal, since you know how expensive, rare and potent they are compared to the manufactured fire arrow you're currenly carrying.

    If it's a multimission, you should be be allowed to sell your discovered crystals if you want to, you shouldn't be forced to attatch them to your arrows.

      When you find a crystal you should be able to choose to attatch it to one of your crystal holder arrows if you have any, or keep it to sell, and it can be added to your loot total.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Looks brilliant. Exactly the type of thing I was thinking of to make them look more ...hands on and less 'the same' all around.

[Darkness_Falls]

Looks really nice! Last night I actually sketched out some concepts for vine, water, moss and fire crystals and tried to scan them in before I saw this post. My scanner sucks. I need to try and re-initialize it and will try again. That fire arrow pretty much captures what I was trying to achieve w/ my concept -- the crystal part at least. I didn't bother with trying to figure out how to attach it.

[Springheel]

Spring, how can you provide both? The only way I can see this working is to provide def files for each, and the FM author has to enable them in their mission, which means they can only have those arrows in their entire mod. Doesn't seem worth it.

 

That's exactly what I was suggesting, not that you would have both types in the same map at the same time.

 

Although I appreciate Odd's spirit of compromise, is it actually possible to have that many weapons available?

[oDDity]

Why not, it's really only four extra arrows, it's no extra coding work since they behave the same as their mechanical counter parts, except for a bit of tweaking to make them more potent.

[Springheel]

I thought the max number of weapon slots was hard-coded, but maybe I'm wrong.

[sparhawk]

We can support as many wepaons as we like. Remember - we are doing a TC, not a mod.

[Darkness_Falls]

Stupid scanner won't work. Okay, anyways... I just decided to re-draw my ideas in Photoshop. I wish I'd drawn my fire arrow a bit taller, but this should give the general idea. Click here for large version of image below (100KB).. (Ugh, now of course the FTP isn't showing images very quickly/reliably for me):

 

 

Water Crystal: Has a shorter more circular shape than we're accustomed to. And I don't mean more spherical like a balloon. I can draw a more 3-D version of it if desired.

 

Moss Crystal: A clump of moss surrounds it. When you find it, you see a clump of moss with a slightly brighter gem embedded in the middle of it. This clump gets wrapped around arrow tip.

 

Fire Crystal: Basically what oDDity made, just have some protruding jaggies that are symbolic of flame tips.

 

I still need to do the vine crystal, unless we're absolutely not having it. My concept was basically to have the more standard shaped Thief crystal, but have some thin vines with small leaves wrapping around most of it. When aiming a vine arrow, the vines would be wrapped a bit around the top part of wooden arrow.

[Springheel]

Regarding the whole elemental issue: We really could get away with having some arrows being mechanical and some being crystals. Moss arrows never made sense as an elemental arrow anyway (it's not earth). Pagan 'plant' magic is well established in the game, however, so our moss arrows and vine arrows could be pagan crystals. Nothing to do with elements at all. That would give us two crystal arrows and three mechanical ones. Probably a compromise that pleases no-one, but it's an option.

[SneaksieDave]

Looks incredible, as always. And the reasoning/ideas behind it sound good too.

 

WTF, how are these always so photo-realistic? I just don't get it.

[Darkness_Falls]

A crystal arrow? 10  minutes. They're basic and require no thought or skill.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If you ever have a chance, oDDity, I'd be interested in seeing you make a crystal arrow. Start to finish. Or any arrow for that matter. It'd be neat to see you work in Lightwave from beginning to end, including textures. If it's too much of an inconvenience, don't worry; I'll figure it out some day. If you do make a screen-capture video, though, it'd be very helpful to see pop-ups showing when when you do certain key combos (e.g., CTRL+T, or something). Just a thought. Thanks man. Your work really is exemplary.

[sparhawk]

WTF, how are these always so photo-realistic?  I just don't get it. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I guess Oddity was working the last ten years on these models, so he could present them when they are finished.