Replaying D3

[Nyarlathotep]

Maximus, is that perhaps a taste of what's to come? Because that is pure awesome.

[Maximius]

That bathroom scene is actually right near the beginning of the game, so if you didn't see it then you missed it, sorry.

 

Thanks K for the clarification, I only remember one bathroom scene from the beginning, with a pinky eating a corpse, I don't think that was the one he was referring to, I guess I missed it.Edit: I read his hidden text, I did miss it, Ill have to go back and check it out. There are plenty of other opportunities up ahead for strangeness, no doubt

 

 

Maximus, is that perhaps a taste of what's to come? Because that is pure awesome.

 

Thanks man, I just got a weird hair in me last night, all the stuff Im seeing in D3 is really kicking up some ideas for maps. Not that I can back any of that shit up with models or anything yet, don't get me wrong, its a dream, but looking at the D3 maps is telling me what is and isn't possible.

Edited February 17, 2007 by Maximius

[SneaksieDave]

I read his hidden text, I did miss it, Ill have to go back and check it out.

I wasn't sure how far in it is (it's near the beginning??), but you probably have to walk over and actually look in the mirror to trigger it.

 

That shit's just wrong!

 

Edit: BTW you've got me back in the expansion pack for the first time since April of last year! I can't believe how long since I've played it. Figure I'll give it a half hour or so a night, and that should keep me entertained a while, considering the pace at which I go. Some really cool ancient Mars civilization temples. I wonder how long it is...

[sparhawk]

AFAIK it triggers when you enter the bathroom, probably look into some of the toilets and then try to get out of the bathroom again.

[Komag]

One of my favourite things about D3 was the repeating machinery, as talked about. I really liked one part with these blue cannister things that would get twirled around and their light would flash around the room in the twirling, then they got sent on their way, the giant arms recessing back for another batch, ad infinitum. It really added to the atmosphere to see such processes going on.

 

I can imaging Thief type equivalents readily, Engineering guild machinery grinding away, wizard workshop stuff, maybe a drawbridge process going on in the city, a giant clock with more realistic gears and bells intertwining, all sorts of tricks and traps going on in some labrynth/lair, the possibilities are quite wide open!

[Domarius]

Your principal is intrinsically flawed, based as it is on the ridiculous assumption that all game developers work from some common understanding of what the hardest difficulty should be.

lol, n00b

 

The principal is that on the hardest difficulty, the game is operating at its best - the AI is cranked right up, the things that only appear on hardest difficulty settings are there, etc.

 

It's got nothing to do with the relative perception of difficulty. I thought I was pretty clear about that.

 

 

Re: bathroom scene - if you don't have a certain feature on your video card, you miss the effect on his skin - you just see him standing there.

[Komag]

But most games have don't have hardest work that way. In fact, I hate it when they do, because that means that when I play on medium I'm missing out. To me, Hardest should just be harder, not better.

[Mr Mike]

The principal is that on the hardest difficulty, the game is operating at its best - the AI is cranked right up, the things that only appear on hardest difficulty settings are there, etc.

 

That's maybe how it should be but it isn't in reality, due to AI limitations etc. Operation Flashpoint for instance; on hardest the AI were suddenly given 100% accuracy, sight etc and actually made the game pretty gay. Options like that are only added in though to combat weaknesses in the AI that long term players are bound to exploit, sooner or later, on lower more "realistic" difficulties.

[Crispy]

Nothing you said contradicted what he said.

 

The point is, if you beat the game on its hardest difficulty, then you know that there's nothing it can throw at you that you can't take. You've really beaten it, properly; it wasn't holding back by, for example, lowering their accuracy.

[ZylonBane]

ALL games "hold back". Any game in the universe can kill the player instantly at any moment for any reason.

 

Less technical people seem to have trouble realizing this.

[OrbWeaver]

The principal is that on the hardest difficulty, the game is operating at its best - the AI is cranked right up, the things that only appear on hardest difficulty settings are there, etc.

 

It depends on how the AI is implemented. Games like Thief may well have more advanced AI on the hardest difficulty levels, but for FPS games like Doom it is more likely that the difficulty levels just set simple parameters like "number of AI per room" and "amount of ammo lying around". In the latter case, you can never really see the game "at its best" because the parameters could always be ramped up further (100 AI per room and NO spare ammo, for instance).

[ZylonBane]

And the player only gets one hit point!

[Gildoran]

Actually, I don't think the number of AI/items is the primary way many videogames alter difficulty (though many have the ability to do that). For example, I remember HL1 altering things like the amount of ammo in a clip, the amount health restored by a medkit, the amount of HP monsters have and the damage they do. I believe most other FPSs do similar things. (since D3's performance limits how many monsters can be on screen at once, they probably just jack up monster health/damage rather than adding more monsters on higher difficulties) This way, a mapper doesn't always need to differentiate between skill levels (though it can be a good idea), and all players can have the full experience of the game even if it's tailored to suit their difficulty level.

[OrbWeaver]

Actually, I don't think the number of AI/items is the primary way many videogames alter difficulty (though many have the ability to do that). For example, I remember HL1 altering things like the amount of ammo in a clip, the amount health restored by a medkit, the amount of HP monsters have and the damage they do.

 

They were just illustrative examples -- your suggestions are exactly the same thing: numeric parameters that can be changed to arbitrary values. This contrasts with Dom's suggestion that more advanced or complex game behaviours occur at higher difficulty levels, which while possible in games like Thief, are probably uncommon in the shoot-em-up genre.

[Domarius]

Egad guys - the hardest setting is the hardest the game was meant to be played at whilst still being possible.

 

Saying it could be infinitely harder is copmletely innapropriate, because it wasn't designed and tested to be played with values higher than what are at the hardest setting.

 

Why is this so hard to understand?

[sparhawk]

Egad guys - the hardest setting is the hardest the game was meant to be played at whilst still being possible.

 

That's a dellusion. I already played games, where the developers said that they could have made the game even harder, but they wouldn't like to oust their audience, because the hardcore games who really would like such a challenge are pretty small. So they cater for the gamers which want to boast that they can beat the games on the hardest level, as their number is much higher. It's really no coincidence that the bots for Q2 were not developed by Id themselve, but by a mod, which gave you a really tough challenge. Incidiently Q3 was shipped then with these bots, and it was really the only game that I had to play on a lower level than hardest, because they are much smarter not only more hitpoints or faster.

[OrbWeaver]

Saying it could be infinitely harder is copmletely innapropriate, because it wasn't designed and tested to be played with values higher than what are at the hardest setting.

 

Designed and tested by whom? Some random tester in a game design studio? Who is to say that their particular skill level is appropriate for determining what is the hardest manageable gameplay and what isn't?

 

I managed to beat all of the Thief games on Hardest and I am by no means a particularly skilled player, so clearly the Hardest difficulty could have been set a great deal more challenging. This is presumably why hardcore players need to invent new rules like "Fail on see" and "No equipment" to make things more difficult.

[ZylonBane]

So they cater for the gamers which want to boast that they can beat the games on the hardest level, as their number is much higher.

I think you just described Domarius there.

[Domarius]

I'm not talking about how hard it could have been, I'm just saying the game on the hardest difficulty setting is the game at its best - straight out of the box.

 

If it can be tweaked to make it harder, good, but I wasn't talking about that.

 

@ZB - All you seem to do is hang around and look for opportunities to have a go at people. Unfortunately for you, most of this involves picking on typos and forum n00bs who don't know any better. I'm sure your bullying got you attention in the school yard, but here where the majority are adults, you just look sad, and give the impression you have a lot of time to spend doing this sort of thing because you don't have a real job or something.

[ZylonBane]

This from the person with almost six thousand posts?

[demagogue]

Haha, this from the person with almost thirteen-thousand posts at you-know-where. Please!

 

 

 

Sorry, not my fight. But you have to admit the irony is beyond dripping in this case.

Edited February 20, 2007 by demagogue

[Crispy]

This from the person with almost six thousand posts?

At least Domarius is doing something productive with his posts. From what I've seen, all you do is troll.

 

Go away, troll.

[Domarius]

This from the person with almost six thousand posts?

TTLG? Yeah I was in first year of uni then, so I had a lot of time. I eventually got busy, studying for the job I now have. Also the free time I had wasn't spent hunting for forum fights :/ looser.

[ZylonBane]

At least Domarius is doing something productive with his posts. From what I've seen, all you do is troll.

At least I actually know what "troll" means. Which you, apparently, do not.

[sparhawk]

The number of postings is a pretty weak argument, since you can't really determine what has been done with it. And when you consider that only a very tiny part of it is posted in the public forums, the number on it's own has absolutely no meaning for team members.