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Post by Basse on Apr 9, 2012 1:36:01 GMT
You most certainly will! I've wanted to use them ever since Agamemmnon's expansion came out, so they'll be in a couple scenarios. EDIT - After another day's work, the first act of the cinematic is finished! It's now at 23 minutes and ~470 triggers, which means the completed cinematic should land on roughly 40-45 minutes and 800 triggers. It will also be the first cinematic I've ever made that takes up a Giant map.
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Post by Basse on Apr 12, 2012 20:13:37 GMT
If I manage to stick to my schedule, the cinematic should be completed by April 17th, i.e. in less than a week! Once it's done, would anyone like to have a look at it and give some comments on it?
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Post by The Seburai! on Apr 13, 2012 21:02:30 GMT
Sure, I'd be happy to.
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Post by Basse on Apr 13, 2012 21:21:41 GMT
Great! The second act of the cinematic is now 7 minutes long, and I've done roughly 3 pages out of 13. Things are going according to plan! EDIT - Despite running into numerous game-crashing bugs today, I've managed to get around most of them and finish another 3 pages of script, and adding another 5-6 minutes to the cinematic. I will do another three pages tomorrow, and then I will slow down a bit for the final portion, as I will be filming in the days to come. EDIT 2 - Might as well give you a sneak peek to look at. The Gates of the Old KingdomLined up for battleXaphira in prisonMan the defenses!
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Post by Basse on Apr 15, 2012 13:58:33 GMT
Having finished today's three pages, which consisted mainly of dialogue, the second act is now at 18 minutes, and just above 700 triggers. Just 3½ pages left to go!
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Post by Basse on Apr 17, 2012 9:22:36 GMT
The scenario is now more or less finished! I will polish up some details today and then send it over to you, Seb. EDIT - Just sent the scenario!
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Post by The Seburai! on Apr 17, 2012 20:06:19 GMT
This was epic...check your mail.
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Post by Basse on Apr 17, 2012 20:13:05 GMT
Got it! And I'm glad you enjoyed it!
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Post by Basse on Jun 22, 2013 19:16:05 GMT
Just thought I'd post a little something of what I've been working on today, to show that this project is still alive! As you can see from the purple and green outlines, there is still a lot of polishing left to do, but you get the general idea.
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Post by Julius CMXCIX on Jun 23, 2013 2:43:20 GMT
That's a nightmarishly steep set of stairs, Basse. Poor old champion.
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Post by Basse on Jun 23, 2013 9:43:13 GMT
AoK doesn't really offer too many alternatives, so he'll just have to tread very carefully.
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Post by Basse on Jun 24, 2013 23:48:19 GMT
So... tonight I have finished the underground staircase. I decided to create a single graphic out of it so that the cliffs would come together more naturally. Needless to say, I will have to cut this up into 3-4 separate units so that you can scroll over it without the image disappearing.
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Post by Julius CMXCIX on Jun 27, 2013 17:15:44 GMT
That looks incredible. With a bit of dressing up I think I'd say it's the best modded screenshot for AoK I've seen. I love the doorways.
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Post by HockeySam18 on Jun 30, 2013 22:23:17 GMT
I would certainly have to agree. Nice stuff, Basse!
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Post by Basse on Jul 1, 2013 20:30:43 GMT
Thanks chaps!
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Post by HockeySam18 on Jul 5, 2013 21:18:29 GMT
Basse, how did you make the wooden bridges datawise (the ones from the dark age dock)? For Forgotten Empires Cysion is making a similar editor object. One of our graphics guys made the .slps for 1x2 and 2x1 bridge middles and ends on each side, but Cysion's been having some difficulty with the data.
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Post by Basse on Jul 10, 2013 9:27:50 GMT
I believe I simply copied one of the existing bridges and shrunk it to 1x2 size, instead of 2x3.
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Post by Basse on Aug 9, 2013 10:53:48 GMT
Julius, you'll be pleased to know that the hero from Gwyndlegard 2 (the one with zombies, a maoist coup and ethnic cleansing), Plarffbert Urr'iwranggg, now has a cameo in the campaign. It's very small and most people will likely miss it entirely, but it's there if you can find it.
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Post by Julius CMXCIX on Aug 11, 2013 15:55:28 GMT
Ha. I'll look out for it.
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Post by HockeySam18 on Aug 13, 2013 17:35:49 GMT
Basse, be well aware that I'm playing through Gwyndlegard, Marvin and Rob, and Rockspring again to catch myself up with the story before Athalen. This means all side quests, exploring every inch of the map, etc, and yes I did read the pages from the lost history book in RR. This is not to say that I didn't do the side quests before, but it's been a year or so Oh and all on Hard difficulty too. I'm looking for the whole experience here!!! Also, I never noticed before, but it is possible to cut through forests with those siege onagers you get from Mezenghi to reach "unreachable" places, because cliffs with trees become passable when the trees are cleared, just like that cliff climbing trick with the castle in TWoTW with the ninja. So watch out for that in Athalen I guess
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Post by Basse on Aug 14, 2013 21:42:10 GMT
Haha, I'll have to watch out for that yeah! Fortunately only 2 of the scenarios will be B&D, so I won't have to go through the entire campaign! What are your thoughts on Gwyndlegard and the other scenarios? Personally I now think Gwyndlegard is a quite a mess... a mess which I'm very fond of, but still: the very long-winded dialogues, the numerous tedious missions forcing you to walk across the entire map for little reward, the constant crashes... and it really shows that the scenario was created over two years.
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Post by Julius CMXCIX on Aug 15, 2013 14:00:46 GMT
I remember complaining all about those back and forth quests.
Gwyndlegard is a good campaign, and deserves whatever high rating it got. I have always, always found that big projects get messy. If I knew in 2006 what I know now I would have focused more on producing straightforward scenarios. Ambition is always the problem.
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Post by HockeySam18 on Aug 15, 2013 18:19:01 GMT
I've never seen a crash in Gwyndlegard except for when you load a savegame. You have to reboot AoK and then reload the save for some reason for it to not crash. I think you explained once that it has to do with too many active triggers at once? However, some parts have a lot of lag. I think most of it is caused by the Xaphira AI, but the sound effect that is played during the Aienborg siege (the shouts and fighting) also seems to cause lag. Something to be aware of too is the way some enemy camps and cities are designed, units are trained that get stuck on the buildings and therefore can't move. I saw this with archers in Xaphira's fort near Pumpkindon in GG, and then with some cavaliers in a stable in the north of Rockspring in RR. I've had this issue in many of my scenarios, and it can cause a whole mess of lag when the AI keeps trying to task units that essentially can't move. I never found the sidequests bothersome actually, since you do most of them during the B&D part where there is plenty else to do, so you are never stuck watching your units moving a long way. Even when bringing the Relic of the Rock to Dylglen, I was cutting the woods and building tons of fortifications for when Xaphira's army would decide to cross the land bridge into what was Winsborough. You could say that GG is a mess, but it is certainly quite a fun one. The only thing is that especially on Hard, my gold runs out in an instant and I have to spam trash units. As trash goes, the Celts are rather strong (with Hussars, ESkirms, and Halbs), but I sure threw away droves of troops in attacks on Aienborg when I ran into Tengil's elite troops. Then, by the time you bring the Spire to the Monks and get 10000 gold, the game is basically over and I'm sending tons of paladins and champs over the sand bridge, followed by 20 siege rams and 10 monks to pick up the unholy relics (brilliant idea btw!). Marvin and Rob is an excellent scenario, and the only issue I can think of is that sometimes, if you take the forest road and get chased by the Xiochian patrol, then upon escaping to the Arthalian trade post your units block Urdana from moving to the edge of the map and thereby prevent your progress. Also, on your island manor, one of the playtesters talks about an easter egg where you have to have all your heroes in a forest clearing for 42 seconds. Is this real or is it just a prank? (I refuse to defile the scenario with Campaign Manager) RR is a perfect scenario. Gorgeous map, great story, and fun gameplay (plus the option to skip cutscenes that you've seen before is great for those who don't like reading tons of dialogue). The boss fight in particular is probably the coolest 1v1 battle I've ever seen in AoK (though Lovewater is a cheat and uses magic to make it not-so-1v1) The balance was perfect throughout. From the battles at the beginning with "bandits" to the boss and the B&D, it was great. Rockspring had more advanced troops, but you have numbers and decent defenses. Then there are opportunities to gain more advanced troops, like the Xiochan mercs, the Alingian troops, and the Ondorian mercs, provided you have enough gold. Once Mezenghi's army arrives, it is a bit of a cakewalk, but sometimes I've won before he shows up. There is always something to do (some very unique sidequests coupled with the B&D and exploring the gorgeous map). I can definitely say that I can't wait for Athalen!
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Post by Julius CMXCIX on Aug 15, 2013 22:43:41 GMT
You found RR a cakewalk on Hard? I must have sent hundreds and hundreds of spearmen to their deaths in that scenario - constantly spamming them from about a dozen barracks just to hold the line.
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Post by HockeySam18 on Aug 16, 2013 16:46:24 GMT
Only once Mezenghi's army arrives, since those troops are far stronger than anything Rockspring can manage, and you've also cut Rockspring's supplies (destroy market and port) and done all of the sidequests by then.
Before that though, I agree it was quite difficult!!! I walled the area outside the farms (bushes do lots of the job for you already) asap and then built towers and filled them with archers. Spamming skirms I thought quite effective as long as I covered them with spears. Rockspring seemed to train mostly Xbows, HCav archers, and siege with a few cavs thrown in. Keeping the Alingian troops and the Xiochan cavalry alive can go a long way!
The key I found was not to take Brightcliff until your position is secure. Taking Brightcliff is necessary to start the 45min countdown to Mezenghi's arrival, but it also causes Rockspring's attacks to intensify, so if you go and take it right away once your Alingian troops arrive, then you can't possibly hold either base with your troops spread so thin. The thing about RR is that time is on your side- you can keep doing those sidequests to get gold and gathering food and wood to finance your trash armies, while Rockspring's AI eventually runs out of steam and throws in the towel. Then Mezenghi seems to turn up with a massive army of Imperial troops once Rockspring has run out of steam and then the systematic destruction of the city is the cakewalk I spoke of.
The problem with any AI is that they pretty much need to cheat heavily to provide a challenge for a long time, or they need to get boosts (like the looping troop spawns for Xaphira in the capital in GG) or a huge advantage (like Imperial vs. Feudal in RR).
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Post by Julius CMXCIX on Aug 17, 2013 14:27:42 GMT
Hmm, I didn't think of using towers, as anything less than castles always seems a waste to me in AoK. Like you, I walled off at the bushes. I spammed zillions of spears and skirmishers, and tried to inch forward by building a carpet of barracks along the north road.
My biggest weakness was that I didn't know about destroying the market and port. As I recall, you only get told about that when you actually see the buildings (probably a design choice to reconsider, Basse, if you ever update it). What I was doing was periodically mustering enough rams to do a bit of damage to the south end of Rockspring, but it was like digging a hole with a toothpick as my rams would rapidly be overwhelmed and destroyed. I only destroyed the market and port when I attacked with Mezenghi's troops, and that was a fierce assault with almost total casualties (although I also took out some other important buildings).
Whenever I get a limited number of special troops I usually end up just holding them in reserve. I don't like losing limited resources unless I gain something crucial in return.
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Post by HockeySam18 on Aug 17, 2013 14:50:42 GMT
Ah, that explains things. I compulsively explore every map I play, and so I found all the sidequests and also killed the vills in the mine north of Rockspring. I might try it without knocking out those buildings, as once you take out the market and port you loot a ton of resources and Rockspring's AI goes to crap since they start running out of resources. There is something in the hints, I think, but I'm not sure. I also got quite a scare once when I was doing the Relic of Souls sidequest and Rockspring decided to send a huge army up just to target Immanuel, Emma, and my Bodyguards up NW of Alingard. "RUN! Run for your lives!!! Another thing I love about the Gwyndlegard universe is the awesome names. Aside from their innate awesomeness, lots of the names seem to have Irish and Welsh influences, which reminds me of home, where although I am in the USA my area has a ton of Irish and Welsh names for the towns and villages. Also, Basse, where do you get your awesome music from? I know some stuff comes from AoM and AoE3, but what about the rest?
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Post by Basse on Aug 17, 2013 22:45:17 GMT
@julius, Without your critique, Gwyndlegard would be a great deal messier than it already is! RR would be too, because I learned a lot of things from trying to piece together the puzzle that was Gwyndlegard, with the help you you, BJ and the other playtesters. The fact that RR was a much more straight-forward scenario than Gwyndlegard, with fewer long-winded missions and dialogues crucial to the core gameplay, was a direct result of this. For RoA I've basically tried to marry the two scenario ideals I have: the campaign itself is long and takes up a whole seven scenarios, which allows for all kinds of missions and gameplay styles; at the same time, most individual scenarios are more straight-forward than either Gwyndlegard or RR. Scenarios 2 and 6, which are mainly B&D and thus rather opened-up, are the exceptions. I, personally, have had a lot of problems with my ambitions going way further than my will, time and patience ever could; you might remeber a project called ADOC, which was abandoned half-way through after restarting two or three times! I think my philosophy is a bit different than yours, though; I wouldn't tell my 2006 self to cut down on the ambitions, but rather to just keep on working; in the end it's meant that my will and patience have started to cathc up with my ambitions, and this has actually spilled over into other hobbies and real life situations, such as my film-making. As for the port and market in RR: I'm not sure, but I think it says in the hints that you can weaken Rockspring by destroying their sources of income. I also seem to recall adding a tip from Emma of Wellfield (for the Standard difficulty only) where she basically says "Hey! Did you know you can go destroy the port & market?", but I'm not a hundred precent sure on that one! @sam, I'm still not entirely certain of all the reasons the game crashes! During playtesting it would crash constantly, for everyone except for me. At this point I had about 40 looping farms spread across the map, which contributed hugely to the crashing. I cut this down to 3-4 or so, and the crashing dropped dramatically, but it still happens from time to time. Nowadays I actually get it most of the time when I try to play the scenario myself! I'm glad you didn't find the long walks all too dull, because I did so myself after a while! The thing is, I planned out the whole story back in 2008. At this time I was 16 years old, had almost exclusively released smaller games and never done anything on the scale of Gwyndlegard (well, unless you count ADOC, but that was essentially 20 rather short fixed force scenarios in a row). By the time I got to the ending, I found it rather implausible to turn the game from B&D back to Fixed Force, which I had originally intended, and so I just gave the player a couple FF missions (go into the mountains and claim a relic or two) during the B&D part. Now, if you do that as a side-quest, like in RR, it's fine, it could even enhance the gameplay a lot, but to make it an essential part of the story was, which I later found out, not the best idea, because it slowed down the game when it should be building up to a big climax. That being said, I still like Gwyndlegard a lot, and I'm very happy that so many other people do too. Despite its flaws, big and small, it's still one of my finest AoK creations... but RoA will be better. A lot better. The secret easteregg with clearing is indeed a prank, and I take great pleasure in assuming at least one or two people out there have tried to find this easter egg! And ah, the names... for RR and RoA I've tried to be a bit more coherent with the naming of people and places, but for Gwyndegard I basically just made up names on the basis of how cool or funny they sounded. Some of them don't mesh very well at all. If you check the first couple pages of the Gwyndlegard project threads here and at AoKH, you'll see how the discussions went! There is actually a short dialogue in RR, an easteregg sort of, where Immanuel and Lord Mezenghi discuss the odd choice of name Mezenghi had for his son (Fabian), because their names come from completely different cultures. Perhaps you've stumbled upon that? The music comes from all over the place, really; Gwyndlegard had music from the movie Stardust, Command and Conquer: Generals, Chrono Trigger and Blietzkrieg; RR had music from, again, CC Generals, Kevin MacLeod and the Predators movie. RoA comes with an even wider range of music, simply because of its size. Two great sources I can recommend, though, are Freeplaymusic.com (which I got from Leif Ericson) and Audionetwork.com.The latter is just a fantastic source of all kinds of music.
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Post by HockeySam18 on Aug 17, 2013 23:14:07 GMT
Yep, I've actually seen the 'Fabian' convo in RR every time I've played it, since I compulsively explore. I even go NW of the Cliffside Inn to the area with the bridge to fight the bandits every time Seeing as there are about 20 different forest clearings in M&R, I decided not to search. Plus seeing that it was mentioned by the playtester on the island, I assumed it was a joke, but wanted to make sure. Kinda reminds me of in Sabato the Witch when after you win, BJ asks you "Did you get the 10000 gold from the farmer in Bracehaiven? No? Then play again!" I'll check those sites out for sure, since I'm looking for a good custom soundtrack for my own scenarios. Btw, not sure if you saw on the AoKH thread, but I might be able to playtest RoA if my schedule works out
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Post by Julius CMXCIX on Aug 18, 2013 14:50:52 GMT
I may be going crazy, but actually I thought there was a way to get a large amount of gold from the farmer. But I may be thinking of Sabato Returns (where's there another farmer), or it might be a figment of my imagination. You could find out with Campaign Manager.
Basse, I think the problem is not ambition per se, but that it led me to design things in a way where I had a dozen half-finished plot elements and almost nothing properly finished. The stuff I'm most pleased with are the short and neat scenarios (which consist of almost everything I uploaded to the Blacksmith), all of which I substantially completed within a matter of days or a couple of weeks. Of the more elaborate stuff, I always enjoyed A Call To Arms, and it still irritates me that other people found it buggy (probably I had the advantage of knowing what to do and so never caused the triggers to get confused). If AoK still had a significant audience I would be tempted to go back, break it into a few scenarios and fix the bugs and make the easiest difficulty setting easier. As it is, it doesn't seem like a good investment of time. But the vast bulk of my time designing with AoK was spent on projects that never saw the light of day, although I think the experience taught me a lot about how to go about seeing large projects (such as novels, for example) to completion.
I think you're on the right track with making RoA a series of relatively simple scenarios. That gets the best of both worlds, and is also what makes campaigns like Ulio and Tamerlane so effective.
HockeySam, I'm also a compulsive explorer and completionist, but not quite as quick out of the blocks as you are, it seems! And I didn't know that thing about being able to cross cliffs due to siege weapons.
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