Ambrosia Software Web Board: It's out. - Ambrosia Software Web Board

EV Nova. Released today (or yesterday for the picky types). 2 am, and I've finally got to have some sleep.

I'll see you guys in a couple of weeks. Nova is calling me. It's calling my name...

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"That was quick."
"Well you know, when you don't do it right it doesn't take as long."

Since I can't really download it at my speed, I'm getting it from a friend tomorrow. I'll probably fade out for a few days, but I have more important things to do (not that that alone would stop me...)

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• CCS Sacred Promise (DE H c-3)
o SCS Pillar of Autumn
Our conviction is like an arrow already in flight.
Your life will only last until it reaches you.

Now that it's out, I am allowed to tell y'all I was a Beta Tester for that game.

If anyone needs some hints, tips, or secrets, just ask

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Time is the best teacher, yet it kills all of it's students.

Aye, I had the opportunity to give a once over as well. Impressive little game engine.

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[url="http://"http://www.dissectional.com/swf/index.html"]Dig a little deeper[/url]
[url="http://"http://www.axisnet.f2s.com"]=Axis Software Integrated=[/url]

[quote]Originally posted by Slug:
Now that it's out, I am allowed to tell y'all I was a Beta Tester for that game.

If anyone needs some hints, tips, or secrets, just ask   and i wasnt even beta testing it (although i had the option to)

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It's Difficult To Comprehend How Insane Some People Can Be. Especially When You're Insane.

[quote]Originally posted by Slug:
Now that it's out, I am allowed to tell y'all I was a Beta Tester for that game.

If anyone needs some hints, tips, or secrets, just ask  
But more importantly, are the starting missions for each of the storylines simply "random within govt space," or is there ever a specific place you have to be if you want to enlist?

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• CCS Sacred Promise (DE H c-3)
o SCS Pillar of Autumn
Our conviction is like an arrow already in flight.
Your life will only last until it reaches you.

Well, if you're taking them:

1. How do I get the Polaris to NOT treat me like that ambassador dude?
2. How do I gain access to hypergates?

It's much nicer than the previous EV games, but somehow it ISN'T making me miss insane quantities of school, stop eating (and other things), etc.
I had anticipated its being far more addictive.

BTW, if you look at the desktops, you can see quite clearly the Polaris ships are REALLY fudged. Especially the Dragon. Visable polygons, maybe even visable texture pixels, and a few other sins of prerendered graphics (I'd have no problem with them if it was rendered live).

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Seen on a Claymore anitpersonell mine: "Do not eat"

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Make sure you have a combat record (at least 1 kill). Go to the shipyard on Earth, and there's a 40% chance you'll be offered a sigma mission, that'll get you hypergate access

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Time is the best teacher, yet it kills all of it's students.

Interesting game so far. 20 minutes in, I'm a slave. 30 minutes in, I may have to hack the game files in order to salvage my game.

If you're not averse to learning about storylines you haven't yet played, here's what happened:
I get on to the Telepath mission set, and the Federation enslaves me. My access to the Mission BBS, Shipyard, and Outfitter are disabled.
I take the mission to infiltrate Rebel II. I get there, and try to take the first mission. But I don't have the cargo space.
I take off, and jettison my cargo. I can't land again, and can't bribe them... So my only options are: 1) Get an Ultimate combat rating with only a shuttlecraft and a mining laser, demand tribute and take the planet over, or 2) Hack the game files so I can land on Rebel II. Fun.

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• CCS Sacred Promise (DE H c-3)
o SCS Pillar of Autumn
Our conviction is like an arrow already in flight.
Your life will only last until it reaches you.

I agree, becoming the Bureau's bitch is no fun. I can' t buy anything and it was after I poured over 2 million into my ship.
Damn the feds, damn them!
I started over, and this time I'm going rebel. Rebellion all the way!



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"That was quick."
"Well you know, when you don't do it right it doesn't take as long."

If this was an EVO mod, I'd suggest aborting the mission and trying again, but EVN is probably coded in such a way as to make that an automatic "Fail!". Personally, I view that as BAD game development practice. I'm not quite as partial to Nova as I thought I'd be.

IHMO, EV/O were better from a sheer "correct game practices" stance. "Minimize unrecoverable mistakes" is a fairly useful rule - Baldur's gate went so far as to create "Biff the Understudy" who would talk to the player if the player had killed someone who was supposed to tell him something important. Sure, it's more "realistic", but realism IS NOT necissarily good gaming practice - more often, the other way around.

[I'm gonna post this on the EVN board, just to get flamed.]

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Seen on a Claymore anitpersonell mine: "Do not eat"

Fortunatley, a friend tipped me off about the "getting enslaved" thing and so I didn't accept it. Just in the nick of time too. Unfortunatley, I went looking for the polaris up north and ran into some krypt pods... I attacked them.... NEVER attack a krypt pod.

EVN's grpahics are good, the storyline is cool, but, it just doesn't seem as amazing as we all expected. (Or at least a lot of us) Still, it's a great game and shows the talent of Ambrosia and its game designers. In a nutshell, go dwonload EVN __NOW__ or face the business end of my private arsenal.

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I think, therefore iMac.

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Its an okay storyline, but I hate how it snags you into it so early. (Tip for starting out: don't accept any delivery missions to Earth )

I think I missed out on a special Vell-os ship I was supposed to get (a dart?) and ended up diverting the Aurorian fleet in my shuttlecraft.

That, and their "random chance" to find a mission needs to be slightly adjusted...some take over a month to appear when others are instantaneous. Spending a game's month flying around to spaceport bars because you're unable to do anything else, isn't too entertaining.

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"I'm a controversial figure. My friends either dislike me or hate me."

[This message has been edited by Avatara (edited 03-23-2002).]

Second time around, I got hooked up with the Wild Geese, and that was pretty interesting for a bit. From there, you have the option to go to the Aurorans or the Rebels, and I took Rebel.
It's interesting, however, that the player is really a "character" in a greater sense than either of the previous two. After finding Uncle Olaf, I inherited "my father's position."

I think that the most ironic part of EVN is that the Nova universe would work so much more nicely in Ares. I mean, it's a great setting for War, and it looks like Trade is more of an afterthought. That may be what makes it lacking as it is.

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• CCS Sacred Promise (DE H c-3)
o SCS Pillar of Autumn
Our conviction is like an arrow already in flight.
Your life will only last until it reaches you.

Man, I just got my computer back and look at what I found out. NOVA is out. wiah I would of known before I went. so would of brought a zip. oh well only a 74MB DL so I gess it will be done in... 2 to 6 hours. well better stop killing my band with..

Jager

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Flame wars are wrong. So why are they so much fun?!?
[url="http://"http://saberstudios.evula.net"]Saber Studios[/url] | [url="http://"http://saberstudios.evula.net/hsgr.html"]The Homeschoolers of GR [/url] | [url="http://"http://evula.com"] EVula's Lair[/url] | [url="http://"http://home.attbi.com/~e-gamerguy1/bfs3/index.html"] BSIII Home Page [/url]|[url="http://"http://evforums.n3.net/"]Unofficial Escape Velocity Forums[/url]

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Heh I just started a T.C to turn it into an ares sorta game, I tried to make a Ares TC for ev and evo but it dident turn out very well but the engin for Nova alowes me to make a TC for it baced on the Ares universe allot easyer So im giving it a go. BTW I personaly work better with EV Resedit than Hera.

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"Time is only a guide
line"

Personally, I'd suggest you practice good design habits a bit on something less ambitious, like a "switch sides" plug, or a plug dealing with that planet where you launch the probe, or the wraith, or something.

Good Design habits:
1) Player in control at least 75% of time - 100% ideal but not if it gets in the way of a kewl story, and not if it's rediculous for him to have that level of control.
We don't want to read about it, we want to DO it. If it's being read about, having someone else do it is perfectly fine.
2) Don't make anything suck. Fighters in EVN can swarm, so they're kewl. Escorts in EVN can kick ass, so they're kewl. Manticores make nice disablers, so they're kewl. Unfortunatly, some ships *cough*Raven*cough* seem a tad sucky when compared to what they could/should be.
3) Don't hijack the player, unless it's a storyline thing. A LITERAL hijacking can be OK, but having a seemingly-innoculous mission decide what side you're on (Deliver Cargo to Earth) is BAD.
4) Quality is essential. Don't call a random collection of cubes a ship, unless it's supposed to look like a random collection of cubes, and it's well textured and rendered at high quality. Don't make massive grammer mistakes. Spell check.

Following the above should help prevent your plug from falling down some of NOVA's pitfals.


BTW, you might want to contact Axis Software and Zeta, as they did an EVO conversion that hasn't been heard from in awhile. You might want to talk to them.

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Seen on a Claymore anitpersonell mine: "Do not eat"

[This message has been edited by Fleet Admiral Darkk (edited 03-26-2002).]

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Contact? With Zeta? This is possible?

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Sundered Angel,
The One and Only
Ares Webboard Moderator, and all-around Nice Guy

I wonder if the release of EVN will just furthur the end of activity on the Ares boards... Already the Avara boards are almost completely dead...

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If at first you don't succeed...Hit it harder! - Me
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Millennium. Its coming, prepare for it.
Coming to the [url="http://"http://www.ambrosiaSW.com/games/ev/chronicles.html"]EV Chronicles[/url].

Oh, the plug I was supposed to do the map for?

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flargh: slank - you realize, of course, that you've just dragged about 40,000 volts of static electricity off the tip of your vacuum cleaner attachments over your CPU.
-The Construct, Gameranger

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Manticores are also fun with 148°/sec turn, 4 Thunderhead Lances, and lots of Fusion Pulses, turret and otherwise. Not quite ideal for anti-fighter, but it's amazingly fun to slice up Capships with. And I've still got 60T space free
Ravens may be big and menacing, but Scarabs are definitely a lot cooler.

Inertialess can also be pretty annoying. I like the Ares-style accel/brake method, but I _don't_ like being forced to go forward.

[edit]Zeta: [url="http://"mailto:jonathan@woodburn.cc"]mailto:jonathan@woodburn.cc[/url]jonathan@woodburn.cc , if I remember correctly.

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• CCS Sacred Promise (DE H c-3)
o SCS Pillar of Autumn
Our conviction is like an arrow already in flight.
Your life will only last until it reaches you.

[This message has been edited by Pallas Athene (edited 03-27-2002).]

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Ive done sooooo many of theas sortsa plugs, my desktop if full of them!!
Any way i need somthing that takes along time to make, so that if i get stuck in EVN then i can continue the plug.
Ive made several (not very big) TC's (without new graphics) for EV (1*) EVO (1) and Ares (2), so ive got lotsa experiance with making them.

Thanks for the tips!!!,
I realy need feed back on my plug Ideas.

BTW The TC's are not internet worthy (i don't even know how to get them on to it in the first place)
*= (number of TCs for)

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"Time is only a guide
line"

Man,

I've been playing for 3 hours and I have the best polaris ship...
now I need more to do...

jager

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Flame wars are wrong. So why are they so much fun?!?
[url="http://"http://saberstudios.evula.net"]Saber Studios[/url] | [url="http://"http://saberstudios.evula.net/hsgr.html"]The Homeschoolers of GR [/url] | [url="http://"http://evula.com"] EVula's Lair[/url] | [url="http://"http://home.attbi.com/~e-gamerguy1/bfs3/index.html"] BSIII Home Page [/url]|[url="http://"http://evforums.n3.net/"]Unofficial Escape Velocity Forums[/url]

And once again, Ares will be forgotten.

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Blagoonga!

Nope. I've already hit the unregistered cutoff on 5 of the storylines, and I refuse to do the Fed storyline. My parents (for some reason) aren't inclined towards doing the transaction for registration, so I'm back to Ares.

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• CCS Sacred Promise (DE H c-3)
o SCS Pillar of Autumn
Our conviction is like an arrow already in flight.
Your life will only last until it reaches you.