Island Survival. (Adventure Scenario)

[titi_son]

you can't load old savegames....
ok its not you fault but i dont want to build everything again.
The HUD is pretty helpful because it tooks some time until i got what furs are in version 1.0.

Maybe more feedback later. I will discover the map now.

[tiger]

As long as I don't edit the map I think you should be able to load old save games in the next release.
But I'm not 100% sure.

[titi_son]

Lol i lost it
I really can't do anything anymore.
The bees are nasty 
They destroyed all wooden chests, only my shelter survived.
I can't collect enough wood to build anything

EDIT:Little Mistakes:
- I think there is a typo in the story at the start. i don't know the word "unplesent" and google don't know either
- "Hopefully rescue will find us out here." Who is us? You are alone!

EDIT2: I looked at the "code" a bit and i saw that you have a variable for every animal... why not arrays?
And why is there a new message for each animal? You could have used displayFormattedLangText() for this -> easier for translation

[tomreyn]

I'm just starting to try the second version, adding some comments here while I proceed:

• spelling: struggling, not struggeling
• spelling: an island, not a island
• The first message is too long to fit into the message box, better shorten the message or use two messages. Keep i mind that translations are often longer than the English text.
• It would be better to use #PauseGame# instead of "P" to indicate which key to press to start the game. Fr example, I have the pause function on the "pause" key, not P.
• Possibly the same for the "Esc" key (used to access the in game menu), if this is configurable (have not checked).
• The utilities submenu needs better icons (currenlty using mainteepee icons)
• I like how you used the HUD to indicate which resources you have available
• My FPS is somewhat low, I think it was much better in the previous version. But this can be a shortcoming of the game engine, too.

(to be continued)

[tiger]

Thanks for the Feedback. I didn't know such a thing as #PauseGame# existed.
Also yes the first text is to long and stuff I'll fix it for the next version.

@PT bees killed your base? Maybe I should make the bees not able to spawn until you have built a advanced defence tower.

And " unplesent" is not a word "unpleasant" is the correct word meaning.
causing discomfort, unhappiness, or revulsion; disagreeable.

And Yes more Icons will be updated soon.
Thanks for everything! Please contine to post things you would like changed.

[titi_son]

Thanks for the Feedback. I didn't know such a thing as #PauseGame# existed.
Also yes the first text is to long and stuff I'll fix it for the next version.

I think that does only work in hints?

@PT bees killed your base? Maybe I should make the bees not able to spawn until you have built a advanced defence tower.

Yes 2 times!!! You have no chance against 20 bees.

And " unplesent" is not a word "unpleasant" is the correct word meaning.
causing discomfort, unhappiness, or revulsion; disagreeable.

Yes i know but you wrote it wrong.

[tiger]

I'm going to "down" the bees damage to about half of what is it now.
That should fix the bee attacks (feel free to edit the xml and fix it yourself)

[tomreyn]

Thanks for the Feedback. I didn't know such a thing as #PauseGame# existed.
Also yes the first text is to long and stuff I'll fix it for the next version.

I think that does only work in hints?

That's very well possible, I don't actually know.

Regarding the bees, I agree they are quite tough initially. It would be better to have them spawn later. I think you should make sure the player has a defense tower and has built those wooden walls, too. It would also be good to give unsuspecting users some kind of warning that they may not be alone with the mostly friendly wildlife on this island.

The game currently suggests that you are safe in the houses you build. Effectively those provide very little to no protection unless combined with wooden walls and defense tower(s) or companion, though. It might be nice to give "you" (mabye the companion, too) an attack boost in the form of a regeneration bonus (or better armor) while around a house. It would also be nice if the campfire would, to some limited degree, keep the foes on distance (I'm not sure how this would work exactly, though).

This said, please be aware that this scenario can already eat a lot of memory now. As soon as I restore my savegame, MegaGlest is at 1.7 GB RAM resident memory.

[tiger]

Very good idea I will add boosts when you are near your house(s) and I'll make the enemies less powerful when near a campfire lantern or any other light source.
Memory Usage should not have gone up from the last version to the newest because I didn't add that much new stuff ingame (only like 30 units) So I'm not sure what that is all about.
I'll try to do some model fixes to lower the amount vertices in each model. That should help.

[softcoder]

A campfire could set enemy speed to 0 for a certain radius make it a 'safe' zone.

[tiger]

I'm thinking that may be a bit "OP" because you can now get a bow and could just snipe the enemies off one by one.
The campfire will lower the enemy speed by %50 and lower their attack damage by %60 this will make them practically useless.

[tomreyn]

Sounds great about the campfire.

Some more thoughts:

• Getting enough furs is tough early in the game (but you need them to advance), maybe have a special event which allows you to get some extra there
• The wheat monsters should spawn at (at least somewhat different locations. I had a tower placed next to the one on top and it kept killing it easily without it taking any damage itself.
• You still spend a lot of time chucking wood. Also digging stone, but that's more bearable.
• I am stuck at the point where I am supposed to follow the beach around the island. I did exactly this, actually discovered all of the island by now, but this task is still present, I can't seem to finish it (maybe it's just the last task there is for now?)
• Increasing the game speed is still possible (I personally like it this way, but I think you would like to disable it so I'm pointing it out)
• The workbench looks a lot like a chest ;-)
• Neither you nor your companion have a hold position command, but it would be very useful to have one.
• How about having a torch or flashlight which you can carry around so that you can better see at nights (it gets really dark then). It could wear off, too.
• Maybe add a quest which involves making your way to the northern hemisphere
• Make sure that completing special tasks and killing strong opponents (the ones you could just evade otherwise) gives you a useful reward. This should not just be furs, since furs are already a requirement to killing the stronger beings. Some current rewards include gold and diamonds, but neither have any use at this time, plus they can be easily harvested in some spots on the map already. Maybe make those spots more scarce or remove them entirely, and make those resources a requirement for upgraded weapons or armor / defense upgrades or a requirement for further expansion.
• It would be nice if some (but not all) of the recurring annoyances (monsters / bees) could be disabled / kept out of a given region later in the game. Getting there should require a serious effort, though.
• I know I said the opposite in the past, but a couple more wolves would be fine now.

[tiger]

A lot of good points there Tom.

I'm going to make the player start with a lot more building materials in the next Version.

Wheat Monsters are in existence only as a means to obtain furs. But I'll still add a few more places when they can "Respawn"
AT the point where you are supposed to "Explore the Island" you must go along the beach at the North East side of the island. After walking there something should happen. (I'm guessing you weren't walking down the middle of the beach but rather out in the water or to close to the shore) Getting to the exact location can be tricky but will be fixed in the next version. Here are the cell coordinates you must go to {424, 282}

Yes I did not disable the game speed because of requests to leave the option up to the player.
Also I'm thinking about adding Hard and Easy modes to choose from at the start of the game.

Yes a Hold Position command is needed. I'm on it!
Getting a Torch or Flashlight would require a Morph which I'm trying to Avoid for now, But Maybe in the Future!
I'm by no means done with the quests There will be a lot more quests in each release.
And I'm also going to remove 70% of all Diamond off the map and 90% of all gold. Killing Difficult Monsters and Creatures will give you these (killing the bee hive gives you gold) but you can also find them rarely while Exploring.
In the Next Version I'm going to add a Conversion Table which will allow the player to convert diamonds into large amounts of other needed resources (wood, Stone, ect)
I'm also (Not sure If it will be in the next Version) going to add a Diamond Sword which will give a lot of damage. and will require diamonds to craft.

What I'm going to do is make Tiers of Enemies.
For Example.
Only Wolves will spawn at first (after killing the first crab)
Then the harder Monsters/Creatures will spawn in later.
After building the simple defence tower then the bear will spawn in.
After building a advanced defence tower then the bees will spawn in.
And that will be how the higher tier monsters/creatures will come ingame.

[tomreyn]

At the point where you are supposed to "Explore the Island" you must go along the beach at the North East side of the island. After walking there something should happen. (I'm guessing you weren't walking down the middle of the beach but rather out in the water or to close to the shore) Getting to the exact location can be tricky but will be fixed in the next version. Here are the cell coordinates you must go to {424, 282}

I'm standing at this very location but nothing happens at all. I also tried to walk around it a little in case the coordinates are slightly off, but nothing.

I think hard and easy modes would be great, but this  may be difficult to prompt for. You may need to have two separate scenarios.

Your overall plans sound very good to me, I'm looking forward to the next releases.

[tiger]

Maybe the Scenario somehow got buggy if you reloaded your old version in the new update.

[tomreyn]

I started fresh with the second version you uploaded, so that's not it. In the source code I see you spawn a unit named _ (underscore only) there. This may be just a place holder, though. Does it work for you (have you tried)? I am happy to wait for the next version, so don't put too much effort into this.

One more thing I forgot to add to my list of suggestions earlier:
It would be nice to have those messages which tell you that you receive some resources printed to the console instead of showing as popups. I think it's possible, and it's nicer than having to confirm the message every time.

[tiger]

The "_" unit is a invisible unit that must have had some kind of bug. I'll check it out.

Also the idea you had sounds good, every time you kill animals it should show it on the bottom left rather then as a pop up. But for things such as bosses, they will still show up as pop ups.

[jammyjamjamman]

Very fun scenario! I've had immence quantities of fun playing this mod.

Some problems I noticed:


• monsters seem to spawn in the same place, so I simply could build a wall around the spawn place and fill it with arrow towers.
• there's a chimp which seems to spawn in around 2 - 5 places so I could simply place arrow towers at these spawning areas so I ended up creating a chimp food & fur factory
• not really sure why it's easier to make an arrow tower than a knife, also where are the archers coming from? xD
• animal traps seem to be limited
• It might be nice to make a village which your character must find
• I'm unsure why smelters & animal traps are limited
• I was running away from monsters at some point, very far away from my camp, and they killed me. But, ages later I went exploring in that same direction they were still there and they all killed me again. Maybe kill all monsters just before the respawn? (maybe even, if the no. of mosters killed before next spawn = a, and the number of monsters to be spawned = n, then spawn n + a monsters)

[tiger]

Monsters do spawn in the same place and can be spawn trapped. This is a strategy you can use it is not a bug. (finding their spawn location requires work)
The chimps are buggy right now because they do not flee from danger (will be fixed)
It is easier to make a knife over a defence tower because the knife is always with you and helps "you" fight better.
Animal traps are Limited because they are very good at fighting and a player could build OP defences using them. (more kinds of traps will be added in the future)
This Scenario is nowhere near complete are each update will bring more into the game. In the newest released version I had made a small camp discoverable but the XML file was buggy so It will not work ingame until the next release. I plan on adding a large update (maybe not next release but sometime after) which will spawn in a Camp where you can do quests.
Monsters left in the wild will remain to make survival more challenging.

Thanks For The Feedback. 

[jammyjamjamman]

For the animal trap maybe monsters can be made invulnerable to the traps, but can destroy them?

Also does the scenario currently only go as far as "explore the northwest"? I've explored all over the northwest (and the rest of the map) and the mission won't continue. (the big field monster looks cool btw )

What might be fun, is to turn where the monsters spawn into some kinda monster camp, which when destroyed, the monsters stop spawning.

When I built a fence around the monsters, sometimes the game crashes (just the game being played, not the whole program, and noI cannot reproduce it though now that I want to)

Actually, this mod has also made me thought that wild animals in megaglest would make the game far more interesting, and nice looking, maybe something that can be part of the tileset.

It's my pleasure to give feedback :-)

[tiger]

Yes you can complete the Explore the North West. Go to these coordinates. {55, 284}

[jammyjamjamman]

I reached those co-ordinates, nothing happens.. still tells me to "explore the northwest"

[tiger]

A "Dog" should have spawned there. Unless you are running on the old version.
There is no reason for it not to work. It has worked for everyone else....

[jammyjamjamman]

Yeah, there was a dog, my character killed it (by himself), and then nothing happened..........

[tiger]

Strange. There was supposed to be a cell event which wouldn't have allowed you to get even close to the dog before triggering. maybe your computer was running slow and the cell event couldn’t render in time.
I honestly have no idea how that is possible, either it's a glitch in MG or a error with your computer. Sorry about that.