This week we have some content from some of the poor souls testing the Alpha. MadMag has created another cool mission titled ‘Area 256‘. Looks desolate… looks hopeless…. looks like where the condemned are sent for ‘processing‘. But I bet the best Commanders could handle it readily…
Check out the screenshots from Cavemaniac and the starter video from MadMag himself.
Processing eh….. sounds like fun….
lol this is a strange map XD
Looks fantastic! Thanks for these weekly updates.
I love the text you put on these.
“poor souls testing” indeed. 😀
heh… Massive Map from MadMag…. it really is massive. Seems like custom textures of some sort are used.
I can’t wait to get my hands on this. Sadly, I bet you don’t give out alpha builds to just anybody… T_T
Though I have to say that even though I love the larger maps; they are likely going to need a lot of work balancing, due to the amount of energy you can produce via reactors on all of that beautiful empty land…
Alpha thus far has been kept to a small group of long-term forum members, mostly focusing on those who have been active contributors over a long period of time.
grrrr i’m seriously jealous to the ones who have CW 3
Well, now is a good time for you to start fresh and hope you get a spot for possibly CW4 testing considering how unlikely the most early posters are to earning even beta3.
Not exactly how I would have confronted this map.
Here are some things to balance the game up a bit
1. Bombers drop a slight increase more of AC
2. PZ mortars range decrease to 4/5
3. Collector power range increase by 1 square
4. PZ reractor power increase
I just thought this would balance it alot easier. Your welcome 🙂
Also, I noticed when he was placing the command node, two of them had a time on them and one had a “COMPLETED” on them. What exactly is this?
As I understand it, bombers already drop the heaviest payload in the game – I have to assume that means the most damage per second, not including their trips to reload, and not accounting for their limited resources.
I agree on mortars, but it doesn’t seem like balance is a concern, yet, this early in Alpha.
I don’t think collector power range is an issue, but if it were to increase, I think their connection range should increase, too. Otherwise overlap would negate much of your gains from increasing their radius.
Once that happens, you also have to look at relay distance, and whether its cost and connection distance is still balanced against that of a collector.
If bombers already drop the heaviest payload, what benefit do they get from PZ’s? I thought I saw something that said they have more AC to drop.
Bombers drop two bombs at once currently, and they’re evidently more ammo efficient as well when placed on a power zone.
Huh. I was just assuming they accepted more ammo packets.
Packets move faster from a relay to something else
You don’t want to make the game too easy!
Very reminiscent of CW1
i am so excited for this game to come out
A 5 minute video! your killin meh! I love the game so far but some of the textures look weird next to other textures( like were the generators and the mortar are in the top right, between the AC and the wall(in #40))
in earlier posts you said something about fire while moving, will it be posible yet?
I remember that being posted before, but never by V. The closest I’ve seen V to posting something like that is that the reactor in a CN provides power to a network while moving, unlike Odin City from CN1, which only had a collector radius.
Odin City also had internal reactors, but they were disabled while flying.
OC collected while grounded and while airborne, it only stopped collecting, but still supplied packets while moving if it was connected.
Your post seems a little confusing.
As I understood it, when OC was airborne, it would receive energy from build collectors/reactors, and supplied packets for structures, but the reactors inside OC were deactivated.
Case in point, have you ever tried to build collectors right away while moving OC to higher terrain?
As a matter of fact, I have and it works.
By internal reactors, I presume we mean the things that enables OC a collector’s radius for itself? Again, the only thing it didn’t do while airborne is use its collector’s radius.
That’s precisely what I’m saying too. The energy reserves in OC drop while building the first collectors if it’s airborne more quickly than if it’s on the ground.
Odin city also has an energy production rate that is not dependent on the number of cells its collector area covers, and it comes from the equivalent of two reactors in the city.
firing while moving will be OP! you launch all your weapons to a location and before they land you call them back… there are the strafers
Keeps looking beter and better as time goes on. (now if only I could get that coveted beta tag by my username…)
It was fun to watch the game being played aggressivly too. Virgil is always taking it kinda easy so he can narrate the video. But where is the other 35 minutes of the vide where we get to see him finish off the level>? 🙂
So will players be able to play completed levels/worlds like so in the second pic and the limited time pic in the last post?
Beyond that, lovin’ the designs and ideas.
P.S. what’s so poor about the souls testing alpha? They have access to the current game designs while the totally impatient audience members (not including me on account of my rather inhumanly good patience) still watch the updates online waiting for the release to come to light.
And out of curiosity, does 256 mean it’s 256-bit? 🙂
good patience, huh?
Oh yeah. 8)
256 bit? what do you mean? we’re only at 64- well 84-bit windows 8-bit computers.
I knew that. I was half asking what 256 was, half joking.
oh, oops, sry :s
I don’t see why areas shouldn’t be replayable – it was so in CW1 and CW2, and I can’t possibly see V discarding a mechanic like that in CW3 – if a player is having fun on a level, you shouldn’t deny him that.
The ‘area 256’ is probably half area 51 reference, half something else, though only MadMag would know for sure.
I know it was replayable in the first 2 games, but they never let you play through the levels after you complete your objectives and make your dream base and cover the world with anti-creeper and all that.
You mean, basically prepare the level for an easy win, and set up the emitters again to crush it? Eh . . .
I mean, after you finish a level in either 1 or 2, every time you replay it you have to do it from a saved file that was taken partway through the level, or from the very beginning.
You could never stay on the level and expand your base and warfare to your heart’s consent in 1 or 2, but you can in 3.
Preparing the level for an easy win would be possible if you could place your own emitters.
Alpha testing means that you test the game in its earliest stages, warts, unimplemented features, balance issues, and all. Done right, it means that the final product is polished, well-balanced, and fun, but in the meantime the testers have to both find and deal with any problems the game may have.
Think of it like being a taste tester for a chef while they’re trying to devise a new recipe.
The map is 256×256.
you could say that… although if every cell only stored a bit’s worth of memory, then you could run this on a really old computer…. 😀 No, it is a 256×256 cell map, which is now the biggest (versus 300 earlier) map that can be made.
I had asked a question one last week’s picture, but i didn’t receive an answer. I’m still curious as to this point.
In last week’s pic, there are guppies flying a fairly long distance to get to the little island to the south-west.
Which travels faster, a guppy or a packet?
Would it be more efficient for the energy/ore guppies to just land on the other side of the gap as opposed to all the way to the CN?
I understand the the packet carrying guppies were built in the north, so they have to travel to where the network can’t reach. I’m not asking about them, just the ore/energy guppies.
If you watch, packets are faster. There should be no circumstances in which guppy travel (excepting maybe PZ’s) is preferable to network travel, in my opinion. Landlines should be the ‘gold standard’ for transmitting any resource, unless there’s some really convoluted network structure going on.
That was my thought. I was wondering if it was just me thinking that the guppies should have the shortest flight lines possible.
I think the catch to what you are saying is that the guppie got built early on in the level. Later on there was open area for the guppie to land, but the player would have to build another guppie in order to have a landing pad closer to the action.
Not for the guppies I was referring to. I understand that the initial guppies carrying packets have to stay where they were built.
I mean the guppies carrying ore/energy. They could land just on the other side of the void
Looking at it, though, you could probably just build a relay across said void.
is the black pyramid just a pyramid???
Based on the creeper flow that avoids the black region, the black regions of the ‘pyramid are more likely to be void, and the rest of the structure flat.
I took a look at the pyramid and must say it’s official, there is no way the black space could not be empty space and void. Just save the pic on a CPU’s default pictures file, select it there, and zoom in on it to see for those who don’t already. That’s how I counted all the units of the other pic.
maybe this has been asked already but why can’t i see the how much energy you have (apart from the red bas on the command node)
It’s in alpha – indicators like that have not been implemented. It’s difficult to see how to implement that without putting a lot of information on the screen though. Two CN’s may not be on the same network, and if your indicators change with your network structure, then the indicators no longer function as at-a-glance information in some cases.
Do they still read the same thing is on the same network as they supposedly should?
Besides, could you not just either put all the essential on one small bar big enough to fit all essentials, or get the info by clicking on the CN itself if you need other info, or just put it all merged with the current control panel?
OOH! I have a decent-to-good idea! I remember V saying something about one of the corners of a CN not getting used. The top-right indicates ore production, the bottom-right indicates health (?), and the top-left indicates energy (?). That leaves the bottom-left quadrant as a variable. How about each CN gets a marker there, like a colored band. That way, you can look at three ore and energy displays. The one with the green border corresponds to the green-banded CN, the orange border with the orange-banded CN, and so on. Maybe the networks could have somesort of indicator too? And if two CNs are on the same network, the border turns white and the odd color out keeps its border.
The ore processing portion consumes the upper right, lower right, and extends to the mid-bottom of the CN.
The upper left has a spinner whose speed is based on the amount of energy production.
I don’t think any of these features have to do with HP.
Thanks for the clarification. I swear I read something about health in an earlier post. The only quadrant I knew for sure was the ore refining, and only then because of the blue smoke. So I was right on three of the four.
neat
Wow. I’m really going to have to setup some time aside to be able to play these macromaps when CW3 comes out. I totally agree with 4xC they are not poor souls they are very lucky souls. I envy you.
Last time I was involved in an alpha project, I had the game on my HD, unplayable, for a week, because that version of the alpha freaked out with my particular video hardware. Then there are the innumerable instances where something saps the fun from the game, but you have to play it, because as an alpha tester (even a volunteer one) you have a social obligation to provide feedback . . .
A lot of things can make alpha or beta testing very very frustrating, at times . . . more frustrating than just waiting for the game, sometimes.
Not posting any of this to relate to KC in particular, and the anecdotes I’ve related don’t have anything to do with CW3’s alpha testing . . . they’re just examples of how alpha is not always a siren’s song.
Trying to make us poor souls to feel better?
Like
How regular must the feedback be?
How can a person volunteer for alpha testing and succeed at the same time when beta testers are mostly handpicked as I recall? (I only need the know-hows, I don’t think about being one myself for real unless I can, or it is clear there is a clear dawn beyond the crossroads.)
And how does the fun be sapped?
Alpha testers are beta. The game doesn’t were the official “beta” title yet.
True. Alpha and Beta tests can be very frustrating but i have a friend that just loves playing games to try and glitch them so maybe he should become alpha or beta tester since he’s quite good at that, lol.
Get him on video game QA teams. It’s not a job that leads anywhere – it’s the sucker job of the gaming world, one that looks like a foot in the door, but leads nowhere – but if that’s what he actually likes to do, it’s not that terribly hard to get work there.
Is there a reason the video is only 5 mins? Did the game crash or did a bug occur that made the level unplayable?
I would really like to see a 30 minute level being finished. And no, it doesn’t necessarily require any comments.
like!!
It’s just an intro to the mission, not a full playthrough.
Yeah, if it was a full playthrough, the level would be ruined in terms of how people are meant to beat them in their own unique way when there is more than 1 way to do it.,
That, and burning the HD space for a half hour of high-quality video is prohibitive, sometimes.
HD Space?!?
Ha ha ha, that’s a joke I hope? A 30 min video takes very little space (with Fraps at 1280×720 @30fps about 500MB). You can then upload it to YouTube.
Even the lowest computer has 500MB!
Wrong… The 5 min video I made from the Area 256 map was 21GB from fraps and around 133mb from VirtualDub. (1920×1200 1080p)
Doesn’t it encode it to avi on the fly?
What do you mean prohibitive? (not allowed by rules, or unable to cope with the software speedwise or some other way?)
The amount of hard drive space you need to store long, high quality video is considerable. See MadMag’s post a little above mine.
Prohibitive generally means that something is prohibited by practical considerations which, while they could be overcome, are so problematic that nobody will go to the difficulty, expense, or whatever other concern.
Level be ruined? I don’t really expect this level to be in the final game. But, even if it was, do you honestly believe MadMag would have such a novel idea to solve this level that he would set an unbeatable record?!?
With CW2 it was sometimes possible to win the level with multiple strategies, but with CW1 there wasn’t really much variation.
In CW3 I see only the guppies making a big difference in strategy.
It has diddly squat to do with unbeatable records. It has to do with the possibility of people spoiling the game and theirselves by looking at clips with any one way to win. I just know it happens a lot with all the videos online that are collective walkthroughs through whole games. Sure people could use them if they really needed to, but I just have a gut feeling that a lot of people use the other clips to win games without figuring them out themselves and basically cheat through by getting more than is necessary.
Easy solution to this – stop playing the walkthrough when you see enough to gain an advantage rather than watching the whole way through.
Either way, moot point – the recorder of the video already weighed in on the subject.
Exactly.
Hmm… I’ll be happy to alpha test the game… I will give more feedback than all of the World of warcraft players combined! Or at least try…
I am sure that I am not the only one who noticed the countdown clocks on the CNs. What are they for? Why can’t the CNs land after 28 minutes?
It was seconds, if you watched carefully. All it means is that you can only drop a single Command Node every thirty seconds.
When did that restriction come to light? In the last clip by Virgil, 2 dropped at once.
Remember, custom maps can be set up to start the player off in specific circumstances that don’t normally occur at the start of a normal level.
Okay then. It did not occur to me that the testing maps would count as custom maps.
Any map that isn’t procedurally generated is a custom map.
Campaign maps in the previous two games are all technically just custom maps with a bit of special treatment attached.
Request:
Make the game netbook compatible. That is, make it support 1024*600 resolutions.
You can specify your own resolution right now – and also chose from a list of widescreen res’. I’m sure you’ll be able to do that in the final version too.
in the CW3 editor, will we be able to place PZ’s randomly without killing an emitter? It just spawn when the game starts
I love indeed the changes that have been made already. The player gets great new functionalities. But I think the creeper could also use some extra items. In the beginning of the game you have the strugle to start up. But once you have a strong base it would be nice, especially whit the bigger maps, to have something unpredictable that forces you to change your plans. The spores already do so but there’re pretty easy to handle. I think you need something like the spores but stronger, more difficult to handle, maybe over ground that forces you to change the plans witch you otherwise can made up at the very first minutes of the game. In the smaller maps of game 1 it was not a problem to have nog unpredictable items. In game 2 you’ve got the unpredictable items. I think game 3 needs the unpredictable items like game 2 to prevent the bigger maps getting boring once you have your base.
Now about the part when the packets are going backwards on the network line at 2:37: do they do that no matter how close they are to their destination before they go backwards? Or would they have gotten to their destination sooner the way they did than if they kept going forward?
A pulse cannon was bridging between two routes – so for a short time, the lower route, and crossing the PC bridge, was a faster route.
When that bridge was broken, the lower route no longer had any path to their destination, so they had to turn back and find another way. If they had kept going forward, they would have hit a dead end.
Great game the guppies I think are the best addition to it because it an amazing concept. By the way I’m ninjaman
why do you keep changing your name?
I second that: why do you keep changing your name? You really need to stick with a name so it is easier to remember who you are. Try something you like more than a bunch of others you either know of or brainstorm yourself. That’s something I tried and succeeded at.
Yeah, that was easy to assume since the i.d picture is alike.
Somebody tell virgil that he’s doing a good job with the game, I don’t think he will be around to see this comment for himself 😀
I guess he does 🙂
Why ever not?
He reads every comment on the blog, though he doesn’t have the time to respond to each one.
Oh, I read everything. I personally approve every message before it gets made public. I’m just super crazy busy these days trying to get game 3 done and released, so I really have a hard time responding to everything, or even most comments currently.
Hmm… I didn’t know that…
But yeah, I can see you ARE really busy about the game.
I guess I just have to be patient then.
Question: how can the nullifiers reach the emitters on the center of the pyramid? They are0 out of range from the outer edges. And why are there runways when all known flying units are pad-types?
Possibly they can reach the centre from the powerzones left by the ones at the edge. Where are the runways?
I am referring to what MadMag zoomed in on within the first 10 seconds of the clip. Plus there’s a helipad near one of them
You are required to eliminate every emitter on the outside of the structure (which is flat, not a pyramid,) and use the PZ’s with the nullifiers to reach the inside emitters.
Not sure about the nullifier thing, but i would half to guess, i would say he put the nullifier inbetween the emitters. But how did he get over there in the first place? PZ relay?
About the run way, its just custom made. Just like the letters on it, its just one level of terrain they used. And who ever said all flying units were going to be on pads 😉
Well so far they are all on pads. None of them use runways, but if it’s subject to change, I would love to see how.
How do you lose?
I think if you lose all CommandNodes to Creeper.
The creeper (blue stuff) kills anything it touches. So if you let it get to your ship you die. It will also destroy any weapons that get overwhelmed.
did you guys forget to post a pict of the week for sep 30?
MadMag is really effing good at making maps.