I agree on the competitive thing, henke; movement does have an impact on overall balancing. At the same time, Rec Room isn't a finely tuned, balanced game as it is; it's mainly a playground for people to have fun in, so I don't think that (at least for the cooperative modes) it would change the game in major ways to offer more options. I could imagine that having free movement could cause latency issues, though; as it is now, the player's exact position only changes every second or though. Anyway, for me it'd be more important to have the option of smoother turns, because most of the game spaces are rectangular, yet their orientation was off with respect to the orientation of the space I have available for playing, so I'd always end up against a wall or in a corner. If I could've fine-tuned my in-game orientation, it would've worked much better with the space I have to play in.
I also agree with you that save points would make it too easy to beat the quest, but I honestly got a bit bored with the D&D-style quest after a few restarts. There'd be different ways of improving this, e.g. a better quest design, or simply more variety, but replaying the first 1 1/2 stages got old for me. I didn't mind in the sci-fi mission, because I thought that the different guns and their strengths and weaknesses made for more interesting and fun gameplay than the sword/shield and bow options in the quest. What would improve replayability would be procedural generation; the levels are simplistic enough that it'd be possible to auto-generate variations. I think that's my main thing here: I greatly enjoyed our Rec Room session, but IMO it's very much a case of the combination of VR and coop being great fun. The game itself isn't particularly well designed (it's functional but kind of awkward), and it most definitely isn't polished; take something like this and polish it and you'll have an absolute winner on your hands.
Ah, that sucks. The orientation of things worked out quite well for me.Originally Posted by Thirith
Anyway, here's the vid of... THE TIME WE FACED JUMBOTRON!
Just like you, Thirith, I ended up crouching through most of it. Part of the reason I think teleport works well for it that this feels like it's really just an evolution on the cover-shooter genre. Most of the moving you're doing is going from cover to cover, so largely you're stationary in the playspace.
I'd definitely say that teleporting worked better in the Jumbotron mission - though sometimes the distance you can actually teleport meant that I'd just about not reach the next bit of cover.
How was the bow and arrow for you guys? I found it pretty difficult to handle, but perhaps that's because I was simply bad at it.
It was ok! Definitely took a couple rounds to get used to it, but towards the end I had killstreaks where I felt like a reglar Legolas.
Quick update re: Rec Room: I wrote to the developers with some feedback - and they're now putting in save points and stick movement, completely ruining the balancing! Mwahahaha!
Actually, they are thinking about refining the quests and having to restart from scratch every time, but they haven't decided anything yet. However, with respect to movement and turning they told me that while they're sticking to teleport only for the moment (which makes sense from the point of view of balancing versus modes), you can switch the turns to 45° in the options, and there's also an option (grip turn, I think) that allows for smooth turns. Gotta check in the menu how to activate them.
Oh cool.
Bought some upgrades
Got the best CPU I could fit to my old motherboard, the i7 3770k, and a nice new GTX1070. And I no longer have Oculus Home whining that my computer's under spec! Okay, sounds like an expensive way to kill a message, but I reckon these upgrades will give me at least another 2-3 years out of this system. Can't say I'm unhappy with the slowing pace of PC development
It's back to the Greek islands on Saturday. Will we again be foiled by our nemesis, the fiendish antenna?
Date: Saturday, 17 June 2017
Time: 4-6pm UK time
Game: Arma 3
Things to note:
- Please note that we're switching back to Teamspeak 3 for voice chat, because we like to screw with you. Bring a headset and make sure to install the TS3 client. Login details will be posted on Steam before the session.
- No mods required, but for quality of life I'd very much recommend Shacktac UI and CBA_A3 (the latter is required for the former to run). Easiest way to add them is using the Steam Workshop. Any client-side mod should be fine, really.
- I'll be online a bit before 4pm to set up the server and check who's on Steam, and I'll launch a server shortly before the session. I'll post the IP and password on the Steam group (http://steamcommunity.com/groups/ArmaTTLG) under Events.
Hoping to see you there!
I really liked that Oculus and/or the RecRoom devs nailed positional audio in RecRoom. Bohemia could learn a thing or two from them
I'm a big fan of good positional audio for voice chat; I wish they'd had it in GTA Online. It makes it so much easier to know where everyone is relative to your own position, and it's immersive (yes, I used the "i" word!). The TFAR mod that I'm hoping to introduce to our Arma sessions (after some more testing) does a good job too, but let's see how it works in practice.
Apparently Mumble supports positional audio for GTA V
Fantastic session today, with henke, Jeshibu, Malf, Lord Penney and myself. First mission, penned by Lord Penney, had us trying to find a weapons cache on Altis while evading mortar fire; most of us died pretty soon, but then we watched henke kill all the enemy infantry... except one. He died barely 50 metres from the cache.
The second mission sadly used some defunct scripting and didn't work - and Windows 10 deciding to auto-update on the server didn't help either - but we then played Escape, an Arma classic, which was fantastic. And ridiculous. Let's just say that Jesh got stuck at the bottom of the sea and drowned, while the rest of us got stuck in an attack boat captained by henke... who was shot and slumped over the wheel with his foot still on the accelerator, so we're probably still on that speeding boat zooming off into the distance.
Our first mission went pretty disastrously. Besides inaccurate mortar fire, the first sign of trouble was Malf getting gunned down by a technical, though Henke did blow that up (along with the building beside it). Then the mortar fire was suddenly not so inaccurate, and wiped out all of us except Henke. We tried to guide him with our cheat-o-vision spectator mode, but eventually there were just too many guys. Here's shots of all of us dead, and Henke and a baddie just out of each other's sight.
The escape mission was really good. The mission starts out with the players in a small 2-man-high sandbag enclosure with a fence gate in it and a backpack in the middle. The backpack contains a random gun, which in this case was a single shitty revolver. The baddies come swarming the "prison" pretty soon, and we all cowered in a corner, with the exception of Malf (I think) who could shoot back. After five-ish minutes with lots of dying and getting revived (and somehow duplicating the revolver so we had 2 gunmen), we finally managed to get some rifles and armor off the dead enemies and set off on an adventure. Thirith even found an anti-air missile launcher. We cleared a factory with 3 baddies and a roadblock with about 5 (with judicious use of grenade launchers). With the long distances and the injuries we got from the start of the mission, we ran out of stamina frequently, and Thirith decided to drop the missile launcher to get rid of the weight.
The objective of an escape mission is to leave the island via boat or helicopter, so when we saw a coastal town we hoped to find a boat there. There was indeed a boat, but it had guns and angry men in it. It approached us at the coastline, with only a waist-high rock wall between us and it, when a helicopter decided to show up - just as was predicted the moment the missile launcher was dropped.
Thankfully it did not get a good shot at us before we murdered the boat-men (though they did get Malf once, and then again when I revived him while he was poking half through the wall). Dodging a tank and another attack boat, with grenade launcher rounds from another boat whizzing past, Malf got knocked unconscious again. We stopped next to the shore, and he was dragged out of the boat in order to revive him. Since the boat was still in shallow water though, he sank to the bottom at about 2 and a half meters deep. I waded in to save him, but dear reader, my altruism was not to be rewarded. Nay, it would be punished with an eternal curse!
Reviving Malf, the animation played out as if we weren't on the bottom of the sea. Casually, his wounds were dressed, with me kneeling on the sea floor as if my breath wasn't running out. For a moment, Malf disappeared, though his armor remained - perhaps an early hallucination caused by oxygen deprivation. He swam to shore, thanking me, but I could not move. Anchored to the bottom of the shallow water, the surface nearly at arm's reach, I drowned as my compatriots could only stand and watch. To this day, I stand there, upright but drowned, dead yet unconscious, aiming my gun at the real enemy - the sea.
What is dead may never die.
I wasn't gonna make a video this week, but that finale does need to be saved for posterity.
Lol. Threaded that needle. There's no way for someone else to jump in the driver seat?
henke's aim was impeccable, even in unconsciousness. Also, I think yesterday was the first Arma session without any friendly fire whatsoever. Success!
Alas, no. Seems when there's an unconscious body in the seat no one else can move there. The only chance we would've had was to run aground, then Malf could've jumped out and revived the rest of us.
Guess what's happening on Saturday?
Date: Saturday, 8 July 2017
Time: 4-6pm UK time
Game: Arma 3
Things to note:
- First of all, you'll need Teamspeak 3 for voice chat. Bring a headset and make sure to install the TS3 client.
- Secondly, the "no mods required" is no longer strictly true. We'll be trying a full session with Task Force Radio (TFAR), which is a combined Arma 3 mod and TS3 plugin. It's not difficult to use, and those of us who have already tested it will help any newcomers. In order to set it up, please check here: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/Arm...5556489253365/
- Thirdly, you'll also need the mod CBA_A3 for TFAR to work, and while I'm at it, I'd very much recommend Shacktac UI. In fact, you can subscribe to all three mods on the Steam workshop; the TTLG coop collection (Arma 3) can be found at http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=877349651
- Fourthly, if you're a newcomer and would like to join, why not drop me a PM or post in this thread? I'm happy to help with any questions.
- Finally, I'll be online a bit before 4pm to set up the server and check who's on Steam. I'll try to launch the server with a lobby mission about 15 minutes before the session starts, and I'll post the IP and password on the Steam group (http://steamcommunity.com/groups/ArmaTTLG). On the group, check the Events tab and the event details for login details.
Hoping to see you there!
Sniped Nazi Zombies with Sulphur and Jesh last night.
It's good stuff.
We - that is, henke, Jeshibu, Malf, Al_B, Lord Penney and myself - just finished one epic mission; in fact, it took us roughly two missions and across half of Stratis. Us and a truck: the one that we 'denied the enemy' (as Penney put it) when we tried the mission a couple of weeks ago. In the process, we took down dozens of enemies and several armoured vehicles - and we died more times than I could count. Thank god for respawning (which was active in this mission)!
Still, I'm hoping to pick a few shorter missions next time; it's also nice if you have a bit of variety. But it's definitely been another good session, and the newly added radio mod TFAR worked well, so thanks to everyone.
P.S.: I am proud to say that this may have been the first mission where I didn't accidentally shoot anyone on our side... though it is possible that Jeshibu was run over by one of us.
Thankfully that was just a temporary drop in connection quality that warped some entities around, including a truck over my face. I got up fine afterwards somehow.
Glad to hear it!
I was wondering: how was the mission for you (and the others)? Was it okay to play a mission this long, or do you prefer shorter missions so we can get in more variation? I can't always tell from a quick test run how long a mission is, but I can get a general impression.
Second question: what did everyone think of TFAR? I thought it worked well, and I like that you immediately know if the person talking is near you (and where) or if they're a ways away. It makes it easier to get your bearings on the battlefield.
Last edited by Thirith; 8th Jul 2017 at 14:37.
Got randomly steam messaged by Jeshibu for a quick game of Earth Defence Force 4.1 with Sulphur. Wish I'd had more time to play, but the few rounds I got in were very good fun - definitely a game which benefits fro multiplayer! Really looking forward to having more time for MP in general after this degree is done!
Yup, I much enjoyed that. We should do that again whenever it works out for all.
I'm also looking forward to Arma sessions with more people being able to join. I've downloaded a couple of missions that offer multiple different teams and roles (e.g. a squad on land and a helicopter or two for Close Air Support and pickups), and some of those should be viable once we've got 8+ people playing.
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