Avatar Ideas

posted on December 12th, 2009, 8:18 am

Oh, I misunderstood.  No, there's no way I know of to create some kind of generator or compiler to do what you're asking.  A lot of the damage values for the weapon odfs are generated by computer, but I'm pretty sure everything else is made by hand.

What if you had something that compiled all of the .odfs for you... what would one want that to look like?

That would look like Optec cloning himself, then flying from Stuttgart, Germany to your house.  He then customizes the odfs with all the features you want, and sticks around in case you have technical problems.  I mean, your own clone of Optec.  What more could you want?

Doca, put this on the todo.

posted on December 12th, 2009, 4:38 pm

I think the Devs actually designed some autocompilers - it's really the coding of new possibilities that's more painful... I could be mistaken, but I seem to remember some mention of that in the past 

posted on December 12th, 2009, 5:55 pm

That would look like Optec cloning himself, I mean, your own clone of Optec. 

  TO CLONE-O-KOR!!!!!

posted on December 12th, 2009, 6:02 pm

That would look like Optec cloning himself, then flying from Stuttgart, Germany to your house.  He then customizes the odfs with all the features you want, and sticks around in case you have technical problems.  I mean, your own clone of Optec.  What more could you want?

Doca, put this on the todo.

Oh my gosh. This is...incredible. This could be THE best idea...that I have EVER seen in a forum. I...I don't even know what to say. Mal, you're a freaking genius. This whole patching taking forever thing would like....exponentially decrease the time it would take to release the patch every time a Doca was cloned....do you know what this means? We could, quite possible, create enough Docas to create a "fluctuation in the space-time continum" and perhaps even get FO a few days ago!!!!! YOU'RE A GENIUS!!! Now, who's got the cloner, I'm gonna get a ticket on the next plane...

posted on December 12th, 2009, 6:51 pm

Just make sure that none of them have disagreements with any of the others.  Otherwise, we'd have to call it the Clone Wars.

posted on December 13th, 2009, 1:36 am

Now, who's got the cloner

  Well one time I toasted two pop-tarts to almost the EXACT SAME TEMPERATURE.
So I'm pretty sure I could clone DC.

posted on December 13th, 2009, 1:40 am

Okay, just step into the toaster....

What was that?  Have I done this before?  Of course I've done this before....

posted on December 14th, 2009, 6:10 pm

  Well one time I toasted two pop-tarts to almost the EXACT SAME TEMPERATURE.
So I'm pretty sure I could clone DC.

LOL 

Ok, now that we've gone way off track... I'm going to put us back on.

Lets forget about the whole online sync thing. Let me just ask a simple question. Would is be possible to get the game program (the FleetOps.exe) to generate odfs on the fly and save them (now that I think about it, this is a stupid question ; being a bit of a novice programmer I know it could, so the answer is yes)

So with that in mind, would it be possible to design an interface where you could spend win points to enhance your ships, and when you have finished these custom ships get translated into odfs? I don't know if it would be possible to store them separately from the core odfs, in say the user's profile folder, and then load those instead of the core ones, or if you would just have to overwrite the core files.

I realize there are more than a few logistics issues here, but the main question is: could the above be done in some form?

posted on December 14th, 2009, 10:30 pm

You could set it up like Age of Empires 3 it would be really cool. I know that there is no coding for such a interface but its not like main menu is anything like A2 menu. If it had to be it could be a separate program that created the avatars.

posted on December 14th, 2009, 11:14 pm

The developers have obviously recoded parts of the interface. I thus submit into evidence the Map Editor/Creator (it doesn't even exist in the original game), the Map Selection dialog which uses standard Windows controls and has a preview box, and the Advanced Options dialog for setting up an Instant Action game which is different than the original. Based on all that, I think they could add it in.

posted on December 14th, 2009, 11:48 pm

Problem: Everyone who plays needs to have the exact same version of most, if not all of A2's files. Certainly the odfs.


And generally, no. Just no. We're talking about substituting skill when using a standard set of weapons with a ranking system that greatly rewards players with more game time (effectively), here - not something I'd personally like to see. One reason I don't play mmmorpgs

posted on December 15th, 2009, 2:29 am

Problem: Everyone who plays needs to have the exact same version of most, if not all of A2's files. Certainly the odfs.

Since I don't know exaclt how things work for online play in general, I could certainly see this as an issue. And in that case make it a SP only idea.

And generally, no. Just no. We're talking about substituting skill when using a standard set of weapons with a ranking system that greatly rewards players with more game time (effectively), here - not something I'd personally like to see. One reason I don't play mmmorpgs

While this is a personal point of view, I will say that the existing avatar idea is really only one step removed from this. As it stands you're granting advantages and disadvantages based on which avatar you play, the only difference is that its fixed and limited. The system I had in mind would not give massive rewards like you would seem to believe. It would take players, as I envisioned it, a long while to get anywhere and would give greater rewards for defeating those of a higher rank who presumably had greater skill. My thought behind this was to make the game a little more realistic in my view.

posted on December 15th, 2009, 2:42 am

Players of higher skill are already hard enough to beat.

posted on December 15th, 2009, 2:56 am

Which is why you would get more for beating them. 

posted on December 15th, 2009, 3:04 am

I guess this goes along with having a publicly viewable skill ladder, which is an unpopular idea.