tain.totalcodex.net

the only reference i've seen (the gamasutra TFL post mortem article) about the scripting that was intended for Myth TFL doesn't specify where or how the unit behavior modifying scripts would be selected or how they would be activated.

if you have anything other than hearsay that sheds more light on this topic i am all ears.

So the only way to know something is if your read the knowledge or work others have done and said before?
Hehe thats cute. I talking about what I know from being involved in myth content creation and speaking to varius people that programmed stuff into myth itself.
Ranging from TFL bungie Employees, to Vodi from TFL era, to Fisj and Vodi in post m3 era, to Some on the Myth Dev team and then later magma members long ago. So you wont find any documentation on this. All you need to know is that it was going to be in Fear settings for units. As we all know, you cant change fear settings for units in game.
It would be like adding sctipting to a unit inside fear so he could dodge incoming arrows, problem is he would allways have this behaviour active. You can allready do this dodge script, but its on the map's scripting and attached to the unit. Maybe Myrd will chime in, he would know.

"defacto" No that's not the "only" way to know things, but it;s a whole heck of a lot more reliable that trusting potentially lying strangers on the internet.

in otherwords. if someone i respected and trusted told me something i would tend to believe it (with an asterisk). if someone i knew nothing about and had no opinion of one way or the other told me something i wouldn't believe or not believe it i would just file it as 'of unknown veracity'. and when someone i actively don't trust tells me something i don't believe it unless there is some evidence.

also, being a reasonably intelligent person i am sure you are aware of the fallibity and notorious unreliability of human memory - it's why eyewitnesses are not very reliable. we often remember things differently than they actually occurred, or our memories change over time.

but feel free to self-importantly bluster away about all your conversations with industry experiences and how you know everything. you won't be convincing me because unless you have some evidence it's all just hot air to me. and if you don't care about convincing me of your 'knowledge' you really didn't even need to reply to my comment. i collect information and make it available at the myth graveyard. i'd LIKE to have more info about features that didn't make it into the final releases, but I am not going to take every random person's claims as fact and publish them - no matter how much they bluster and brag.

Yeah, VR, don't you know everything said on the internet is true. So what if you don't know Defacto? Only sane and trustworthy people use the internet! But seriously, it doesn't matter one way or another guys.

If VR doesn't want to believe Defacto because he doesn't know him or because humans make mistakes, Defacto loses nothing from VR not believing him or his logic.

If Defacto thinks he is right because someone else he trusted told him so or because he read it somewhere, VR loses nothing from Defacto not showing sources or believing in his logic.

No one cares. The feature didn't get made in the end and arguing about the idea that Bungie might have either liked the feature or REALLY liked the feature still gives you nothing at the end of the argument.

But you do have something to lose by arguing (or by starting to argue) about it. Whether it is your credibility, sanity, time, or a combination of some of those it all depends on your perspective. Now get back to your happy places.

You motherfathers take this way too seriously. Thats a big reason I'm not around anymore. Fuck how these forums usually go. Sniping and arrogance and arguing..

There was a time I thought it was just me, but my absence hasn't changed anything. You guys will rip on each other just for practice. You don't need my help to argue about anything.

You guys make it so hard to want to keep myth alive when every thread just degenerates into this. I just wanted to make something cool, you know? Now I almost dont even care.

faaaa, totally dissapointed too, haha
thought somebody wrote something cool in the post
read defacto's post and it was really interesting...and then it deviated into bs....

c'mon
you guys can do better than that...
at least don't defile my dead greek body....hehehe

Well my mistake has responding at all to VR. I have not checked out the forums much over the years, but from what I have seen, he likes to argue about anything with anybody. I wont make this same mistake again.

Pyro, well put, I shall heed this advice.

Ooga I remeber you worked on Heros of COOP and some other awesome plugs I cant really remember the names of. Dont let OTHERS ruin your love for something. That is one of the biggest mistakes that can be made in life.

Carlinho what were the points about the formations stuff I mentioned that you found interesting?
Together we can put threads back on track!

...I have not checked out the forums much over the years, but from what I have seen, he likes to argue about anything with anybody. I wont make this same mistake again.

i think you are pretty off-base here. I am a pretty active participant on the forums and have been for years, and i don't think i argue with very many people at all. in fact i bet you could count on one hand the # of people i've 'argued' with on the forums over the past couple of years. (and no, your multiple accounts don't count as more than one person)

But Renwood, if you seriously want to be trusted or have people (me) take you at your word it would really help if you didn't insult everyone's intelligence by lying and pretending you don't know people here and don't know about projects YOU worked on...

but in case you really aren't BS'ing us and you really can't remember the name of an "awesome" plug that Ooga worked on I'll give you a hint. It's named after your fondness for bloviating and hot air.

well, formations basically would be awesome, it's just that to do so they would need to re-write the code, and that probably won't happen....
but it's still an interesting topic of conversation

carlinho wrote:well, formations basically would be awesome, it's just that to do so they would need to re-write the code, and that probably won't happen....
but it's still an interesting topic of conversation

Well, if they were to be done, how would you see them implemented? What combination would make them attack in formation, and would they walk in formation? what do you have in mind?

JG

I was not really thinking about adding this by an group that donates their time and energy to myth. More like paid programmers or new game engine.

As i described it, i dout it could be added to myth in 1.8-1.9 or 2.0
It would be a huge undertaking to have the devation and stuff from any given units radius be added. I was mostly describing what would be need to be included to have Carlinho's Thermopylea or the "Battle of the 300" be dynamic and realistic in game.

If there were programmable fomations in myth it would seem to be this is how they would work and the limits they would have:

So we can place our units IN GAME how we want the formation to stay and then "lock it" or program is as a "formation preset" or something

So now have a formation that looks like this, Warriors in front, dorfs behind warriors so they can throw over the wall of warriors, and archers to the near of the dorfs.

So i lock this formations preset as #1.

I click on the map and my guys walk to the location and they keep formation the whole time. But there are a few poblems with this....how do you keep the warriors from walking ahead of the dorfs and archers? The warrs are faster then the others. So the fact they are locked in formation would have to make the units all go the speed of the SLOWEST unit in the formation. I.E. the dorfs speed. I belive this is why the wind age added "marching speed" inventory to some units. We cant have the dorfs or archers speeding up to the same speed as warriors, because it would change gameplay too much. But there is no reason a unit should not be able to go SLOWER.


Ok, so now all the units are going the same speed in the formation because the Programmable formations feature has made all units move the max speed of the slowest unit in the formation. So i see lots of enemy thrall, i hit enter to select the entire formation, and tell them to attack them. So the entire formation moves to get within the maximum attack distance of the longest range units in the formation, The archers. So my formation moved to get the archers within range to start shooting. The warriors and dorfs will then stay where they are LOCKED in the formation and are now in "Holds for attack" because they have been activated because the presense of the archers has made them aware of the thrall through the use of the archers's activation range. Wich in turn activates nearby friendly units to an enemy threat, this is allready how myth works now.

So as the thrall get closer to attack me, they are getting shot by arrows, when they get within range of the dorfs, the dorfs start throwing over the wall of warriors in front of them, and hit the thrall. Hopefully the dorfs will stop throwing as the thrall start getting really close to the warriors. Ok so now the thrall have engaged the warriors in melee combat. And i guess i have to tell my archers and dorfs to stop shooting so they dont hit the warrs in the back. The wars are attacking the thrall and evreybody is keep formation. If a warrior is getting hit by a thrall and not hitting back, he can now use the deviation from his center in his place in the formation to walk forward a few steps to be able to hit the thrall, or to move close enough to support a warrior near him so the warriors can support one another, and NOT just sit there on gaurd like they do now in myth.

So all the thrall are dead. But with this senario, i was only able to attack with my guys in a locked or preset programmed formation while my units just sat there. To really be able to use programmable formations for something usefull, we need the ability to move FORWARD and attack at the same time. this would require a HUGE engine change, like built from the ground up feature, where you could be stabbing and hacking people or shooting arrows and throwing dorf bottles WHILE moving forward. Without these features working in game as i have described them, you cant really recreate the battles of the bronze age battles like Carlinho has wanted to do. This is why as he said, the battle of Thermopylea gets boring because you have to just put your men on gaurd and watch the show.

Carlinho also made super awesome Phalanx formations of spear guys using inventorys, so they can be holding spears pointing out in front of the formation while walking around. Problem is they can only fight if they stop moving. Wich kinda sucks cause you cant move into an enemy formation and be stabbing them and steamroll their formation.

This is why i said its more like a new from scratch myth to be able to support this suff. It gets super complicated really fast.

But still just being able to have programmed preset formations the remember where the dorfs warriors and archers are ment to go in a formation would be really cool in game. And very possible to implement in the 1.8-2.0 mythII engine.

Well, I understand that. I am asking, like, what key combinations would you suggest to activate this even? I can see how it could be useful to more than a few mapmakers. I myself don't have an immediate use for it, but I can totally see where it could be useful.

To any posters: What key combinations, or menu options do you think would make an implementation of this be smooth, and worthwhile.

(I am of the personal opinion that doing this via inventory is not the best way to do it.)

JG

Maybe Ctrl + # keys or Ctrl + F keys to set and recall programmed or locked formations.
You would also need some button to push (pick one thats not being used) that would allow your units in the programmed formation to kinda attack at will or what i have seen in some RTS from long ago its was called "melee" where units broke formation and all just attacked the nearest enemy to them.
Then you would need a new button to push that would be the opposite of the scatter or retreat button. It would make units return to the previous programmed formation they were in.
This all sounds kinda crazy and complicated, but if a tactical game or strategy game had features like this in it, myth could appeal to a whole new demographic, the historic tactical or strategy gamers. Like people that are really into Sid meir's games like the Old nepoleonic or civil war games he made. I call them "Wargamers" i dont know what they would call themselves. The people from this demographic would look down upon a game like starcraft with disgust and most likey would find myth's tactical control over whats going on in the battlefield and your methods of controlling your forces greatly lacking as well.

Defacto wrote:JG

Maybe Ctrl + # keys or Ctrl + F keys to set and recall programmed or locked formations.
You would also need some button to push (pick one thats not being used) that would allow your units in the programmed formation to kinda attack at will or what i have seen in some RTS from long ago its was called "melee" where units broke formation and all just attacked the nearest enemy to them.
Then you would need a new button to push that would be the opposite of the scatter or retreat button. It would make units return to the previous programmed formation they were in.
This all sounds kinda crazy and complicated, but if a tactical game or strategy game had features like this in it, myth could appeal to a whole new demographic, the historic tactical or strategy gamers. Like people that are really into Sid meir's games like the Old nepoleonic or civil war games he made. I call them "Wargamers" i dont know what they would call themselves. The people from this demographic would look down upon a game like starcraft with disgust and most likey would find myth's tactical control over whats going on in the battlefield and your methods of controlling your forces greatly lacking as well.

That seems like a bit of a chore to do just basic combat mechanics with such reaching combinations. What if it was like , hold down G, while clicking to attack in formation, and hold down F to walk in formation. That sounds a lot easier to pull off, and more reasonable to me.

However, that leaves the question: How would this be made, would plugins have to allow it? I am sure if it was just added into the gameplay, the MWC crowd would spit and howl.. So would it be under unit tags, mesh tags, or what? Anyone have any ideas for this?

I think the units and the mesh would need to support it. And sure hold down G and click to attack and stay in formation, and click on the ground and hold down F to walk and keep guys in formation. If that would be kinda easy to do and get good results sure.