+- Frictional Games Forum (read-only) (https://www.frictionalgames.com/forum)
+-- Forum: Amnesia: The Dark Descent (https://www.frictionalgames.com/forum/forum-6.html)
+--- Forum: Custom Stories, TCs & Mods - Development (https://www.frictionalgames.com/forum/forum-38.html)
+--- Thread: Should this be a thing? (/thread-24764.html)
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RE: Should this be a thing? - CielsTenebreuse - 03-11-2014
Canceled? Uh, what and why?
I think I get the gist of this thread though. Custom stories are stagnating, not as many people play them as they used to and the ones that stand out are becoming exceedingly rare, have I got it right here? I don't entirely disagree, I think there was a lot more enthusiasm when the idea of a custom story maker for this game was released. One of the most acclaimed horror games made in the past decade... at the whim of your fingertips! Scare people in completely new ways while retaining the experience people loved, or do something different and unique with it, whichever idea comes on top. And we did indeed get some great results out of it.
The problem with the HPL toolkit is twofold: it is both extremely easy to use and also extraordinarily difficult to use. If you want to throw together a story that may just be a basic variation of the main game itself using exclusively its assets, the engine is very user-friendly. Everything is there, the same few monsters, the exclusively dead naked guys for human "characters" and the few old wood, brick, stone, or drywall wallpaper is there to insert it wherever you want. If you want to make something a bit more interesting, do some things differently, that's where problems come in. In this regard it can be very unintuitive if you like haven't spent a doctorate's degree length of time studying and doing coding, texture work and animation for a living (so I've seen from pretty much every thread in the CS help threads). The engine is very picky about what sort of models and animations it will accept, and doing anything to change up the fairly strict core mechanics any (being able to do something besides "walk around with light, run from monsters, solve puzzles, ???, profit!") practically requires rewriting the game's code itself. The engine has essentially created a large, gaping chasm between two types of custom story creators: the ones who can use the basic engine and not much else, and the ones with the years of coding, modeling, and animation experience, talent and tools necessary to reimagine the Amnesia engine however they damn please. The latter people have largely abandoned it (otherwise I imagine we already would have gotten some basic, highly requested items already, like non-pine trees, edible-looking food, and people with clothing on them
), due to time constraints or finding other things to do, and the former people... still do stuff I guess but nobody really notices or cares. I do worry about the future of Amnesia custom stories because when they're good, they're really damn good. But its limitations seem to be causing a steady decline not found in more versatile engines with bigger, more lasting communities like Source games/Half-Life 2 mods or even RPG Maker titles.
RE: Should this be a thing? - Deadon - 03-11-2014
Personally, sometimes I think that teams and more "Pushing the limits" Should be done, I don't mean bigger maps, I mean learning advanced scripting and making the monsters work better they did in amnesia. I mean that people either spend to little time or way to much on maps and other important things. Immersion CAN be achieved other ways besides scares. Most people sometimes don't get that.
Sometimes even I forget in a crappy story
RE: Should this be a thing? - Artyom - 03-11-2014
This was supposed to help people with no experience whatsoever, how to make good cs's without super advanced coding and/or 3d experience. But, as I've clearly stated, I am not the one to do it. You see I want people to be more creative and learn new ways using the already existing assets, but as stated in comments.
From my perspective people are to greedy and want all of that experience and knowledge kept away from the "new guys". Otherwise we would have a lot more good mappers, scripters, modelers etc.
And this is why I won't do this. If people act ignorant and disrespectful against me, then I have no reason at all to be helping them. You can say anything you want about me I simply do not care...
So as I've clearly noted. Canceled.
RE: Should this be a thing? - Artyom - 03-11-2014
(03-11-2014, 06:39 PM)Robosprog Wrote:(03-11-2014, 06:21 PM)Zandrojakov Wrote: From my perspective people are to greedy and want all of that experience and knowledge kept away from the "new guys". Otherwise we would have a lot more good mappers, scripters, modelers etc.
Which isn't the case at all. If you knew any of the people around here, you'd realize that if anyone asks for guidance, and doesn't act like an ass about it like some newer members, we'll help them willingly.
This has generally always been the case.
Which is a point. If anyone wants help with anything I have any experience in, feel free to PM me. I'll see what I can do to help.
I'm not doing this again.