Hardline/White Hallways/New Districts

#36300501068 09/19/2008 18:44:24 Hardline/White Hallways/New Districts

I wanted to get all three subjects in because in one way or another they are tied in. As I understand it, one of the reasons why we don't have new districts (aside from the non-animator issue) is that there is no way to add to the existing hardlines. So I was thinking of this.

Why not just add a second set of hardlines?

Ok to explain, lets call the known and current hardlines "Hardlines A" these are the ones that take us to all the districts we currently have. If we make another group "Hardline B" we could use that to get to any added new districts and for the new districts itself.

I'm not entirely sure how the programing is set up to have a object used as a teleporter but my guess it would have to be some sort of a script used in the object so when you interact with it via mouse clicks it brings up the menu with the choices of "loading Area" "Hardline" Abilities" etc.

If this is the case then wouldnt be possible to use the modern telephone booths scattered in the known districts as a "hardline B" option?"

We know that the new constructs and the White Hallways use a similar teleport device as the hardlines with the exception of the added menu, but I think if we could tackle the problem of also adding the menu to the actual teleport script we could be in buisness as far as getting a way to get to new districts (if any are ever created).

Like wise we could use the same concept for the white hallways where to get a door open you would need a key, plenty of doors in there to set something like that up but for the sake of lag chose seven doors you can try at first. You use the key on a certain door, get it open and are transported to a different part of the Matrix, exactly how the Hallways were meant to be used and it fits with the movie's concept.

As far as the new Districts , if any are created you could add train lines as well as its just a teleporter with alot more animation (with the train pulling up and leaving the subway) .

Anyway that was something I was thinking about, I wont even pretend to say I understand the programming involved for this game but sometimes the best solutions are the most simplest.

#36300501605 09/22/2008 01:52:53 Re:Hardline/White Hallways/New Districts

I really like the idea of utalising the white hallways for something more.

What kind of areas would you be thinking about to be teleported to? Are you talking new areas? What kinda of areas?

We could also use the white hallways for like high level missions. Using something like a archive ticket you have to use the white hallways to access the mission. Something along those lines.

#36300501609 09/22/2008 02:05:55 Re:Hardline/White Hallways/New Districts

How about some White halls in Richland/Westview? Where know that there is at least one door that can access them.

#36300501616 09/22/2008 02:33:54 Re:Hardline/White Hallways/New Districts

Yeah i'd like to use the hallways as a form of travelling between districts and such. One thing i like about DataMine is that each proxy will take you to a diff part of Richland (always good when you hear theres pvp at mara and you take the mara proxy.)

#36300501628 09/22/2008 03:47:34 Re:Hardline/White Hallways/New Districts

Hardlines are the easy part. Who's going to design, create, assemble and test the new areas?

#36300501644 09/22/2008 06:19:44 Re:Re:Hardline/White Hallways/New Districts

Cadsuane wrote:

Hardlines are the easy part. Who's going to design, create, assemble and test the new areas?

Well I was thinking that since the DataMine Construct came out pretty good it could be possible to design another district just using what building schmatics they currently have. I understand that part of the problem with building any new districts was the hardline problem , something about that they couldn't add a hardline to the exisitng list of hardlines, hence why I suggested why not make a seperate list of hardlines?

As far as building an entire District well that is a REAL tall order. I talked with a faction mate of mine while we were in Downtown here were some of the observations we found.

-Auto traffic responds to traffic lights and cars follow the pattern of the street.
-Pedestrians walk along the sidewalk path at regular intervals.
-Wind effect is noticable (leaves and dust).
-Night and day effects are visable.
- Also of note the lighting from building and streetlamps respond to Day/Night effects.
-Doors to buildings open and close and the buildings themselves uses an elevator system as well as stairs to get to different floors.
-Flags (and i think trees as well) have a wind effect.

Now these are just a few things a casual observer would notice, but in what we saw in 15 minutes would tell us that just building a district would be more than just laying down a few buildings, you have a whole bunch of other stuff you would have to account for in order to make a district on par with the rest of the districts. Plus we are talking about a very big space to fill. Rarebit i think took a few months to make the DataMine so naturally if the job fell on one person to do it , we could expect to see a new district in a year or more (and that I think isa kind estimate).

The other problem i understand has to do with the database itself in that they don't want to mess with it because if something breaks there then that's it , no game.

So i guess in answer to your question i think it would require a few programmers , designers and animators to design and test for it. As to if its possible to get them ? Of course it is ! But as Neo would say "the problem is choice...."

#36300501646 09/22/2008 06:34:09 Re:Re:Hardline/White Hallways/New Districts

Criingey wrote:

I really like the idea of utalising the white hallways for something more.
What kind of areas would you be thinking about to be teleported to? Are you talking new areas? What kinda of areas?
We could also use the white hallways for like high level missions. Using something like a archive ticket you have to use the white hallways to access the mission. Something along those lines.

Well for that , i think using the Hallways as it was used in the movies is possible. Now granted from what I know how the teleporter works comes from other games but it has to do with putting in a string of coordinates from a grid (like x,y,z plus you would have to account for height although i think technically all the hardlines are at the same height, just the streets are lower or higher). The more string of coordinates you have, the more places you can go to. I think for now though we could put in a few areas in Richland/Westview/International/ Downtown. If the teleportation program is scripted as I suspect I think all it takes is to "code" whatever door you want to act as a teleporter in the different areas. Ok to explain that say you wanted the door in Ascenscion Monument to work, you would just code the door and it ahould function like a proxy where you click it and you are transported to the hallways.

Now the twist I was thinking of was that we would have to use actual keys to get tosome of these doors because of course the Whit hallways doors are going to be locked. Maybe create some mission just to get the keys, but something where the player is going to have to work for those keys.

I think the nice part to all of this is that anyplace can be used to get you transported , like Hell Club, Federal Building etc etc. I don't know if rarebit has plans to add things to some of these places but it would be cool if we could have a new place in hell club or the fed building (maybe finally make a La Vrei?).

At any rate it would be cool to see if it could work . SMILEY

#36300501648 09/22/2008 06:42:28 Re:Hardline/White Hallways/New Districts

I've been suggesting something close to this for years. Though my veiw on the subject is slightly different, on the hls issue, it would be a large task to construct a new district due to size issues, Datamine is roughly around the size of maybe 1 medium size area in Downtown. Now taking that into concideration you have to think about all of the sepreat areas in a district, creating new areas, filling those areas with content, npcs, contacts, venders, clubs and not to mention hard lines.

Now I suggested awhile ago, bout two years ago that if a new "area" were to be built that it shouldn't be a area for missions and such, however, the area should be completely open to all operatives, kinda like Sati's Playground. It should be about the size of Datamine, maybe alittle bigger with alot of different buildings. But then I realized that to do something like this would mean you would have to create a new subway for lowbies to get to it, so I though fine, then I came up with the idea just like you did with the White Hallways. I thought, you know, if the white hallways were used to their fullest potential someone could make it so buying a key would give you a mission, you go through the white hallways in this mission and finish the mission by going through the door in the halls. The door teleports you to the new area and the mission ends. Then I thought, well what would happen once you were inside of this new area, how would you leave it. So I said to myself, well since the area is open, and I know for a fact Rarebit can change a Archavist proxy into something else like ohhh idk how about a couple desk phones inside random rooms in this area? They'd act just like the proxy does only it would look more matrix like and I thought, man if only they would listen to me.

Only time will tell I guess. SMILEY

#36300501689 09/22/2008 09:51:47 Re:Hardline/White Hallways/New Districts

Heck if building a construct is easier , Im'm cool with that. To take it a step further you could do something lke this...

Ok special missions get you different types of keys. The missions would be outside the White Hallways and just would be held in the current districts. Getting the keys would be for the sole purpose of using one door in the Hallways. Now we could have it that you wouldnt know which door to use and that would be pretty much like the movie because as far as i know from the Movie niether Neo nor Morpheus knew where they were going and needed a "guide". But I get the feeling that wouldn't go over too well because you would just end up with alot of aggravated players. So i guess a mission door would mark which one you could use (that green bulls eye thing you see on missions).

Ok so you do the mission , you get a specific mission key , go to the White hallways and find the door. The next area I thought about and got the idea , instead of having just some plain old mission area , they could have a areas that look like places from the movies, One place could take you to La Vrai, another could take you to a replica of Debtor court (with a certain twist I'll explain further down) maybe another could take you to that room in the sewer where the Zionists met up in Reloaded, The electric plant they detonated is another place , well you get the idea.

Ok what to do there then ? For Lavrai for example you would get your "challenge" from the Merv himself like "go down to the parking lot , i believe we have a disturbence." You go down there to have hordes of exiles come after you including the Twins.

For Debtor Court You could have the Oracle sitting on the bench and have her say something like "Bad news honey..." she dissappears and is replaced by a couple of angry agents.

You could do the same from every place where there is a key , hell you could make several type mssions like this and each mission finishes when some cool prizes. The good part is that the areas created with the mobs are realatively small in comaprison with a construct and shouldn't be too much o a hassle to build since most of the stuff they already have on file.

Oh also some of the keys are duds or at leat they won't take you where you thought you were going , so instead of going to the (mob) mission area , you'l end up say in front of a store in Achan, nothing spectacular but you could reuse that key anytime you wanted to.

Prizes for the mission could range to a dumptruck load of money, super high buffed clothes , or a master key.

Anyway I think it would be worth a shot. SMILEY

#36300501890 09/22/2008 17:33:11 Re:Hardline/White Hallways/New Districts

Way to miss the point. By the way, every door in the game was originally designed to work with the White Hallways, Rarebit actually had to go and disable that so he could limit it to the ones he wanted.

#36300501899 09/22/2008 17:44:23 Re:Hardline/White Hallways/New Districts

Now I am not the world's most efficient graphic design artist or programmer. Or the world's best or most experienced. Nor have I ever designed ANYTHING in a 3-d environment that has ever come close to being complete. And let me tell you why:

Because it's time-consuming to the max.

If anyone's ever seen ESIV: Oblivion then you know how rich and awesome the graphics and the world in that game are. I took it upon myself to try to create a world of my own using the Oblivion Construction Set - which was fun and actually going well until I forgot to make a backup and completely blew up my world, then quit in frustration. But I made exactly one island with one town on it - in 5 days. Maybe more. The devs don't have the time without bringing in new people to do this.

#36300502054 09/23/2008 01:25:06 Re:Re:Hardline/White Hallways/New Districts

Cadsuane wrote:

Way to miss the point. By the way, every door in the game was originally designed to work with the White Hallways, Rarebit actually had to go and disable that so he could limit it to the ones he wanted.

No I understood what he was getting at. Look it's just some ideas is all, I don't expect everyone to like them. I know alot of folks have good ideas but don't like to post them here because it just takes one person with the negative attitude to kill any kind of creativity the guy or gal posting may have. So i try to be as constructive when it comes to my remarks on other people's ideas, I think we have enough threads out there with folks getting on each other's cases as it is.

As far as the doors working with the White Hallways , that actually seems like good news. If Rarebit could disable them to only use the ones he wanted , then I guess half the battle would be just a question of re-activating the doors he would like to use later.

#36300502055 09/23/2008 01:28:32 Re:Re:Hardline/White Hallways/New Districts

Fatmop wrote:

Now I am not the world's most efficient graphic design artist or programmer. Or the world's best or most experienced. Nor have I ever designed ANYTHING in a 3-d environment that has ever come close to being complete. And let me tell you why:

Because it's time-consuming to the max.

If anyone's ever seen ESIV: Oblivion then you know how rich and awesome the graphics and the world in that game are. I took it upon myself to try to create a world of my own using the Oblivion Construction Set - which was fun and actually going well until I forgot to make a backup and completely blew up my world, then quit in frustration. But I made exactly one island with one town on it - in 5 days. Maybe more. The devs don't have the time without bringing in new people to do this.

Agreed , it is very time consuming to build something as intricate as a District ,the DataMine construct alone is a miracle that it was made. so you could start smaller like a room or part of a building. It still would take some work but no where near the level of work for an entire district.