Do people really dislike the Heatblades?

Game Talk The Drawing Board
52

I want to point out that Cataclysm isn’t super serious zombie apocalypse simulator, yes it has zombies and survival, it tries to be realistic in many cases. But it isn’t 100% serious about that, as evidence in various seemingly joke weapons and silly messages through out the game. If Cataclysm was an adventure kind of game, or a FPS I would have felt the same as you. But it’s a roguelike, something about roguelikes, to me as least is that roguelikes are never too serious, there are jokes and silly stuff, guess because I played too much NetHack.

In short, Cataclysm is going to be like this from now on, maybe it’s a bad thing, maybe it’s a good thing, but I’m fine with it either way.

53

What a strange and wrong thing to say.

We’re simply waiting for the mod manager, then the swords can be split and become a pack that ships with the game.

54

I just got the mental image of Hitler in a really, really, bad fur suit.[/quote]
Does that make him Das Fürer of THEM?

55

[quote=“infectedmochi, post:52, topic:4558”]I want to point out that Cataclysm isn’t super serious zombie apocalypse simulator, yes it has zombies and survival, it tries to be realistic in many cases. But it isn’t 100% serious about that, as evidence in various seemingly joke weapons and silly messages through out the game. If Cataclysm was an adventure kind of game, or a FPS I would have felt the same as you. But it’s a roguelike, something about roguelikes, to me as least is that roguelikes are never too serious, there are jokes and silly stuff, guess because I played too much NetHack.

In short, Cataclysm is going to be like this from now on, maybe it’s a bad thing, maybe it’s a good thing, but I’m fine with it either way.[/quote]

I said this on another post, but once Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup got rid of all the novelty and joke items and elements, it got a lot, lot better. Although this is subjective, pretty much everyone on the forums saw this as an improvement and it allowed the game to become better balanced and seem a lot more professional. Obviously light hearted/funny things are great (like Xom in DCSS) but when it starts being joke (or sci-fi) weapons and enemies, it just makes the game look less like a serious endeavour.

More than anything though, I think it’s pretty evident by the overwhelming amount of threads/posts on this subject that a lot of people don’t want joke/scifi/vanity weapons in the standard.

56

If you’d bother to read the backstory, C:DDA is set about twenty years in the future. Those ‘scifi weapons’ are in there because of that. Ever notice all the robots running around, or that there’s plutonium-powered cars on the streets?

57

If you’d bother to read the backstory, C:DDA is set about twenty years in the future. Those ‘scifi weapons’ are in there because of that. Ever notice all the robots running around, or that there’s plutonium-powered cars on the streets?[/quote]

The C:DDA lore is also incredibly inconsistent in regards to Power Armor and the distribution of energy weapons, and non-existent in some fundamental areas to explain the sci-fi elements. Also, that’s a really patronizing tone to take towards a valid concern.

58

I’m sorry if you took offense at my response. It wasn’t my intention to hurt your feelings.

That being said, there’s no single body of information that covers the entire setting in one place. However, through inference, we can reason that the world of C:DDA is definitely not the same as our own world. There’s the whole second Red Scare thing that was going on, we’ve got those robots and genetic mutations to account for, and we’re nearly up to our eyeballs in CBMs, not to mention that the ENTIRE plot of the game relies on a bunch of scientists doing (scifi) experiments involving traveling to other dimensions. So I’m sorry if I came across as dismissive, but I really don’t think that the request to remove scifi stuff is feasible.

If we were to remove the scifi stuff from the game we’d have to remove a substantial portion of the game’s content and we’d be left with Left 4 Dead: the Roguelike, but without a backstory of any sort.

59

[quote=“Rivet, post:58, topic:4558”]I’m sorry if you took offense at my response. It wasn’t my intention to hurt your feelings.

That being said, there’s no single body of information that covers the entire setting in one place. However, through inference, we can reason that the world of C:DDA is definitely not the same as our own world. There’s the whole second Red Scare thing that was going on, we’ve got those robots and genetic mutations to account for, and we’re nearly up to our eyeballs in CBMs, not to mention that the ENTIRE plot of the game relies on a bunch of scientists doing (scifi) experiments involving traveling to other dimensions. So I’m sorry if I came across as dismissive, but I really don’t think that the request to remove scifi stuff is feasible.

If we were to remove the scifi stuff from the game we’d have to remove a substantial portion of the game’s content and we’d be left with Left 4 Dead: the Roguelike, but without a backstory of any sort.[/quote]

I think the danger zone we’re in is defining what “Sci-Fi” to call DDA. There are facets of Sci-Fi (and I’m sure as hell no expert on them, someone with far more knowledge than me should chime in).

But to me personally:

There is real-world-just-slightly-in-the-future Sci-Fi. Weapons like lasers, energy weapons, “cloaking devices” I suppose. Technology that ramps up what we currently can find on earth or just makes expensive rare science we have now a consumer item (hydrogen-powered engines, common-use nanobots).

There is fantasy/alien Sci-Fi Star-Trek/Star-Wars stuff - deflection energy shields, teleporters, etc. This stuff you see in the Science labs and such, since its based off the “aliens” in DDA. Even some of this we aren’t venturing into - energy shield technology got shot down.

Then there is the less-grounded Sci-Fi fantasy stuff. Things that can come off wacky. They’re not grounded in current technology (and if they are they just wouldn’t work in real-world applications) and they’re not something that can be pawned off as “well its alien”. Chainsaw lajatangs and to some, this would include bending rebar and taping a gas can to it to make a flaming sword.

As for robots: depending on the type it could fit in different categories. Small rolling automated tanks (think: the early models from the Terminator series found “in our time” seen in the newest films) are easily NOW Sci-Fi or just-slightly in the future. I assumed the robot cops were more that style than RoboCop or Arnold-style Terminator.

It comes down to, where in the field of sci-fi is DDA? Its like … Conan the Barbarian, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings & the King Arthur legend are all “fantasy” … but they’re totally different settings and someone who likes one won’t necessarily like any of the others.

60

“The future is here-- it’s just not very evenly distributed.” --William Gibson

You both have great points. Going to cover your posts individually.

Rivet: I have no desire whatsoever to remove the scifi elements. They are indeed core to DDA. That said, I’ve been working off of lore threads, ingame flavor text, and as little inference as I can get away with, and there are… problems. Power armor is supposed to be prototype, rare as shit, and require a truck to operate from. Where did the Mk2 and hauling frames actually come from in the timeline? Stuff like that. Mechanics versus fluff is always one of those tricky to nail balances, but atm it’s entirely out of whack.

Dominae: Aye. We live in a future not too dissimilar from what the cyberpunk authors saw in the 80’s in the real world, so defining “scifi” is always a valid concern. That said, my interpretation of what lore I can find and the problems in interpreting it pretty much fall alongside yours.

61

I’m thinking that the best thing for verisimilitude would be a ‘narrative audit’ of sorts. Somebody really should go through and tighten up all those loose ends like the power armor story and such.

62

Basically, the absolute bottom line is that no thing is tailor made to an individual (which is why they’re called individuals in the first place) :slight_smile: Evolution, on the other hand, is an amazing feat and walks hand-in-hand with an amazing human trait called adaptability :> No one person will ever do just what you want them to do; that’s for robots!

In any story a stretch of reality can be made to allow for absolutely anything… In a biography of Abraham Lincoln, say, this would not be a good thing… But for Cata DDA, I’m all for it! Items or traits you dislike can be completely ignored by the player if they’re unwelcome (you can even start a fire and burn it if you like…). Can even burn an American flag if you want! That’s because in DDA the government is dead and all the cops are either rotting or robots. But you can’t be all, “Oooh, there’s a heatblade and I don’t like it but Gawd I’m forced to use it anyway because its amazing!” :wink:

In the gritty end there will be toggles and mods for many, many things. Toggles and mods that the main devs have already expressed great interest in, and even so, if one thing should bother a person to a “game-breaking” degree, then it becomes time for evolution! Either adapt/grow in your acceptance of things (in this case it’d be ignoring that heatblade, don’t pick it up!) or evolve and learn coding and start work on the toggles/realism/vanilla-bland mundane mode you so hunger for :>

A lot of this also stems from the fact that we’ve added nearly every single conceivable thing you’d want to own in a zombie apocalypse… The grunt work is done, the time for flavor is now! About the flavor of sci-fi, we’ve got more than 31 flavors just because of the portals… Literally anything can be justified through them, from time rifts to alien storms to robot-parallel-universe mountable Abraham Centaur Lincoln :>

What I’m truly, honestly, really just trying to say here, in much fewer words: Robocentaur Abraham Lincoln belongs, and if he becomes hated, he should at least be accepted for his uniquity, his binary equine beauty, or at the very least for the radical bill he wrote in the year 23,499 X.C. where he secured the freedom of the Squillan Armadas from the radical oppression of the Biprodax (who were really just shadow puppets for the universal corporation Googlor.)

63

I’d vote for Robocentaur Lincoln.

But seriously, you got it pretty much dead-on. Given time, we’ll likely have a ‘real world mode’ with severely reduced scifi stuff. But for now, if you don’t like a feature don’t use it.

64

What you said was wisdom, moist_zombie, I applaud you for that. :slight_smile:

65

Its really just me parroting back the wisdoms taught to me by Robocentaur Lincoln, all learned in a single weekend we spent together touring the foothills of… some place with foothills :wink:

66

I had ‘bothered to read the back story’ actually, but it’s not really very clear.

What would really, really help all of this, including cutting down on the nastiness/aggressiveness on the forums and the constant arguments, is a pretty comprehensive ‘ethos’ document and roadmap from the main developers.

This could outline what the main aims are (is it a survival game where you’re scratching to survive, or more of a sci-fi action-er for instance) as well as the setting/lore and types of technology allowed and not allowed. I know that this is a difficult as it’s still very much a growing project and things are subject to change, but they have one for DCSS* and it works well to stop meaningless debates and the ‘I think it should be more like this’ personal opinion arguments. Obviously rules can be broken and it wouldn’t be binding for people, but it would at least allow us all to get behind a more singular vision rather than some of us wanting it to be a gritty zombie simulator and others wanting it to be a science fiction rampage.

I PM’d this to Galen and Glyph (I wasn’t sure who else was considered a main dev) after it was suggested a while back although I didn’t get a response. I really do think it’d help though, especially as there are so many user submissions and

*I realise I talk about DCSS a lot, but I feel it’s one of the most coherent, stable and balanced RLs around, and it’s huge fan base sort of gives credence to this.

67

Huh, got deleted. Well here anyway:

Changes the size of the image.

@binky
I disagree- that wouldn’t prevent people from suggesting changes, nor should it. The power to have a less hostile atmosphere is entirely in the hands of individual members. Or our moderators, (though no one likes that solution).

As for flaming weapons, throw me in with the ‘I don’t care, the game’s quirks give it character’ camp.

68

Deleted for Off-topic - GlyphGryph

69

[quote=“GrizzlyAdamz, post:67, topic:4558”]@binky
I disagree- that wouldn’t prevent people from suggesting changes, nor should it. The power to have a less hostile atmosphere is entirely in the hands of individual members. Or our moderators, (though no one likes that solution).[/quote]

Of course it shouldn’t!! I’m not saying that we have a mandate which is unbreakable (I did say that rules can be broken) or that people couldn’t post contrary suggestions but it really would help make a more conductive environment if we had at least some guidelines.

For instance, we’ve had huge rants about Cataclysm being too easy/not enough about survival, yet we don’t know which way the main devs want to take it. Is surviving supposed to be the central point to it, or is it supposed to be more about storming alien labs and the like? Furthermore, the technology/lore side of things being laid out would allow us to know if energy shields and heatswords are ok, or if we’re talking about a very near future (with a few crazy artefacts?)

As I say, it works well on the DCSS boards, and stops a lot of aggro about personal opinions

70

I think an ethos and roadmap would actually be a very very good idea. Please help make it happen.

71

Hmm… Seems like a lot of the roadmapping would have to wait til the NPC rework gets done so we can gauge their magical powers (specifically faction activities and reactions…). Seems like from that base a lot of story/lore based things will arise fresh, like a zombie that somehow died without being pulped at all :wink: Just adding NPCs that react to you and want things from you will change lots of things, like item values and “safe areas”, who knows what… For now scrap metal is mostly for vehicle construction, but what happens after a faction is asking for scrap in bulk with the promise of fresh recruits for your mini-militia for every 100 units traded?! The backstory lore is fairly healthy already, and theres even some loose potential future lore, but in my mind NPCs will provide and naturally fill lots of 'present day" lore, even through random generation…

I just feel like Cata DDA is a flower, healthy as hell with a stem made of steel, and a thriving bud on top, but NPC interactivity (along with a living, changing world because of random events and NPCs) will cause this game to bloom into a flower so Gawd-awful beautiful it’ll hurt your break your heart with pure joy to even look at it, much less smell it!

This thread veered waaaay off of heatblades, but in an awesome way :> In the future the Fear of Icy Retribution faction will hunt you down like a sworn enemy if you set fires or even have a heatblade in your inventory :open_mouth: But you can trade them ice blocks and liquid nitrogen for high-quality fur and leather gear so you’ll survive the icy apocalypse they’re working towards :wink: