Posted by at 11:04 pm, 10/23/06  |  Category: Highlights

Highlights for 10/16/06 to 10/23/06 

Hello again to all of you in the community. While this week we don't have many illustrious screen shots of Ascension , we do have a few other treats for you. The format of this weeks highlights will be a little different as we're trying out some different categories and info. Be sure to continue to let us know what you like that we're telling you, what you don't really care about, and what we didn't mention that you'd like to hear! We'll listen as best we can while we try to improve this for you all :)

What we cover this week:
The Community
Community Threads
Storyline
The Chat
Next week...

The Community

One thing we enjoy is bringing in new, great talent, and we're always proud to be able to boast that the vast, vast majority of our team has come directly from the Starseige community and the community you've all been helping us create. We'd now like to take the time to welcome three Tribes 2 veterans to RenWerX Studios.

First on the list is ^Danny^, who has been brought on as an additional element to our web development team, specializing in design.

Second up is Badazz, a Tribes 2 player We're sure many are aware of. She also is an admin over at Elite Warriors Online. Like us, she is very passionate about serving the community. She's been a great in giving us the opportunity to let others know about Ascension, and with her plug to the community she will be helping out in our recruiting efforts.

We'd like to welcome one of the newest additions to our sound team, Prosect, who comes all the way from Israel. This guy has put out some incredible stuff, and we are absolutely excstatic to have him on the team. We really look forward to sharing what he produces with all of you! For some samples of his work, check out his site .

Bjra was also brought onto our team so that we may hone his sound skills in on creating some nice tracks for Ascension. Some of his music was first demonstrated in a thread on our forums , and we look forward to what he'll produce for us! Welcome aboard, Bjra, we're happy to have you on :)

Community Threads

Recent requests from new people within the community have been summaries to large and very active threads. While we will aim to provide this, ideally we would like the community members to post summaries every 2 to 3 pages or so. At which point when it comes to the end of the week we will scan through the threads that have been particularly active, look over the summaries that have been made and put them here. We ask the community do this because while we also read the threads, it helps us get an additional idea of what has been said, an easy means to recap, and it (at least we hope) helps involve you more with us.

KillerONE expressed an honest concern about cohesion amongst our skins and such in his Texture Clash thread.

One of our skinners (he skinned the Lopro), Rooster has assured “We definitally have unified themes, we just haven't gotten to the touching-up phase. Yet. Don't worry guys.”

Ebit, another one of our great skinners added “Art continuity is always an issue when multiple skinners are included on a project. It's why most teams request that a texture artist be able to mimic other styles.” So it's something we've considered and addressed. :)

Another hot topic that our team has been discussing both with you all and amongst ourselves are concepts by which we can address scripts and customization. This is primarily found in the Client's Scripts Proposed Solution thread. Viracer, someone who has been awesomely and increasingly active in our community has written up a summary for everyone:

“The big controversy here is some people hate scripts and want to be able to play where scripts won't begin to cause unnecessary advantages, while at the same time, allowing for those people who rely heavily on scripts to also be able to play.

Kab's idea with script regulated servers is to have the server have a scripts folder that just applies to each client, so that if a server wants to allow certain scripts, instead of allowing them it just applies them to every client in the server, making sure no advantages are being gained by scripts.

It would also be possible to set your server to allow client scriping entirely or to deny it entirely. Each player can have a scripts folder with an autoexe and whatnot but it will only work on servers that allow complete freedom.

This is Fleeky's proposal:

“we are going to allow ingame hacking ... basically it works that you can write any type of script you want for the game .. but you have to write it in the game at a command console .. and once you leave it will disapear and there is no copy/paste
we will also allow ingame dos , ingame ie exploits etc.. all of this will be applied to our command concepts.. or as we are now calling them 3R337 H4x0R console..." (In case you don't get it, he's being sarcastic)

Amadeus is arguing to not bother trying to block scripts because there's jsut to many and people should be allowed to play the game how they feel comfortable. Also, it's his belief that if a script can be used the game/mod wasn't made well enough to avoid their use in the first place, thus bringing up the whole argument of "if it's part of the game, it's legal"


Everything else in the thread is about people's misconceptions of what are considered scripts. For clarification here's what they are.

• Visual/HUD customizations : These allow a person to rearrange or change the appearance of their HUD. These have no effect on skill other than possibly a person feeling more comfortable with a different reticle or different color HUD etc. Essentially making the HUD pretty for that player
• Scripts : The take certain functions in game and modifies them to take less skill and effort. EX: Ski scripts to ski almost perfectly always or Enhanced Zoom where typical zoom may be 20x this can be 100x+. These do provide mild benefits to the users, and alone are not much of a problem. However, en mass, they can begin to add up and their benefits essentially begin to raise the limits of the players skill.
• Cheats : Things people just shouldn't be able to do. wallhacks, where you can see everyones location on the map. Aimbots where you don't have to aim. Giant flags so you know where the enemy may be hiding the flag. Modified Hit Boxes that make a person almost (if not) invincible. All bad, all unfair, all grant huge effects on the user.

To clarify, all of the above are scripts, its their effects that differ. It's really just what we're arguing about. We're arguing about the 2nd one, being Scripts. It's understood that Customizations hardly if at all affect skill, and cheats are just wrong.”

Amadeus made a response to the summary...

To address a comment made in the thread, our team certainly does read the threads, as hopefully evidence by this section in the weekly highlights. When we read these threads, we consider and value the community input from all community members, not looking for a seal of approval from any specific one.

Storyline

Some may not have been aware, but we do have a storyline that is involved with Ascension. It involves various factions, wars, for which various skins have also been designed. Today Eamon (our backstory writer) has graciouslly released his talons from part of his storyline and faction's history that we may bring it to you. The faction history is for the first and most powerful faction, the Empire . We're also releasing a little bit of the time line that explains a bit of the story involving the Empire. We hope you all enjoy it!

The Empire's war banner and player skin can be seen here .

The beginning of the story can be found here .

The history of the Empire faction can be found here . 

Next week we'll be releasing more of the storyline/timeline .

The Chat

For those who don't chat in #renwerx on irc.dynamix.com, We thought we'd let you in on some of the humor that occurs in our community (devs included in that). Here are a few excerpts from both public channel chat and our private developer chat.

Public Chat

* Heero twiddles his thumbs

* PyroGuNx gives heero's thumbs

<PyroGuNx> And by gives

* Teratos_ is now known as teratos

<PyroGuNx> I mean takes

<Heero> we've been over this ebfore havnt we

* Decoy twidles Heero's thumbs.

<Heero> doh

<teratos> lol

<teratos> So what do you guys think about spawning in medium armor?

* Badazz Tosses heero's thumbs to Calsa

<Badazz> NO

<Byte> i like to spawn naked

<Byte> oh

<Pauliver> who here played the SS ATR?
<Pauliver> what did people like and dislike?
<Amadeus> I dislike the fact that I still don't have my 6600GT back
<Amadeus> otherwise I'd be all over the ATR like a tentacle monster on a japanese schoolgirl

The topic found in our private development chat

<Novanix> HERE WE GO <Teratos> I'm already naked

There was also chat in both private and public about disc jumps being in game as well as what armor to spawn in. We'd certainly like to know your opinion on the armor discussion, and disc jumps will be in game. How effective they are, however, will be tweaked throughout beta to ensure it is a opportunistic tactic and not overpowered.

End
That's all for this week's highlights. Hope you all enjoyed it! Keep us updated on what you'd like to hear, what you enjoyed hearing, and what you may want to see less of! A lot goes on during the week, so some things we simply didn't have time to mention without making this highlight too long. If you'd like to get a sneak peak about of the highlights in advance (like screens, changes, etc), then be sure to be on irc in #renwerx on the irc.dynamix.com network over the weekend!