N v2.0 Public Beta

Talk about the latest flash version of the ninja game here!

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Postby ska » 2013.01.25 (03:07)

It's easy for y'all to throw stones, but what would have you done so differently if you were in my position? I did what I thought was the right thing to do and I don't regret it. It's sad that you can pour so much time into something you love, and people will defiantly hate you for it, regardless.

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Postby otters~1 » 2013.01.25 (03:33)

haha

let's air out all our dirty laundry in front of our erstwhile devs
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Postby Universezero » 2013.01.25 (08:54)

Okay to be fair you were a bit assholish about this ska, but mintnut: if you suggested some of Riobe's maps to the channel and then ska and the others agreed that they weren't great picks for the column, then seems like a pretty fair decision to me. It's just unfortunate that there wasn't enough time to thoroughly go through all of every great author's maps and find some that would truly be great in the columns and represent the author's style too.
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Postby mintnut » 2013.01.25 (13:38)

ska wrote:but what would have you done so differently if you were in my position?
I know what I'd've done.

Everyone chooses maximum 10 maps, with no more than 2 by any individual author.
PM forum mods, irc ops and numa admins to get global/topic/front page messages so the maximum number of people can be involved.
Forward all suggestions directly to M&R.

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Postby raigan » 2013.01.25 (17:22)

We're really sorry that this is causing so much strife; we realized that given the very short time-frame and limited sampling (thanks btw to everyone who sent in levels!), we were going to miss a lot of maps that would deserve inclusion.

We just thought that it was a pretty good+fun idea to have harder user maps unlocked after you beat our maps, however we didn't have a lot of time to spend on it.

About highscores: all user maps will have highscores. Whether a map is included in the episodes or not, it will have highscores; this is the biggest reason why we thought it would be okay to run with the user-column idea despite not having enough time to do it perfectly, because in the end all the maps will be "official/in-game" in the same way. It's not like userlevels, which was sort of a band-aid... from the start we designed things so that in v2.0 all user maps are completely "real" just like the maps we made.

One thing I want to mention is that a *lot* of otherwise great levels were rejected for taste reasons; I wish we could articulate better what it is we like about certain levels, but basically we ended up cutting many levels which were super-interesting but felt awkward/had hard-but-not-in-a-fun-way parts.


If you want to compile a master list of all the best/most popular maps and/or authors, we would be grateful for such a resource (this might also include such things as e.g who was the first mapper to invent the amazing "you need to keep a rocket alive, chasing you" idea?). Some sort of "Hall of Fame"; maybe this is just going to be equally divisive and controversial, but hopefully there is a consensus.

We know we're pretty ignorant about the community, which we regret (one day we'll write a long blog post about what's been happening with us over the past several years), however we would really love to know these things. (For example, we've made some maps that use that "keep the rocket chasing you" idea and want to make a dedication map in honour of whoever thought of it first; we included one such map as part of N+ Sublime, but I'm not sure if that was the original or not)

Maybe this would work best as a thread, I don't know. It just seems like it would be productive and a great future resource to have a list of maps that are considered great. (We couldn't figure out how to search NUMA for highest-rated maps, and even so there are at least hundreds if not thousands of 4+ maps... so sadly that's not really as useful as something curated by all of you)

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Postby mercuri » 2013.01.25 (17:54)

raigan wrote:Whether a map is included in the episodes or not, it will have highscores; this is the biggest reason why we thought it would be okay to run with the user-column idea despite not having enough time to do it perfectly, because in the end all the maps will be "official/in-game" in the same way.
HOLY FUCK YES

raigan wrote:If you want to compile a master list of all the best/most popular maps and/or authors, we would be grateful for such a resource (this might also include such things as e.g who was the first mapper to invent the amazing "you need to keep a rocket alive, chasing you" idea?). Some sort of "Hall of Fame"; maybe this is just going to be equally divisive and controversial, but hopefully there is a consensus.
this has to be done

thanks M&R for keeping us informed about this, you guys are truly awesome
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Postby mintnut » 2013.01.25 (18:06)

raigan wrote:(For example, we've made some maps that use that "keep the rocket chasing you" idea and want to make a dedication map in honour of whoever thought of it first; we included one such map as part of N+ Sublime, but I'm not sure if that was the original or not)
Well, there's the one in v1.4, http://www.nmaps.net/2735

Not sure if it was done before that...

Also, in terms of a hall of fame, I guess we'd have to have a dronies style nomination/voting process. For that matter, we could use previous dronies results for map makers and highscorers, results for 2011 through 2008 are on this forum:

http://forum.droni.es/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=1324
http://forum.droni.es/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=4724
http://forum.droni.es/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=7565
http://forum.droni.es/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=9629

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Postby Pheidippides » 2013.01.25 (18:27)

There was once an N Hall of Fame, a long time ago. The Legacy guys basically ran it like the Dronies. There was voting and stuff. It used to be on therealn, and the thread was on the old forums, but sadly both of those have been lost to time.

I'm really glad to see you two getting invested in the community again. I look forward to reading that long blog post, whenever it appears.
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Postby unoriginal name » 2013.01.25 (18:39)

whose beard now wrote:haha

let's air out all our dirty laundry in front of our erstwhile devs
what better way is there

a hall of fame sorta thing would cool. definitely as a thread and not a secret irc channel though.

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Postby raigan » 2013.01.25 (21:04)

@mintnut: that was the one I was thinking of, for some reason I remembered it as being part of N+ rather than the 80s column; thanks!

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Postby mintnut » 2013.01.25 (21:35)

raigan wrote:@mintnut: that was the one I was thinking of, for some reason I remembered it as being part of N+ rather than the 80s column; thanks!
:)

Also, the version of 'I'm Antoni Gaudi, I'm Dead' in the current beta relies on a one-tile glitch and so isn't possible:

http://f.cl.ly/items/3X421E0G370r15181Y0U/Untitled.m4v

Also, the i of gaudi is a í I believe, which isn't showing in the game, presumably because the font you're using doesn't have the character.

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Postby Izzy » 2013.01.25 (22:58)

I'm really enjoying the new levels, but the framerate in this update seems more inconsistent than the last one. I'll get moments, pretty often, when the game just slows down completely when FPS goes down, as if the game speed was dependent on FPS. Jumping feels pretty unresponsive as well. :(

Edit: What change was made to 4-tiles (the concave circular tiles)? They give you a speed boost now, which feels pretty weird.
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Postby aids » 2013.01.25 (22:59)

Izzy wrote:I'm really enjoying the new levels, but the framerate in this update seems more inconsistent than the last one. I'll get moments, pretty often, when the game just slows down completely when FPS goes down, as if the game speed was dependent on FPS. Jumping feels pretty unresponsive as well. :(
Yep, I get the same type of lag.
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Postby mintnut » 2013.01.25 (23:10)

Yeah, this beta definitely feels a bit less responsive than the last one.

Also, all the arcade column buttons link to the 00 column for me.

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Postby ska » 2013.01.26 (02:21)

Izzy wrote:I'm really enjoying the new levels, but the framerate in this update seems more inconsistent than the last one. I'll get moments, pretty often, when the game just slows down completely when FPS goes down, as if the game speed was dependent on FPS. Jumping feels pretty unresponsive as well. :(

Edit: What change was made to 4-tiles (the concave circular tiles)? They give you a speed boost now, which feels pretty weird.
I noticed the curved tile boost in prior versions. I will inspect this version for that soon as well as make my own list of bugs/performance issues/graphical errors etc

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Postby Izzy » 2013.01.26 (04:42)

ska wrote:
Izzy wrote:I'm really enjoying the new levels, but the framerate in this update seems more inconsistent than the last one. I'll get moments, pretty often, when the game just slows down completely when FPS goes down, as if the game speed was dependent on FPS. Jumping feels pretty unresponsive as well. :(

Edit: What change was made to 4-tiles (the concave circular tiles)? They give you a speed boost now, which feels pretty weird.
I noticed the curved tile boost in prior versions. I will inspect this version for that soon as well as make my own list of bugs/performance issues/graphical errors etc
I noticed it before, but it wasn't much of an issue. However, one of the max_ride maps in the 2nd user column has a section where the 4-tiles make it really different from 1.4
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Postby ska » 2013.01.26 (14:48)

OK, so yeah, sometimes you get a nice boost, which i think is possibly more accurate in pure physics terms (think: power sliding/drifting in cars). I do like that you can't seem to die from chimneying now as it eliminates the seeming randomness/frustration of dying from jumping too fast. I think the slower chimneying speed is more realistic too. In line with these differences, I wonder if giving the ninja more falling leeway when it comes to bounceblocks is a good idea. If you think about it, landing on an object which absorbs a high percentage of the ninja's torque should increase the lethal threshold in terms of the velocity it requires to kill the ninja. Another walljumping difference that I and others have discovered is an extension of the 'tile boost' quirk which was also present in the last beta version. I speak of err.. "speak" by nevermore. (a6-4). There is a major difference in physics which ultimately kills the inherit flow of the map. I'm not sure if you tested these usermaps in 1.4 or 2.0 or to what length, but I can't imagine you could beat this level once and not see this obvious difference unless you walljump really slowly. I can chimney fast enough to go from the top right to the middle 45 degree tile in the top centre. This means getting a consistent run on this level, or maps like it will be insanely tedious.

list of performance issues/bugs/aesthetic problems still in jan 25 2nd revision:

personal problems specific to this machine: gameplay still about half speed on this laptop
(Windows XP SP3 more than 1GB free space TravelMate 6293 running Chrome)
- caps lock on causes lag (ms/f), as does changing the system volume.


- the 0 in ar10 is cut off
- in credits: "columna A + B maps" should it be "columns" or is this some kind of inside thing I don't get?
- levels for highscores wouldn't load after playing a map although I could see people's highscores prior.
(I think something more like the 1.4 style of highscores tables would be better as mentioned on the blog by grandmaster Eddy.)
- various highscore submission and retrieval bugs
- highscores overflow box (perhaps use a scrolling system or increase box size?)
- 47-4 isn't symmetrical (this was mentioned by a few people so I'm wondering if this is intentional.
- all arcade links to first column
- levels don't display the first digit of each episode (e.g. episode 92 level 0 shows in game as 2-0)
Last edited by ska on 2013.01.26 (18:37), edited 2 times in total.

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Postby mintnut » 2013.01.26 (16:19)

ska wrote:There is a major difference in physics which ultimately kills the inherit flow of the map. I'm not sure if you tested these usermaps in 1.4 or 2.0 or to what length, but I can't imagine you could beat this level once and not see this obvious difference unless you walljump really slowly. I can chimney fast enough to go from the top right to the middle 45 degree tile in the top centre. This means getting a consistent run on this level, or maps like it will be insanely tedious.
Problem is ska, you're chimneying from the point of view of a seasoned high scorer. For 'average' players, that kind of speed isn't consistently attainable without fbf or underclocking. As such, taking the top centre gold with the trapdoor switch is made totally consistent by hopping off the bounceblocks, which is the natural way most non-highscorers would be aiming to do that jump.

More annoying for me is this gold:

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because the rocket placements make getting into that spot without being cornered a nightmare.

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Postby ska » 2013.01.26 (18:39)

mashing a button quickly ≠ being a good player just like being able to hit a tennis ball really fast doesn't automatically make you a good tennis player. I do agree with your point about the gold though. On further review, I think the map hasn't aged as well as I had expected it to, unlike Maximo's Plue or something which is timeless.

I also had similar feelings, but to a lesser extent about Desperado, and felt it needed some "remastering" which I suspect is one of the maps M and R were considering retouching (Questionable gold layout, triple bounce-block stack near the exit etc.) but decided completely against any modifications. I'm not even sure where Jeff Killian is, but I'm willing to bet he wouldn't take offence to some minor polishing considering it's like 8 years old or something.

Personally, when I was selecting maps for my Medieval Myriads pack (a kind of "best of" pack with some brand new ones), I ended up 'remastering' a sizable chunk of my existing archive to give them a more episodic friendly appeal... (Thanks again, Aidiera).
Don't ever feel like your tweaking of levels is going to be some kind of "George Lucasing" (to use your term) event where you're going to end up pissing some people off because it's simply not going to happen. As long as you keep the gameplay similar and faithful to the original, that's all that matters.

I'd like to hear some other voices on this too, in case anyone still thinks this is just the noise of a raving, inadvertently homicidal lunatic; steamrolling people or bending them to my will as opposed to unrelenting and unwavering passion for something so seemingly simplistic for all these years...

Peace.

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Postby raigan » 2013.01.26 (23:13)

Thanks for the heads-up about 47-4, it's crazy that we missed that since we've played it several times!

About a6-4, or user levels in general: we are good at N but we don't know any of the expert tricks like corner-jumps, triple-jumps, etc... and we try to make sure that knowing them isn't required.

I haven't noticed much of a difference with jumping up chimneys; can you describe the difference? (not sure what tile-boost is) Trying it just now, in a6-4 I can go fast enough up the side to land in/through the hole in the middle... I sort of thought this was fun :)

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Postby Izzy » 2013.01.27 (00:53)

raigan wrote:I haven't noticed much of a difference with jumping up chimneys; can you describe the difference?
It feels like there's a limit to how fast you can jump consecutively in the 2.0 beta. Perhaps it has something to do with the change in framerate: in 1.4, you could chimney no matter how fast you pressed jump, since the minimum time between jumps was 1 frame. It might've changed with the new 60 frames per second (maybe now you need to wait 2 frames before jumping?). I don't have anything solid, but it might be easier to verify with a frame-by-frame mode (which I assume will be included in the editor?).

Here's one of Kool-aid's chimneys in v1.4:

It doesn't seem possible to go that fast anymore (but then again, this demo is probably the fastest non-frame-by-frame sustained chimney ever recorded).
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Postby mintnut » 2013.01.27 (01:02)

ska wrote:mashing a button quickly ≠ being a good player
Perhaps not, but unless I'm missing something, chimneying accurately at that speed is just not something most players will spend time become that good at. In the same way that I've never felt the need to master corner jumps. From what you've said though the old highscore manoeuvre isn't impossible, so I don't see the problem that much? Where's the problem as you see it, in the map design or the game engine, because if it's the latter how would you improve the map?

For the lower gold I was having problems with, you could consider this edit:
http://paste.droni.es/0b9032fee9012af52b4affa9
although I feel like a heathen editing such an iconic map.

Desperado could really gain from losing the bounceblocks, but other than that it's perfect, I don't think the gold needs looking at at all.

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Postby ska » 2013.01.27 (02:40)

now that you mention ep 47, you can't die from the bottom mines in 47-0.

As for mintnut's edit, it took me several comparisons to spot the difference but the minor tile change seems as though it would improve the flow. Also, are you planning on including a 'boss' mode for 2.0? That was a minor, but nonetheless awesome feature.
Last edited by ska on 2013.01.27 (03:31), edited 1 time in total.

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Postby ska » 2013.01.27 (03:29)

mintnut wrote:Where's the problem as you see it, in the map design or the game engine, because if it's the latter how would you improve the map?
I assume you mean the former, not the latter, but to be perfectly honest, I'm not the best person to ask about this. I would suggest asking kool (chimney expert) or raif (possibly knows as much about the physics of this game as Mare and Raigan). My opinion is that the issue lies within the game engine itself. I agree with TRO about the inconsistency of walljumping itself. As mintnut pointed out, I'm usually much cleaner at walljumping but this just didn't respond with the same immediacy and consistency as 1.4. I also want to reiterate /just how good/ bounceblocks physics are now. Seriously, I cannot stress enough how much better they are. In maps like Mount Doom from 1.4, I'd often get extremely annoyed when the ninja would 'hit' the bounceblock only for the ninja to drop a fraction later, making things really awkward. Not to mention the 'falling through bounceblocks' glitch which seems to have been patched and keeping the ability to double jump off them is great.
mintnut wrote:Desperado could really gain from losing the bounceblocks, but other than that it's perfect, I don't think the gold needs looking at at all.
Yes, well, I think the only point of the bounce blocks was to slow the player down so he/she'd have a precise ending. To maintain a similar effect, whilst adhering to Metanet's pristine design sensibilities, I would recommend editing the exit chamber to this: http://packs.droni.es/9c9155c2951991315b (also changed to the top corners which is only to maintain symmetry and doesn't really affect gameplay at all). Does this seem neater to you guys?

Edit: Also I've made a video displaying both my slow speed issue (choppiness was exacerbated by screen recording software) as well as the ridiculous side-momentum of, as you can plainly see, not very fast chimney jumping.
http://youtu.be/aYGYoa4XVE4 one could only imagine what would happen if it was a curved tile instead!

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Postby 29403 » 2013.01.27 (23:35)

One of my maps made it in the game?

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Thanks to whoever suggested it! :D
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