N v1.5: THE INITIAL OFFICIAL THREAD

[Hendor]

Great to hear from you guys here; it's a nice surprise. I've been thinking about this, and here are some things I'd love to see happen for v1.5:

1) You talk to Unreality. I'd hate to see all the work he's put into Nreality go to waste, when most of the things he's implemented would otherwise deserve separate mention on my list (speedhack detection, NUMA integration with highscore support and a web-based top scorers list) Perhaps you could hire(?) him on a contract basis to work with you. After all, he has already coded all of that.

2) More policing of the highscore boards for hacked and cheated runs. In their current state, most of the early episodes are literally unscorable. I know you did manually delete scores a couple times, which was great, but perhaps you could enlist a trusted highscorer to do this for you. I can think of at least 10 people who would gladly volunteer for this.

3) NUMA/forum based achievements. It would be great to have little badges appear on your NUMA or forum profile that say "completed half of N columns", "created 50th map", or "highscored 100th level". Not a big deal, but it's just a flashy feature that might help grab new players.

Things I would be bummed about:

1) Any changes to the game's fundamental physics. I think everyone would be put off if the controls don't respond they way they did in 1.4. Most of us have gotten quite used to the controls as they are, and I would be disappointed if any of the quirks like corner jumps, bounceblock double/triple jumps and slope stuttering that exist now did not in the future. This doesn't apply to new tiles or units though, I'd welcome them, as long as they weren't too ridiculous.

Thanks so much for asking our opinions.

[Universezero]

1) You talk to Unreality.

3) NUMA/forum based achievements.

Things I would be bummed about:

1) Any changes to the game's fundamental physics.

I think that those things are amazingly key to making 1.5 fantastic.

[SlappyMcGee]

1) You talk to Unreality.

3) NUMA/forum based achievements.

Things I would be bummed about:

1) Any changes to the game's fundamental physics.

I think that those things are amazingly key to making 1.5 fantastic.

I hate all of these ideas. -.-

[Vyacheslav]

Slaps: You want changes to the physics of the game? o_O

[Zephyr]

It's a shame that we've settled down so much on 1.4 already so that it will be hard to make a 1.5 with any big changes. I'd love to see some variety but it would destroy all that we've made.

[EddyMataGallos]

Great to hear from you guys here; it's a nice surprise. I've been thinking about this, and here are some things I'd love to see happen for v1.5:

1) You talk to Unreality. I'd hate to see all the work he's put into Nreality go to waste, when most of the things he's implemented would otherwise deserve separate mention on my list (speedhack detection, NUMA integration with highscore support and a web-based top scorers list) Perhaps you could hire(?) him on a contract basis to work with you. After all, he has already coded all of that.

2) More policing of the highscore boards for hacked and cheated runs. In their current state, most of the early episodes are literally unscorable. I know you did manually delete scores a couple times, which was great, but perhaps you could enlist a trusted highscorer to do this for you. I can think of at least 10 people who would gladly volunteer for this.

3) NUMA/forum based achievements. It would be great to have little badges appear on your NUMA or forum profile that say "completed half of N columns", "created 50th map", or "highscored 100th level". Not a big deal, but it's just a flashy feature that might help grab new players.

Things I would be bummed about:

1) Any changes to the game's fundamental physics. I think everyone would be put off if the controls don't respond they way they did in 1.4. Most of us have gotten quite used to the controls as they are, and I would be disappointed if any of the quirks like corner jumps, bounceblock double/triple jumps and slope stuttering that exist now did not in the future. This doesn't apply to new tiles or units though, I'd welcome them, as long as they weren't too ridiculous.

Thanks so much for asking our opinions.

omg, yeah yeah

[origami_alligator]

***SUGGESTION***
Please, oh please, include Survivals into the mix: maps that have no exit and require you to survive for a certain number of frames to continue to the next map. (Say 47-3 is a survival map and you have to survive for 850 frames to continue to 47-4.) I think this would add a whole new element to how the game is played through each column.

[nevershine]

***SUGGESTION***
Please, oh please, include Survivals into the mix: maps that have no exit and require you to survive for a certain number of frames to continue to the next map. (Say 47-3 is a survival map and you have to survive for 850 frames to continue to 47-4.) I think this would add a whole new element to how the game is played through each column.

amazing idea.

[Gan]

Custom Episodes and Custom Columns: this is all I need.

[nevershine]

Concerning the editor, we’re not looking to change how it works, but make it more friendly, for instance adding a secondary non-hotkey-based method of interaction, adding Undo/Redo functionality, etc. We’re very productive with things as they currently are, but I think everyone who has lost a map — because e. they made a typo and cleared the level rather than saving it — would appreciate the same experience with a greater degree of friendlyness

I love you!

Also, I'd love to see the whole editor <-> NUMA translation process being simplified. Those small obstacles are what keep N from getting even more userfriendly (and popular) than it already is today.

[Rose]

Concerning the editor, we’re not looking to change how it works, but make it more friendly, for instance adding a secondary non-hotkey-based method of interaction, adding Undo/Redo functionality, etc. We’re very productive with things as they currently are, but I think everyone who has lost a map — because e. they made a typo and cleared the level rather than saving it — would appreciate the same experience with a greater degree of friendlyness

I love you!

Also, I'd love to see the whole editor <-> NUMA translation process being simplified. Those small obstacles are what keep N from getting even more userfriendly (and popular) than it already is today.

I don't think metanet has any say over NUMA functionality.

[Geti]

slope stuttering

I agree with you on just about everything except this. What would be wrong with being able to slide to a stop on an upwards slope? You can do it in every other circumstance. The only "issue" I can see is that it'd make perp-jumping easier. (why is that bad?)
I don't think many big changes should be made, and I don't think the majority of the emergent gameplay facets (BBdoublejumps, corner kicks, etc) should be removed, but I'd love to see some bugfixes, even if they'd prevent DDAs that exploit glitches all over the place from working. v1.4 isn't going to cease existing the moment v1.5 is released, so I don't see the problem with changing things. We can have 2 separate map archives and highscore boards if incompatibility arises.
tl;dr: don't make M&R limit the game just cause you like xyz glitch. They made N into what it is now, I'm sure they can evolve it and keep it awesome (But still N, none of this N+ business ;).

[unoriginal name]

This is so brilliant out of context.

[OneSevenNine]

Yes to custom episodes/custom columns, fixing slope-stuttering, some new enemies, and survival maps as described above yes yes yes yes yes.

But no, please, no, to achievements. I hate the idea of making somebody do something boring/tedious/repetitive for the sake of an imaginary trophy. It fundamentally cheapens the game experience when you're not playing the game for its own sake.

[Hendor]

slope stuttering

I agree with you on just about everything except this. What would be wrong with being able to slide to a stop on an upwards slope?

Sorry, I wasn't clear... I agree with you that the game would be great without stuttering on slopes. I only included it on my list because of what I think must be done to get rid of it, not because I particularly want it in the game. M&R can't simply go in and flip a couple lines of code and solve everything. Stuttering on a slope is an unintended effect of the complex interactions between the player's movement and the map's tileset. Fixing it would require completely redoing the game's physics, which would mess up everything else I mentioned before. If we want the ninja to respond as it does now, I believe we might be stuck with stuttering. Perhaps Mare or Raigan could shed some light on this?

[Snuggletummy]

This might have been mentioned, but how about possibly adding multiplayer to the mix? I mean hell, it worked out brilliantly on the Xbox 360.

[Geti]

Fixing it would require completely redoing the game's physics, which would mess up everything else I mentioned before. If we want the ninja to respond as it does now, I believe we might be stuck with stuttering. Perhaps Mare or Raigan could shed some light on this?

First sentence looks like conjecture to me :)
I've done this kind of thing before (lots, collision detection is a pain in the arse if you aren't using a lib), it's very likely they'd be able to preserve the positive "glitches" whilst focusing on removing the frustrating ones. In any case, yes, it'd be nice to hear what the people with direct control think's possible or not.

I don't know if this has been said yet, but... speed run high scores! These can sometimes be more impressive.

This would also be nice.

[raigan]

If we want the ninja to respond as it does now, I believe we might be stuck with stuttering. Perhaps Mare or Raigan could shed some light on this?

We mentioned this a bit in the latest blog post; we managed to fix the stuttering. We actually did end up rewriting all the collision code, but that was always the plan because over the years we've realized that there are much better and simpler ways than what we had in N -- the existing code is much more complicated than it needed to be (and also very Flash-5-centric). Plus it behaves exactly the same as the old code; from the point of view of the player code there's no difference, it just asks IsNearAWall() or GetGroundDirection() or whatever.

We're still in the process of porting all the objects over; there will definitely be small differences in how things behave, for instance floorguards now move right up to the edge of a cliff right away -- previously they would stop several pixels from the edge, and only move up to the edge later on.

[Gan]

If we want the ninja to respond as it does now, I believe we might be stuck with stuttering. Perhaps Mare or Raigan could shed some light on this?

We mentioned this a bit in the latest blog post; we managed to fix the stuttering. We actually did end up rewriting all the collision code, but that was always the plan because over the years we've realized that there are much better and simpler ways than what we had in N -- the existing code is much more complicated than it needed to be (and also very Flash-5-centric). Plus it behaves exactly the same as the old code; from the point of view of the player code there's no difference, it just asks IsNearAWall() or GetGroundDirection() or whatever.

We're still in the process of porting all the objects over; there will definitely be small differences in how things behave, for instance floorguards now move right up to the edge of a cliff right away -- previously they would stop several pixels from the edge, and only move up to the edge later on.

Sorry for the question, but You know if we could create custom episodes?

[aids]

We definitely need a thread to talk about all the changes for Ned too, since that's half the game right there. No so much for changes to the objects, but for changes to the editor itself.

[Geti]

Oh, cheers for the reminder to hit the blog again Raigan. I'm hoping double-jumping on bounce blocks will still be a part of the game, it's part of what makes them so fun, but it's good that you're A) testing it against the original simulation and B) finally making the step up two languages to AS3.
Are you considering adding any new assets or tweaking the graphics at all (lingering smoke particles etc would be lovely to see)? I love the object set, but it could be nice to see a few new challenges in there too, especially from a mapmakers perspective.

[crescor]

This might have been mentioned, but how about possibly adding multiplayer to the mix? I mean hell, it worked out brilliantly on the Xbox 360.

Oh yes. That would be awesome.

[ska]

If we want the ninja to respond as it does now, I believe we might be stuck with stuttering. Perhaps Mare or Raigan could shed some light on this?

We mentioned this a bit in the latest blog post; we managed to fix the stuttering. We actually did end up rewriting all the collision code, but that was always the plan because over the years we've realized that there are much better and simpler ways than what we had in N -- the existing code is much more complicated than it needed to be (and also very Flash-5-centric). Plus it behaves exactly the same as the old code; from the point of view of the player code there's no difference, it just asks IsNearAWall() or GetGroundDirection() or whatever.

We're still in the process of porting all the objects over; there will definitely be small differences in how things behave, for instance floorguards now move right up to the edge of a cliff right away -- previously they would stop several pixels from the edge, and only move up to the edge later on.

Cool, personally, the graphical 'glitches' are the first things that need to be fixed and it's good to hear you're rectifying those. I think the current highscores setup is *fantastic* - probably the best I've seen in any game. Speed runs should remain an NReality addition only imo. I think being able to upload highscores to the metanet server for user created columns/episodes would increase user creation and competition as well as a function to transcode 1.4 data to 1.5 data. Put simply, compatibility and integration would be the next step. just some thoughts :P

[PONTO]

I have not posted anything for some years, but I've been following the blog closely and to hear that n1.5 is coming along makes me quite happy (and nostalgic, too). I still play N every once in a while, though.

I think M&R should not take the fact that we have built lots of levels and highscores based on glitches as an argument for keeping them. This game is already six years old, so if this new version is actually going to be made, then I think it would even be good for it if they implemented those slight changes. Changing once in a while is not that bad. It may even be the case that new advanced techniques are discovered.
I'm thinking about the reverse jump, the fact that you need to hold a direction to walljump from an object, but not from a tile, the collision with open doors, the machinegun drones... I wouldn't mind them all gone. The ability to save in the middle of an episode is something I would also like.

For me, what the game lacks the most is a flexible way to manage the savegame, but I remember that was a limitation of flash. I am not informed on the subject, but if there is any workaround for it, with the newer versions, it should definitely be pursued.

New unlockables would of course also be sweet. In particular, I miss something at the end of the third column (and perhaps the first too) as way to remember v1.2 and 1.1. (As happens at the end of the sixth.)

Not much more to add. Nice to see you all. :)

[ska]

CLEAR THE HACKERS FROM THE HIGHSCORES