N v1.5 Poll: Small Changes

[squibbles]

The only reason it's like that is because the leaderboards have been up for five years and no one cares anymore. If the highscores get wiped, everyone cares again. Simple as that. If they stay up, then no one highscores.

ehm, hm?

If you disagree, talk to EddyMataGallos there. That's what he's saying. It's one or the other, gentlemen. Either the highscores are boring and no one highscores, or they're exciting and everyone highscores. If the latter is true, then the Leaderboards are stagnant and should be wiped anyway. I dunno. Pretty clear case to wipe the highscores. I think the only reason not to is out of vanity.

As someone who has literally 0 current highscores, I have to disagree. I think that some scores should be kept, if not just for the fact that they serve as a helpful learning tool to those playing the game for the first time. I remember when I was playing through it the first time, many highscores helped me complete the level through emulation. I think it's important to ensure that this remains existent in some form, whether it is the boards being wiped and them saved elsewhere, which is essentially the "classic mode" that was being mentioned, or left.

[Kablizzy]

As someone who has literally 0 current highscores, I have to disagree. I think that some scores should be kept, if not just for the fact that they serve as a helpful learning tool to those playing the game for the first time. I remember when I was playing through it the first time, many highscores helped me complete the level through emulation. I think it's important to ensure that this remains existent in some form, whether it is the boards being wiped and them saved elsewhere, which is essentially the "classic mode" that was being mentioned, or left.

Right, and highscores will be good learning tools again. It's not like they'd wipe them and they'd never come back. They'd be really good really, really excruciatingly quick.

[Joelface]

Well, I would hope that 1.5 will be a separate program from the N I currently have.

That way I can keep all the replays I have.. and I can use the old version when I want to.

BUT.. then I can open up 1.5 and import and tweak my old levels to make them work with the new changes, and what not.

It won't take long before the good players have unbeatable NEW records.

Sure.. it takes a little getting used to, but isn't that part of the N experience? Learning?

I TOTALLY trust the discretion of D&R, and personally, I think you N-faithful ought to as well. :p (Just my opinion).

[formica]

Damn, damn, damn, DAMN! I've grown accustomed to N's glitches! They almost makes the day begin! I've grown accustomed to the way my ninja stutters when I run up slopes. Its chaunguns, its double- jumps, chainguns, corner- jumps, teleporters, are second nature to me now, like breathing out and breathing in... I was serenely independent and content before v1.4! Surely I could always be that way again... And yet... I've grown accustomed to its one-ways, accustomed to its chainguns, accustomed... to her... face.

eh, I mean, its... glitches.

[Joelface]

I TOTALLY trust the discretion of D&R, and personally....

M&R - Mare and Raigan

d'oh. Totally got that messed up. I did know that though!

/shame

[EddyMataGallos]

As someone who has literally 0 current highscores, I have to disagree. I think that some scores should be kept, if not just for the fact that they serve as a helpful learning tool to those playing the game for the first time. I remember when I was playing through it the first time, many highscores helped me complete the level through emulation. I think it's important to ensure that this remains existent in some form, whether it is the boards being wiped and them saved elsewhere, which is essentially the "classic mode" that was being mentioned, or left.

Right, and highscores will be good learning tools again. It's not like they'd wipe them and they'd never come back. They'd be really good really, really excruciatingly quick.

I have got a question: Were N 1.3 highscores compatible with N 1.4? Because in that case, wiping didn´t affect to much the highscorers, because they only needed to resubmit their scores again. But this time is different... if we want to appear on the new boards, we'll have to highscore them again, wont we?

If the physics werent changed, it would be a good idea to create a new leaderboard (preserving the old one of course) with only the highscores of the active highscorers, because they wont need to highscore them again. Anyway you have been here much more time than me, so you know better what to do, i only think.

Of course i know every thing done to N will be a good thing :)

[RandomDigits]

v1_3 demos are not compatible with v1_4

I don't highscore the main game because the one time I tried I played a map for ever and still couldn't get anywhere near 20th. I highscore nearly every map I play on NUMA. Because they are much easier to get a good place on. I'm all in favour of new boards for 1.5 so that the "bad" players like me (actually, anyone less than excellent...) can have a chance at being on the boards... Then, to stay on them, they'd improve their scores and get better and it would still totally be competitive... Right?

EDIT: I think the current boards absolutely must be kept, due to the serious awesomeness they feature...

[EddyMataGallos]

v1_3 demos are not compatible with v1_4

I don't highscore the main game because the one time I tried I played a map for ever and still couldn't get anywhere near 20th. I highscore nearly every map I play on NUMA. Because they are much easier to get a good place on. I'm all in favour of new boards for 1.5 so that the "bad" players like me (actually, anyone less than excellent...) can have a chance at being on the boards... Then, to stay on them, they'd improve their scores and get better and it would still totally be competitive... Right?

EDIT: I think the current boards absolutely must be kept, due to the serious awesomeness they feature...

And are 1.4 demos compatible with 1.3? I think that yes. In that case, i think that 1.5 demos should definitely be compatible with N 1.4, so when you highscore in 1.5, you can also submit them to 1.4, (yeah, even playing with 1.5). I know that M&R said that the demos must crash cuz thye will change the physics, in that case, ok, lets change the physics and crash the old demos... but, do we really want to change that ""bugs"" even if that crash the leaderboards? I can see a lot of people here (not highscorers) that really want that, so if the majority wants that, we cant do anything. But i think that having 2 leaderboards will be a little difficult for me, i mean, to choose, because i know, that if i play on 1.5, i'll appear for sure on the leaderboards, but if i play on 1.4, and i get a top20, i'll be much more satisfied. And i havent got infinite time, i'd need years to beat all my scores on every level, so that my 1.4 and 1.5 scores are the same and i dont need to choose between two N versions; and i know a lot of people who would need much more time than me to do that (xela, for exmaple, even impossible that he beats all his runs again, he'd need like 20 years). And i mean, that its going to be very confusing --> what to do? where to highscore? etc. But anyway i see more people that want a new leaderboard and the ""bugs"" changed, so we cant do anything. In that case, there is nothing more to say here.

PS: I hope that there will be a lot of highscorers that want the same like me, and will stay improving the 1.4 leaderboard, cuz i've always wanted to appear on that thread in the "Highscores" section of this forum.

PS2: Anyway, if this is the final version of N, i think i could make a big effort and in the next months/years after 1.5 release, try to improve all my scores and submit them to both leaderboards. In that case, i think that if 1.5 scores are better than 1.4 scores, N 1.5 should submit that scores to both leaderboards, so it would be possible to improve again all the highscores and have the same on both leaderboards without having to play it 2 times. (Considering that 1.5 demos will be compatible with N 1.4, that i think that yes, they will).

PS3: Mm, this must annoy a lot of highscorers, like van, who is being very very active on N 1.4,

[thereisaspoon]

In terms of high scores i think they should be wiped because there really isn't an incentive for me to try for a high score what with Mr_Lim, lookatthis, and zaelar having almost all of them. But if they were wiped i think i would play the actual game more.

Regarding the glitches i think that they should be kept the way they are. I think that creating my own maps without basic glitches would be really tiresome and boring. The only glitch i don't like is the slope stutter, but it does make the game more exciting. As far as enemy consistency goes, i like the fact that i can play a map 4 times and have a rocket act differently each time.

[EddyMataGallos]

In terms of high scores i think they should be wiped because there really isn't an incentive for me to try for a high score what with Mr_Lim, lookatthis, and zaelar having almost all of them. But if they were wiped i think i would play the actual game more.

Yeah, but what you're thinking about is only the 0ths, of course, they are very hard to get (impossible for me). But im talking about the top20s, they are easier to get, a few days ago i started trying to get some of them, and i got most of them by simply playing the level for about 30 mins - 1 hour, even less. Im finishing my exams and thats the reason i've stopped. I think you could do the same. Only play a bit more :)

[golf]

I think its about time I put my opinion in on this. I had a hard time deciding what my thoughts on changing things like these were for 1.5. But after watching the discussion evolve, this is what I came to a conclusion of.

- Changing/fixing glitches and "bugs" would render most/all of the current 1.4 demos unplayable in 1.5. But since M&R have said that there would be 2 separate scoreboards, one for 1.4 and one for 1.5, as I understand it, means that its really not a problem, we'd still be able to see the current highscores no problem.

- I think it would be fun and interesting to see how we play the levels would change as things are fixed. Enough so that I wouldn't mind playing again under the new system, especially if they do as EMG suggested and had runs done in 1.5 submittable to 1.4 also. Plus, a new leaderboard would give the new highscorers a chance to show what they have, especially on the very beginning levels/episodes that have been hacked to oblivion.

So, although I like the way it is now, with the quirks of the current system, I wouldn't mind seeing it change.

[Rose]

I think the chainguns' erratic fire is what makes them so unique. As for the seeker thing? Yeah, that'd be great if that was fixed :D

Also, just throwing some stuff out there, sorry if it's been mentioned: the downwards oneway glitch and seekers/laser beams going through closed doors just because you opened them at the start of the action make things harder as a mapper.

Thanks for wanting our feedback ^_^

[bobaganuesh_2]

And of course, full undo/redo.

Coolest thing I've read so far. Literally the only good idea I've seen in this thread so far from any of us is that the text in Ned should have a hide option. The rest is either wishful thinking, or so contentious that we as a community will never agree -- so you two should decide.

last time I checked, to undo something in Ned you would hold | and click anywhere

[RandomDigits]

But that's only in object mode, right?
And there's no redo as far as I know...

[TS]

So before I get sucked into the wild guesses you people are making, I wanna get something straight.
N v1.5 will break stuff whether you want it to or not. It'll break lots of stuff. Probably most of the stuff. As Raigan already said, even if they copy the current N code line-for-line, it'll still break stuff. So, real question here is, if stuff is gonna break either way, do you want the little changes Raigan mentioned in his post, to be implemented. As for the glitches (i.e little unique and unexpected bugs that appear from the way physics is handled in the game, like double-bounce-block jumps and corner jumps and all the rest), you really can't "decide" which ones to keep and which ones to fix, it doesn't work like that. They're not implemented into the game, they just randomly appear like that, and if M&R rewrite the engine and some of the glitches stop being there, there really is no guarantee that you could replicate the behavior at all. So, until they have the engine running, nobody can really know which glitches will stay and which will go, not even M&R themselves :P

I think making Ned a bit more user-friendly wouldn't be too hard a feat and it'll definitely help. As for the changes to the gameplay, I've always liked the chance of avoiding chain-gun fire, even though it wasn't supposed to work like that. Yes, it's a bit random, but I think it's more fun to get lucky once in a while.

I'd appreciate a full list of the potential changes somewhere, though. I think it'll be easier to decide what to do that way.

[origami_alligator]

First off I don't want to see four years worth of work that highscorers put in to making run on the just blinked out of existence. Also there just aren't enough highscorers these days to repopulate the highscores with the quality runs we have now. I really don't want to see the highscores have just the top 5 spots be competitive and then the rest just be random completion runs by people who just beat the game. Even though Mr_Lim, Jonny_Faneca, Clux, lookatthis, etc. have moved on to other things, their highscores stay and still make the boards competitive in their absence. There are only a few active highscorers good enough to beat those runs, but if the boards are wiped we will end up with the NReality legit mode boards where only the top few spots are anywhere close to being in the regular top-20 and all the rest are just completion runs that don't follow any route and are extremely slow. No one wants only semi competitive boards because that will cause the remaining highscorers to lose motivation and then we will end up with less and less great runs.

For those who say wipe the boards because they are just too hard to get on, keep in mind that almost a third of all the runs on the current boards are hacked with impossible scores so if those were deleted that would free up some space for runs that are not quite 0th material, but it would make getting a top-20 slightly easier possibly encouraging some new highscorers to step up and start taking 0ths. Rather than just saying "Oh, I will never get on those boards so I just wont try."

I don't agree with you at all. If you wiped the highscores you would probably encourage more people to try for a highscore. Not a lot of people try for highscores these days because the competition is too steep. Wipe the boards and more people might actually become interested in the idea of highscoring when they feel like they have a chance. Hell, wipe the boards every year and highscoring might actually mean more.

[Kablizzy]

I have got a question: Were N 1.3 highscores compatible with N 1.4? Because in that case, wiping didn´t affect to much the highscorers, because they only needed to resubmit their scores again. But this time is different... if we want to appear on the new boards, we'll have to highscore them again, wont we?

If the physics werent changed, it would be a good idea to create a new leaderboard (preserving the old one of course) with only the highscores of the active highscorers, because they wont need to highscore them again. Anyway you have been here much more time than me, so you know better what to do, i only think.

Of course i know every thing done to N will be a good thing :)

They were not. The highscores were done 100% from the ground up when v1.4 was released.

First off I don't want to see four years worth of work that highscorers put in to making run on the just blinked out of existence.

Too bad? I mean, I don't mean to sound like a dick (Okay, I secretly do, a little. It's my dirty little secret), but there's no choice in the matter. The game's gonna end up breaking replays regardless of whether they change anything or not. It's just like in DDAs. Sometimes, they don't come out right (See Kablizzy's Cavern - Original Recipe on NUMA. It can be played two ways, completely randomly) anyway.

So the vote is purely up to whether we like the glitches or not. I like 'em. Some others don't. That in mind, though. I'd really like a polished product, and if this is gonna be the end of the line, fix the glitches. Fix 'em hard, fix 'em good.

Plus which, after the BIGGEST N RELEASE EVER, I'm sure the highscoring community will either be revitalized hardcore, or bring in a bunch of new highscorers.

[Meta Ing]

I'm thinking he meant keep them around so that they are still available to watch in v1.4... I doubt there are too many people who care if the boards are cleared or not for v1.5 now, since for one, most or all of the demos probably won't work anyways, and also because Raigan said that the v1.4 boards will remain untouched, and be entirely separate from v1.5.

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Anyways, I'm curious about something... For the people that are in favor of "fixing" chainguns... Can you maybe help me understand? I personally just don't see how the rare and random dodging of bullets could be considered a bad thing... On top of that, what happens to levels which use chainguns in large open spaces -- particularly levels where the chaingun is already hard to dodge -- if the chaingun has a higher hit rate?

Unless that's not the bug you mean...

[vankusss]

Wipe the boards and more people might actually become interested in the idea of highscoring when they feel like they have a chance. Hell, wipe the boards every year and highscoring might actually mean more.

Feeling that you have chance and actually having a chance are 2 different things. New 0th's on new boards will be held by the same people after some time, again. New highscorers just have to become really good, there is no other way :P

[Raif]

Wipe the boards and more people might actually become interested in the idea of highscoring when they feel like they have a chance. Hell, wipe the boards every year and highscoring might actually mean more.

You don't seem to care about the quality of the runs on the boards D:

[Kablizzy]

Wipe the boards and more people might actually become interested in the idea of highscoring when they feel like they have a chance. Hell, wipe the boards every year and highscoring might actually mean more.

You don't seem to care about the quality of the runs on the boards D:

Quality will happen again. It'll just take time.

[Raif]

Wipe the boards and more people might actually become interested in the idea of highscoring when they feel like they have a chance. Hell, wipe the boards every year and highscoring might actually mean more.

You don't seem to care about the quality of the runs on the boards D:

Quality will happen again. It'll just take time.

Not if you wipe the boards every year. (That was actually the part I was referring to :P)

[EddyMataGallos]

And that's a reason to say, "All you new people, don't bother. We've already got highscores, thanks."?

This point of view is completely bad, because new people don't stand any chance anywhere, on current boards and erased boards, too. Highscoring it's not like painting, that anyone can do it. New people need to gain some skill before being able to compete against current active highscorers (who are a minority in the community, sadly). And btw, being 0th on new erased board, knowing there were at least 20 better runs in the past, won't give me ANY satisfaction.
Btw Kablizzy do you actually care about highscores?

First off I don't want to see four years worth of work that highscorers put in to making run on the just blinked out of existence. Also there just aren't enough highscorers these days to repopulate the highscores with the quality runs we have now. I really don't want to see the highscores have just the top 5 spots be competitive and then the rest just be random completion runs by people who just beat the game. Even though Mr_Lim, Jonny_Faneca, Clux, lookatthis, etc. have moved on to other things, their highscores stay and still make the boards competitive in their absence. There are only a few active highscorers good enough to beat those runs, but if the boards are wiped we will end up with the NReality legit mode boards where only the top few spots are anywhere close to being in the regular top-20 and all the rest are just completion runs that don't follow any route and are extremely slow. No one wants only semi competitive boards because that will cause the remaining highscorers to lose motivation and then we will end up with less and less great runs.

For those who say wipe the boards because they are just too hard to get on, keep in mind that almost a third of all the runs on the current boards are hacked with impossible scores so if those were deleted that would free up some space for runs that are not quite 0th material, but it would make getting a top-20 slightly easier possibly encouraging some new highscorers to step up and start taking 0ths. Rather than just saying "Oh, I will never get on those boards so I just wont try."

The only reason it's like that is because the leaderboards have been up for five years and no one cares anymore. If the highscores get wiped, everyone cares again. Simple as that. If they stay up, then no one highscores.

ehm, hm?
Btw as i mentioned before, would it make you happy to be let's say 5th on the wiped boards knowing that there were 1000 better runs before and the only reason you're actually at the boards is that they got wiped? Pretty lame way how to get there... And the only reason most of people can't get on the boards is because they can't play good enough.
But this is pointless since the old boards will stay (in classic mode or w/e).

If the boards are wiped then yeah more people may hit the submit button, but that does not qualify as highscoring. If there is not a challenge then highscoring loses all of its meaning. Also if the current boards had the hackers deleted then there would be some space for slower runs, but still maintain competition. The old scores must stay in one way or another. Personally I would like to see the current boards be wiped of hackers, but all other runs stay and they should be the only boards, but if the updates M&R do are going to break all of the demos then a "classic mode" or something like that will suffice.

I think the exactly same, but anyway, I dont think we are going to win xD.
Also, i think the reason the highscoring is falling is because there are less highscorers, not because people lose interest.
Also:

I guess we should probably make a FAQ or something.. the main thing is: all of the v1.4 data and everything will continue to exist, it won't be replaced or deleted, so nothing that exists will be "broken" wrt 1.4.. it will still work just fine and you'll be able to use it.

The main issue is that we strongly prefer to work in AS3, but if the current AS1 code is ported to AS3 -- even if it's as line-for-line identical as possible -- this may still result in stuff breaking because a different version of the Flash Virtual Machine is being used to execute the code.

In order to add support for many of the features that have been requested, there's really no reasonable way to do this with the existing code; it is littered with bugs, to the point that if you compile it for any flashplayer beyond 6 or 7 it won't work! (This suggests some hidden case-sensitive typos that we're still unable to find.)

Any of the non-game-related stuff (i.e the editor) should be backwards compatible, i.e in v1.5 you should be able to export your levels to either v1.4 or v1.5. We have to change the level formats for a variety of reasons, but we will always make sure that 1.5 can load 1.4 levels.. however, obviously, 1.4 replays won't work.

Basically this is somewhat of a huge murky mess we're attempting to navigate through!

If it comes down to it, we can always support a "classic 1.4" mode within 1.5 by simply loading/embedding the 1.4 .swf file inside the v1.5 program. Possibly we should find a better name than v1.5, because it's true that what we're looking at is more of a "v2.0" type shift.

Anyway we're still solidifying our plans and this dialogue is really helping to clear things up, thanks! Possibly we might consider making a v1.5 which is an AS3 shell that implements all non-simulation stuff (new editor, etc) but uses the v1.4 game itself so that it's totally backwards compatible; we can then replace the simulation with an AS3 version for v2.0...

Basically a lot of stuff is still up in the air :)

[Universezero]

Some of the few things that N needs to change/add, in image form!


EDIT: *Nreality features I want

[origami_alligator]

People still compete when Blizzard performs a ladder reset. There is no loss of quality in the competition. Wiping the leader boards encourages people to keep highscoring and to do better. I'm sure it is possible to even save the 0ths from each year or however many months as a history of who was the best of the best. There's no reason why highscores need to stick around forever because those scores will eventually stagnate and more people will eventually resort to watching highscores rather than creating highscores.

Also your runs will be quite different because the gameplay will change, the levels will change, the enemies will change, the physics will change, the tiles available might even change. I think it has been said somewhere prior that v1.4 scores will still be stored but v1.5 is probably going to be a brand new game and so you'll have brand new enemies and brand new levels to make brand new runs.