Instead of the rather problematic JavaDoc, now the SE design guide is available in PDF, you can get the latest version here: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.korax-heritage.com/koraxdev/designguides/koraxse-designguide_021215.pdf">http://www.korax-heritage.com/koraxdev/ ... 021215.pdf</a><!-- m --> . I've also updated the sticky topic with the new location.

Do the gods do anything? If not are we open for ideas.

Here in the devforum, feel free to put any ideas at any time.

Just uploaded the latest version of the design guide to <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.korax-heritage.com/koraxdev/designguides/koraxse-designguide_030226.pdf">http://www.korax-heritage.com/koraxdev/ ... 030226.pdf</a><!-- m --> It includes the map list and the complete game flow/story baseline. Feel free to put any comments to it - do it now as later on it won't be possible to change too much (actually, even now a lot is fixed through the maps we have available, it's not a world built after a story but a story written after a world). For all those ideas put here by you (mostly Mago I think), sorry for not having included them, it was difficult to put those highly varying maps into any kind of order, gameflow and story even w/o having to consult extra requirements. With TSP, it'll be different as there we'll first have the concept, then will work on maps start. There we also won't have to work with nearest possible realease date as in the case of SE.

The plot seems good to me, at least in theory, I can't say about the maps, cause I havent seen any. I specially likethe end, and the mission pack idea. Anyway, I think it flows well, the travelling is good, and the final part an unexpected surprise. I just have some doubts: Who will be writting the dialogs/narrations? When you said of the Master in the Temple of Tera, will you use a Mage sprite? Do you need a "altered" one? And what about Howeseandek? Is he a Fighter? Will you need an altered one? Is the High Priest the U-H? How will look the Undead Korax, I mean, his soul? Will he be bigger than before, translucedent, does he need to be altered? In Hafes, you talk about horrible minions from Hell itself. I guess the normal monsters don't fit into this category, and this might harm the feeling of the place. Do you need altered monsters for it? (I'm already making an Inferno Wendigo, made of red cristal which fires spiked balls of hot rocks. He should be faster and more dangerous than the normal ones) What about the ettins and centaurs? I think they should appear only "Hurted", to pretend they are undead. If you do need something, please post a detailed list so I can arrange my time accordingly. I think everything else is OK, and I think it will be better than I thought. I just wish those maps make justice for their names, which sounds great.

Well instead of a mission pack with the old SE engine there could be a full game sequel with the TSP engine (TSP itself <!-- s;) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_wink.gif" alt=";)" title="Wink" /><!-- s;) -->). Most of the maps are in the map pack I uploaded for Ichor to check the ACS, it's in <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.korax-heritage.com/koraxdev/maps/se_alpha/">http://www.korax-heritage.com/koraxdev/maps/se_alpha/</a><!-- m --> The images you mailed me I uploaded to <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.korax-heritage.com/koraxdev/2d_art/Others.zip">http://www.korax-heritage.com/koraxdev/ ... Others.zip</a><!-- m --> and <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.korax-heritage.com/koraxdev/2d_art/EmeraldWendigo.zip">http://www.korax-heritage.com/koraxdev/ ... endigo.zip</a><!-- m --> The master in Tera's Temple: I'll have to check the map again to see who the end boss was, in quite a couple of maps it's Korax which will have to be replaced of course. Zoweseandek is either a Heresiarch or a Korax, I don't remember any more (I tested the maps through the last 2-3 months and made myself notices about the look & feel of them and used those at the end to make an order of them, so there are a lot of details I don't remember any more). Yes, the High Priest should be the Uber-Heresiarch - at worst case, it'll be a slightly altered, bloated version of the original sprite, with new attacks/spells and a lot more power and HP. BTW I think I've seen a Heresiarch in one of the maps that teleports around like Korax does, that's something I absolutely wanted for the UH, maybe the ACS we need is already ready-to-use. Ichor will have an answer for this once he's through with the maps' ACS. Korax' spirit: I think making any sprite translucent is included with the Doomsday engine, Janis should have the answer for this. Hades map: you should check it out in the map pack before getting your hopes high on something legendary... it's a small deathmatch map, and while somewhat more impressive than the end map of Deathkings, not by much. <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) --> Indeed now I checked it again I know why it's in brackets on the map list... Actually, I think I'll go through the maps now once again in the coming days and probably revise some parts of the map list/game flow. As for graphics priority, the list I posted in another thread a couple of days ago still stands, I mean new monsters are always cool but if you have less different NPC graphics than main characters in the story, you'll feel like playing Half-Life where you saw the same scientist twenty times and it was always a different person. <!-- s:roll: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_rolleyes.gif" alt=":roll:" title="Rolling Eyes" /><!-- s:roll: --> p.s. I'm glad you've been able to get more active lately. <!-- s:D --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt=":D" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s:D -->

Oh yes, to answer some more indirect questions: Alpha will be out pretty soon after Ichor sorts out ACS. At that point, the maps need to be put in the right order (i.e. their map number and the exits need to be fixed), a couple of very simple dialogues will be added, and most probably not much else. At that point, it'll be given out to Alpha testers and after their feedback the baseline will be modified if necessary. After that comes map fixing, artwork finishup, detailed story and scripts, and at that point beta test starts. Once things are fixed up from the beta, final release can be out.

You see what is imagination.... I was thinking that the whole Hades series would be some huge, extremely dangerous places, fulled with big cliffs, rivers of lava, red rocky walls, with little volcanos like in Heretic, fulled with dead monsters, rocks falling from the ceiling, earthquakes, etc... <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) --> Anyway, since it's so small, maybe we can get time to actually build at least one worth the name. I'll draw now some sketches of a map, and I'll also send another map I made for the city, that show ways of making it more interesting in the ground area ( shouldn't be too difficult to make, even in wadauthor, because it's only about raising parts of the ground, but you'll see it better then). I worked a bit more on those wendigos and I should be able to send them tomorrow. I also worked a bit more on the Human Sketches, and I'm finishing the sketches for the npcs. The hard part will come after. Oh yes, I still think we could use the Knight from Heretic in Hades maps. It is one of my favourites, and even though we shouldn't mix the two games too much, I guess they would fit in the environment (it's Hell, after all, and they are dead). Thanks for the info. As for TSP, well, I'm also excited about it, but it is also strange, because I'll only be able to work on it as a conceptual artist, maybe making some skins, because it will use 3d models and I won't participate in the actual making of the characters. Well, I gotta go.

If somone could put the 3 new wendigos in a wad with new names for me it wont take long to implement. I'm getting good with the enemys.

Well don't get your hopes high on any new map, there are 2 I absolutely have to finish (town and Abandoned Mines) and both are rather far from that. As for your town idea, I guess you want to make different floor heights (i.e. little rises/hills), trouble is the engine is too crap for that. I've been testing a couple of things this last year, but came to the conclusion not much can be done. All good ideas need an engine like Vavoom, w/o 3D floors and slopes you just can't build a good city. The only thing that could still be implemented in this engine would be to add walkways at the side of the buildings, but even for that it's too late, the buildings are too near each other and the streets too irregular. Unless someone throws a completely finished town map at me that has all the necessary buildings, you'll have to live with the fact that the town will be the one it is now. Not because it's so good but because anything new would be too much work. To finish up that one will still take maybe a dozen hours (texturing + shops/taverns). One of the reasons I want to start on Arena/TSP... I've got a bunch of mapping ideas and none of them can be implemented with the Doomsday engine. Oh yes, an important thing about TSP, it won't necessarily feature 3D models, or it might have a full set of both 2D sprites and 3D models - and if we don't find a modeler, it'll be full 2D sprites. Not to mention the lot of 2D work needed for TSP, not only textures, character portraits and the like, but also the lot of detailed sky textures I want... Vavoom supports advanced skyboxes, and to top it off I'm working on a concept where the skybox textures would change dynamically within a map (not only to signalize things like time of the day and weather conditions, but also things like your relative position in the world and tricks to greatly reduce the amount of detail needed in the map itself, thus speeding the game up and requiring less work with the maps).

Well, I will when I get a new list of map numbers.

Shit, I didn't think you're waiting for the updated map list... the map numbers themselves will definitely not change any more, or do you need the definite exit numbers too for ACS checking? Anyway, something that has been decided while writing the gameflow but not yet updated in the map list: maps 25, 26 and 27 all are entered from map 19 and exit to map 19, and no other maps. The rest I will try to make final toward Su/Mo.

Well, I was hoping for a more definite list so I would know which numbers to add to which exits, but I guess I could just guess at a couple of them and see how it turns out.

Just a quick update, I've re-checked most maps and threw out 4 single maps and made a big question mark after the secret episode (necros.wad, 5 maps). I've also decided in pretty much every instance what the exact order of the maps will be. There'll also be slight changes to the game flow (2 of the 4 maps thrown out were in tier 1, meaning I might scrap tier 1 altogether and renumber the remaining 3 tiers). Oh yes and this does not change the number of any map, they all remain fixed (better a couple of numbers not existing than the innumerable problems that renumbering them could mean).