Ok, here’s my too cents (and do not reflect the Kemet team in any way):

These topics, valid though they are, tend to be started by people who yearn for the halcyon days of EV/EVO. Not to be rude, but I think we need a reality check here :mellow:

I spent a great deal of time downloading plugs and ‘total replacements’ for EV and EVO. Most of them sucked. Most of them sucked. I wrote that twice to emphasis the fact. The vast majority were ‘cheater’ plugs that made ships cost 1 credit or the Voinion Dreadnaught a lame duck. Many more simply added hue-edited versions of the EV/EVO ships or alternative interface graphics. Most of the ‘TC’s simply added new ships, but no missions and so on.

Nova raised the bar for plug development. The graphics alone put the rendering in EV/EVO to shame and they were the ‘official’ graphics. No-one gets paid for making plugs, and the pressure to meet the Nova standards and use quality packages to do it puts potential developers off, and prevents players taking lesser plugs seriously

Another problem is that the Nova scenario is too complete. EV and EVO were quite open-ended. EVO in particular, was begging for plugs to extend the story. EVN feels like it was written to be the final word in the EV genre – all the major threads are tied up in the end and the player emerges as some kind of super-being <_<

The gaming world has moved on too, not least on the Mac which has seen an explosion of decent game ports. The 2D EV series looks very dated, and most gamers judge games on their graphics and how much instant gratification they can get.

Most of the people making plugs now are old hats from back in the day, like me . We have the patience to mess around in ResEdit and whatever graphics package we’re using but with one critical difference – we’re older and don’t have the time to devote to it that we would like. And the younger members of this board who do have the time to go about making a plug lack the skills and experience to be taken seriously, especially in the graphics arena on which everyone seems to judge a plug these days.

Everyone here seems to waiting for Aftermath. Why? Because the graphics are stunning. The fact that the plot is at 19% (according to the website) doesn’t seem to bother anyone!

Now before I get flamed, let me just assure people (most especially the AM team, who I have the utmost respect for) that I’m not having a go at them personally. I’m just pointing out that with Nova, EV has ‘grown up’.

According to modern perception, any plug with crappy sprite graphics, must be by definition, crap. Any plug without preambles or a detailed character back-story, must be crap. Any plug without beautiful landing pics, must be crap. Any plug with scratchy, unimaginative sound must be crap. And wow-betide any TC which doesn’t replace every single resource in the game

Nova set the precedent for a lot of this, for better or worse. I guess that’s the flipside for producing a game professionally with a high-production values.

I’ve had my say - now let the flaming begin :unsure:

This post has been edited by tycho61uk : 06 July 2005 - 11:36 AM

Hehe, the numbers on our website are fake, and are updated even less often than the "Pic o' the Week"

But I agree, Nova did raise the bar, and now that its raised people are far less likely to accept EVOish addons any more.

The whole idea of my plug was that it was a smaller plug, just adding one string based around ATMOS. I started it, people thought it was a good idea, then I kinda got shunted out by the big boys and never returned. All I have so far is a couple of missions in an idea I came up with last august. This is because I need a team. I can't do graphics, I need help with NCBs etc. I advertised for a team and got no response, mainly, I think, due to people already being involved in the five thousand TC's in progress out there, 4985 of which will never come into the light.

Until I get a team, my plug won't happen. Simple as that.

I have the answer to making small TCs for EVN. It is a plug I made that I call a "blankenizer". It replaces basicly every resource in Nova with a blank useless one, so you can make a small TC in Nova without replacing every single Nova resource. So, when you make a plug, you just replace the some blank resources with the stuff you want in your plug. Yup, you can make a SMALL plug with an entirely different storyline & stuff in the nova engine.
Has this idea already been done? If anyone is interested, I will put my plug on the internet.

GutlessWonder, on Jun 28 2005, 05:07 AM, said:

....(well, as much as >I< can do that, I tend to be a perfectionist)....
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That is part of my problem, too. I would have quite a few minor plugs out now, but I always want them to work perfectly. Of course, I would have many more plugs released if I could get them to work at all , but still...

tycho61uk, on Jul 6 2005, 07:39 AM, said:

Now before I get flamed, let me just assure people (most especially the AM team, who I have the utmost respect for) that I’m not having a go at them personally. I’m just pointing out that the with Nova, EV has ‘grown up’.

According to modern perception, any plug with crappy sprite graphics, must be by definition, crap. Any plug without preambles or a detailed character back-story, must be crap. Any plug without beautiful landing pics, must be crap. Any plug with scratchy, unimaginative sound must be crap. And wow-betide any TC which doesn’t replace every single resource in the game
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So who's gonna prove them wrong?

pp0u20e8, on Jul 6 2005, 09:48 AM, said:

The whole idea of my plug was that it was a smaller plug, just adding one string based around ATMOS. I started it, people thought it was a good idea, then I kinda got shunted out by the big boys and never returned. All I have so far is a couple of missions in an idea I came up with last august. This is because I need a team. I can't do graphics, I need help with NCBs etc. I advertised for a team and got no response, mainly, I think, due to people already being involved in the five thousand TC's in progress out there, 4985 of which will never come into the light.

Until I get a team, my plug won't happen. Simple as that.
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While I'm sorry to hear that, I wonder if you have any other ideas that you can do by yourself?

typhoon of typhus, on Jul 6 2005, 11:12 AM, said:

I have the answer to making small TCs for EVN. It is a plug I made that I call a "blankenizer". It replaces basicly every resource in Nova with a blank useless one, so you can make a small TC in Nova without replacing every single Nova resource. So, when you make a plug, you just replace the some blank resources with the stuff you want in your plug. Yup, you can make a SMALL plug with an entirely different storyline & stuff in the nova engine.
Has this idea already been done? If anyone is interested, I will put my plug on the internet.
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Put it up, link it here, spread the word.

mrxak, on Jul 6 2005, 03:56 PM, said:

So who's gonna prove them wrong?
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Well we are, hopefully...

I think that blank plug thing is awesome. It could even help teach people how to dev, if they felt intinidated by it. I seem to remember that there was something like this for the first two, or at least EVC. It was a little bit different, though.

And I have to say, if a TC is finished within the next year, Nova may be saved... For a while.

Anaxagoras, on Jul 6 2005, 04:11 PM, said:

And I have to say, if a TC is finished within the next year, Nova may be saved... For a while.
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Anaxagoras, on Jul 6 2005, 04:11 PM, said:

I think that blank plug thing is awesome. It could even help teach people how to dev, if they felt intinidated by it. I seem to remember that there was something like this for the first two, or at least EVC. It was a little bit different, though.View Post

Has everybody forgotten AbsoluteMinimum? It's a set of minimal data files (about 5MB), that is just enough to run Nova. It's also a Windows plug file, so you need to convert it using the Mac Plugin Converter.

Feel free to post yours, though, typhoon.

Edwards

This post has been edited by Edwards : 06 July 2005 - 09:29 PM

typhoon of typhus, on Jul 6 2005, 03:12 PM, said:

I have the answer to making small TCs for EVN. It is a plug I made that I call a "blankenizer". It replaces basicly every resource in Nova with a blank useless one, so you can make a small TC in Nova without replacing every single Nova resource. So, when you make a plug, you just replace the some blank resources with the stuff you want in your plug. Yup, you can make a SMALL plug with an entirely different storyline & stuff in the nova engine.
Has this idea already been done? If anyone is interested, I will put my plug on the internet.
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Er, I don't quite see the point of this. Why can't you just empty the data folder?

Nova doesn't like it when some things are not found... As in it won't run...

No, she has a tendency to bitch bitterly about such things.

I don't want the Blankenizer to be too big, so what do you guys think are the most important resources that I should 'blank out'?

I would like to point you to Absolute Minimum. It can be Very Bad to put in a bunch of blank resources, I've found, and never have them used- Absolute Minimum gives you the bare-bones minimum resources needed for Nova to start up, and from there you can add in what you need. Blanking resources may of worked in the days of Yore but it causes trouble now.

pipeline, on Jul 7 2005, 12:19 AM, said:

No, she has a tendency to bitch bitterly about such things.
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Yeah. Especially when you incidentally delete one single resource by accident.

Ragashingo, on Jun 28 2005, 03:25 PM, said:

Does that have some kind of deep hidden meaning in the context of this topic or are you just being stupid?
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There's a deep, hidden meaning. But I'm not going to tell you what it is. You'll just have to figure it out for your self.

Arturo, on Jul 1 2005, 12:55 AM, said:

Special Klavs (what the h*** is a Klav?):
.

Business and Industry (just think what somebody could do with greed, ambition, and corporate ineptitude combined with any of the following):
Rautherian Power Industries (Rauther)
Pyrogenesis (Pyrogensis I & LPAD)
GLi-Tech Corp. (GLi-Tech-nia)

The dark side:
Associated Guild of Free Traders from their perspective.

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I am actually working on plugs for Rauther/Gli-Tech (corporate rivalry) and the Free Trader Storyline is being worked on by a friend. However, we don't have a lot of discipline, and both are rather large (not TC size, but at least 30 missions and 2 new ships each, plus links to other storylines and many new outfits) so we can't release anything for at least another year or so, depending on school etc. Once I have finally figured out all the mission stuff I may ask around about ship making, but that is far in the future.

Anyway, I don't actually have much of a problem with the bar being raised so much, as TC teams will have to produce extemely good material to be recognized. I would rather wait 2 years for a TC that is amazing than 6 months for a TC that is merely mediocre. The only downside is that the high expectations scare off many prospective developers (like myself).