Dystopia Mod Review

[EvilPixie]

Theres a little known site called gamerati.net they did an extensive review of the Dystopia mod. Might want to check it out. *shrug*




http://www.gamerati.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=74&Itemid=1

 

[Sulkdodds]

Isn't it just a review of the demo?

 

[Sui]

It must be.

*Edit* It reads more like a game manual than an actual review.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Haha, content writers turn up to pour scorn upon your stupidly obvious advertising, mrs 1-post.

Okay not really. Nice review, but wouldn't it make more sense to write an 'in-depth' preview since it's only the demo?

Hmm. That's not a bad idea actually.

/me wanders off mumbling about in-depth previews

 

[EvilPixie]

Mmm... one post because I joined today doofus.

 

[Pesmerga]

Owned. Doofus.

 

[SimonomiS]

Mmm... one post because I joined today doofus.

I think Sulkdodds was implying you signed up simply to post that and advertise that site. Saying you joined up today only reinforces said implication.

No-ones really been owned. Doofusses.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Exactly - it does happen rather a lot and advertising is against forum rules.

Plus I was really obviously joking.

 

[SimonomiS]

You're still a doofus.

What a brilliant 3000th post.

 

[Beerdude26]

You're still a doofus.

What a brilliant 3000th post.

Congratulations! *Hands him a bottle of champagne*

 

[Sulkdodds]

And doofus is still one of the most ridiculous sounding insults ever.

 

[Puzzlemaker]

Agreed...

 

[Crispy]

I'd just like to point out my annoyance with the popular myth that Dystopia is some sort of original masterpiece. It, like many games, takes its cues from games that came before it, or even from current trends already existing in games of today and yesteryear. I'm not trying to put the Mod down, I think it's an excellent Mod and the demo is testament to that, but I get a bit disheartened when people credit them with wholly new ideas or suggest that they're cutting edge. Such is the case with some of the views expressed or promoted by this gamerati preview.

One of the first things you notice about the game is that you're given more choices - Light, Medium, or Heavy armor.

Never heard of Tribes?

With each of these choices, you're presented with three weapons: Light armor gets a shotgun, a laser rifle, or an innovative gun called the bolt thrower, which works kind of like a really nasty tazer. Medium armor is given an assault rifle, a grenade launcher, or a slug thrower rifle that's another sniper's toy. Heavy armor is given the true toys: A chaingun, a rocket launcher, or for the snipers - an ion cannon. You'll notice that these combinations tend to offer a player many choices, from sniper/campers to base rushers to defenders.

Yup, this element is very much like Tribes.

Instead of the usual HUD showing your Health, this HUD shows three attributes: Health, Armor, and Energy

This isn't the only game with armour. I wouldn't describe the 'usual' HUD as HP only. While there aren't that many games that do display an energy bar (DoD, NS and the recent BattleGrounds are three that do), it is still an existing feature in many objective-based team multiplayer games such as CS which implemented a stamina bar I-son't-know-how-long-ago. It even appears on the HUD in HL2.

At the end of the round, various scores and stats are displayed, along with a round timeline that shows who achieved what goals. This is another place where the game emphasizes team play - you are awarded points for more than just a frag. You get points for frags, healing teammates, successful decking, defending your decker, successfully taking an objective - and so on, weighted based on the difficulty of the act, so you'll get +3 frag points for killing a Heavy when equipped as a Light, and +10 points for defending a decker from attack while he's jacked in.

This has been in Natural Selection for a while and was also tweaked to successfully reward the player with a more difficult or important kill. But this all works on the XP-gain principle needed to level-up in many RPGs. I will say that this implementation is well-geared to promoting team-work, and it is a fairly new concept in online teamplay.

---

Again I don't want to take anything away from the Dys team, merely to show people that these ideas aren't so revolutionary. For instance, even the hacking minigame has it's concept taken from books such as the Neuromancer trilogy and Snow Crash, but the idea of rotating your orientation to allow you to jump off walls and solve truly 3D puzzles is a very nice touch. For the most part I would commend the Dystopia team not for the ideas present in the game, but for the vision to apply these ideas to an online experience AND the very skilful way they have chosen to put everything together.

 

[Sulkdodds]

That review is irritating.

One of the first things you notice about the game is that you're given more choices - Light, Medium, or Heavy armor.

WELL THAT'S WONDERFUL!

 

[Cole]

Again I don't want to take anything away from the Dys team, merely to show people that these ideas aren't so revolutionary. For instance, even the hacking minigame has it's concept taken from books such as the Neuromancer trilogy and Snow Crash, but the idea of rotating your orientation to allow you to jump off walls and solve truly 3D puzzles is a very nice touch. For the most part I would commend the Dystopia team not for the ideas present in the game, but for the vision to apply these ideas to an online experience AND the very skilful way they have chosen to put everything together.

There idea's may not be revolutionary, but they do combine many seperated ideas into one game in a extremely well done way. Thats what makes it diffrent. So yeah your right on, about the
"but for the vision to apply these ideas to an online experience AND the very skilful way they have chosen to put everything together."

 

[Teddy]

It's ture, we had a lot of "Major Influences" from lots of different cyberpunk sources (many of the same ones you list in your moddb profile -Crispy-!) and to be honest we weren't trying to reinvent the wheel. We just wanted to make a game we (and hopefully other people) enjoyed playing.

 

[63]

Whos pocket is the $300 coming out of for the mapping contest Teddy?

 

[Sulkdodds]

It's ture, we had a lot of "Major Influences" from lots of different cyberpunk sources (many of the same ones you list in your moddb profile -Crispy-!) and to be honest we weren't trying to reinvent the wheel. We just wanted to make a game we (and hopefully other people) enjoyed playing.

I've got to say, for a first release you did a damn good job. The only bug I can think of is the sliding doors and that one's not even your fault.

 

[magpie]

can someone link me?

 

[Asknoone]

And doofus is still one of the most ridiculous sounding insults ever.

Doofus.

 

[Teddy]

I've got to say, for a first release you did a damn good job. The only bug I can think of is the sliding doors and that one's not even your fault.

Sliding door bug is fixed in update 4, as well as every other major (known) bug. Check out my changelist:
http://dystopia-game.com/plans/coding/