Thanks for reminding me about those.
@docfo4r-I really want to make a comment, but I can't put the words together.
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Just give it a go and I will try to encrypt your message then :D
(Here goes.)
It was a good idea to put this variation of zone mode as a different mode. It's quite different, being little like the standard zone.
Oh hehe yeah I get you. Yeah well it seems like many people like to have the classic Zone mode available, others like to see some improvement. So yeah, maybe it's best to place both into the game.
Single Race, Speed Lap, Time Trial, Endurance, Tournament, Zone, Platformer, Head To Head
That would make 8 different race modes. Actually a lot already :D Main stuff from Wipeout in it and Head To Head, Endurance and Platformer would be some extensions ;) Actually I am pretty satisfied with that. And I think too many modes would be confusing at some point. So yeah, I like this list.
Actually I think zone mode isn't as much of a problem as one may think. I don't think the tracks in WO were necessarily designed with Zone in mind. Zone in WO has your ship is stuck to the track (maglocked) for almost the whole time even when it isn't in the default track configuration. So in other words, if you just follow WO then you should be able to stay on the tracks in ssgx because your ship won't be allowed to leave the track except at certain points (jumps) just like in WO.
Yeah, we are also still discussing this theme. But basically, one thing I can say is that the problem isn't a hill or a jump where you take off the track, but the basic layout. For example: Our tracks seems to be more narrow than the ones in WO and we have some tracks, Nazca Remains and I think Alphard and Hubian aswell, where you are on the limits of turning degree in certain corners on phantom speed. I mean, if the ship would be faster, you simply can't make the turn any more without crashing into the wall or falling off the track. If we would simply make this track available for Zone this way, it would not be fun because you just can't do perfect laps any more after a certain speed and eventually destroy your ship a few laps later, no matter how skilled you are.
But as you might have noticed, in WOHD, the faster the ship travelles, the more agile it becomes, you can make sharper turns. So what we need to do is to change ship physics the faster you go. This is something we need to test out. If it works nice and if we feel that a Zone mode on our normal track is fun and not frustrating, we'll think of including these tracks as Zone tracks aswell.
But for now, we decided to create 5 special tracks designed for Zone and Platformer. We anyway need special tracks for Platformer. The designs won't be like the normal tracks [located on earth, with proper landscape] but more like computer simulated locations which belong to certain areas of the game. For example, we will have "Monochrome" which represents an ambience which you can see in the intro animation on our website, or we have "Electrogrid" which resembles the ambience of the pickup animation videos. Another one is up in the sky and will have a Sol2 - feeling and so on. This way we can not only design a track which is really fun to race in Zone mode, but also we can include visual effects much easier, maybe music equalizers like in WOHD. And when the player beats the campaign mode with every team or something like this, we think about the achievement to unlock these certain tracks for normal races aswell.
So yeah, once we have one of these tracks ready and tested Zone ship physics over there, we will test and decide about it on normal race tracks aswell.
It's nice to see so much thought is going into this, I do have a question though. Even on custom zone tracks won't you still need to address the issue about not being able to make turns at the faster zones? Of course, in tracks specifically designed for zone this won't be a problem as quickly, but it is inevitable that it will become an issue at some speed threshold. In other words, the agility adjustment as speed increases will be necessary regardless of whether the track is a default track or specifically designed for zone. Regardless of whether or not default tracks are used in zone though I'm sure it will be fun!
For the campaign mode do you have any plans in particular? Campaign in WipEout has always been the most disappointing aspect of the games for me since it's basically a bunch of "challenges". Pretty much all my enjoyment comes from TTs and SLs. The one major improvement for WipEout that I've always wanted to see was some kind of career mode. Something where you could start at the bottom and work your way up to race for a major team. The reveal of the "street racer" has piqued my interest since it seems like this could be hinting at a career mode like this. Is it too early to say?
Anyway, great work on this project. The demo is amazing! Best of luck!
Thanks for your kind words.
And yeah, you are right. We need to have realtime adjusted ship physics in Zone mode anyways. Without too much of a rush, I am trying to create a basic layout for the Electrogrid Zone track right now to have a testing area set up asap.
We have a basic idea about the campaign mode. I'll just type it down here:
We have 8 teams. Each team holds it's own grid, a series of events. But before even getting there, the player needs to get a higher status so the teams are interested in signing a contract. He can do so by winning 4 events in a row on Porto Kora. All ships will be the street racer... The Thruster ST-116 which you can see in the recent demo. We also have another big surprise for you what you really wouldn't expect in an AG racer, but we won't unveil that yet :D
Anyways, once you beat those events, you can sign a contract with one of the 8 teams. From then on, you will go through all the teams grids in a row, also the grid of your own team. This means, you can't change the ship for the rest of the campaign. Each team grid holds a couple of events. Winning one event unlocks another one and so on. Usually you have the choice between two or up to five events at one time in the certain team grid. Eventually you will get to the final event, the "Head To Head" race. In this event you will race against the prototype ship of the certain team [the team of the current grid]. If you win this event, you will unlock the prototype ship for the racebox and you will have access to the next team grid.
With progressing through the game, the events on each team grid become more and more, and the challenges will be harder.
So yeah, as you can see, we have a little improvement comparing to WipEout. Still we didn't create one particular big storyline for the campaign mode. But yeah, creating the campaign is one of the last tasks, so there might be some changes still :)
Unless the handling is identical between crafts, being locked to a team choice for the entire game is a BAD idea.
you can actually switch at any point but all the teams have their own individual campaigns and events, so you can't finish the cen-r campaign with the ifreet or vice versa but you'll still be able to play the different teams whenever you like, the campaign is just a series of team specific challenges, much like you had in wo2097/XL