There's a pattern that has to be worked out, but once you get it, avoiding both the bats and the boulders isn't that hard. I can take or leave the bats, but if you do remove them, don't do it because people are bitching about the difficulty. I understand that gamers these days have far less patience, but there still has to be a few white knuckle moments.
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I'm just glad that AE took out the damn things, I hated how they would deviate from their path... even if they would have fit the mine scenario quite well.
Actually, one thing about AE that I've noticed is the lack of any real lighting in many of the areas. Everything is quite flatly lit, whereas AO has real contrasts of lighting. Makes it easier to play on the PSP mind you, but still. Ooh, I had an idea - please have a blue outline around Abe when he is in shadows. I hate not being able to see where he is and then accidentally stepping out of cover because I thought I still had one space to move. Not to all creatures, just Abe. |
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Also i think there should be a proper workaround for the bats and the screen scrolling. I really believe the bats should stick around, and the boulders should be reworked to have proper hit boxes this time. The temples really wouldn't feel right without their challenging rooms, in my opinion. :
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You can usually tell where you are in the shadows by looking at the ground. Most of the time there's also an animated shadow on the ground if you or anything else is in the shadow.
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This was more a thing caused by playing Oddworld on the PSP to be honest, I never found the problem on TV (if there is a Vita version [I don't remember if there is one planned or not] perhaps then add the outline, or have it as an option or something).
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Actually, I've been attacked by bats without being anywhere near them. Sometimes if you wait too long they'll deviate from their path and kill you.
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Yeah, what Slogbait says is true. I've hung on the edge of one of the ledges in the swinging boulder section only to have a bat decide 'well, feck this path' and zoom down to bite Abe in the face.
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Actually, on one level, a bats actual path is to go down below that ledge, are you sure it wasn't just its designated path? I don't think videogame bots from the 90's have a mind of their own. Its impossible. Its like you're suggesting rogue AI or something, because thats basically what you're saying.
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I'm next to certain that they are programmed to deviate from that path and go to the player in certain circumstances. Lets face it, the ALIVE engine is bloody buggy, especially in AO, so it is very possible that the detection for these circumstances is a tad off.
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In some ways it's good when it's "buggy".
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I'm not too sure on bats, they do add a fair amount of difficulty to the game and the boulders would be okay without the bats, I think the case would just be a bad combination, also the AI back then must have either been buggy or specifically programmed as bats can actually kill Paramites and scrabs even though they are never in the same screen, unless moved by a cheat or something
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Fair enough then, *also the BOTS back then....*
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I wouldn't say its rogue AI, but if there is a call in their programming to go straight for the player, it is very possible that this call could be triggered due to buggy code. Hell, the AO version of ALIVE (at least on the PS1) was riddled with bugs. For instance, if you are running as a Slig and change direction (to skid) on a ledge, you will do the fall animation and stop in your tracks. Also, there are a few screens where the mask for the CAM foreground has an object that isn't on the CAM image, making Abe invisible partially. Then you have bugs that cause the game to crash, or Abe to randomly fall into a totally different screen that shouldn't be accessible... Yeah. Lots. But the thing is, while these were fixed in AE, these are things that almost certainly won't be an issue in the remake, especially if it is based upon an established engine that already has its own AI scripts and language.
EDIT: AI can be used as a generic game design term for NPC behaviour. |
How do you know that bats can kill paramites? Did you use the cheat?
Ooh! Does a scrab kill a paramite? Who would win? |
Funny enough scrabs don't kill Paramites, sligs or slogs.
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Why would they bother writing behaviour for that if it were never going to occur in the game? :P
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They did it with the bats, apparently.
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The programming of the bats was probably to kill everything, I don't see why they would bother programming everything separately.
Same with the bees, the bees kill paramites, the bees can even kill Sligs, but no part of the game requires you to kill Sligs with bees. |
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Anyway, running into a boulder that looks far enough away is a mistake you should only make once. Like with meat saws, a good player will learn to gauge when it's possible to get past, and when it isn't. As for the bats: I never said they should move randomly. I never said they should be drawn to the player. I never said they should be removed altogether. I just don't think they should be bats. A real (predatory Oddworld) bat would move randomly and would attack the player. We just need some equivalent of mines that isn't completely incongruous with the temple setting. No, I don't know what that could be, besides spiritually hovering rocks. |
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Sure some things don't make sense in terms of "the universe" but they are fair in terms of making up the gameplay. |
For God's sake, I'M NOT SAYING JAW SHOULD FIX THE BATS. I'M SAYING THEY SHOULD REPLACE THE SPRITES.
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You would be happy to know that Abe HD will not use sprites.
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I understand what you're saying MM. Perhaps the bats could be replaced by evil versions of the fireflies that you use to spell out messages with chanting. The fireflies could hit Abe and set him on fire, causing him to fall off the ledge.
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I think abe on fire would be too comical, I would have suggested spiders that crawl on the face of the rocks but Paramites are already oddworld's spider like species
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Maybe an answer to what those glowing eyes were in the holes on the temple would be nice.
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Maybe instead of giant swinging rocks they can be MASSIVE PILLARS that shoot out of the ground and squish you on the ceiling. Like those pillars in that shitty Mortal Kombat game about Subzero nobody played because it was so shitty. |
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^^ |