Ask the devs an MXO question

**CooliceT**

me and sirius187 just finished my arc box 2. with 3 mins to spare of the sever shutting down. yey SMILEY

so... where is our badge?

**UniToxic**

What do you think of NPC's doing what they want whenever they want?

i know agents can go wherever they want but srely this is over the top?

see http://mxoboards.station.sony.com/matrix/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=57673 to know what im on about

**Rarebit**

Tseng. wrote:

is exiting missions via the window instead of the door a realistic posability for the game engine?

Not at this point. Doors (or moving windows) are game objects that control a little sliver of what we call "NavMesh" (tm!) on the ground, covering the width of the door. Every area in the game that allows you to stand on it is covered with this invisible layer of NavMesh. If an area doesn't have NavMesh, you can't stand there. Simple as that. So the only thing that stops you from walking right through a wall, for instance, is that there's no NavMesh going through that wall.

So if you wanted to go out a window, that window would have to have NavMesh in it, connected to the ground on either side of the window. This would require new window/wall geometry for every room type in which you wanted one of these windows. You'd probably need a pretty good number of them to match even a small amount of our existing decor types. That would be a considerable art task.

Then you'd need to create a window game object to put in place of the existing windows, which would toggle the NavMesh on the window sill on and off, just like doors toggle the NavMesh in their doorway on and off. That would be relatively easy.

But then you'd need to go and place that window object, along with the new wall geometry, in our existing rooms. In our world design tool system, this would mean exploding each type of building into its component floors, exploding each floor type into its component rooms, exploding each room type into its component floor/wall/ceiling pieces, replacing the old window with the new window art and window game object, then rebundling the room (this does cool stuff like calculating the interior lighting and generating the NavMesh), rebundling the floor, and rebundling the building. Oh, and then you have to rebundle the entire world.

Not only would that take forever, but it would generate a patch so huge that it would crash the internet, ending civilization as we know it.

Before civilization ended, though, we might have to consider how to get players and NPC followers to play some kind of "I'm ducking and crawling through a window now" animation.

One slightly modified approach might be just to play that animation and 'port the user through the window, if it were unlocked, rather than using a NavMesh, but then we'd have to have the game object know how to handle that kind of teleportation, and we'd have to teach NPCs to know how to activate it.

It would be simpler, therefore, just to end civilization straight off the bat.

Message Edited by Rarebit on 12-21-2005 04:26 AM
Message edited by Rarebit on 12/21/2005 04:26:41.

**UniToxic**

What do you think of NPC's doing what they want whenever they want?

i know agents can go wherever they want but srely this is over the top?

see http://mxoboards.station.sony.com/matrix/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=57673 to know what im on about

**Tseng.**

what would you say the most overpowered skill and/or item in the game is?

**cloudwolf**

ACK, i thought of a really really good question earlier but i've completly forgotton, for the time being tho can we ask 'will the archive mission tokens will be re-usable?'

**Rarebit**

shauntaylor88 wrote:
What do you think of NPC's doing what they want whenever they want?

i know agents can go wherever they want but srely this is over the top?

see http://mxoboards.station.sony.com/matrix/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=57673 to know what im on about

I think that's awesome! NPCs should express themselves more often. Power to the programs!

This might be related to a known bug where the AI sometimes decides to walk to the 0,0,0 coordinate of the world, though. Going back to their birthplace, perhaps? Or maybe they've been ordered to report for recycling, poor things.

**Tseng.**

what would you say the most overpowered skill and/or item in the game is?

**CooliceT**

Rarebit wrote:

QforQ wrote:
For people interested in the gaming industry or more specific, your kind of job, what do you suggest people do education wise(besides having a good portfolio)?

That's a little hard to say, as my "game designer" title is pretty generic. I had a liberal arts education, which helped with communication and writing skills, which are really important to this job. Aside from that, I'm not too sure. I know, or have heard of, game design schools, but I think if I were hiring somebody for this kind of role, I'd prefer to see that they had a B.A. from some accredited liberal arts college or university rather than a "Game Design" certificate from some kind of specialist school.

Not that you need a college degree to get a job as a game designer, but it helps, especially if you're going for that right off the bat. Mine didn't help me so much as far as my resume went, because I got hired on in the trenches of QA at Monolith, and didn't figure out how to shift over to the design side of things there until I'd spent two years as a QA tester and three as a QA lead.

what about if you chose. not to take the B.A's at uni. i was accepted. but last min changes i did not wish to go. im still happy with my HND. im hopeing my portfolio and knowledge of the games industry will get me a valid job somewhere.

im also interested in QA. but i know u must the litterte in english, (as you can see i cant spell to save my life) but i know my stuff. and my programs. (and a little bit of the computer side too)

so what process or line of work. should a person take to become in a situation that you are in. im very curious...

sorry if. you allready aswered this.

**Tseng.**

it like all jobs i would imagine get your foot in the door in the general area then work your way up overtime.

**UniToxic**

what do you think of this?

a virus in the patch SMILEY

?

http://mxoboards.station.sony.com/matrix/board/message?board.id=techsupport&message.id=7449#M7449

SephyX

SephyX wrote:

HCFrog wrote:
Montoia wrote:
Will Neo's Insight ever be turned back on?

Hmmm that was one of the rewards from one of the very first events, right? And people from different orgs get different buffs?

If that's what it is, then I think the answer is no. The reason being:
x org won a certain event. They get a bonus for a while. They do not
get a bonus for the rest of eternity, because that sets up a kind of
unfair advantage for that org. People who buy the game 6 months from
now and are getting into it shouldn't be penalized or rewarded for
actions of other players 6 months ago.

And if I'm thinking of the wrong thing, then... uh... FUTURE CONTENT QUESTION!!!

Well,
if thats the deal, then why do we still have our Merovingian's Boon,
and the other versions in the other orgs? We had neo's insight
for a month before it was replaced by this, and we've had this one for
about 6 months. Sounds like an unfair advantage for a certain
org. *cough*Zion*cough*

Chuui

Sounds like an unfair advantage for a certain org. *cough*Zion*cough*

That depends on the server. But it is an unfair advantage for all new players who don't get it. But I expect they'll turn it off when the CR stuff makes it into the live game.

**jeffers**

I thought everybody in every org got a version of Neo's Insight which was adjusted depending on the fragments collected.

In the same way that everybody got a version of Zion Hardware Requisition/Merovingians Boon/some machine thing I don't know the name of (glimmer of the source?) which was adjusted and scaled depending on the number of PDA's that were collected and handed in.

Jeffers

SephyX

Yeah, I think I'm just making the point that we actually have something
that should've been removed long ago that removed one buff, but gave
another to replace it, and now that org(s) have had unfair advantages
with those.

Anyways, since you guys are on the pokemon thing with rarebit...here you go!