[WADMAASI]
Can't argue with the "less crash bugs" bit. Someone didn't read the mailbag rules, though. *heh*heh* The option of killing the sidekicks is A) a no-go (they're sort of central to the plot) and 2) easy enough to avoid by playing an offline co-op game (granted you don't get the cinematics this way...but if you kill the sidekicks, then they can't be in the cinematics and you're breaking the story that the cinematics are trying to show, so obviously the cinematics aren't important to you, right?). Non-human-sized enemies again. Gwog can probably handle that one best, so I'll leave it to him. And, ahhhh, the AI... AI Ninja (ie N03l) was doing exactly as he should've. Think about it: at the end of a typical Mission (usually 3 maps) for an Episode, you've killed something like 150-250 monsters on Shogun (hard) difficulty. That's...a lot. A whole HELL of a lot. If all of those monsters were strafing, ducking, teaming, and generally being much harder to kill...do you think you'd be able to finish the game? Hell no. You'd die, die again, and, after that, die some more. AI Ninja had a tough job to do: provide a horde-based AI that was effective, dangerous to a certain extent, not frustrating in its smartness, and didn't chew up too many CPU cycles. Yes, Half-Life's marines are pretty damned smart. But do you ever face more than 5-6 of them at once? (Maybe, once or twice in the game, but I don't recall ever doing so.) In DK, you're likely to see 5-6 enemies at a time around every corner and, quite often, 2 or 3 times that number. If they were all as smart as HL marines, you would never, ever progress in the game. It's that simple. N03l had to strike a balance between what the game-design called for (lots of enemies at once) and what would be unplayable to the gamer (AI so smart and accurate that it's impossible to beat). He did a good job of that. Whether or not you like that style of gameplay is a whole 'nother matter.

[GWOG]
Someone take Wadmaasi's keyboard away. Oh yeah, and once again, PLAY ON SHOGUN.

Greetings to my bitches,

Sorry this is a bit serious, but the one thing I'd change is to fix the show-stopping bugs. Very important issue in the game's release that. If I was allowed two, /me glares @ Gwog, then 1. Fix bugs, 2. Improve lighting throughout to ensure all maps look up to standard. That's all, I only need 2. :P.

- Shamblx0r etc etc

[WADMAASI]
Shambler, you europrick, read the mailbag rules next time. ~(; Just because A) you're right and 2) I agree with you doesn't mean you're allowed to be illegal, beatch. I'm not a l22t level-reviewer\\critiquer like you, though, so I don't feel worthy to discuss the de\\merits of DK's lighting with you. If you'd care to point out some DK examples of good and bad lighting, I'd be more than willing to discuss the finer points with you.

[GWOG]
Bugs bad. Some lighting bad, most lighting good. Aahh, I fondly remember sitting in IRC with Shambler the day "that" screenshot was released... Remember, Shamb? Bleargh!!

Ok, the one thing that I would like changed in the game would be that you could put out all the C4 you wanted and there wouldn't be a time limit for it to exlpode. It would be great if when ever you layed out all the C4 you had and the only time it would go off would be when someone ran over it

...............player name........DI-Joanne820

[WADMAASI]
*whimper* The C4 is so disgustingly overpowered for DM as it is...and you want to make it stronger?! *waaaaa!* Point: it's the most powerful weapon in E1. Point: it's got the fastest projectile-speed (minus the hitscan Shotcyler6, of course) of the Ep1 weaponset. Point: it not only has an activation-radius, but you can also set the thing off manually for near-miss splash damage. Point: you can drop 3 of the things for a good 30 seconds any place you want. MY GOD, WOMAN, ISN'T THAT ENOUGH?! (=

[GWOG]
Point: most powerful weapon? lol, u r shockwave meat. Point: fastest projectile speed, um ION blaster? Point: yeah, I hear you're an expert on manual splashing. Point: you can drop four. MY GOD WADMAASI HAVE YOU ACTUALLY PLAYED THIS GAME?

[WADMAASI]
(Sneak attack rebuttal!) Suck it down, Gwog; shockwave don't appear on as many maps as C4 does. *heh* And A) I don't play DM, so I don't use the C4 the same way\\amount that DMers do and 2) only pansies would actually litter levels with C4 mines instead of actively hunting peeps down and grenading them with it, foo'. (DI-smover laid the pain on me that way. *shudder*)

[GWOG]
(Super sneak attack rebuttal rebuttal) U R GHEY SO SHADDUP ASSMOSSY

Make it run smoother (for instance, so I can get higher frame rates than I get on quake3)

- Damaul

[WADMAASI]
Quake3, while visually stunning, has much less overhead than DK (or any other SP game). There's no AI, the levels are smaller, they levels designed//optimized for sheer speed (it IS a DM game, and DM is fast)... There are things you can do to make DK run faster (assuming your videocard is the bottleneck and not your CPU): set your desktop to 16bit color (DK defaults to 32bit for alpha-blending, and there's no in-game menu to toggle 16bit), lower your resolution, update your vid drivers, update to DX8, defrag your harddrive... We'll have a DK tweak-guide on PDK sometime in that nebulous thing called "the future."

[GWOG]
If DK runs slower on your rig than Q3, then it's EBCAK, sorry to say.

no sidekicks, please

- Dmitry

[WADMAASI]
Sort-of answered this one above: run a co-op game w/o dialing into your ISP. I wonder if people who didn't like the sidekicks liked Elite Force, or play games that routinely have "sidekicks" (read: squadmates) in them (flight and mech sims, RPGs, etc). Maybe FPS gamers just don't like other "people" being in there way, unless they're playing online?

[GWOG]
Yes sidekicks please. More sidekick puzzles next time though please.

Well, let's see. I used to be a hardcore DK fun and you know it! Now I don't mind the game that much because IMHO it was messed up (changed) way too much from the original demo. There are too many things that I would change:

• Weapon Balance
• 1v1 Maps on other 3 episodes
• Movement Control
• Size of Mikiko's Breasts

[WADMAASI]
I have to go there first: do you want Mikiko to have larger or smaller breasts? Taking it from there, the only thing I can really comment on is the lack of 1v1 maps for any Ep other than Ep1; you're right, that's an oversight that probably shouldn't've happened. But the weapon balance (aside from the C4 *heh*heh*) and especially the movement control are purely subjective. I've gone back and downloaded the old demo and fiddle with it a bit, and, honestly, I can't feel much (if any) a difference. But, then again, y'all played it FAR more than I did, and I'm used to DK as-is.

[GWOG]
Arg, the whole point of trying to make people pick ONE thing was the hope that they'd discuss their choice, not give pointless tired rants about something irrelevant and then list some stuff without explaining it. Ah well, rant over. I like the current weapon balance. I like the current movement control. I DEFINITELY wish there had been more 1v1 maps in the other episodes. In fact, if ION had known the community would end up being so small I bet they could have made some really badass ones. I agree that Mikiko's breasts are too big.

In daikatana if like an complete remake of the first episode!! I would like to be some more like the second episode.

- Jonathan Ridings

[WADMAASI]
And here we have the Man of the Hour, submitter of walkthroughs for the entirety of Ep2. Again, thank you ever so much, dude. Why would you want to make Ep1 more like Ep2, though? What about Ep3 or Ep4? Quite frankly, Ep1 is my favorite, especially for SP (I'm a scifi junky), so if they'd not included it I wouldn't like the game near as much as I do. (= However, they DID cut a bunch of cool stuff from Ep2; would 2-3 extra Ep2 episodes have made up for the inclusion of Ep1 for you? Ep2 was my LEAST favorite, but even I would've loved to've seen the Cyclops.

[GWOG]
Jon rules, but there's not much of an explanation here of his thoughts. I'm unsurprised that E1 and E4 seem to be the least popular... sci-fi themes are pretty commonplace right now, but the familiar dungeon/fantasy theme of E3 is always a surefire hit and E2 Greece is just plain unique.

Wrapup


[GWOG]
So... lots of suggestions, ideas, etc. No big surprise that with a game this big, there are plenty of divergent opinions. I'll get straight to the point, and talk about what I'd change... namely, BIG HUGE episode 1 projectile damage radius in leetle leetle single-player level corridors.

Yep, there you are with your hulking Shockwave of ultimate pulverization... and you're only ever in 64x128 corridors filled with enemies where if you let loose with a shocksphere you'd be quickloading a saved game faster than you can say "shaved tricycle".

Episode 1 had four out of six weapons that could injure the player; the ION blaster, the C4 Vizatergo, the Sidewinder, and the Shockwave. The IB wasn't really a problem, and neither was the Sidewinder... but that damn C4 and Shockwave were very little help. ESPECIALLY since I tend to boost POWER first... talk about splash damage.

Such huge weapons are a lot of fun to use, and especially fun to unleash on a horde of enemies. Unfortunately, almost all of Episode 1 took place in areas too small to be of much good. Too bad.

[WADMAASI]
EYE YAM GHEY
(Ed. - Isn't Gwoggencomedian funny?)

Having been accused many times (usually on EvilAvatar.com) of being a slavering DK fanboy, I would actually welcome the opportunity to sit down and put to phosphor all the things that I think are wrong with Daikatana, just to shut up the "fanboy" accusations. Because, face it: no game is perfect. Not even (*gasp!*) Half-Life!, and not even one you like a whole helluva lot and volunteer to help run a website for.

That's neither here nor there, however.

It was hard for me to pick a single something to write about. There's the overbearing use of the C4 in Ep1 DM, the wasted (but SO awesome) concept of the Shotcycler6, the annoying overlaid soundeffects as you power up your stats (enough with the 6-million dollar man sounds!), the wishy-washy easyness of the Ep3 minibosses (especially after the Ep1 Psyclaws), the INSANELY HYPER ULTRA SUPER MEGA difficult fight against Kage...but all of these things are tightly-narrow, very specific gripes about individual particular things. Not good enough. So, to go with something a bit broader (and that's present in ALL of the game, SP and DM), I've picked player-damage feedback.

In my not quite humble opinion, the damage-feedback in Daikatana is ridiculous. Sound-effects wise, Hiro squeals like a little pig at the smallest drop from any height; I understand why he takes the damage--to make Acro attractive--but losing a hitpoint or two isn't really cause for the falsetto shrieking. The difference between the various pain-sounds isn't distinctive enough, and in several cases it plays the same .WAV for taking massive damage and for deaths. Confusing, not helpful, and too, too far over the top. What's worse, though, is the screen-flash and the player-kick. The slightest of near misses shoves you about like a billiard ball, and at the same time blinds you with a red screen-flash. By the time you can see where you're pointing, and then turn back around to face your target, he\\she\\it has already nailed you again (which was probably enough to kill you). This is more of a problem in DM than SP, and I realize that some people like it that way, but I don't. And the mailbag was about what I'd change. So there. (=

OK, that's enough A) words and 2) sounding like a whiney bitch from me. In conclusion, I'd like to ask that, for the next mailbag (Coming Soon?) people put just 5 minutes of thought into what we're really asking.