This month is the health orb: Primarily used in those hectic multiplayer matches, the health orb gives a quick boost to a players well being when they most need it. It comes in 5HP, 25HP, 50HP and 100HP versions.

Click on the image to expand it:

[This message has been edited by Mack (edited November 01, 2005).]

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"Patience, my good citizen, patience. It's bad enough to rob a man of his dream"
-Sydney Carton, Tale of Two Cities
Soterion Studios

Those shader effects look nice! When this comes out, I may just have to upgrade my machine so I can buy it and play it.

--clint

This month is a scene from the Graveyard featuring the Demons Suicide and Necromancer.

Click on the image to expand it:

With FullScreen Post-Processing Depth of Field effect applied:

[This message has been edited by Gump (edited November 30, 2005).]

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To err is human--and to blame it on a computer is even more so. - Robert Orben

Blind belief is dangerous. - Kenyan Proverb

If sex is such a natural phenomenon, how come there are so many books on how to? - Bette Midler

Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. - Pablo Picasso

its called success.

that screenshot looks great. I didn't belive christian games could or ever would look that good, until now.

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"You can stop quoting my every word. I'm not that famous!"--Colton Moffitt

i just checked out the website, that game looks AMAZING!!

i am going to get it.

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quote:

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I didn't believe christian games could or ever would look that good, until now.

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Why did you have that conception? How douse a game being christian have anything to do with how good it looks? Come on guys, if you don't shoot for the starts you will never get there. Jeff

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Jeff McArthur Outcast guategeek
BlueGill Flame Game Studios
http://www.bluegillflame.com

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gump:
This month's screenshot is a little early but apparently some of you guys cannot wait. Consider this your Christmas present from XrucifiX!

This month is a scene from the Graveyard featuring the Demons [b]Suicide and Necromancer.

Click on the image to expand it:

With FullScreen Post-Processing Field of Depth effect applied:

[/B]

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Demon Suicide and the scene in general really doesn't sit right with me at all.

--D-SIPL

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"One World. One Web. One Program." -Microsoft promotional advertisement
"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer!" -Adolf Hitler

quote:

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Originally posted by guategeek:

Why did you have that conception? How douse a game being christian have anything to do with how good it looks? Come on guys, if you don't shoot for the starts you will never get there. Jeff

---

most christian developers are extremely under-funded.

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"You can stop quoting my every word. I'm not that famous!"--Colton Moffitt

w...w....WHOA!!!~! COOL!

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(yes, i know im stupid)

Blessed are those who suffer for doing what is right.
The kingdom of hevan bleongs to them.-Matthew 5:10

PM ME YOUR DESCRIPTION OF ME! ILL PUT IT HERE!

Here's all the comments!

Mack posted these on our Gamers forum so I thought to put them here.

Click on the image to expand it:

mack-at-xrucifix.com

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XrucifiX HQ

[This message has been edited by Gump (edited December 01, 2005).]

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"Patience, my good citizen, patience. It's bad enough to rob a man of his dream"
-Sydney Carton, Tale of Two Cities
Soterion Studios

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Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies.
Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep.
O Lord , you preserve both man and beast.
How priceless is your unfailing love!

quote:

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Originally posted by crazyishone:
most christian developers are extremely under-funded.

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I understand, but low funding doesn't mean they have to look bad. A few good artists and programers can create some incredible stuff on a quite small budget. Its just that the mammoths like EA and Ubisoft are creating this idea that to have a good game you need million dollar budgets, and then look at the final games. They suck, why? I think its because the people that create them don't have the freedom that indy developers have. Jeff

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Jeff McArthur Outcast guategeek
BlueGill Flame Game Studios
http://www.bluegillflame.com

quote:

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Originally posted by Gump:
[B]Here is some slightly altered screenshots of the ones we posted at CCGR.org earlier this year. These shots show off parallax/offset mapping and normal mapping as well as refraction effects and dyanmic lighting.

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What software do you use to create your normal maps with? We have been trying to use Zbrush and Mayas normal mapping tools but haven't had to much luck with the final product in our RT engine. Jeff

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Jeff McArthur Outcast guategeek
BlueGill Flame Game Studios
http://www.bluegillflame.com

developer.nvidia.com/object/melody_home.html

As for how the current normal maps were generated...I'd have to ask the artists.

[This message has been edited by Gump (edited December 01, 2005).]

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Jeff McArthur Outcast guategeek
BlueGill Flame Game Studios
http://www.bluegillflame.com

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XrucifiX HQ

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Jeff McArthur Outcast guategeek
BlueGill Flame Game Studios
http://www.bluegillflame.com

quote:

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Originally posted by Gump:

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He's purdy!

Impressive stuff guys! Keep up the great work.

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Brian

"OOP programmers have a lot of class"

quote:

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Originally posted by Gump:
Biggest limitation is actually the # of lights, Spherical Harmonic Lighting, shadow projectors, shadow mapping, and the complexity of the shaders used in a scene.

---

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Jeff McArthur Outcast guategeek
BlueGill Flame Game Studios
http://www.bluegillflame.com

2,311,552

That's the entire scene from a further distance. Some of the objects also have detail overkill, which we'll fix eventually.

Click on the image to expand it:

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"Patience, my good citizen, patience. It's bad enough to rob a man of his dream"
-Sydney Carton, Tale of Two Cities
Soterion Studios

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"There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home." - Ken Olsen,President of Digital Equipment, 1977

This month is a screenshot from WIP multiplayer map "Kaleb's Backyard". Can anyone say "Honey, I Shrunk the Angels"? In this map everything is giant-sized and Angels and Demons duke it out over the porch and in the grass, using household items for cover. Never thought you'd see a seesaw used as a sniping tower? Now you have.

At this point we're still working on the general layout. To give you an idea of the level of detail involved, this is the early first gameplay pass BEFORE the details are added in. The finished map should be at least twice as complex!

Click on the image to expand it:

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"Patience, my good citizen, patience. It's bad enough to rob a man of his dream"
-Sydney Carton, Tale of Two Cities
Soterion Studios

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" I hat typos..." - gamer4christ

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"Be nice to the nerds because later on, you'll be working for them" - Bill Gates

quote:

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Originally posted by Gump:
Some people ask us how developing a game is. The answer is alot of hard work! Here one of our artists (Tom Roe) is building the 3d mesh for 'The Village' (designed by Mackenzie Ponech). Here you see one of the massive floating islands the player visits. The December Screenshot of the Month featured the Graveyard which is situated on one end of this massive level. Levels are a constant work in progress so expect to see more as it reaches completion.

Click on the image to expand it:

---

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Jeff McArthur Outcast guategeek
BlueGill Flame Game Studios
http://www.bluegillflame.com

[This message has been edited by guategeek (edited February 04, 2006).]

quote:

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Originally posted by firemaker103:
Looks great, but the question is: Does it play great?

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SOON young grasshopping pond skipper, true enlightenment will be revealed MWAHAHAHAHAHHA

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quote:

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Originally posted by firemaker103:
Looks great, but the question is: Does it play great?

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At this point it doesn't play at all!

The bot AI navigation clusters have yet to be set up, only one spawn point for testing, the CTF system isn't done, no teleporters, no weapons or items or vehicles have been positioned, and there are sections where prefab meshes are not quite lined up. The flat plane to the right with the grass texture is actually a temporary hack. The house was assigned a temporary texture. The house and various other models will likely get overhauled. The camera was also positioned to only show finished sections...there's a big gaping hole right below out of view. The forest and the lake to the right are barely begun.

As you can see we still have quite a bit of work ahead of us. This map is my own little brain child though our talented artists have been creating the majority of models and textures for me.

EDIT: Don't want to give the impression that EW: Nightmares is not playable at all. It is, but the current version of course doesn't represent the final product.

[This message has been edited by Gump (edited February 04, 2006).]

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The first track, A vs O vs E, is designed to get your blood pumping while smiting other players in DM, Team DM, or CTF. Icy Hot is slated for a map not yet revealed. Shhhh...top secret. The Village will max the creepiness factor for the map called, you guessed it, The Village.

Drop by and tell us what you think:

www.myspace.com/xrucifix

Good music. Pro quality.

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"I bleed black tears"

Will the emo kids be my friends now?

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" I hat typos..." - gamer4christ
"TROOPER: umm... CyBob and BIL are fighting over whose dead." - Realm Master

quote:

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Originally posted by crazyishone:
Hurry up and finish. I'm about to cry from the anticipation/.

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Finish? Sorry, but we're still in the early pre-development stage. We'll be sure to let you guys know when we set a date for a demo.

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" I hat typos..." - gamer4christ
"TROOPER: umm... CyBob and BIL are fighting over whose dead." - Realm Master

and frankly, a picture of anybody slaughtering anybody would give people bad dreams and stress if that's what they fell asleep and woke up too. especially if there is an object of fear there. just providing an alternate explanation. I don't think you opened up a portal for demonic influences.

all in all, I will have to agree with your last statement; whatever God leads to you to, do it. we can make our little arguments, but ultimately, these matters are between you and God, just as our own views and stances in this issue are between us and God.

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"Patience, my good citizen, patience. It's bad enough to rob a man of his dream"
-Sydney Carton, Tale of Two Cities
Soterion Studios

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In the stock market, you must buy high and sell low...Wait! That's not right!
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Yes, I can be intelligent at times!!

EDIT: Yeah, Gump. I know just what you mean.
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" I hat typos..." - gamer4christ
"TROOPER: umm... CyBob and BIL are fighting over whose dead." - Realm Master

[This message has been edited by questleader (edited March 09, 2006).]

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IIRC, the audience for the first game was largely the lost, as you went inside the mind of a suicidal teenager who had every reason to fear. I agree that as Christians, we have no reason to fear anyone other than God, but for someone who doesn't have that faith and assurance, they have every reason to fear not only God but also demons who can hold power over them (just look at the guy possessed by the Legion -- I think he and those around him probably had a healthy fear of demons that wasn't without foundation).

Many nominal Christian teenagers don't know what they should fear or why they should/shouldn't fear it. I think that bringing this out into the open like this for discussion and thought has the potential to be a very impacting experience in a quasi-Christian-teenager's life.

However, it is dangerous and scary ground to tread as a game developer, and I'm not entirely sure how comfortable I could be working on a project like this, so I can understand where you're coming from. I guess I'm just saying that I think there can be room for the darker side of spirituality, especially when reaching teenagers who are so impacted by this stuff on a day-to-day basis, but the only people who they hear talk about demons are the guys who are "into" it and think they're cool. You don't often hear stuff about demons and spiritual warfare from a good Christian perspective, and many kids could do well to hear more of that.

In Christ,
clint

[This message has been edited by HanClinto (edited March 10, 2006).]

Why do I think questleader had nightmares because of the picture was because while the idea of good defeating evil was right in away that God who is good always wins and has already won it may not be right in God's eyes for us to play with the idea, at least not in the way it was represented in that poster.
If we read Bible there was no requirements or commands from God to put up any victory signs but instead just worship Him and fear Him. Like in everything else all God asked was to people fear Him instead of the man made gods and the Lord gave His blessing and did the fighting for them. And if the Israel thought that they had won the enemy by them self, turning away from God was next thing what they did.

In Christ,
Jari.

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Mat 5:6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

To me it seems like this would be a great emphasis to really work into a game like this, working towards this overall realization over time. If you did this, I think you would see all of the issues put in their proper perspective.

I think there is every reason for Christians to celebrate the defeat of evil. Jari, you fingered the real issue for the Israelites before they would turn away, they started thinking it was their own doings that brought victory. The real credit should go to God. Always. Look at all of the writings by David thanking God for giving him victory against enemies who hunted him without reason, and asked for deliverance.

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quote:

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Originally posted by nibble:

I think there is every reason for Christians to celebrate the defeat of evil. Jari, you fingered the real issue for the Israelites before they would turn away, they started thinking it was their own doings that brought victory. The real credit should go to God. Always. Look at all of the writings by David thanking God for giving him victory against enemies who hunted him without reason, and asked for deliverance.

---

Actually I didnt mean to say that we wouldnt be allowed to celebrate defeat of evil. Putting our self in the position of good and hoping for the destruction of wicked however, can be self-righteous though. And know that God has no pleasure of some one going to hell.

In Christ,
Jari.

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Mat 5:6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

An old enemy returns;

Click on the image to expand it.

www.XRUCIFIX.com

love the screenie.
almost enough to say "yay for screenies"

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"Patience, my good citizen, patience. It's bad enough to rob a man of his dream"
-Sydney Carton, Tale of Two Cities
Soterion Studios

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"I am very good at hiding, so if you don't see me, that's where I am." Orc Outlaw, TES III Morrowind

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CPU: AMD Barton 2500+ @ 2.2ghz(3200+) on 400mhz FSB
OCZ Gladiator w/ 7800RPM Delta
Motherboard: Epox 8RDA3+
Power Supply: Enermax 430W PS
Case Cooling: 1 card cooler, 1 front Blow Hole
Video Card: ATI Radeon 9800 Pro DDR2 256mb
RAM: GEIL 1024MB PC3200
Sound Card: SB Audigy
Hard Drive: Maxtor 7200RPM 60GB and Western Digital 20GB
DVD Burner: LG Electronics GSA-4040B
Ethernet: nForce Onboard
Nvidia nForce Drivers 2.45
DirextX 9.0b Runtime
WinXP Pro SP1
Midiland S4 8200
Net Connection: RR Cable (horrible packet loss in my area)

-I believe in faeries, goblins, dragons, ghosts, and computers that work perfectly.
-My guide to programming at work... <--Click Me

public class Politician extends Man {public void doSomething() throws UnreasonableException {throw new UnreasonableException(convenientExcuse);}}

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"I am very good at hiding, so if you don't see me, that's where I am." Orc Outlaw, TES III Morrowind

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quit posting on CCN? nope. I havn't been driven off yet.

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quit posting on CCN? nope. I havn't been driven off yet.

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In the stock market, you must buy high and sell low...Wait! That's not right!
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Yes, I can be intelligent at times!!

[This message has been edited by nfektious (edited May 20, 2006).]

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In the stock market, you must buy high and sell low...Wait! That's not right!
--------------
Yes, I can be intelligent at times!!

quote:

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Originally posted by Mack:
This year? Probably not. Next year? There is a good chance.

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Are you guys working on this full time or do you also have real jobs?

quote:

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Originally posted by fearless:
Are you guys working on this full time or do you also have real jobs?

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We're doing this all on our free time, most of us have full time jobs and families.

[This message has been edited by Mack (edited May 19, 2006).]

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Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the risk.
C.S. Lewis

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: What! You too? I thought I was the only one.
C. S. Lewis

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Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the risk.
C.S. Lewis

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: What! You too? I thought I was the only one.
C. S. Lewis

[This message has been edited by Ereon (edited June 13, 2006).]

Next shots will either show off the weapon, one of the angelic characters or show some fun multiplayer action.

Gump is right however, he's been really kickin' butt with coding and we have some really cool gameplay mechanics in playtesting. Right now we're trying to get alot of speciality movement code in like flying, 'stomping' and wall running. This is very important to us, as we want the gameplay to be really fun.

Feel free to ask us questions or talk about gameplay you would like to see experimented with in the FPS genre. We're big on feedback so please chat it up!

One of the questions we were recently discussing was dynamic perspective view changing. How do you guys feel about the view changing on you depending on what your doing in game? (flips, rolls, wall running/jumping, being hit with a melee weapon, etc.)

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Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the risk.
C.S. Lewis

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: What! You too? I thought I was the only one.
C. S. Lewis

[This message has been edited by Ereon (edited June 14, 2006).]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mack:
One of the questions we were recently discussing was dynamic perspective view changing. How do you guys feel about the view changing on you depending on what your doing in game? (flips, rolls, wall running/jumping, being hit with a melee weapon, etc.)

---

Interesting -- so if you did a wall-run then your view would rotate 90 degrees to show what you would see? Very cool! It sounds like it could be pretty nauseating, but it would add a nice layer of challenge to using more advanced maneuvers. It would also be cool to quickly see who was behind me by doing a running flip-jump or something.

It might just not be practical though, and result in every body playing in 3rd person view, I'm not sure.

Glad to hear you guys are moving forward!

--clint

Here's a concept image of a medium class 'Harvest' angel, we have several different weight classes in the game which all play differently. Medium would be like what you saw in 'Eternal War: Shadows of Light', average running speed, 100 armour, 100 health and can fly pretty well.

This is a close up on the 'Harvest' angels left arm. While holding a weapon and needing to either use something or do a special ability (like using Levitation to grab something in the distance) this arm will be used. The other arm is wrapped in cloth and is left partially bare due to the Harvest ability that the angel has and also some weapons such as...

The 'Ripper' (concept art / 3d model) is a rapid firing weapon, I guess similar to a sub-machine gun. Ripper is a living creature that fuses to the players arm when placed there. It recieves it's ammo via a metal canister which is inserted into the back of it's shell (where the ammo is stored). It's mostly effective when used in short, controlled bursts and the canister, once triggered, can be used as an explosive.

Enjoy and discuss.

[This message has been edited by Mack (edited August 04, 2006).]

dude, you did it again. I'm psyched about Nightmares all over again.

games to look forward to:
UT2007
Guild Wars: Nightfall
Eternal War: Nightmare
Test Drive: Unlimited

mmmm... quite the lineup

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"Patience, my good citizen, patience. It's bad enough to rob a man of his dream"
-Sydney Carton, Tale of Two Cities
Soterion Studios

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quit posting on CCN? nope. I havn't been driven off yet.

About the Ripper Model, cool. It looks sorta like a big crab. Kinda strange weapon for a submachine gun tho'. I would have expected it to be a close quarter weapon that you stab with.
It reminds me of those weird sci-fi weapons Tom Anderson makes.

And that angel model is awesome. Is that a Mr. T mohawk? I didn't think so...

Lazarus

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Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the risk.
C.S. Lewis

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: What! You too? I thought I was the only one.
C. S. Lewis

www.christiangaming.com

Thanks for the comments guys

The Eagle is one of the fastest units in the game and has the ability to carry up to two players at once. One player controls the Eagle, running, jumping and peaking are it’s only defense against threats. The other player can use the standard weapons they are carrying to add additional defense to the team.

Enjoy and discuss.

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Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the risk.
C.S. Lewis

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: What! You too? I thought I was the only one.
C. S. Lewis

www.christiangaming.com

quote:

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Is there any aerial combat perhaps?

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Yes, players can fly for certain distances

quote:

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Originally posted by Mack:
One player controls the Eagle, running, jumping and peaking are it�s only defense against threats.

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Peaking, as in some super-cool-arial-dive-thing, or pecking, as in that's-why-he-has-a-bloody-beak?

That all seems really cool. I like the idea of fast but vulnerable units, and how you really need teamwork if you're going to get the best out of the Eagle. Very cool stuff.

--clint

Peaking as in the bloody beak, although the characters don't bleed when hit.

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All Your Base Are Belong To Us!!! chown -r us ./base
"After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless.'' -- Tao of Programming Book 2

My Blog

[This message has been edited by CPUFreak91 (edited August 21, 2006).]

Pentium 2.8GHz
1024MB RAM
ATI 9700 Pro Mobile

That's the specs of my laptop and the current build runs decently at 1024x768 with all graphics features turned high. By time it's released we're hoping to do more optimizations to the engine so hopefully it'll run better by then.

Or you can just lower the video and texture resolution and turn off HDR, Bloom, shadow mapping, drop shadows, various shader effects, etc.

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Yes, I'm still better than you
Soterion Studios