Live data from Hacker News

Descent 3 Source Code

github.com

271–280 of 347 posts

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#271

My wife and I met on a Descent forum, our 3 sons are named for Descent friends (KoolBear, Jediluke, and Mark392), and we've attended weddings (and sadly one funeral, RIP JinX) for Descent friends. Even though I considered D3 the weakest of the Descent games, this news makes me happy. Thank you, Kevin!

KoolBear, Jediluke, and Mark392. Those are their first names?

I guess Jediluke -> Luke and Mark392 -> Mark. Not sure about KoolBear. Maybe a middle name or a different language like Bjorn.

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#272

My wife and I met on a Descent forum, our 3 sons are named for Descent friends (KoolBear, Jediluke, and Mark392), and we've attended weddings (and sadly one funeral, RIP JinX) for Descent friends. Even though I considered D3 the weakest of the Descent games, this news makes me happy. Thank you, Kevin!

After years of lurking, I had to finally create an account to post this. I remember when you and Drakona got married. Congrats again!

It’s been a long 15+ years since I was last active in the Descent community. I lost access to my ICQ account when my PlanetDescent email went away, and I no longer go by DCrazy online, in part to distance my adult self from the preteen I was then. But Descent (especially D3) is heavily responsible for me getting into software engineering, and I will always be grateful for those memories.

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#273

My wife and I met on a Descent forum, our 3 sons are named for Descent friends (KoolBear, Jediluke, and Mark392), and we've attended weddings (and sadly one funeral, RIP JinX) for Descent friends. Even though I considered D3 the weakest of the Descent games, this news makes me happy. Thank you, Kevin!

KoolBear, Jediluke, and Mark392. Those are their first names?

I thought about putting their actual names -- Michael, David, and Mark (even though Mark392 isn't really named Mark) -- but I thought it'd be funnier to just put their pilot names at first.

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#274
post #272

My wife and I met on a Descent forum, our 3 sons are named for Descent friends (KoolBear, Jediluke, and Mark392), and we've attended weddings (and sadly one funeral, RIP JinX) for Descent friends. Even though I considered D3 the weakest of the Descent games, this news makes me happy. Thank you, Kevin!

After years of lurking, I had to finally create an account to post this. I remember when you and Drakona got married. Congrats again! It’s been a long 15+ years since I was last active in the Descent community. I lost access to my ICQ account when my PlanetDescent email went away, and I no longer go by DCrazy online, in part to distance my adult self from the preteen I was then. But Descent (especially D3) is heavily…

Drakona, sitting next to me: "Dcrazy? I remember a dcrazy!"

There's still an active online community around Descent and Overload (Mike/Matt's spiritual successor.) If you look up Overload on Discord you'll find that server, and the #descent channel will have links to the various other Descent servers.

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A mouse for Descent? We used to play with both hands on the keyboard- look, slide, and spin on the number pad, move, fire, etc. on the far left side. We're we alone?

You weren't alone, but we just used more hands. I usually did navigation, and my grade school aged son did the shooting while sitting on my lap. Now he's 33 and I'm 64, we'll have to switch places.

I did this with my boy too, it was so much fun and great bonding over easily understood teamwork!

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Super cheap on GOG right now... https://www.gog.com/en/game/overload

I'm confused. This is another game?

"Overload" was a game made in Descent style, by the original creators of Descent (Mike and Matt), with a great deal of input from the Descent community. My wife and I spent a week at the studio (while ~6 months pregnant with a child we named for a Descent friend) working on Overload's flight model and tweaking some in-game stuff. The game is now largely maintained by fans, with significant multiplayer mod support and even a full remake of the D1 campaign!

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#277
post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After years of lurking, I had to finally create an account to post this. I remember when you and Drakona got married. Congrats again! It’s been a long 15+ years since I was last active in the Descent community. I lost access to my ICQ account when my PlanetDescent email went away, and I no longer go by DCrazy online, in part to distance my adult self from the preteen I was then. But Descent (especially D3) is heavily…

Drakona, sitting next to me: "Dcrazy? I remember a dcrazy!" There's still an active online community around Descent and Overload (Mike/Matt's spiritual successor.) If you look up Overload on Discord you'll find that server, and the #descent channel will have links to the various other Descent servers.

Hopefully only good memories remain :)

I backed Overload and left a note about how important Descent had been to my career. I think my backer rewards were a free license and an Overload keychain. :)

Writing D3 mods was a big reason I got a copy of Visual C++ as a birthday present. And I laid down an absolutely awful drum track for an album UNIX was recording with Stephan Jenkins (I think) from 3rd Eye Blind. An interview about those demos was the first thing I did after joining my college radio station, where I then became responsible for converting the PC workstations to Mac… which exposed me to Xcode and sent me across the country to work on software for Apple devices for the next decade and counting.

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

KoolBear, Jediluke, and Mark392. Those are their first names?

I thought about putting their actual names -- Michael, David, and Mark (even though Mark392 isn't really named Mark) -- but I thought it'd be funnier to just put their pilot names at first.

To add some missing context (though perhaps also to spoil my husband's joke) -

Koolbear, whose real first name is Mike, founded and was instrumental in the life of the forum where the two of us met and has been a hero and inspiration to both of us.

Jediluke, whose real first name is David, is the most vigorous and prolific competitor the game has ever seen, recognized by pilots of practically every era and environment as elite and dominant. He is also a close personal friend and the three of us ran the definitive ladder for the modern community together. And we are both big fans of him as a competitor.

Mark392 (whose real name doesn't matter for this purpose) is widely recognized by the modern community as the GOAT and is also a close personal friend for both of us.

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#280

Some friends of mine played Descent competitively, and I was amazed to learn about so-called trichording: to maximize your speed, you need to press multiple keys at the same time to travel along all 3 axes at once, e.g. forward/right/up. The best players zip around the map diagonally. I always assumed this was a bug-turned-feature, like skiing in Tribes. When I saw the repo just now, I looked for clues, but didn't sp…

It wasn't really considered either a bug or a feature by the original designers, it was just not something they put any thought into. After it was discovered, some designers had a negative opinion of it, others had a positive opinion, and it was a point of contention when the team got together to make Overload after years away from Descent. My wife and I tried some alternatives (by modding D1) and flew a demo for Mike/Matt/Luke/Dan and whoever else was in the studio that day, and eventually settled on "vector independence just feels good" which is why Overload has the ability to change from a normalized flight mode with faster 1D flight into the trichording mode.
Post reply on HN