But will it actually happen today?
Personally, my bets are on "no", but hey: you never know! ;)
But yes, you heard me: there's going to be a Botanic Serenity Version 2. Here are your two reasons why. Respectively, NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams is coming relatively soon, and I wanted to show the nightsintodreams.com community the BSZ game for a while, now. I thought that JoD being released would be a perfect opportunity to show the community there (and if my other party doesn't mind!)
Also because this is primarily for the nid.com community, this is going to be a standalone release. BSZv2 is no longer a wadfile mod.
That being said, I have a few things to address:
1. Screenshots: The first column is from BSZv1 for comparison, and the second is from BSZv2.
BSZv2 sports a new decoration design. See, the main framerate culprits (especially in High-End) are these "linedef flowers" sprinkled among the Thing flowers, or structures of four linedefs with their "Main" textures set to flower textures. They were placed to bypass the NiGHTS draw distance so the player always sees flowers. This is changed in BSZv2 to use floor textures, instead. By theory, they should be faster. You can also see more "flowers" in the distance, too! (See second row, right screenshot.)
The main focus in BSZv2 is improving the performance (if I even can,) hence this one example of a change.
2. "Why don't you make a new level instead?" Simple: lack of time. Decision-making is the most time-consuming part of making maps for me, and to design an entirely new level is not within my schedule. Doing these maintenance things in an already more-or-less complete level is way easier.
3. Requests. What would you like to see in BSZv2? Any new content or any fixed details? The list in the beginning of this post is my current "to-do" list. Some things may not be possible, but then some other things just may be! Some other things I have in mind:
Feel free to reply if you have any requests or suggestions of your own. :)
____________________________________________________________
UPDATE: 9/16/2007 - New screenshots!
See the latest post here.
Personally, my bets are on "no", but hey: you never know! ;)
But yes, you heard me: there's going to be a Botanic Serenity Version 2. Here are your two reasons why. Respectively, NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams is coming relatively soon, and I wanted to show the nightsintodreams.com community the BSZ game for a while, now. I thought that JoD being released would be a perfect opportunity to show the community there (and if my other party doesn't mind!)
Also because this is primarily for the nid.com community, this is going to be a standalone release. BSZv2 is no longer a wadfile mod.
That being said, I have a few things to address:
1. Screenshots: The first column is from BSZv1 for comparison, and the second is from BSZv2.
BSZv2 sports a new decoration design. See, the main framerate culprits (especially in High-End) are these "linedef flowers" sprinkled among the Thing flowers, or structures of four linedefs with their "Main" textures set to flower textures. They were placed to bypass the NiGHTS draw distance so the player always sees flowers. This is changed in BSZv2 to use floor textures, instead. By theory, they should be faster. You can also see more "flowers" in the distance, too! (See second row, right screenshot.)
The main focus in BSZv2 is improving the performance (if I even can,) hence this one example of a change.
2. "Why don't you make a new level instead?" Simple: lack of time. Decision-making is the most time-consuming part of making maps for me, and to design an entirely new level is not within my schedule. Doing these maintenance things in an already more-or-less complete level is way easier.
3. Requests. What would you like to see in BSZv2? Any new content or any fixed details? The list in the beginning of this post is my current "to-do" list. Some things may not be possible, but then some other things just may be! Some other things I have in mind:
- Make the secret boss follow the NiGHTS track.
- Add one-sided linedef columns. They may have a place even in High-End.
- Revise enemy placement in the secret levels.
- Make Mid-End and Low-End architectures simpler. Since I have more energy to focus on those, now, maybe more can be done.
Feel free to reply if you have any requests or suggestions of your own. :)
____________________________________________________________
UPDATE: 9/16/2007 - New screenshots!
See the latest post here.
