Official Didier & Fred Live Stream Discussion Thread

[Styx]

Hello MBN!

I Just thought it would be a good idea to open an official thread to discuss the recent lba1 speedrun stream organized by gravel22. There were a few threads leading up to the event but this should make it easy to keep up with everyone's feedback and thoughts.

First off MASSIVE shoutout and thanks to our man gravel22 (Freeman) for setting this up and hosting our great developers Fred & Didier

Also a big thanks to our resident translators Polaris and Juliian for egregiously providing live translations for the whole stream. Great work

It was a great event and a good amount of questions were asked with everyone's involvement. Good to see 80+ people watching - not sure who was from the MBN though because of the different usernames Mention yourself if you were there

It's always good to see the lba community alive and hopefully this gave some exposure to the games

[twingirl]

Thank you very much gravel for organizing this stream!

I was there (twitch: Taya), it was such a great stream! Loved to see this guys and reading all the answers. The question about the cow programming was funny
can't thank Didier & Fred enough for creating such great games. 20 years later, the commuinity is still alive.

What interesting news! Don't know if i got all things right.
LBA3 confirmed, but they don't working on it and don't expect to work on it the next time, right?

we will be able to get under the sea in lba3? and possible can play Zoe and Twinsens son.

[Kasia]

Originally Posted by twingirl

LBA3 confirmed

Well, not exactly.

Originally Posted by twingirl

but they don't working on it and don't expect to work on it the next time, right?

It all depends on the money.

Originally Posted by twingirl

we will be able to get under the sea in lba3? and possible can play Zoe and Twinsens son.

Yup.

(EDIT: I forgot to mention that my nickname was Guardafui )

[Juliian]

Fred encouraged us to create polls and topics here to discuss what we would love to see LBA3 (in terms of graphics, 3D (isometric, classical)...)
Of course we know LBA3 is not happening any time soon, and to be honest I didn't think Fred was really convinced it would happen at all, but maybe it would give him a little kick if we provide great ideas.

[Homeless]

This was a fantastic event, a big thank you to all involved!

I absolutely loved hearing MBN referenced by Fred & Didier more than once. In the discussion regarding the possible future of LBA 3 it was mentioned, from my understanding, that Fred & Didier would like to poll MBN for what we'd like to see; I think this was in relation to if LBA 3 should be a big open-world game or a smaller one, which tied into LBA 3 maybe being isometric 3D. Maybe we could take the initiative here and poll some more what people would like to see from LBA 3?

To me it seemed like Fred & Didier feel pressure to live up to expectations of LBA 3 being a AAA game, to reflect how LBA 1 and LBA 2 were on the cutting edge when they were released. Maybe if we pull together and try to help them put into perspective of what kind of LBA 3 us fans would like to see, give them some ambitions and goals that aren't too hard to fulfill, maybe that could help. I mean, most of us would love to see just a new LBA even if technically wasn't more advanced, per say, than LBA 1? It doesn't have to be AAA, right? Would most of us be happy to have an LBA that isn't too open-worldish with a ton to do, not on the cutting edge? I think so.

I also understood that there were thoughts on possibly releasing the source code for LBA 1. This would be absolutely amazing and would help LBA greatly in surviving many, many years to come. If it's possible, we as a community maybe should try and push for this more

Really interesting to hear ideas of being able to get under the sea in LBA 3, of visiting remote places not yet having been visited in any previous LBA or even known about. Are there creatures living under the sea? Who knows.

In regards to the speedrun being showcased, it was a lot of fun to see their reactions to skips that I and others have found Made my day. No, heck, made my week!

[Styx]

My thoughts:

Great to see Fred and D. They also seemed to be having fun

In terms of LBA3 info, I don't think today shed too much new light on our lba3 hopes. They went through the usual statements that they hope to make it in the future etc etc, but nothing new. Not that I was expecting much. I did find it interesting how they said they have 3 different stories in mind. I hope one day we will get a chance to see those ideas

From a development pov they said that they wish to see evidence for demand for lba style 'action adventure' games, acknowledging how it's difficult to place lba in a genre type. I agree with that, although from discussing it with DF it seems like a bigger problem would be getting people aware of the game in the first place. To attract the interest of younger, non-fan, gamers

I think we should promote activity in the forum as much as possible. There were many people there today that don't post much on here. I hope this event energized enthusiasm and I really do think we should follow Fred's thoughts on creating some poll/thread to discuss what we would like to see. (I know it's been done but a 2016 version can't hurt) - He seemed to say he'll read that. Furthermore, I think we could weigh in on the technical aspects too in terms of graphics styles (isometric etc).

Other than that the best thing we can do is perhaps support his game 2dark. I'll surely be getting 100 one copy later today They didn't seem too keen on crowdfunding and maybe they're right and there just isn't enough fanbase that would be enough to raise thousands of kashes.

Giving our thoughts on the future lba title would, I believe, give some reality to which Fred can base his expectations too. I got the sense he has some 'performance anxiety' when talking about lba3. We gotta get it across that we don't expect or maybe even want some big open-world rpg witcher style game. Personally I think keep it simple and avoid overly complicated mechanics, and generally trying to mimic what's popular or the status quo now. The best aspect of lba was that it is unique

Sorry for the wall of text! Hope to see some new life 'round here soon and make lba3 a reality and not just a dream

Now, where's my credit card?--->

[Homeless]

If anyone weren't able to attend and still would like to watch it you can find it as past broadcast, with chat preserved, here: https://www.twitch.tv/freemanqc/v/66991608

[Darkflame]

If anyone weren't able to attend and still would like to watch it you can find it as past broadcast, with chat preserved, here: https://www.twitch.tv/freemanqc/v/66991608

AWESOME!

Originally Posted by Homeless

Would most of us be happy to have an LBA that isn't too open-worldish with a ton to do, not on the cutting edge? I think so.

Id be happy with a higher res version of LBA1 + nicer lighting frankly.
I dont need ""cutting edge"", just give me a cool world to explore and some fun little gadgets to use and I am happy.

However to make the game viable for more sales? who knows. I think it would absolutely be a bad idea to try to make it super-realistic or hyper-detailed. Waste of money and it doesnt suit the world.
If the game is going to grab peoples attention it would need to be in a more budget-friendly way. Some clever code that does something unique or not seen often in games. Of course thats easier said then done :P

Really interesting to hear ideas of being able to get under the sea in LBA 3, of visiting remote places not yet having been visited in any previous LBA or even known about. Are there creatures living under the sea? Who knows.

I have always longed to explore under Twinsuns oceans. Proto-sub ftw

[Darkflame]

Originally Posted by Styx

My thoughts:

Great to see Fred and D. They also seemed to be having fun
I think we should promote activity in the forum as much as possible.

+1

There were many people there today that don't post much on here. I hope this event energized enthusiasm and I really do think we should follow Fred's thoughts on creating some poll/thread to discuss what we would like to see. (I know it's been done but a 2016 version can't hurt) - He seemed to say he'll read that. Furthermore, I think we could weigh in on the technical aspects too in terms of graphics styles (isometric etc).

Well, we have had threads on the graphical styles too , but more are always welcome. As always, I push for stylistic looks over realism.
Beyond Good and Evil or Skywood Sword being games Id look too for inspiration.

Other than that the best thing we can do is perhaps support his game 2dark. I'll surely be getting 100 one copy later today

+10

Giving our thoughts on the future lba title would, I believe, give some reality to which Fred can base his expectations too. I got the sense he has some 'performance anxiety' when talking about lba3. We gotta get it across that we don't expect or maybe even want some big open-world rpg witcher style game. Personally I think keep it simple and avoid overly complicated mechanics, and generally trying to mimic what's popular or the status quo now. The best aspect of lba was that it is unique

Very much agreed. While exploring and discovering the world is a important part of LBA to me, it certainly does not need to be "Witcher scale" or such.
To me its not the size of the detail that's important, but rather whats there to discover. A street can be just as entertaining as a mountain if its filled with a few interesting characters and a secret or two!

While I wouldn't want "complicated mechanics" as such, I also wouldn't rule out trying to think of some new little feature in the gameplay or engine (which might end up being complex coding wise). As mentioned above, LBA cant (and shouldn't) try to win a audience on graphics, so maybe theres some other little hock that can attract more people.
I just dont have a clue what that would be

[gravel22]

Originally Posted by Homeless

If anyone weren't able to attend and still would like to watch it you can find it as past broadcast, with chat preserved, here: https://www.twitch.tv/freemanqc/v/66991608

Hi guys, thanks a lot for your appreciation. I'm so happy, really spent an awesome day! I'll get in the discussion more but I really need sleep now!

So I'll just send the new link of the video highlight as the other one is deleted.

https://www.twitch.tv/freemanqc/v/67061990

[Juliian]

I did find it interesting how they said they have 3 different stories in mind.

Actually the story got rewritten 3 times but they won't pick 1 out 3. And Fred said they'd probably re-write it again a fourth time when they work on LBA3

They didn't seem too keen on crowdfunding and maybe they're right and there just isn't enough fanbase that would be enough to raise thousands of kashes.

I have to watch the stream again, I was busy translating and couldn't focus a 100% on what Didier and Fred said, but I think Fred mentioned that that campaign should at least raise 1M$ to be realistic, and the sales of LBA1 on Android didn't demonstrate that it would have a chance to happen that way. (Android's AppStore shows 10,000-100,000 downloads, I don't know what to think of these figures. It certainly isn't much compared to the 100,000,000 downloads of games such as Clash of Clans, but that can't be compared.)

I mean, it was unbelievable that we were 80 in that stream, but it only is 80 people. How many people would there be for the same event with the creator or Zelda, Mario, FF7 or any game that game publisher companies are still keen on financing? Probably a hundred times that.

Fred seems to mostly rely on Electronic Arts to publish the game and wasn't sure how or when to have them convinced. He said we could write to them but that seemed to be a desperate call in Fred's mouse.

I think the only way to get things started is to demonstrate that the fanbase is important, and stop relying on people that played the game 20 years ago and might be interested in a new sequel. That would probably mean to organise events, websites, teasers and draw attention to what LBA1/2 were and what LBA3 would be. We don't have so many inputs from Fred and Didier, that last part would be tricky.
We could probably start campaigns to promote LBA1 on Android and GOG and LBA2 on GOG to boost their sales. (And 2Dark while we are at it. Fred is a sentimental, he'll have do us a favour if we help him. Yes, let's start manipulating his feelings! )

[Polaris]

It was so funny that upon seeing the bugs, they were like "Well, somebody is going to get scolded !"
Btw, would there be need for a retranslation of the whole thing ?

[Archas]

Sorry in advance, but I do not speak English , so I 'll write in french.


J'ai trouvé la fin du stream très intéressant lorsque Freeman posait les questions à Fred, il était pertinent. Notamment sur le fameux sujet d'LBA3. On a pu voir que Fred est peut être trop ambitieux quand au projet LBA3. Il veut un open world il voit les choses en grand avec des graphismes au top. Le soucis c'est qu'avec un tel projet, il attend forcément un gros éditeur comme EA pour pouvoir financer LBA3.

Mais LBA n'a plus la même visibilité qu'à l'époque, trouver un gros éditeur pour un jeu qui est un ovni video-ludique, c'est casse gueule et les éditeurs ne veulent pas prêter ce risque là.

Donc est ce que Fred est trop ambitieux pour LBA3 ? Je pense que oui, car on peut attendre encore des décennies sans que rien ne bouge, sans gros éditeur à la clef. Ca fait déjà 20 ans, et j'avoue que ca commence à faire long

Ce que j'ai aimé, c'est l'ouverture qu'à apporter Freeman pour faire réfléchir Fred. Notamment du point de vue graphique un jeu à la "lara croft and the temple of osiris" un jeu en 3D mais dans un style d'époque vue du dessus, en style 3D isométrique. Modèle graphique qui raccourcit terriblement le budget, tout en restant dans l'essence et l'esprit originel d'LBA

Et puis faire un open world en vue isométrique, c'est également possible !

Bref j'espère que Fred saura remettre en question ses rêves devenu inaccessible pour LBA3 ( pour ce qui est de faire LBA3 un jeu AAA )

[Archas]

Sinon s'il ne veut vraiment pas de 3D vue uniquement du dessus à la lara croft and the temple of osiris ( ce qui serait peut être à juste titre un peu réducteur, quand à la grandeur et à la dimension d'LBA ), ce qui serait bien et collerait bien avec l'esprit et l'univers d'LBA, ce sont des grahismes en Cel Shading. Un procédé moins gourmand en ressource et qui demande beaucoup moins de travail au niveau shadder/textures avec pourtant, les résultats sont superbe !

Spoiler:

toggle spoiler

Imagine the dino fly and twisen in a world map

Spoiler:

toggle spoiler

imagine Arthur in Citadel Island



Le cel shading vieilli super bien en + ( http://blog.gadgethelpline.com/wp-co...d-Waker-HD.jpg )
Wind Waker un jeu de 2003 reste encore aujourd'hui largement potable voir même jolie

Tout ca pour dire que y'a beaucoup de possibilité pour faire un jeu superbe avec un budget moindre. Le cel shading ( et pour avoir déjà travaillé sur des modèles 3D ) ca demande beaucoup moins de temps de travail, donc d'argent !!
Il y a pas mal de jeu indépendant qui utilise le cel shading avec des résultats superbe.

[Styx]

Arrrrgh my eyes!

Archas, la prochaine fois utilise les tags pour les spoiler quand les images sont très grandes. Sinon ça rend le thread difficile à lire Ou tu peux les attacher comme attachments dans ton post.

Spoiler:

toggle spoiler

comme ça

[Styx]

Originally Posted by Archas

Sorry in advance, but I do not speak English , so I 'll write in french.

I'll try to translate for the rest of us. Apologies in advance, no google was used

Originally Posted by Archas

I found the stream v. interesting, especially the Q&A. Regarding LBA3, we could see that Fred is perhaps too ambitious. He would like an open-world with top graphics etc. Thing is that with this type of project he's gotta wait for a big player like EA to come in.

But LBA isn't as popular like back in the day, and finding a big publisher for an (ovni video-ludique, [sorry no idea]) game is a pain in the ass and too risky for publishers.

Is Fred too ambitious? I think so, since we could wait for decades without any progress or any interest from publishers. It's been already 20 yrs and it's getting pretty long...

I did like how Freeman showed open-mindedness and gave Fred some insight to reflect upon. Especially from a graphics pov with 'tomb raider and the temple of osiris', a game in the old school isometric 3D style but made today. A style that would drastically reduce the necessary budget whilst keeping the original LBA spirit and atmosphere.

In addition, making an open world game but in isometric view could also be possible!

I hope Fred can reconsider his ambitions that have become too far-fetched for LBA3 (i.e. making it an AAA game)

[Archas]

yes sorry ! it's rectified


And thank you Translation !

[gravel22]

Originally Posted by Polaris

It was so funny that upon seeing the bugs, they were like "Well, somebody is going to get scolded !"
Btw, would there be need for a retranslation of the whole thing ?

I guess we have to translate it completely and more precisely although you and Jullian did an awesome job. The point is that I see a lot of people thinking they said this and that but it's not exactly how they said it.

Originally Posted by Archas

Sorry in advance, but I do not speak English , so I 'll write in french.


J'ai trouvé la fin du stream très intéressant lorsque Freeman posait les questions à Fred, il était pertinent. Notamment sur le fameux sujet d'LBA3. On a pu voir que Fred est peut être trop ambitieux quand au projet LBA3. Il veut un open world il voit les choses en grand avec des graphismes au top. Le soucis c'est qu'avec un tel projet, il attend forcément un gros éditeur comme EA pour pouvoir financer LBA3.

Mais LBA n'a plus la même visibilité qu'à l'époque, trouver un gros éditeur pour un jeu qui est un ovni video-ludique, c'est casse gueule et les éditeurs ne veulent pas prêter ce risque là.

Donc est ce que Fred est trop ambitieux pour LBA3 ? Je pense que oui, car on peut attendre encore des décennies sans que rien ne bouge, sans gros éditeur à la clef. Ca fait déjà 20 ans, et j'avoue que ca commence à faire long

Ce que j'ai aimé, c'est l'ouverture qu'à apporter Freeman pour faire réfléchir Fred. Notamment du point de vue graphique un jeu à la "lara croft and the temple of osiris" un jeu en 3D mais dans un style d'époque vue du dessus, en style 3D isométrique. Modèle graphique qui raccourcit terriblement le budget, tout en restant dans l'essence et l'esprit originel d'LBA

Et puis faire un open world en vue isométrique, c'est également possible !

Bref j'espère que Fred saura remettre en question ses rêves devenu inaccessible pour LBA3 ( pour ce qui est de faire LBA3 un jeu AAA )

Thanks man, that came from a some months old LBA 3 post where I though of how should LBA 3 be.


I think this event changed a lot of things in what I understand that's around LBA 3. I have something in mind and will get back to you with some development soon. I hope.

[Darkflame]

Second. Normally we have a rule that things should be in english, but honestly that's a relaxed rule if someone at least translates the gist of it.
Besides, even a ignorant englishman person like me can get a bit of the gist. When theres context and pictures

Anyway, style wise I always quite like painted looks. Not fully cell-shaded in terms of lighting, but more softer with brush stroke like textures.
Perspective wise doesn't bother me much. Isometrix or 3d is good. I admit Id prefer LBA2 style though - 3d for outside (so we can see the sunsets) and Iso for inside (so we dont get the annoying camera that 3d games often have indoors).

[Archas]

Darkflame => For the inside / outside , i like the concept in Skies of arcadia ( dreamcast )

https://youtu.be/1KuL7pKErAE?t=56s

Lorsque l'on rentre dans une maison, tout la toiture se découvre pour laisser place à l'intérieur, c'est un bon concept. Et dans un jeu comme LBA ce serait pas mal je pense. Le tout en 3D inside/outside et sans temps de chargement lorsqu'on rentre dans une maison.

Google trad =>

When we enter a house, the entire roof is discovered but leave room inside it's a good concept. And in a game like this would not hurt LBA I think. With all in 3D ( inside/outside )


ps: for the inerdiction to not speak another language That english, it's not good, for people look's like me, because my english is soooooo bad :X

[Darkflame]

Oh, yes, that also is a method that works well. Remove or fade the walls/roof.
Basically anything but "Jam the camera real close like its a CCTV" thing :P

[gravel22]

One of the questions I had but forgot to ask was if they were planning to release a level editor. Because honestly making levels and scenarios for LBA is infinite!

[Archas]

Originally Posted by gravel22

One of the questions I had but forgot to ask was if they were planning to release a level editor. Because honestly making levels and scenarios for LBA is infinite!

Yes for modding it's perfect

ps: i'm Gandoulf49 on twitch

[Styx]

Archas, don't worry about bad english. This community is extremely open and understanding and nobody will care that you aren't fluent. Just try your best and the more you post, the better you will get. Trust me

[Polaris]

And what was that about secret rooms ? We haven't found any of those, did we ? I mean there's a room in LBArchitect labeled "unused room", but I always figured it to be a prototype of Twinsen's house (because it looks an awful lot like their bedroom).