Page 1 of 2

Jason Hall has been talkin

Posted: Thu Dec 16, 2004 01:59 am
by Guest
Hi All, its been awhile, but I bring some interesting news if you haven't read it already. Might want to read and comment. It got me so excited I had to stop by after along time being gone for these forums. go check it out.

http://www.homelanfed.com/index.php?id=28070

Re: Jason Hall has been talkin

Posted: Thu Dec 16, 2004 02:57 am
by DustyStyx
HomeLAN wrote:HomeLAN - What video or PC game that was released in 2004 that you played was the most disappointing and why?

Jason Hall - Probably Doom 3. Not because I think it is a bad game, it is not - but because basically all I wanted was Doom 2 exactly reproduced from a "feel" and deathmatch standpoint and instead I got something different. Keeps me wondering whether or not we should bring the original game "Blood" back completely intact in every measureable way, but with the only difference being state of the art graphics. I wonder if people would want or buy that... Or maybe we only bring back the "BloodBath" part of it and make a product similar to UT2K4...hmm...
A new Blood would certainly be what we've all been wishing for! Though it's a strange feeling between excitement and gut wrenching agony. On one had "Hey cool! new Blood." On the other... 3 years of work. Damned comflict of intrest laws!

Anyway, thanks for the heads up!

Does anyone happen to know Jason Hall's current mailing address?

Posted: Thu Dec 16, 2004 09:48 pm
by Daedalus
It'll be a screwup.

Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2004 03:23 pm
by Gila
i concur!

the SPIRIT of BLOOD remains in all the people who were makin' the game and in us, the remaining diehard fans. i doubt other team would make it better (think blood2, i think at least half of original blood team was missing]

Posted: Sat Dec 18, 2004 01:22 pm
by Daedalus
Half? So few missing? :wink:

Posted: Tue Dec 28, 2004 03:06 am
by Number II
Without the Build engine, Blood wouldn't have its levels or physics that it has. Sprites rule, especially when they tilt to the side so you can only see a thin vertical line of them.

If they remake Blood, they cannot use 3D models and keep the game as it is.

Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2004 04:24 pm
by Ra_Ra_Gazaa
To me, this interviewer doesn't seem interested at all. Perhaps this interview's been edited down? Blood wasn't a game from 2004 afterall.

At least it's evidence saying Blood hasn't left Hall's heart. As if any of us had any doubt. :)

Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2004 04:35 pm
by Ra_Ra_Gazaa
Number II wrote:Without the Build engine, Blood wouldn't have its levels or physics that it has. Sprites rule, especially when they tilt to the side so you can only see a thin vertical line of them.

If they remake Blood, they cannot use 3D models and keep the game as it is.
Try telling a games reviewer who's been treated with a ton of free merchandise from certain other first person games. From what I read, Blood was criticized for using the Build engine to begin with. Oh well.

Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2004 08:36 pm
by Number II
It would have been sluggish with 3D models at the time.

The interview is a set form presented to a number of developer persons. They are standard and do not seem to be an interview per se, but instead a fill-out form.

Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2004 09:00 pm
by Daedalus
I wonder if the importance of the Build engine to Blood's feel and atmosphere can be overstated.

Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2005 11:00 pm
by frightfan
Personally, I LOVE the "keep-it-intact-but-upgrade-the-graphics" idea.
Think of what you could do by adding modern lighting and physics! As soon as I saw those features in the videos for Doom3 and Half-Life 2, I remember thinking that it should be done for Blood. Imagine it...

You rise from your grave to see the familiar mausoleum, but with realistic torchlight flickering on the normal-mapped stone walls. Fetid water splashes and ripples as shimmering puddles are fed by drips from a large crack in the north wall (maybe I can blast my way through there later, you think).
You find a pitchfork leaning against the outer wall of the mausoleum (who gets buried with a pitchfork?). No sooner do you grab it, than something begins to stir in the ground behind you. As you expect, it's an "axe zombie", only now it's sagging flesh is so realistic looking you can practically smell the decay as it shuffles and lurches toward you like a living ragdoll (thanks to the new physics engine you've given it). You poke it's gutted belly with your pitch fork and it folds over from the impact, teetering as it tries to recover from the jab.
Heading back into the mausoleum to regroup from the encounter, you bump into the secret panel on the west wall that reveals the crate of TNT. Good thing you were buried with your trusty lighter, hehe. You find that tossing the lit stick of dynamite over to the shambling zombie gives a very satisfying reward -- your POV is rocked by a huge "BOOOM", followed by a rain of earth, bones and bloody chunks of flesh. Blood sprays you and flecks the walls of the mausoleum. You watch mesmerized as the chunky residue of the zombie rolls and slides down the rough hewn bricks.
You can hear cultists talking from an area beyond a gate down the path in front of you. They seem to be reacting to the ruckus you've created in their queer "munchkin" language. You hear shotguns being loaded.
"Well, it's time to go say hi" you think and head down the path, lighter in one hand, stick of TNT in the other. Time to see how this works against a few enemies who can shoot back... it'll be nice to fire the famous Blood sawed-off double barrelled shotgun again, once you've stolen one from a smoking corpse. :)

( I have emailed the preceding to Jason Hall via contact@lith.com)

Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2005 01:03 am
by Daedalus
It's ÐÐ ramble time!

Very good, but let's be serious.

Possible implications if a new engine is introduced : (few other than extremely experienced Bloodites would understand this)

- Your player's ability to jump will be significantly decreased. I don't want some fat, useless blob who cannot jump to save his life.

- Jumping and dynamite tossing will not be precise. In modern games it is impossible to tell 'how far' a tossed weapon will go. In Blood, some can actually think; 'okay... if I hold the TNT for that long I should be able to smash that...' This could be rendered useless with a new engine.

- Blood has a wonderful 'feel' when a stick of dynamite lands next to you. You can almost feel the blast pushing against you in real life. Another nice one, is when you jump, but land a bit shorter than you expected to. There's a moment when your vision is 'pulled' to the ground. An awesome feel that I don't think a modern game could reproduce.

- The screen absolutely must 'go red' when you take damage. If your screen indicates where you are taking damage from, or if your character becomes limp if he is shot (walks slowly) I will destroy the new Blood cd, were it ever produced.

I love your speech, FrightFan, but perhaps the Build Engine is more important to Blood than we realise. If they can recreate it and make the sound more diverse, enemies smarter and make realistic lighting, it's all good.

If they begin to mess with the content, in any way, they will be shot.

What do you think of all this, Gila?

Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2005 01:13 am
by Willis
anything can be reproduced

Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2005 01:20 am
by Damien_Azreal
I don't think it was the Build engine that gave BLOOD it's feel and atmosphere. They used the build engine on several other games, and some of them did suck. And I've played most Build engine games, in each one the player moves different and feels different.

I believe that it was the team that made BLOOD was it is. It was their love for the project that lead to the end product.

Get the right team together (Monolith of course) and the right engine (I say Lith's new engine, the one they're using on F.E.A.R.) and a BLOOD III would severly kick ass.

Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2005 01:21 am
by Gila
very valid points, dd. but. my opinion on them:

- Jumping and dynamite tossing will not be precise. In modern games it is impossible to tell 'how far' a tossed weapon will go. In Blood, some can actually think; 'okay... if I hold the TNT for that long I should be able to smash that...' This could be rendered useless with a new engine.
nothing's worse than blood2's dynamites.. that was absolutely s***.
it's all in the matter of good programming... so it can be done.
- Blood has a wonderful 'feel' when a stick of dynamite lands next to you. You can almost feel the blast pushing against you in real life. Another nice one, is when you jump, but land a bit shorter than you expected to. There's a moment when your vision is 'pulled' to the ground. An awesome feel that I don't think a modern game could reproduce.
yeah, i know what you're talkin' about here. also, in blood, if you get blasted by dynamite, you can be in air for a short period of time, it's a very great thing that is hard to explain, i mean, you get thrown up a bit, and hang in there for some reason (slowing the movement up), then just drop down slowly, that is something special. thake that away and it will be like duke3d... it absolutely CAN be done, just look at painkiller, but i mean, the main problem's that mainstream kiddies dont like that, like "OMFG WHATS THAT? THAT IS NOT WAHTS ITZ LIEK IN TEH REAL WERLD!".
- The screen absolutely must 'go red' when you take damage. If your screen indicates where you are taking damage from, or if your character becomes limp if he is shot (walks slowly) I will destroy the new Blood cd, were it ever produced.
i always hated that. but, i agree, when Cheogh cuts u with his nails for like ~100 HP, the screen MUST get super red and slowly fade back to normal... the solutions of this problem that are in painkiller are boring to me - wtf? just distorts your vision, wow, how clever. despite being a nice effect, in the heat of the battle it can f*** things up pretty bad. moreso in doom3, it also tilts... but thats another story

i'm all for a remade and updated version of Blood 1. their best bet is to sum both games 1+2 into one and this time do it right, without rushing and cutting numerous cool pioneering features that later were successfully adopted in all other games. with same team of mappers/artists/sound dudes, but the most important is the approach which should definately be...

WITH THE (CLEAR) MIND OF BLOOD that is not biased on current kiddie/mainstream preferences
WITH THE SOUL OF BLOOD thats basically having same team, something about that just works, i dunno
WITH THE HEART OF BLOOD, meaning that well, duh, it's a f*** computer game, what real s*** do you want, you are carrying tons of weapons yet you want to see some neato 'reallife stuff'? get lost if you don't dig it, but its BLOOD, goddamnit, and if u're a pussy, go play CS or HL2. this is the virtual representation of nonexitant universe, with its own rules, physics, etc, etc, etc.

got carried away a little.

and of course it must have

THE BODY OF BLOOD, which is all the stuff that was in BLOOD series, and incorporating maybe some new ideas, but main focus should be original stuff with the all cool features they suddenly dropped.

there. i'm done.