On the addition of new game-changing features in LR:C

Maybe if people make more scenery tracks, lr will gain back more publicity.

I'm not one to talk about scenery, though

EDIT: And tbh, I don't really like the idea of getting rid of the standard "single sided" line. With double sided lines, all you can do is flat sled and manuals.

Where's the fun in that?

If mhenr does get this on Steam I can see a lot of people trying out the game and it becoming popular again.

As of now nobody shows off their videos unless it's here and that doesn't help get line rider out and recognized.

Someone make an uber awesome scenery track and have Techdawg upload it problem solved

Rainbow Dash wrote:LR has a better chance of dying out. That's what will probably happen. You don't bring a old meme back to life. It's wrong.

Line Rider is not a meme. It's a toy. A tool. A canvas. A means of creating art. It combines movement and art in two ways (scenery and quirk) which have no parallel in the entire world.

I'm never going to stop riding the lines (well, at least not for the next, say, decade), because Line Rider is a unique artistic medium. Real artists don't constantly change mediums, they find their favorite and then create stuff with it for the rest of their life. I didn't grow up thinking of myself as an artist because I didn't like any traditional mediums of art, but then I found Line Rider and now I know I am an artist at heart, and this is my medium.

The problem is that Line Rider really hasn't been discovered as an artistic medium by the general public - people still see it as a distracting flash game fad. I'm not sure how this can be changed, but adding features probably won't help.

That +1 ^

rabid squirrel wrote:

Rainbow Dash wrote:LR has a better chance of dying out. That's what will probably happen. You don't bring a old meme back to life. It's wrong.

Line Rider is not a meme. It's a toy. A tool. A canvas. A means of creating art. It combines movement and art in two ways (scenery and quirk) which have no parallel in the entire world.

I'm never going to stop riding the lines (well, at least not for the next, say, decade), because Line Rider is a unique artistic medium. Real artists don't constantly change mediums, they find their favorite and then create stuff with it for the rest of their life. I didn't grow up thinking of myself as an artist because I didn't like any traditional mediums of art, but then I found Line Rider and now I know I am an artist at heart, and this is my medium.

The problem is that Line Rider really hasn't been discovered as an artistic medium by the general public - people still see it as a distracting flash game fad. I'm not sure how this can be changed, but adding features probably won't help.

Don't spew that crap. Honestly, that's not the reason why we get new members now. We get new members because people are bored on the internet, or, they are little kids who are interested in that flash game they saw on random flash sites. That's really not true anymore, in my own opinion. People look at us as a community when we say that and think we are bonkers because they don't see it the way we do. That could be the thing driving SOME people away. The elitist. If you make LR sound like gods' gift, that is.

Secondly, I never even said you would stop. I meant the community. I don't think I'll be here in the next few years. I don't stay here to play LR, I stay for the community. Once that dies out, you can bet you will see a dramatic loss of riders/members. That will kill the site. Now, I know you will object to this example, because you have before. Pretend .org is the future of irtl if we lose out members. It's not active. If LR was dependent on a active community, which it is. If you take the community away the game/toy will have no chance to live. We STRIVE on a active community. It's already dwindling. We need new members to survive. However, we won't get any. (If that isn't evident by now, I don't know if anyone can explain this to you.)

Thirdly, Line Rider USED to be a fad. It's not even considered that anymore. I don't want to also blame this on iXile, but they messed our "image" up when they released unbounded. People associate us with that more then anything. It pains me to say that you're wrong. Linerider will only ever be seen by the public as a flash game, or a failed puzzle game for the wii, or a game that one guy spent his entire life working on those anime characters in.

Rabid, everyone has their own opinions. I gave you my own, but I don't give a [censored] about your life story and how LR changed you. I think it will die out. Please accept my opinion for what it is. It's a goddamned opinion.

meme = fad btw, also expect me to respond back if you respond to me, obviously.

rabid squirrel wrote:

Rainbow Dash wrote:LR has a better chance of dying out. That's what will probably happen. You don't bring a old meme back to life. It's wrong.

Line Rider is not a meme. It's a toy. A tool. A canvas. A means of creating art. It combines movement and art in two ways (scenery and quirk) which have no parallel in the entire world.

I'm never going to stop riding the lines (well, at least not for the next, say, decade), because Line Rider is a unique artistic medium. Real artists don't constantly change mediums, they find their favorite and then create stuff with it for the rest of their life. I didn't grow up thinking of myself as an artist because I didn't like any traditional mediums of art, but then I found Line Rider and now I know I am an artist at heart, and this is my medium.

The problem is that Line Rider really hasn't been discovered as an artistic medium by the general public - people still see it as a distracting flash game fad. I'm not sure how this can be changed, but adding features probably won't help.

Cereal wrote:That +1 ^

No.

Spoiler:

If we won't get new members, why can't we add new features? Nobody will care about it and if the suck we can delete them and just keep the ones we like It's chance to revive the game and it's unwise to ignore it
(I know that is a very simple thought, but it seems right to me)

Sssschiller wrote:If we won't get new members, why can't we add new features? Nobody will care about it and if the suck we can delete them and just keep the ones we like It's chance to revive the game and it's unwise to ignore it
(I know that is a very simple thought, but it seems right to me)

Personally, let's go along with the new features, for your exact reasons. I support.

Rainbow Dash wrote:Honestly, that's not the reason why we get new members now. We get new members because people are bored on the internet, or, they are little kids who are interested in that flash game they saw on random flash sites.

And that is exactly what needs to change, and what WILL if we just keep striving for artistic integrity.

Rainbow Dash wrote:If you take the community away the game/toy will have no chance to live. We STRIVE on a active community. It's already dwindling. We need new members to survive. However, we won't get any.

Maybe that's true for you. But I see lots of people who stream all the time but don't post much - they don't need an active community, just a few people to comment on their tracks and keep them company while streaming every once in a while.

Rainbow Dash wrote:Linerider will only ever be seen by the public as a flash game, or a failed puzzle game for the wii, or a game that one guy spent his entire life working on those anime characters in.

Sorry, I can't accept that. I don't care if you're right, I won't accept that Line Rider will ALWAYS be seen that way.

Heck, I KNOW you're wrong. Hundreds of people over the last few years have seen is as something better than that.

Rainbow Dash wrote:I don't give a [censored] about your life story and how LR changed you.

says the guy who is only here for the community.

Rainbow Dash wrote:Please accept my opinion for what it is. It's a goddamned opinion.

Of course? I wouldn't be arguing with you if I didn't accept that fact that you have an opinion.

Lankher wrote:No.

I have my reasons, I'm not going to talk to you because you're retarded though. (@rabid)

Suit yourself

Rainbow Dash wrote:

Sssschiller wrote:If we won't get new members, why can't we add new features? Nobody will care about it and if the suck we can delete them and just keep the ones we like It's chance to revive the game and it's unwise to ignore it
(I know that is a very simple thought, but it seems right to me)

Personally, let's go along with the new features, for your exact reasons. I support.

I've already said I'm fine with this, as long as it doesn't look identical to 6.7.

What is bothering me is that a (again, simple and fast) 6.7 + fixes is NOT being made. We know Beta 2 works, why not make it the best it can be before trying new stuff?

I really think I'll play 6.7/mhenr's new version forever (unless I'm proved wrong, which would be great), but I do think LR has a chance if we can get a game available to the public (I call it a game, don't preach your 'toy' speech at me ). But we can't just say "Hey guys, remember 6.2? Come play it again, but with a new interface" and expect people to come flooding to WRTL. Games are released, games become popular, then they lose popularity. Then people stop playing and forget about them. That's how it works. We need something new. We should stop living in the fairy tale "oh it'll get better" world. Either enjoy it & let it die, or make a new one and let it live. You choose.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go stream LR


<3 mhenr
<3 conun
<3 kevan

^ and stream?

ACwazHere wrote:I really think I'll play 6.7/mhenr's new version forever (unless I'm proved wrong, which would be great), but I do think LR has a chance if we can get a game available to the public (I call it a game, don't preach your 'toy' speech at me ). But we can't just say "Hey guys, remember 6.2? Come play it again, but with a new interface" and expect people to come flooding to WRTL. Games are released, games become popular, then they lose popularity. Then people stop playing and forget about them. That's how it works. We need something new. We should stop living in the fairy tale "oh it'll get better" world. Either enjoy it & let it die, or make a new one and let it live. You choose.

This post was confusing, but I think you're saying if we add new features... we will probably get lots of new members?

I suppose I disagree then. I think that's the fairy tale "oh it'll get better" world. Look at Beta 3.

This formatting stuff sucks. Nevermind. Looks like I'm not going to respond after this for the sake of my own sanity. I'm off to the ER.


Read only if you care. Let's just forget everyone from the spoiled post. I just didn't want to look like a fool when I had a post saying opps.

Spoiler:

I got a pocket, pocket full of turtles.

Cereal wrote:No, I mean that the additions that Conun is making are in Unbound.

Dynamic lines: moving lines that collide (also has option of non-colliding) with other lines and points. You have to create completely new physics for that, which is actually pretty tough and more work than those InXile developers can be bothered to do.
Springs: (non-collidable) lines that act as springs when attached to other lines. NOT trampoline lines. For example, imagine a diving board, except it's a dynamic line with one end fixed and the other end connected to a spring.
Trigger lines: lines that, once touched, induces a change in the track, eg setting off a spring (still working out the mechanism)

Cereal wrote:EDIT: And tbh, I don't really like the idea of getting rid of the standard "single sided" line. With double sided lines, all you can do is flat sled and manuals.
Where's the fun in that?

Hedgehogs4Me wrote:I enjoy quirk.

I do, too. But I believe that, with double-sided lines and the above physics, I can replicate every style of quirk (a completely new style would also be inevitable). If I made all lines invisible, Line Rider's movements would be indistinguishable from that in a quirk track. Of course, there's really no use in arguing since it's all theory, so I'll prove it via demonstration when those physics are implemented.

rabid squirrel wrote:Real artists don't constantly change mediums, they find their favorite and then create stuff with it for the rest of their life.

I disagree completely. While my primary mediums exist in the form of audio and code, art does not, and SHOULD not be bound by the mediums they exist in. For example, a lot of artwork in the Modern era involves self-referential questioning of the medium the art exists in. Some artwork in that era (conceptual art) barely even has a definitive medium, eg a urinal. In addition, a lot of my ideas involving making completely new "tracks" in Line Rider actually involves constantly changing mediums. If you object and wish to respond, it would be more appropriate to make a separate thread on the nature of art. Discussions can reach hundreds of pages long.

TheRevTastic wrote:I got a pocket, pocket full of turtles.

how do i turtle in the shower

Wasn't this thread originally about keeping everything in and seeing where it goes from there, whether it's acceptable or not?

Wait for it to come out.

Conundrumer wrote:

rabid squirrel wrote:Real artists don't constantly change mediums, they find their favorite and then create stuff with it for the rest of their life.

I disagree completely. While my primary mediums exist in the form of audio and code, art does not, and SHOULD not be bound by the mediums they exist in. For example, a lot of artwork in the Modern era involves self-referential questioning of the medium the art exists in. Some artwork in that era (conceptual art) barely even has a definitive medium, eg a urinal. In addition, a lot of my ideas involving making completely new "tracks" in Line Rider actually involves constantly changing mediums. If you object and wish to respond, it would be more appropriate to make a separate thread on the nature of art. Discussions can reach hundreds of pages long.

My wording was questionable, but only for the sake of clarity. No, I don't want to get into the "what is art" discussion.

Let's find a term for artists who like to make certain kinds of art in certain related mediums, e.g. watercolor still life (arguably the majority of the artists in the world, and certainly the more traditional artists). Let's call them xs. Xs don't constantly change mediums based on fads/memes/distractions on the internet, they figure out what kind of medium(s) they like to work in and then create art in that medium for a long time. I have learned that I am an x and that at least one of my mediums is Line Rider.

rabid squirrel wrote:

Rainbow Dash wrote:LR has a better chance of dying out. That's what will probably happen. You don't bring a old meme back to life. It's wrong.

Line Rider is not a meme. It's a toy. A tool. A canvas. A means of creating art. It combines movement and art in two ways (scenery and quirk) which have no parallel in the entire world.

I'm never going to stop riding the lines (well, at least not for the next, say, decade), because Line Rider is a unique artistic medium. Real artists don't constantly change mediums, they find their favorite and then create stuff with it for the rest of their life. I didn't grow up thinking of myself as an artist because I didn't like any traditional mediums of art, but then I found Line Rider and now I know I am an artist at heart, and this is my medium.

The problem is that Line Rider really hasn't been discovered as an artistic medium by the general public - people still see it as a distracting flash game fad. I'm not sure how this can be changed, but adding features probably won't help.

maybe getting away from a flash game container where the primary host bombards you with ads and a crap interface will be a good start. people go to linerider.com to play atm and the site sucks hard. getting the primary distribution away from that and into more formalised channels such as the Mac App Store and Steam is the first step.

rabid squirrel wrote:

Rainbow Dash wrote:Honestly, that's not the reason why we get new members now. We get new members because people are bored on the internet, or, they are little kids who are interested in that flash game they saw on random flash sites.

And that is exactly what needs to change, and what WILL if we just keep striving for artistic integrity.

Rainbow Dash wrote:If you take the community away the game/toy will have no chance to live. We STRIVE on a active community. It's already dwindling. We need new members to survive. However, we won't get any.

Maybe that's true for you. But I see lots of people who stream all the time but don't post much - they don't need an active community, just a few people to comment on their tracks and keep them company while streaming every once in a while.

Rainbow Dash wrote:Linerider will only ever be seen by the public as a flash game, or a failed puzzle game for the wii, or a game that one guy spent his entire life working on those anime characters in.

Sorry, I can't accept that. I don't care if you're right, I won't accept that Line Rider will ALWAYS be seen that way.

Heck, I KNOW you're wrong. Hundreds of people over the last few years have seen is as something better than that.

Rainbow Dash wrote:I don't give a [censored] about your life story and how LR changed you.

says the guy who is only here for the community.

Rainbow Dash wrote:Please accept my opinion for what it is. It's a goddamned opinion.

Of course? I wouldn't be arguing with you if I didn't accept that fact that you have an opinion.

Lankher wrote:No.

I have my reasons, I'm not going to talk to you because you're retarded though. (@rabid)

Suit yourself

Rainbow Dash wrote:

Sssschiller wrote:If we won't get new members, why can't we add new features? Nobody will care about it and if the suck we can delete them and just keep the ones we like It's chance to revive the game and it's unwise to ignore it
(I know that is a very simple thought, but it seems right to me)

Personally, let's go along with the new features, for your exact reasons. I support.

I've already said I'm fine with this, as long as it doesn't look identical to 6.7.

What is bothering me is that a (again, simple and fast) 6.7 + fixes is NOT being made. We know Beta 2 works, why not make it the best it can be before trying new stuff?

Beta 2 doesn't work. Tracks get corrupted, it's slow when you even start consider working on a large project (and let's not pretend that quirkers attract people to LR. if anything, they drive people away - look at reddit's reaction to the evolution of LR. it's the sceners who do massive projects that get the attention from the public), you can't save tracks wherever you want and sharing is a pain in the ass. One simple miskey and you lose hours of work because the flash player quit and it didn't prompt you to save (which you can't do in flash - if the player quits there's no way for the swf to stop it). Tracks on one machine don't work on the other. You can't use the right mouse button as a developer and do useful things. The player hogs CPU and RAM and if you have anything else open good bye any chance of 40fps. The help system is broken to all hell. You can't zoom in any further past the current limits without Flash crapping out (why do you think there's zoom caps), you can't run at anything higher than 40fps without the flash player starting to go insane, and you get stuck with people who use old flash players and old builds which causes even more incompatibilities. You can't export videos so people have to use screen recorders and more often than not, they muck it up somehow (video is the wrong size, it's choppy, it's frame blended - I see this all the time and I'm also a victim of it myself) and their video makes Line Rider as a game look bad.

I spent 4 years trying to make B2 the best it could be. I'm over it. I couldn't give two flying [censored] about feature this and feature that - flash is hopeless and getting away from it has to happen before anything else.

edit: "Heck, I KNOW you're wrong. Hundreds of people over the last few years have seen is as something better than that." Hundreds? There's 2.1 billion people with an internet connection. I'd wager that 50 million people have seen/played LR since it came out - it was a MASSIVE hit back in the day. And out of 50,000,000 people, you think <1000 people see LR as art. That's 0.00002% at best. I'm not saying it's not some kind of art form, but if only 0.00002% see it as that then clearly you've done something wrong.

The fact that we're playing it several years after is was released shows it works, in the sense of "it was successful". Sure it has issues, but THAT'S EXACTLY WHY I WANT 6.8 - to fix all the stuff you just listed (and more) without making a whole new game.

And about how so few people see it as an artistic medium - THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I'M SAYING. Do you think adding new features will make people see it as a tool for art? I highly doubt it.

Your post is only enforcing my point.

also, don't double post...

(I agree with your first post completely though)

rabid squirrel wrote:The fact that we're playing it several years after is was released shows it works, in the sense of "it was successful". Sure it has issues, but THAT'S EXACTLY WHY I WANT 6.8 - to fix all the stuff you just listed (and more) without making a whole new game.

And about how so few people see it as an artistic medium - THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I'M SAYING. Do you think adding new features will make people see it as a tool for art? I highly doubt it.

Your post is only enforcing my point.

also, don't double post...

(I agree with your first post completely though)

I don't think he said he wanted people to see it as an art tool in his post.

rabid squirrel wrote:The fact that we're playing it several years after is was released shows it works, in the sense of "it was successful". Sure it has issues, but THAT'S EXACTLY WHY I WANT 6.8 - to fix all the stuff you just listed (and more) without making a whole new game.

And about how so few people see it as an artistic medium - THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I'M SAYING. Do you think adding new features will make people see it as a tool for art? I highly doubt it.

Your post is only enforcing my point.

also, don't double post...

(I agree with your first post completely though)

What, 40 people playing LR in 2012 after 50 million played in 2007? More people play SimCity 4 and it was released in 2003. Why? It's got enough complexity to still be different each time and be enjoyable every time. LR doesn't right now. It's *too* simple (juggling 3 balls is too simple, which is why the art of juggling comes from doing more than that, and not just juggling 3 balls in different ways).
Adding more to LR right now is like taking the idea of an instrument with holes in it that you blow air through and going from a recorder to a flute. The first one's ok, but by adding more you create an amazing instrument that's far more expressive than a recorder.
A Flash 6.8 can't fix any of the issues I addressed. If it could, do you think I wouldn't have done it back when I wrote 6.7?

I'm not making a whole new game. Unbound was a whole new game. This isn't. The physics engine is identical. The collision system is identical. All the line types from 6.7 are there. There's only one rider. That rider looks identical to 6.7. Which is because he is identical. This keeps everything from 6.7, except for the bad things (the big paragraph I posted about the failings of flash - that's what it doesn't have). Hell, I have a build of 6.2 on my machine that exports tracks into Unleashed format. Everything except obscene g-well stuff works. The only reason the extreme stuff doesn't work is that while the math libraries in the new version are consistent across all platforms, they aren't 100% identical to the Flash ones so going from Flash->Unleashed doesn't always work (it's like going from FP9->FP10, the less extreme stuff works but abusing the engine with g-wells will cause tracks to break when you change player versions).

This feels identical to 6.7 (except better because the render engine smooths out the 40fps output of the simulator and shows you 60fps which looks sexy - yes you can turn it off if you want to view the actual frames but there's not much reason to bother). You just have far more flexibility and power than you've ever had with track making, because you now have access to lines that don't g-well (as well as normal single-sided g-welling lines). You know how I was contemplating shaded scenery with all that jazz? I'm not any more because I watched LRG's masterpiece (breathtaking something, I forget) and thought, holy crap seeing that and realising that that's just all lines of the same type, that's cool. What I am doing is adding a fill line. Draw a shape with fill lines (the snapping helps here, you don't waste time trying to make sure the whole thing's closed) and boom, LR fills the box with normal scenery lines and replace the fill lines with scenery lines. It doesn't take "skill" to fill a box, so I'm speeding up the process. Because you don't get lag any more, you can use really (really) short scenery lines and pull off a LOT more now without things grinding to a halt.

I'm not totally deaf to people's requests/concerns, but I'm not blind to the need to do more with LR (you might not see this "need", but that's exactly the point. there's no one requesting this stuff because the people who wanted it all requested it years ago then left when nothing happened). I have to juggle both of these things, and a "6.8" isn't doing that (regardless of whether it's Flash or a full rewrite of 6.7 with no other changes).
When Unleashed reaches beta and I start inviting people to test it (and test specific things because I hate drawn out betas), you'll see that I'm striking a good balance. I know what I'm doing with this.

As a juggler, I know that juggling 3 balls in different ways can be WAY more complicated than anything I've seen yet in Line Rider, which just adds to your point.

But yeah, I trust mhenr to be conservative enough to satisfy people while still bringing in some new guys. Maybe it's just naive of me, but I think he knows what he's doing, so we should all chill out.

ah but we do juggle 3 balls many different ways in linerider, we've exhausted every single possible way of juggling 3 balls. now it's time to juggle 5 or 6 balls.