Discuss game development here, from a distinct game project to an accessible third-party mutator, down to the interaction and design of individual units if you like.
Pxtl wrote:
You know, for somebody who BAWWWWs the moment anybody says anything about you, you sure can dish it out. Not that you're wrong about any of that stuff you said, but still.
The is at least the second time he has done this sort of thing. He comes on says he has shit makes a bunch of hollow promises to people who still are interested in his work then produces nothing but hype. I think it is wrong and I feel that he does it for either attention or luls.
I am not sure if caydr is on drugs or what but his personality is so inconsistent that I have sometimes thought that maybe he has a personality disorder. i do not know pxtl, I knew I would catch some flak for that post. However, what does he have to show? GEM is something like 1-2 years old now and I do not believe that he has made much real progress on it in that time. HELL, we still have not gotten custom hitboxes(next version of spring) which are needed for his long ships.
I really do think he is just fucking with you guys and you should not get your hopes up.
And yeah, no way that GEM is 70% done. It's only 70% done in that Caydr has no idea how huge the last 30% is.
QFT. Caydr, you need to sit down with... meh, CA would be a good start... to have any idea, really, what you're up against.
Then try THIS, and see a very novel game design- Spring's not just an OTA clone any more, you're pretty much going to have to re-evaluate what's possible.
Spring has changed so much from the early stuff, games look so much better and Lua's making such a big difference in what's possible... that I suspect you're really only about 25% done with anything that will be taken seriously.
2 years ago, GEM looked ok- the models weren't spectacular, but they were all right. It would have gotten played.
Now... meh... you're up against games that are starting to look spectacular, really pro, and I think you're just asking for it if you think that you can just blithely ignore it. Even BA hasn't been able to ignore the Lua revolution, and stuff like Centipede's game, which would have been "omfg that's cool" 2 years ago, are barely even blips now, frankly, because of how things have changed.
Yeah, and lousy use of space, no mirroring, poorly optimized geometry... meh, we've already been there, done that. No point in rehashing that, reworking the models is the smallest bit of a very scary iceberg. Spring's changed so much since then, it's not even comparable, imo.
The biggest mods still use 3do so I don't think that great graphics talk is worth much, in fact I noticed some people built the sentiment that the uglier something is the better it must play.
yeah people seem to believe that good graphics cannot possibly come with good gameplay. Of course that is an old throw-back to the nineties and why so many idiots still buy into it confounds me.
I would love to agree with argh and say standards have changed but the projects that do look fantastic lack 2 major things:
A: a release
B: Time develop the balance to a point where few balance changes will be needed. This is important as players are looking for something stale.. erm stable.
Caydr, why not make spacecraft models, or adjust same from GEM, and stick them into THIS???? Add some decent CEGs, and voila, instant cool game that could be improved and added to, and made original over time. Less of a giant mess, you wouldn't have to learn a lot of Lua, and it'd be mainly about polishing something that's already interesting.
@smoth, that isn't always the case. Evo is pretty, has a patch or two every week with me adding new stuff, and is beautifully balanced.
Course I don't advertise to springers tho, so that prolly has something to do with it, and the fact that at the very minimum I want an evo specific gui, and music in the game before making a big hoopla about it. As well as the springlobby specific stuff that I'm doing. Should all turn out really nicely I hope.
When I do make said Hoopla, it definitely won't be here. Springers are mainly focused on *A, and tbh I'm fine with that.
Aesthetics are a matter of opinion while I do think it is improved, I have said several times that I do not feel it is what I would considered well done. No offense meant but I do not feel it is near professional standards yet.
*edits*
While this may seem somewhat harsh, and maybe 3-4 years ago I would have said it looks good, I do not want to give you a dishonest opinion. Of the current spring projects, I feel that the game art's professional appearances would rank as such: S44, Starwars, Gundam, Pure, Eternal conflict.
While I do know that you are trying for a unique style it is still very uncontrolled and quite unfinished. Both geometrically and texturally I do not feel that EVO is yet what I would consider very professional looking. I again wish to repeat, this is not meant as disrespect as much my attempt to be truly honest. You know I would not lie to you one way or the other. I do not ever want to let personal opinion over-ride the way I really should critique the works.
neddiedrow wrote:Caydr, I'd just make some units of original design for CA, honestly. Start slow, build up, achieve some little goals before setting a reach goal.
Guessmyname wrote:I'd consider S44 and SWS tied, personally.
sws is nice but they are able to use random tech bits to create textural detail S44 has large spaces that are fairly empty. Simple textures are always harder to pull off.
Smoth, please get out. If I make a direct reply to you and your credentials the thread's going to get locked. Just please get out, I am not interested in your ignorant opinions.
Regarding GEM being "nowhere near 70% done"
I'm only lacking two or three 3d models at the moment. IIRC either 8 or 9 completed models still need a texture job. Given the amount of time that HAS gone into the mod (I've worked on it for various engines dating back to 2002 that turned out to be too shitty to work with it), it is about 70% done. Like, if I quit tomorrow, which I'm not going to do, in 6 months or so I think I could get a polished beta released. I am absolutely not going to post a screenshot regardless of any other considerations until I have an fully finalized alpha build ready for private testing. I have already raised expectations and disappointed people this way, I am not showing off any more non-final material, it would be just the same as if I was EA and posted a full-CGI game trailer. My work has been attacked in the past because of its texture job despite massive captions "placeholder texture" before, I'm not going through that hell again.
When I say "done", I mean, complete, ingame, functioning. Unless something really hugely drastic has happened with the engine, once all of the above are in place and functioning, you are reasonably close to being done, are you not? And these are NOT the old placeholders. I'm sure these are nothing like the best of you here could manage, but they're still reasonably good-looking in my opinion. Wanna see? No, just joking, piss off, I'm not showing you.
I have already worked past the engine's problems, eg too large long ships. I'm happy to hear that the next version will have real hitbox support, but in fact I don't need them anymore.
As a result of RTS 2.1's unique design the units completed to date are not suitable for being added to CA or any other mod. It would have to be a separate race, and I don't think anyone wants a half-finished separate race added to CA. I'm NOT elaborating on this, but let me say if you've ever thought AA was not the product of a delusional moron, then trust me when I say it's not anything like you're expecting or certainly anything that could be added to an existing mod. It is doable by a single dedicated individual. When I explained about it to Noize (who is not a complete stranger to modding), he agreed with me that it would be "a lot of work" but not impossible. It is a novel concept that has AFAIK not been done in an RTS to date. Not just for the Spring engine, but for any engine at any time.
So this is clear, this thread is absolutely not making any promises about anything and I think I stated that in the first post. I'm not "teasing" anybody. GEM, RTS21, and AWS are all an absolute certainty (unless someone beats me to AWS), they will be completed and released, I just don't know what order they should be done in. The purpose of this thread is to point me in the right direction so I know what you all think I should be working on first. I cannot work on several projects simultaneously as I used to. I am doing everything in my power to have my hours reduced but all my superiors want me on full time shifts for the time being.
Every time in the past when I've suddenly made an announcement, "woo such-and-such will be done in X amount of time!!!" it's been because on that very day I was promised that I'd be moved to the weekend shift. Both times something came up at work and they needed me to stay on full time after all. Like, for instance, we got a new machine that needed someone with a strong understanding of Windows, Photoshop, 3DS Max, and vector design - well guess who they came to? Another time a guy quit just before I was supposed to change shifts so they needed me to stay on. I would NOT have posted anything if they'd said "maybe" or "we'll see". They said yes, it's going to happen. They gave me a date it would start. They had me training my replacement! And every time something's gone wrong completely out of my hands, with no warning to me, with no recourse for me.
If you found out that you were suddenly going to be able to take up your favorite hobby again and people were counting on you to do so, wouldn't you tell them that it seemed to be imminent? Yes, this happened TWICE, but see it from my perspective: the boss has already screwed me over once and he's aware that I was strongly disappointed, it seemed highly unlikely to me that he would do it again. In the past he's been a man of his word, mostly. On the upside, the second time he did it, they gave me a raise as compensation.
As I said recently, I am currently training on a new machine. I have made my needs clear and it appears that as the operator of this new machine I will be ideally suited to working a weekend shift. I'm not going to shout it from the rooftops this time, especially since my training's not even half over, but I am here collecting data on what I should work on in the event that everything goes well this time. If one of you can make that sound like "teasing", you've got to be a politician.
By now everyone just assumes you're full of shit by default because you keep announcing that something is almost done and only a few more weeks and then... nothing. People just file your posts under ego masturbation and move on.
I don't know what's wrong with you all, he asked a simple question and you're all responding with intolerance. Sure, Caydr made some claims in the past but you all can't just judge the progress of some project from that. I love AA and when it first came out it was a huge surprise hit. Maybe the reason he hasn't showed anything is because he wants it to all be a huge surprise. Just chill out and let the man enjoy his hobby.
Spring modding isn't a job. There's no reason for you all to start flaming someone because some real life events are getting on the way of a hobby. I appreciate what Caydr is doing for the community and I will now proceed to doing what most of you failed to do.
1) b, I want to see what you've been doing all this time.
2) b, sounds like this is your big project. Let's see what it's about.
smoth wrote:yeah people seem to believe that good graphics cannot possibly come with good gameplay. Of course that is an old throw-back to the nineties and why so many idiots still buy into it confounds me........
yes it can, but with not so good graphics they would be able to do things that they dont do now, like bigger maps in fps or others games without loading zones, more players in fps games, more things to do, those CPU power and RAM used because of those beatiful graphics, could be used on another things, thing that would make the game as more immersive as good graphics do.
You would be able to have some gameplay styles that are not possible today because of those CPU power, RAM....... Used by very good graphics.
FPS at large unit counts/ with more players beats graphics, it's simple. Therefor you have to balance the graphics against the load, or set it up so the player can.
