New Game Development: Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds II

[Pyrometheous]

Hello everyone, I want to first admit that I'm fairly green to game development, I've only made 2 or 3 games that were very simplistic and not to the scale at which I'd like to complete with this project.

So now that's out of the way, I would like to re-create the amazing RTS SW:GB CC, otherwise known as Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds Saga. I've seen that there was a similar project done in the Spring Engine(SW:IW) for anyone that was involved in that project, I would sincerely love to have your help with this. Currently I have a two person project, both are experienced programmers, however not too much experience in game development to date. I've owned the original game for many years, and I'm planning on recycling much of the original content (audio, tech trees, likeness of menus, etc...)

No one thus far has any experience with 3D modelling, if anyone within this forum is interested in working with us on the project (Completely open source and for personal use only *not for profit at all*) pleas reply to this post or send me a message.

We are currently in the process of taking apart the original game and extracting files, doing research and categorizing everything. Our goal is to have 1 playable civ with working ai, and at least 1 map playable with 3D models (prob no animations) by the end of the year.

Please reach out if you are able to help in any way.

Thank you all

[smoth]

Don't extract content from a game and bring it here. You are violating the eula

[Gnomre]

I personally wouldn't care if you used any of the IW assets, but I do not speak for the entire team. I've linked Zsinj to this thread so he can throw in his two cents, and I'll try to get a hold of Lynx (Wolf-in-Exile on these forums) as well.

Lynx in particular will be a harder sell because he doesn't like people modifying his artwork. Zsinj was always just picky about people taking our work and just rebalancing it, because we spent something like 4 years on the project, not counting the pre-Spring time. I'll tell you this much, we thought it would only take about a year to crank all that stuff out back when we started, and we had a pretty rounded team. Your goal of having anything done by year's end without even having a modeller is, sorry for the painful truth, laughable. You'd be lucky to have anything ready by Christmas 2014 unless you have a team of like 10 people.

They would both more than likely go along with it if you wanted to pick up IW and continue it down the gameplay path we more or less set out. There's a public release out there you can mess around with to get an idea for the gameplay we had going, and if you like it, most of the second-tier and end-game units were finished artwise, but needed animations and effects and all that jazz.

I'm relatively confident in saying that the map(s? I know Beherith made two but I think only Xelric got released) can be used. Beherith is active enough that he'll probably pop in and throw in his two cents, and Zsinj shouldn't care about the few map features it has. But don't take my word on it til you hear from them.

[edit] Oh, yeah, I meant to echo smoth. Don't rip content from GB, in fact, don't even use the name. We never got threatened, since the powers that be were always pretty lenient when it came to Star Wars mods because it was always practically inevitable, but we figured out that you were on the fast track for getting shut down by using commercial assets, claiming any kind of official affiliation, or trying to sell your stuff. And now that Disney steers the ship, I'd definitely tread lightly, even though we're talking about assets from a game that's like 14 years old.

[FireStorm_]

If I may give you what I think is a very important tip, it is the following:
Start small, maybe grow big.

I think you have a pretty good grasp of what the word Saga means,
But if I look it up one explanation says: "long, convoluted story"
So that is tip 2, when you use an existing IP, an existing fictitious world, it is very hard to start small.

Lastly I think 3D modelling is super fun.
I'd personally rather have 5 models that were totally mine, instead of lots and lots of models that are someone else's work AND still need even more work.

But more importantly, if someone wanted to use those 5 models, I feel they would have to deal with me, get my permission at least.
You agree, right? If they where made by you for instance?

Well, I think it is wise to expect mister Lucas or people who represent interests to feel the same way about their stuff.
So tip 3: don't just borrow art, find out if those people think it's no problem or maybe a problem.

Please reach out if you are interested in more tips (seriously)
(one more, to show I do mean well: be advised if you intended to use mesh deformation.)

[Pyrometheous]

First I'd like to thank everyone for their feedback.

Smoth, I am not intending on distributing anything publically nor do I plan on Putting any of the original game content here. This is merely my own way of taking a game the I love from my High School Days, and bringing it into the modern world for stability and fun, primarily for me to play with my fiance, and other friends. So in doing this I don't believe I would be violating the EULA (although please correct me if I'm flat wrong about this).

FireStorm_ would you be willing to partake in this project with me? I'd really love to use original Models from someone, in place of scouring the internet looking for models and animations individually. I'd greatly appreciate any help you could offer.

Gnomre, I appreciate you looking into this for me, and yes it may be laughable to think that we could have any sort of alpha playable by the end of the year, perhaps you could assist in providing more realistic goals for this project? I'd like to take the voice/sound/music from GB itself, and adapt its tech tree, largely I just want to re-create the same look and feel of that game, only modernize it. I am very ok with changing the name to anything else however, I'd even be ok with taking Star Wars completely out of the title. As this is only for personal use, and I have no plans to profit from this in any way, I think it'll be ok, but perhaps I should reach out to Disney about my project before going much further?

Thank you all once again for your feedback, I really appreciate it.

[FLOZi]

OP is not clear if you intend to do this with Spring or produce your own engine?

[FireStorm_]

@Pyrometheous
I'm flattered by the invitation of course, but i am currently already quite involved in a spring project that already supplies me with a number of commitments and interest.

When the super flexible schedule allows it I have occasionally helped (or tried to help) other projects when I felt like it. I like helping sometimes for some reason .

So what I can offer is all my knowledge of my modelling process, although it isn't that personal, and some handy use of the search function and wiki on this site, can already unlock such information.

Asking about things or specific encountered issues is no problem of course, since there ought to be a lot of people here, including myself, who can relate and might try to help/give advice.

[Anarchid]

I am not intending on distributing anything publically nor do I plan on Putting any of the original game content here. This is merely my own way of taking a game the I love from my High School Days, and bringing it into the modern world for stability and fun, primarily for me to play with my fiance, and other friends. So in doing this I don't believe I would be

... sane. Spending the whacked amount of work needed to port those old models into Spring, getting them to work all together as a single product, and all of that to then never publically distribute this work, to benefit of noone.

[Gnomre]

You shouldn't need to contact Disney or remove Star Wars from the name, but don't use the name "Galactic Battlegrounds."

I don't know your skill sets or how many are on your team or your work ethics. If you have 3 smoths with time available you could probably finish in about 3 days. But more realistically since you'll need to learn modelling and other skills which will take time. You say you're experienced with programming so you should pick up Lua without much trouble. Beyond that its hard to say. Real life tends to get in the way of these unpaid works of nostalgia sooner or later.

[Forboding Angel]

Don't extract content from a game and bring it here. You are violating the eula

And in the context of spring... "Oh the hypocrisy."

The irony. It doth slay me.

[gajop]

And in the context of spring... "Oh the hypocrisy."

It's not if you think it's: "Please don't bring more games that violate licences, there's enough as it is."

[Pyrometheous]

Thank you all once again for your replies and support.

@Flozi, I am intending on using the Spring engine, I wouldn't have the time (or willpower) at the moment to go about creating my own engine to work with, unless someone has a better suggestion for building an RTS, I believe Spring will suit my needs quite nicely.

@FireStorm_ I totally understand, and I appreciate any help you can provide, I've attempted to delve into 3D modeling once or twice and everytime I've attempted to step outside a tutorial, well lets just say I'm very good at making a tutorial piece(like a horn or a goblet) and when I try to "customize it" I turn it into an awkward mess. Where do you suggest I begin, this is a skill I've always wanted to have, but never put enough time into mastering the basics (I feel quite dedicated about this at the moment so that should help). I've used Z-brush in the past (came free for 1 year in college) but it turned out to be outside my skillset at the time.

@Anarchid, I suppose I could remove all audio tracks, and change the name to something other than GB and distribute that onto the internet, as all the UI, and models are going to be made from scratch anyway, for some it will look similar, but it wouldn't be an exact rip. And for personal use I'll use the audio I extracted from the game. Perhaps that would be a win-win solution to this whole intellectual property deal.

@Gnomre I wish I had the time and team to make this whole thing in a 3 day window. Ha! I'd be all over that, but as you say, life totally gets in the way (an awful lot) I do have some time off coming up, I plan on getting some work done then, but as you point out I need to learn modelling first. So I'm really hoping (and choosing to believe) I can get some little bit playable by the end of the year.

@Forboding Angel I'm not sure I understand, but I believe by not calling it the same and if I choose to distribute at all outside my own group of friends, remove any content I took from the original (I plan on using original audio only), I believe I'll be just fine.

@gajop see response to "Forboding Angel" and advise if additional steps are required to make my project "legal" or what not.

Again thank you all, and I appologize for the delay in my response, as Gnomre commented "Real life tends to get in the way of these unpaid works of nostalgia"

EDIT: What does everyone think about the name "Star Wars: Galactic Conflicts"?

[Anarchid]

I suppose I could remove all audio tracks, and change the name to something other than GB and distribute that onto the internet, as all the UI, and models are going to be made from scratch anyway, for some it will look similar, but it wouldn't be an exact rip. And for personal use I'll use the audio I extracted from the game. Perhaps that would be a win-win solution to this whole intellectual property deal.

Sounds like a much better plan! And maybe you'll even find somebody to help out like this :)

It's completely possible for music to reside in "user", not "game" space, for ex. you can use your own tracks with Zero-K instead of included ones, so you wouldn't even have to tech that out.

[FLOZi]

If you are planning on using Spring, then I heartily endorse continuing the development of SW:IW.

(Also split it into 4 factions 'cos imperial remnant using droids is lolcanon, also it'll annoy Zsinj)

[Pyrometheous]

If you are planning on using Spring, then I heartily endorse continuing the development of SW:IW.

(Also split it into 4 factions 'cos imperial remnant using droids is lolcanon, also it'll annoy Zsinj)

Understood, but I'd really like to do my best to re-create the gameplay I remember from LAN parties in High School. I wouldn't mind doing crossover help (my team work with SW:IW team and vice versa). But I really do want to keep the gameplay feel and look as genuine to the GB experience I remember as possible.

[smoth]

then do a mutator. Which is a module that uses an existing game as a resource. In your module you can replace and over ride parts of the game while still having access to the assets.

I think you have a goal and are not interested in the opinions here so take swiw, start a mutator and stop talking about it.

[FireStorm_]

One thing that I think might help to give you an idea how you might want to continue is to try to play the Spring game StarWars ImperialWinter.

If you'd played it I'd wonder a bit what you'd think, (even though I don't know that game that well and none of the credit for it goes to me.)

I say that because you might find it servers your purpose of having fun, and at the same time might serve as a starting point for help creating something that matches more with your vision or feelings of nostalgia.

I think that is what smoth proposes. To perhaps add things to the spring SW-game already in existence if you'd feel that need, and maybe go from there. I've often made the mistake of trying to do everything at once. You might want to consider IW took al long time to realise.
(Could someone who exactly knows tell me how long SWIW was in development before, what I know as, the Flozi release? )

As for modelling advice: I feel pretty confident with Wings3D, feel free to ask stuff about that . I do know my way around similar software, so otherwise I would be curious as to what tutorial you did, so I'd know what I was talking about.
(on a side note: I'm also curious to the games you say you made. Is there anything you could show that I can look at? )

Again feel free to ask but I advice not to forget to check out Imperial Winter first if you haven't already.

[smoth]

mutators can over ride scripts essentially changing the over all gameplay while allowing him usage of the models and stuff so he doesn't have to care about offending the modelers as his project will require swiw to run.

[Warlord Zsinj]

Hi all,

While I'm not exactly opposed to continued development, this post rings familiar of about a million other posts sitting around on this forum, ie "hi, I'm new here, I want to make [x], I have no experience working with the spring engine but really love [x]. Can someone please do everything for me?"

Which is not to discourage the original poster, but rather that I'd be nervous about giving someone the keys to IW, who could potentially go into the rather massive edifice of work by many people over many years, tweak a few values and suddenly have a ready made game. To be honest if IW is working fine as Flozi says, it just needs a straightforward installer and a half-decent marketing effort and it would easily be featured at the least on several websites if not printed magazines (remember we were published 3 times whilst unreleased including a full-page in PCgamer).

On the other hand if someone came to me with a proven track record of prior projects (spring or elsewhere), proven experience... I'd consider it very seriously as I think it is a shame that so much work is currently sitting unappreciated.

[Nemo]

Zsinj, with respect (and a good deal of understanding - we've both been at this a while, and both of us have projects we'd consider 'under-appreciated') ... the ship has sailed, IW is as popular now as it will ever be, short of you once again devoting serious time and energy to it.

anyways, Pyrometheous: start small, don't try to implement an entire design right away, or you'll get burnt out. nostalgia isn't really such an enduring motivator when it comes to multi-year projects like fully fledged RTS games.