Exploring the FPS side of Spring in constructive ways.

[smoth]

ALL spring fps needs is better controls similair to normal fpses.
If that is done fpses will be made naturally by spring devs.
Battlezone style gameplay would than also be possible which would be an awsome way of experiancing spring IMO.

Lua.

no, lua isn't going to make an RTS engine a proper FPS shooter engine.

[Hoi]

I'm talking about better controls, read the quoted post.

[smoth]

and again, no that isn't all spring needs for a fps.

[Hoi]

I never said that, I was just talking about the controls.

[IllvilJa]

@Smoth: Well, Spring won't be useful for creating the next open source Counterstrike or Quake or such (for that Sauerbraten and Assaultcube may be worth checking out) and neither will it be useful for creating anything like an open source Crysis (by too far demanding graphics and physics).

However when looking at more slow paced shooters where vehicles and infantry are involved (and where graphics and physics demands are more reasonable) I think the Spring engine is the closest match available on the open source scene. Tradeoffs WILL be necessary even when having Battlefield 1942 as a distant, unreachable vision of what to achieve but nothing says that the resulting game with it's trade-offs still can't be a very fun FPS, even if it never get's close to resembling the BF1942 (or less BF2) I have in mind. If we throw in the RTS element into this mix to create a multiplayer FPS+RTS hybrid Spring becomes even more viable. (The RTS part in this visionary game can be seen as a more extreme form of the "Commander" role in Battlefield 2)

Spring have a number of properties I find very promising for creating an open source vechicle+infantry FPS as per MY personal preferences:
* the unit models and physics are very simple and thus the resulting game, if it ever becomes a reality, will be runnable on pretty modest laptop hardware. Ok, the physics might have some minor enhancements e.g to permit wheeled vehicles to move more realistic but other than that one can get far with what's already there.
* Spring is almost obscenely customizable using Lua, and I don't mind such obscenities if necessary for getting this game going.
* The game mechanics are pretty much complete (movement, combat etc) even if there are some few FPS specific features that likely will crop up and require some additions to the Spring engine. (Vehicle/crew concept comes into mind.. .that is, player controlled infantry men can enter, operate and exit larger units like tanks etc like in the Battlefield games)
* the game is open source
* the community is not "discussing-features-o-fobic" or at least not as fobic for general feature brainstorming as I've seen in at least another open source online combat game project....

I think a hybrid FPS+RTS game similar to good old Urban Assault would be quite viable to implement in Spring. Sure, Urban Assault had crappy physics, simplistic 3D-models but it worked well gamewise. (and it could be played and be fun on a laptop!)

So ruling out creating an FPS on Spring I think is too early.

Other random notes on subject: this thread were originaly focused on ways to "sneak" (or encourage or enforce) FPS play on a larger scale when playing "normal RTS" mods (even if I admit that I mainly have P.U.R.E 0.55 and Spring44 Beta lite in mind. So one thought there is to add a "enforce FPS" feature to the game when hosting. The concept is that during "enforce FPS" a unit never can open fire or return fire while it is under the default "RTS control" but instead it is required that a player on the side enter the unit. If this could be done in a way that actually inactivate the "bot AI" of individual units (so they REALLY gets passive when no player is entering them in FPS mode) we get the bonus that a lot of CPU is saved (as the bot AI never runs). Of course, the bot AI will still be needed to drive construction units to the places they are ordered to construct stuff, so probably the autonomous bot AI still will be needed in the units.

@Hoi: I saw your reference to the thread about that third person shooter kind of game. I have not had time to test it (wished I had) but from I read I saw a few troubling things:
* third person shooter perspective is something I have some issues with (don't like WoW for that reason and I'm not happy with the upcoming Battlefield Heroes for that reason either.
* there seem to be hordes of autonomous units in the mod, which is something I would like to aviod when designing a FPS mod. Sure, those autonomous bots are a core feature of an RTS like Spring but I think it is difficult to combine that with a lot of player controlled units. Instead I would rather have non-player controlled units be passive (or perhaps just obeying to move commands). I suspect that the large amount of autonomous bots also may contribute to the game being laggy when more than 4 players participate (and my aim is to have far more players than that).

@Gota: Yes, I remember good old Battlezone (and I'm talking about the OLD Battlezone, the arcade game with green vector graphics) and damn, creating an multiplayer FPS/RTS hybrid game in Spring with just slightly better graphics could be interesting.

@All: there is another current thread running regarding the FPS mode in general, so that one is also worth checking out. Unfortunately I cannot find the thread (should have bookmarked it) and the search engine don't seem to pick it up (there were posts in it this October and I've been looking for it in 15 minutes now so...). I'll edit and add URL to it if I stumble upon it.

Ok, by far enough for now. Time to send that email to my old clan mates and tell them about Spring, Springlobby, P.U.R.E 0.55, Spring44Beta and some cool maps... We better get our "midweek mayhems" going again, but this time in Spring FPS mode instead of Battlefield 2 or some BF2 mod...

EDIT: Found that other FPS thread... viewtopic.php?f=21&t=16340

[Regret]

It's possible to make a perfectly functional FPS from spring using Lua.

However, this goes only for singleplayer, for multiplayer the netcode is a bit sluggish to fit a FPS game. On the other hand it can be sufficiently exploited to create a quite smoothly playing FPS.

[smoth]

Orly regret? I strongly disagrea, the maps alone will make it look like something from 96/95. The level of detail, collision detection and response to the controls will not be good enough for a FPS. NOT ACCEPTABLE. The fps mode is neat and better controls would be nice.


However, we cannot have mesh based collision only primitives. We do not have md5 support until zpock & kloot get it done, we have no good way to handle organics. Fps require precise response and timing for good reaction. The map format is not good for a FPS, sure for a RTS they are passable but until SM3 is done this is not a suitable engine as the map texture texture is failure. Finaly as you said, we do not have good response for multiplayer.

IllvilJa: Source, Xna, OGRE all are capable of easily and better handling an FPS. Spring is not the engine to try this but you are awful convinced. So go ahead and do what you want.

[IllvilJa]

IllvilJa: Source, Xna, OGRE all are capable of easily and better handling an FPS. Spring is not the engine to try this but you are awful convinced. So go ahead and do what you want.

I think "pathologically obsessed" more the case than "awfully convinced". But you do have a bunch of good points regarding problem areas for Spring and I'll keep them in mind. Some of those are less of issues for me, but that is mainly because of my personal preferences (e.g, the map texture resolution used in Spring works fine for me in an FPS), preferences I do know many other FPS fans do NOT share.

If my clanmates enjoy the experimental FPS games once we try it, I'll try to bring in some more people from the Swedish BF2/BF1942 community into the experiment. Yes, I am a madman, most of those BF2/BF1942 folks will just go ROFL when they compare the Spring FPS experience with the BF one but you never know... some of them might have bad taste enough to actually remain interested in it.

[Argh]

Y'know, if I didn't think it was totally irrelevant to what I want to do, I'd just sit down and do it, just to show that it's doable.

This really would not be hard to implement, just minor-ly time-consuming to do *right*.

[smoth]

IllvilJa, I can understand, in the end man, if you want to do something I surely would not be able to stop you. I just hate seeing someone wasting time when there are easier ways to do it. That is MERELY my opinion and I was trying to save you from what I felt was a troublesome endeavor.

We have had several fps projects come and go with little to no sucess, even 2 different aircraft projects.

[Teutooni]

Fpsing moho exploiters used to be great fun in BA...

Problem is mods don't encourage fpsing enough - the AI does the aiming better anyway. Players need some kind of a bonus to unit strength while fpsing. I loved CA's free dgun while in fps mode.

[ZellSF]

We can laugh as much as we want, the fact of the matter is that in non-TA players, the FPS mode is one of the biggest selling points.

How's that a fact? Sounds like an assumption to me.

Because if you speak to anyone who doesn't know anything about Spring, it is a fact that always raises eyebrows when you mention that you can jump into any unit and drive it around the battlefield. It's a gimmick, and an averagely-implemented one at that - but people love it.

I was interviewed for PCG for IW about a year ago. In the several pages of information I gave them, I mentioned briefly that you could hop into any unit and fly around the battlefield. Guess what they decided to use as the penultimate line at the end of the article.

People you know and a magazine mentioning a feature you mentioned hardly makes it fact that FPS control is Spring's biggest selling point. Now I wouldn't disagree with the assumption, it's just not fact.

[[TS]Lollocide]

Fpsing moho exploiters used to be great fun in BA...

Cheating:

See: FPS'ing a Moho exploiter.

[imbaczek]

tried in 0.77?

[Teutooni]

If you consider any bonus to fpsing (in this case the increased range of moho exploiter) cheating... well whatever. I just gave a few examples where fps mode was actually worth it in some situations in a traditional rts.

[REVENGE]

There is one specific case in BA where a 1st person view grants you an advantage: dealing with a comnap+comsassination attempt. In that case, you can keep DGunning while continuing to avoid transports.

[Warlord Zsinj]

People you know and a magazine mentioning a feature you mentioned hardly makes it fact that FPS control is Spring's biggest selling point. Now I wouldn't disagree with the assumption, it's just not fact.

There is a clear difference between "is spring's biggest selling point", and "is one of spring's biggest selling points". Please don't twist my words. I obviously don't think the FPS mode is the best thing Spring has going for it, and I didn't imply this in any of my posts. Obviously Spring has many things more important then FPS, but I strongly believe that it is a fact that in the general public, one of the most attention grabbing abilities of Spring vs other RTS's is that you can control your units.

Now, seeing as you're so happy to mince my words and blur reality to suit your ends, why not pull your head out and not get so antsy over a turn of phrase

[ZellSF]

If you said "Spring's biggest selling point" or "one of Spring's biggest selling points" is pretty much irrelevant to the argument, neither is fact, and I wasn't trying to twist your words, that's just you trying to change the argument to suit your end, while trying to insult me.

[BlackLiger]

I'm sorry, can both sides of this argument please provide evidence?

[Warlord Zsinj]

I didn't realise I was in an argument, but either way, I really have no vested interest in this discussion at all, especially with an oversensitive pedant

I haven't commissioned any fact-finding missions to prove that it is one of Spring's biggest selling points, but in my experience, and from my interactions with other people, from the evidence I've seen, I strongly believe that it is one of Spring's biggest selling points (which is an entirely different point to being Spring's biggest selling point), just like I strongly believe in the theory of gravity.

So, as I said before, it was just a turn of phrase, and I wasn't positing a scientific thesis - the fact that I used the qualifier 'one of' already implies something subjective that can't truly be quantified anyway. I can reword. "It is my strong belief that it is one of Spring's biggest selling points. All of the evidence I have seen thus far points to this."

Which, I believe conveys the exact same point I was trying to convey in the first place