Dawn of War Soulstorm Remake in Spring - opinions

[Dark_Ansem]

I was wondering how problematic it would be to remake the Dawn of War Soulstorm game, and its awesome mechanics, in Spring.

Besides copyright issues, even if THQ was shut down

at least the LUA script language could be used, I think. then there would be the issue of all the awesome mods that exist. then the unique mechanics (souls, faith etc).

Or perhaps the Spring executable could be used to run the game, like GemRB for the Infinity Engine games?

[Silentwings]

I don't know the game well but yes, I would guess that this is broadly speaking possible.

[Dark_Ansem]

the main problem with that game is two-fold:

steam ruined it
AND
the engine is old. VERY old. makes it almost unplayable.

[Forboding Angel]

Iirc, while things might not be 1:1 exact, you could get them very, very close.

[Dark_Ansem]

that is good. that game was awesome.
what about mod support?

[Beherith]

Please elaborate on what you mean by mod support.

[Dark_Ansem]

allow the great mods for that game to be used in the spring version

[SinbadEV]

that is good. that game was awesome.
what about mod support?

allow the great mods for that game to be used in the spring version

An RTS game is made up of many... let's say "fiddly bits"... if you port all the Dawn of War Soulstorm fiddly bits to Spring there is nothing stopping people from porting other DoWS Mod fiddly bits to Spring and packaging them up as a Spring Game, Mod, Special Rules Map, Mutator etc... but there is very little chance that you would be able to make it possible to simply use an existing unmodified DoWS Mod with your Spring DoWS Port.

Also... just a heads-up here... Games Workshop have been over-protective of their IP since before it was cool... You can do what you want but there are people around here who might be unwilling to help you for fear of being implicated in your doom.

[Dark_Ansem]

you're not a prophet, so...

besides, GW might be, but Relic and THQ have fallen, and no license has been renewed. even DOW3 has been "put on hold" indefinitely...

[Anarchid]

Let's ignore the copyrights and get technical.

1) No, it won't easily run mods even if you succeed in reimplementing DoW in Spring. The engines are simply that much different. You might try to walk an extra mile or twenty and create some kind of conversion utility, but i don't think it would work well even then. At best, it will save you some manual reimplementation work.

2) There are some limitations to Spring that might make things hard:
- Currently the animation system does not allow for non-linear interpolation of movements.
- There's currently no way to get mesh deforms, so all those organic units - say, Chaos daemons, kroots, tyranids and such - are SOL.

-----

IF we're not ignoring copyrights, i think you should talk to Azaremoth. The guy is responsible for Cursed, which is "kinda" dawn-of-war thing, but with factions subtly renamed, etc.

Good old Count Orlok stuff works even in twenty-first century.

[zwzsg]

allow the great mods for that game to be used in the spring version

No.

No way you could take a DoW mod, dump it in Spring, and have it work.

However, you could rip the assets of the mod, port them to Spring yourself, and it would save time compared to redoing everything from scratch.

But there's right issues (some modders are very protective of their work too).

[smoth]

Odds are you would never complete it

[Dark_Ansem]

Odds are you would never complete it

true. especially considering I have no idea where to start. still worth a try tho, being based on the same scripting language LUA, unless I am gravely mistaken.

[smoth]

It would be better to invest your time in trying to get what is left of the company to put out the source. That way in the future there is potential for a "source port" if you are unfamiliar with this, then you need to search for this. It is when someone takes an older engine and updates to run on modern hardware/os/rendering methods. Several quake games have them as does descent.

[Dark_Ansem]

problem is, the company was dissolved and Relic has been acquired by Sega. Which is NOT famous for customer feedback, not even for the PSO series.

Chances of that are almost non-existant.

[FLOZi]

Odds are you would never complete it

true. especially considering I have no idea where to start. still worth a try tho, being based on the same scripting language LUA, unless I am gravely mistaken.

Is irrelevant - it is the API that matters, not the language syntax.

e.g. Windows and Linux are both written in C/++ doesn't mean you can (natively) run linux software on windows.

Also, DoW engine is arguably more modern than Spring (2004 for original, 2008 for Soulstorm vs 2004/5ish for Spring), although Spring is constantly updated.

[raaar]

my 2 cents about trying to "clone" copyrighted material into a Spring engine game : don't do it, even as a hobby project.

not worth the time. It may seem doable at first, but then you'll keep finding that the manual conversion of whatever is available (even if you try to automate parts of it) takes longer than you thought, that people don't care, that the latest engine upgrade broke something in your game. Sometimes you'll get a lot done in a weekend, but then other life stuff shows up,etc....Weeks turn to months, then years.

if you can develop custom units, art, code, etc. then you can try to make a similarly themed game without infringing copyright. After it becomes good enough, then you have way more options to draw players into it without that dark copyright cloud hanging over your head.

copyright infringement closes too many doors.

[Dark_Ansem]

Odds are you would never complete it

true. especially considering I have no idea where to start. still worth a try tho, being based on the same scripting language LUA, unless I am gravely mistaken.

Is irrelevant - it is the API that matters, not the language syntax.

e.g. Windows and Linux are both written in C/++ doesn't mean you can (natively) run linux software on windows.

Also, DoW engine is arguably more modern than Spring (2004 for original, 2008 for Soulstorm vs 2004/5ish for Spring), although Spring is constantly updated.

DOW engine is older, around 2002, as it is a Heavily modified version of the Impossible Creatures engine.

[FLOZi]

And it is a commercially produced engine with art done by professionals. Spring in '05 was way behind DoW in '05. I know. I was there.

[Dark_Ansem]

I still think it's an impressive open source engine :)