[maxphoenix]

Hi all, i just wanted to let you guys in on a little seacret. I started putting together a team to design the next generation in Space Sims. When i get a web site up and we get a few more poeple willing to work for peanuts, ill fill you in on more.

 So far we are aiming for 2 years or less

The list of wants:
10 races
30 systems
180 (18 per race) single player missions
team based multiplay
Massive Multi Player Arenas <broadband only>
Space combat
Plantery Combat
8-30 ships per race
Infantry Combat
3-4 armour types
Mecha Combat
3-12 mecha types

The main idea behind the game is to put you in the galactic battles you have always wanted to be in. Battles with Hundreds of enemys instead of ten's of enemys. The abilty to take the battle to their homeworld and spill their blood on their own soil.

we are looking at the list of wants you guys have for the next gen, and are looking to see which ones we can fit in =)

If you guys wanna help out by modeling or coding let me know and i'll fill you in on the whole project.
           
                        Later
                     Romall Smith

P.s.
One last thing we are hoping to make it completely Mod-able,(setting up a semi offical mod group) so if you can do
Star Trek, Babylon 5 ,WingCommander or Star Wars models let us know.

------------------
Romall Smith
Space Unknown

[This message has been edited by maxphoenix (edited 04-05-2001).]

[Grey Wolf]

Unless you have a lot of experience writing code and modeling, you are going to have major problems! Just ask some of the people who tried to make FS3.

------------------
Webmaster of GTD Wolf

"It could be worse."

"'Tis only a flesh wound!"

[maxphoenix]

i have a lot in modeling as do the team i have so far but we only have one great programer and 2 novices.

were young we got a few years to throw in to this. im just hoping we can get the community behind us. if not it maybe a long trip.

------------------
Romall Smith
Space Unknown

[Grey Wolf]

I'd help if I could but I'm just no good at code or modleing. That's why I have Maeglamor on my campaign staff as the Head Modeler.

------------------
Webmaster of GTD Wolf

"It could be worse."

"'Tis only a flesh wound!"

[maxphoenix]

i understand but if you decide you wanna help in any way let me know. we are atleast a year away from launch +P more like 2 or 3.

------------------
Romall Smith
Space Unknown

[Nico]

I'am aiming to be a graphist (I'm going to learn this next year, already taken in the school), so I could apply as a ... graphist!!! yeah!!!!
Anyway, this project sounds more ambitious than many "official" games, and you plan to do it in 2/3 years? Blizzard took 4 years to make Starcraft, wich was from the begining way less ambitious. You should try to begin with something easier to do than a full scale war simulator (tm)... Try to concentrate on one theatre of operation (ground, space...). That's my thought, as I've seen lots of projects of this kind appear, then disappear...

------------------
venom2506
Member of the Robotech mod for FS2

and of Hidden Terror, the Shivan campaign

and My own page

[maxphoenix]

blizzard toke thatlong because they had to design the engine...were using the tribes 2 engine so there's about 2 years or so off the time

[Ace]

Ten races?

Look... we have enough crap on the market, if you intend on ten different groups that interact diffrently and require different tactics (i.e. think the races in Starcraft and Warcraft III) then don't make them cliche' aliens but make them human groups which are just as alien.

All plots can be done with humans, since all aliens are in 99.9% of sci-fi are humans in funny outfits.

Honestly, if you're serious get a professional writer, one who is a good, solid sci-fi writer who is known for non-cliche' writing as well as doing their homework.

Also "hundreds of ships at a time?" Get the engine to handle it, but do not design missions in such a way.

Look at real combat, real tactics, real physics, and make something fun out of that by mixing, matching, collaberating, and making excuses when all else fails.

Planetary combat in a 3d engine is frankly insanity due to the sheer size of a planet and the needing to render that, now there are ways that you can do multiple "staged" missions such as in Starlancer which allow for an illusion of descending towards a planet during an engagement, and then switiching to a seperate engine for the aerial combat.

Mecha combat? Infantry combat? You better build the surfaces like Tribes and you better make it non-cliche'

"The next generation?" I really don't think so... If you can pull it off without it's being a complete pile of Star Wars retold the Nth time, then it might be worth looking into...

------------------
Ace
Staff member FreeSpace Watch
 http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/

[NeoHunter]

Sounds interesting!!! I'm looking forward to it!!

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...and one day, Man will journey farther and faster into Space. - My thoughts

GTD Excellence Webmaster
NeoHunter<                      [b][email protected][/b]                                    >

[Neal]

Well, I tend to agree with Ace in most parts.  100's of ships.. how many polygons per ship? each ship having at LEAST one texture, that means 100 textures + of polygons.. that is, assuming you were to make it 3D.

Using the Tribes Engine... is that copywrited?

Using other's mods... is that violating copywrite laws as well?  or do you just plan those for the unofficial modded parts.

And as far as space/planet combat, are you going to transcent from space TO the planet, or just have it simply switch to the ground scene when you reach an objective.


This game does sound too ambitious. But, if you do somehow manage to pull it off, I'm for ya all the way.  However, remember the term "Mech" is copywrited by Fasa.  

As far as the cliche's go, Well, that's up to you.  Personally, I haven't seen anything "new" in the Sci-fi world in a long time.  

Now for the suggestions:

Aliens... First, don't make them all "carbon based"... What if some are gaseous in nature?  some aquatic...ect.  Most of the alien ideas have already been done in one form or another, so, making it unique will be impossible.. somehow try to make it original.  OR, do what Ace suggested, make it all human based fighting each other.

Build a resource structure to limit the ammount of ships.  Sure, it may lead to "rushes", but two types of games seem to make it big...  Either combat type with one pilot only, or strategy resource dependent games.  The only game I know of that combined both fairly well, was Battlezone.

How long is the typical game time going to be?  If it's too massive and too long, nobody can finish a game online.  Trust me, I've seen a few online games that take too long to finish, they never become popular online.  Somehow, you'd have to limit the game time to 1 hour.  Any longer will be too much.

Also, limiting the bandwidth for online gaming rules out of people.  Remember, not everyone as broadband or can get it.  Making it broadband only pretty much rules out all places except the US.  That's of income potential loss there.  Also, if a 14 year old child wants it, his momma must be pretty rich to give it to him to play online games.  

Space engine, like ace said, should be semi-realistic.  Personally, I like the I-war engine the best from ALL space engines I've played so far.  That'd be my suggestion.

I don't know if it could be possible, but item upgradability would be nice.  for example, thickening the armor of a mecha or changing the weapons, but you'd have to have weight/energy/speed ratios.  thicker armor would mean heavier/slower.

And last suggestion... don't make any "super weapons".  In all my gaming experience, the only units used online, are the most powerfull.  All the good games were based on an even weapon system.  the Mechwarrior system had heat to balance out the power of the weapons... Starcraft had resources to balance it out, ect.. But, if there were a Single most powerfull weapon (like LRM's in MechCommander), then you'll only see those used, and not any sort of medium in between.


Just my thoughts.

Neal

[NeoHunter]

Wow! That was long!  

------------------
...and one day, Man will journey farther and faster into Space. - My thoughts

GTD Excellence Webmaster
NeoHunter<                      [b][email protected][/b]                                    >

[Jabu]

I've seen ambitious projects like this fail, but I've also seen them succeed.

I just hope you fall into the latter category.

[maxphoenix]

yea that was long  

Well first lets start with the copy rights.
we are working on names for the stuff that dosen't infringe on copyrights. The mods are going to be so poeple can solve the age old question ... which show has better ships. we know that it will happan anyways so we just thought we would help the process. The tribes 2 engine has been licensed, im just waiting for the package now.

the races have been mostly chosen. we have 7 of them now and the other 3 we are gonna let the community pick. we hope that at least one or 2 will be completly new, but we also very ambitous  . the human only idea was done to death with colony wars. The humaniod with alien features has been done over and over by SW, ST and B5.

Game [b/]
Its going to be 3d like XWA or IW
The story of the universe is being written by a good writer,who is on the team. The storys so far are far from StarWars. As of now it is quite uniqe. we hope to use physics similar to B5. however we are still really eairly into development. We have a 2 advisors from the armed forces. one is a marine and the other is in the army. so the tactics will be real. The ability to modify ships with diferent weapons is something we would like but we don't know if it will be possiable.

Graphics
ships will be between 800 and 2000. the higher poly count is reserved for large ships. we are designing the game around what will be avilable in 2-3 years. so many of todays systems will not beable to handle the game on possiable even its lower settings .

 Space combat
The game is mainly in space so the space combat is going to be the most scrutinized part. having 8 ships come outof a huge carrier and take on wave after wave of 10 fighters has also been done. we belive it would be better if the carrier launched half of its complement if not the full complement to defend its self from a large attacking force. 100 ships in a single battle may never happen, but we still would like to give that option to poeple. resource management is being added to keep every one from using the battleships

Planetary combat
If we can do it we will. the scope would be large but we have a few ideas on how to handle that. If we can have real re-entry then we will. however that still in the air on if we can or not.

Mecha combat
This is a option we want to add. having customizable mecha  to take planets would add a new depth never before seen in a game of this type. The only catch is having to transport the mecha from the ship  .

Infntry combat
Tribes 2 proves the engine can handle this so we have no worries. Well as for the cliche
part...if you call being forced to take a transport to the planet and assault it cliche then to late  .

Misc
There is no gametime on the arena servers. The option to host games and play on hosted games will be there tho. The 1 or 2 arena servers will be setup to allow a few thousand poeple to play a galactic war(if the cost is to much to run, we would have to make it pay to play   ). The hosted games will be setup by the host, so time is up to them.

The super weapons in the game are going to be powerful (like the death star, Vorlon Planet Killer, or Borg cube.) however they will also have large draw backs. Such as resources,speed, and size. the availbity of the ships will be based on a ranking system.
Meaning Joe l337 logs in for the first time.
He has acess to some fighters, some mecha,
and up to a destroyer class ship.  Were as James T. Vorlon has been playing for a few weeks and has kept his rank (that will be hard to do). He would have acess to larger more powerful ships and weapons.
                                             wow that was really long i hope to get input from you guys about this.



------------------
Romall Smith
Space Unknown

[Ace]

This does seem interesting, however I would advise making the campaign something sort but extremely detailed in it's branching.

(i.e. instead of 100 missions and a campaign per faction, having one 30 mission campaign that on average you play 20 missions in however it's scripted to branch at almost every descision made so that you have extreme amounts of replayability despite the plot overall being linear, different missions will place you in different areas or the same area with a different situation)

I would still advise making the alien races human factions, as well as keeping the technologies plausible except for FTL drives which would not bothered to be explained.

One last thing, will this game engine feature arbitrary geometry modification? It does intend to be next generation...

------------------
Ace
Staff member FreeSpace Watch
 http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/

[maxphoenix]

It should if the programers do there jobs. Tribes 2 does


------------------
Romall Smith
Space Unknown

[This message has been edited by maxphoenix (edited 04-06-2001).]

[Neal]

Well, I have been in the gaming system and have seen of your idead, but seperated in various games.  here's the results of some issues:

Long campaign
Heh, Well, as far as the online game scene taking place with a big area, in an ongoing campaign... I have seen this done with Heavy Gear I.   However, the campaign turned out to be one sided, since the default selection had all the new first picks.  The southern Militia never stood a chance, since on the game scene, it would default to "northern".  Everyone first joined the northern militia, and it ended up being a one sided fight.

Even if you fixed the default selection, one perosn wouldn't want to join a loosing team.  Balancing that would be hard, and something to consider.

Items based on rank
Again, I have seen this problem with Heavy Gear I and ALSO Diablo I.  Heavy Gear's solution was to just take out the ranking system all together.  Diablo's solution was to limit the levels when you joined a game, and to totally dis-allow a new player from joining a more advanced game.  This setup would have to be handled by the server, since cheats/hacks will eventually arise.

Ultra Powerfull Weapons

Although in some areas, I've seen this happen and be able to be used effectively.  Diablo I has it's Kingsword of Haste.  MechCommander has it's LRM 20 Racks, Doom had it's BFG.  Heavy Gear had it's Bazooka, and MW2 had it's Timberwolf.  In all those, they became so popular, it became almost impossible to play a game without seeing one of those, and it ended up being one sided.  Again, I stress  good balancing.

Pay Servers/bandwidth

That could be a solution to your problem.. AND fit along side the "building up your rank" idea.   UO is a good success story, so is Battle.net's Diablo II.  However, if you combine that, with the "broadband users only" theory, then you just won't be able to have enough users to keep up the service.  Requiring broadband severely lowers the ammount of people available for your market, while at the same time, increases the traffic (and necessary bandwidth for your own servers)... I don't know where the cost/profit area would be, but I am guessing that a bandwidth dependent game would cost too much to do feasably.  Releasing the game that requires direct connects for play would open the area to eventual cheating.  You should consider that when designing, and come up with some sort of solution.

Super High polygon rate

Well, again, you're slicing off another big income potential there.  Sure, you can design your game for computers 2/3 years in advance, but to be honest, of income comes from people who don't have the money to upgrade their machines.  Remember, you're competing against the X-box, or perhaps some newer version of the Playstation or whatever... If it came down between spending $30 for a new game, they'll choose the one they can afford instead of chunking down $1000-$2000 for a new system so they could play a $50 game online.. not to mention they have to have broadband.  Do you see my major concern?

Well, I just wanted to show you my concerns, and probably shed some light as to why they've seen these ambitions rise...and fall.  

Neal

 

[maxphoenix]

thanx neal your concerns are in the right place and the sameones we had a year ago when we started thinking about this game.

We are well aware of the fact that we are tring to put 3 possiable 4 genres together.
We are kinda hoping that helps to set us apart.

yea its true that we are alienating possiable income source. However we wanna do a good game. I have seen games sacerfice playabilty so that they can get more income. Im not saying you won't beable to play with a 56k or ISDN. I am sayng that it will be optimized for broadband.

Long campaign[b\]
That is a situation that will happen anyways so we have a little surprise for the players
 once the coding is laid down and we are sure it can be done ill let you know.

Item Based on rank[b\]
this would really only apply on the arena servers. people running there own games (like QIII, UT, or T2) would have the ability to set the options of the game. That way they can chose which races or ships to allow.

Ultra weapons[b/]
have you ever wanted to blow up a planet?
many people have, and we want to give them that option. How about defend a starbase from
the mother of all space ships. Having ships of supreme power would unbalance the game a bit ,but would add for a better experiance. On the Arena servers it would be very hard to get one of these craft.

Super High Poly [b\]
Look at the ships in wing commander: Armada
and compare them to the ones in wing commander profacey (sp). The diferance is huge. Now look at  wing commander profacey (sp) and compare them to earth and beyond.

thepoint i am tring to make is that if you focus on what people can run now your game is no better then what is out now. If you look at computers only 3-4 years ago were systems 200mhz and 64 megs ram. Now they are 1000-1500mhz and 128 -1280 megs of ram. If i had started 3 years ago building on what was avialble , i would have had a good game but graphicly inferiour. So are focus is on a game that people will be able to play and still enjoy a year or 3 later  

UO has players from years back although its inferiour to AC and EQ. However EQ has made more money and built a large fan base in half the time.

thanx everyone its good to get feed back.

 

------------------
Romall Smith
Space Unknown

[Nico]

"Now they are 1000-1500mhz and 128 -1280 megs of ram."???
Hem, I just bought a new computer, it's a 900 Mhz, and I thought it was powerful  

------------------
venom2506
Member of the Robotech mod for FS2

and of Hidden Terror, the Shivan campaign

and My own page

[Grey Wolf]

And Venom's computer makes my 1 year old PC w/ 550 mhz look like crap.
[edit: Oh yeah, 100th post!]
------------------
Webmaster of GTD Wolf

"It could be worse."

"'Tis only a flesh wound!"

[This message has been edited by Grey Wolf 2009 (edited 04-06-2001).]

[Jabu]

And your computer makes my 1½ year old Celeron 466MHz look like crap