Wow this is really coming along great, I guess it turned into something more than a 2 month project :P..

But I am just curious, what happened to Urban Empires?

Quote:Original post by Swattkidd
Wow this is really coming along great, I guess it turned into something more than a 2 month project :P..

But I am just curious, what happened to Urban Empires?

Still working on Urban Empires :-) I have to finish this project first, as usual it's taking longer than expected, but will be well worth it.

- Dan

Looking great as always, 10,000 square kilometres sounds quite intriguing for game play, I guess you intend to have lots of small scale battles around the map rather than a huge gathering in the middle ignoring the vast majority of the terrain :p

Quote:Original post by dgreen02

Quote:Original post by Swattkidd
Wow this is really coming along great, I guess it turned into something more than a 2 month project :P..

But I am just curious, what happened to Urban Empires?

Still working on Urban Empires :-) I have to finish this project first, as usual it's taking longer than expected, but will be well worth it.

- Dan

That is definitely true! Look forward to seeing more!

Quote:Original post by ExcessNeo
Looking great as always, 10,000 square kilometres sounds quite intriguing for game play, I guess you intend to have lots of small scale battles around the map rather than a huge gathering in the middle ignoring the vast majority of the terrain :p

Ah, 100^2 km ... battles take place wherever the players decide...it should be interesting, im all about seeing where the users want to take it

Quote:Original post by ExcessNeo
Looking great as always, 10,000 square kilometres sounds quite intriguing for game play, I guess you intend to have lots of small scale battles around the map rather than a huge gathering in the middle ignoring the vast majority of the terrain :p

Yup, 100,000m x 100,000m ... it will also allow me to have airplanes in the game in a more useable fashion than the old Battlefield games, their BF2 maps were a bit too small for jets.

I know I'm saying this from a position of ignorance (outside looking in) but having followed your journal for a few years it seems to me you would benefit immensely from working with a producer and a designer (and no I'm not applying; i'd be lousy at both in any case).

It just seems to me you're having problems nailing down designs and making progress on actual game-play. You're caught in a perpetual cycle of technical evolution and in my humble opinion you need to lock down technical development, make do with what you have and release games, then move on to the next game or next version where you can worry about improving the underlying tech. A producer would help you stay focused to that end and a designer would help you know what features your engine/framework needs so you don't find yourself increasing the world size last minute (so to speak) because you don't fully know what kind of game you're making and are just probing and running around in the dark until you arrive at a destination you tell yourself you'll know when you arrive.

This is just my impression but again not only am I ignorant of your goals and plans, not only am I making all kinds of assumptions, but I'm completely unqualified since I'm an amateur and have been working on my own game project for years and years, lol.

Quote:Original post by Hypnotron
I know I'm saying this from a position of ignorance (outside looking in) but having followed your journal for a few years it seems to me you would benefit immensely from working with a producer and a designer (and no I'm not applying; i'd be lousy at both in any case).

It just seems to me you're having problems nailing down designs and making progress on actual game-play. You're caught in a perpetual cycle of technical evolution and in my humble opinion you need to lock down technical development, make do with what you have and release games, then move on to the next game or next version where you can worry about improving the underlying tech. A producer would help you stay focused to that end and a designer would help you know what features your engine/framework needs so you don't find yourself increasing the world size last minute (so to speak) because you don't fully know what kind of game you're making and are just probing and running around in the dark until you arrive at a destination you tell yourself you'll know when you arrive.

This is just my impression but again not only am I ignorant of your goals and plans, not only am I making all kinds of assumptions, but I'm completely unqualified since I'm an amateur and have been working on my own game project for years and years, lol.

Yea I know how it looks from the outside, and there are many details and stuff I can't talk about due to NDAs, and etc. You guys have to trust me that these are necessary updates to the tech. But also what am I going to do just pay some dude $70,000 a year to sit around and "produce" me ? I have two games Urban Empires and Armored Warfare that are artwork complete with 10,000s of assets I've created or contracted out, it's a huge task for any team of people, and I'm doing it all myself.

I have to make sure the tech is solid before I release any projects, and I'm not just going to shovel out some piece of crap that doesn't have a chance to be successful. I have worked with producers from my publisher, and other sources, and they usually agree with the changes and improvements - and why they need to be done. Plus I really really enjoy it ;-)

But yea, I don't care what anybody says I'm going to do things my way, again I know how this looks from the outside and there's nothing I can do about it.

btw. I didn't just arbitrarily increase the world size - there are factors at work I can't talk about due to NDAs and things I was/am working on with the technology...it's a long story, and one I can't talk about on a public forum.

Appreciate the advice though...demo with "actual gameplay" coming soon...I HAVE to release something soon.

It is safe to say that this is a developers journal, not a production/designers journal <grin>. Besides, what fun would it be to do as you are told?

Quote:Original post by Jason Z
It is safe to say that this is a developers journal, not a production/designers journal <grin>. Besides, what fun would it be to do as you are told?

Yup, true. He has a point though, I have to eventually finish/sell something to recoup all the $ and time I've invested. It's really icing on the cake though since I'm not in it for the $, I'd be doing this everyday for free [ I guess I am lol ].

First of all, thanks for a new blog entry,


The major positive aspects from this posts to me:

- A huge terrain is nice, I agree on this one. Writing geomipmapping for this is also nice even tho it will probably raise the minimum required spec.
- A good entity management is always a plus
- You fixed the normals of your meshes
- You are not going to rewrite the netcode


BUT

I couldn't agree more with Hypnotron.

And besides the problems he mentioned, I don't like the changes you plan / seem to have done already.


But having the option between bullet and havok seems stupid to me. One physics engine is enough as long as its stable. Could you give any reason why both are necessary?
I also don't like the fact that it's turning into another RTS. When this project started it seemed like a side project and it was cool and a rare genre: Pure Vehicle Combat.
However, first you added the on-foot part which was ok to me but even than it felt like it was going in a wrong direction as there is a good chance that it would become a new priority making it a poor FPS with good vehicles. Then you added more and more on that front and just kept shifiting the focus. "Legged vehicles" (for a lack of better name) were already killing it imo but I thought I would be able to live with it if the other vehicles were fine. To this day I yet have to see a good implementation of a "legged vehicle" in a video-game.
Now you have ships too as it seems and even planes. I have to say that I love planes, I love them because I love doing stunts - but I don't want them in this particular game.
Also the "control over cities" will make the game more and more complex. To both, you and the end-user. Yet I can't understand how this will improve gameplay because it just makes things more complex. It takes longer to get into the game as a "newb" (Just like learning controls for on-foot, boats, planes, anything..).
I also hate the fact that the game starts to become something like a "war simulator". When you first started it, it was sci-fi vehicle combat. And now its something which all the big companies do too.
I'm bored of that and its not my thing neither. I don't want to feel like a soldier when playing a game. I basicly want a modern hide and seek, paired with some cool vehicle stunts and action. It looks like this game won't do it anymore and hence I won't follow it too closely anymore (at least not the updates about gameplay - its a dev-blog after all and I still care about the technical bits).
It's a real sad development I think.
//Edit: Forgot to mention it, but I also think that the game looks way too bright now, the first screenshot is nice, but the plane and the copter look WAY too bright imo. They either need some more details or they should be darker. Maybe a more blue-ish gray would be better?

Additionally I would like to add something:
- I won a free copy of Urban Empires month or years ago on this blog.
First I was like: "Ah shit your PC is by far too bad for it anyway". Then, month later I switched to linux and was like: "No way that this is going to work". Month after that I switched my graphics card and I was thinking: "Now lets hope that wine supports it!" and now - again, month later - I upgraded to a new PC (in fact, its already half a year ago that I build this PC) and the game is still not here.
I'm not even thinking about wine anymore because until that game is out I will probably have switched to a new system or OS again.

It just feels like you don't manage your projects properly which is a shame because you seem to be a damn good developer. :(

Quote:Original post by J-Fox
First of all, thanks for a new blog entry,


The major positive aspects from this posts to me:

- A huge terrain is nice, I agree on this one. Writing geomipmapping for this is also nice even tho it will probably raise the minimum required spec.
- A good entity management is always a plus
- You fixed the normals of your meshes
- You are not going to rewrite the netcode


BUT

I couldn't agree more with Hypnotron.

And besides the problems he mentioned, I don't like the changes you plan / seem to have done already.


But having the option between bullet and havok seems stupid to me. One physics engine is enough as long as its stable. Could you give any reason why both are necessary?
I also don't like the fact that it's turning into another RTS. When this project started it seemed like a side project and it was cool and a rare genre: Pure Vehicle Combat.
However, first you added the on-foot part which was ok to me but even than it felt like it was going in a wrong direction as there is a good chance that it would become a new priority making it a poor FPS with good vehicles. Then you added more and more on that front and just kept shifiting the focus. "Legged vehicles" (for a lack of better name) were already killing it imo but I thought I would be able to live with it if the other vehicles were fine. To this day I yet have to see a good implementation of a "legged vehicle" in a video-game.
Now you have ships too as it seems and even planes. I have to say that I love planes, I love them because I love doing stunts - but I don't want them in this particular game.
Also the "control over cities" will make the game more and more complex. To both, you and the end-user. Yet I can't understand how this will improve gameplay because it just makes things more complex. It takes longer to get into the game as a "newb" (Just like learning controls for on-foot, boats, planes, anything..).
I also hate the fact that the game starts to become something like a "war simulator". When you first started it, it was sci-fi vehicle combat. And now its something which all the big companies do too.
I'm bored of that and its not my thing neither. I don't want to feel like a soldier when playing a game. I basicly want a modern hide and seek, paired with some cool vehicle stunts and action. It looks like this game won't do it anymore and hence I won't follow it too closely anymore (at least not the updates about gameplay - its a dev-blog after all and I still care about the technical bits).
It's a real sad development I think.
//Edit: Forgot to mention it, but I also think that the game looks way too bright now, the first screenshot is nice, but the plane and the copter look WAY too bright imo. They either need some more details or they should be darker. Maybe a more blue-ish gray would be better?

Additionally I would like to add something:
- I won a free copy of Urban Empires month or years ago on this blog.
First I was like: "Ah shit your PC is by far too bad for it anyway". Then, month later I switched to linux and was like: "No way that this is going to work". Month after that I switched my graphics card and I was thinking: "Now lets hope that wine supports it!" and now - again, month later - I upgraded to a new PC (in fact, its already half a year ago that I build this PC) and the game is still not here.
I'm not even thinking about wine anymore because until that game is out I will probably have switched to a new system or OS again.

It just feels like you don't manage your projects properly which is a shame because you seem to be a damn good developer. :(

Listen you have to give me time to finish things - the alternative would be to never post anything online and you or anybody else wouldn't have any idea I was even doing this work.

I am tired of having to justify my work etc, I don't need Monady morning quarterbacking from people who have no idea what is going on behind the scenes.

The plane/vehicle shader is NdotL * color_texture * shadow_map in-game... intentially, same with the water above in the latest entry - it's a placeholder.

I agree about the Walking robot that was kind of cheesy, that's out of the game now.

I'm sorry you don't agree with the new direction the game is going, but the thing is I really LIKE RTS/Action military simulator games. There are angles I will have in my game not present in anything on the market now ... I play every wargame you can think up on the PC big and small, I love that genere....the whole vehicle combat thing is not really what I enjoy....I love strategy and simulation. Besides you talk about games the 'big guys' have done, they've all but forsaken PC gaming and dedicated servers, etc...console ports.

I wish I had infinite time to spend justifying myself to everybody who thinks I'll never finish a game, or who thinks I'm doing something wrong - but...

Woow!

To think this started as a simple car game. Hehe

Technical questions:
* The first screenshot after "100km x 100km terrain...it's huge", does it have full shading on it? How many textures are being applied?
* How do you cope with floating point errors at 100km? Do you use doubles?
* How do you create the terrain? Is it a heightmap texture? What resolution do you use? a 4096x4096 heightmap means 25m per pixel. That's not much detail. How do you overcome that? Or it doesn't really affect the looks?

Other misc:
Be careful on what you add, I'm partially agreeing with the other guys up there, but I like the changes. I'm just worried you keep pushing a release date further; and the bigger it is, the harder it is to polish. But you know if you can deal with it or not.

The only thing that really looks dangerously dumb is supporting both physics engines (though I agree it shouldn't be thaaat hard because they're surprisingly completely equal similar.
You don't want to explain your reasons? Fine, I won't force them out from you. But if you don't have reasons, my advise is to meditate the cost-benefit of it. You're a developer with an artistic side, and who enjoys making video games. But if you're intending to sell the game at some point (plus deal with publishers) start "thinking as a business man" becomes important too.
Yes, it can be boring, it can suck; but it will help you to economically and financially sustain yourself, which will let you focus on better bigger games for the next time (i.e. Armored Warfare 2)

My 2 cents
Cheers
Dark Sylinc