Re: Engine
 

Team Fortress Classic features maps with more than 2 teams (4 teams on some). It's an interesting concept for sure. But I believe it's too early to decide on the number of teams anyway: let's do first things first, we need a good engine with good graphical capabilities and good physics that produces a convincing player behaviour.

Battlefield 1942 uses an outdoor (non-BSP) engine. All I know of it is that its modding capabilities are limited (compared to Half-Life). I know it a little but I'm not particularly fond of the player behaviour, which could have been improved IMO. What makes this game so fun to play, according to you ?

Re: Engine
 

I think what I like best about the game is that you can fly, drive, or whatever. The maps are huge, and I love that. It means less focus on infintry aiming skills like in cs. That bothers me so much, because it is alot harder to learn if your a newb in CS, where as, in DC, you can still get luck kills, and have fun.

Re: Engine
 

Interesting... we need others point of view like yours. Point of views given by gamers on what they actually like. It will help greatly taking the right technological choices from the start. :)

Re: Engine
 

Just for fun, imagine a game where not only can there be multiple teams where aliances can be formed and broken, but a "map" can be made out of multiple related maps. Each map is played on a separate server, but are linked together to form a HUGE map. You can go from one submap to another by crossing a bondary, which takes you to another server. All your equipment, team membership, and health status (etc) comes along with you.

Re: Engine
 

...that is called a MMORPG, Rob :)

Re: Engine
 

LOL thought that was a dirty word at first :)

What I read about seems to apply to "role playing" only, what I'm talking about is a MMOFPSG.

Anyway, the idea was tossed into the mix just for fun. We could not do such a thing unless the game engine allowed for it - unless we build our own engine of course.

back to configuring Linux ...

Re: Engine
 

As I was flying my apache today in DC, I noticed how beautiful the game looked, and I only have a FX5200. I think an outdoor engine type is a much better choice.

When you play a game, especially a game with really good graphics, you immerse your self in the game universe. With a game like CS, all the maps are pretty closed in and limited, and it gives a feeling of crampedness. While this is good for a game that requires quick reactions and lots of tension, this gets quite strenuous after prolonged play. I find I can only play CS for so long without getting a bit claustraphobic.

In a game like BF1942, the maps can be huge, and this creates a feeling of openness and freedom. Now yes, if you get stranded beside burning wreckage of a helicopter in the middle of nowhere, it can get lonely running for 10 mins back to a vehical. So there is a balance, but I think you could incorperate them both into one engine, maybe even into the maps themselves.

So my suggestion is to choose an engine that leaves your options open. I am not familiar with what the capabilities a BF1942 type engine has, but I'm sure you could somehow incorperate the two of them together to create options and balance.

*edit
typo's
edit*

Re: Engine
 

What game is DC?

I have been thinking about a new game.
Are there servers for DC and 1942?
I haven't had time to chaeck into this at all.
What is the cheating scene like in DC (what ever it is ) and 1942?

Re: Engine
 

DC is Desert Combat, a mod for BF1942. I wouldn't know what the cheating scene is like as I don't play online, but I can't see it be too bad. It's not like CS where kills are based upon skill, at least not nearly as much.

Re: Engine
 

cheating in BF is pretty hard now, they just put PB on, plus the gaming engine is really hard to code

//

i suppose an outdoor (general) engine would work because you could create street settings inside an open map, so there would be open areas and then a town/village/city inside the map, thus having a closed in feeling and an open feeling

you would need to get good mappers todo this (hehe not bragging)

Re: Engine
 

The problem with outdoor engines is that they are currently unable to render indoor (closed space) environments nicely, especially because of the shadows and lighting. Outdoor engines don't cast shadows like a BSP renderer does. An indoor environment in them is an environment in which walls cast no shadows.

Re: Engine
 

hm.... thats no good... dang, I really like outdoor engines though....

Re: Engine
 

Farcry currently has a very nice engine which can do both....

Re: Engine
 

I really gotta buy that game ... but that's anyway only running at my computer at home ...

havnt found any information yet about modding capabilities ... maybe I should send them a mail

Re: Engine
 

I was going to point to farcry as well, amazing engine, damn fx5200, have to turn everything way down.

Re: Engine
 

to run farcry in quite some nice gfx, i can recommend you:

800x600x32 bits.
Everything at very high, except:

- lightning
- shadows

also, on water effects you can leave it on ULTRA high, but i have it on VERY HIGH. It looks, smooth, slink, it is unbelievable what you see on your screen. Its freaking scary. I wonder how gfx would be in the next ten years from now! :S

btw, i also own a Geforce FX 5200. 512 MB DDR ram, P 2.4 Ghz (intel).

Re: Engine
 

That "ml" is the Microsoft Assembler file.

Go to www.microsoft.com and download the MSVC Processor Pack and you'll get it.

Re: Engine
 

I am pretty sure you can take a lot of those limitations out of Quake.

Anyway, USE GOOD NETCODE!!!

Re: Engine
 

I like Battlefields 'Go anywhere, do anything' attitude. If your gonna make a game, VEHICALS ARE A MUST, they are the future of gaming :p

I personally like the look of the OGRE, there are a lot of nice images there :)

Maybe 'life-like' physics would be nice, http://opende.sourceforge.net/ is the 'Open Dynamics Engine' which could proove useful.

I've been wanting to play around in several 3D programs (including Maya) but havnt really had a reason too, maybe i could help with this?

i'd like to help out on this project in some way if i can, i have about 15pcs worth of parts lying around, have some experiance in C++, and would like to try modeling and mapping :)

oh, and yes

USE GOOD NETCODE!!! :p

[EDIT]
Also, another thing.. KEEP THE GAME FREE! the most you should ask for is donations, and just have a seperate button for it ;)
I'd recommend against making it open source, because it makes hacking easier, and maybe you should create a 'seperate' scripting language for mods (like the Unreal Engine) That way, cheating wont be too easy :)

Re: Engine
 

Free yes, but closed? Dunno. There's advantages to keeping it open. If there's holes for cheaters, then they tend to get plugged quickly. Look at Linux, it's fully open but there's few holes in it for that very reason.

If this thing ever gets off the ground we'll need all the help we can get, so please stick around !

Re: Engine
 

If you plan on keeping it open, there will have to be LARGE numbers of content checks, because we arnt just talking about 'holes' here, we will get people who will happily re-build the entire game with hacks and cracks inside it. Keeping it open source, it wouldnt be a case of 'plugging holes' because the holes may not be there to plug ;) i hope you understabd where i'm coming from here :)

[EDIT]
I've become very interested in this project, so i am gonna hang around :)
[/EDIT]

Re: Engine
 

Well, people could do the same to Linux or any other open source software but I'm not aware of it happening. Usually there's an official "approved" version for people to download, just like we see with Linux and many other OSS packages.

Someone with a hacked version of the game would have a very hard time convincing cautious server operators that they should use it over the official version. On the other hand, I agree with you that preventing cheats with an open source client will be a challange, but there's usually a solution to every problem.

Anyone with anticheat experience in here that can comment on this?

Re: Engine
 

I believe the key to making successful online games is a strong policy of game clients validation before allowing any client to connect to a game server. CRC checks, config checks, passwords, unique IDs, private/public keys, etc, etc, etc. so as to ensure every client connecting has valid, official, approved software.

Re: Engine
 

the problem would be that all these can be faked.. So long as they know what the server expects, it can in some way be faked.

Also, how will banning be implemented? Because it wont be possible to ban by anything but nickname / IP, which in most cases can be easily changed, and there would be no way to ban cheaters from all servers etc..

Maybe we should concide this as well :)

Re: Engine
 

Authentication can be done with a separate system, similar to WON or STEAM. The identification system may not have to be closed source because the connected server would do the authentication through a trusted authentication server. The trusted servers would be published by the official "owners" of the game system.

Verification of the client software is likely to be a complex topic, but I know there are ways to prevent cheats even when the client is open source. One simple method (for example) is to allow only pre-compiled "official" versions of the client to be authenticated by connected servers. The source may be open, but if you compile the code yourself, it will exclude "something" critical that only the official precompiled version contains (which is kept secret), without the correct version at hand, connections could be refused by remote servers. If need be, the server binaries can also be precompiled as official releases. Hopefully someone with cryptography and authentication expereince will join the project and lend a hand to sort this one out.

Re: Engine
 

thats where Keys come in, each key lends to a GUID each GUID is, matched to the server record of install,

on install guid is sent to server the server sends a signal to pc with a new key that new key is the one that is specific to pc, and thats what is checked by the verf server, if 2 of the same key are online both keys are flagged and neither key can be used

Re: Engine
 

its nice to know that my name for this company is still a hit enough to make a forum on it.

me = Chief Level designer/Waypointer

i cant wait........are you guys still serious about making a game with our amazing bots? or whats the deal here?

whats the scenario base?

Re: Engine
 

interesting concept, maybe we could use the same sort of authentication for connecting, so before connections are made to the server, the game will scan hardware, then send that info, where the Auth server will then generate a key based on the info provided, and compare them, I'm sure theres something hardware based that gives each component a 'unique' id, then maybe from there, we could use Mobo, BIOS and Processor Id to generate it (The rest can be easily changed).

The 'missing code' bit is a clever idea, and in theory would work a treat, maybe with a pre-compiled 'Authentication' DLL (or .so based on platform) that comes with the server version (the only part that wouldnt be open source), and somehow make it so it cant be reverse engineerd. This will add the ability for server to add certain features and compile it themselves without having to worry about authentication. (Rather than a seperate 'Official' server. Opinions?

Re: Engine
 

What about level editors?
I've seen quite a few open source engines around, but not many editors, which has stopped me from even considering most of them.
I just think that while a game is nice and all, people won't do much with it if there's nothing to make levels, etc, with.

mirv

Re: Engine
 

its not worth concidering level editors untill we have decided things like:

1) What engine we are gonna use (i just looked at the Ogre3d Demos, and.. well.. its great :p)
2) what type of map we are gonna use.. This one is a little more complex, WE havnt completly decided how the game is going to work, if its going to be very open (ala bf1942), which would require a lot more work (but could be more rewarding gameplay wise), or if its going to be 'closed' areas (ala Half-Life), in which case we could use BSP (which has loads of editors, but may limit gameplay). Its a careful mix, but at the end of the day, its up to the developers to decide :p

Re: Engine
 

For the engine, I would say Quake. Look at this:

http://tenebrae.sourceforge.net/inde...creenshots.txt

Anyway, you could always keep a closed-source security module.

Re: Engine
 

I dont think the quake engine is an ideal 'base' maybe a few aspects of it could be useful.

[EDIT] After looking closely at those sceenshots, they kinda look 'tacky' for modern day games. Take a look at some of the Ogre3D screenshots (http://www.ogre3d.org/modules.php?se...view_album.php), imo that engine looks so much nicer :p[/EDIT]

Re: Engine
 

no more quake man

cant even make a huge outdoor scenario......which is something we are more looking into....Ogre seems to be able to do that and it supports LOD and terrain editors.

Re: Engine
 

why doesnt someone sit down and write an engine, no game in mind just an engine (unlike me who has got a game in mind and the game is massive, i mean massive 32cities fully rendered kind of massive)

Re: Engine
 

you mean, why doesnt anybody has 15 hours free time each day for 2 months at least ?

Re: Engine
 

Aspirin man, if you're able to write an engine in 2 months I'll eat my hat!

I know your coding skills are extraterrestrial, but still...


Back on track, why would we bother writing an engine which would turn out to be WORSE than what Ogre can currently do, that we would need to MAINTAIN, that would not be so nicely written, that would not be so easily integrable, that would not be so well documented, that would have no prior user base nor support groups, etc, etc... ?
What's the point of putting our time HERE whereas we could put it ELSEWHERE ?

Re: Engine
 

haha pmb, I can write an engine in 2 month ... no problem. maybe a tetris engine or something similar :P ava4ar said he isnt sure about the size of the engine :)

extraterrestrial skills ?! you know how productive I've been the last months ? take a look here and you'll see that you'd been by far more productive at least about the bot topic

or maybe we should think about coding a game yet, but about coding the engine :)

back to topic : yes, the OGRE engine looks nice, and I agree that we should better not hope to have some 3rd party software sometime which isnt available yet ( I guess you don't know what game engine I'm talking about ;) ). and the need to have both nice indoor and outdoor capabilities ... well, maybe we should first discuss what we're exactly up to, what the game we wanna create ...

Re: Engine
 

Here are some links for you:

http://www.openrm.org/ <---scene graph management library (free)
http://cal3d.sourceforge.net/ <---skeletal animation library (free)
http://www.libpng.org/ <---PNG compression library (free)
http://www.zlib.org/ <---compression library (you guessed it, free)

BTW, http://genecys.sourceforge.net/ was made with a bunch of free libraries, check out some of them on the bottom.

Re: Engine
 

come on guys, writing an RTS engine is easy to do in a week (with 8 hours a day programming). But a 3D engine would be a total different story :)

Re: Engine
 

In a week?...damn man, what do you eat for breakfast?