We have released to the hosting mirrors, a seventeen minute full on air combat sequence.

This first one, “Hornet’s Nest”, is one of three such sequences which will conclude our “The Making Of All Aspect Warfare” movie series which cronicle the game’s progress from inception to Alpha and now Beta build. All leading up to the game’s ultiimate final release. The second movie in the series will feature intense ground vehicle combat; while the third will feature an engaging tactical strike in first person combat mode. Both the second and third movies will be released in the weeks leading up to the game’s release.

Hornet’s Nest is released in two parts. Part 1 (running time 04:58) shows the mission planning, asset selection and ingress to the strike area, while Part 2 (running time 12:15) shows the combat that ensures at the strike zone. Both can be downloaded for hosting only at the links.

These are in both SD and HD (1280×720), and will be on the usual mirrors starting Monday and will be linked here as well.

A word about the PC game release in order to stave off any talk of “sell-out” and such nonsense in the coming weeks.

I want to mention that all of us (at least those left) in the third-party development arena are under extreme pressure from publishers and distributors regarding the release of PC games ahead of their console versions. Regardless of what you read elsewhere or whatever rubbish the PR and marketing machines keep feeding you guys, I can tell you with 100% certainty that it is happening. PC games these days – at least to multi-platform publishers and retailers – are nothing more than “residual income”. The reason? Piracy.

Publishers and distributors – at least those who can move any reasonable amount of product and with money in the bank – have zero interest in PC games as lead-ins. And since third-party developers cannot release a console game without a publisher (with Sony’s PSN being the exception, but who in their right minds will bother risking their money to code for the PS3?) this leaves guys like us in a Catch-22 situation.

To further compound the problem, there are now less than five key retailers who control the entire gaming retail space in North America. As a result, it is that much harder to get games on the shelves, let alone PC games that don’t have a console version – which invariable have a resale value. So, if you’re not a big publisher whose sales staff has a relationship with the retail buyer, you’re pretty much on the bad side of a stacked deck of cards.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, no publisher or distributor is safe from economic strife. If you get lucky enough to find a publisher or distributor who can actually get your game into retail – and get paid – chances are you probably won’t get paid since the chances of being stiffed or the other party going out of business or declaring bankrupty has already increased exponentially.

Got a finished PC game? Can’t release it. If you release it, you automatically kill any chances of getting the console version – assuming you have one in development – published. No publisher will bother with a PC title lead-in, no matter how good the game is.

Can’t put it on XBLA either because Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, have a $19.99 (do the MS points math) price cap on XBLA games, coupled with the most ridiculously obtuse approval (and royalty) process this side of the Roman Empire. No, I’m not going to elaborate – but if you’re an approved XB360 developer, then you already know what I’m talking about.

So, come March when we’re finished with this game, we now can’t release it ahead of the console version. And that version is not due to be completed until around the end of Q3/09.

So the risk we’re going to have to take come March is if we have enough faith in PC gamers (no, not them pirates) – and indeed the game itself – to risk a PC lead-in launch; thus risking the XB360 version never seeing the light of day. Without a console version, we stand very little – if any – chance of recouping our dev costs, let alone turning a profit.

That, sadly my friends, is the state of PC gaming as a whole. But as a PC gamer and game developer first and foremost, I have faith in the goodness of the gamers who buy and play our games. The rest, I will leave to the Gods of all things ludicrous.

Enjoy the movies!!

First of all, welcome to the new site and home of all AAW dev blogs going forward.

We’ve come a very long way since Alpha and are now firmly in early Beta territory. Pretty much all the tech is nailed down and complete, with the exception of some revisions and tweaks to physics and such.

We have recently been mostly focused on the fps gameplay elements since all other elements (e.g. air combat, dynamics, AI and such) are already implemented, nailed and done with.

Doing a LARGE open world game for air combat purposes, is bad enough as it is. Then you go and add vehicular and fps combat to further add to the complexity. A lot of games which have features like vehicles and fighters, tend to be more focused on the fps aspects while the air and ground combat areas tend to be lacking. A lot of time you find that gamers get very frustrated with the handling of such assets because quite frankly the engines used weren’t designed for those purposes. Writing a vehicle let alone fighter controller in an fps game engine is not for the feint at heart and can lead to all kinds of problems. (more…)

Another feature of our new terrain engine apart from the dynamic time of day transitions and such is that the various regions are subject to climate variations which in turn feature various weather patterns. Each region blends from one to the next (e.g. moderate to artic) in a manner that allows it to rain on one section while there is a snow storm in another – be it day or night.

These new shots show various climate zones which are varied across the game’s 400 sq. km region in which the stranded player and team have crash landed. Our goal for the terrain engine (which we wrote from scratch) was to provide high res visuals at any altitude, given that the game features first/third person, vehicular and air combat aspects. The resolution of satellite maps is good only for high altitude traversal and can look quite stunning at those high altitudes. But at low altitudes (for low flying fighters or NOE flying gunships) as most gamers know, those satellite maps look like a blurry mess. And you certainly cannot use them for an fps game. Our terrain engine has fine resolution to 2m per pixel so regardless of your altitude, be it ground zero or 40K ft ASL, it still looks great.

These new shots show various climate zones which are varied across the game’s 400 sq. km region in which the stranded player and team have crash landed. Our goal for the terrain engine (which we wrote from scratch) was to provide high res visuals at any altitude, given that the game features first/third person, vehicular and air combat aspects. The resolution of satellite maps is good only for high altitude traversal and can look quite stunning at those high altitudes. But at low altitudes (for low flying fighters or NOE flying gunships) as most gamers know, those satellite maps look like a blurry mess. And you certainly cannot use them for an fps game. Our terrain engine has fine resolution to 2m per pixel so regardless of your altitude, be it ground zero or 40K ft ASL, it still looks great.

Another feature of our new terrain engine apart from the dynamic time of day transitions and such is that the various regions are subject to climate variations which in turn feature various weather patterns. Each region blends from one to the next (e.g. moderate to artic) in a manner that allows it to rain on one section while there is a snow storm in another – be it day or night.