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Kurt Meyer

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Everything posted by Kurt Meyer

  1. quote:A public multiplayer Beta test is not the issue. BCM is absolutely the most complex game I've seen. Now, if I wanted to release standard fare multiplayer, thats what it would end up being. I would think that as kick-ass as the game is, why would we just want run-of-the-mill multiplayer. To do it right, it has to support at least 99% of the single-player features. I dont' know about you, but pure dogfighting does not interest me in the least. My on-going multiplayer plans, involve a heck of a lot more than that. Now considering that I am supporting multiplayer in space and planets, simultaneously..well, think about that for a minute. You are absolutely right. Pure dogfighting does not interest me either. I do realize the complexity of what your trying to do and how hard it would be to tie it togeather with a single player game nearing the end of development. Not only that but the required resources to host even a peer to peer server in a game this complex would be very high bandwidth included. I just thought you had a much smaller scale multiplayer design from the beginning for BCM. It would definantly be smarter to approach it from an online multiplayer only persistant universe perspective right from the beginning for countless reasons and at the same time would end up being that much better. I just wish this was GCO coming out this summer instead becuase that is what I really want. Every time I got into a discussion about BCM in IRC the topics "fleets" and "multiplayer" always came up. I just never commited myself to a fleet because I was skeptical that it would even happen. Not because I don't think the people at 3000AD have the ability to make it happen, but because of the fact that BCM is a single player game and also very complex. I was also worried about the netcode which is another big issue. I only offered my services because whether it's just adding decent multiplayer to BCM or creating an entirely new game geared for multiplayer from scratch, there is bound to be LOTS of bugs, issues, and balancing to work out with a game of this complexity and anything I can do to help I would. quote:Remember though, that only Interplay decided, at the last minute, not to do a full 120-page printed manual. Once I plugged that loophole in my contract, it required GT and JOAG to do a full printed manual for v2.08 as released in Europe, Australia etc. Only the US release of BC3K v2.0, didn't get a full printed manual. And Take2's v1.0 in 96-97, didn't have a manual to speak of Thats pretty weak of Interplay to pull that crap. I do remember you saying something about that whole mess a long time ago but I just wanted to make sure BCM would have a nice phat manual I only paid $17 dollars Canadian at the time so it was not a big deal but man did printing that manual and appendix single sided SUCK. I'm not kidding I did have a printer die on me while printing. I think the feeder broke first and then I started hand feeding the bastard paper. Then it just stopped and never worked again. It was a fairly old printer but anyways yeah manuals are good... [ 04-17-2001: Message edited by: Kurt Meyer ]
  2. Why don't you guys stop by in #BCM on irc.gamesnet.net and we'll hook up and go dish out some damage. Game is much better playing with a few guys working togeather instead of the mindless chaos that populates most public servers.
  3. That is great news. Microprose used to do a great job of manuals on their old flight sim games like f15 and f17a. Come to think of it even some of their strategy games had really good manuals. Railroad Tycoon for example. They all came with them paper back manuals that had the short but wide pages. They pretty much all came with a complete manual which was pretty beefy. I also remember the Falcon 3.0 bible wow that thing was massive. I used to study it all the time when I wasn't playing. When I bought BC3K and pulled out the little tiny 20 page manual I was pretty dissapointed. Especially with a game as complex as BCM. This game deserves a good manual. Anyways that is really good to hear.
  4. "And since the game already has very strong single-player, if the multiplayer kernel is not impressively bug-free and provides high performance for 56K dial-up and broadband gamers alike, rather than kill the game by releasing it with less than stellar multiplayer, I will release it without multiplayer." I was really looking forward to multiplayer and joining a fleet once the game was released. That has pretty much been the focal point of any realtime discussion I've been in concerning BCM. Is there another way to approach this? Perhaps a public multiplayer beta test or _something_ we can do to help? "With BCM, features such as the ability to send a boarding party to NPC ships/stations (in much the same way they board your ship), the dimension jump feature (which allows you to jump into a parallel sub-space dimension within the game universe), manual docking and the ability to dock inside a station bay doors (all stations were created with fully functional and animated bay doors which open/close) won't make it into the game." In my opinion the above features would make this game that much better. Any chance you will add these features in after the game has been released and you are back from Vacation? If there really is a GOD now would be a great time for some divine intervention. "Other than that, all features that I had in the BCM design docs, with the exception of the work-in-progress CTAS system, orbital flight dynamics, first person combat, are implemented and working as designed." Orbital flight dynamics YES! =) Sulu take us into a low orbit and break out the contraband. "The entire game is now 100% DirectX 8 compliant and sporting all the bells and whistles (apart from the mostly useless DX features) that are needed to keep the graphics kernel on the cutting edge. We've implemented vertex buffers, hardware Transform & Lighting, among other kick-ass high-end features." Assuming were talking about vertex shaders with Geforce 3 being the only card currently supporting this via hardware will we take a performance hit on the other cards or is it just something Geforce 3 users will be able to utilize. Also I was wondering if Direct 3D Hardware Transform and Lighting was enabled in the first demo? "A lot of people having been talking about the screen shots from the new terrain engine and the new game play options that it presents. Let me tell you this, if you think the released shots are good, just wait until you actually play the game." I must say that terrain engine is looking far better than I ever thought it would. I can't wait for the second demo episode to have a look and hopefully it not only looks good but runs as good on high end systems. "With that, here is the first public showing of a new unit from GCO. This is the Legionnaire submarine. It is 1000' long x 125' wide x 82' high" OMFG I want one That looks and sounds PHAT. "In addition to the new terrain engine, all the external textures have been updated to match the realistic sizes of the planets. In the previous BC title, all the 75+ planets and 145+ moon spheres had a diameter of 200km" The screenshots look amazingly detailed. I can see why some would wonder if bump mapping was used. Are some of those planets using 512x512 textures or bigger? "One of the decisions I recently made, was to hire an author for the final BCM print manual. I simply cannot find the time to do a complete BCM manual and work on development." Thats probably the best news I've heard yet. I don't know how many printers I killed printing the BC3K manual heh. I still have that dictionary around here somewhere. This will be a complete professional bible that I can study on my low orbit coffee breaks right? I can't begin to stress how much a complete full manual means to me. "I will probably include a poster in the strat guide, along with the full poster sized color galaxy maps I have planned for it. Of course, the regular maps will be in the printed manual, as they were in the printed BC3K v2.0x manual" If that's true I will definantly be buying the strategy guide. Also I just wanted to say the final box art looks excellent and I can't wait for the full game. Here is to hoping multiplayer makes the cut!
  5. Wow heh three new missions were posted as I was writing that last message. These new missions however are about 7.5mb each. Two of them are sniper missions. One is a daytime op and the other is night.
  6. So is 3000AD working on a battlecruiser title using the Serious Sam engine?
  7. Hey there are some new unofficial missions available for the Operation Flashpoint demo The real editor will be included and built into the retail release but it's amazing to see what people are doing just with a hex editor. Fansites are popping up all over the place so I will just give ya the link to the site I grabbed them from. One of the new missions puts you in command of a platoon of men and let me tell you it is not easy to command. You litterly have to issue orders for everything. Give it a try and let me know how you do. I'm still learning all the new keys with being in command. One of the other new missions is apparently very hard as the creator made the russian troops elites. Let me know how you make out with that mission aswell. The files are very small so people on dial up need not worry. http://www.operationflashpoint.com/ [This message has been edited by Kurt Meyer (edited 03-25-2001).]
  8. Of every game I've ever played...and thats alot... the end boss of sam would *****slap all of them and own them all at once hahahahahahah. OH MY GOD LOL. Sam for game of the year
  9. Having just played Serious Sam I must say I am very impressed with that engine in many ways. I remember reading something about 3000AD licensing the engine but I can't remember what exactly transpired. Is 3000AD working on something using the Serious Sam technology? [This message has been edited by Kurt Meyer (edited 03-24-2001).]
  10. I agree this game is fuggin awsome I can't wait for the next demo and retail release. Definantly buying this one it owns.
  11. Fair enough. I haven't tried the second mission as of yet. When I do I will leave the bridge and hop in a fighter (Love how we have avatars now and the AE) and take her out for a test flight =) I haven't tried customizing sound fx either. Is it possible to drop in our own sounds? PS That Warmonger is a beauty... [This message has been edited by Kurt Meyer (edited 03-20-2001).]
  12. Glad to hear there will be changes made to AI boarding rules. If we could board other ships or stations with transporters or by docking shuttle craft that would be simply incredible. Maybe change the AI boarding rules to reflect the conditions players will have to meet in order to be successfull. First of all I wish transporters had a limited range. Second I wish the shields of the ship you're attemping to board must be down. Please add player boarding to the higher priority list it would add so much and rock so hard.
  13. I was not talking about encoding MP3 while playing BCM. I was talking about playing back MP3 files in BCM that are higher than 128kbps @ 44Khz. [This message has been edited by Kurt Meyer (edited 03-20-2001).]
  14. I do not think there was any cloaked ships near me because I had several probes active in the system and I was there for some time before and after and there was nothing there. Assuming there was a cloaked ship it would have had to decloak eventually right? Or I would have at least been getting some static in my NID or CVD or some data from the probes.
  15. I bought Mankind (www.mankind.net) last year at FULL price (80 Canadian or so) and I've played about 7 hours worth. You download the game, pay full price and then you can play for a year. I was asking for my money back after over a month of not even being able to log in to the network (extremely poor network setup) at ALL with NO customer support. Even for people who could get in the game (Anyone who was not in a system that was DOWN on the network) it was constantly crashing their servers whenever someone started a big fight. The game is put out by Vibes. I wanted to sue the *******s but if you read the fine print you aint going to accomplish anything. It gets worse too. Apparently after I gave up they decided to rework the entire game (Cuz of the crashing etc) and patch up to v7.0 (To address issues of stability and add more bugs) Apparently it was a total nightmare and they lost over half their user base in the process because it took so long and there was so many problems. The whole time Vibes was saying they would credit people's accounts and in the end they did nothing at all. I am surprised the game is even on retail shelves now but it is selling in Canada for 20 bucks heh. What a joke.. Worst game I have ever paid for in my life. Just thinking about it makes me mad. It is a European game aswell. PATHETIC
  16. So far the only problem I have with the underlying sound system is that on Live cards there is definantly a latency issue and some sounds are not being played at times or cutting out. For now I am doing what the FAQ says and running the card on basic settings. It did help a bit but there is definantly still room for improvement.
  17. I noticed the main gun sound at least on the Warmonger was very low quality. I don't think PTA beam weapons make any sounds yet either. Some of the sounds are fine some aren't. I am assuming however that some of this stuff is _placeholder fx_ and will be replaced. I've already noticed there are alot more sounds in general than BC3K and that is a very good thing. I wonder if other races have different sound fx for their hardware and different voices for their personel which is obviously not human =) If not it would simply KICK ASS if we could put in our own sounds and fully customize our own audio experience! [This message has been edited by Kurt Meyer (edited 03-20-2001).]
  18. At first I was skeptical too. I still beleive firmly in releasing demos on "final" code or "gold" code as some put it. However since each demo episode is current with the beta testers it will eventually evolve into gold code and after we get each new episode our code is updated to the most recent build. Definantly an interesting public approach and I am glad Derek decided to do it this way because I get a chance to look at whats been done and offer feedback. An in game tutorial would definantly help with the learning curve though, especially with the retail release. I wouldn't know where to begin making a tutorial for this though because there is so much content. It would definantly take some time. To me this is more of a technology demo at this point (That will change as more content is added and the code updated) but I am really enjoying it and the game does look very promising. Hopefully some of the feedback generated will only make this game better in the long run. In the end we will definantly have a very LARGE demo full of content based on gold code. I haven't even tried to pass the second mission because I am still experimenting with the first one. I still don't feel I can walk away and say I have learned everything there is to learn in that instant action mission and thats just a fraction of what lies ahead. It is slightly different every time I play it. As for the tutorial well... Sure it does not popup messages and ask you to hit keys etc etc do this do that etc etc but the game is not even finished. Maybe once it's closer to completion they will drop in a tutorial or as priority permits. For now playing the demo in scenarios does make learning the fundamentals easier for me and I am by no means a seasoned BC3K player. For now play each instant mission to death and enjoy it for what it is. It's only going to get better. [This message has been edited by Kurt Meyer (edited 03-20-2001).]
  19. Try taking a 705kbps wav file an encoding it at 128kbps The end result is a low quality rip that can't be played loud. Please don't take that the wrong way. I've already told Markus I like the music in BCM alot. I am pretty easy going when it comes to music. I like anything but country and rap. I especially love techno and trance. The thing is alot of my music is 256kbps and is designed to sound good when played LOUD I don't really want to encode them at a lower quality (Even tho I have already been doing it ) either because their is plenty of cpu power these days to play 256kbps mp3. Just think soon we'll have 2gig cpu's. Anyways I'm hoping the in game mp3 player will support 256kbps playback @ 44khz. [This message has been edited by Kurt Meyer (edited 03-20-2001).]
  20. Will the full game support MP3 files using a higher quality than 128kbps @ 44khz?
  21. hehe I was just playing the demo again and you know what I REALLY love about this game... The scale of the ships and stations is amazing. Also the spaceships and station models are incredible. The artwork on the skins is also really good. Just curious will the full game ship with some higher detail textures or texture settings or is what we see in the demo the same as the full game. This 64MB video card is spoiling me =) Bring on the 128MB Geforce 3's.
  22. Realistic flight dynamics would only make this already incredibly promising game THAT much better. I only wish the game could do what Soback just described. That would be incredible. Manual docking would be much better with straffing capability in at least 4 directions. However I don't think I would go as far as to make a maneuvering thruster get stuck in the ON position if damaged. I would just have it less powerfull or disabled. I was really impressed with the Allegiance flight model. Performing straffing runs in fighters on a cruiser was just incredible. Note that system is not 100% realistic either it's more of a blend of the 2. I would really love to see something simular for space combat and maneuvering in BCM but at the same time I would also like a realistic atmospheric flight model. Imagine if this game had both? Now that would be something to write home about. As far as the current flight model goes I think collision detection and physics needs a little work. Objects seem to "bounce" around when colliding or being hit by weapons at low speeds (Note this is beta and expected). It's kinda hard for me to put into words. I have also seen AI ships clip right through stations. As much as I love Newtonian physics in my space games I would be willing to put that all aside for BCM as long as they get rid of stopping on a dime. I don't think you should be able to stop on a dime in space or in an atmosphere for that matter in any kind of vehicle unless your moving slow. You should have to use some energy to slow yourself down or else a gradual decline in speed. It's just too easy to fly in at full speed and stop then get on top of your target. Thinking about it a little more has me saying well maybe this is some kind of advanced technology that allows these ships to stop instantly. Anything is possible. It would be cool if some races had this technology innately where others would have to upgrade their ships in order to do it. Hrmmm [This message has been edited by Kurt Meyer (edited 03-20-2001).]
  23. I was wondering if someone could please answer the question I had above about the Navigation officer and experience. The more I play the demo the more questions I seem to have I'm sorry. I was also wondering about upgrades. Will some Hyperdrive upgrades in effect shorten the distance required for the jump and or just reduce recharge times? Also while I had the Hyperdrive engaged today I decided to try and turn the ship It definantly did turn but she kept on going right where I wanted it to. That's almost a little Newtonian physics right there. [This message has been edited by Kurt Meyer (edited 03-20-2001).]
  24. There were no cloaked ships near me just one ship and it was incredibly far away. I had just left the station and the instant the transision was over I got the message. As soon as intruders came on board I did shut off launch control and even sent a few marines in their direction. It's almost like they were hiding on the station and somehow got on my ship while I was docked. Or else they just transported to my ship from about 400,000k away
  25. I for one am glad to see that everything is now done in realtime. It makes everything so much more realistic and once again adds strategy. I remember with BC3K when docking at a station your crew would be rested and repairs finished instantly. Now I find myself shifting personel and after barely surviving a battle I had to choose wich systems to repair first. Good stuff
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