Kurt Meyer

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.

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.

So is 3000AD working on a battlecruiser title using the Serious Sam engine?

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).]

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

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).]

I agree this game is fuggin awsome I can't wait for the next demo and retail release. Definantly buying this one it owns.

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).]

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.

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).]

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.

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

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.

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).]

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).]

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).]

Will the full game support MP3 files using a higher quality than 128kbps @ 44khz?

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.

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).]

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).]

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

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

Is it just me or can the AI board your ship at any given time no matter the current condition of your ship or range of the target. For example I had just left a station and there was an enemy ship about 400,000K away and all of a sudden poof I have intruders on board. My shields were up my ship was 100% functional and no enemy ships or other ships for that matter were even relatively close. My marines did layeth the smack down but there should be ways to prevent this from happening. I can see it happening if the target was close enough to use their transporters and my shields were down or even sending a shuttle over once I was disabled (assuming they dont have a transporter). Also I am told that in no way can I board enemy ships in a simular fasion period. =(

Would be nice if I could rename my officers. Hell id grow even more attached to them.

Is it the same guy who did Babylon 5? I aint even going to try to spell his last name =) That spinoff he did bombed hard. Excalibre or whatever it was called. Heh I don't even remember the name. The ship was cool but the show sucked heh.