alanspeckman

quote:Originally posted by Rosko: I think you should remove all the non-combat castes like you said. I think you should just leave them in, if they don't get in the way, code-related. Don't enhance them any, but just give us the option of exploring the BCM universe, make some money, upgrade ship, etc. It is just plain fun, don't have to worry about attacks. It is like going on an interstellar cruise, while being protected by the Geneve Convention. :-)

Will BCM-Gold come in a jewel case? I put BCM into a 2-CD jewel case along with the BC 3000ad, with the 3000ad CD sleve. :-) So I am really hoping 3000ad starts using Jewel cases.

Thought I would point this out. http://www.fileplanet.com/section.aspx?s=49748&v=0 Just behind the freelancer demo/movie is the old-faithfull 3000ad v2.09 download.

Thats fine, anything beyond BCG will be simply iceing on the cake, or a cherry on top. I can't wait to get a slice.

quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: 1. Who knows, maybe we'll do an add-on...add-ons are the way to go. 2. So, buy two copies if you ever want to see these dropped features appear in this game other than in BCO. 3. # Dynamic generations of missions (based on world events) posted at station/base pinboard 1. Add-Ons developed by the user community that become popular(sim to HL/CS) could be professionally tuned, packaged, and sold by 3000ad giving written credit to the original author of the MOD. 2. Buy 2 copies?, sometimes I do that with games, I have 4 copies of Battlezone II, but only as part of a package that includes other games. My plan, buy BCMG and BCG this year, full ticker price. Good luck getting BCG out before year-end. 3. SC, I was really refering to something like Morrowind, where we would have access to the tool to modify worlds, systems, etc, single-player-only. Of couse, there is no support for MODs, but it would certainly add to the longevity of your upcoming titles. I'm not referring to cheats, just missions, like those scavenger missions i wrote about someplace here. Its hard to compare BCM with other titles, Morrowind is the closest in terms of bredth and depth. So I won't bother to compare half-life. Allow us to this type of control, to generate our own missions. So, I'm not referring at all to Dynamic missions, way to hard from what I understand, major changes to kernel. I don't what you to waste your valuable time on stupid stuff or trying to satisfy a small number of us, personally. I am interested on where you are going with the XBOX, I'll have to do a search for some of your posts on the topic.

quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: Oh I dunno, go buy and play another game maybe?Ok, Later SC.

quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: quote:Originally posted by Kalshion: This is not the forum for this, meaning you posted this in the wrong forum I beleave It is. He is asking for a tip. This forum is for tips requests and sharing of tips. Jeez people, if you know, help the guy out. I can't believe this.

quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: Well, to be fair, they set out to create a mass market title and thats what they ended up with. I thought Chris Roberts started out with the same or similiar vision you had SC. I mean, look at Privateer, Freelancer from what I have heard does not have many of the free-form universe features Privateer had. Once Microsoft bought DA, DA was living in comfort but Chris was then being 'dictated' to by Microsoft, he lacked focus also with getting into movies(I bought it), after that he just left and Freelancer was left to his brother. A big corporate publisher and somewhat of a lack of focus is what relagated to a mass-market title. I do think FL will really take off if they port it(properly) to the XBox, and possibly ask you for some advice.;-) I think with XBox Live, FL will truely find a home in the mass-market.

LBM had one I really, really want, and I hope others do to. 3 - GBS to go with the game so we can make our own missions. SC- you can ignore the rest here, I just elaborate on the above. I hope you don't mind. I watched a Star-Trek NG episode recently where and old teacher of Picard's, an archeologist was in search of some DNA from different planets. He trys to get Picard in on it, but Picard doesn't want to give up his career because it could take possibly a year away from starfleet. The teach was killed in a shuttle, so Picard goes on a scavenger hunt to find them missing DNA on different planets. That being said, some of my favorite episodes, besides the battles with Borg, are the archeological missions where Picard went to different planets in search of artifacts. Sometimes it was just for historical purposes, discovery and study of ancient civilizations. Sometimes it was for artificates that when assembled may lead to advanced technology or some dooms-day-type weapon. For you trekkies, you know the Star-Trek episodes I am talking about. Multiple races looking for the same artficates, competition, etc. SC, if you just started with some basic scavenger-type-hunt missions, then expanded to more involved missions that advance technology through exploration, or competing with other races to find the artifacts. Here is the basic idea though. If I pick to be an explorer caste, then I would hope there would be missions that BCG comes with, or ways for us to create these scavenger-hunt, artifact finding missions. It would basically round out the game. Right now, I can explore and mine for minerals, and fight, fight, fight, but to what end? Total domination? What if I just wanted to find artifacts and gain knowledge of the BCM universe and its deep history?

quote:Originally posted by Fractux: But you can't even compare Freelancer to the BC series, as it doesn't even come close to offering it up. I think they just did a real good job at making it easy for anyone who refuses to read a manual to be able to play. The masses could suck this up because it doesn't take any time at all to learn how to play. I agree, finally a space-sim that even my older brother can play. I like the cooperative aspect over the internet also. This would make a good XBox also. I am waiting for BCMG and X2-The Threat. I think I am going to wait on buying Freelancer till later this year when I buy it for my brother for Christmas. Jeez, I also need to buy him Halo 2. I gave my nephew a new $2 box of Starlancer for Christmas, so I will buy my nephew Freelancer. Dave will get Halo 2 for the XBox. So, I am looking forward to BCMG and X2. I did have a funny feeling looking at the demo of Freelancer, no multiplayer in the demo, reminded me of the BCM menu. Ok, Ok, not a fair comparison, but never-the-less, that is what I thought of. So, thumbs up for Freelancer, for what it is, but, 6 years in development????? It doesn't even come close to BCM.

From the review, I didn't mention this in my previous post, to be fair. So, given this, maybe I am wrong about planetary combat in multiplayer. quote: UPSIDE: An extremely interesting, freeform universe DOWNSIDE: Planetary combat won't be that interesting until multiplayer is implemented

Here is part of a good review of BCM where the reviewer expresses my point exactly. So when you look at a successfull multiplayer experience, it would be worth it to concentrate on space battles and maybe fight on planets from a command post in space. Just a thought.... http://www.gamerankings.com/itemrankings/l...?reviewid=69272 quote: As you might expect with such an ambitious design, some parts work better than others. The game is at its peak during space combat, where you control your hulking capital ship and direct fighters and other units to attack targets. If you're particularly gutsy, you can man a fighter yourself. The planetside combat, on the other hand, pales in comparison to games that focus exclusively on that type of combat (Tribes, for instance). Your best bet is to watch it from a command standpointÔÇöload up a shuttle with marines and send them down to the planet's surface to wipe out an enemy base, then sit back and watch the action unfold from the command chair.

quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr:

quote:Originally posted by Viper2000: Thats the voice thing isnt it? Yes, it is. I use it for StarTrek Bridge Commander, Homeworld, and Battlezone II.

From Dreamcatcher BCM Gold Pentium II 300Mhz or AMD K6-2 350Mhz processor 16MB DirectX 8 compliant 3D graphics card ------------ Maybe a PIII 450 should be minimum. I have run BCM on an Athlon 500, 256mb RAM, Rage128 Pro, and when near a planet, external views get a bit choppy. I think 3000ad should up the minimum requirement for this game. Oh, and run BCM on a K6-2 350????????aaaaahahahah YEAH......, RIGHT!!!!

quote:Originally posted by Mano Faber: I 've got a lot of games of the Janes series but you should check www.janes.ea.com now!. Games like this are just not that profitable (generaly speaking). You have a excellent point, I think we 'should' care, for the reason above. I played Janes USAF, great game, but no one played MP because of that web-page-based interface, in MHO. BTW, SC, thanks for the detail on MP, that is similiar like Half-Life, rotating maps. Games like battlecruiser, especially BCM, we consumers should be more involved in, if there is multi-player, use it, and be happy with it. I think we as gamers are getting spoiled, I can see that in some of my thoughts at times, especially with graphics. Big games like BCM, FL, X2(ok, smaller), EVE, are all developed to keep us, the consumer, happy with the game. BCM, given its size, scope, independent developer, etc, should not be taken for granted. (ok. maybe it is because its Sunday....i'm alway remember my grandma, "count your blessings sonny") But, it is true, we as gamers should count our blessings. Because, when it isn't profitable for a company to make these kind of games, they won't. And there will be 3000ad, still doing it simply because they love the game. (and making lots of money too, I hope) Doesn't matter how much money Microsoft has, at some point they will decide to can Freelancer support. Freelancer won't be as profitable as Age of Empires II. The developers will move on to other projects. Why bother giving Microsoft our money, in the first place. I just don't have time to screw around with learning new games, and having the rug taken out from under me.

quote:Originally posted by DREADA: I strongly disagree, maybe so in Tribes II now, but in the original Tribes, teamwork (in team-games obviously not deathmatches) was the key to winning in the original game. Everyone and I mean everyone had a job, from the big, heavy assault pilots, to the long distance snipers (hiding in a valley), to the engineers whose job it was just to keep the base's generator online. Lets agree to disagree on this. The main problem in MP, tribes style, is there is no time to chat, it is constant gameplay. I play Battlezone 2, after a game is over, we go back to chat. That is how I got in a clan(i.e. organized). In Tribes and MP games like it, when is there time to get to know someone. Battlecruiser has this excellent message board, that is how we get together. My main point was one that was raised earlier, we all live in different timezones, have different schedules. BCM isn't like Half Life where there are 200,000 people playing at any one time. BCM players are around 10,000, I would imagine, the hard-core ones. In tribes, I play an engineer, concentrating on defense sometimes, other times I play an assasin or a spy(w/espionge pack), and take to offense. But I am not following anyone's orders. I know there are others just playing deathmatch, some grab the flag and actually try to make it back. But we are all independent. That was one of the critisizm of tribes 1, and where tribes 2 was suppose to improve on. The problem with tribes 2 was the vehicle control was so bad, it made it impossible to play anything but an offensive player. One minor point about Tribes 2, the voices were horrible. The voices in Tribes 1 where so silly, it was funny in itself. So, if 3000ad is thinking on having a tribes-style game on the planet, i wish them the best. But I really don't think it will be that fun, beyond just trying it once. BCM MP should stick to space and the epic space battles. BCM MP on planets in first-person-shooter style would just be a waste of time. Planets should be restricted to single-player, if that is possible. BCM space is awesome, hyperspacing in and out of sectors. Look at Star Trek Bridge Commander multiplayer. That is alot of fun. Now combine Star Trek Bridge Commander, transporting down to planets, and tribes. That would be an incredible game. The dedicated servers could be the planets. Jump into Star Trek, orbit a planet, and join a tribes-style game. Or, just stay in space and fight it out with each other, photons blaz'n. If BCM was like that, I would be a mega-hit for multi-player. But, I think that is more than what 3000ad can chew, and be successful that is. I'm sure they can do it, but successfully? I'm always hopefull.

quote:Originally posted by aramike: in different time zones around the world, all with differing schedules, trying to play an organized game together. This is the best arguement I have heard for no MP yet. quote:Originally posted by aramike: Now consider that practically every MP game to have been released that emphasizes teamwork turns into an unorganized meshing of individuals fragging each other into oblivion. Excellent point. Tribes is fun, but the purpose of the game was teamwork. There is no teamwork. What kind of beer was that? I need to get some. Excellent logical argument, really makes sense to me. I have 2 gaming buddies up in Oregon. We all got Neverwinter Nights thinking that we could get together online and do some dungeon crawls. We tried a couple of times. The closest we got was Ron and I playing for about 10 minutes. We all had differing schedules, family lives, work, etc. So, how the heck are we battlecruisers going to get together in fleets for online battle?? That is what I learned from this post.....

Ok, I am sitting here comparing BCG shots to Freelancer shots. This topic is just related to graphics, not gameplay. First - Planets. Compare the follwing 2 images. See how the Freelancer planet has an atmosphere, halo over the planet. In the battlecruiser shot, where planets edge meets space, it seems very 2d, flat. That is my humble opinion. Please let my know what you think. Secondly, I like the battlecruiser ship and station better. Notice the light-green hue of the spacestation on the right. Also, the camera angles compared to what I have seen in freelancer, are far better in battlecruiser. In the freelancer shot, I feel like I'm being made to look at the spaceships butt. I know, strange feeling. Freelancer http://www.gameaxis.com/img/data/imgshots/38/screen16.jpg BCG. http://www.gamescreenshots.com/fullpic.asp...ry=0&picOrder=0 Next - Bases Freelancer http://www.gameaxis.com/img/data/imgshots/38/screen37.jpg Battlecruiser http://www.gamescreenshots.com/fullpic.asp...ry=0&picOrder=0 Ok, Maybe not a fair comparison, because I just think the BCG shot is at a strange angle. But, you can see the base differences. Freelancers base is smaller, but terrain is more detailed. I noticed how the BCG base has some sort of dark blotchyness to the base floor. Personally, I don't think you even need a base floor like that, just more detailed terrain and buildings. In the freelancer shot, notice you can see far away. In BCG, there is always that border line seperating the sky from the ground, but it really doesn't look real. Its hard to describe, but here is a picture of what I mean. http://www.gamescreenshots.com/fullpic.asp...ry=0&picOrder=0 So, just a quick summary. I think all the planets need is that atmosphere looking halo to give the seperation between space and planet a more 3D look to it. I think the surface shots in BCG look fine, but the distance exchange between the ground and the sky could be eliminated by more of a fog-looking fade-in and out as you are flying. The bases I think could use improvements on the ground. Where the ground graphics excel in BCG is in this screenshot http://www.gamescreenshots.com/fullpic.asp...ry=0&picOrder=0 Notice the rugged nature of the mountains and the desert. It is just when you get to a base where this view breaks down. The base floor just looks too blotchy. I think that is a characteristic of the Battlecruiser though. When you get really close to the ground or a planet in space, it gets really blotchy. Let me know you thoughts and opinions. Al.

I bought Heg for $25 at Comp-USA when it came out, on sale. I was disappointed with Project Earth, and I heard simliar things about ORB. I am a big Imp Gal II fan, loved that game. Heg does remind me a little of IG II, except the Heg game engine is incredible. I am also a huge Homeworld and Cateclysm fan, played through Homeworld, software rendered in less than 1 week. The music knocked my socks off. I got to the last mission, didn't have enough units because I didn't know about salvaging. So I started over when I got back home(from Christmas) and played it for the 2nd time, fully accelerated with and old TNT2 32mb card. A year later, bought Cateclysm for myself and 2 other friends as presents, played through that one, a little slow this time, really enjoyed it. Oh, Heg, yeah, the music is really good. I don't understand why some people don't like it. I just mess with it right now, I play BCM mostly. When I get a hankering to do an RTS game, it will be there. I have read most of the reviews, think many are waaaaaaaayy to critical. I did see one give it 100/100, too cool. I use www.gamerankings.com for reading reviews.

quote:Originally posted by Serondal: I can't stand cheating, it takes away from the game so much that it makes it almost pointless to play. I know a lot of people cheat online with games like Halflife(Counter Strike and DOD) And other FPS Games. I take joy in killing these hackers with my bare skills and if any people start to cheat online in BC I will take that same joy in destroying them. I hope (I know) That SC will keep that in mind when he creates online play Its OK to cheat. I have 2 installs of BCM, one full screen normal game, one cheat game playing in a window. I love to just take a bunch of battlecruisers and attack an enemy, watch the show. Its great fun. During the day, I will flip over to BCM, hyperspace to a few enemies, and blow them away with some battlecruisers. So, go ahead, cheat, have fun, that way you really do get the most out of the game, playing it normally, then having a seperate install to go crazy with every once in a while.

One last thing in this whole MP thing. I think I paid 20 or 30 bucks for the game, after it was out for maybe 6 months, give or take. I had been playing 3000ad religously, and having fun. I bought that one for $5 at GameStop. I was amazed I could still find it when I bought it. Still got the original box(1998, v 2.0). If you were a die-hard BC fan, you would of paid the original $50 for BCM, no questions asked. If you are a newbie like me, you wait for the price to come down, then buy it. If you bought it for the current price of $10 at EB, its basically free, if you later buy BCM Gold and get the $10 rebate. So in the end, for the newcomer that may feel slighted by no MP, you got it cheap anyway, don't complain. Buy BCM Gold, get the rebate, and you are not out anything.

quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: quote:Originally posted by StarRider: I don't have any games that use GameCQThats because I am the only licensee (and only for the backend mySQL stuff). Only Richard's own game, Darkspace, uses it. Too Cool.

Interesting, and makes sense too. I just read a blurb about GameCQ. It uses a mySQL database on the backend, multi-platform. I should learn mySQL. I just know SQL Server and PL/SQL component of Oracle. I don't have any games that use GameCQ though, either GameSpy, built-in GameSpy, or built-in custom browser. I wonder about games based on the Quake III engine. They often install with a sperate muliplayer component, two short-cuts, one for single, one for multi. Why didn't they combine multiplayer with singleplayer. Could the BCM Multiplayer actually be a seperate component at first, then merging in BCG? You could just make a copy of the kernel, call it multiplayer, make all the changes, ignoring or taking out the single-player code. That way, the original single player kernel wouldn't be touched. Updates that solve problem in multi-play can be applied to the multi-play kernel. I don't know really, just a thought. Sorry, got off-topic a little there.

quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: quote:Originally posted by StarRider: quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: You can find it here I just found it on a google search, one very in-depth interview. I have not finished reading yet, just thought I come over here to see if there was any info. Why'd you have to locate it on Google? I didn't have too, I was doing a search on some keywords looking for a direct comparison of some like titles, here is where I found it. http://www.space-combat.net/section/5.html I just never saw your post here.:-)