Question about Future of PR.

[bondsan]

what is the future of PR ? easy.....

they win the best mod comp (hands down easy win) with each patch there comes more and more players until we have a force that can stroll over to EA and wipe the floor with their entire army of karkand whores.
at that point dice will realise what a mistake they made and sack all of their staff in favour of their new gods BSS who all get 150% pay increase and a tony blair style retirement plan

[IAJTHOMAS]

Originally Posted by Silveryvisions

Do you really think EA would take legal action over a pretty much dead game (vBF2)?

Without a shadow of a doubt, yes.

[eggman]

There's a lot more to tactical gaming than fast ropes

There is a LOT of great games coming out this year:
OFP 2
ArmA 2
BF:BC 2

But it's unclear what the multi player capabilities will be...

ArmA 2 is saying > 50. They used to say >100 for ArmA. I understand some people have played in >100 servers with ArmA, but even at 40 people I found the lag unplayable (jerking about is totally unacceptable). I tried a few different ArmA 1 servers loaded to ~40 people or more and always had issues with lag.

OFP 2 is saying 24 iirc (might be 32).

BF:BC 2 has a console pedigree and is the flagship BF title being released to PCs this year. So I would expect 64p, be VERY surprised if they support 128 and not at all surprised if they only support 32p.

BF:BC2 is NOT BF3 and that title is unannounced and I would say it's future is uncertain.

Combined Arms realism requires large maps because the weapon systems are so deadly and are designed to operate at long ranges. So when you add in large maps, you need more than 64 players. Kashan is a great map imo, but always felt like it was lacking 40 players. But those sort of goals are outside of the scope of many of the games coming out. The "arcade" modeling of the weapon systems doesn't really require the same considerations for scale. ArmA certainly tries, but one of my biggest criticisms of ArmA is that it's not a great single player game and not a great multiplayer game... and I think they are still trying to make it both.

Obviously Garage Games and the Torque engines are not going to look like OFP 2 or even ArmA 2. But Torque 3D (the next generation of Torque engines) is making a huge effort to update the visual capabilities. They *can* look very decent, check this TGEA 1.8 test video:
"Gears of Torque" TGEA Video on Vimeo

But what we're talking about as an Indie game is recognizing the trade offs in some areas for benefits in others.. obviously metered by budgetary and resource constraints. People still play PR in pretty large numbers (usually larger than ArmA, Frontlines, ET:QW). The graphics in PR / BF2 are getting pretty dated, but the game play is the main draw. If people want superb graphics there are other alternatives (and as noted some great ones coming this year). But those superb graphics will have concessions to mainstream appeal because of the cost of developing the titles.

We're not complete morons... I currently manage a multi year software project that's about the same budget as the top end of AAA game titles. If we can prove that we can get 130+ players, decent visuals, long view ranges, large maps, good object count, and good foliage coverage... well... if we can pass a few tests there (which would be pretty publicly obvious because we'd be asking for community participation) then we will take the next step in evaluating the feasibility of pursuing an indie game.

Some folks might have delusions that they can work on a PR indie game as a full time job, but I don't see that being realistic. It would be more like translating modding into a hobby that might actually pay a little bit of money. We'd need to find a couple / few C++ coders who are fanatical tactical gamers who would want to work in those circumstances. We have managed to find other disciplines that are as good or better than gaming industry professionals (mapping, modeling, texture, sound, etc). So hopefully we can find some C++ coders in the same way.. we've never tried.. but we have been successful at attracting most of the other talent we've needed.

In 1999 the TGEA engine supported >100 players in Tribes matches and their netcode is considered some of the best in the industry. That's a decent start, and we'd check against some critical metrics before we'd invest too much time and energy into it.

egg

[[R-DEV]fuzzhead]

DICE confirms five Battlefield titles in development // News

They've announced 4 so far....any guesses what the other one might be?

Heres the quote:

EA announced at the start of the year its first entry in the free-to-play market would be Battlefield Heroes, and the publisher is set to release Battlefield: Bad Company for home consoles this Friday.

But the team is also at work on three other games based on the series, including a traditional core game aimed at consoles, and a new collaboration with Neowiz specifically for the Korean market.

So heres the 5 titles:

1. Battlefield Bad Company 1
2. Battlefield Heroes
3. Battlefield 1943
4. Battlefield Bad Company 2
5. Battlefield (Neowiz produced Korean Game)

No BF3 on that list I think... they have enough on their plate, I sincerely doubt if BC2 is being developed for PC that they would be contemplating a 2nd AAA title for the PC in the same time frame.

Do you seriously think that a games company (and an EA games company at that) will not release a sequel to one of the most successful games ever?

This isnt the same DICE that developed and created BF2. That DICE is long gone I think. I wouldnt hold your breath for a BF3 anyways, all signs are pointing to it's non-existence. The PR team are definitely not holding out for it, afaik no one has been contacted at any point by EA or DICE about any hints of mod support for any future titles.

[NaZar3TH]

dunia engine kthxbye?

dunno, i think that would be the easiest thing to make a tactical realism mod off of, but thats jus me.

and i want to have my 50$ investment in Far Cry 2 made worthwhile :P

[TurnCoat]

Is Battlefield 1943 а Frostbite engine game?

[eggman]

BF43 is frostbite, downloadable over XBLA.

BF:BC2 is frostbite, traditional console / PC DVD sales medium.

As Fuzz says... don't count on a "BF3". I'd say BF:BC2 is the next PC installment in the BF franchise, likely followed by some sort of expansion pack(s).

Dunia is a very capable engine, but this far only a map editor has been released and no official mod support. Don't really want to head down that road again...

[space]

I guess what my point is, what will TGEA engine offer over BF2 engine. Yes the short clip you posted looks nice, but look around on the garagegames forum egg - I know youve posted some questions on there, but have a look around on some of the threads - the capabilities that they claim of engine do not match up to reality - a quick look at ANY of the games released on TGEA proves that. Maybe you could have 100 players, but then you wouldnt be able to have any trees or statics, and it would still be very buggy. Theres a very good reason that no other company has brought out a game with similar capabilties to BF2, and thats because its seriosuly hard to implement all the different elements and do it well. I hear what you say about the teamwork and game play being more important than graphics, but imo, people would just play BF2 PR, rather than step back for no conceivable benefit.

Your right the PR community does do a better job gaming industry professionals sometimes, but thats because they are working for free, and are willing to spend massive amount of time, which wouldn't even be slightly commercially viable. In most cases its not that the PR modders are better than professionals - its a case of them having more time. PR is a community based project and always has been, and any move to make it commercial would be disastrous imo

Anyway - Im sorry to sound so negative, Dont hold it against me - Its just my very strongly held opinion

PS Maybe your right fuzz, but BFBC1 was out a couple of days after that announcement, so it was hardly in development then. Also the neowiz battlefield game has been cancelled I think - it was announced 2 years ago and nothing has been heard since. Neowiz had a sucessful FPS game shortly after that annoucement, and it looks like theyre working on a followup without DICE :

Worlds In Motion - Neowiz Licenses Vision Engine 7 For Online Shooter

[TurnCoat]

Originally Posted by [R-DEV]eggman

BF43 is frostbite...

I remember Realism mod for BF42. Hmmm... BF43+PR2, why not... Of course if BF43 will be modable.

[space]

Originally Posted by TurnCoat

I remember Realism mod for BF42. Hmmm... BF43+PR2, why not... Of course if BF43 will be modable.

BF1943 will be a arcade minigame, and it will be download only - theres no way theyll release the FrostED (which you need for modding) for BF1943 - it might come out for BFBC2 though.