Dark Reign 3 - An RTS for the Future - Based on the Past...

AssiDragon · Post by **AssiDragon** » Fri Jul 02, 2004 1:35 pm

It might be wise to email and ask Activision if they would accept a free fangame based on the DReign games. If they accept, you are free to go. If they reject, you know what to count with...

Captain_Kill · Post by **Captain_Kill** » Fri Jul 02, 2004 3:17 pm

THANK YOU Electron

A bit of (semi-)support and interest for a change!

I know about that projects-that-never-get-finished-syndrome... I've tried so many mods that were awesome, even in Alpha, but just died out

The same thing happened with Dark Reign 1 and 2

There was no real central fanbase or direction so everything just broke up pretty quickly... Especially when Pandemic cut support to Dark Reign 2 a few months after it's release...

I hate developers that do that. What's even more annoying is the fact that I payed full price (AUD$90) and got it the day it came out and now it's only AUD$10! My game WILL NOT end up like Dark Reign 2! (The alphas of DR2 actually LOOKED better and were more innovative than the final version!

)

Another anoying incident is the game engine Auran Jet. I payed AUD$199 for it and so far it's got bugger all support.

There's no model exporters that work, Version 2 seems years away and chances are we'll have to pay for V2 anyhow! I was actually going to use it for this same project to but I couldn't be stuffed waiting until Auran got their act together. Their loss is Irrlicht's gain.

AssiDragon:
You still working on Drakan: SotP? Have you decided on which engine? Good luck!

I loved Drakan, it's the only Adventure/RPG game I could be stuffed playing through. Go Arokh and all dragons!

About that Activision problem too, I have it under control

Trust me on that one

I (hopefully) have a very unusual solution to that problem. (I'm being non-specific for a VERY good reason... :paranoid: Also if this doesn't go through and I hype it all up i'll look like an idiot so I say it's better to be mysterious!

) I have considered emailing Activison too. I may do so in the future. It can't hurt.

PS. Is that how you handled all your copyright issues with SotP? ie. emailed Sony or someone and asked? Or are you doing it all the Bid For Power way and 'accidently' leaking the Drakan versions and making an 'official' non-Drakan version and denying the other one even existed?

PPS. Early code tests are VERY promising. Maybe in 2-3 weeks I may be able to release a tech demo or something...

AssiDragon · Post by **AssiDragon** » Fri Jul 02, 2004 5:05 pm

Hehey! Someone here knows Drakan too! Wheeeee! Thanks

*go Arokh go

*

(Talking about cut support to games, you shouldn't complain with Dark Reign... or what could I say about Drakan: Order Of the Flame?

)

Ummm, hows SOTP going? Lemme see.

Well, I have made up my mind and stayed with Ogre3D. No offense, it's just Ogre can do lots of things which Irrlicht is currently unable to, or do it in a better way. Currently it seems Ogre will do the graphics, FMOD the sound, ODE the physics (under construction), and RakNet the multiplayer part (only theoritically existant atm).

I am first making a general program to handle the game things (OgreGEM - OgreGameEntityManager). It's getting along rather nice. ^_^ The better part of that is the game or anything built on that thing won't have any contact with Ogre/FMOD/anything; OgreGEM functions as a "wrapper" as well. So if I want to change say from Ogre to Irrlicht, I can do it with simply changing some files in the basic entity manager.

Captain_Kill wrote: About that Activision problem too, I have it under control Trust me on that one I (hopefully) have a very unusual solution to that problem. (I'm being non-specific for a VERY good reason... :paranoid: Also if this doesn't go through and I hype it all up i'll look like an idiot so I say it's better to be mysterious! ) I have considered emailing Activison too. I may do so in the future. It can't hurt.

What could I say? heck, good luck.

Captain_Kill wrote: PS. Is that how you handled all your copyright issues with SotP? ie. emailed Sony or someone and asked? Or are you doing it all the Bid For Power way and 'accidently' leaking the Drakan versions and making an 'official' non-Drakan version and denying the other one even existed?

Well, not I mentioned Bid For Power first *innocent look*

Seriously talking, I tried asking Surreal and $ony about copyright and stuff, but none bothered to reply. Knowing that Drakan:OOTF was a failure on sold copy numbers and Drakan:TAG was a total catastrophe (afaik it got around 13000 sold copies?) I don't think either would care too much.

However, I have a "B" plan too. Let it be my secret, but it's more polite than the Bid For Power way,and it actually works. ^_^ Maybe I could call it BiP v2, hehe!

Captain_Kill wrote: PPS. Early code tests are VERY promising. Maybe in 2-3 weeks I may be able to release a tech demo or something...

Sounds nice.

SoTP is only existant on OgreGEM level at this very moment - however, the existing parts of OgreGEM are working nice. Of course, they could look a hell lot better with some polishing, but the syntax is even more simple than Irrlicht API, and it works without memory leaks, so I am fine with it in the very moment.
Good luck.

I'll keep an eye out for that techdemo!

Captain_Kill · Post by **Captain_Kill** » Fri Jul 02, 2004 5:41 pm

Yeah, I suppose I can't complain about Dark Reign really when compared to Drakan!

Cause at least Dark Reign can't be made console exclusive!

(Those evil Sony b******s... I WANT DRAKAN ON PC!

)

I've actually been following SotP for a fair while. It looks VERY promising and at least you have a centralised (and dedicated) community to help out!

All jokes aside though I hope it all goes well. I looked at Ogre too and who knows?? Once I have my game up and running using Irrlicht there's no knowing where I'll go... (The best thing I've found about Irrlicht is the support and the tutorials, not to mention clean code and excellent docs. Although Ogre's graphics are spectacular I doubt I'm ready to use it *just* yet...

It looked weird!)

I just realised something funny... we're both working on projects based on game series that are considered 'dead'

Think of the advantages!

For one, the publishers don't really care and you can rehash their games and no one will notice! MUHAHAHAH!!!!!

Just kidding!

There's always ways of making old stuff look good or doing it how the developers wanted it in the first place... That's how I get inspiration. Playing old games and searching through pics of Alpha games or games that were cancelled!

I guess your lucky in the sense that there's so much fan stuff for Drakan and the original game was VERY open to expansions

You've probably thought of it anyway, but I say CTF with Dragons would be awesome

BUT don't resrict people like in Drakan MP. Allow people to get on and off at will. There's all sorts of possible stunts... eg. swapping dragons midflight! or being able to knock people off!

You can never have too many Dragons in a game...

Tyn · Post by **Tyn** » Fri Jul 02, 2004 5:47 pm

For one, the publishers don't really care and you can rehash their games

The X-Com series is dead but I wouldn't be stupid enough to tempt fate by calling 2080 X-Com: 2080. It isn't worth the risk of being shut down no matter if the series is dead or not, even if the software is practically abandonware. Best to avoid using trademarks as it doesn't give them an excuse.

Just kidding!

I did see this, just saying

Captain_Kill · Post by **Captain_Kill** » Fri Jul 02, 2004 5:51 pm

Tyn, I guess you missed this bit:

Just kidding!

I was joking! If Activision don't like what I'm doing then I'll be happy to change it! I'm not unreasonable and I understand that company brands and stuff can mean a lot even if they are old.

EDIT:

WTF BS LAG ME!!

I swear that extra bit wasn't on your post Tyn!!

Tyn · Post by **Tyn** » Fri Jul 02, 2004 6:04 pm

I read my post and it looked as though I hadn't seen that part. So I did a sneaky edit

Still a point I think that is needed to be made I think, you can screw up a lot of work by using a trademarked name. I remember a mod that used the name and universe of Star Wars for Half-Life that was attempted to be shut down by Lucas Arts even though it wasn't set out to make any money whatsoever. Some publishers like to throw their significant weight around just because they can.

No reason why you shouldn't make an inspired game from DR though. They can't do much about it unless you use something that is trademarked.

Captain_Kill · Post by **Captain_Kill** » Fri Jul 02, 2004 6:11 pm

Yeah, that's right! Silly me for calling my game Dark Reign!

It's now:

Reign Dark - NDR (Not Dark Reign)

or maybe:

Light Freedom

or even:

TINDR-LGH (This is not Dark Reign - Lawyers go home)

I *would* prefer to use Dark Reign though, because it is based on the Dark Reign series after all...

AssiDragon · Post by **AssiDragon** » Fri Jul 02, 2004 6:21 pm

Hehe thanks for keeping an eye on mem ^_^ good to know some people are interested

as for the community, I have a small team already (a map designer, 2 artist who draw concept works and maybe do some 3d modelling). They will start their own main work when I will come up with something gamelike though.

I would like SOTP be as customizable as possible (heck, theoritically even basic dragonracer maps would be possible

or battlemechs. Though if you checked my Doomsday or War of Dark Age mods for Drakan:OOTF, even that game could have been customized beyond senses...). If you have seen the Quake2MAX version, dragons were already independent from the players, btw...

As for multiplayer, the game will have a simple hierarchy - clients transfer keypresses and mouse angles to server, server does what it has to, resulting datas sent back to clients. This eliminates the cheating issues mostly, and pretty much fixes the "omfg everything is clientsided" issues of Drakan:OOTF multiplayer. ^_^

And I really like the TINDR-LGH name

my stomach hurts of laughing

EDIT> Now thinking of it, that Light Freedom gave me a better idea. On the analogy of CokeLight (TM) you could call it Freedom Light (TM)

LOL

Captain_Kill · Post by **Captain_Kill** » Fri Jul 02, 2004 7:00 pm

Freedom Light... Now that's a name!

Although TINDR-LGH would be hilarious to use in a real game

I did actually try the Q2Max version, but my copy of Q2 behaves VERY strangely... Me and my modding obession

If it can be hacked, cracked or changed I've probably done it... and stuffed up the game, pc and/or OS along the way...

I got another name idea!!!!!

Passiblind, Inc presents:
TINDR - IYTIIYAMWMYTSEAABTINDR (This is not Dark Reign - If you think it is you are mistaken. We may use the same engine and art but this is not Dark Reign)

And:

Mygnosis presents:
SGH - AGTFDAARBIND (Sony Go Home - A game that features dragons, Arokh and Rynn but is not Drakan)

Ain't it fun to mess with the law in funny ways?

/me gets dragged off by ASIO agents

/me sends message from jail

It seemed fun at the time!! I swear it did! I did nothing wrong! Honest!

PS. In case you don't know, ASIO = Australian Security and Intelligence Agency aka 'The Feds'

PPS. As you can probably tell my sense of humour is lame at best

AssiDragon · Post by **AssiDragon** » Fri Jul 02, 2004 7:31 pm

Might be lame, but I like it

For the Quake2 mod - you just have to compile it (or download the binary release ^_^), download the additional things from the site (coz even the HUD is scripted in my mod

), then make sure your pak files are zips instead of paks (well, I integrated the "Use ZIP format files instead of PAK format for Quake2" change.

So even if you changed your Quake2, it should run alright... as long as the PAK files are just renamed ZIP files, and you have every extra downloaded.

*goes back to Mygnosis

*

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Jul 03, 2004 10:28 am

One question: did you create a game before? A simple tetris clone? Breakout? Show it to us, please. Honestly, i dont want to offend you, but your statements are some kind of ridiculous. And no, i dont talk about mods or making a fps using some kind of existing engine. This is just a small part of doing a whole game. Is there just one game you can show us? That you did on your own? I dont want to suppose that you cant show us something - but i cant look at your statements seriously if you wont show us a little proof.

You cant except us to take your project serious. Because we are people who have some experience when it comes to amateur/fan projects. You want to do this REALLY HUGE project on your own? Even with a big team of hobby programmers/artists/musicians it would be the biggest project i know. Compare it to big commercial games, thats the way you want to go. You have that much money? Or perhaps you want to finish your game in 20+ years.

You talk about "noobs" without a clue: you seem to be just blind and without real experience, because there are lots of "hobby experts" with great skill & knowledge out there, who were not able to do something like this. But sure, they are all noobs, and you not, of course

Everyone and his uncle can write threads like that. You are not self-confident, you are already arrogant and you dont see it. Yeah sure, your game will be the best game ever. Perhaps you really think so, but game design alone is a big task.

Why are people so negative though?

You are making fun of us, right?

If you cant see why your statements are ridiculous, you dont have a clue about game development and your project WILL fail. Even if you can pull it off, who knows how good it will be? There are so many big games who were failures. If you continue to talk to us this way, so arrogant, then please, backup your statements with facts. Btw, im the best game developer of the world; i did a whole fps in 2 days and 23153 mods! Now you take my project serious, wont you?!

I bet you wont finish your project.

Nevertheless, i wish you good luck. Perhaps if you will suceed in getting a good team, they will tell you a thing about game dev.

Tyn · Post by **Tyn** » Sat Jul 03, 2004 11:39 am

I know of at least one project that is bigger than this that is open source, done by hobbiests. It will probably fail but that is more due to poor management than lack of skill or conviction.

2 the author: If you want to be taken seriously, actions speak more than words. Make a damn good start and some people may help you if it interests them, you could be the best programmer in the world and noone will join you with nothing to see that is already done. Would you join a project that hasn't even started yet and just seems to be good idea's floating around?

They say everyone has at least one good game in them, it's just actually doing it that is the problem.

AssiDragon · Post by **AssiDragon** » Sat Jul 03, 2004 12:00 pm

Dear guest, care to tell me what's the point of Irrlicht then? If noone can write anything, why the hell are you looking at an engine obviously aimed at working as the renderer for games?

Captain_Kill · Post by **Captain_Kill** » Sat Jul 03, 2004 1:58 pm

Guest, WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU MADE THAT ALLOWS YOU TO SPEAK LIKE THAT? Show us what you've made that makes allows YOU to judge other people like that... I hate people who speak crap. You're obviously hiding under that Guest name because you have no skill yourself. Tell us who you are, I dare you. Coward. What good ideas do you have? At least I have the balls to tell people what I want to do. The reason why ideas never go well is because of trolls and scum like you.

The funny this is, no one has PROVED what I want to do isn't possible. Therefore it has a VERY good chance of success. It may take 2 years. It may take 10... I don't care. Because in the end it'll be awesome, no matter what people say.

And if people want actions, then what the hell is my Dark Reign 3 TC then??? What about the models, maps, concept drawings and even code tests that I've done? What about that deal I have underway with a powerful company that could give me a VERY powerful edge in development? I have gigs of stuff relating to this project and no doubt I will get support for this project. Stuff the nay-sayers! All you do is encourage me to work harder and produce better stuff.

Tyn:
I'll join ANY project that has promise. Even if nothing real has already been done. You have to start from somewhere.

PS. By nay-sayers I mean people who haven't justified what they've said. Tyn, Assi, you both seemed to raise valid points. Thank you. People like Guest, go troll and spam somewhere else. Your opinions mean nothing to me. Oh and Guest, I could teach you alot of thing too...