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

[Captain_Kill]

Generic Summary of:

Dark Reign 3

Main Type of Game: RTS based on the Dark Reign Universe

However this isn't a good description because DR3 is a cross of multiple genres and gametypes. So far I'll have elements from:
* Strategy - Base building, 3D 'god' cam view (Like Dark Reign 2)
* First Person Shooter - Viewable weapons, better aiming at the cost of less manuverability
* Third Person Shooter (Prince of Persia, Ninja Gaiden etc) - INSANE manuverability and WAY more visiblity. Oh, and did I mention melee combat equal to a fighting game? (And don't try cheating... There will be an option for servers to allow people to see ONLY what they can SHOOT rather than what they can normally SEE. This will nullify both Wallhacks and Round the corner cheats )
* Vehicular Combat - Kinda more like BF1942 than UT2004. Vehicles are a major part of any game. There will be options to use either Arcadey vehicles or Operation Flashpoint like vehicles. ie. 1 person to drive and shoot or multiple people
* RPGs - LOTS of features that are in RPGs. From character advancement and XP points to specialist skills and even magic . Not to mention the fact that each infantry unit out there (not to mention the people INSIDE the vehicles...) has their own goals, skills and personality
* Plus whatever other stuff works

The Good:
* HUGE battles
* MASSIVE single player campaign + multiplayer
* MODability! and OpenSource engine
* Hilarious 'Comedy' mode or in-your-face 'Serious' Saving Private Ryan Mode.
* Blood! Gore! Decapitations! Ragdoll corpses
* Ever wondered what a hotted up tank with chrome plating, a bright pink coat of metallic paint and a big sub woofer speaker would look like? There's a chance you'll see one. Vehicle drivers a have no problems with hotting up their rigs with new coats of paint, logos, decals and just plain stupid taunts.
* Why bother with research when you can perform a bit of battlefield modification? Don't like your assault rifle?? No problemo! Increase the caliber, double the ammo clip, add a scope or laser sight and why not even add a grenade launcher? If you can't be bothered doing it, find another soldier who will!
* Humanistic AI. NOT like conventional AI. Humanistic AI PLAYS like a person, FIGHTS like a person and TAUNTS like a person. Basically, on hardest difficulty they could kick anyone's a$$. That's my aim. To create AI capable of challenging ANYONE.

The Bad:
* Low poly models, dodgy textures and probably bad animations to go along with them (Think better than Quake 1, maybe less so than Q2...)
* I hope you have A LOT of HDD space and a phat connection... Sorry 56K users!
* Due date sometime early this millenium

The Ugly:
* This game WILL be different...
* It'll also require dedication.
* BUT It'll be as addictive as EQ or CS once you get hooked
* Emphasis on FUN FACTOR over graphics WILL probably turn people off
* People may or may not like the new ideas my game will have

Here's some idea of the scale that I want:

Aproximately 8 teams

Each team may have 4 or so types of infantry which then branch into about 20 or so specialisations (RPG stuff coming in...) Note: These numbers WILL probably change drastically

So that makes 8 * 4 * 20 units already!!

There will be A LOT of vehicles per team. Aprox 10 or so per team. In all categories; land, sea (where applicable, DR players will know what I mean...) and of course air

So add on 8 * 10 to the already existing total...

Then add in the 10 or so builings per team...

AND THE GRAND TOTAL IS:
640 + 80 + 80

800 UNIQUE UNITS!! That makes up to 100 objects per team! And that isn't even COUNTING the civilians and neutrals...

A battle structure will be like so:

Player -> Army -> Squad

A player may have 2 or so armies, BUT may have up to 20 or so squads per army! Maybe even more... The to create whole army groups will allow for people to coordinate attacks and tactics on a HUGE scale.
The numpad keys will be to select armies.
The usual number keys will be for the squads in those armies.
I may even use NWN system and use the F keys along with modifiers like ALT, CTRL or SHIFT

I've guestimated that for an effective battle of 2 armies per team in a 2 player game, you will need 14336 INDIVIDUAL characters!! Sure, it's a big number but so what? People just can't keep chucking stuff at PCs and expect it to work. Look at Dark Reign, it supported 2500 units per battle AT ONCE! And it was released in '97 or so! You people can't seriously think we haven't got better techology and smarter programming since then?

Random stuff section...

Games seem to be getting smaller in all aspects. A 'large' game today is a tiny one compared to some old games. Where's the advancement? I don't give a flying f**k about graphics. If I wanted graphics I'd go play on my XBox because IMHO HALO2 has seriously OWNED most PC games... It's 5 TIMES LARGER THAN THE FIRST HALO!! They said in a dev diary that one canyon was SO large they could stick the ENTIRE geometry from the first HALO INTO THE CANYON IN HALO2! Now THAT is advancement.

I have a good PC and although I like 1024x768 resolution it makes bugger all difference to someone who grew up on the Commodore 64 and the Sega MegaDrive. My fancy Radeon 9600XT makes no difference at all in Dark Reign. It still has 256 colours, it still runs at 640x480 and it STILL owns all strategy games released since. Generals is bloatware (YES i can run it well. It just sucks though), AoE is hyped up junk. RoN is just the same generic units and teams along with craptacular battles. And WC3 is NOWHERE NEAR as good as what people have told me.

I want a return to the dark days of PC gaming where graphics were crap but the style and substance wasn't. I want epic storylines that are enthralling as a movie and battles as large as those as the Lord of the Rings. I want to live out the battles of Saving Private Ryan on a scale like none other and FINALLY see what a Dark Reign FG ShockWave would look like in 3D...

I want SCALE! I want SIZE! I want impact and emotion. But at the same time, small games are what are popular today. My game will allow for this. It will have battles on HUGE scales and brutal close quarters combat as good as a game of CS or RS3, even some SC:PT elements maybe... Not to mention style, substance and character. I want to play with gamer's minds, like movies and books do. I want to involve people as well as any other form of creative media. I INTEND this game to shock and awe anyone who plays it and anyone who looks at it. I intend to break bounds and freak people out. This game WILL challenge you. It doesn't matter if you like strategy, fighting, shooters, adventures, RPGs or whatever. You will find what you're after. That's my promise.

If you didn't bother reading anything else, at least read this

Everytime I play a game of Generals I get the feeling somthing isn't right... Well, i figured out what it was. It was the unrealism and stupidity that has plagued most strategy games, even the mighty Dark Reign . It's the unrealism of scale. In order to immitate a tank shooting at infantry, here's how they simulate it.

Real Life situation:
* Troops have rockets, grenades and mines
* But they are vulnerable and slow
* Tanks have big beefy weapons
* Tanks do have weaknesess. Infantry must exploit them
* BUT it isn't realistic to shoot 1 infantry unit with 1 tank shell is it? Tanks in real life have machine guns to handle infantry
* Infantry always go out in large groups, esp. in WW1 and WW2
* Tanks usually don't travel alone either

Game Situation:
* Tanks in games DON'T have anti-infantry weapons. They have NO machineguns, no smoke launchers, no HE shells
* Infantry also don't have mines, rockets or even grenades
* So as a result, weapons are nerfed in favour of balance.
* Because of these weapon restrictions and unrealism, unit scale is screwed too. You only have a few tanks and some infantry unlike in real life, which has hundreds of tanks and A LOT of infantry

Tanks take multiple shots to kill infantry while infantry take FOREVER to kill tanks. BOTH look unrealistic while killing each other. A tank being shot up by a FUGGIN RIFLE??? OR INFANTRY TAKING ABOUT 5 DIRECT HITS FROM A TANK SHELL????

Generals IS NOT IMMERSIVE because of this UNREALISM. When I play a 4 player battle it sure as hell doesn't seem like a 4 player battle. I get attacked by 10 tanks at once! Oh no! Not 10 tanks! Well I guess I better send out my RIFLE ARMED MARINES TO TAKE THEM OUT THEN! I'll spam em to death with bullets! Their armor won't hold up to my MG armed troops!

THIS IS THE KEY!! I know what it is Do any of you know?

People, I'm after YOUR opinions. What do you; the gamers and other programmers think?

PS. This rant is copyright my crazy mind

[warui]

So you are making this game... and what army ?

[Captain_Kill]

[sarcastic/stupidmode]
Well, to help out with the coding there's me

Then there's myself for the mapping

And there's also I for the modeling
[/sarcastic/stupidmode]


Yeah I know it's a big and crazy project But it's a cool one! And if I can get some 'special source' from a special location my job will be a lot easier... You wouldn't believe me if I told you what source I was getting and what I can do with it Seriously, it'll be the biggest boost *EVER*. IF I get the code that is... And no I'm not some l33t hakz0r hackingz Valve or anything. I'm not that stupid. I'm doing it legally.

If I can't get that source there'll be a long project ahead for me to go through with

Wish me luck because it could be all I have...

PS. Does anyone actually bother to read ALL of my posts? Or do people just skim 'em?

[warui]

Actualy coding is only small part of what you need. What about modeling, texturing, map making, design, music, sounds, etc. ?

[Captain_Kill]

I can do all of those things or I know people who can help. Why are you so negative anyway?

People probably said games like Doom were impossible. Heck, people have even said multiple times that Doom 3 couldn't run on an XBox yet it's in all it's glory and being shown off by both iD themselves and Microsoft. People also thought I was nuts when I said I crossed StarCraft, Red Alert 1&2, Warcraft 2 and Dark Reign into the one game. Not to mention beefed up the AI by a drastic amount. But I did it. All by myself.

There is a suprising amount of free stuff on the net, you just have to know where to look and who to talk to.

[bal]

I can do all of those things or I know people who can help. Why are you so negative anyway?

Because he is realistic. I also started making my FPS but it's just too hard on your own. I need to map, model, animate, code, make/edit sound/music, design and so on. It is so much work

[Tyn]

Actually an RTS is a good way to hide deficiencies in modelling and programming, far more than an FPS which is all about flashy graphics. Strategy games are about the strategy and so the graphics take second place to AI.

[l0calh05t]

Actually an RTS is a good way to hide deficiencies in modelling and programming, far more than an FPS which is all about flashy graphics. Strategy games are about the strategy and so the graphics take second place to AI.

I agree, and I wouldn't say that this project is impossible as long as the limits of what is possible and what is needed is always kept in mind. (You don't need flashy graphics? don't add them. there's a good article on this at flipcode http://www.flipcode.com/articles/articl ... game.shtml )

[Tyn]

I didn't mean definciences in programming BTW, RTS games can be just as, if not more, complicated than an FPS. I meant more the art work.

[l0calh05t]

I didn't mean definciences in programming BTW, RTS games can be just as, if not more, complicated than an FPS. I meant more the art work.

Thats exactly what i understood.

[saigumi]

Alright, I'm going to just interject with a quick buzz on copyright law and Intellectual Property (IP).

The Dark Reign name is a trademark of Activision.

It's nice that you want to make a fan game based on their IP, but you should start worrying about lawsuits and cease and desists letters.

Using other companies properties is no joke, ask the makers of the DBZ mod for Quake about the pounding that they got from TOEI.

Making games isn't only fun, it's a business.

My 2 pyreal...

[Captain_Kill]

Activision haven't done anything to do with Dark Reign for the past 4 or so years since Dark Reign 2. Anyway, until the game is done it'll be under another name. They can't C&D it unless they have proof it exists

Activision is one of the best publishers I've come across, if I tell the what I'm doing and why and that this game is NON-COMMERCIAL I don't see what the problem could be. They get advertising, I'm free to make my game. They don't lose any money because they don't do anything to do with Dark Reign anymore. I do know about IP laws and stuff so this project won't go the way of all those DBZ mods

Dammit people, I am realistic too. I know what it takes to make a game. I ONLY put in WHAT I KNOW IS POSSIBLE. I made an ENTIRE FPS in 3 weeks using a game engine called QFusion. I've made hundreds of MODs for so many games I've lost count. Also, I don't have any problems with cutting down on what I do but the fact is it IS possible and NO ONE has shown me otherwise. Therefore I do it to the best of my abilities.

As for using an RTS to hide up the flaws, what flaws??? I don't intend my game to have ANY flaws. I'm a decent low-poly modeler and alot of my friends are too. Plus with the tricks I know I can potentially halve or quarter how much artwork we'd have to do. I find flaw I kill flaw.

I'm realistic in what I expect. I don't want per-pixel lighting. I don't want complex shadows. I probably won't even use bump mapping. If anything, the best graphical aspect will be the particle FX. I know HUNDREDS of techniques to optomise the game and unless someone can give me good technical grounds for not doing this game then STOP telling me I'm 'unrealistic' because you don't all know the whole story. I've kept A LOT of my better ideas in my head and some are extremely powerful, not to mention stupidly simple. I've also got other ideas that'll blow people away.

Why are people so negative though? I'm being realistic in my expectations and if necessary I can scale down my ideas. I thought people would be interested in a project of this type. It's different and challenges a lot of laws developers seem to have put up. ie. don't make anything new, just rip off that game or that game and make this game. Although my idea may seem like a simple rip off, that's VERY far from the truth. If anything, the only 'ripping off' I'm guilty of is names, places and other stuff from the Dark Reign Universe.

[warui]

As Bal said, i'm not negative. I'm just realistic. And your project is not even big, it's HUGE. It's big even for a big company with lot of funds. It's good that you have experienc and team of people who can help you. But I've seen too much such BIG projects abandoned before they even started to pass alpha stage to be entusiastic on another one. At this moment DR3 is just yet another borndead project, But i'll be more then happy if you prove me wrong.

[Captain_Kill]

I know it's big, but I never said I'd release it all at once did I? I intend to make a totally original team first to test out the tech and get people interested. It'll probably be a semi-futuristic team, so they'll have tanks and stuff but no lasers

I'm one the verge of a spectacular deal that could halve coding times. If it goes through of course. (Which it should) When it goes through, I'll have access to the most powerful engine made and the potential to do anything I can think off. I can't say much but when it goes through you'll know.

If it doesn't though I have other plans that could be just as sucessful.

I INTEND to finish this! I WILL NOT STOP until it is done! I don't care if it takes me 10 years I WILL get it done and it WILL blow people away. I have ideas I've NEVER seen in ANY other game. It WILL work and I WILL get it done. I'd just rather do it all sooner rather than wait a few years and not be able to work on it because of some lame job...

Why the heck would I abandon this project anyway? What else would I make? By creating this game I'll find a way to test my skills and todays hardware. This is NOT a normal project run by some n00bs who don't have a clue. When you've been working on ideas for as long as I have they DON'T stuff up! The only ideas of mine that have stuffed up are ideas I didn't plan properly. This IS planned. Apart from that, once I get the code done the rest is stupidly easy.

Give the artists a solid base to work off and they'll come.

[Electron]

Well I wish you luck. The project does seem very ambitious, but you also seem enthusiastic. If in a few months you actually seem to be getting somewhere I except people will be impressed. I think some of the negetivity may come from the fact that we see lots of projects announced (smaller than yours) that never really get anywhere. I don't know whether or not your being unrealistic, not knowing your abilities, but I tend to be a bit unrealistic myself. I say go for it.