[Ideas] PR Future Engine Ideas and Suggestions

[AquaticPenguin]

nicoliani, they mentioned they were using the C4 engine a few pages back , although they're a long way from anything playable they are making progress it seems.

[nicoX]

nicoliani, they mentioned they were using the C4 engine a few pages back , although they're a long way from anything playable they are making progress it seems.

Lol, then why is this thread still alive?

[eggman]

Lol, then why is this thread still alive?

Because that way we don't make any sort of "official" statements which may be construed as promoting what could end up being vaporware. I hate it when folks do that... I've been a gamer for 35 years.. seen a lot of that...always hated it. I'd really prefer to keep it informal, but at the same time building interest helps with morale and momentum.

PR2 is a stupidly ambitious undertaking, only feasible because of the passion a bunch of us have to make a game that doesn't yet exist and no one else has the blind faith to jump into the abyss a few of us have flailed ourselves into.

Here's a quick FAQ:
1. Is the PR team working on a complete stand alone game?
Yes, although as of June 6, 2009 we are in Pre Production mode.

2. What engine is the team using?
The C4 engine.

2B. Is this the engine that the team won with MOTY?
No. We evaluated the Torque engine(s) and found that the C4 engine would be a better fit for our long term goals.

2C. Why not Unreal? Or id? Or "engine x"?
We have no budget. We need to work with an indie priced engine. We don't want to get bogged down in legal contracts and business entities. Nor do we want to strike some kind of "deal" with a publisher who forces us to make a game *they* want to sell as opposed to the one *we* want to make (as improbable as a publishing deal would be). Additionally we want to support the Indie gaming community and the C4 engine and it's author Eric Lengyel are stellar examples of how indie gaming is progressing.

3. What will the game be like?
Like PR1 mixed with Infiltration, ArmA and CoD4. So in other words.. ideally it will look like CoD4, play like Infiltration, have the scale of ArmA, the accessibility, team structures and innovations of PR1 & some new PR2 innovations to tie it all together.

4. Where will it be set?
Classified as of June 6, 2009.

5. What factions will be represented?
Classified as of June 6, 2009.

6. How many players will be supported?
We are hoping to support a minimum of 33 players per team (4 x 8 man squads + 1 Commander) for a total of 66 players. Ideally we'll support 98 players total preferably up to 130 (8 x 8 man squads + 1 Commander per team).

7. How big will the maps be?
Maps will be scaled based on the type of engagement; infantry maps will be smaller, combined arms maps will be larger. The C4 engine theoretically will support unlimited terrain sizes.

8. How much will it cost?
Right now we don't know. It will likely be sold via subscription, hopefully through Steam. Yes, Steam can suck, but it has a lot of great infrastructure for PC sales and distribution. It'll be something like $3 per month or $30 for a year subscription in advance. Again not definite, we'll figure that out over the coming months.

9. Will there be a free alpha / beta?
Yes, we'll be releasing several playable builds of the years of development incrementally moving towards a "one point oh" release that will be commercially available.

10. Will there be vehicles?
Duh.

11. Will everyone be able to play 5P35HU1 F0RC3Z?
No, PR2 will be a class based game much like PR1 (only with a much better UI for the class and squad systems).

12. When will it be released?
Dunno. As of June 6, 2009 I'd guess 2011 at the earliest as a commercial product.

13. When will there be a playable alpha?
Depends on playable hehe. But hopefully in 2009 we'll be able to distribute an early build to the community that shows off some of the basics.

14. Will there be a physics system?
Yes. If the C4 engine's physics system proves inadequate, we'll integrate a 3rd party physics engine. As of June 6, 2009 the C4 engine v1.5.9 does not include a physics system (although shipping titles on C4 have integrated 3rd party physics engines). The C4 roadmap includes a physics engine in C4 v1.6. The physics system in C4 is designed to be a "network aware" physics engine. Networked physics is extremely difficult to pull off, particularly in lare scale multiplayer environments (physics uses up network traffic). But we all dislike the idea of elm trees that can stop a tank.

15. Will PR2 be released on consoles?
Heh.. if I say "yes" people will say "pmg, the f00k3d pr for consoles". But the reality is that if a publisher came to us and said "we'll fund you to port the PC version of PR2 to 360 and/or PS3" .. we'd consider it (yes mostly for a sell out whoring of money). The C4 engine works on PS3 today and will, probably by 2010, work on XBox 360. Basically we're going to try and avoid any decisions that would make a console "port" be unnecessarily difficult. But the tactical gamer on the PC platform is our primary audience.

16. What else can you tell us?
I dunno, that's prolly already too much given we're still in pre production mode and are not even sure if we can pull this off.

[cyberzomby]

Amazing news yet again!

One thing tho: Arent you worried that with the subscription system you are scaring away a part of the audiance? Not everyone might be able to justify paying the 3 a month, how little it may be. Its easier to justify a one time purchase for a game.

Just thinking aloud here, as it wont be a problem for me Your aiming for 2011 with that basic infantry with vehicle set-up right? Thats soon!

I seriously hope you guys make it and can set up an example for the rest of the gaming world. It kinda has a You against the world feeling and ring to it that makes me proud to be in this community. Not that I contributed in any way to the mod, its just cool to be part of your adventure!

[SWIZZ=kettcar=]

we will see how its going on

[Zimmer]

Amazing news yet again!

One thing tho: Arent you worried that with the subscription system you are scaring away a part of the audiance? Not everyone might be able to justify paying the 3 a month, how little it may be. Its easier to justify a one time purchase for a game.

Just thinking aloud here, as it wont be a problem for me Your aiming for 2011 with that basic infantry with vehicle set-up right? Thats soon!

I seriously hope you guys make it and can set up an example for the rest of the gaming world. It kinda has a You against the world feeling and ring to it that makes me proud to be in this community. Not that I contributed in any way to the mod, its just cool to be part of your adventure!

11million pays monthly around 15$ to play wow.

[Wicca]

Zimmer, Wow is alot better than PR, and will forever be...

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

No seriously, i would be very happy, if i could pay say, 9 dollars for three months, so i dont have to worry about it.

[H.sta]

this is not WOW... I wouldn't play the game if you have to pay every month, it's just not worth it.

[Zimmer]

Well then again WOW costs 15*12=160$ EDIT: maybe more Idk never paid for WOW.
30$ for a year isnt really expensive especially if you could pay for like 1-2years in the row. Its still less then a new games costs for me atleast. (we are talking maybe around 80$ for a new game in Norway.)

We are talking less then 1/5 of what wow is costing a year. But of course it all comes to the quality of the game itself, but this is like 2 years until we can look for it and alot can change to the better or worse in that time

EDIT: then again it would be given that the game has to be updated with new content as it is now.

[Madhouse]

this is not WOW... I wouldn't play the game if you have to pay every month, it's just not worth it.

So you wouldn't play $3 a month or $30 a year for a product that is going to be updated with new content beyond the 1.0 version?

Thats a decent price and i'm willing to bet that the majority of the Global Gaming Community would love to pay this price for a game, but hey theres always a small bunch of whinges in the world who love to be over zealous drama queens for the purpose to bring attention to themselves, which makes them look like a dickhead, especially when you make the statement in a forum where the primary reason we are all here is because we love to pay this game, its what we like.

Also, don't you think our Developers deserve some payment? Have they not worked hard enough for your $3 a month? For you to say that paying $3 a month for a game which has had soo much work put into it which so far has been on their own time and for no payment what so ever.

Don't forget to give a thought to the cost of using the C4 engine, I am not aware of the price of a license to develop with this engine but i'd imagine there would be a significant cost to the Development team, which they need to fund.

P.S. Mods wanna give me an infraction for attacking this person? Go for it. Im defending PR because I love it.

[nicoX]

Eggman provided an outstanding FAQ and I see big hopes for this feature game, yet I too have questions about the payment system.
No matter how much it costs it will scare away a huge part of the player base, no matter how good PR2 turns out it can't compete with games like COD4 and BF2 or a feature game of this developers.
Both are owned by big companies that have been in the market for a long time and have big resources and reputation, so people will always buy this games no matter what.
For PR it's a MOD, and that's how people have reached to it. Not because off big interest towards a realistic game but because of ability to try something new from Vanilla, a great deal have continued to be supportive of the game, but still many just play it for variation reasons and just from time to time.
This is the ones we will lose with a subscription option, and also the under 18.

For this I'm afraid PR2 turns out to be a great game but with a low playerbase, which eventually is going to destroy the dev itself as both players and developers might jumped on another game, and who knows if there will come a great Battle game with a fine modding ability by 2010-2011.

I'm interested if there is a possibility to finance the game through sponsors and ads, a one time fee, or a donation system.
The thing with a donation system will be good, that players will contribute for a game that is good, and specially it will give the younger to get attached to it and by a later period show their appriciation to donate.

I don't know how big the chances are that the British Armed Forces show interest and finance this game, probably low chances but worth a try.

[DankE_SPB]

Because that way we don't make any sort of "official" statements which may .........

I suggest you to add this to your blog entry, so when people ask something about new engine it will be easier to direct them

just curious, what kind of help are you interested in? you need coders, modellers?

[cyberzomby]

11million pays monthly around 15$ to play wow.

I have 2 arguments against that, A; They didnt come from a free to play game, and look at what they get. Im not saying I dont think PR isnt worth it. I'd fork it over as soon as I can and have to. But I think there might be the younger ones who are not going to be able to pay this. Or even some students who cant miss that.

And you are totaly right about the cost a year. 30 for an entire year of gameplay like this is nothing compared to other games.

Like I said before: Im just wondering how they think its going to affect there audiance. Theres people like you see already, who are rejecting the monthly subscription. Altough it is considered to be the future of gaming.

And Nico: I certainly came over here for the realistic gameplay! I also think PR can compete with those companys because PR does not need to keep an eye out on profits or cost viable things. They can do whatever they want as long as they want.

[Peeta]

Just please, please, PLEASE don't focus on consoles if you go that way. PC pwns consoles.
Ahh yes, keep the prices about where they are now, that is lovely.

[Cpt. Trips]

MMOs justify their subscription fees because they provide a service, i.e. server access and new content. Think about the support PR has gotten from devs for free up until now then imagine what they could do if they were actually earning money for it. IMO that'd be something several times the value of what Blizzard give to WoW players at a fraction of the price.

[cyberzomby]

Yup Yup Altough if you want to be critic of that oppinion: The DEV's have stated that they just want a game they want to play. They are not making one for us. I think I've seen that on here somewhere XD

[Biggaayal]

Hi dev ppl, I just wanted to add to this thread that I think it is a solid idea to go indie. Why do I play mods? Because its games, by the people, for the people. It's like comparing a song by Paris hilton to one by nina simone .

Pc games barely have any future in the big publishers anyway, because the console consume-aholics aren't nearly as independant-minded as the pc gamer crowd.

I would want to pay double for a good game built with passion compared to an anverage good looking slut of a game. You wont even need copy protection, cause fans will gladly pay a fair price for a fair product.

Good luck!

[eggman]

If people have problem paying $30 for a year of a game that looks like CoD4, feels like Infiltration, has the scale and scope of ArmA, the teamwork systems of PR and a bunch of new innovations... those people are probably not going to pay anything for a game (this is a reason why PC gaming is suffering.. there is a LOT of free content available in the form of mods or pirated games.. a lot of people think everything should be free all the time).

And the notion of subscription is just an idea. We want to be able to release it in a solid but early stage.. and continue to develop it.. for many years thereafter. It's not viable for us to develop PR commercially and give away updates for ever. It's not viable for us to take 5 years to develop PR to a "one point oh" stage where we can sell it...

egg

[Alex6714]

May I ask, what does C4 allow in the scope of HUDs, targeting systems, vehicle physics and camera stabiliation? Is it possible to implement all these things well? Well, I assume so if someone can code it being open and all.


It might be a bit early for this or clasified, but what will PR2 do vehicle wise? Will it go for realism in the systems or artificial limitations to achieve teamwork? If cameras can be stabilised and acurate targeting systems that are realistic be made, will they be used?

Sorry if it is a bit much to ask at the moment.