[Ideas] PR Future Engine Ideas and Suggestions

[gazzthompson]

so we could use Bad company, or wait for BF3 to come out?
everyone likes a good physics engine

well, what sort of limitations and abilitys dose bad company engine have, same with bf3 if we even know what engine it will have, threads for discussion not just, "lets use this game it looks cool"

[gazzthompson]

Unreal can have as big maps as PR maps.

link to any videos/pictures of big unreal maps?

[Yang Xangai]

CryEngine 2 supports more than 32 players, its just necessary adapt it on engine. I really think that this engine will do a great job in PR, because it has all the required features, such as: Long Draw Distance, vehicle physics, physics on everything, a exoskeleton (included dismembrament), time of day, great graphics, custom assets, and very other tecnologies.

If you guys want to know more about mods and developing in this engine, visit: http://www.crymod.com and see those promissing projects incoming.

NoName Island
Crymod Modding Portal | View Project Profile

CryRecon
CryRecon:NanoWarrior Development Journal

MechWarriors (total conversion)
MechWarrior: Living Legends
Crymod Modding Portal | View Project Profile

Look at these atmospheres
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/4152 ... st3fw0.jpg
http://www.abload.de/img/untitled-1-25tcvn.jpg
MechWarrior: Living Legends Media Gallery - City Assault/City Assault (1680x1050)
http://www.mechlivinglegends.net/cpg/al ... City02.jpg

Devs, what do you think?

[Drav]

Egg, agreed on Arma2. One of things that is great about PR is the fact that so many people bought BF2 so you have a huge potential playerbase.

The second great thing about PR is also due to the BF2 engine. You CAN just log on, join a squad and get in the action. PR has very good fun infantry fighting. Armas infantry fighting is toooo realistic if anything, i.e 1 hour of boredom followed by a mad minute of fighting. While I like things to work in a realistic way, I play PR to have fun, not pretend I am a soldier. The bf2 engine means we have good responsive controls and is partly to thank for the fun infantry fighting.


If I had to point and say, 'that one' today, it would be the cryengine, coupled with leaning very heavily on Crytek for a 64 player patch. Unlike EA, Crytek are much more approachable. Not saying we would get a result, but at least they would reply to say no.

[Deadfast]

ArmA 2 looks VERY promising as a game and possibly modding platform. However I keep hearing 50+ players. That sucks because I had hoped they woud stretch it to 100+.

I have not heard of anything being changed about player limit from ArmA 1 to ArmA 2.


Therefore, theoretically, you can have 100+ players.

The problem will be with a massive lag.

[Sabre_tooth_tigger]

Lag is a fail, you cant really have a 4 hour game with tactics if lag is the main decider of a battles outcome

bf2 is not perfect but its consistent in its failings at least Source has given me weird lag problems for a year plus, they recently fixed it though and true enough bf2 does seem to do physics better if not well

I'd say arma (2) is good except its physics are not brillant either ? and lag is seemingly more of an issue plus they dont handle numbers like bf2 can which is a massive downer for me as I got not much time for bots in multiplayer tactics, maybe co op and obviously story line single player sure

crysis has failed to get more multiplayers then bf1942 which is ironically probably the best alternative to the bf2 engine. frostbite seems to have less general organisation available in the game and is probably years away. does moddb engine has squad mechanics?

ofp2 lacks large player numbers?

[DeltaFart]

I think the Unreal 3 Engine has real potential. I mean the Army Gaming Program are using it for their game engine, it's supposedly got ability for ballistics, advanced sounds, vehicles(I would assme since RO :O F was using The UE) and the damagable properties of the buildings.
I'll get a link later since this class period is about to end, and my last class is next

[eggman]

CryEngine 2 supports more than 32 players, its just necessary adapt it on engine. I really think that this engine will do a great job in PR, because it has all the required features, such as: Long Draw Distance, vehicle physics, physics on everything, a exoskeleton (included dismembrament), time of day, great graphics, custom assets, and very other tecnologies.

Devs, what do you think?

I've not heard anything that indicates Cry Engine 2 will extend beyond 32 players. Adapting an engine is not really a simple task hehe. The Cry Engine 1 & 2 collectively have about $30 to $35 million dollars invested into them. I don't necessarily believe that a mod crew could pick up the engine and achieve what the original developer was not able to achieve with it (even if we could gain a license to it, never mind source to modify it).

Realistically when looking at the engines that power AAA titles, the thinking needs to be "mod" and not "extend the engine".

I have not heard of anything being changed about player limit from ArmA 1 to ArmA 2.

Therefore, theoretically, you can have 100+ players.

The problem will be with a massive lag.

ArmA 1 features materials indicate 100+ players. ArmA 2 features materials indicate 50+ players. I am not aware of any reports of stable and regular gameplay at 100+ players with ArmA 1. Anytime I tried ArmA 1 when it originally came out servers were laggy and buggy with 30+ players. I recently re-installed now that the ACE is out, but I've not had time to play much. Still rarely see servers with more than 40 slots.

For ArmA 2, I believe that BHI's perspective is that 50+ players with 120 bots is a lot of activity. That may be the case, but I'd prefer to see 100+ players and use a few bots here and there to add in some interesting game play elements.

well, what sort of limitations and abilitys dose bad company engine have, same with bf3 if we even know what engine it will have, threads for discussion not just, "lets use this game it looks cool"

Bad Company is built on Frostbite and I believe the PC version of that is called Frostbite DX. BF3 is an unannounced game - AND MAY NEVER HAPPEN. However you would have to assume that EA will milk the franchise. But PC gaming is not very lucrative any longer. And EA has really come to dislike PC gaming due to piracy and lower than expected sales figures.

My understand of some interesting features for BF3 are:
- 40 players per team (80 total)
- squads can merge into "batallions"
- expected to support longer view distances than BF2 (not new to PR, but we may get better visuals)
- 4sq km maps, but terrains up to 32sq km can be generated
- everything can be destroyed (not new to PR)
- NATO vs MEC in a modern setting (this is relevant because it means assets that ship with BF3 can be used in PR, whereas 2142 assets are largely useless to PR)

The Frostbite DX engine tech likely means that BF3 will bear little resemblence to BF2 in terms of leveraging existing PR assets. So from a workflow and asset re-use perspective, BF3 / Frostbite would likely be nearly as much work as a complete platform switch.

It's also unknown as to how much support EA will provide for modding BF3 (if the game ever ships). 2142 has no tools support from EA whatsoever. Modders for 2142 are using BF2 mod tools hacked up to work with 2142. Additionally PR is an anomaly in the BF mod scene... the ranking system (not exposed to modders) really deterred players from trying BF2 mods.

EA/DICE has done little more than lip service around mod support for BF2 & 2142. Shortly after the release of BF2 mod support was basically left to the community to figure out. And frankly if they really were interested in mod support they would be engaged with folks like Project Reality, Black Sand Studio, BF Pirates, etc, etc to ask what we want from them regarding upcoming releases and mod tools & support.


==

Huxley is an interesting game.. it's based on UT3 and is an MMOFPS. It's being developed in Korea. I highly doubt it will be moddable because it's a "master server" like MMO.

The world can be viewed here:
http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/6176/mapmq2.jpg

And some trailers here:
null from GameVideos

==

Another problem with games that are on the scale of PR is the cost of servers. If it were not for the community of PR server admins, there wouldn't be a PR to play. But if you now add in the cost of a server that can support 100+ players (assuming there was a game that did so) you get into potentially very high monthly server fees.

And when you look at the cost of developing an engine & game that can support that kind of scale, you are talking about a $15 to $20 million investment. That is VERY hard to recover from PC sales aone, so the devs / publishers need to look at not only frahchise sales, but a recurring revenue stream. By that I mean some sort of subscription fee, whether that is from server companies or players themselves.

So now there's a possibility that to find an engine that support PRs scale requirements, the only viable model is a subscription based MMO (because servers are too expensive to rent and publishers are not willing to develop a game engine with that scale and then give the servers away for free). Example is that MAG is an MMO that may have pay to play; Huxley is an MMO but the subscription model is not known. Planetside is a big pile of dung imo, but the scale (via the "zoning") was pretty massive. I can't imagine paying a monthly fee for that.

==

It's not a simple task to find something that can replicate current PR features, address current shortcomings and open up new possibilities!

egg

[Raic]

Just wondering, how does people see 'id Tech 4' aka 'Doom 3 engine'.
Out dated? Looking that id is looking to open-source it after they release their next game (can't remember the name, EDIT: Rage) so adding features you need should be possible ie, squads. Enemy territory already has big maps, so I bet its possible to stretch the limits.

Standalone PR!

[Tannhauser]

I'm not sure, but the Dunia engine (Far Cry 2) seems to be very interesting and has neat dynamics. I guess if they ever release an SDK for the game we could check out how far it can go? Right now, mapping for Far Cry 2 is just insanely easy and it could make wonders if we ever modded it for PR standards.
Let's cross fingers and see if we can expand the limit to 64? I'm sure we can, they probably reduced it for lag/networking issues being rushed to release the game early? (I'm sure FC2 devs weren't thinking of releasing the game with uber-invincible mercenaries that can only die with headshots lol, they just didn't have the time at Ubisoft to test/fix those things I guess)

But i'm no coder or anything, it'd be up to the team here to check it out.
Sorry if that was already answered, I didn't read the whole thread like I usualy do.

[eggman]

Just wondering, how does people see 'id Tech 4' aka 'Doom 3 engine'.
Out dated? Looking that id is looking to open-source it after they release their next game (can't remember the name, EDIT: Rage) so adding features you need should be possible ie, squads. Enemy territory already has big maps, so I bet its possible to stretch the limits.

Standalone PR!

Rage is using the same Doom 3 engine extensions that were used in ET:QW. Currently, with ET:QW anyways, maps are limited to 2sq km and players limited to 32 (might even be 24). Rage may extend either of those, not sure. But the Doom 3 engine does not support large outdoor maps (if you call 2 sq km large). For that you need the extensions to the Doom 3 engine used in ET:QW and Rage.

egg

[Deadfast]

ArmA 1 features materials indicate 100+ players. ArmA 2 features materials indicate 50+ players. I am not aware of any reports of stable and regular gameplay at 100+ players with ArmA 1. Anytime I tried ArmA 1 when it originally came out servers were laggy and buggy with 30+ players. I recently re-installed now that the ACE is out, but I've not had time to play much. Still rarely see servers with more than 40 slots.

The international Conflict tournament (International Conflict: Armed Assault) states to have a record of 126 players on one server, with the usual average around 100 per battle.

...We have an average of about 100 players in each battle with 126 players being the record...

Don't ask me how bad the lag was though - I'm not a part of it

[Tannhauser]

does moddb engine has squad mechanics?

Good question, is there possibility of making a working Teams-Subteam-Player gestion system in the Torque engine proposed to the winner of this year's ModDB contest?
Being open source I guess it is... But what about Voip and Q/T rose goodies like BF2? And again, wouldn't EA be bitching at us if by making PR into another engine, we'd use concept they initially implemented in BF2?

[eggman]

I'm not sure, but the Dunia engine (Far Cry 2) seems to be very interesting and has neat dynamics. I guess if they ever release an SDK for the game we could check out how far it can go? Right now, mapping for Far Cry 2 is just insanely easy and it could make wonders if we ever modded it for PR standards.
Let's cross fingers and see if we can expand the limit to 64? I'm sure we can, they probably reduced it for lag/networking issues being rushed to release the game early?

Dunia is an evolution of "Yeti" (which was used in GRAW). Yeti is based on Unreal 2.5. I really doubt that it's easy to alter the Dunia engine to support more players than what FC2 ships with. Mapping is an important aspect of modding, but is only 1 part of it. There is no "SDK" for FC2 modding and I don't know of plans to release one (may people have been bitching about this and no response from Ubisoft).

So it's about as well supported as BF2 modding (only with a much better map editor). And fewer players. But the world / maps are huge and the visuals outstanding.

egg

[Raic]

If they win the engine licence aren't they allowed to add or remove any features they want? This requires a guy with ability to read the code and put the needed lines there though. Or have I misunderstood things?

Rage is using the same Doom 3 engine extensions that were used in ET:QW. Currently, with ET:QW anyways, maps are limited to 2sq km and players limited to 32 (might even be 24). Rage may extend either of those, not sure. But the Doom 3 engine does not support large outdoor maps (if you call 2 sq km large). For that you need the extensions to the Doom 3 engine used in ET:QW and Rage.

egg

Rage uses 'id tech 5' not 4.
But aye, It might be that MegaTexture technology won't "ship" with the source.

[Tannhauser]

But the world / maps are huge and the visuals outstanding.

egg

True.. and sad that Dunia is a no no.. Damn.
Now, killed all my dreams of playing PR on 16km maps like northern/southern Leboa-Selato haha! Tough i'd be pissed at getting my M1A2 stuck in those narrow canyons or at my firebase being caught in a savana-fire lmao!
Thanks for the info Egg

[eggman]

The international Conflict tournament (International Conflict: Armed Assault) states to have a record of 126 players on one server, with the usual average around 100 per battle.

Don't ask me how bad the lag was though - I'm not a part of it

That's interesting... I do wonder what the lag is like. In BF2 high pings from one player can disrupt an entire server, so I am curious how that is with ArmA. I've always found it to be laggy / buggy multiplayer, but I haven't played online for a while (but plan to again now that ACE is out).

Good question, is there possibility of making a working Teams-Subteam-Player gestion system in the Torque engine proposed to the winner of this year's ModDB contest?

Yes, there is work already done in this area on TGEA.

Being open source I guess it is... But what about Voip and Q/T rose goodies like BF2? And again, wouldn't EA be bitching at us if by making PR into another engine, we'd use concept they initially implemented in BF2?

The Comm Rose is a decent idea, but there are other ways of implementing the same functionality. VOIP is critical, there are some solutions for TGEA, but they are pretty basic. I'd love to see a solution like ArmA's "VON" stuff. That didn't work when I first played ArmA, but Fuzzhead indicated ot me that it is now working and I checked it out and it's quite cool (but still has a few fundamental problems).

If they win the engine licence aren't they allowed to add or remove any features they want? This requires a guy with ability to read the code and put the needed lines there though. Or have I misunderstood things?

Yes, but it would be more like 6 to 8 coders required to make any kind of reasonable progress given the complexity of something like PR. And that would just be on engine extensions and missing functionalities. There would be another 12 to 20 people developing / migrating assets.

Rage uses 'id tech 5' not 4.
But aye, It might be that MegaTexture technology won't "ship" with the source.

Interesting. Afaik ET:QW uses "id tech 4", so I assume that 5 is yet another set of evolutions. Not sure which one they will open source, but I'd be surprised if it was the megatexture feature as that, afaik, is the single largest innovation in the id engine technology and I doubt they would want to give that away just yet.

egg

[VRV]

Crysis Massive Battle

[CodeRedFox]

While it is allot of player/AI going on you can also see the edge of the map. Which makes me wonder how big the map is.