The sucky thing about having video games as a hobby and profession is that I am always analyzing the games that I am playing which can steal some of the magic out of the experience.
These two phrases have suddenly made me very preoccupied... By any chance, I hope you never laid your eyes on anything related to Duke Nukem Forever.... :P
I'm assuming that he was making a joke with DNF being the punchline. ;-)
I don't think a developer saying "it will be finished when it's ready" is anything to worry about.
The makers of DNF say this, but so do the makers of many other great games. Blizzard, iD, etc.
Yes, but unlike "other" developers... 3D Realms really are meaning it will take forever!! I've given up on that damn game. By the time it comes out, I'll be too old to care! Most kids today don't even know what Duke Nukem is or looks like (I know, since I have asked my teenage kids). I've been waiting since '96 for christ's sake!!
On a separate note, what kind of weapons will there be? Can we expect the cardboard tube, twenty sided dice, or a massive Xbox controller of death?!? Or anything else PA related.
And can we have Dr. Raven Darktalon, Jesus, and/or Frank as a secret party member/enemy? That would be sweet :P!
Does RPG Action mean with a camera like KOTOR's but TB?
Or like KH2/KOTOR?
We need more TB RPG's that are hyped.
And moving on, Character Creation, is it like Fallout's but with like, a system where one determines how one moves by positioning the legs and such on a 3D rotatable wireframe?
OFF TOPIC: Norton and Mcafee are murdering each other on my comp and we got an error message saying that something has accessed the comp where NOTHING SHOULD BE, and I have been hacked on various nerdly boards(I do not live in Hawaii, Hong Kong and North Korea all at once, I've even had people moving my mouse and crap, so can someone tell me how to uninstall Mcafee(the uninstall isn't there jackasses, shut up) please PM me
OFF TOPIC: Norton and Mcafee are murdering each other on my comp and we got an error message saying that something has accessed the comp where NOTHING SHOULD BE, and I have been hacked on various nerdly boards(I do not live in Hawaii, Hong Kong and North Korea all at once, I've even had people moving my mouse and crap, so can someone tell me how to uninstall Mcafee(the uninstall isn't there jackasses, shut up) please PM me
Your first mistake was installing or not uninstalling either Norton or Mcafee! But having both on the same drive is like letting in the Antichrist!!!! Are you mad,.. man?!?!?
BTW those programs suck at blocking inbound/outbound traffic and are resource hogs! When I worked for tech support about ten years ago, the first thing I would ask people is if they have one of those two programs installed. Then I would try my hardest to convince them to uninstall them! After agreeing, they would tell me that they could use they're computer again. Well no s**t sherlock! They are resource hogs and take over your computer like a virus. One guy couldn't empty his trash can till he uninstalled the program.
I'm going on a tangent here... so just do a search for better options. Then uninstall those programs (download "Your Uninstaller! 2006", that should find it and remove the program). If I were you, I would just reinstall the OS and start from scratch. Then start protecting it! Who knows what someone has been doing on your PC. I would also buy a router, that will give you a little more protection by having your PC keep changing IP addresses, among other things.
Heres some other programs that do it better.
* Zone Alarm (my personal favorite) or Armor2net. Black Ice has been around for a long time, but not good for the noobs. These will tell you whats coming in or going out and you decide what gets access.
* Also for viruses you can use Panda Anti virus, very good IMHO. And Adaware for the adware. Zone Alarm offers both a Anti virus and an option to remove adware, but it's up to you on how you protect your PC.
Maybe I'm missing something, but as far back as I can remember when "episodic content" became the hot thing to do, Tycho spoke out against it in his news post. Granted he might have been focusing a bit more on the content people can purchase like the horse armor in Oblivion, I'm pretty sure he was also referring to HL2: Episode 1.
Any general guesses on system requirements? I know you probably don't know or aren't allowed to say exact s but can you give something general like "we are trying to make it able to run on older computers" or something of the sort?
Hey folks at Hothead and other folks in the thread.
My question is about the Torque engine. How has working with Torque been? Is it in any way absolutely outstanding? Is it lacking anything?
Myself and some like-minded friends are working on a hobby project and we're using a freeware graphics engine (Irrlicht). We've considered upgrading to an honest-to-goodness game engine but nobody wants to drop the $300. Further, my software engineering pals assert that you get what you pay for and that a $300 price point must denote a lack of quality.
Hey folks at Hothead and other folks in the thread.
My question is about the Torque engine. How has working with Torque been? Is it in any way absolutely outstanding? Is it lacking anything?
Myself and some like-minded friends are working on a hobby project and we're using a freeware graphics engine (Irrlicht). We've considered upgrading to an honest-to-goodness game engine but nobody wants to drop the $300. Further, my software engineering pals assert that you get what you pay for and that a $300 price point must denote a lack of quality.
They've been brainwashed by decades of commercial software being dominant. :P
It might not be quite up to the $300 engine, but open source stuff is usually at least good enough to use for any project that wouldn't have $300 in the budget.
Any general guesses on system requirements? I know you probably don't know or aren't allowed to say exact s but can you give something general like "we are trying to make it able to run on older computers" or something of the sort?
I think I can say "we are trying to make it able to run on older computers." In fact, I just did. The problem is how old? I can confirm that it will NOT run on my moded Amiga 3000. Our goal is to make sure as many fans as possible can run the game which is why we committed to making the game run on multiple OSes. Right now, it is running on PC, Mac and Linux. What hardware will be the min spec is still too early to say but it is important to Hothead even if just for the pride of our programmers.
Hey folks at Hothead and other folks in the thread.
My question is about the Torque engine. How has working with Torque been? Is it in any way absolutely outstanding? Is it lacking anything?
Myself and some like-minded friends are working on a hobby project and we're using a freeware graphics engine (Irrlicht). We've considered upgrading to an honest-to-goodness game engine but nobody wants to drop the $300. Further, my software engineering pals assert that you get what you pay for and that a $300 price point must denote a lack of quality.
There are really several Torque approaches to choose from. Torque X looks interesting for hobby game making and has even been shown to be able produce professional results but it is a different beast than the 2D package or the main Torque engine. Torque X is free for 30 days and then I think it is $100. Each version seems geared towards different levels of programming experience and/or approaches. There is a ton of info on the GarageGames website. You should check it out and decide for yourself. I personally believe the engine is outstanding value--the only reason why it is so affordable is GarageGames philosophy towards independent developers. If you are looking for quick results, the main engine is extremely capable thus has a longer learning curve so you should take that into account.
I think he just wanted to know what systems you can run it on currently.
I am not certain what message you are referring to but if you mean the game, it is currently running on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. If you mean the question about Torque, the GarageGames website is probably the best resource to answer that question.
Maybe I'm missing something, but as far back as I can remember when "episodic content" became the hot thing to do, Tycho spoke out against it in his news post. Granted he might have been focusing a bit more on the content people can purchase like the horse armor in Oblivion, I'm pretty sure he was also referring to HL2: Episode 1.
Maybe I'm missing something, but as far back as I can remember when "episodic content" became the hot thing to do, Tycho spoke out against it in his news post. Granted he might have been focusing a bit more on the content people can purchase like the horse armor in Oblivion, I'm pretty sure he was also referring to HL2: Episode 1.
So why is the PA game coming in episodes??
You're a bit confused, you are mixing up micro purchases with Episodic content. Micro Purchases are a bitch because they are often features that should have been placed in the game to begin with, or would have been included in subsequent patches in most other games. If Quake 2 came out now instead of many years ago, I think a publisher could justify releasing the Point release(where multi player was vastly expanded, and a new race was added) for an extra 10-20 dollars, saying that it isn't necessary to enjoy the full game, but would add an interesting flavor. Not to say that they would but still. This could mean that we would have to pay for new maps and new units, giving the person with more money an advantage over someone equal skill, sometimes more. This works with Asian style MMOGs because they are free to buy and play, the things you buy are for customisation of the character, that often also have an equivalent that you can earn. Paying 50 bucks for a game, then having to turn around and pay more to get all the other features that should have been included, but weren't is a bit of a kick in the nuts.
Now, Episodic games, each are a storyline into themselves, and fit together for a larger overarching story, like serial TV. This is a good thing, as if you don't like the style, then you are only down a small amount of cash, as apposed to the aforemensioned 50 bucks.
One: From Hothead's perspective, the game design and flow of the traditional adventure game is something of a lost art--not too many people can say that they are experts and still active in the industry. Ron has a lot of passion for adventure games and believes that with the right improvements and innovation can once again be a relevant and excellent game form for character interaction and storytelling. He has been passing on his knowledge to us so that the portion of the game that is adventure in structure can be a great experience. However, we should clarify that he did not write or work on the story but is rather using his expertise to ensure that the dev team does not screw it up.
How did you transpose 2 dimensional art work from the strips to 3d models.
Is there a process to making these characters 3 dimensional, because in the trailer they looked just like Gabe and Tycho from one angle and then, like when it moved to the front of their heads, it looked so strange.
Is the supposed cel shading implementation going to improve this, because, while I fully understand and appreciate the trailer was very much a WIP, it really didnt look good at all (referring only to the 3d models of the characters.
How did you transpose 2 dimensional art work from the strips to 3d models.
Is there a process to making these characters 3 dimensional, because in the trailer they looked just like Gabe and Tycho from one angle and then, like when it moved to the front of their heads, it looked so strange.
Is the supposed cel shading implementation going to improve this, because, while I fully understand and appreciate the trailer was very much a WIP, it really didnt look good at all (referring only to the 3d models of the characters.
Except the fruit fucker, which looked great.
As you say, work in progress. Stay tuned. I am personally very happy with the team's progress and when the time comes, I think that you will agree.
can you post of some screenshots of the 3d character models without skins and textures?
From time to time as we move through production, we will be posting screenshots. I will make sure that this request is passed along.
I am entirely confused by this request. Models without skins or textures? Why? This isn't a Half-Life mod.
In any case, my question is mod related. Does Hothead plan on leaving the game open enough for the community to manipulate? I don't know how integrated this type of thing is into the Torque engine.
I actually purchased a Torque license when it was still called V12, and from what I've seen they would have to go to some lengths to make it non-player modifiable. You have the engine code in C++, and the actual "game" parts are mostly scripts.
Not to say that it will definitely come with a map editor or anything, but I'm hopeful that we'll be able to do some mod/tweaking. Keep in mind that the version I have is so old I can't even see the current edition without buying it again, so this is all (not entirely) baseless speculation.
HitScan on
Unstable like the isotope that resolves the fate of the theoretical cat in the hypothetical crate.
Ok, I have a question. I hate the fact that I'm asking it, but I'd rather be wrong now, then correct and slightly disappointed in the future. I was looking at the character creation screen, and was wondering will there be any option for changing skin/hair/clothing color for in-game avatars? Out of my close friends who read Penny Arcade and will find any means necessary to play the game (7 of us in total) only 3 are caucasian. Will there be any way to make asian/hispanic/black characters?
The character creation UI you see in the trailer is not final (it has already changed a fair bit in fact). There are definitely provisions for setting colors of both skin and clothing!
I just read the PC Gamer article and watched the trailer. You guys are doing a ri-goddamn-diculous great job on everything.
I have some questions about distribution:
1) Are you guys handling the distribution deals or are you going let the PA guys handle that? It seems like you guys would have more experience with that aspect.
2) If you are handling it, can you let on anything about who will have rights to distribute RSPD? i.e. I run a game site that already sells games for $20 and have a DRM/Ecom solution - will small portals like mine be able to sell RSPD?
Thanks and keep up the great work! One more thing, the game looks like it's come a very long way, do you have any rough timetables you can throw out for release ?
I saw a screen over at Ars Technica from their PAX coverage, and its' looking great. The only thing that stood out as off though was that you couldn't see the shadow of the rake in the player's hands. Is this just how it's going to be, real shadows for player models only, or are the weapon shadows coming later?
Ordinarily I wouldn't pay it much attention, but holding a rake with that stance really makes it stand out. (I'll likely have to play it with no shadows at all on my crusty old laptop, but I'm thinking of "The Future(tm)"
HitScan on
Unstable like the isotope that resolves the fate of the theoretical cat in the hypothetical crate.
Not that I care personally, (I have a 360) but I was wondering if there was a paticular reason that the game is going to be on Xbox Live and not on the Playstation store?
Are you still working out the details, did they not want it, did you guys not want to be on PS3?
I understand there is a very good chance that you really won't be able to comment on this but thought I'd ask anyways.
How many characters from the comic will apper in the game?
Will it feature only main characters, or will it draw upon the more obscure characters?
Will any of these (if any) be playable, or will it just be Gabe, Tycho, and the Create-a-character?
And will there be unlockable weapons? (something like a cardboard tube for Gabe, or the Nerf gun.)
"Maybe I'm missing something, but as far back as I can remember when "episodic content" became the hot thing to do, Tycho spoke out against it in his news post. Granted he might have been focusing a bit more on the content people can purchase like the horse armor in Oblivion, I'm pretty sure he was also referring to HL2: Episode 1."
I think actually that Tycho is right to speak out against ep1: I LOVE ep2, it was amazing. But, I think that ep1 was not so sweet. I think it was kind of a rip-off: it didn't meaningfully advance the storyline, and was very short, and cost too much.
I think that's what he's against: sub-par experiences for full-price. He isn't going to sell you a 2 hour episode for 20 bucks, nor will he sell you a piece of "armor" for 4 dollars for your "horse". He is going to deliver the quality of Ep2, which was out of control, for 20 bucks. That's what I imagine him thinking/doing, at least, in those strange dreams I have late at night.... .
This all sounds great! I love how you are going with the "Adventure" game model. At first, I was totally hoping it'd be a sandboxy/multiple missions/type of thing. But, honestly, I'd rather play a solid linear story, especially if it's going to be episodic.
I mean, a sandbox game would be cool, too, don't think you can't do it ;-) But, the idea of the adventure game is pretty sweet.
I think he is taking the design philosophy from Bratz and is really letting loose in Episode I.
No, I am just giving him shit. His favorite game is probably something like Portal - i can see him appreciating the tight gameplay.
Of course, my initial comment was designed to draw him out in the first place to answer himself, but sadly, no such luck. I guess he's busy with some project or something right now.
Posts
Gabe was dodging the wang issue in the Q&A. I figure they either think it's phenomenally stupid, or it's a "maybe" feature they can't discuss.
I'm assuming that he was making a joke with DNF being the punchline. ;-)
Please god let him have been making a joke.
The makers of DNF say this, but so do the makers of many other great games. Blizzard, iD, etc.
Yes, but unlike "other" developers... 3D Realms really are meaning it will take forever!! I've given up on that damn game. By the time it comes out, I'll be too old to care! Most kids today don't even know what Duke Nukem is or looks like (I know, since I have asked my teenage kids). I've been waiting since '96 for christ's sake!!
On a separate note, what kind of weapons will there be? Can we expect the cardboard tube, twenty sided dice, or a massive Xbox controller of death?!? Or anything else PA related.
And can we have Dr. Raven Darktalon, Jesus, and/or Frank as a secret party member/enemy? That would be sweet :P!
Rob
Or like KH2/KOTOR?
We need more TB RPG's that are hyped.
And moving on, Character Creation, is it like Fallout's but with like, a system where one determines how one moves by positioning the legs and such on a 3D rotatable wireframe?
OFF TOPIC: Norton and Mcafee are murdering each other on my comp and we got an error message saying that something has accessed the comp where NOTHING SHOULD BE, and I have been hacked on various nerdly boards(I do not live in Hawaii, Hong Kong and North Korea all at once, I've even had people moving my mouse and crap, so can someone tell me how to uninstall Mcafee(the uninstall isn't there jackasses, shut up) please PM me
Your first mistake was installing or not uninstalling either Norton or Mcafee! But having both on the same drive is like letting in the Antichrist!!!! Are you mad,.. man?!?!?
BTW those programs suck at blocking inbound/outbound traffic and are resource hogs! When I worked for tech support about ten years ago, the first thing I would ask people is if they have one of those two programs installed. Then I would try my hardest to convince them to uninstall them! After agreeing, they would tell me that they could use they're computer again. Well no s**t sherlock! They are resource hogs and take over your computer like a virus. One guy couldn't empty his trash can till he uninstalled the program.
I'm going on a tangent here... so just do a search for better options. Then uninstall those programs (download "Your Uninstaller! 2006", that should find it and remove the program). If I were you, I would just reinstall the OS and start from scratch. Then start protecting it! Who knows what someone has been doing on your PC. I would also buy a router, that will give you a little more protection by having your PC keep changing IP addresses, among other things.
Heres some other programs that do it better.
* Zone Alarm (my personal favorite) or Armor2net. Black Ice has been around for a long time, but not good for the noobs. These will tell you whats coming in or going out and you decide what gets access.
* Also for viruses you can use Panda Anti virus, very good IMHO. And Adaware for the adware. Zone Alarm offers both a Anti virus and an option to remove adware, but it's up to you on how you protect your PC.
Hope that helps!
Rob
So why is the PA game coming in episodes??
My question is about the Torque engine. How has working with Torque been? Is it in any way absolutely outstanding? Is it lacking anything?
Myself and some like-minded friends are working on a hobby project and we're using a freeware graphics engine (Irrlicht). We've considered upgrading to an honest-to-goodness game engine but nobody wants to drop the $300. Further, my software engineering pals assert that you get what you pay for and that a $300 price point must denote a lack of quality.
They've been brainwashed by decades of commercial software being dominant. :P
It might not be quite up to the $300 engine, but open source stuff is usually at least good enough to use for any project that wouldn't have $300 in the budget.
I think I can say "we are trying to make it able to run on older computers." In fact, I just did. The problem is how old? I can confirm that it will NOT run on my moded Amiga 3000. Our goal is to make sure as many fans as possible can run the game which is why we committed to making the game run on multiple OSes. Right now, it is running on PC, Mac and Linux. What hardware will be the min spec is still too early to say but it is important to Hothead even if just for the pride of our programmers.
There are really several Torque approaches to choose from. Torque X looks interesting for hobby game making and has even been shown to be able produce professional results but it is a different beast than the 2D package or the main Torque engine. Torque X is free for 30 days and then I think it is $100. Each version seems geared towards different levels of programming experience and/or approaches. There is a ton of info on the GarageGames website. You should check it out and decide for yourself. I personally believe the engine is outstanding value--the only reason why it is so affordable is GarageGames philosophy towards independent developers. If you are looking for quick results, the main engine is extremely capable thus has a longer learning curve so you should take that into account.
I am not certain what message you are referring to but if you mean the game, it is currently running on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. If you mean the question about Torque, the GarageGames website is probably the best resource to answer that question.
They liked Sam & Max?
You're a bit confused, you are mixing up micro purchases with Episodic content. Micro Purchases are a bitch because they are often features that should have been placed in the game to begin with, or would have been included in subsequent patches in most other games. If Quake 2 came out now instead of many years ago, I think a publisher could justify releasing the Point release(where multi player was vastly expanded, and a new race was added) for an extra 10-20 dollars, saying that it isn't necessary to enjoy the full game, but would add an interesting flavor. Not to say that they would but still. This could mean that we would have to pay for new maps and new units, giving the person with more money an advantage over someone equal skill, sometimes more. This works with Asian style MMOGs because they are free to buy and play, the things you buy are for customisation of the character, that often also have an equivalent that you can earn. Paying 50 bucks for a game, then having to turn around and pay more to get all the other features that should have been included, but weren't is a bit of a kick in the nuts.
Now, Episodic games, each are a storyline into themselves, and fit together for a larger overarching story, like serial TV. This is a good thing, as if you don't like the style, then you are only down a small amount of cash, as apposed to the aforemensioned 50 bucks.
I thought I'd let this thread sit an entire month before I started bugging ya. Do you have anything new to share with us?
So. Gilbert's there with ya.
This brings up 2 questions.
One. What exactly is his role in the game?
Two. Can I come live with you?
Well, I guess the answer is yes. And we just did
One: From Hothead's perspective, the game design and flow of the traditional adventure game is something of a lost art--not too many people can say that they are experts and still active in the industry. Ron has a lot of passion for adventure games and believes that with the right improvements and innovation can once again be a relevant and excellent game form for character interaction and storytelling. He has been passing on his knowledge to us so that the portion of the game that is adventure in structure can be a great experience. However, we should clarify that he did not write or work on the story but is rather using his expertise to ensure that the dev team does not screw it up.
Two: Um . . . no.
Is there a process to making these characters 3 dimensional, because in the trailer they looked just like Gabe and Tycho from one angle and then, like when it moved to the front of their heads, it looked so strange.
Is the supposed cel shading implementation going to improve this, because, while I fully understand and appreciate the trailer was very much a WIP, it really didnt look good at all (referring only to the 3d models of the characters.
Except the fruit fucker, which looked great.
As you say, work in progress. Stay tuned. I am personally very happy with the team's progress and when the time comes, I think that you will agree.
I am entirely confused by this request. Models without skins or textures? Why? This isn't a Half-Life mod.
In any case, my question is mod related. Does Hothead plan on leaving the game open enough for the community to manipulate? I don't know how integrated this type of thing is into the Torque engine.
Not to say that it will definitely come with a map editor or anything, but I'm hopeful that we'll be able to do some mod/tweaking. Keep in mind that the version I have is so old I can't even see the current edition without buying it again, so this is all (not entirely) baseless speculation.
Joel
I just read the PC Gamer article and watched the trailer. You guys are doing a ri-goddamn-diculous great job on everything.
I have some questions about distribution:
1) Are you guys handling the distribution deals or are you going let the PA guys handle that? It seems like you guys would have more experience with that aspect.
2) If you are handling it, can you let on anything about who will have rights to distribute RSPD? i.e. I run a game site that already sells games for $20 and have a DRM/Ecom solution - will small portals like mine be able to sell RSPD?
Thanks and keep up the great work! One more thing, the game looks like it's come a very long way, do you have any rough timetables you can throw out for release
Anything you'll be announcing at PAX? Eh??
For those of you that haven't heard, we announced at PAX that Precipice will be coming to Xbox Live Arcade!
Joel
Ordinarily I wouldn't pay it much attention, but holding a rake with that stance really makes it stand out. (I'll likely have to play it with no shadows at all on my crusty old laptop, but I'm thinking of "The Future(tm)"
Divx?
Are you still working out the details, did they not want it, did you guys not want to be on PS3?
I understand there is a very good chance that you really won't be able to comment on this but thought I'd ask anyways.
How many characters from the comic will apper in the game?
Will it feature only main characters, or will it draw upon the more obscure characters?
Will any of these (if any) be playable, or will it just be Gabe, Tycho, and the Create-a-character?
And will there be unlockable weapons? (something like a cardboard tube for Gabe, or the Nerf gun.)
I think actually that Tycho is right to speak out against ep1: I LOVE ep2, it was amazing. But, I think that ep1 was not so sweet. I think it was kind of a rip-off: it didn't meaningfully advance the storyline, and was very short, and cost too much.
I think that's what he's against: sub-par experiences for full-price. He isn't going to sell you a 2 hour episode for 20 bucks, nor will he sell you a piece of "armor" for 4 dollars for your "horse". He is going to deliver the quality of Ep2, which was out of control, for 20 bucks. That's what I imagine him thinking/doing, at least, in those strange dreams I have late at night....
This all sounds great! I love how you are going with the "Adventure" game model. At first, I was totally hoping it'd be a sandboxy/multiple missions/type of thing. But, honestly, I'd rather play a solid linear story, especially if it's going to be episodic.
I mean, a sandbox game would be cool, too, don't think you can't do it ;-) But, the idea of the adventure game is pretty sweet.
In relation to your current project - What elements from other games have inspired you?
Haha
I sincerely hope you're not serious
Love,
Soups
No, I am just giving him shit. His favorite game is probably something like Portal - i can see him appreciating the tight gameplay.
Of course, my initial comment was designed to draw him out in the first place to answer himself, but sadly, no such luck. I guess he's busy with some project or something right now.