Remake
 

Hey guys

I was wondering if Don and Andy, or anyone else for that matter, have considered rebuilding the game from scratch.

Is there technical or legal reasons preventing that? I figure it would be a bit more work to begin with (that being a gross understatement, of course), but would also allow you to make changes without having to worry about what is hard-coded and what isn't, which would save a lot of time in the long haul, especially if it could be built from the ground up to facilitate easy editing of code.

While I'm on this slightly drunken flight of fancy, isometric or a basic 3d view would be tops http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

I know from my own experience in development that it often pays to tear it all down and start again on major work, rather than still be expending all that effort modifying an existing and painfully inflexible code base for version 3,581.

Re: Remake
 

Why isometric or 3D for any reasons but eye candy? Top-down is better to orientate on the battlefield, esp. with major hills and other terrain features http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Remake
 

I do agree, but isometric or 3d would be nice as an option, especially because it can give you a quicker and more intuitive sense of LOS.

Nonetheless, graphics would only be for added eye candy, whether that be top down or not, I'm more talking about a remake in terms of the game engine itself, to allow all these things that always have to be met with a "Its hardcoded" response.

It would mean that Don, Andy and the community as a whole could build the game they want, rather than making compromises due to the existing engine.

Re: Remake
 

The only reason I would also prefer an option for some 3D graphics would be great for the LOS. It's still difficult to know for sure as it is. Then of course that could be solved with something similar as to what happens with the game to show you where the unit can move. An overlay? of different colour or something.


Having said that, I doubt we will see any remake any time soon.

Re: Remake
 

Probably there is also a possibility to optimize the code.
The Cpu load is in windowed mode very high-even on very fast machines.

Re: Remake
 

Well, of course it is as it is a game.

While (running)
pump graphics to screen
if (check things)react to things
end;

At a minimum, it will be cycling the colour palette even if you are not doing anything (like moving units) - so you can have nice billowing smoke and water effects etc.

The only games that will not do this are those based on the windows message loop principle - do nothing, wait till the end user pokes a key. Only simple little card games and so on can use that strategy (like those provided with windows - minesweeper etc).

If you want an example of the simple windows application at work - run the GameOptions dialogue (not the game) and check CPU usage, as that is a simple windows app, reacting to user mouse pokes.

Re: Remake
 

I once asked the same question and here´s Don´s answer:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...820&Forum=, <EDITED>Post573820

Short answer: A new code wouldn´t be steel panthers any more and there´s been a lot of work done on this code that they can´t just throw it by the window.

Keep Cool
Roberto

<Edited to prevent page warp on forum>

Re: Remake
 

A simple 3-D vehicle mesh (without skins) seems to command about $50-$100 from various websites - I had a look a couple of years back for general interest. Most such meshes on offer were of course, M1, T80 and Shermans etc - nobody is going to have a BTR-Tz or a J-22 Orao available as a 'stock' item!. So my bet is any 'custom' jobs like that would be more expensive as 'to-order' items.

So - if we bought in sufficient third-party meshes to fit every unique unit we model, that could be maybe $3 million plus. It's a few man-years of effort to make them either oneself, or by hiring some artists for $$$. I'll leave the number of actual game units required to be sold simply to break even for the art assets (let alone distribution & manufacturing or even game engine development) of such an enterprise to the gentle reader to guess at.

And we allow games to have a few hundred different vehicles active at one time - load more than a few 3D meshes into a 3D game engine and you will cause the machine to choke, or load one with a few too many polygons, ditto. (Try the Sims with too many people on a lot, or adding a custom 3rd party hair style with a few thousand polys in it! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif)

Guess why most modern '3D' type wargames have a few tens of different (and common - no SturmTigers!) unit types modelled and/or split things into several sub-theatres with a relatively few units in each game sub-package (France 40, Western Front, Eastern Front, Desert, Italy etc, etc), and have maps that are postage stamp sized (2km by 2km maybe), and allow you maybe 30-40 active units a side?.

Cheers
Andy

Re: Remake
 

There was one other item I forgot to mention will be in the next patch for both games but this item is for CD owners only and will not be available in the DL version.

-PBEM Campaigns that allow from 3 to 21 battles per campaign

Don

OOPS... wrong spot!

Re: Remake
 

I think most 3D models (reasonably textured) I saw together were in some epic battles in modded Star Wars: Empire at War space battles. Needless to say, my PC sometimes acts a bit weirdly under the load. Now I'd say that with full capacities there may be several hundreds (if counting laser bolts etc) models on-screen at the same time but it's simply too much at times.

Besides, I think that for the level SP is best at - ie Bn-to-Bde - the top-down view simulates best what the commander really knows. He don't see what the units see in 3D, he has to rely on map. The units may report him their LOS. Top-down view simulates the paper map the best way IMO.

Re: Remake
 

"So - if we bought in sufficient third-party meshes to fit every unique unit we model, that could be maybe $3 million plus. It's a few man-years of effort to make them either oneself, or by hiring some artists for $$$. I'll leave the number of actual game units required to be sold simply to break even for the art assets (let alone distribution & manufacturing or even game engine development) of such an enterprise to the gentle reader to guess at. "

Andy, thats fair enough. I reckon there would be plenty of people out there willing to create the meshes/textures/etc., but I agree that with thousands of different units even the basic 3d view I was thinking of (ie. zoomed right out, very low polygon counts) would be a hell of a lot of work.

Still, potential new graphic schemes, as I've mentioned, would only be a bonus.

In my question, I am more focusing on the game engine, such as the big picture stuff like the AI being not great, to the little things like how smoke and vision functions, etc. that are currently chokepoints in how much you can actually get SP to be as realistic as possible. I reckon with what the team has done so far working with the limitations and the vagaries and weirdness of the SP engine, you could make a truly classic wargame (more so) if you could go nuts with it from the start.

Re: Remake
 

I say this only in the spirit of 'wish list', but I always thought it would be immersive if the map were a static 2D satelite picture. Lifted off Google earth for instance, zoomed to the right scale, and the hexes 'told' what they show (ploughed field, height 1 etc). So it is exactly the same game but played out on a big photo.
I got the idea from a Harrison Ford film where they watch the dramatic scene of special forces storming a camp, but all from the eerily silent, birds eye view of an infra red satelite image.
Could be interesting, though I'm sure there are a million reasons why it can't be applied to the SP games.

Re: Remake
 

Personnally, my dream would be a real time (like the close combat serie) version of winsp:mbt featuring the same exact graphics that i already find near to be perfect for my taste.

But i just can't imagine the amount of years animating every sprite would take as the sp:mbt/sp:ww2 serie feature an incredible amount of content that just can't be found in any other real timed game that usually have extremely limited different units.

And just trying to imagine how the AI should be modified to get advantage of real time instead of turn by turn is making my brain bleeding.

That's why it is just a dream i guess http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Remake
 

winspmbt in real time...yeah, I rather not.


Try this instead http://www.battlefront.com/products/cmsf/news.html

Re: Remake
 

Maybe not, the closest (and almost identical) thing to SPMBT in real time you´re going to find, with the same type of graphics and 2D top view, is Armoredbrigade. I´ve been testing it for a couple of months now and I think it is very promising and I widely recomend it. It has an order-while-paused feature so you have all the time you want to think with pretty decent detail. It´s a free download

Main page: www.armoredbrigade.com

Download v4.20: www.armoredbrigade.com/download.html

The full game files take only 23Mb on your desktop with no install neded, just downlad the ZIP, extract and run the exe. I understand it´s made with a tool named "clanlib" which seems pretty functional, never crashed once.

Regards
Roberto

Re: Remake
 

The links are not working Roberto. Did the site get overloaded? Are you in contact with the designer?

Re: Remake
 

Yes I´m in contact with him and he is currently figuring what the issue might be. I really have no idea what is wrong, but I suspect it´s due to either an oveload issue or a problem with the domain provider. It´s never been like that before.

Anyway, here´s a link with the download, it´s going to be there for 7 days, I hope the web page will be working normally by then.

http://download.yousendit.com/4225279B45142368

Check some screenshots here: http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...o=&fpart=1

Please contact the designer or myself from now on about your thoughts and opinions regarding AB, last thing I want is to make Mr. Admin angry because of further advertising of a game not published by SG.

EDIT: It´s working fine now.

Keep Cool
Roberto

Re: Remake
 

I got the site to work.

Shrapnel should talk to this guy.

Re: Remake
 

I agree

Re: Remake
 

I'm a big believer of "If it ain't broke don't fix it". The game is grand as is.

If I wanted eye candy I'd jumping from game to game cause this one looks better than the last and continuely upgrading my rig just to handle GFX of these new fangled games.

I've been playing since it's birth and the game still surprises me.

Maybe I'm just old and set in my ways, but there's reasons why so many are loyal to SP, and state of the art GFX is NOT one of them.

Long live SP, as is!!

Re: Remake
 

bump for oragus