What is this piece of CRAP.....!

[DarkStar]

I too was surprised by the lack of 3D movement in the game. When I first heard about the game and how it was going to be like Elite I thought that it would include some type of 3D movement, even if it was basic. It wasn't until I tried the demo that I found out it was some strange 2D arcade movement and didn't feel like moving in space. Even the old Elite on the Commodore 64 felt like you were in space, and had basic 3D movement, and a VERY slick map that showed Z values with the height of the lines, very nice design IMHO.

I haven't played enough of the DEMO to know if it really matters or not, but does seem strange that it's 2D when all those older games had 3D movement in them, and it is 2003. I think adding 3D would have made the game much better.

I don't really have any problems with the graphics or sound I think they are fine and are at the level I expected.

I will say that I don't really like the way the movement/turning of the ship is done. It really seems like I'm driving a car on the freeway and it's some type of space racing game or something. I don't get the feeling I'm moving a ship thru space, and it's like I'm stuck on a rail, also there is no drift accel, or deccel on the movement which again feels very strange and arcade like.

Everything else I think is great and works very well, overall a good design. Outfitting your ship and all that is pretty cool, and fun. The combat is good, but again could be better if it was 3D.

I have liked all MM games (and own them all, including SE4, and SE4 GOLD), and the fact you can mod it is a big plus. The demo seems pretty fun, so I'm sure I'll pick it up at some point.

Just my 2 cents...

[DeadZone]

I do believe that movement can be vastly improved over time
And perhaps Aaron could try his hand of put a little 3D into even if you only go high and low enuf to avoid small planets
Basically put, lets just hope by SEV, or even SF2 (if he does it) he will have been able to put some sort of 3D into it
If not, then nvr mind still a great game IMO

[Corporate Dog]

Just installed the game, haven't really played it yet at all (just kinda moved my ship around the starting sector) and I too am a little disappointed in the 2D-only plane of movement.

For those of you saying "it would be so hard to implement 3D movement", and "the 2D-only movement makes it easier to mod"... you're coming across as big-time apologists for Malfador.

Technically, the game IS a 3D game already. Unless the ships in the game are prerendered (and I'm 99.9% sure they aren't) then Malfador's already using the Direct3D API to display, scale, and move everything around in the form of 3D models. A third axis of movement is already accounted for in all the API function calls... it's just not being used.

And since, in order to mod the ships, we're going to have to edit 3D models anyway, it doesn't make modding easier AT ALL.

So, in the end, I'm guessing the 2D movement was a DESIGN consideration. Malfador wanted the game to play as less of a flight simulator and more of a tactical game.

That's fine, and I certainly intend to play more of the game before I dismiss it as casually as the first poster did (it's still got a lot of the features that make Elite one of my favorite games)... but just from my brief foray into the game, I have to say it doesn't feel like I'm controlling a starship at all.

Regards,
Corporate Dog

[ October 12, 2003, 04:23: Message edited by: Corporate Dog ]

[milo]

I'm guessing the 2D movement was a DESIGN consideration

Yes, of course it was. As you rightly point out, adding 3D movement to a 3D environment is not a great technical hurdle. However, just providing the player with some kind of pitch control would not be sufficient. Just off the top of my head, the game would also need:

• New AI algorithms for NPC ships to take advantage of 3D
• New weapon and shield rules to account for elevation as well as azimuth
• New camera system to help player see targets above and below his ship
• 6DOF physics model for all ships
  

All that would result in a huge change of emphasis in the way Starfury plays. The game would become less goal-oriented, and more process-oriented. It would also become more difficult, especially for people who have a hard time solving spacial puzzles.

[DeadZone]

That does sound good
Just SF Grid funtion could look bad with 3d movement so if Aaron does go for it perhaps instead the grid could be a sphere

[ October 12, 2003, 11:13: Message edited by: DeadZone ]

[Corporate Dog]

Originally posted by milo:

quote:

---

I'm guessing the 2D movement was a DESIGN consideration

Yes, of course it was.

---

... as opposed to a lack of programming skill or resources, which the first poster seemed to imply. I was on your side with that statement.

However, just providing the player with some kind of pitch control would not be sufficient. Just off the top of my head, the game would also need:

Believe me, I fully understand and appreciate all the other functions that would be needed to bring 3D movement into the game (AI is certainly a very large consideration). I'm not coming into this discussion as a player, but as a programmer myself.

Still, I feel that just producing the game that they produced was half the battle right there.

All that would result in a huge change of emphasis in the way Starfury plays. The game would become less goal-oriented, and more process-oriented. It would also become more difficult, especially for people who have a hard time solving spacial puzzles.

Very true. It WOULD have been a completely different game. That isn't necessarily a bad thing... first person shooters are difficult for me, but that doesn't mean they're poorly designed.

I think some of us were coming from the angle of "Wow. It's Elite with capitol-class ships, a third-person view, and more strategic considerations."

From a super-tactical point of view, yes, that's exactly what it is. You've got a mostly freeform trading game with ship-to-ship combat, and vessel design.

From a tactical viewpoint, that's not what we got at all. Spacial "puzzles" were a key part of Elite, but they aren't quite there in Starfury (or at least not in a 3D environment).

Take a look at 'Star Trek: Bridge Commander'. I think the gameplay could've been improved significantly in that title by streamlining and simplifying all of the combat/control options, and that's sort of what I expected out of Starfury.

In spite of that, I felt that Bridge Commander managed to provide a game with an EXTREMELY strategic/tactical feel in three dimensions. In that game, it FELT like you were piloting a capitol ship.

I've seriously considered building a "Car Wars" mod for Starfury. That's how generic the 2D movement feels to me (and, on the flipside, shows how flexible the modability feature is).

Regards,
Corporate Dog

[PvK]

Has there yet been a space combat computer game with 3D movement and an emphasis on maneuver tactics, which had a good usable interface which allows one to easily understand the positions and movements of the ships?

The best that I can think of is the Independence War series, which is very good at what it does, but still can get bewildering to try to see and understand what is going on if there are several ships in different directions.

Unless someone does know of a very good example of a 3D tactical interface, it seems to me that 2D space games remain a very reasonable design decision, if you want to be able to have several ships involved in a combat, and still be able to easily see what maneuvers are occurring.

Even with the 2D movement, I think it's actually somewhat difficult to tell what's going on around one's ship in Star Fury, because of the sideways views, the speed of play, and the lack of automated alerts warning of attacks and other approaching objects. Zoomed-out top-down view is best for situational awareness, except then you can't see distant objects.

With 3D movement... it'd probably be a much different sort of game, which Independence War already does rather well. An RTS-like interface with elevation lines might be a way to get a more tactical interface, although either would be challenging to present in a way that had the same ease of play as a 2D system.

Although people have widely different tastes, the first post on this thread surprises me somewhat, unless it's a troll post. Why would an SE4 fan want or expect a 3D game with eye candy comparable to something it took Microsoft Games what, four years (?) and literally millions of dollars, to polish (and which has extremely lame tactical gameplay, from all intelligent accounts I've read)?

Certainly SF is a lot prettier than SE4, and it has far more potential for tactical interestingness, especially with modding, than Freelancer.

However I'm not entirely surprised - everyone has different tastes, and a lot of game enjoyment comes from the imagination, and pretty 3D graphics do engage the imagination, at least until a player figures out the game (or lack thereof) behind the graphics.

PvK