Game News Age of Decadence heading for the Big Leagues

[thesheeep]

I'm guessing that Sheep is just getting into Ogre, judging by his 6 months comments. He hasn't gotten far enough to even have a clear idea of all that would be needed to make an AoD, nevermind being able to judge whether the existing mods for Ogre would fill those holes.

I already made a game with it. It was made in 4 months (not fulltime), buggy as hell and sucked. I was getting into Ogre then. But it already features all the usual stuff (other libraries for input, sound, video, etc.). I'm still a noob, for sure, but IMHO my understanding of what is needed for bigger projects is more than you think.

Sorry Sheep, no offense. But noobs always underestimate how long it would take. If you are a noob, simple rule, multiple by 2.5 your time estimates.

No offense taken.
Since that is true. They always do. And I do know that. My first thought at making an AoD (from what I have heard of it by now) was two years. Then I thought... "naaahhh, you don't know everything about the game" and just guessed a 3. And seriously, as long as there are no uber-complex things to include in the game, I think that this is realistic. 4 Years if you want it heavily polished with all the nice features one would love to have in the game and the editors, perhaps.
Also, I'm not talking about making a flexible game-engine in 3 or 4 years! I'm talking about making a game.

Together with the other programmer in my team, we have 4 months (not fulltime!) to make a game with Ogre. And it's not just a Pong-clone
Of course it can't be compared to something as big as AoD, but still... It will (hopefully, but I'm confident) feature a level-editor, GUI, mini-games, etc. And at the beginning we still had multiplayer in, which we could still do, but only if against my vote (as I rather want a polished singleplayer).
Again, that is two programmers (the other one is better than me) not working fulltime on it.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Personally, I wish they'd stuck with the original graphics. It'd feel very :Spiderweb Games:

damn, haven't seen this before...but i like it better than what they did with their 3D engine...

Seconded. Looks alot more appealing.

Are you fucking kidding me?

 

[elander_]

Who cares about graphics. As long as they are acceptable and AoD graphics very much acceptable and do the job well enough. I would rather see more time put on making dialogs good with plenty of credible and interesting choices.

 

[ushdugery]

I'm more of a fan of painted backgrounds and 2d as I think their beauty stands the test of time but if 3d is a more saleable product and the gameplay hold up it's a positive thing finding a wider audience and recouping more costs.

 

[Naked Ninja]

I already made a game with it. It was made in 4 months (not fulltime), buggy as hell and sucked. I was getting into Ogre then. But it already features all the usual stuff (other libraries for input, sound, video, etc.). I'm still a noob, for sure, but IMHO my understanding of what is needed for bigger projects is more than you think.

What type of game was it? Links to pictures, features, anything like that?

I still say you're under-estimating what it takes to turn Ogre into as feature rich an engine as Torque, and the amount of work it takes to make an RPG like AoD. I've heard those kinds of estimates you're making before, many times. Almost always by people who have yet to actually make one of those games.

 

[CreamyBlood]

What type of game was it? Links to pictures, features, anything like that?

I too, am anxiously awaiting a reply.

 

[hiver]

I actually learned a lot from this discourse.

 

[St. Toxic]

What the fuck are you guys talking about? It looks like shit.

No, this looks like shit, albeit there are some fluorescent lego people wading in it:

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the textures used in that scene didn't originate from a picture of an actual turd. Well, mildly surprised.

The 2d graphics at least looked orderly and there was some remarkable detail put into the shading of the windows and doors, not to mention all those patches of grass most modern engines would chug in attempting to replicatel. I certainly can't see the benefit of going full 3d, especially for a small dev team.

 

[DefJam101]

And yet, the full 3d shot has more complex and interesting geometry, a noted lack of ugly tree sprites, and still retains a somewhat clean appearance. The only real downside is the lower resolution ground texture (this point is moot, because the grass in the first pic is just 1 color, and the frizz effect hardly adds to it regardless of whether or not a modern graphics card can emulate the effect; it would still look outdated) and a lack of detail of the armor on the models. I'll trade more artistic freedom and interesting architecture for detailed character sprites.

If this was the Fallout engine, it would be a different story.

 

[St. Toxic]

Marketing a 3D indie game is a lot easier? It makes the life of the art d00d for ITS (Oscar??) a lot easier/gives him more room for creativity?

Bullshit. :arnold:

 

[Jaime Lannister]

1 character model is easier than 8 sprites. But yeah, 2d backgrounds are easier. ToEE got it right.

 

[xuerebx]

The way AoD looks now is great. The 2D one looked like shit. And yes having a nice appearance sells the game more and gives a better first impression. In fact if the first time I saw AoD was in it's 2D state I would have been far less interested. First impressions count a lot.

 

[Spectacle]

Those early graphics look terrible and it would have looked terrible 15 years ago. Bland and boring, and everything looks like cardboard cutouts.

The 2D fetishism of some of the posters on this forum is incredulous. They are just as bad as the kiddies who thinks that everything looks great with moar bloom. Shit is shit no matter how many dimensions you use!

 

[St. Toxic]

1 character model is easier than 8 sprites. But yeah, 2d backgrounds are easier. ToEE got it right.

Sure, a 2d/3d blend works really well. 2d/voxel models too, like Tiberian Sun, if you want it too look fully 2d. And also, I remember working on a game project a few good years ago where we used a sprite application to convert 3ds model and animation files straight to sprite, which isn't that big of a work-around. I think there are a couple of these applications still floating around.

The way AoD looks now is great. The 2D one looked like shit.

'

Different strokes for different folks. Gosh.

Those early graphics look terrible and it would have looked terrible 15 years ago.

What's that supposed to mean? We had plenty of good looking games in -94, and art direction has hardly improved at the same rate as game technology has.

Bland and boring, and everything looks like cardboard cutouts.

And what's the improvement really? It's still bland and boring, only now it's unstructured and everything looks bulky and square.

The 2D fetishism of some of the posters on this forum is incredulous. They are just as bad as the kiddies who thinks that everything looks great with moar bloom. Shit is shit no matter how many dimensions you use!

Exactly. Design is what matters first and foremost, and bad design will shine through tech no matter what. I do find the old straightforward 2d design alot more appealing, especially in a gameplay context, as tb & iso needs to have well defined objects and characters for easy accessability, evendoh the sprites themselves are unpolished and incomplete. But it's especially appealing in contrast with the current 3d design, where the graphics are no more than mediocre and the overall fov is messy and asymmetrical and nothing is particularly detailed or even small, which is afterall a justifiable limitation for a small team, big scale game and a 3d rendering engine. It's much like a return to 8-bit graphics, only now the blocks are shaded differently and the fov has three axes of movement. It's a needless limitation, as it adds (at least from what I've gathered about AoD) nothing of necessity to the game, yet it disrupts alot of the benefits of running with a simple, straightforward 2d design scheme.

 

[Elhoim]

Funny thing. I've just noticed that I'm still using the textures of those carpets hanged in the wall of the 2D shot...

The only real downside is the lower resolution ground texture

Yeah... Unfortunately, there's no way that TGE can use textures bigger than 256x256 for the ground texture.

 

[Claw]

Funny thing. I've just noticed that I'm still using the textures of those carpets hanged in the wall of the 2D shot...

They were easily the best thing in that shot, followed by the characters which also looked decent. The walls, most of the ground and trees were horrible. 2D graphics can be great, but in this case they just weren't. The move to 3D improved them... slightly. The move to Elhoim finally made it look really good. *slobber*

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

The 2D fetishism of some of the posters on this forum is incredulous. They are just as bad as the kiddies who thinks that everything looks great with moar bloom. Shit is shit no matter how many dimensions you use!

3D never looked this goddamn gorgeous:

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/40505.html

Pity that there's no HD version of that trailer around.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

2D, 3D. At the end of the day it is all academic. I just want to play this thing.

 

[Jaime Lannister]

I'd say the 3d version looks better, but that's probably the result of bringing on Oscar, not the switch from 2d to 3d.

Hell, I can't even tell if it's post-apocalyptic in the 2d version. It's too bright and shiny, and looks more like a Vogel game than Fallout.

 

[xuerebx]

Yes.

EDIT: How on earth did you accumulate over 2000 posts in about 3 months?!

 

[SuicideBunny]

EDIT: How on earth did you accumulate over 2000 posts in about 3 months?!

some things are not meant for mankind to know.

 

[xuerebx]

Right.

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

pretty much like that.

 

[BethesdaLove]

He even seems to be proud of it.

 

[Mefi]

Most impressive VD. Hope this goes well for you.