Rock, Paper, Shotgun

27/01/2009 at 18:50 meeper says:

I grew tired of Derek Smart in the 90s. I didn’t realize he was still pimping his crap.

27/01/2009 at 19:05 teo says:

This is sooooo PC

27/01/2009 at 19:25 Tei says:

I have buy a beta of this games like 4 years ago (???). Or something (??). It was a horrible bad and broken game (sad history). Is strange that this guy or team is still tryiing to make a game around this engine and idea (?!?!).

27/01/2009 at 19:49 M_the_C says:

I’ve always loved the idea behind this series (because it is still the same series…), but it never quite manages to carry it off. The visuals have been updated, but the interface looks exactly the same, and the complex control system was the problem in the first place.
I hope they at least do a proper tutorial this time.

27/01/2009 at 21:02 Steven says:

Oh. My. God. I’m by no means a hardcore flight sim player, but this goes way beyond the simplified physics of arcade flight sims. It is hard to comprehend how one can butcher this so badly. My IQ probably dropped just from watching the retarded flight physics.

Oh, and the blatant disregard for the bullets and missiles on the part of the pilot. You’d think the plane would be shredded after the first minute, but it goes on and on (and on)…

27/01/2009 at 21:31 j39 says:

I guess I’m going to be a bit of a black sheep (or some proper equivalent) and say that um the concept of OMG LARGE SPACE FREEDOM WITH TINY DETAILS was/is always immensely amusing/entertaining and/or attractive.

Oh you talking about the new game from 3000AD? I need to watch the trailer(s).

Info on website seem to say that they’re now trying to do things which more peeps are going to enjoy, instead of staying the course. THey did drop that Battlecruiser series didn’t they? Just kept the setting.

PS Website is pretty. Do they get points?

27/01/2009 at 21:44 Colthor says:

I tried to play Battlecruiser once, because I really like space games (and it was free), but didn’t manage to get anywhere with it that I recall. Maybe I should try it again – at least it wouldn’t be downloaded over a modem this time and, alas, there’s not much else that lets you fly a space-ship these days – but… Well…

27/01/2009 at 22:01 Nick says:

I LIKE THE WEBSITE I WONDER WHO MADE IT.

¬_¬

27/01/2009 at 22:13 Mike says:

Glad to see I’m not the only one of this opinion!

27/01/2009 at 22:28 Dinger says:

careful, he’ll be woken from his millennial slumber.

27/01/2009 at 22:43 Lim-Dul says:

careful, he’ll be woken from his millennial slumber.

TRIPLE millennial slumber. Ho, ho – what an ingenious pun. ;-)

27/01/2009 at 23:26 Alaric says:

I concur. Go out and interview him.

27/01/2009 at 23:56 Dizet Sma says:

From the website blurb:

“on this near-barren planet which rotates around the Sun every 240 minutes (compared to Earth’s 1440).”

That’s not right, surely?

28/01/2009 at 00:19 Jonas says:

Okay guys, are we all done beating up Derek Smart with words now? Can we get back to talking about the actual game? Perhaps even in a politely critical tone? Is that too much to ask?

28/01/2009 at 00:51 Gap Gen says:

Did Derek Smart purposely make a game that looked that ugly so he could browbeat people who complained how ugly it looks?

Also, I have no idea what is going on in that video.

28/01/2009 at 01:25 Axess Denyd says:

I read all the previews and was very excited about Battlecruiser when it first came out. I ran out and bought it the day of release… I think we all know how that went.

When he finally fixed it and there was a game that was theoretically functional, but was still terrible, I pretty much gave up.

I think a new Independence War (which I seem to remember him hating) would be pretty awesome though.

28/01/2009 at 02:38 NuZZ says:

Reminds me of Grandmas Boy… That matrix game… Ahaha.

28/01/2009 at 02:53 j39hsieh says:

Damn link doesn’;t work,

http://starwraith3dgames.home.att.net/go.htm

28/01/2009 at 04:09 chiablo says:

The x000AD games are brilliant simulators. Except they forgot the most important part… the fun. I’m sure there are people out there who get enjoyment out of these games. They are probably hard core accountants, or EVE online players.

28/01/2009 at 08:04 Anti-Hater says:

“No, sorry, I can’t. We can’t. Derek’s antics ruled that course of action out about a decade ago.”

Have you ever noticed that people online only ever use the word ‘sorry’ when they really aren’t? Quit making a mockery of the language, people! *shakes fist*

In contrast to the rampant immaturity on display in the comments here, I’d just like to say that I find it a shame that the Battlecruiser series never reached it’s potential. In terms of the potential alone, it’s the kind of game that the industry as a whole seems to have abandoned, and this is a bad thing for all of us. Without that kind of ambition we would never have had Elite or GTA or any of the great titles we currently hold in such high regard.

While Derek Smarts games were often buggy, difficult to get into, and lacking in refinement I still managed to have fun with some of the earlier games in the series. Derek was even kind enough to send me a free copy of BC Millenium during a period of Illness I was suffering at the time (all I did was send him an email telling him how much I’d enjoyed the demo). Sadly, I lost interest in the series as I do with most things.

Still, I’m curious to see how these new games play, now that development focus has narrowed.

28/01/2009 at 08:50 Gap Gen says:

“Have you ever noticed that people online only ever use the word ’sorry’ when they really aren’t? Quit making a mockery of the language, people! “

British people say sorry all the time.

28/01/2009 at 09:45 Will says:

I remember reading the ‘what this game will be like to play’ text for the original BC when I was at college (I think) and it sounded fabulous. Not so sure about the end result.

I also feel compelled to dislike Derek Smart because he said bad things about our game (I-War 2) but I can’t find them on the internet so maybe it was all a dream?

28/01/2009 at 09:51 Will says:

Oh wait, I did find it:

Contrary to popular belief, the I-War games did *not* have a Newtonian physics model. And even though it had a pseudo version thereof, we all know what happened to I-War 2 in the retail channel and the subsequent demise of the devs.

Thats my take on the whole subject.

I was pretty sure when were building the game that we put a decent Newtonian rigid body simulator in there, but I must have been mistaken. Tread carefully, Derek Smart, because you tread on my dreams.

28/01/2009 at 10:22 Skonar says:

I played Universal Combat, one of the precursor games, and basically I think it’s the same game with updated graphics now. The major issues involve the interface, which is obtuse, and the tutorial, which was a block of text sixty pages long I had to _print out_ because, IIRC, the game didn’t like alt-tabbing. Furthermore the tutorial mission scenario scripting, should you deviate from instructions by one jot, became unplayable so you’d need to restart the entire thing… Just horribly painful.

As for I-War 2 and I-War, they were some of my absolute favourites. The worldbuilding that went into those games made them incredibly rich and tasty. Also, Jefferson Clay = The Man. But, I think it also had some fairly crucial interface problems, although these were dealt with excellently by the tutorial missions in I-War and the ‘child’ segment in I-War 2.

28/01/2009 at 10:29 Will says:

I think we dropped the ball on the IW2 tutorial by not explaining the importance of lateral (WASD) thrusters to combat. We all knew how to do it, so it just didn’t occur to us that this was unusual, but if you play exclusively with the stick and throttle the combat can get pretty brutal.

28/01/2009 at 10:57 cheeba says:

@will: Thanks so much for I-War 2. Best game in its genre I’ve played to this day. Fantastic job there mate.

28/01/2009 at 14:13 Steve says:

People would probably have more time for him if he and his community weren’t so angry. They make No Mutants Allowed look like my mother on a lorry full of camomile. They do actually forum ban people who persist in having problems. Alt-tab support, for example, only idiots with short memories need. Access to instant messanger is right out because you’re supposed to “dedicate yourself” to this.
I got into the X games for a while and when I got stuck their forums were polite and helpful by and large.
The hate’s not really about the games. It’s about Derek Smart being an arse.

28/01/2009 at 16:14 Endless Dreamer says:

@Chaz: Seconded.

28/01/2009 at 18:17 dsmart says:

*sigh*

It is hard to appreciate the challenges of doing something different and something you actually want to do and love doing.

You guys can make fun of me and my games all you like but the fact is, unlike most, I still get to make the games that I want to make, regardless of who thinks, says or does what.

Best of all? I still have a job and a company going into its 14th year and a career spanning 20+ years and fourteen commercial game releases.

Nobody gets to fire me, shut my company down, cut my funding, tell me what I can/cannot create etc. So, uhm, yeah, go ahead, take your potshots.

Fact of the matter is that when you’re doing a 400 sq. km open world game that is designed to look decent at any altitude, there are lots of compromises to be made.

We’re not talking about flight games which look awesome at high altitude and shit at low altitudes. This terrain engine was designed from scratch to be decent at any altitude. Go compare it to the likes of UBi’s upcoming H.A.W.X – which isn’t even on par with the venerable Ace Combat 6 – which by itself, ONLY looks good a high altitude, looks like shit at low altitude and has awesome models based on real-world aircraft.

When you’re doing a shoebox game (see Ace Combat 6, H.A.W.X etc), you can do a lot of things. I am not going to throw in 2D bitmap trees just to create an ‘environment’.

This is not some Unreal Engine game shoehorned to be a combat sim. I do in fact have a SpeedTreeRT license. We just haven’t implemented it yet. And when we do, the barren areas of the planet – e.g. desert, canyons etc will still be barren.

This game, like the title says, caters to a variety of gameplay environments. In this regard, a LOT of compromises have to be made in order to make the game fun, playable and accessible.

At the end of the day, the graphics engines are just fine (only an ass would make a determination based on compressed video footage) for what they need to do and the environment they need to render.

I specifically did this 17 minute combat footage in order to attract the attention of those who *want* to get the real feeling of *flight* when playing a game that touts it; as opposed to the hack (see every Unreal game with airborne vehicles, Frontlines, BF games etc) that is prevalent in most games that give you a ton of assets in which the only differences in dynamics modeling are some variable tweaks here and there to turn a fps traversal engine into a vehicular or aerial dynamics one.

Also, after seeing the footage from the H.A.W.X travesty, I wanted to – again – remind gamers that there are those of us (old school PC game devs) here who *do* value the PC gaming environment. Something I touched on in my latest dev blog entry.

I never have – and never will – design, fund and develop games for the masses. I cater to the same like minded folks who keep buying my games. Invariably, as with all games, you win some, you lose some. Doing what you love and being able to pay your bills so you continue to do just that, is the key to success.

So yeah, go ahead, laugh. Your Pink slip (to go with the Pink tutu) is just around the corner. Me? I get to make games.

28/01/2009 at 19:11 Will says:

Thanks all for the kind words.

@Future I-Warrior

Funnily enough, I reinstalled the game the other day and it worked nicely with my Xbox 360 Controller – I’d suggest trying one of those before getting a flight stick. I didn’t need to use XPadder – it just worked, and the default mapping is pretty sensible. The only big issue is the way the triggers don’t quite work right as the ‘set speed’ throttle.

Have fun! I still enjoy the combat + piracy – one of these days I ought to try and finish the storyline…

28/01/2009 at 19:58 dsmart says:

Tei, you have no frigging clue wtf you’re talking about. So please suppress your desire to look ignorant and foolish.

I know that being one of the boys on the bandwagon is a badge of honor for anti-social misfits. So I’m not going to play your game. Don’t like the game? Move along then.

I can’t imagine that you own one of my games because the average person who actually owns – or even plays – one of my games, has more common sense than that which your inconsequential – and rubbish – post seems to portray.

To wit: from looking at shots and videos, you can tell everything about the camera zoom, terrain poly count (which, btw is 2:1 if you even know what means) etc. Apart from the fact that the character isn’t even standing on the bare terrain, but on an asphalt splat on top of it. There are numerous shots – and videos – already released showing the character at ground zero on various parts of the terrain.

You’re just like that other one few posts up wondering why the fighter wasn’t shot down…clearly forgetting what cheat codes during testing are for.

There is a reason why flight combat games look like crap at low altitudes. I’ll leave the reasons for your next homework assignment. You might learn something.

28/01/2009 at 20:36 dsmart says:

@ Heliocentric

Absolutely. No argument there. And we are in fact doing most of that already. As I mentioned before, we alredy have SpeedTreeRT specifically for areas which would benefit from vegetation. Just haven’t implemented it yet until we finish the multiplayer profiling since the added 3D assets has the potential to cause all kinds of problems in a client/server environment.

But again, you’re forgetting the term ‘scope’ here. You can do all those things in a small scale and quite effectively. Attempting that on a large scale results in a) irrelevant clutter b) a game that requires higher than normal sys. requirements.

Case in point: The Operation Flashpoint games.

Adding stuff is not the issue. The issue is keeping track off and rendering all of it – at various altitudes. Not to mention the nightmare that is “collision detect” on such a large scale.

@ Tei

You truly are an idiot and have proven – again – that you have no frigging clue what you’re talking about. So you come up with an Apples (closed box level) to Oranges (400 sq km open world) strawman argument? I’m just going to ignore you because it is quite evident that you’re clueless.

28/01/2009 at 20:53 Tei says:

I suppose a Quake 2 level can be 1×1 km wide. Maybe much more. But If you make the player character 1/400 the original size, the resulting map will look 400×400 km wide.
The problem with that experiment, is that (withouth more changes) the ground texture will look ugly. And thats how that screenshot look. The texture is zoomed in beyond aceptable quality levels. And maybe that easy to fix, adding detail textures, or something.

Here is a tutorial how to add detail textures.
http://www.vterrain.org/Textures/detail.html

28/01/2009 at 21:28 pepper says:

Tei, true just take a look at HL rally.

Dsmart, if you are afraid the added models will cause a problem in the MP environment then im afraid you are taking the wrong approach. a good thing would be to add them and then test it, then the other way around, since now you can easily modify the base code of the MP client, so it handles the moddels and collision different.

If you really have that many polygons, then why do you even keep the grassy area extremely flat? It wouldnt be hard to add a little noise to it, enough algorithms around for that i would say. Even if it isnt final it helps with showing the concept to the people.

Animations, is it just me or does your engine lack a good support for model animations? The pivot legs of the SAM site seemd to rotate completely, instead of keeping the same firmly embedded into the ground.

Wheels of the big vehicle in the first video:

Whats up with them? Looks like a terrible simple solution, instead of modelling them and then making a fitting texture you just dropped in a cylinder and applied a texture over it, the BG colour of the texture is still visible. No offence, but i would find myself a different modeller and texture artist, the models look horribly simplistic to start with anyway. Do you have any raw figures for us on the engines rendering capabilities, number of animations and polygons supported by model, what format, texture type/usuage per model etc.? That gives us a much better view of what your engine is capable of. It appears there is no shadow map either, from looking on the screenshot that appeared on the website, and AA is also lacking. Will these features be implemented?

Try making a dedicated interior model for the hornet fighter, it looks like your modeller just slapped a few gauges into the exterior model to save time.

Some textures have photoshop filter written all over them, its not a bad idea to make a base in photoshop, but nothing can beat mixing them up with real photo’s, it beats any random generator by far.

Either way, good luck on your engine, maby you shouldnt be putting so much media attention to it whilst there is still very little to show and most of it looks alpha stage.

28/01/2009 at 21:33 pepper says:

[i]Fact of the matter is that when you’re doing a 400 sq. km open world game that is designed to look decent at any altitude, there are lots of compromises to be made. [/i]

Im sorry to say this, but even the world in Flightsimulator 2002 looked more animated then your train does..

28/01/2009 at 22:30 dsmart says:

@ Pepper

Im sorry to say this, but even the world in Flightsimulator 2002 looked more animated then your train does..

Yes, you should in fact be sorry that you said it; because it is yet another Apples to Oranges comparison has no merit or any basis in reality. At least to those of us who have probably played practically every single game in existence – more so flight sims

Lets not get into the fact that every single MSFS looks like crap at low altitude, has very high DEM use etc. Puhleeze.

Maybe you clearly missed the part where this terrain engine was designed to be used – and played – at any altitude. No, you couldn’t have possibly missed that.

The difference between constructive criticism and taking potshots (aka taking the piss) is determined by one’s IQ and quite possibly one’s tolerance for pain and abuse – since one is not likely to be able to take what one give without some serious medication. Or crack. Or both.

29/01/2009 at 07:10 pepper says:

Dsmart, first you say your own engine is meant to look good at any altitude, then you say it wont matter how it looks when your up a little higher and flying fast, and have you even seen the newer FS engines? They definitely look a lot better then what you currently are showing. I also have tried about every possible flightsim out there, and i can see that most of them have done a excellent job at looking good from a low and high altitude whilst stretching immense regions. Just check the LOMAC series, it stretches over the whole crimea, with a immensely detailed and rich world. Ever heard of applying LOD maps to the terrain engine? It might actually make it look better.

29/01/2009 at 13:34 Josh says:

Anywhere a discussion about Smart and his games occur, Smart himself is sure to show himself and further escalate the discussion, it is a function of Newton’s Third Law of Motion. Which, if you know what that is, will seem obvious to you now that someone has mentioned it. Oooooh! your mind will say to itself, or Duh!. And then you’ll smile and all will be as it should.

29/01/2009 at 13:53 pepper says:

Helio, you insensitive clod!( I have been wanting to use that for a while already, thanks!)

Josh, interesting.

29/01/2009 at 15:42 pepper says:

god…why…. please… let me wheep in this little corner over here..

*weeps*

29/01/2009 at 16:44 Gap Gen says:

Derek: I’d be interested in expanding on the example of Operation Flashpoint / Armed Assault. As I understand it, the games look similar in scope but ArmA is visually more interesting.

Part of the problem, I feel, is that the video is confusing – there are vectors everywhere and it’s difficult to tell who is firing at what, plus the blocky HUD does look like a 1990s flight sim. Using the example of ArmA again, the simulation is detailed and realistic, yet the HUD is uncluttered. I’m all for detailed, expansive games but as an advert, I’m not sure the videos work that well, especially alongside videos for other expansive combat games like ArmA 2 and OpFap 2. I’d be interested to see a more structured video release, though.

29/01/2009 at 19:07 Will says:

@Derek

I’m interested to know what kind of detail your avionics simulation goes into as regards target selection – that’s something that was very well served in some of the Janes titles but I haven’t seen in detail elsewhere.

Can you describe the process (as a player story) required for a pilot to target e.g. a tank, lock it up, and fire a missile at it?

29/01/2009 at 21:04 dsmart says:

@ Will

I’m interested to know what kind of detail your avionics simulation goes into as regards target selection – that’s something that was very well served in some of the Janes titles but I haven’t seen in detail elsewhere.

Can you describe the process (as a player story) required for a pilot to target e.g. a tank, lock it up, and fire a missile at it?

It is nowhere as detailed as the Jane’s games. Not even close. After all, this is a different kind of game entirely.

It also not as simple as point and shoot, but you still have to select a target, choose the right missile, wait for a lock and optimal launch solution, then fire. Miss anything and you might as well be wasting ordnance. Things like target range, closure rate, aspect ratio, missile burn rate, missile dynamics (does it have a nose camera or not?) etc all come into play. e.g. in this latest video, if you look closely, you will see the process involved with launch various types of missiles – I even missed in some instances – including some with video guided targeting.

@j39hsieh

Indeed. This is the barrier that I am trying to balance with the game, while at the same time not dumbing it down to the point of it being just another fps game with player controlled assets. Where’s the fun in that? And why would a gamer buy it, when he’s got tons of other games just like it to choose from?

I have screen shake when hit by weapons fire already. I think its in the video.

There is already movement variation when hovering.

There are lots and lots of subtle things in the game, including realistic weather patterns, a very detailed atmospheric (HDR enabled) system, dynamic time of day (start playing in the day and before long, it is dead of night), night vision rendering etc etc

My goal is to make the fps infantry gamers up and running in under five mins (something I’ve achieved and tested with my guys).

Using vehicles might take a few tries to master since you’re not going to be pressing W and careening forwards are breakneak speeds, while trying to turn on a dime.

Other things like jetpack use, deployables (there are many items to deploy and use), ability to build things (with enough EP), effectively flying a gunship, let alone a fighter – are all going to take practice. But any flight jock will feel right at home the minute they hope into a fighter or gunship. If they have no interest in fps gameplay, they never have to go beyond walking over to an asset and taking off.

Anyway, we’ll see how it comes across when the tech test is out. I may not do a demo because of the way the game is designed, doing a demo is no different from giving away the full game. Even a timed demo is going to be pointless because it could never be long enough to show the full experience for such a huge game.

Right now my GREATEST challenge is balancing indoors and outdoors. We simply can’t do indoor areas for all the structures, so a lot of trimming is going. In fact, just the other day I had to increase the armor on the barracks building because all it took were to STS-Hyperdyne missiles to destroy it. Imagine what would happen in multiplayer if a bunch of players are screwing around inside….the some jock comes along with a pair of missiles. Its game over, tons of re-spawn and the requisite swearing.

Everything in the game world an be destroyed. So essentially, multiplayer is going to be mayhem beyond belief. And since the game engine can rebuild everything over time – though gamers can manually repair/rebuild things if they want it done quicker – at various points in the game, a base could be nothing more than rubble and burning buildings.

29/01/2009 at 22:58 SpacePirateCal says:

(Last off-topic post on this thread, I promise)

@will: Been playing I-War 2 – managed to somehow become an ace pilot with keys only. Wotta fabulous game! I’m just into the main game proper, been to prison and stuff and am now kitted out with a genuine pirate crew (one of them even said “Arr”), and am having an absolute BLAST. This game is bloody brilliant! I salute you, sir, and all who crafted this with you! I’m one happy little space cadet!

29/01/2009 at 23:42 Gap Gen says:

“No, videos don’t tell the full story. Thats what demos are for. :)”

Good heavens, I wasn’t implying that videos are accurate. Videos are solely marketing (as are demos). A good trailer will make you want to buy a game, and become fired up by it prior to release. This was partly why I questioned whether releasing 17 minutes of raw gameplay footage was a good idea or not in terms of increasing your market (which is what selling games is about, after all).

Then again, tastes differ – for example, I usually hate developer commentary in trailers, whereas some people find it insightful.

30/01/2009 at 15:50 dsmart says:

@ Jesucristo

Mr. Derek… your game, what about multiplayer?. Is there multicrew and cooperative?.

There is multiplayer with four different game modes.

There is also 2 to 4 four player co-op for the single player campaign.

And yes, there is multi-crew in both multiplayer and single player.

e.g. in multiplayer, most assets have up to 16 passengers, a driver, gunner positions etc. So e.g. a pilot player (with the required XP) can hop into an assault gunship, while other players (pilots, marines etc) can “attach” to #gunner or #passenger positions in the same gunship. While the designated pilot is flying en-route to a strike area – littered with SAM (Surface to Air Missiles) and SAL (Surface to Air Laser guns), the gunners can be firing at air/ground targets; while the passengers just keep praying that the bastard actually makes the ten mins or so flight to the strike zone without getting them all killed. Of course if you have a jetpack and he does get shot badly – you can detach from your position and eject before the craft starts its death spiral to the ground. If you don’t have a jetpack, you’re fucked because you can either jump and hope you only break a leg (your armor protects you) from a jump from 5K AGL or you leave a mark on the terrain – and respawn.

Same thing in single player but your three NPC squad mates are smart enough to follow you into any asset (any with gunner or passenger positions) that you enter. So if you enter a vehicle as the #driver, one NPC will take a #gunner (if available) position, while the other two take up #passenger positions.

My upcoming ground combat movie shows all of this in action, since it focues on the ground combat aspects of the game, similar to how this latest movie focused on air combat.

As I said before, this is not your grand daddy’s fps game – and anyone expecting any thing North of braindead in this game, truly hasn’t played any of my games.

01/02/2009 at 15:02 dsmart says:

It is hard to find a balance between brainless games and functionally viable games.

My biggest mistake occured many years ago with my first game. It is no big secret (it has been covered in many industy publications) that I wanted to roll everything that I liked about space combat games, into my first game. The ill-fated original (which, to do this day can be found in most top download charts) Battlecruiser game ended up being what it was simply because I was too ambitious. Couple that with a trigger finger publisher (Take 2, who went on to be who they are today – with everyone forgetting that my first game was actually one of those in their original SEC filing and did generate quite a sum for them.) – and you have a recipe for disaster.

But once I just ignored everyone and stuck to my vision and did what I wanted to do, it was easy from that point on.

My goal has always been to nurture – and reward – those like-minded gamers who stuck with my team and I through those difficult years. This is the reason why I continued with the Battlecruiser/Universal Combat series and never strayed from the original vision regardless of the [un-founded] abuse I’ve taken.

In an industry where many – MANY – big names have literally pissed away other people’s (publishers, investors, VC etc) money, crashed and burned – in some cases disappeared – it is only my money that I’ve burned. Never taking advances that I couldn’t pay back. I do what I say I can. Hence the reason you will never – ever – see anything posted about my company or myself related to the usual financial publisher shenanigans. In fact, in my entire history, I have never – ever – taken publisher advances at any time before my game hits a playable Alpha state. And even then, my deals are carefully structured so that advances are recouped earlier on so as not to leave me indebted to anyone at any time. It is is this philosophy that allows me to release all my games for free once the rights expire. I have done this with all my games thus far, and yet another [legacy] one will be released later this year for free.

Even with times changing and when the going gets tough and everyone changing the direction, my goal remains to design and develop games that a select group of people want to play. Some people get it from one perspective or another.

At the end of the day, this is not rocket science. People who have the ability to do what they love and believe in, will do just that – regardless of what obstacles or challenges they might face. I could have given up the ghost a long time ago, sought a job in the industry and *gasp* working for someone else. Or better yet, gone back to IT consulting work and getting a regular [obscenely large] paycheck. But what would be the fun in that? To go bouncing from gig to gig when uppper management screws up and subsequently gives me a pink slip (and severance pay that won’t even see my through Winter) for my troubles? Then how would I get to make the games that I want to make and play? In my spare time? With XNA, Linux, a browser?

The math of what I do is very simple and straightforward. It goes something like this:

Find 10 people who are going to pay for your game. If 10 of them end up paying you $10 a pop, go make a game in which you spend no more than $50 on. Be certain to make a game that at least 8 of those 10 people will buy again down the road. Rinse. Repeat.

Along the way, I have been fortunate that more people buy my games than I planned. So, I get to make those games for those like minded people because they keep me in business. I don’t give a toss about anyone else.

With AAW, I am straying a bit from the [game] formula because I want to evolve my ideas into other areas due to gaming trends (e.g. space combat sims are all but dead for now). Anyone reading about this [AAW] game and who will eventually play the Beta, will immediately see my fingerprint all over it. While not as complex as “A Battlecruiser game”, it is still not your average brainless game. In short, it is – first and foremost – a thinking man’s fps. There are enough brainless fps games out there filling that bill. Why on Earth would I want to compete with that when I can stick to what I can do and with what I have? Isn’t that why most games that try to compete in the same space, fail? Spectacularly? Quick! Name one innovative – or fun – thing in any recent memory fps that hasn’t already been done to death.

In the end, even if not all my core gamers buy AAW, we don’t have a lot to worry about because come 2011 or thereabouts, my biggest feat yet is coming. That being my epic all-encompassing space combat MMO (was in production, but halted in order to do AAW and KnightBlade and shore up our finances for that long haul) in the vein of my previous space combat games. Once again, it will be developed for those who like my games and who want to keep supporting it for the same reason that I upgrade my games consistently and for free.

Are we going to compete with the likes of Jumpgate, Eve, Star Trek Online? Probably not. But in the game space, what exactly is competition? While Eve is a spreadsheet in space, Jumpgate just a deliusional reboot and the jury being out on STO, the only thing we’re competing with is our ability to stick to our original vision for the game. Space combat? Check! Planetary combat? Check! Seamless spaceplanet transitional gameplay? Check! Cap ships? Check! fps action? Check! vehicular action? Check! Grind? Absolutely not.

…and the best part? We’ve done this ALL before – many times over in fact. Since the experience is already there, now we’re doing it on a much larger scale. In fact, my guess is that Galactic Command Online will be my very last game. That has been the plan all along. I started with the space combat genre and I intend to end my career with it.

Some have accused me of making the same game over and over. To them I say: take a look around at the games you’ve been playing.

05/02/2009 at 13:44 Heliocentric says:

A great painter doesnt make his own brushes, in all likeliness he doesnt make his own paint either.

A master carpenter doesnt have to grow his own trees.

You see where I’m going with this… but you didnt type it!

24/02/2009 at 22:44 dsmart says:

whoa!! This is back on the….the…front page.

OK, did you guys check out the latest movie? And?