3000AD’s new simulatory shooter has a demo, and you can get it here. It’s a mere 290mb. The demo includes a bunch of instant action scenarios and a taste of the various careers in the game. More info can be found over on the blog. We understand from the most recent postings that the game itself is imminent.
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Hopefully this demo will help me understand whether I am in the narrow target audience or not.
I salute Derek Smart’s indefatigability.
It’s pleasing to know that Derek Smart is still out there making games. I might not ever buy them, I’ve somehow developed a fondness for him through all the abuse that gets hurled when he gets into arguments. Plus, that Desktop Commander video will never get old.
If the graphics in the game are as good as those on the website, this should be stunning.
I tried the marine mission…I ran, spotted an enemy, killed him, another appeared, I got killed and it crashed…hooray, seems like a good old 3000ad game :D
Mein Gott.
To me this seems like it’s trying to be Planetside and Tribes 2, but both those games are so much better. I drove my jeep in to one of the badly textures buildings and it flew backwards in to the air. I ran over an enemy and it did nothing but push him.
I played for about 10 minutes and I can’t list the number of problems with the game. When you die a scoresheet comes up and says ‘Press ESC’ to exit, you think it means the screen, but no, it means go back to the main menu, with no way back in to the game.
I wasn’t expecting much when I saw the terribly designed 3000AD logo flying through space in a very badly animated fashion, I seem to remember they made that Judge Dredd game, unless i’m totally wrong on that.
Maybe the game is too ambitious, although the same thing has been done before and much better (Battlefield 2042, Tribes 2, Planetside). The graphics aren’t great at all, and there is barely any optimisation, my quad core machine has trouble running it at medium, when it runs much graphically higher quality games smoothly.
When in a jeep I couldn’t seem to look around, the physics of everything are straight from the 90’s. There’s a lot more but I have a feeling someone else will chip in with their experiences soon, I’ll just say, this is pretty bad, pretty pretty pretty bad.
Downloading now. Thanks for the peek, Dr. Smart!
Jim, you are wrong on the Judge Dredd game – that would be Rebellion, who own 2000AD (the comic publisher who created Dredd). 3000AD is the company run by Smart.
oh dear, not very accessible is it. I jumped into a plane and the controls were all over the place, I’ll have to plug my joystick in and try it again. Not tried the ground pounder yet, will do that later.
This could be an interesting game if it doesn’t alienate alot of people in the first five seconds. Then again, he’s always said that it is not his aim to make successful games.
Not a good start.
What, no commentary on how the game plays? Afraid of the “Dr” Boogeyman?
Jim, you are wrong on the Judge Dredd game – that would be Rebellion, who own 2000AD (the comic publisher who created Dredd). 3000AD is the company run by Smart.
That’s it, I stand corrected. But my opinions still stand on this, I coult myself lucky I missed out on a beta key.
*looks at the vehicles design*
Oh lawd, George Lucas won’t be pleased
[You'll have to be nicer than that here, Derek - our readers are largely expressing honest commentary based upon their experience of the game rather than simply taking a pop at you. We want civil and constructive discourse from both sides. Rest assured we have been deleting and will continue to delete the genuinely nasty reader comments, of course. Thanks, RPS]
Sorry Derek. Although I’ve never particularly enjoyed your games, I haven’t found reason to bash them, either.
However, your statement that “There are NO crashes in the game. Not one. In fact, there aren’t any bugs left in our tracking dB. So whatever that was about, check your system” seems particularly arrogant. I can only hope that it was in jest.
The dev log is automatically exported and uploaded when it changes. Here is the latest version from which the demo was built.
Our Mantis dB is empty.
Unlike others, we don’t hide our bugs and hope that nobody notices. If its there – and it can be reproduced – we investigate and fixed.
If you find a bug that can be reproduced, report it and we’ll fix it. Thats what we do. It is part of our history. We support our games. Always have. Always will. And the thousands of people who buy and play them, keep doing so because of our commitment to our games and the people who LIKE and PLAY them.
Just because people can’t be bothered to report bugs for your game it doesn’t mean your game is bug free.
Arrogant? Maybe. But so what? I can be as arrogant as I want to be but at the end of the day I stand by my statements. If I know – for a fact – that there are no bugs in the game, then I have the right to say so.
Why should I accept the postings of some seemingly anonymous non-entity on a board? Can you vet that person? Vouch for them? Do YOU have access to their machine? So what? Its better to take the word of some Internut at face value while lambasting the developers?
No, it wasn’t a jest. I was serious because those are the facts.
We’ve had people ignoring the DirectX 9 update requested by the installer, pressing “NO”, then come tell us that the game won’t run. We check their system? And of course the last time they updated DirectX, Clinton was president.
I never underestimate the power of gamers to royally fuck up otherwise simple things. So if its not in my game – and I can’t reproduce it – chances are, its your fault. Prove me otherwise, and I’ll fix it and move on with my life.
Here is another fine example. Scroll down to the bottom and read the comments.
This is what the GUI looks like when you start the demo.
Yet, somehow, 47 people managed to ignore it, create a new user. Then post stuff like this when the server authentication denies access to the game.
…and just because someone says its a bug in my game doesn’t make it so.
Oh, I didn’t know the developer was going to read this, sorry. ^_^
Well ok, lets look at my comments and see how I feel after some more time with the game, I know saying the logo was a sign of bad things to come is like judging the proverbial book, but it really would have been better had it just been just a quick fade in to ‘3000AD’ with a black background and white text. it may not seem important but used properly it can really set the mood of a game before it even starts up.
Anyway, that’s not the point of the demo and I only said it was a bad sign, nothing to get worried about just yet. Having played it a bit longer I see when you die that’s it, scenario over. But that doesn’t explain the lack of a retry button, why take me back to the main menu where I have to select the scenario all over again? Especially with no tutorial i’m gonna come in to this not knowing what to do and it will take a few times to get me sorted.
I have played two demos today, this one and Overlord 2. The second had a nice little tutorial (no framerate issues, must be made for POS PC’s despite looking beautiful) to get you started. I have to say it’s great to release a demo and I wish more devs did it, but some light help would be welcome.
I understand it’s not a copy of Planetside, BF2142 etc, mean the graphical quality and how it runs on my PC can be compared. Large spaces, vehicles. We’ll put the performance down to my crap PC is 10,000 people really do say it runs fine, I planned on upgrading soon anyhow.
I don’t need to read the manual, i’ve played plenty of these games before to know how to play them pretty much off the bat. The main menu thing did throw me i’ll admit, I was bemused at the non-restart situation. But I rammed the jeep in to a wall for a reason, to test what the game would do, I wasn’t expecting perfect damage modelling or physics but it actually threw be back several hundred yards. Through the air.
Lets talk about what I do like, every game has its silver lining. The buildings cruble (with some imagination) when they’re hit, always nice to see that. The mission to survive until your evac gets to you is a nice idea.
Oh i’m really trying.
I understand it caters to a specific base, but the thing is I usually love this type of game. A big map with vehicles, that is my kind of game. I think comparing your game to others out there is perfectly reasonable if you’re going to be asking for a similar amount of money to play it. I will always look up to people who develop games, working on mods for most of my life I can only imagine how hard it is to build and engine from scratch, let alone the light map/model/texture editing I do.
So yeah, I appreciate your work and maybe there’s something I just don’t get, but I guess the demo doesn’t show off the features of the game very well. I’m guessing massive multiplayer sprawling battles are where the fun lies, not the scenarios.
i’ll download this when i get home, comments drama or no!
is there lazors?
OK, lets try that again then with different wording…
There are NO crashes in the game. Not one. In fact, there aren’t any
bugs left in our tracking dB. So whatever that was about, check your
system.
Also, all enemies come from somewhere other than thin air. So another
didn’t just “appear”. He may have only just appeared to you, but since
they intercept in groups and pairs, you probably noticed the other guy
first.
Wrong. You are taken to the main menu. From there you can either quit
the game or start a new one. Try actually reading the menu options next
time.
Oh yah, lets comment on the company logo which has been around for God
knows how long. At least we know where you’re coming from.
Wrong. Again. The only thing that it has in common with those games, are
fps and vehicles. Anyone who has played those games – and AAW – knows
that. You obviously don’t. Especially given that something as simple as
navigating the main menu trips you.
Wrong again. The game is highly optimized and does in fact take
advantage of multiple cores. We had a 10K+ test through IGN and the
public – not one person complained about the performance. Not one. In
fact, those threads are still available on our website for all to see.
And there is no such thing as “running at medium”. This is not Crysis
where you press a button and it does the settings for you. You have to
tweak each individual setting to suit your purposes. On my quad core
righ, I can run at 1920×1080 (in fact most of the screens are taken at
this res) with everything on Ultra or High and experience nary a
stutter.
Not all quad core machines are built the same. Try optimizing yours.
Yes you can.
Not sure what you were expecting there. But considering that physics
even pre-dates mankind, I’m at a total loss on that one.
Can you expand on that? What does “all over the place” mean? How hard is
WSAD? Seriously?
And yes, as I’ve said time and time again, if you’re going to be flying,
you need a joystick or another controller. The flight dynamics were not
designed for WSAD – which is what is used for games in which their
ground and aerial dynamics are based on crappy fps movement. Ours isn’t.
All the dynamics (fps, vehicle, naval, aerial) are unique. So while you
can use WSAD for vehicles, first person etc – don’t expect the same
experience in a fighter. Get a joystick. Or an analog or XB360
controller.
Plus, the game’s controls are so simplistic, my Granny understands them.
Not to mention that, right there on the main menu – you can go in and
change ALL of them if you want.
The game is not for everyone. If you don’t like the demo, you won’t like
the full game. So, uninstall it, and move on to the next cookier cutter
flavor of the day.
Like all our games, it caters to a specific hard core high-end audience,
so it may not appeal to everyone. But that was never our goal. Our goal
wasn’t to develop yet another cookie fps game that others keep
regurgitating. We wanted to go beyond that and come up with something
unique and which stands apart from the others.
Naturally, given the size, scope and ambition, we had to make various
levels of compromises in order to make it playable on the target
systems. So you won’t see any trees. But hey, you have a bunch of other
things to stare at and in the largest game world in any fps game to
date. Yes, we checked – it is the largest fps game world ever created.
Even so, the game worlds in our previous space games are in magnitudes
of hundreds times larger. So we have a lot of experience with that.
Its not for everyone. If you don’t like it, then its not for you. And
comparing an indie developed game to a multi-zillion production from the
likes of EA, is silly.
You don’t know that. There is no way to know that. Arrogance is fine, but it’s generally best used about things that are actually verifiable. You can be as arrogant as you like about the name of your game, because you *know* what it is. Code verification is in the general case an unsolvable problem. Until reading this thread, I’d have said that only people learning to write their first “Hello World” program were naive enough to claim they *knew* they had no bugs.
Link please?
And I love the way your answer to complaints about performance is “not one person has complained about the performance”. Exactly one person has complained about it now.
So how big is the game world? Is there just one map?
Having a demo of this game, is a very honest and cool thing to have. As It will help people that would like this game decide to buy it, and the others people avoid from buying it.
@ Jim
Well thats a much better – and more objective post. Thanks for that.
The “no retry” was design decision. In much the same way that there is no save anywhere in most games, but you have it ours – which also does not use a checkpoint save system.
The decision was because given the size of the game world, it takes a long time to re-initialize and reload. In fact, if you wanted a retry, just run the game, and a few mins in, save it. Now when you die, you can resume right there without having to start from scratch. The save/restore is very seamless and transparent. Please try it and tell me if that solves your problem.
There is a tutorial for the game and the demo. If you look in “Start/programs/3000ad/All Aspect Warfare Demo” you will see the link to the PDF file, manual, game keys etc.
uhm yes, you do need to read it. In fact, if you had read it, the main menu issue would have been clear because its right there on page 3.
Yes, it was designed to do that. And the distance depends on your speed at impact.
Its there. Just not in the demo. If you read the manual – the full game manual is in there – you will see the potential.
It puts Planetside in the shade. It takes some getting used to. Like all games.
http://www.3000ad.com/aaw/2009/05/developer-blog-10/
Indeed. And thats the point of doing demos. But that didn’t stop almost one million people from buying H.A.W.X. :D
We have traditionally done demos either based on the final build or shortly after the game was released. Hence the reason we are releasing the demo at this point, now that the game is near Gold. So, apart from the tons of features that are totally gimped (as you can see from the game manual included with the demo), you’ll get a good idea about the game and make an informed decision therein.
Sigh, cleaning this thread is wearisome. Keep it civil, everyone.
Adam – do stop trying to provoke arguments.
Derek – we’re quite sure the non-spiteful majority of our readership are genuinely interested to hear your thoughts on AAW so please keep on commenting, but both sides need to resist the urge to fight.
We’ve had people ignoring the DirectX 9 update requested by the installer, pressing “NO”, then come tell us that the game won’t run. We check their system? And of course the last time they updated DirectX, Clinton was president.
Many legitimate hardcore gamers have jacked up computers. They may be hardcore gamers but don’t have the proper knowledge to maintain a computer such as patch management, anti-spyware and non conflicting processes. So if a gamer ignores DirectX (which standardized drivers) and proceeds to install a game then the game WILL have problems. I’m not defending the game just calling out so called hardcore gamers who dont follow instructions are are compelled to blame someone else when we all know their PC is jacked up. This is why development for the PC is such as pain and we have seen the increase of consoles because the hardware is controlled and the so called hardcore “i know everything” gamer cant jack up the system the devs plan to deploy on. This game may be compared to other games and that is fair if they are in the same genre, I am an indie developer and would never code for the PC but have been in IT for 20 years so I am intimately familiar with what a person will proclaim as a but in someone else’s game.
Anyway, the game could be better and should be if it wants to compete in the modern gaming arena. Better would graphics as this is going to be 70% of a persons interpretation of your game.
Good luck but I would make it for the 360 eventhough that means a complete overhaul and following “The Man’s” standards – it will sell and sell a lot or it can barely sell and be problematic on a PC.
Good luck Derek Smart but consider opening your mind to other platforms as you are brilliant but have missed the passing of the PC and the increase of the console.
If you can’t let the game speak for itself and need to defend it in damn comment section then I think you took a wrong turn somewhere. Guess what, all those people you’re replying to, their experiences of the game are valid. If people think the controls are clunky you can’t say that they aren’t clunky.
Most people who try the game will never read your comments anyway so perhaps you should make sure that the game can stand on its own without all your explaining.
Relax Teo – one of the great joys of RPS is that we do get gamers and developers interacting here. There are worryingly few sites that happens on. Every time someone openly rages at a developer there’s less chance of that happening, sadly.
Then don’t do that. Here’s what Microsoft’s guidelines say about installing your game:
Don’t ask the user questions that you know the answer to, and they might not. Especially not if there is only one valid answer in the first place.
Just a suggestion. :)
Regarding the performance, I have a Q6600 @ 2925Mhz, 9800 GX2, 2GB RAM, Win XP pro SP3 and I play @ 1680×1050. I tried with all settings maxed (AA @ 4x) and the max FPS I got was about 22. Unplayable. I’ll try to lower the settings but anyway, with my setup, I should be able to play at max
@ RPS
Very well then.
If all developers followed Microsoft’s guidelines, we’d all be in trouble.
Fact is, I opted not to do that in the installer because there is no guaranteed way to discover which DirectX runtime is installed.
I use NSIS as my installer. Not the bloated crap that is Installshield/MSI. Below is the section in the installer script
Function .onInstSuccess
MessageBox MB_YESNO “Install (Internet connection required) DirectX 9.0c (March 2009) Runtime? If not, the game may fail to run!” IDNO NoRunProgram
Exec $INSTDIRdxwebsetup.exe
NoRunProgram:
FunctionEnd
The user gets to press Y or N. It tells you what bad things will happen. You’d think that people will just press Y and if they have the latest, nothing happens when the DirectX installer runs. But instead, they click N. And boom.
Sure I could do a silent install and remove control from the user entirely. I just haven’t gotten around to make a final decision on that yet.
Thats not all. The game requires a card with Shader Model 3. Every card from 2007 has this. But because of how nVidia and ATI keep gimping their cards, we’ve found that some high end cards from back then, arent even SM3 supported. So people don’t read the game’s requirements. Then try to play it.
“If I know – for a fact – that there are no bugs in the game”
Really? You are honestly claiming there are not bugs in your code? What’s your QA/engineer ratio and what kind of automated testing have you implemented?? I’ve worked in software companies for 15 years and never ever seen bugless code, even when it was a relative compact of software entirely written by two geniuses and carefully QAed.
P.
Runtime error this application has requested for the program to be closed in a unusual way
Please contact applications support team
So i am
Any ideas?
@ ZIGS
I have a similar rig and can peak at around 32fps with everything maxed.
Since 30 fps is a standard for NTSC, I wouldn’t call 22 fps unplayable. I ran a bunch of regression tests and was able to play just fine at around 20 fps with everything maxed.
Remember that it is a MASSIVE world. The bottleneck is not the graphics but rather in the updates such as physics, AI etc.
You can reduce the quality of shadows and light shafts to make a BIG difference in performance. Those are things you won’t otherwise notice anyway, so you won’t notice the effects of HIGH vs ULTRA.
Let me know and I’ll help you tweak it.
@ MessyPenguin
What are you system specs?
I have only seen that error in the following circumstances
1. Card is not SM3 compliant
2. Latest DirectX 9 runtime not installed
3. You are running a 64-Bit app and the Byteshield DRM cannot initialize due to permissions on the system.
Our online KB has a list of solutions.
Let me know how it goes.
Also, be sure to install IE8. Some people needed to do that in order for Byteshield to init and work correctly.
@ oceanclub
If I don’t know about it, then it doesn’t exist. We developers can’t fix what we can’t reproduce or know about.
As of this writing, there are NO known bugs in the game. None.
And please don’t take my words out of context. Read what I wrote again.
RPS: quit deleting my posts. I think Sir Smart needs to see for himself that his game has issues. I may sound provocative, but these are opinions of my own experiences, ones that I’d like to share.
And you can highlight those issues without insulting the man, man.
“As of this writing, there are NO known bugs in the game. ”
That’s very different from:
““There are NO crashes in the game. Not one. In fact, there aren’t any bugs left in our tracking dB. [...] If I know – for a fact – that there are no bugs in the game, then I have the right to say so.”
If you are willing to admit there may be bugs in the game, then why are you getting annoyed when people point out there may be?
P.
Credit to Derek here, he’s got the balls to stand up and defend his game, which is a lot more than the vast majority of developers do these days. I’m genuinely impressed.
I think I might have a look at this game. Never tried a 3000AD game before. I’ll see how it goes. The mashup between a Tribes 2, Planetside and Battlefield style of game has me intrigued.
And you can highlight those issues without insulting the man, man.
True, I got a bit carried away, but one can’t help pointing it out when said opposite party keeps refusing to admit it.
(if anyone wants to ask what I’m referring to, it’s the music. My personal opinion is that it’s subpar)
Umm, can everyone else get to the blog linked to in the article above? I try to open it in Firefox, and I just get a blank webpage with a thin bar across the screen. Problem my end, or the blog?
Cheers for the reply
I have installed Direct X the one that came with the demo said did not need to be updated.
I have Internet Explorer 8 (Don’t use it though ugh)
And I’m running 32 bit it is however Windows 7 may this be the problem?
Oh yeah and Geforce 8800 GTS which I’m sure has SM3 with latest drivers everything else is fine apart from Channel 4 On Demand but that’s another story
ah Windows 7!!
Try this check list and tell me how it goes.
I’m running with Win7 RC 1 and having no crashes, well one so far but I put that down to the OS. Anyone up for some multiplayer? I’m playing now.
“Make sure that you have the latest updates to Internet Explorer 8, Java SE Runtime Environment and .Net Framework 3.5 or higher- all of which the Byteshield DRM interface require for proper operation.”
Derek, thats a hell of dll files. Maybe more than 300 MB (.NET + Java + IE8). You sould probably use a different DRM system, has this one need a whole hell of a upgrade, two upgrades (java AND .net). Also, you are lucky, because Microsoft has started a few months ago to push IE8 to everyone. But there will be people with autoupdate disabled, here is another dependency that is calling for problems.
Good luck with that beta, I applaud your effort to be honest about your game.
s/beta/demo/g; sorry.
@ Tei
Sadly, those have nothing to do with the DRM or the game. Those are the system requirements by the OS. The Byteshield DRM was built with MFC. Enough said.
@ Jim
I can join you in a sec!! Which server are you on?