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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btw, we even had CO-OP in the demo but removed it at the last minute because we – and the testers – felt that we gave away a very major and important draw for the game.
In fact, one of the scenarios in the demo is based on the MP game of co-op in which you guys have to get off the base.
One of the things we are not even touting because it has been in all our games, are the destructible environments. If you can see it, you can blow it up. Last night we were playtesting co-op in the full game. I ran into a building. The NPC gunship flying overhead and looking for us, subsequently levelled it. With me in it. :D Flushed us out, where the marines on the outside happily picked us off one by one. Good times.
I was the only person playing. I was expecting to meet some of thie hardcore fanbase and see how they played, maybe tonight. I have work to do now.
I’m called Jim in the game though, so perhaps i’ll catch you later!
Some bugs I’ve encountered.
http://img32.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=aaw04.png
I keep trying to like this game and it keeps crashing on me. But I’m up for finding an online game.
…and editing is off. How annoying.
First image is z-fighting on the ‘portal’.
Second isn’t a bug, dammit, sorry bout that. But leaning in this game DOES tend to make me think I’m lying on my side on the ground.
If I strafe with the wrist gun selected, I can see through my arm. Also… Mobile Forward Base wheels appear to be rotating on one single, central access. Amusing.
One of my many crashes. Running an XP Quad Core with nVidea 8800.
Ok got past error after installing all the checklist :(
now this
Game terminated due to FATAL error:
Invalid game file detected, please reinstall.
‘./MEDIA/MODELS/TEX/MARINE_INFANTRY_1_SPECULAR.DDS’
im going to reinstall and try again
@dsmart: First off I think its great that you actually take the time to talk to us ‘internuts’ in a comment thread, hats off for that.
regarding your response to my previous comment I have a couple of comebacks, I’ll quote your comment first for clarity’s sake:
1: I tried using an analogue joypad to fly the plane (an old Xbox controller through XBCD, still by far the best analogue joypad you can get to work on the PC IMO, apart form the 360 pad but thats plugged into my 360 for the kids to use) but there was no response from the game. Does an old Xbox pad not count as an analogue controller? If its not supported then you might want to look at that. As I said I will have a crack at it with my Saitek Joystick once I have more than 10 mins to sit down at my computer.
2. Yes FPS controls are not ideal for flying a plane, I quite agree, but having roll controlled by Q and E for instance is not entirely illogical. I’m sure there are keys for rolling your plane there somwhere but to not have them easily to hand (let alone easy to find) whilst using FPS controls is irrtating.
3. The WASD was fine, once I figured out how to get the damn thing off the ground. If you’re going to implement FPS controls in a plane then the jump and crouch keys are the logical ones to use for climb and descend. Implement FPS controls for flight or not, makes no odds to me, I have a joystick, but if you do implement them do so logically, sticking with the prevailing conventions where possible.
W/S speed up/slow down
A/D yaw left/right
Q/E roll left/right
Space Climb
Lft Shift/C Descend
T/Tab Closest target
Mouse wheel Change weapon
As it is you’ve got the defaults as F for climb and Z for descend, no roll control on the keyboard that I could discern, and I couldn’t find a closest target key.
Flight control issues aside (I’ll be using a joystick later, so they’re not that big an issue for me anyway) I’m not going to complain about bugs or crashes, I didn’t have any, and the framerate issues (its a tad jerky, even on relatively low settings) are, as you say, more than likely down to my machine than anything else. I’ll be sure and play with the settings a bit more till I get a smooth play experience.
On a more general note I think you may be missing a trick with you’re “If they don’t like the game then we don’t want them playing it” attitude. If the game puts people off in the first five minutes of play then it is not a failing on their part but on yours. If you honestly believe that your game can be judged in its entirety from five minutes of gameplay then you have to concede that it must be a pretty shallow game. I’m willing to give a game a couple of solid hours play before dismissing it as rubbish and I’m sure there are plenty out there like me. I realise that you don’t want to appeal to the mass market of gamers who talk smack and greif on BF2/2142 servers (I quite agree, they are intensely irritating) and I know you don’t want the Xbox live screamers playing your game. But by making your game as inaccesible as I fear you might be, you are alienating a fairly sizeable market of reasonable 30-something gamers (ie gamers with a little maturity and a sense of decent behaviour) who feel exactly the same way you do about some of the community’s behaviour on various game servers and would probably quite enjoy your game.
I can already predict your reply to this portion of my comment: “I don’t care, its my game and I’ll make it the way I want to, You’re just a gamer and have nothing of value to teach me,” and as its your opinion you are of course entitled to it. All I will say in pre-emptive response to that is “Your loss.”
As gamers we have a wealth of experience playing games which I’m willing to bet totals millenia if taken collectively, individually we may well be idiots but as a group our experience of playing games far outwieghs that of a single individual, or even a small group of individuals. You denigrate that too easily, and ignore it as if it were nothing. You may make games and have a fairly good idea of what makes them fun and all the technical know how that goes with it, but we play games and we know what makes them fun. If you are willing to ignore us, even insult us, thats up to you. In the end though, as I said before, its your loss.
“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.”
Every ATI x1000 and above, and 6000 series onwards nVidia card is 100% SM3.0 compatible. If you are talking about the ATI xX00 series of cards these were never claimed to be SM3.0 compatible, and anyway these were released in 2005.
“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”
http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/6103/aaw02.png
These aren’t bugs! They’re features!
There’s a two player game going on now with two very confused and irritated players and a host of try-and-quitters.
I found you and urinator in a game, tried to join, it wouldn’t let me, then the servers all said no players. You still in there now? :S
They’re all empty.
Still there. Current consensus is that this game is not fun.
@ Reverend
That issue with that model’s wheels was already fixed and is recorded in the game’s dev log. Did you get that shot from the demo?
Player confusion…
Whats the problem exactly? Of course everyone is going to get confused playing a game the first time. Thats what a tutorial and manual are for. They are meant to be read.
I looked at that last shot. The crash happens in the FMOD audio driver DLL (fmodex.dll). Which can mean that your audio probably does not support HW acceleration or you set the number of audio channels beyond the capacity of the audio card. If you have on-board audio, set it to software only by setting the HARDWARE AUDIO CHANNELS to 0 in the game options.
I just joined and left three servers just fine.
Was just on 208.167.240.125 as seen from the in-game server browser.
Can you tell me the first few numbers of the IP of the server you’re on Rev?
A delightful experience. A chap called Urinator and I spent 20 minutes trying to find each other. We succeeded eventually, I jumped into his vehicle as a gunner and the server disconnected.
This is not a good demo experience.
Sorry for the double post (where’s the edits gone?).
The server browser reports there are 8 servers, but only shows me 6, I don’t have any filters or anything that could be blocking it. How odd.
That’s so strange, me and urinator did the exact same thing, we found each other then at that exact moment the server disconnected (what? the server left the game?).
@ MessyPenguin
The game does an integrity check of all files. If any of them shows any signs of tampering or corruptions, thats the message you will get.
I still need your system specs:
OS
CPU
MEMORY
AUDIO
VIDEO
Also, which of the check list items solved your problem?
@ dSmart
Re. Crash, Yup.
Re. Audio, will do.
dSmart, regards confusing players in the demo and requiring ‘em to read the tutorials… I appreciate you including them in the game, though perhaps you could throw up a little in-game text occasionally suggesting people look at ‘em.
Regarding the format they’re in, well, this IS 2009. Perhaps you could create a more guided experience for a new player, suggest some options, some goals? L4D has a wonderful system for guiding a newbie – I highly encourage you to look at it.
I applaud the ambitions of the game, but I’m just afraid it’ll suffer from the same fate of Quake Wars, another game of huge variety with an impenetrable opening.
If you could limit the player’s choices upon beginning the game (with the option of skipping this limited experience) it might help.
Anyhow. Joining the server oh look it’s crashed. Er. Hang on, let’s try that again.
Joining 208.167.234.2:2302…
Thats because there are 6 demo servers and 2 normal servers. The demo automatically filters out non-demo servers since you can’t connect to them.
Any chance you’d find us and give us a tutorial, Mr. Smart?
I don’t have to find you. I know where you all are. Joining now…
If you have GSC 2.0 installed, it will save on typing. We have a “3000AD” voice server channel.
The demo had an older GSC client. Download the latest one from here: http://www.getgsc.com
It doesn’t support launching the demo though. So you need to install and configure it, then join the game. We were going to do built-in voice chat but decided against it since there are so many options available.
I’m curious why the game has such high system requirements for such spartan visuals.
Dsmart for your next project you should team up with bay12games and made a 3d dwarf fortress :P Or at least a better interfaced dwarf fortress. I don’t mind it the way it is now mind you, I love it in fact, but I think a LOT of people are missing out on a great game simply because the graphics “or lack there of” scare them off. Think it would be great for both companies ;P
Any how, is this game out yet? How are the sales? As good as you’d hoped?
Because the visuals are far from Spartan, the planet itself may be Spartan but the visuals are stunning the view range is insane ect. Games like this an Arm 2 require good hardware because of the view distance and detail in the characters ect I believe. It just isn’t the same as rendering a small area of a map at a time, these games render as far as the eye can see in all directions.
DSmart is currently in game and showing us around. It’s … interesting. Give it a go.
Yeah he’s flying me around in a gun ship. We’ve suggested some changes that would make the demo a bit friendlier, so we’ll see if an update comes out ^_^
For some reason, this remind me the “idea” of “The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch” (a book from P.K.Dick ). I mean, you guys are “trapped” in a world where dsmart is “god”.
Unfortunally the book is not as good as the idea :-(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Stigmata_of_Palmer_Eldritch
Eldritch may also be a Gnostic figure, reminiscent of the corrupting “blind god” Samael. Like Samael, Eldritch takes the existing world and changes it into his vision, thereby introducing “error,” including suffering, unreality and entropy. Dick explored this perception of reality, the creation of a corrupting deity, in VALIS, The Divine Invasion and other works. Eldritch’s three stigmata might bear a resemblance to the three aspects of the corrupting divinity of gnosticism. However, in many Gnostic tellings, the world is perfect before the arrival of Samael. The world of The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch is not perfect before the arrival of Eldritch (it is indeed a stark and unwelcoming setting), and the Chew-Z dream world is less entropic than the real world (God promises eternal life. We can deliver it). It is possible that Eldritch is a reverse Samael, bringing the world out of a corrupted, entropic existence into an eternal one, but this too is a double-edged sword as Eldritch takes complete control of the dream world.
The beta for the game ate my computer alive, I may try the demo to see if there has been any optmizations but I seriously doubt my computer will be capalbe of handling it.
Re:Serondal
Except that it looks worse than ArmA /1/, let alone the sequel. And with that same fact in mind it demands more than ArmA.
View distance is great when there are things to see. The screenshots I’ve seen are pretty much kilometres of flat single-textured land without even foliage.
I’m really looking forward to trying this this evening.
So I should be able to report back tomorrow with constructive and civil comments :)
Thanks Mr Smart, that was the first time I’ve played a game with a dev and certainly the first time they’ve been so receptive to issues I and others have found. Looking forward to seeing the new version.
Thanks very much.
@Desktop commander
I’ve not actaully played the game so I can’t really comment on what is actually in it or how it looks. However DSmart has had a policy of not adding pretty stuff where it doesn’t belong just to make the game look prettier. There are miles of flat terrian because the planet IS miles of flat terrian with little or nothing on it. This does come into play however when you consider the fact that you can snipe and fire weapons over this distance as well and see enemy basese from this distance and engage enemies at this distance. Aparently the game also looks fantastic from inside fighters ect, but I don’t know. The screen shots I’ve seen make the characters in the game look on-par with Halo 3.
Where else but RPS can someone post about a demo, someone else post a negative experience, the developer comes in, other people join the discussion, the developer addresses most points and helps others troubleshoot a demo in close to real time, then that same developer joins in to show some of those he’s been conversing with around his game?
I Love You, RPS. Thank You.
Thank you Derek. Thank you moderators. Thank you commentors.
@Serondal
Ah! The glory of sci-fi: the ability to travel to worlds without plant life. Moreso the skill of Derek Smart- to bring together adventure-game logic and action game rendering.
OK, that was an interesting session.
Sergio and I have just now started to address ALL of the concerns you guys raised and the tips you shared with me.
Most of all, am going to enable CO-OP in the upcoming demo patch.
Off to address these stuff. Be back later.
“There are miles of flat terrian because the planet IS miles of flat terrian”
That’s handy.
P.
@Desktop Commander Also I think he said he was gonna add trees but it made the system requirments insane? I dunno I may be wrong about that :P
I know in universal combat SE most of the planets have trees and and what not and they are beautiful but have very little effect on the game play. I recall flying low over an enemy base, getting shot down then sneaking back through the jungle with birds flying over head. Sneaking into the enemy base, blowing up their AA missle launchers, killing soliders then jacking one of THEIR Shuttles and escaping back off planet uninjured (still lost a lot of money with that dang fighter though , stuff in Universal Combat is expensive to replace)
Of course you make tons of money in that game by trading orbit to surface missles ;) Kind of feel bad about furthering the arms trade through-out the galaxy though, but to balance that I out I only trade those types of weapons TO aliens from humans I don’t feel so bad when the xenos are killing each other for some reason.
I’m just saying Paul Moloney you wouldn’t complain about a game set in salt lake city for having miles of flat terrian and sparse tree cover.
Mr. Smart’s a genuinely nice guy when you’re giving him feedback in-game.
I can’t recommend the current AAW demo at the moment – not enough players, UI is somewhat alien and ignores some FPS conventions, All Aspects of Warfare are thrown at you at once with no smooth introduction (it’s VERY bad at exposing it’s features – including the manual is a poor excuse for modern in-game tuition) and there’s no coop.
But a lot of this is going to be fixed in the coming demo update, including the addition of co-op.
I’ve been in the engine, but I can’t say I’ve played the game yet. It’s a phenomenal work for such a small team and there’s a lot of potential there, but getting at the content is troublesome right now.
However, beta testing with a developer is tremendous fun. If any of you should have the chance to join, play and politely discuss this project with Mr. Smart, I highly encourage you to do so.
I see that the tail end of my previous comment was misplaced and based on an erroneous assumption. My hat is off twice to you Mr Smart, my apologies.
My wife comments that not only have Smart’s games gotten better over the years, in recent years with the additon of some weight in the face and the white beard Mr. Smart is now “dead sexy”. She puts them up there with Sean Conneir O.o
Really glad the Derek + Readers session went well; perhaps we can arrange some RPS reader mass AAWing once the updated demo’s out.
@ Serondal
I don’t know of a place on earth, in metre-scale, that’s as devoid of detail as the AAW planet. Say what you will about system specs and I will point you again to ArmA – another multifaceted large-scale combat game with similar or lower requirements that somehow managed a few little details.
To think of it though, maybe I should do a sci-fi graphic novel. It wouldn’t be doodles, it’s be The Dimension of the Monochromatic Stickfigurians. My art skills shall never hold my imagination back again!
Then he takes the input and works to make a better DEMO?
Much Love.
I’m down for the mass reader updated demo session. Hopefully on a day I’m not trolling from work. ;)
Try some places in Egypt and Libia for starters there are places on google map you can zoom in and see for miles and miles in every direction NOTHING. ArmA is set on tropical islands . . . your point is rather invalid.
You keep fluxuating between the idea that it’s due to the sci-fi locale and the idea that it is due to technical restrictions. I am attempting to discover the more root cause.
OK, first pass is going through regression testing now. See whats been addressed. More to come. Should have an engine update by tonite and a small demo update (exe file only) by tomorrow.
AAW Version Control File
Ok, theres something like a station to buy things, but I don’t have XP. I have managed to die shotting to a car (it seems the explosion radius is huge). And respawn in a area with lots of different flyiing ships. I don’t care what other people think about the models, but are better than these from Anarchy Online. I have enter a vehicle, and I was able to raise it with the key F, then changing the camera with the F keys the game has crashed. I am surprised F1 (external camera) work for first person mode (making the game a TPS shotter). The female voice is called “mother” in the files of the game, haha :-)
It can be both at once. The fact is the planet is a barren waste land of a planet.
I do recall Dsmart saying something about using spreed tree at some point in the past as well, but it never happened. The question is even if he did use speed tree would it change the fact that the planet is a baren waste land? The root cause is because that is is how Smart wanted it to be, He can correct me if I’m wrong ;)