in response to EVN TC topic

Poll: If one were to make an EV4 in 3D, and we could be assured of it's quality, would you support it or not? (29 member(s) have cast votes)
If one were to make an EV4 in 3D, and we could be assured of it's quality, would you support it or not?
Support
(18 votes [62.07%])
Percentage of vote: 62.07%
Do not support
(11 votes [37.93%])
Percentage of vote: 37.93%

This poll is in response to a part of the elusive EVN TC topic. The question I have is how many would support a 3DEV, and how many would not? Please feel free to vote and then put your opinions on this below.

This poll is irrelevant. The poll question is:

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If one were to make an EV4 in 3D, and we could be assured of it's quality, would you support it or not?

I can't answer that poll, because I don't agree with the premise -- EV3D cannot be made, and be an EV game at the same time (which is my definition of "quality" in this case).

Dave @ ATMOS

I agree with pipeline. Try the game Freelancer, its 3D and is kindof like Nova, which is exactly why I bought that game in the first place. It's also Multiplayer, though not anywhere as 'free' as EV, meaning unless you use an OpenSP plug, you have to go through the storyline. EV being multiplayer? I'm all for it. EV3D? Not so much. And I just said the other topic that it would draw in more people.

Well, there's also Terminus. It's a 3d space game. Very realistic and old too. Great graphics. It has a story that you can skip some of the missions. Although, of course, you get $$ and other things from them. There are 4 storylines and a freemode. Each storyline comes in a different group: Marauders, Mercinaries, UEL(United Earth League), and Mars Militry. The freemodes are also in the same categories.

What could happen is that it would all be mixed together so you take a side as you go along and, like in EV, follow anyy storyline you want. And the gov't that you are doing missions for at that moment is the color of your HUD(or your ship tracking signature, w/e). So then when you're just doing buisness for random peoples you can have maybe a costom-colored HUD. Maybe even set the attributes(drag and drop?) of your hud. It would be hard, but to make it like the EV gameplay, I say it's possible. And I say it could be best done using an engine similar to the quake 3 engine. Very capable and learnable engine, but still complicated. Terminus, I believe, runs on the quake 1 engine, or something similar.

By "3D" do you mean 3D movement, or 2D movement and gameplay exactly like EV except with realtime 3D models for dynamic lighting and OpenGL effects rather than prerendered sprites?

I feel that there could be an EV game in the latter of those two modes.

I had a go at X2 recently and to be blunt it sucked. The combat in 3D was absolutely no fun at all.

@Weepul: Yeah, I've thought about that a couple of time. It could work pretty well and would probably be far less taxing on the CPU.

This post has been edited by Guy : 29 June 2005 - 12:21 AM

Oh wow. That's something I really didn't think about...OpenGL not pre-rendered environment. Great Idea. I would play it for sure. What would also be cool is the ability to track other ships' heights and actually moe your ship up and down and spin your ship, s o you coould effectively hit ad crash(same goes for planets), while still all looking from a top view. Maybe being able to swivl your cam to maybe 45° in all directions. Awesome. That way there's no up and down on the screen. If you ge used to it, it could be great. Also it would, like you said, keep the processor load lower. Any maybe make it so missles have inertia. Pretty much EV3d 1st person except all rendered smaller and from 3rd person! Awesome.

Weepul 884, on Jun 29 2005, 12:04 AM, said:

By "3D" do you mean 3D movement, or 2D movement and gameplay exactly like EV except with realtime 3D models for dynamic lighting and OpenGL effects rather than prerendered sprites?

I feel that there could be an EV game in the latter of those two modes.
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A 2D view that renders 3D models would be desirable. Such a game could utilize a 'barrel-roll' move, and many other features that the sprite-based system just cannot do.

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A 2D view that renders 3D models would be desirable. Such a game could utilize a 'barrel-roll' move, and many other features that the sprite-based system just cannot do.

That is definitely an excellent idea. I had an thought similar to it some time ago, forgot about it, and now am reminded. Thanks.

Just to clarify -- when I made the poll I did mean a 3D system similar to X2 and Freelancer, as that is what I had interpreted it to mean when mentioned on the Elusive EVN TC topic.

Crusader

I must cast my lot with Pipeline for the poll itself, and abstain from voting. I do, however, think Weepul has an excellent idea.

Slayer LP-5, on Jun 28 2005, 10:39 PM, said:

Any maybe make it so missles have inertia.
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This would be awesome. Even in a prerendered, sprite-based game. I want inertial missiles!

Slayer LP-5, on Jun 28 2005, 11:39 PM, said:

What would also be cool is the ability to track other ships' heights and actually moe your ship up and down and spin your ship, s o you coould effectively hit ad crash(same goes for planets), while still all looking from a top view. (snip) Pretty much EV3d 1st person except all rendered smaller and from 3rd person!
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Urgh; to me, that'd be getting far enough away from EV-style gameplay that it wouldn't be EV in 3D anymore, as pipeline mentioned would also be the case for first-person 3D.

Qaanol, on Jun 29 2005, 12:53 PM, said:

I do, however, think Weepul has an excellent idea.

It's not original to me...at least, I don't think I was the first to mention it in the long history of EV-centered discussion.

Besides, prerendered sprites will always have a warm, fuzzy place in my mind. :laugh:

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This would be awesome. Even in a prerendered, sprite-based game. I want inertial missiles!
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Like in Ares?

Weepul 884, on Jun 29 2005, 12:04 AM, said:

<snip>
2D movement and gameplay exactly like EV except with realtime 3D models for dynamic lighting and OpenGL effects rather than prerendered sprites

I feel that there could be an EV game in the latter of those two modes.
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If the game "camera" were set 25-35 degrees off vertical and the ships then flew in two-dimensions, then the game would still be pretty much EV but with true 3D graphics.

Starfleet Command (1-3) is an example of this, but its camera was 50-75 degrees off vertical, too much to look Ev-ish.

--! NOTE !--
Requiring true 3D ship and weapon graphics would increase the difficulty of creating ships and weapons enough that any type of TC would take much longer to make than they already do! :blink:

So far- dispite an apparent cool factor- noone has demonstrated a real signifigant reason to do an EV in three dimensions. There are a LOT of things that could- and should- be done to the engine that would make all the world in new features and wouldn't break the bank. Possibly wouldn't be hard to code either.

*) No preload of sprite data at game startup! Is going to limit lots of stuff for lots of people!
*) No real 'upper limit' on resources- I have a suspicion that the resources are loaded into memory and a jump table is created to access them. Why limit us with 512-, an arbitrary 1000- or 2048- byte jump tables when one frame RLEs are many many times that?
*) More support for 'on-planet' adventures. We all love our Star Trek and Star Wars, but admit that a real large percentage of the action takes place planetside.
*) While you're at it, why not support for player-run governments, more than just the 'bar, mission computer, outfitter, shipyard' when landing. An arbitrary type of landing destination would be lovely, that may or may not support buying anything.

These are just ideas... Many more could be done without bringing in the 3-d.'

(edit: Don't ask what word I managed to misspell...)

This post has been edited by rmx256 : 30 June 2005 - 05:02 PM

Weepul 884, on Jun 30 2005, 12:31 AM, said:

Like in Ares?
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Blasphemer!

I never really got into Ares. I don't know why, we just didn't hit it off.

Don't underestimate the "cool" factor.

Here are some things that could be accomplished in a 3D view EV game (assuming single plane of movement, just like EV, only OpenGL graphics:

• Moving parts on a ship

• Easy banking graphics

• True transparency

• Awesome particle effects

• Ship damage

• Custom ship decals

• Dynamic lighting

I could go on at some length. All of this is eye candy, but never underestimate how much people will pay for eye candy.

Dave @ ATMOS

Any i'm sure the EVN engine can be rebuilt in openGL quite easily. It wouldn't be too hard to add those effects to, i'm thinking. But then again, I don't know the evn engine. I'm only familiar with the quake 3 engine, which is still pretty complex.

However, in my experience, all the projects that I've seen that do 3D in a 2D view have had very much horrible-looking graphics. I'm sure my sample size is too small, but I'm talking about Starports GE (which happens to also be multiplayer) and Epiar (which is still in development).

That said, yeah, I'll go ahead and agree with most of what's been said here.

The EV engine cannot be easily adapted.

That's because Matt (bless him for what he has done though!) did not take the oppertunity for an EV3 as an excuse to write a new engine from scratch. We're saddled with too much leftover from Override- in both features and limitations.

If someone had the balls, surely it could be rewritten. But not as an expansion or addition to the current code.

pipeline, on Jun 30 2005, 10:16 PM, said:

The EV engine cannot be easily adapted.
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rmx256, on Jul 1 2005, 05:15 AM, said:

That's because Matt (bless him for what he has done though!) did not take the oppertunity for an EV3 as an excuse to write a new engine from scratch. We're saddled with too much leftover from Override- in both features and limitations.
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Yes, we are.

Of course, if it weren't for sprites, you and I coudn't use Mechanisto for Nova graphics unless someone had created an exporter.