It has been over a month since Coldstone was released, what is your opinion of it so far (good, bad, indifferent)?

------------------
luck is beating the odds, bad luck is when they are the odds of having something bad happen to you.

Quote

Originally posted by SuperNova:
**It has been over a month since Coldstone was released, what is your opinion of it so far (good, bad, indifferent)?

**

Excellent for a limited task; well-optimized to let someone with low or intermediate experience design another PoG. Frustrating outside that. Well worth the cost of registration; considering the contents of the CD, it would be a good deal at twice the price.

------------------
everywhere else, it's --
"Nomuse"

Quote

... it would be a good deal at twice the price.

Now, don't give 'em any ideasÉ

------------------
The only sovereign you can allow to rule you is reason ŃWizard's Sixth Rule, Faith of the Fallen.
ŃCafall

Quote

Originally posted by Commander Arashi:
Excellent for a limited task; well-optimized to let someone with low or intermediate experience design another PoG

I disagree.

This may be your feeling since the first and only game out (yet) is PoG. If we had created a completely different game (with the exact same engine), you would probably just have replaced PoG with this game's name in this sentence. Cosmic Memory is a good example of a kind of game that most people would qualify to be impossible to do with Coldstone at first glance.

Believe me, Coldstone is capable of many, many types of games (and I'm not talking about graphics). While a hammer seems to be "optimized" for nails, someone with imagination could do much more with it ;).

------------------
Dee Brown
Beenox inc. - (url="http://"http://www.beenox.com")www.beenox.com(/url) (check our new web site!)
(url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/games/coldstone/")Coldstone Game Engine(/url) / (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/games/pog/")Pillars of Garendall(/url) developers

Quote

Originally posted by Dee:
**I disagree.

This may be your feeling since the first and only game out (yet) is PoG. If we had created a completely different game (with the exact same engine), you would probably just have replaced PoG with this game's name in this sentence. Cosmic Memory is a good example of a kind of game that most people would qualify to be impossible to do with Coldstone at first glance.

Believe me, Coldstone is capable of many, many types of games (and I'm not talking about graphics). While a hammer seems to be "optimized" for nails, someone with imagination could do much more with it ;).

**

Don't overestimate our imagination.

I think you did a great job and it's clear that, in this version, you concentrated on such things as movement and battle mechanics. This is as it should be and we can't expect everything all at once. I do hope that in version two the emphasis will be on adding storytelling features and character interaction (I imagine those would be much easier to implement). I am thinking of trying to get my alma mater to let me teach a course in adventure game design as part of a new program they're starting up, and I would like to use Coldstone. I would probably be willing to use the program as it is (once I have really learned it), but it would be great if it had some new features in the next year. That's all I'm saying.

------------------
--
Mark

Quote

Originally posted by Dee:
**I disagree.

This may be your feeling since the first and only game out (yet) is PoG. If we had created a completely different game (with the exact same engine), you would probably just have replaced PoG with this game's name in this sentence. Cosmic Memory is a good example of a kind of game that most people would qualify to be impossible to do with Coldstone at first glance.

Believe me, Coldstone is capable of many, many types of games (and I'm not talking about graphics). While a hammer seems to be "optimized" for nails, someone with imagination could do much more with it ;).

**

Sigh. As an experienced carpenter (over ten years in the shops of major regional theaters) I have used hammers for many things, and many things for hammers. And I would never, ever, ever attempt to put up a studwall with anything else. "Optimized" does not imply other tasks are impossible; it implies that there are better tools.

Coldstone currently occupies a catbird seat in that the other options for creating stand-alone games are either more expensive, more difficult, or both. At some point, however, the cost of adapting the engine to different needs will be greater than the cost of licensing a different engine. For me, personally, that break-even point is set fairly low. For a high-school student without an afterschool job, that break-even point might be much higher.

I'm old enough, and experienced enough, that anything but a real hammer is a false economy. For me a good 16 oz framer will pay for itself within the first day of construction.

Would you seriously offer Coldstone as the best engine to do a Myst-type game? To re-create one of the old Infogame text adventures? To make a 3D shooter? Also, would you want to see Coldstone used to make a game without maps, without character animation, and without combat? Why throw away most of what the engine can do? (And do very, very well).

I used PoG (I could have used Realmz, or Zelda) as an example specifically to remind some that PoG was developed one cubicle over from Coldstone. If there were problems or clarifications needed, a 180 of the swivel chair would do it. This sets up a situation where the unconscious bias and preconceptions of the designers is never properly tested. Now Coldstone is in the hands of new people, people with entirely different unconscious biases and preconceptions of what a game should be. Is it any surprise that frictions arise?

I'll stand by my judgement. Excellent and fairly easy to learn, allowing an inexperienced or intermediate-level designer to create a top-down RPG similar to PoG. Increasingly frustrating to work with the farther one strays from that objective. Well worth the money (whisper, whisper...worth twice that, I think...whisper).

------------------
everywhere else, it's --
"Nomuse"

Quote

Originally posted by Commander Arashi:
I'll stand by my judgement. Excellent and fairly easy to learn, allowing an inexperienced or intermediate-level designer to create a top-down RPG similar to PoG.

Now I understand you better, and I agree. As a professional engine developer myself, it would be foolish to think that Coldstone can do everything (but it can do more than top-down RPGs). I think that this first version is a good step and has enough in it to satisfy an aspiring game developer for a good time.

If the product goes well (and so far, it's very good), a couple of simple modifications could greatly extend the variety of gameplay that can be created with it.

------------------
Dee Brown
Beenox inc. - (url="http://"http://www.beenox.com")www.beenox.com(/url) (check our new web site!)
(url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/games/coldstone/")Coldstone Game Engine(/url) / (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/games/pog/")Pillars of Garendall(/url) developers

Quote

Originally posted by Dee:
**
If the product goes well (and so far, it's very good), a couple of simple modifications could greatly extend the variety of gameplay that can be created with it.

**

Uhm... "a couple of simple modifications could greatly extend the variety of gameplay" independently of the "going well" of the product

And now, waiting for the "could extend" to become "have extended"

Sincerely,

Alois

------------------

it's been a month since coldstone has been released....and my CD isn't hear yet sigh there are disadvantages to living in Australia :frown:

------------------
Let's just say I had a little insight, into the cards. Next time bring a deck that isn't transparent to infared light.
Geordi LaForge.

Generally, I'm pleased with it, though it is rather limited. ColdStone is targeted at a top-view, first person RPG, and doesn't have a lot of tools to break out of that mold.

Nevertheless, it makes for simple, quick development, even if you're coming up with "work-arounds" for those limitations.

------------------
-Fyre
http://www-students.biola.edu/~johns

Quote

Originally posted by Dee:
(but it can do more than top-down RPGs).
(/B)

Dee,

I'm wondering if you wouldn't mind elaborating on this some more.

Sometimes it takes someone with a better understanding of a tool to show the other opportunities. (Look at what's been done with Flash from it's early "Look, glowing letters!" days. <G> )

Besides the Cosmic Memory game, what other types of games do you see as possible with Coldstone?

best,

Dan Chichester