Pandora Tincs - Multiplayer Shooter For Pandora (video)

[Muzz]

The problem with jump pads is that they break the suspension of disbelief.... and they only fit into scifi games.

Gruso, name will prob come after we actually have the art style chosen.

 

[Mithrildor]

The problem with jump pads is that they break the suspension of disbelief.... and they only fit into scifi games.

Gruso, name will prob come after we actually have the art style chosen.

But we can think something genius about it: Its even possible to use it in Steampunk. But not in Mafia.

 

[giovanni]

How are we decideing the art style?
I mean... a part from the Muzz drawings (that are the only things that we can call "concepts" ), it seems we (ok, you) are working mainly on the programming part.


P.S: This is not a criticism... Because I'm doing nothing really useful
P.P.S: Sorry if I'm asking a lot of things that had been already answered, but sometime I read the Forum and hunderstand completely differents things from what it's written down...

@ Muzz's post below: Ok, sorry.

 

[Muzz]

dude read back further, we put a deadline out for the 28th, to have art pitches made. Anyone can make a pitch, and i dont really care how you make the images for said pitch. The pitch does have to more pictures than words though.

I really need to finish my pitch, i have been very busy this week.

Then we vote.

 

[Mithrildor]

Hopefully Muzz won't be the only entry. Anyway: I want Steampunk vs Cyberpunk

 

[Butterman]

We already have have a whole bunch of entries. I think it's four. I haven't seen some of thartists around for a while so i'll put their so i'll write up their stuff for them, but we're going to have at least five even if i have to make on

 

[Mithrildor]

Ive made a test lvl.

You can check out the .skp here: http://www.mediafire.com/?snrpgag12gm

Ive made an area with 2 small buildings and a large high building.

Ive made some boxes ( 1/4 od the smallest building each) and Ive placed on the map in high numbers. You have almost no sight between the boxes, a bit more on the small buildings (but makes it easier to miss because of the distance) and you the most sight on top of the huge building (but its damm hard to hit from there.)

I think its a good idea to play some matches in it to test if this is balanced or not and what players prefer. I think I can classify this test map (no textures) as a 4-8 player map with 6 players preffered.

I would be damm happy if somebody could export it into the JModel format.

 

[Butterman]

Ive made a test lvl.

You can check out the .skp here: http://www.mediafire.com/?snrpgag12gm

Ive made an area with 2 small buildings and a large high building.

Ive made some boxes ( 1/4 od the smallest building each) and Ive placed on the map in high numbers. You have almost no sight between the boxes, a bit more on the small buildings (but makes it easier to miss because of the distance) and you the most sight on top of the huge building (but its damm hard to hit from there.)

I think its a good idea to play some matches in it to test if this is balanced or not and what players prefer. I think I can classify this test map (no textures) as a 4-8 player map with 6 players preffered.

I would be damm happy if somebody could export it into the JModel format.

That's awesome! It's a low player map like you said. But it would be hectic! I can see a rush to that balcony happening a lot, gonna have a real good choke point in there!

I'm going to convert it into the new version of JModel that I'm playing with, the one that's going to be used for maps, it has multiple mesh support, I'm still trying to get it working properly, this can help me test!

Wow. To export to any useful modeling format from SketchUp it seems you need the "Pro" version, which just happens to cost £66 :/. I think you know what needs to be done.

 

[Mithrildor]

I will make some other test lvls:

My next one: The maze.

Will be a 8 player map (in each corner a spawn and between each corner) With a tower in the middle to watch the whole map from above. I will upload it soon.

Wow. To export to any useful modeling format from SketchUp it seems you need the "Pro" version, which just happens to cost £66 :/. I think you know what needs to be done.

Maybe there is someone here on the forums with it ,else i will be looking for a converter

 

[Butterman]

I can manage for now. I accidentally exported the image with 250 frames of animation and it came to about 300 mb. Notepad took 700mb of RAM to open it. It's good i've got lots of that stuff about eh!

Tried exporting it with my multiple mesh support, the problems definitely lie in the exporting, for example, some objects are getting exported with only indicies and no verticies.

 

[Mithrildor]

Ok my maze test map is 3/4 (3 quarters) finished.

I want to explain a bit already before I upload it the .skp:

The maze has 8 spawn points. The max players is also 8, at the beginning each player has to get his own spawn point. But when a player dies he has to be respawned in the spawning point that is the most far away ( to avoid camping . In the middle of the map there is a building. Its just high enough to see the whole maze and maybe a small part of a players head (And if they are sneaking even less chance to see anything.

The map will be alot about tactics (thats what I want to test in that map lol). The player has some things to choose:
-Stay in the middle to see everyone and shoot them from far away, but risk to get killed easily when someone sneaks towards the tower
-Almost never go to the tower (atleast not climbing it), but risk to never find an enemy
- And the last maybe the best: Stay in the maze most of the time , but sometimes go to the middle to search for another player to hunt down

People want to stay out of the middle because other players expect them to be there. So there are lots of tactics here. Stay at the same place or move. Middle or Maze. Sneak or run etc. To add some more tactics I added that all middle spawning points (so not the ones in the corners) are inmediatly connected to the middle and the corners require some mazing.
I made the maze not too hard and not too easy.

Edit: The 'fat' text is something we should add to the game itself. Its is a good anti-camping system

Link of the map (.skp file again): http://www.mediafire.com/?mmfjy3nwgft

 

[t3hmadhatt3r]

Ok my maze test map is 3/4 (3 quarters) finished.

I want to explain a bit already before I upload it the .skp:

The maze has 8 spawn points. The max players is also 8, at the beginning each player has to get his own spawn point. But when a player dies he has to be respawned in the spawning point that is the most far away ( to avoid camping . In the middle of the map there is a building. Its just high enough to see the whole maze and maybe a small part of a players head (And if they are sneaking even less chance to see anything.

The map will be alot about tactics (thats what I want to test in that map lol). The player has some things to choose:
-Stay in the middle to see everyone and shoot them from far away, but risk to get killed easily when someone sneaks towards the tower
-Almost never go to the tower (atleast not climbing it), but risk to never find an enemy
- And the last maybe the best: Stay in the maze most of the time , but sometimes go to the middle to search for another player to hunt down

People want to stay out of the middle because other players expect them to be there. So there are lots of tactics here. Stay at the same place or move. Middle or Maze. Sneak or run etc. To add some more tactics I added that all middle spawning points (so not the ones in the corners) are inmediatly connected to the middle and the corners require some mazing.
I made the maze not too hard and not too easy.

Sounds great!What did you make it with?I heard google sketch up is good to make your basic map model then move it into 3dsmax or blender...

 

[Mithrildor]

Sketchup again. Anyways Im gonna watch a movie see you guys later.

 

[Chaosstorm]

@ Muzz i think aiming for 1000 tri's should be better then 2000/4k

The game Warcraft 3 the frozen throne has models with 200/300 poligons and that still looks good, because of good textures.
Ok warcraft 3 is from top vieuw and not first person.. but still considering the models having 200/300 tri/poly's.

And yes that game im talking about is for the PC and you probably have heard about it.

I can help also with 3d models / texturing / making details etc etc just send me a PM or watever.

 

[Butterman]

The maze.

Pretty awesome, no?

Oh yeah. About 3 days until your last chance to send in your art direction!

 

[Muzz]

awesome map .


To chaosstorm:
I hear what you are saying dude, but the thing is... if you have the power why waste those extra pollies if you have no reason to? I know firsthand that you can make awesome shit with very few polies, hell i used to mod total annihilation, and you cant get more low poly than that and still have a decent looking game. Having too low poly is just as big of a curse of having too high poly. Game development is about balance, not pointless optimization. ( not to mention are there any blizzard quality texture artist hiding out around the forums?)


Extra polygons in todays games arent as vital as they once were. the real issue isnt the poly count it is the multiple texture maps and environmental effects. Not that poly counts dont matter they are still vital. What i gave was just a rough estimate anyway, i dont know how far im off, in fact none of us do.


Also tip... i doubt there is many game players that havent played wc3... Even those mac dude have played it.

 

[Butterman]

^^ Mac people don't play games liar

 

[Chaosstorm]

mac people play World of warcraft and Warcraft 3

Oh well we will see what power the pandora has ^^

 

[Mithrildor]

Its just a test map , to test how players react when they are given different tactics options and how they use them. Im going to make a height test tomorrow hopefully they can be test some times to see which tactic people use most of the times. If we know that , we can optimize maps to that.

Edit: Im going to make a map with a long lenght, not wide and much of objects to use for hide. To test a 'push' tactic (drive enemies into an corner) , that will be a 1v1 , 2v2 or 3v3 map.

 

[Butterman]

Main post updated.

Mithrildor, how are you scaling your maps?