I wonder what exactly is different about this project that convinced blue to post about it. Thousands of open source MMOGs are started every year and none of them ever get finished. Usually it goes like this:

- some programming newbie (or, even better, some guy with an idea who doesn't know anything at all about game development) has "this cool idea about that revolutionary MMOG and stuff"

- he goes to a game dev newsgroup to recruit a bunch of volunteers. He'll likely promise them percentages of the money they will get truckloads of when they are finished. Until then they'll have to work for free but it won't take long. The people that sign up will usually be newbies as well because experienced developers know a lot more about the work needed for this kind of stuff.

- he starts out by assigning tasks to his team, because he has heard that project leaders do this kind of thing: "right, you go create the levels, you write the network code, I'll do the 3d engine. We should be done by christmas!"

- a website is created, proclaiming the game the next big step in gaming. "More to come very soon" is sure to pop up somewhere.

- some initial code/content is created

- a few weeks later it becomes apparent that half the volunteers are not really interested in making the game

- some months later with no progress being made at all either the website will vanish completely or some kind of "we have moved on to another exciting project" note appears. End of story.

Now if you really want something cool to think about, I am beginning research on procedural sound. No more pre-recorded sounds; sounds will be calculated based on material, velocity, etc. Now THAT is cool!

As in A3d/EAX? (yeah, granted, EAX is mostly faked, but A3d definitely did it the way you described) Or do you mean completely procedural, as in not based at all on any static sample data?

The latter will remain impossible for a loooong time - realistically modeling how sound is produced and the way it interacts with the environment is enormously complex. You'd need a sound engine that simulates physics all the way down to the molecular level - maybe even further. We won't see stuff like that for a few decades, I guess.

This comment was edited on Feb 4, 16:38.

Check out the "Thievery" mod for UT.

http://www.thieveryut.com/

Stealth multiplayer can be a lot of fun but you need to find cool people to play with. It is just too easy for 1337 n00bs to ruin a game by playing it like Quake. Not that they stand a chance playing like that but it destroys the whole atmosphere.

I wasn't talking about boobs, I was talking about the sick German poop-sex films. I know its for the adult market but how can a culture be into such a gross fetish?

Heh. Talk about cultural misunderstanding

Poop sex films are not german "culture". They are considered just as sick here as everywhere else (by those that know about them - since this kind of film is pretty "hardcore" I'm betting that 80% of the people around here don't even know they exist). But there are weirdos everywhere in the world, and it seems that there's some niche market for this kind of thing. You said it yourself, these films are exported, so obviously it's not just a german thing.

As far as I'm concerned, as long as nobody is forced to do it and I don't have to watch it let them poop on each other.

They have laws against violent games but they still export films of girls pooping on other girls.

You think these films are available to underage buyers? Same as with "violent" games. You need to be 18 to buy them.

Why does it say "as early as February 25" as if that's so much faster than we could expect? That's a full month away. One thing I don't understand about these things is how some games go gold and they're said to be shipping within two weeks and others go gold and it takes a month.

It's simply a matter of money. It is certainly possible to get a game on the shelves within two wweks but this kind of accelerated production is expensive. There's no reason to rush a game at this point of the year, so the publisher takes the normal route.

Then the data is simply mass pressed to blank CDs and, assuming the box art was done long before that, I really don't see where it should take more than a week-and-a-half between gold announcement and shipping to stores.

Producing 100.000 copies of a game is a little different than producing 10 copies. The CD production needs to planned and scheduled, manuals need to be printed in large quantities, boxes have to be made, all that stuff needs assembled, then the boxes have to be delivered to the shops. If you don't want to pay "speed-up" fees this kind of mass-production takes time.

There must be some other kind of bureaucracy involved in all this, right?

It's called business :). Keep in mind that there's not a host of machines waiting to produce this one game. Other games are manufactured on the same machines, so you need to come up with a schedule. And usually that means that production of a new game doesn't start immediately after it goes gold.

Yeah, I agree. The phantom doesn't have a future. I suspect it's just some guy who wants to look like a big player by creating lots of hype. While this may work with the general public, investors will certainly look a bit closer before throwing money at this guy.

The "company" (if it even is one) was founded in 2003, according to their homepage. No experience, no money, no nothing. Cetainly no chance to enter a market that's dominated by Sony and that Microsoft had to pay billions to enter.

Btw: great to hear again from you Ray. Missed your comments around here :). Also a nice signature. w00t!

Looks like someone is a South Park fan...

I've gohot puhubes! I'm more mature than you are, nananana na na!

I very much hope Mandrake can pull it off. They really have the easiest-to-use Linux distribution. 9.0 made another big step forward and is now almost as easy to use as Windows. Almost :).

Just hoping they get the chance to continue improving it.

Journalists always exagerate. It's happened with me once.

You once died after coding for 5 hours?

From reading one of the previews, this is yet another strange attempt by the folks at Neo-Origin Digital Anvil to make something innovative in a genre that's never really been all that popular.

Either you're joking or you were not around in the early 1990s. 3D space shooters were THE genre in that time. Wing Commander was one of the games that absolutely everyone knew (of those who played games, that is).

Hmmm. Just reflected on this thread - how did it end up being about DN again?

Anyone know that age-old thesis that any flame-war on usenet that runs long enough will inevitably produce Nazi-references at some point or another?

Here's another thesis: every gaming news thread that runs long enough will inevitably end up as a Duke Nukem "when does it come" thread. More than enough evidence for that

"Heh - yup. That was before we made some pretty radical changes. Oh well...live and learn."

Radical changes? At this point in development?!!!

And which point is that? No one knows how close they are to finishing the game (except themselves --- I hope :)).

I can't help myself, still waiting for it. And if the worst happens I'll just buy it for my grandson/daughter (in a few decades) and pretend to "help" them to play it


This comment was edited on Jan 15, 08:14.

Take it easy and relax! You just got a year older, after all, so you're allowed to :).

If you outlaw spam only outlaws will get spam!

oh, wait...

#4, that's a great idea. A Star Trek game based on Section 31. I was never much into DS9 but that's just *loaded* with cool possibilities! Who do we write to?

Hmmm. That idea has definitely a cool ring to it.

How about playing part of the story of the original episodes from the perspective of Section 31? You could sabotage DS9, spy on and manipulate crew members and of course also "help" them from time to time when there is some great threat.

Lots of possibilities, especially since the TV show left so many questions unanswered about Section 31. There's enough room to spin a new story thread that's connected to the DS9 story in places but is nevertheless not limited by it.

Methinks it's time to start another one of those completely useless petitions :).

thats not saying much about star trek games. it was the first star trek game that didnt suck.

Naaah. Star Trek: A Final Unity was a really great game. Granted, it's old, but saying that there haven't been good ST games before Elite Force is just wrong.

that's about the only good comic anymore

I don't know. They always seem pretty lame to me. And the current strip one is absolutely not funny - that resolution gag has been around for ages and is just not comic anymore.

Maybe I'm just not their target group...

Huh? Just read the "Browsers Back to the Future" article. Is this meant to be a joke?

If I understand the proposal correctly, the "new" way for back buttons to work is exactly the way it has been working for ages. In fact, it has never been different, even the old Mosaic did it that way.

However, the old way, as pictured in the article, seems to be new. A button that goes up one level in the site hierarchy has (to my knowledge) never been implemented. Partially because it wouldn't work in many cases because not every directory level on a web server has suitable index pages, I think.

Maybe I missed the point completely, but I think the author of the article got something substantially wrong.

WOW! the guys doing One Must Fall have been busy indeed! The environments look a lot more detailed and the HUD looks great.

I totally agree. When I saw the first screenies of this game about two years ago (I think) I was a bit sceptical about the graphics. But man, have they improved.

Not that I really care. I'd play this game even if it was text mode (I really liked the original OMF). But nice graphics are a requirement to make this game sell as well as it deserves to sell.

Also wishing DE would allow me to take part in the Beta...