<!--quoteo(post=1841178:date=Apr 16 2011, 06:16 PM:name=ZupE891)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ZupE891 @ Apr 16 2011, 06:16 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1841178"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Got laggyer for me, donno what happened.. seems to be going in the wrong direction.. i know they are trying<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
For some reason, Steams patching system can have a silent fail like a false sucessful update... of some concoption, Try an integrity check or Unsinstall+Delete cache file and re-install.
<!--quoteo(post=1841260:date=Apr 16 2011, 10:31 PM:name=knifefan.nl)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (knifefan.nl @ Apr 16 2011, 10:31 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1841260"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->A big part of that "something" is the asymmetry between the parties.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1841260:date=Apr 17 2011, 08:31 AM:name=knifefan.nl)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (knifefan.nl @ Apr 17 2011, 08:31 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1841260"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Join a NS server using a smurf steam account, play the whole day and night and see again why NS is still rolling. Never is too late. Please do.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I agree, it was clear that the NS devs had no clue how to move or play in general during the brief NS1 feel trip with devs sometime ago. Removing assymmentry, randomness, flexibility and actual movement system isnt the way to go even if it feels comportable for someone who never cared for any of those. Instead they should be improved, time to face the fact that NS1 was a nice fluke thanks to HL1 engine.
<!--quoteo(post=1841271:date=Apr 17 2011, 01:16 PM:name=TrC)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (TrC @ Apr 17 2011, 01:16 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1841271"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I agree, it was clear that the NS devs had no clue how to move or play in general during the brief NS1 feel trip with devs sometime ago. Removing assymmentry, randomness, flexibility and actual movement system isnt the way to go even if it feels comportable for someone who never cared for any of those. Instead they should be improved, time to face the fact that NS1 was a nice fluke thanks to HL1 engine.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I agree, it was clear that the NS devs had no clue how to move or play in general during the brief NS1 feel trip with devs sometime ago. Removing assymmentry, randomness, flexibility and actual movement system isnt the way to go even if it feels comportable for someone who never cared for any of those. Instead they should be improved, time to face the fact that NS1 was a nice fluke thanks to HL1 engine.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Adding an alien commander isn't removing the asymmetry between the two sides. I get so tired of reading that. When skulks can shoot guns then we can talk about the two sides being the same.
The other points, especially the movement system, are dead on. NS1 greatly benefited from GoldSrc's quirks.
Seems to be running a lot better now. My system is kind of messed up at the moment in that for some reason my chipset is refusing any overclocking, so my Core2 E8400 is running at stock 3.0 now instead of 4.0, but despite that my framerates are STILL better, and the game feels smoother. Biting feels a lot more dead on with aliens now. I was playing on a server with a really poor rate, but it was still manageable. Would be nice to see what it's like on a good server. Didn't notice any black screen bugs or crashes, or sound issues. Running Win7 64bit with a Radeon 4850 and the 11.2 drivers.
<!--quoteo(post=1841271:date=Apr 17 2011, 06:16 AM:name=TrC)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (TrC @ Apr 17 2011, 06:16 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1841271"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I agree, it was clear that the NS devs had no clue how to move or play in general during the brief NS1 feel trip with devs sometime ago. Removing assymmentry, randomness, flexibility and actual movement system isnt the way to go even if it feels comportable for someone who never cared for any of those. Instead they should be improved, time to face the fact that NS1 was a nice fluke thanks to HL1 engine.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
let it go already. ns != ns2. if they made ns1.5, rines would get slaughtered due to dynamic lighting and alien flashlight. this is a new game, it is still in beta, and we haven't even gotten to 50% feature completion yet.
all of your posts have venomous undertones. chill out. there is absolutely no way that you will get your way now. they are not going to scrap what they have now to go do it all over.
<!--quoteo(post=1841305:date=Apr 17 2011, 08:20 PM:name=Tig)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Tig @ Apr 17 2011, 08:20 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1841305"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->let it go already. ns != ns2. if they made ns1.5, rines would get slaughtered due to dynamic lighting and alien flashlight. this is a new game, it is still in beta, and we haven't even gotten to 50% feature completion yet.
all of your posts have venomous undertones. chill out. there is absolutely no way that you will get your way now. they are not going to scrap what they have now to go do it all over.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Your examples have barely any relevance to balance... new game or not ignoring the good parts of prequel is plain nonsense. Blind fate is frankly annoying.
You wont get anything done with half-assed thinking "it will be done sometime".
<!--quoteo(post=1841305:date=Apr 17 2011, 10:20 AM:name=Tig)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Tig @ Apr 17 2011, 10:20 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1841305"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->let it go already. ns != ns2. if they made ns1.5, rines would get slaughtered due to dynamic lighting and alien flashlight. this is a new game, it is still in beta, and we haven't even gotten to 50% feature completion yet.
all of your posts have venomous undertones. chill out. there is absolutely no way that you will get your way now. they are not going to scrap what they have now to go do it all over.
so LET IT GO.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Have you played ns1? You know it's a bit late for this but I'm still somewhat hoping they're noticing. Set starting hive? Even though it was easy to determine starting hive at least it offered at minimum more than 1 way to play a map. Alien com and the resource system? Yeah I've always noticed their cited influence from starcraft games but this isn't suppose to be starcraft and now gorges have been stripped to boredom. I don't really want to start on fade blink- I'm just curious who is going to kill jetpackers since lerks don't bite. If they're seriously going to cripple jetpacks comparable to what they've done to alien movement then I really don't know if I'm going to play this game much if at all.
I enjoy fast pace games, and a high learning curve keeps the players coming back for more. A movement system and the intense fast pace of ns1 keep me playing it to this day.
I think this has been discussed quite a bit before, but the combination of seemingly problematic concepts like lerkspikes, lack of in depth design talk and long postpones isn't a good mixture for any development process.
This is the only game development I've been following this closely, so I've got no clue how things are supposed to look at this point. However, there's no denying that things don't always look very convincing or well thought to a gamer who knows NS1 design by heart. That's something I'd like to see UWE improving in the future.
It's not so much about not making the changes, but presenting the changes in a light that makes them seem like more thought out design. For example in lerk spike case they never really talked about what makes the new concepts different from the (arguably) flawed NS1 concept. At that point the reader is left wondering whether they've actually learned their lesson with NS1.
You can kind of get away with such stuff in a shorter development span, but the way NS2 has been handled it becomes a problem when people don't feel convinced about the design concepts.
<!--quoteo(post=1841323:date=Apr 17 2011, 05:12 PM:name=Bacillus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bacillus @ Apr 17 2011, 05:12 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1841323"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think this has been discussed quite a bit before, but the combination of seemingly problematic concepts like lerkspikes, lack of in depth design talk and long postpones isn't a good mixture for any development process.
This is the only game development I've been following this closely, so I've got no clue how things are supposed to look at this point. However, there's no denying that things don't always look very convincing or well thought to a gamer who knows NS1 design by heart. That's something I'd like to see UWE improving in the future.
It's not so much about not making the changes, but presenting the changes in a light that makes them seem like more thought out design. For example in lerk spike case they never really talked about what makes the new concepts different from the (arguably) flawed NS1 concept. At that point the reader is left wondering whether they've actually learned their lesson with NS1.
You can kind of get away with such stuff in a shorter development span, but the way NS2 has been handled it becomes a problem when people don't feel convinced about the design concepts.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> This.
<!--quoteo(post=1841312:date=Apr 17 2011, 02:30 PM:name=TrC)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (TrC @ Apr 17 2011, 02:30 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1841312"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Your examples have barely any relevance to balance... new game or not ignoring the good parts of prequel is plain nonsense. Blind fate is frankly annoying.
You wont get anything done with half-assed thinking "it will be done sometime".<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--coloro:#FFA500--><span style="color:#FFA500"><!--/coloro-->Take it easy, champ.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
<!--quoteo(post=1841318:date=Apr 17 2011, 03:07 PM:name=wulf)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (wulf @ Apr 17 2011, 03:07 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1841318"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Have you played ns1? You know it's a bit late for this but I'm still somewhat hoping they're noticing. Set starting hive? Even though it was easy to determine starting hive at least it offered at minimum more than 1 way to play a map. Alien com and the resource system? Yeah I've always noticed their cited influence from starcraft games but this isn't suppose to be starcraft and now gorges have been stripped to boredom. I don't really want to start on fade blink- I'm just curious who is going to kill jetpackers since lerks don't bite. If they're seriously going to cripple jetpacks comparable to what they've done to alien movement then I really don't know if I'm going to play this game much if at all.
I enjoy fast pace games, and a high learning curve keeps the players coming back for more. A movement system and the intense fast pace of ns1 keep me playing it to this day.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I want to add a comment about the source engine. I have created an inofficial game-mod with a team consisting of about 10 members (most inexperienced programmers, graphic designers, level designers) on an university years ago. I was one of the few with professional experience with IT-projects from the "IT-industry", but I hadn't created any games in a team before (more than doing small things myself). The Source SDK is huge perhaps more than 100 K of lines and hundreds of, if not thousands of classes and subclasses. I didn't really see that as a problem, just another fun challenge to learn. If you can read C++ and know a lot about object oriented code-design, its not a problem to figure out how it works.
We created a game where one player plays alone on one team as a gigantic robot (extremely huge and armed to the teeth, huge guns, nuclear weapons, missiles etc) in urban environment (to destroy important human installations) and one team as the humans trying to destroy it. Human players had also numerous weapons and huge lasercannons(stationary) deployed to use around the cities. Sounds fun huh?
To create that game, design graphics, and levels took half a year for an inexperienced team of ten. We also had a timelimit, so we had no more and no less than 6 months.
We had numerous issues, seen already from the start. * One of "biggest" issues were however the limited time we had on testing. Less time for testing always mean less quality. We knew that we wouldn't have time for enough testing. * Unknowns like, what will happen if 15 people fires on a gigantic robot at the same time? Will the engine be able to handle the expected (network)lag? Our game was not exactly a normal FPS source-game. * The source engine felt limited to FPS one team vs one team play.
The result was a bit disappointing. Sure, the game worked but the quality was not tip top. It needed more work, perhaps 3 months testing or more. We also noted huge network-spikes (network-code was built into the engine) causing annoying lag when lots of people (15 or more) fired upon our gigantic, but ohhh, so destructive "friend" at the same time.
But what are the benefits of source SDK?
* Working network code, prediction and so fourth are built in. * Works perfect for FPS games like team vs team, but not necessary limited to that concept. * Built-in handling of textures, HUDs etc.. * Easy for graphic designers to export models from 3d studio max for an example and use it directly in the game. * An awkward level-designer-software but still it worked for us. We tested to create destructible buildings and walls in the editor. Making huge skyscrapers destructible ate a lot of performance when destroyed for an example (so we only use destructible walls in tall buildings). * Lots of example code to learn from.
Since NS 2 is a bit different kind of game than the usual FPS I understand why you dump the source-engine, but doing so you will re-invent the wheel of things hidden in the source engine. Thus taking a lot of time. Doing things from scratch however gives you the ultimate control of the source-code and can give you numerous long-term benefits.
Could one create NS 2 in Source? Yes I think so. Not without unexpected problems though. Especially the commanders strategic interface-overview and numerous other things it was not designed for in the first place. To figure that out would have taken a lot of time too. There are another problems too, like an outdated graphic engine.
Reading these comments here, I noticed that you guys only have two programmers, even if they are experienced, they must have worked their asses off- I mean through prototypes and so on! For what? For free? To me your problem is a resource issue "only", that's why it's taking time. If you had a larger team, let say 10-20 people, it might have been ready by now so people should back off a little!
The game looks nice. It would be sad to see it die off.
ScardyBobScardyBobJoin Date: 2009-11-25Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
<!--quoteo(post=1841767:date=Apr 21 2011, 02:06 AM:name=Electro-CutED)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Electro-CutED @ Apr 21 2011, 02:06 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1841767"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I want to add a comment about the source engine. I have created an inofficial game-mod with a team consisting of about 10 members (most inexperienced programmers, graphic designers, level designers) on an university years ago. I was one of the few with professional experience with IT-projects from the "IT-industry", but I hadn't created any games in a team before (more than doing small things myself). The Source SDK is huge perhaps more than 100 K of lines and hundreds of, if not thousands of classes and subclasses. I didn't really see that as a problem, just another fun challenge to learn. If you can read C++ and know a lot about object oriented code-design, its not a problem to figure out how it works.
We created a game where one player plays alone on one team as a gigantic robot (extremely huge and armed to the teeth, huge guns, nuclear weapons, missiles etc) in urban environment (to destroy important human installations) and one team as the humans trying to destroy it. Human players had also numerous weapons and huge lasercannons(stationary) deployed to use around the cities. Sounds fun huh?
To create that game, design graphics, and levels took half a year for an inexperienced team of ten. We also had a timelimit, so we had no more and no less than 6 months.
We had numerous issues, seen already from the start. * One of "biggest" issues were however the limited time we had on testing. Less time for testing always mean less quality. We knew that we wouldn't have time for enough testing. * Unknowns like, what will happen if 15 people fires on a gigantic robot at the same time? Will the engine be able to handle the expected (network)lag? Our game was not exactly a normal FPS source-game. * The source engine felt limited to FPS one team vs one team play.
The result was a bit disappointing. Sure, the game worked but the quality was not tip top. It needed more work, perhaps 3 months testing or more. We also noted huge network-spikes (network-code was built into the engine) causing annoying lag when lots of people (15 or more) fired upon our gigantic, but ohhh, so destructive "friend" at the same time.
But what are the benefits of source SDK?
* Working network code, prediction and so fourth are built in. * Works perfect for FPS games like team vs team, but not necessary limited to that concept. * Built-in handling of textures, HUDs etc.. * Easy for graphic designers to export models from 3d studio max for an example and use it directly in the game. * An awkward level-designer-software but still it worked for us. We tested to create destructible buildings and walls in the editor. Making huge skyscrapers destructible ate a lot of performance when destroyed for an example (so we only use destructible walls in tall buildings). * Lots of example code to learn from.
Since NS 2 is a bit different kind of game than the usual FPS I understand why you dump the source-engine, but doing so you will re-invent the wheel of things hidden in the source engine. Thus taking a lot of time. Doing things from scratch however gives you the ultimate control of the source-code and can give you numerous long-term benefits.
Could one create NS 2 in Source? Yes I think so. Not without unexpected problems though. Especially the commanders strategic interface-overview and numerous other things it was not designed for in the first place. To figure that out would have taken a lot of time too. There are another problems too, like an outdated graphic engine.
Reading these comments here, I noticed that you guys only have two programmers, even if they are experienced, they must have worked their asses off- I mean through prototypes and so on! For what? For free? To me your problem is a resource issue "only", that's why it's taking time. If you had a larger team, let say 10-20 people, it might have been ready by now so people should back off a little!
The game looks nice. It would be sad to see it die off.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well, source wasn't designed for open-spaced maps so I wouldn't have been surprised to see serious lag issues with a mod like that. I'm sure you had instances where the server was trying to render the entire map to everyone at the same time.
As for NS2, 1. I suspect UWE is building their own engine in anticipation of future games, not just NS2. Think Valve's upgrading of gldsource to source to OB-source. 2. They actually have quite a few people working on the game (roughly a dozen by my guess). The bottleneck is engine performance right now, which is mostly being done by one programmer, Max, as far as I can tell. 3. Source works, and I have no doubt UWE could have made it work for NS2, but since its designed as a fps engine, it would have taken quite a few kludges to make it work for a fps/rts hybrid. Better to design an appropriate engine for fps/rts gameplay.
Comments
For some reason, Steams patching system can have a silent fail like a false sucessful update... of some concoption, Try an integrity check or Unsinstall+Delete cache file and re-install.
tiny....
Agree 100%.
I agree, it was clear that the NS devs had no clue how to move or play in general during the brief NS1 feel trip with devs sometime ago. Removing assymmentry, randomness, flexibility and actual movement system isnt the way to go even if it feels comportable for someone who never cared for any of those. Instead they should be improved, time to face the fact that NS1 was a nice fluke thanks to HL1 engine.
+1
Adding an alien commander isn't removing the asymmetry between the two sides. I get so tired of reading that. When skulks can shoot guns then we can talk about the two sides being the same.
The other points, especially the movement system, are dead on. NS1 greatly benefited from GoldSrc's quirks.
let it go already. ns != ns2. if they made ns1.5, rines would get slaughtered due to dynamic lighting and alien flashlight. this is a new game, it is still in beta, and we haven't even gotten to 50% feature completion yet.
all of your posts have venomous undertones. chill out. there is absolutely no way that you will get your way now. they are not going to scrap what they have now to go do it all over.
so LET IT GO.
all of your posts have venomous undertones. chill out. there is absolutely no way that you will get your way now. they are not going to scrap what they have now to go do it all over.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Your examples have barely any relevance to balance... new game or not ignoring the good parts of prequel is plain nonsense. Blind fate is frankly annoying.
You wont get anything done with half-assed thinking "it will be done sometime".
all of your posts have venomous undertones. chill out. there is absolutely no way that you will get your way now. they are not going to scrap what they have now to go do it all over.
so LET IT GO.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Have you played ns1? You know it's a bit late for this but I'm still somewhat hoping they're noticing. Set starting hive? Even though it was easy to determine starting hive at least it offered at minimum more than 1 way to play a map. Alien com and the resource system? Yeah I've always noticed their cited influence from starcraft games but this isn't suppose to be starcraft and now gorges have been stripped to boredom. I don't really want to start on fade blink- I'm just curious who is going to kill jetpackers since lerks don't bite. If they're seriously going to cripple jetpacks comparable to what they've done to alien movement then I really don't know if I'm going to play this game much if at all.
I enjoy fast pace games, and a high learning curve keeps the players coming back for more. A movement system and the intense fast pace of ns1 keep me playing it to this day.
This is the only game development I've been following this closely, so I've got no clue how things are supposed to look at this point. However, there's no denying that things don't always look very convincing or well thought to a gamer who knows NS1 design by heart. That's something I'd like to see UWE improving in the future.
It's not so much about not making the changes, but presenting the changes in a light that makes them seem like more thought out design. For example in lerk spike case they never really talked about what makes the new concepts different from the (arguably) flawed NS1 concept. At that point the reader is left wondering whether they've actually learned their lesson with NS1.
You can kind of get away with such stuff in a shorter development span, but the way NS2 has been handled it becomes a problem when people don't feel convinced about the design concepts.
Good to hear this update is giving noticeable effects not only on FPS, but also appearance of more playable games. Look forward to playing it soon!
This is the only game development I've been following this closely, so I've got no clue how things are supposed to look at this point. However, there's no denying that things don't always look very convincing or well thought to a gamer who knows NS1 design by heart. That's something I'd like to see UWE improving in the future.
It's not so much about not making the changes, but presenting the changes in a light that makes them seem like more thought out design. For example in lerk spike case they never really talked about what makes the new concepts different from the (arguably) flawed NS1 concept. At that point the reader is left wondering whether they've actually learned their lesson with NS1.
You can kind of get away with such stuff in a shorter development span, but the way NS2 has been handled it becomes a problem when people don't feel convinced about the design concepts.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This.
You wont get anything done with half-assed thinking "it will be done sometime".<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--coloro:#FFA500--><span style="color:#FFA500"><!--/coloro-->Take it easy, champ.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
I enjoy fast pace games, and a high learning curve keeps the players coming back for more. A movement system and the intense fast pace of ns1 keep me playing it to this day.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
cool.
We created a game where one player plays alone on one team as a gigantic robot (extremely huge and armed to the teeth, huge guns, nuclear weapons, missiles etc) in urban environment (to destroy important human installations) and one team as the humans trying to destroy it. Human players had also numerous weapons and huge lasercannons(stationary) deployed to use around the cities. Sounds fun huh?
To create that game, design graphics, and levels took half a year for an inexperienced team of ten. We also had a timelimit, so we had no more and no less than 6 months.
We had numerous issues, seen already from the start.
* One of "biggest" issues were however the limited time we had on testing. Less time for testing always mean less quality. We knew that we wouldn't have time for enough testing.
* Unknowns like, what will happen if 15 people fires on a gigantic robot at the same time? Will the engine be able to handle the expected (network)lag? Our game was not exactly a normal FPS source-game.
* The source engine felt limited to FPS one team vs one team play.
The result was a bit disappointing. Sure, the game worked but the quality was not tip top. It needed more work, perhaps 3 months testing or more. We also noted huge network-spikes (network-code was built into the engine) causing annoying lag when lots of people (15 or more) fired upon our gigantic, but ohhh, so destructive "friend" at the same time.
But what are the benefits of source SDK?
* Working network code, prediction and so fourth are built in.
* Works perfect for FPS games like team vs team, but not necessary limited to that concept.
* Built-in handling of textures, HUDs etc..
* Easy for graphic designers to export models from 3d studio max for an example and use it directly in the game.
* An awkward level-designer-software but still it worked for us. We tested to create destructible buildings and walls in the editor. Making huge skyscrapers destructible ate a lot of performance when destroyed for an example (so we only use destructible walls in tall buildings).
* Lots of example code to learn from.
Since NS 2 is a bit different kind of game than the usual FPS I understand why you dump the source-engine, but doing so you will re-invent the wheel of things hidden in the source engine. Thus taking a lot of time. Doing things from scratch however gives you the ultimate control of the source-code and can give you numerous long-term benefits.
Could one create NS 2 in Source? Yes I think so. Not without unexpected problems though. Especially the commanders strategic interface-overview and numerous other things it was not designed for in the first place. To figure that out would have taken a lot of time too. There are another problems too, like an outdated graphic engine.
Reading these comments here, I noticed that you guys only have two programmers, even if they are experienced, they must have worked their asses off- I mean through prototypes and so on! For what? For free? To me your problem is a resource issue "only", that's why it's taking time. If you had a larger team, let say 10-20 people, it might have been ready by now so people should back off a little!
The game looks nice. It would be sad to see it die off.
We created a game where one player plays alone on one team as a gigantic robot (extremely huge and armed to the teeth, huge guns, nuclear weapons, missiles etc) in urban environment (to destroy important human installations) and one team as the humans trying to destroy it. Human players had also numerous weapons and huge lasercannons(stationary) deployed to use around the cities. Sounds fun huh?
To create that game, design graphics, and levels took half a year for an inexperienced team of ten. We also had a timelimit, so we had no more and no less than 6 months.
We had numerous issues, seen already from the start.
* One of "biggest" issues were however the limited time we had on testing. Less time for testing always mean less quality. We knew that we wouldn't have time for enough testing.
* Unknowns like, what will happen if 15 people fires on a gigantic robot at the same time? Will the engine be able to handle the expected (network)lag? Our game was not exactly a normal FPS source-game.
* The source engine felt limited to FPS one team vs one team play.
The result was a bit disappointing. Sure, the game worked but the quality was not tip top. It needed more work, perhaps 3 months testing or more. We also noted huge network-spikes (network-code was built into the engine) causing annoying lag when lots of people (15 or more) fired upon our gigantic, but ohhh, so destructive "friend" at the same time.
But what are the benefits of source SDK?
* Working network code, prediction and so fourth are built in.
* Works perfect for FPS games like team vs team, but not necessary limited to that concept.
* Built-in handling of textures, HUDs etc..
* Easy for graphic designers to export models from 3d studio max for an example and use it directly in the game.
* An awkward level-designer-software but still it worked for us. We tested to create destructible buildings and walls in the editor. Making huge skyscrapers destructible ate a lot of performance when destroyed for an example (so we only use destructible walls in tall buildings).
* Lots of example code to learn from.
Since NS 2 is a bit different kind of game than the usual FPS I understand why you dump the source-engine, but doing so you will re-invent the wheel of things hidden in the source engine. Thus taking a lot of time. Doing things from scratch however gives you the ultimate control of the source-code and can give you numerous long-term benefits.
Could one create NS 2 in Source? Yes I think so. Not without unexpected problems though. Especially the commanders strategic interface-overview and numerous other things it was not designed for in the first place. To figure that out would have taken a lot of time too. There are another problems too, like an outdated graphic engine.
Reading these comments here, I noticed that you guys only have two programmers, even if they are experienced, they must have worked their asses off- I mean through prototypes and so on! For what? For free? To me your problem is a resource issue "only", that's why it's taking time. If you had a larger team, let say 10-20 people, it might have been ready by now so people should back off a little!
The game looks nice. It would be sad to see it die off.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well, source wasn't designed for open-spaced maps so I wouldn't have been surprised to see serious lag issues with a mod like that. I'm sure you had instances where the server was trying to render the entire map to everyone at the same time.
As for NS2,
1. I suspect UWE is building their own engine in anticipation of future games, not just NS2. Think Valve's upgrading of gldsource to source to OB-source.
2. They actually have quite a few people working on the game (roughly a dozen by my guess). The bottleneck is engine performance right now, which is mostly being done by one programmer, Max, as far as I can tell.
3. Source works, and I have no doubt UWE could have made it work for NS2, but since its designed as a fps engine, it would have taken quite a few kludges to make it work for a fps/rts hybrid. Better to design an appropriate engine for fps/rts gameplay.