1. #46
    Registered User Celt's Avatar
    Join Date
    January 2003
    Location
    Hibernia
    Posts
    1,152

    Default

    OpenMW is similar to OpenXcom, an open source engine that uses the original art assets without modification. 'Porting to UE4' would almost certainly involve the painstaking recreation of every art asset, given the low res/low detail nature of Neocron's graphics. Beyond that, what would it gain to have the exact same art assets in a different engine? 3? 4? 5? years work to end up not really any further than we are now?

    I was actually incorrect, Morroblivion finally reached mostly complete status last year - after a solid 9 years work


    Quote Originally Posted by Oath
    I'll fear when i find your naked Droner Body and violate it

  2. #47
    Registered User eNTi's Avatar
    Join Date
    July 2003
    Location
    Canyon, TH
    Posts
    833

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Celt View Post
    OpenMW is similar to OpenXcom, an open source engine that uses the original art assets without modification. 'Porting to UE4' would almost certainly involve the painstaking recreation of every art asset, given the low res/low detail nature of Neocron's graphics. Beyond that, what would it gain to have the exact same art assets in a different engine? 3? 4? 5? years work to end up not really any further than we are now?

    I was actually incorrect, Morroblivion finally reached mostly complete status last year - after a solid 9 years work
    Having the original assets would make it possible to have a playable version out sooner rather then later. You could gradually replace everything.

    Advantages off the top of my head:
    - Readily available tools (creating assets and scripts would be much easier)
    - Very good bot AI,
    - Platform support,
    - Bigger zones... maybe even one big zone,
    - Engine errors are fixed upstream, patches from the Neocron team would improve the UE engine even further,
    - Volunteers working on Neocron would get actual experience with tools that could be readily used in real world projects

    If you look at the progress Neocron made with the NST team over the last few years... due to already mentioned issues... you could say it is slow. I mean many engine issues will NEVER be resolved. It is just not feasible. I think the advantages would be huge.

  3. #48
    Registered User Celt's Avatar
    Join Date
    January 2003
    Location
    Hibernia
    Posts
    1,152

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by eNTi View Post

    Advantages off the top of my head:
    - Readily available tools (creating assets and scripts would be much easier)
    Art assets, sure. Scripts? That's a bit of an assumption. Remember, UE4 is categorically not an MMO engine and Star Citizen's massive problem (which are one of the reasons for why the collapse of the project without releasing the game is becoming probable rather than possible) stems from engine issues as much as from feature creep. Using cryengine and modifying it when necessary for the unique nature of SC was believed to be relatively achievable and easily surmounted. Now...

    - Very good bot AI
    Bot AI is not translatable to an MMO. What unit AI does in a single/multi player game is very different to an MMO.

    - Platform support
    Irrelevant

    - Bigger zones... maybe even one big zone
    UE4 projects a sphere around the player character that is 'alive'. It does not maintain e.g. 400km2 of world alive all at once.
    Are you aware of any existing UE4 project that maintain an area anywhere approaching the sum total of NC?

    - Volunteers working on Neocron would get actual experience with tools that could be readily used in real world projects
    That's nice and a positive thing, but again, not really relevant.

    If you look at the progress Neocron made with the NST team over the last few years... due to already mentioned issues... you could say it is slow. I mean many engine issues will NEVER be resolved. It is just not feasible. I think the advantages would be huge.
    There is no point suggesting an impossibility and then saying 'being realistic gets you nowhere'.

    Neocron is a legacy game. It will remain an oddity no matter what the NST achieves (including a port to UE4), because gaming habits and player expectations/desires have moved on. The biggest market for Neocron remains old players returning, hopefully dragging a few new players along with them each time.

    They want to come back and visit for a few months every now and then, reconnecting and remembering and rediscovering before leaving for a while.


    Quote Originally Posted by Oath
    I'll fear when i find your naked Droner Body and violate it

  4. #49
    Registered User eNTi's Avatar
    Join Date
    July 2003
    Location
    Canyon, TH
    Posts
    833

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Celt View Post
    Art assets, sure. Scripts? That's a bit of an assumption. Remember, UE4 is categorically not an MMO engine and Star Citizen's massive problem (which are one of the reasons for why the collapse of the project without releasing the game is becoming probable rather than possible) stems from engine issues as much as from feature creep. Using cryengine and modifying it when necessary for the unique nature of SC was believed to be relatively achievable and easily surmounted. Now...
    Just looking for something and found this: http://pangaea-game.com

    Bot AI is not translatable to an MMO. What unit AI does in a single/multi player game is very different to an MMO.
    Depends. You can always change the behavior by scripting. I'm not saying you can just use that AI and be done with it.

    Irrelevant
    For you maybe.

    UE4 projects a sphere around the player character that is 'alive'. It does not maintain e.g. 400km2 of world alive all at once.
    Are you aware of any existing UE4 project that maintain an area anywhere approaching the sum total of NC?
    I'd have to research that a little further.

    That's nice and a positive thing, but again, not really relevant.
    How is that not relevant? It opens up the possibility for far more volunteers. I'd say the barrier of entry to Neocrons legacy code is just too much for many.

    There is no point suggesting an impossibility and then saying 'being realistic gets you nowhere'.
    Well... that's just a plain negative attitude. Nothing more. This surely is not impossible... and far more impossible things have already been achieved.

    Neocron is a legacy game. It will remain an oddity no matter what the NST achieves (including a port to UE4), because gaming habits and player expectations/desires have moved on. The biggest market for Neocron remains old players returning, hopefully dragging a few new players along with them each time.

    They want to come back and visit for a few months every now and then, reconnecting and remembering and rediscovering before leaving for a while.
    Maybe so... and maybe not. It clearly is not feasible to expand Neocron in its current state. I believe that fixing Neocrons' inherent issues is far more difficult than switching the engine. The downside is of course that the team is already familiar with the engines' short comings and issues. They obviously try their best to overcome that by writing a lot of tools and try to modernize it. I can't really say if that is a lot more work than it's worth though. Also... change is difficult. Always.

    I do realize that the chances of that happening are close to 0. But saying it's impossible... lol no way.

  5. #50
    Guest Xortag's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2013
    Location
    Xortag's High-Res Oasis (Viarosso)
    Posts
    60

    Default

    Aside the fact we are not in charge for the decision of a engine switch, it's already often said thats rather a difficult task. Quite a few members have experience using UE/Unity/Cry, but it does not change a lot. As you mentioned, it's one thing to port assets, but assets don't shoot and will give you missions nor they are able to have you logging in. After i created P1 Medi from scratch or ported Via 3, i where still left with the original geometry and plain diffuse maps. Well, now they casted a shadow, nothing else. I still have very low poly models alone with a 256x256 diffuse bitmap.

    Next to the new bugs a port introduce, you need to utilize the engine to get some benefits out of there what will create another kind of simple workload. What is beeing the most important part: We are still NC and don't loose any topic on balancing, implant changes, new runner experience, aggis in plaza sectors or Monks. It's just a better looking game with the same gameplay topics.

    Of course you have a much more effective workflow and up-to-date tools to patch content and do shiny new things. But the benefits are more in a "from scratch" approach, instead of a port.

  6. #51
    Registered User eNTi's Avatar
    Join Date
    July 2003
    Location
    Canyon, TH
    Posts
    833

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Xortag View Post
    Aside the fact we are not in charge for the decision of a engine switch, it's already often said thats rather a difficult task. Quite a few members have experience using UE/Unity/Cry, but it does not change a lot. As you mentioned, it's one thing to port assets, but assets don't shoot and will give you missions nor they are able to have you logging in. After i created P1 Medi from scratch or ported Via 3, i where still left with the original geometry and plain diffuse maps. Well, now they casted a shadow, nothing else. I still have very low poly models alone with a 256x256 diffuse bitmap.

    Next to the new bugs a port introduce, you need to utilize the engine to get some benefits out of there what will create another kind of simple workload. What is beeing the most important part: We are still NC and don't loose any topic on balancing, implant changes, new runner experience, aggis in plaza sectors or Monks. It's just a better looking game with the same gameplay topics.

    Of course you have a much more effective workflow and up-to-date tools to patch content and do shiny new things. But the benefits are more in a "from scratch" approach, instead of a port.
    I realize all that. But do you see any "light at the end of the tunnel" for the current approach? I mean you won't give any dates or time frames for obvious reasons... but you must have a vision of the future judging from your experiences. As always it is a cost / benefit calculation. If you do the calculation for the next 5 years where do you suppose the game ought to be? You clearly have faith in the current approach otherwise you'd have given up a long time ago.

    Who would be in charge for that decision? Kirk I suppose?

  7. #52
    Registered User Celt's Avatar
    Join Date
    January 2003
    Location
    Hibernia
    Posts
    1,152

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by eNTi View Post
    Just looking for something and found this: http://pangaea-game.com
    Kickstarter cancelled after it received $3600 out of $250,000, and the steam page was last updated on 01/10/2015. Release date was meant to be December 2016 but the official site has had exactly two updates this year.

    Depends. You can always change the behavior by scripting. I'm not saying you can just use that AI and be done with it.
    Then what are you saying? The scripting of an entity that exists in potential perpetuity for an MMO is different than an AI for a temporary character in an FPS.


    How is that not relevant? It opens up the possibility for far more volunteers. I'd say the barrier of entry to Neocrons legacy code is just too much for many.
    I would be more worried about turnover, personally!



    Well... that's just a plain negative attitude. Nothing more. This surely is not impossible... and far more impossible things have already been achieved.
    Stating something is outside the realms of possibility while explaining why I believe that to be the case is not a negative attitude.


    Maybe so... and maybe not. It clearly is not feasible to expand Neocron in its current state. I believe that fixing Neocrons' inherent issues is far more difficult than switching the engine. The downside is of course that the team is already familiar with the engines' short comings and issues. They obviously try their best to overcome that by writing a lot of tools and try to modernize it. I can't really say if that is a lot more work than it's worth though. Also... change is difficult. Always.
    The team are more knowledgeable about converting to a new engine vs continuing with the existing one. Perhaps you should be asking them for their reasons why, rather than baldy stating things like the above.

    Also, change is not always difficult. That's a silly statement to make. Change is often easier.

    I do realize that the chances of that happening are close to 0. But saying it's impossible... lol no way.
    It is impossible, unless you are talking about a 0.000000000000000000001% edge case where e.g. l0ki wins the euromillions and buys the rights to Neocron.

    That isn't a possibility to be considered, or worked toward.


    Quote Originally Posted by Oath
    I'll fear when i find your naked Droner Body and violate it

  8. #53
    Registered User eNTi's Avatar
    Join Date
    July 2003
    Location
    Canyon, TH
    Posts
    833

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Celt View Post
    That isn't a possibility to be considered, or worked toward.
    Well... yes.

  9. #54
    Registered User Celt's Avatar
    Join Date
    January 2003
    Location
    Hibernia
    Posts
    1,152

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by eNTi View Post
    Well... yes.
    Maybe aliens land in Hamburg in 4 years and discover Neocron, decrying that all world governments co-ordinate to recreate it in VR. I can't state that that is impossible, and nor can you. However, anyone but a buffoon would agree that it is an impossible objective given all available information that is currently available.


    Further, I would argue that your attitude is the negative one. Setting unrealistic goals sets unrealistic expectations. That makes actual achievements and gains by the team seem even smaller and more inconsequential, leading to even more disappointment. This results in a volunteer team who are made to feel inadequate and inept, and a fanbase who are ever angry.


    Quote Originally Posted by Oath
    I'll fear when i find your naked Droner Body and violate it

  10. #55
    Huckle Beare' Doc Holliday's Avatar
    Join Date
    March 2003
    Location
    Sydney, Australia
    Posts
    4,134

    Default

    I think entis point was that if neocron could happen in a new engine this would be awesome. perhaps his choice of said engine being UE4 was not the best but all the same it needed to be an example.

    People tend to lock in to the specifics of whats written when it is largely more figurative than literal. So figuratively speaking this is what i discerned from the post. How good would it be if neocron could be recreated on XYZ engine.

    Answer. Truly amazing. Skipping the glaringly obvious IP issues aside the detractors/naysayers/realists say well that will take years. It absolutely could but then with a modern engine comes the potential of MORE people to work on it and help build it out from scratch rather than a small team working almost autonomously as is current. Second with more modern equipment more people can contribute. plus items made in community could potentially be used like they do in ued.

    A kickstarter even, to help raise funds to pay for some of the other stuff that may be needed from a hardware perspective, is more likely to be successful if a new engine is proposed to be used rather than beating on the current one in use.

    There are great many more positives i dont have the time to write out.

    However. As its been said this is merely a pipedream and while in some ways you can scratch your head and go ok why hasnt this happened yet because all reasons above mean it should but then there are the negatives too which have been discussed countless times before about IP ownership etc etc etc and the sheer task of building this entire game FROM SCRATCH would take a lot for a group of volunteers no matter how much time was dedicated on it or how big said group was.

    Still the optimist in me would love to see the team at least open a discussion to attempt to do this while the realist knows thats not likely to happen.

    Can still keep hoping tho.
    ______________________________________________________________________________________
    Quote Originally Posted by aKe`cj View Post
    Something is wrong.
    Where are the people asking for free candy or Double-XP ?

Page 4 of 4 FirstFirst 1234

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •