Messages

26

Mods / Re: Goblin faction

« on: 13 February 2015, 01:54:28 »

Flame throwers!  Magical curses!  Wolf riders!  Repeating crossbows!  All will fall before the onslaught of the goblin swarm!

There are some Goblin models in Flare, which may be liberally licensed.

All content in FLARE is CC-by-SA or compatible.

I couldn't tell how much work it would involve to transform these models to Blender / MG, though.

AFAIK one would need only to UV map the model and bake a/the texture before exporting.

Also, those appear to be very small now that I look at them on OGA.

And too cute, but that might be okay for a worker unit: http://opengameart.org/content/goblin-lumberjack

27

Off topic / Re: GlestNam style?

« on: 8 February 2015, 16:09:46 »

nicely animated! Did you do this in software? it almost looks like some recorded animation...

This isn't my animation; it's just something that I found.  The video description says it was scripted in Lua in the IrrRPG engine.

28

Mods / Re: Teamcolour Behavior [Request to change it]

« on: 28 January 2015, 01:11:06 »

Transparent surfaces have always existed in Glest, and here's how to achieve them: https://docs.megaglest.org/Transparent_teamcolor

(If there's a more up-to-date link, somebody please provide it.)

29

Off topic / GlestNam style?

« on: 13 January 2015, 03:25:19 »

The IrrRPG Builder (an RPG making engine using Irrlicht) used Tucho's Swordman model for a demonstration of their cutscene-making abilities, and the result had me chuckling.  Maybe somebody else will enjoy it too.

30

MegaGlest / Re: The idea Going to change history MG

« on: 7 November 2014, 17:03:18 »

In general, I'm against forcing people to register for anything unless absolutely necessary.  The fewer accounts (on the internet or in meatspace) a person has to have, the better.  I'd say let them play competitively without registering, but obviously only record their game stats if they are signed in.  The complication here is, if a registered user plays against a guest, how should the registered user's score be tabulated if it's based on opponent skill?

31

Closed feature requests / Re: health bars (old topic relaunch!)

« on: 29 October 2014, 18:12:18 »

@John: Im not sure about your idea. Its better than the current circles i think, but all circles do have two problems:
A) they are on the ground so they are earlier blocked by other units in front of them
B) the unit itself blocks sight on the part of.the circle behind the unit

You can see the majority of the circle, and you don't need to see the entire thing to tell the opacity.  Here's an example with some crowded units in various states of health with various amounts of EP at the default camera view.  I find them very easy to read.

Feels like you are playing a board game

I would say the opposite.  One of the key differences in a game like MegaGlest and a game like checkers is the visual aspect.  The engagement in checkers come strictly from the mechanics and the competition, because that's all the game has.  When you have games on computers, you can add so many more elements of engagement -- not just the interactivity but the aesthetics as well.  You can let yourself become immersed in the game as a commander, demigod, mind-controlling AI, whatever.  If aesthetics in games didn't matter, there would be no artists working for game studios and each unit would just be an icon.  Every strategy/tactics game would look like checkers.  Checkers is a fine game, but that misses out on the advantages of computerized games.  Putting the health bars in a more prominent position than anything else on the screen, in my opinion, reduces the units to little more than icons or game pieces rather than wizards and robots.

Recommended viewing: Extra Credits: Aesthetics of Play

32

MegaGlest / Re: Regeneration of units in MegaPack

« on: 29 October 2014, 17:00:17 »

I support it, mostly for logistical reasons.

33

Closed feature requests / Re: health bars (old topic relaunch!)

« on: 28 October 2014, 21:53:00 »

I think starcraft 2 implemented it in a way where you can identify the unit belonging to the bar pretty well, like here http://i.snag.gy/ySPrE.jpg
jpg

Yikes!  Does that look good to you?   Things don't have to be completely "in your face" to show you the necessary information, and any claims about graphical quality go out the window when the art is obscured by diagrams.  Aesthetically, it's crap.  I can't even tell what's going on at a glance because the first thing I see is a whole lot of red and blue quadrangles.  In that screenshot, you see the health bars more prominently than the units they're supposed to represent.  For a game like Starcraft that prioritizes competition over fun, maybe that's what they're going for, but having MG degrading into a game of "watch the numbers go down" seems like a tremendous step backward.

How is that preferable to the brighter rings I demonstrated in my last post?

34

Closed feature requests / Re: health bars (old topic relaunch!)

« on: 27 October 2014, 21:24:18 »

The main problem with circles, in my opinion, is that its hard to see the hp of units that stand in the middle / behind other units. So its also hard to manage units like retreating with low hp units to allow them to recover and so on

I think hp above units is way better for this. Its default in most games for a reason x)

Interesting.  I do see what you mean, and I think the cause of that is that the rings are much bigger than the unit, making them overlap.  I think the bars are actually much worse at this because it's harder to tell which bar belongs to which unit, especially if you have a tall unit next to a short unit.  With rings, there's no ambiguity about whose health is whose.

I have some ideas for improving this, though.  Making the rings smaller and thinner would probably help alleviate the problem, since they wouldn't overlap as much.  Also, currently the EP ring is much easier to see than the health ring, despite being much less important.  This is because it's larger, it's more vividly colored, and it's outside of the health ring, so less of it is obscured by the units' feet, terrain, etc.

Here's a quick GIMP mockup of how it might be improved for clarity:

You can tell at a glance exactly whose health is whose; smaller ring diameter and thickness leads to very little overlap even in a crowded space; there's more contrast between the EP and health colors without resorting to red and green, which are indistinguishable to a lot of people; the health is featured more prominently than the less-important EP; there's more opacity, which makes it less prone to blending in with terrain and makes the difference between "good to go" and "about to die" bigger.

Maybe there is a way to show selection and health state with circles ??

This confuses me.  Don't the rings already show selection and health?

How about having two circles, an outer one for selection/team color and an inner one for EP/health. Or vice versa.

I'm not sure what advantage there is to showing TC in the ring, but if necessary I guess you could just change the color of the ring.  There was also a feature added to GAE a while back where you could hold down a key that would show a TC outline of all the units on the screen.  It uses the stencil buffer, and Silnarm said it was really easy to do, so that seems like a viable solution here.

35

Closed feature requests / Re: health bars (old topic relaunch!)

« on: 27 October 2014, 01:27:13 »

screen1
screen2 

That looks so much worse than what we have now.  Is there any benefit at all to doing this?  The only reason I know of is "it's what everybody else does", which is, if anything, a better reason not to do it.  (Mega)Glest is one of the few RTS games that don't use health bars.  That gives it a little bit of differentiation, so when you see a screenshot you know that it's not Age of ConquerCraft.  They also make it easier to tell which unit they belong to, especially when two units overlap (like a person walking through a building).  They also show the bounds of a unit, which is a nice bonus because most other games in the genre have a separate outline for that.  The rings take care of showing the health, EP, and radius of a unit, instead of having to have two different things to do that job.  The rings also aren't dependent on the unit's height, which can be important when it comes to viewing tall buildings at an angle, where a health bar could potentially be out of view because it's up so high.

Strictly speaking, it doesn't hurt to have the option, but if there's the option then somebody might actually use it.

36

Off topic / NaNoWriMo 2014

« on: 17 October 2014, 03:26:50 »

National Novel Writing Month is drawing ever closer, and now is the time to get in on it!  What is it?  It's where you try to write a 50,000-word work of literature during the month of November.  Is it difficult?  Yes!  Is it feasible?  You bet your britches!  This will be second year participating.  Won't you join me?

http://nanowrimo.org/faq

Oh, and don't be fooled by the "National" part.  It's worldwide and not specific to any locality, language, time zone, etc.

37

Annex: Conquer the World / Re: Astro Marines for Annex by Mr War

« on: 11 October 2014, 18:32:55 »

So if Earth's marines are on the world of Annex, they exist in the same universe, so Annex is an Earth colony?

38

Forum discussion / Re: BEFORE he was named as a key

« on: 3 September 2014, 17:29:00 »

This really looks like spam, but I can't think for the life of me what your angle is.
I kinda want to leave it just to see where it goes.

39

Feature requests / Re: Non selectable non commandable uints

« on: 5 August 2014, 02:57:23 »

Non-selectable only makes sense to me if the unit is not able to be interacted with by the player in any way, meaning it is for cosmetic value only, in which case doesn't setting the unit's size to 0 accomplish the same thing?

40

MegaGlest / Re: General view on new features

« on: 1 August 2014, 02:06:56 »

Forking a git repository and working on it, right?
If not then "support to the idea" may be very low, when isn't easy check what was changed and why.

How so?  Git does an excellent job of tracking changes, and doing it on git doesn't preclude anyone from posting screenshots and updates here on this forum as well.

If it will be with assume that currently Megapack is balanced then all should be ok, in the other case your idea will be supported max. only by few people or maybe even maybe by only one 'loud' .

If new features are introduced, then of course balance will break (or at least bend).  Imagine if they gave Battle Mages a new ability like an "attack-boost" that hits enemies and causes them to slowly burn.  That might make them more effective and even more of a FOO strategy to the point that it's an easy win.  That's the kind of thing that play-testing is needed for.

41

Feature requests / Re: Tags

« on: 31 July 2014, 02:20:27 »

The sad thing is that what i said was the exact same thing as Jhon.D, Just in another way...

Im happy Jhon. D got the point across but im a little sad it's so difficult to communicate in general.

I think I emphasized more the cross-faction capabilities and how much work it would save in that regard, which isn't really a message that I gleaned from your posts.  If it's there, I missed it.  If I do better at communication, it's because I have a ton of practice at it, and we're dealing in my native language.

Its probable that Titi is simply given John undue weight in discussions for reasons that have little to do with the validity of the specific points in question.

If you're implying favoritism, my track record with feature suggestions in MegaGlest suggests otherwise.  This might be the first one he's ever agreed with.

42

MegaGlest / Re: General view on new features

« on: 31 July 2014, 02:05:24 »

Most of the factions in the MegaPack were made several years ago, and mostly by one person, namely Titi.  A lot has been learned since then and a lot of changes have been made to the engine, but very few to those original factions.

When GAE was being more actively developed, I started making a mod to make use of the features by just adding a few new units to Magitech.  Admittedly, the scope creeped a little and I ended up abandoning the project when GAE petered out, but I believe the core concept is solid.  Yes, it would require some rebalancing, but I think that kind of approach would work for the MegaPack as well.  That would be a lot easier than creating a new tech tree from scratch to test engine features.

You're free to use my assets: https://github.com/johndh/Project-Red
I haven't touched it in a long time, but I remember there was a healer unit (modeled, textured, and animated) for Magic, ships (mostly from Mr War's mods, I believe), and an amphibious transport vehicle (modeled and animated) for Wciow's Dwarf faction.  I don't know what else might be in there.

43

Feature requests / Re: Tags

« on: 29 July 2014, 04:51:48 »

With that said, I do think tags simplify the process of assigned affected units. Many types of upgrades affect categories of units. Used consistently, assigning units to a category ("tag") in one place (their unit XML) removes the worry of creating inconsistencies (by failing to change every other place that requires this change). It's fairly well established that the more places that have to be updated to fully implement a change, the more complicated it is to create the change (evolutionary coupling aka logical coupling).

Exactly.  Also, if you want an aura that effects units from other factions (whether friend or foe), without tags you'd have to every possible unit in the tech tree that could be affected, whereas with tags it's much easier.  If you want the aura to affect human units, you just specify that tag, and then it kinda takes care of itself.

44

Feature requests / Re: Rename attack boosts

« on: 28 July 2014, 05:51:35 »

I think "aura" is better than "emanation", just for simplicity.  My issue with "boost" is that the word means an increase specifically, so it makes less sense if it's something that causes harm or weakness.  That may not be that big of a deal.  My favorite alternative would be "influence".

It may be worth noting that in GAE, emanations and effects are separate but related, with emanations just being a passive delivery system for effects.  Effects can also be applied by attacks.  I know there was a "cast-spell" skill in the works that would have worked for actively applying an effect without attacking (so a medic could heal an ally, for example), but I don't know if it was ever implemented.

45

Mods / Re: Techtree Barillion

« on: 23 June 2014, 01:29:56 »

That's an awesome mantis!

46

Mods / Re: Lord of the Rings Mod (and a plea for texture help)

« on: 26 May 2014, 08:44:23 »

I'm not telling anyone to not pursue a project.  Success is going to require learning the necessary skills.  Any project this small with an "ideas guy" has at least one superfluous position, and XML and project management for a Glest mod are non-skills.  Artists tend to already have more ideas than they could ever implement in a lifetime, so there needs to be some sort of incentive if they're going to put their effort into yours instead, especially if you want them to stick with it to the finish instead of getting distracted.  This incentive need not be financial, but show us a compelling reason for us to work on your dreams instead of our own or anyone else's.

47

Mods / Re: Lord of the Rings Mod (and a plea for texture help)

« on: 24 May 2014, 07:06:56 »

What exactly is it that you personally are creating?  It seems like you are asking someone else to do every aspect of it for you.   Even if you do find some kind soul who's a skilled artist willing to work on your project, you'll likely have to pick up the skills yourself to fill in any bits that he/she leaves missing, and even still the odds are stacked against you.  I hate to be a downer, but you're going to need to get familiar with Blender and put in a lot of sweat equity yourself to make this happen.

48

Mods / Re: Terra Centauri: Last Stand

« on: 17 May 2014, 21:36:09 »

Good job making another stunning-looking mod that pushes the boundaries of what can be done with the MegaGlest engine.  My one critique so far would be that the Flier unit looks like the wings were tacked on as an afterthought, like the unit was originally meant to crawl on the ground like a slug.  If you give wings to a slug, it still doesn't look like something that should fly.  I'm not sure what gives me that impression when I look at it, but it could be the proportions.  If it's meant to be a somewhat fast, agile unit then maybe a more sleek shape like a dragonfly would be more fitting.  Otherwise, perhaps something shaped vaguely more like a ladybug or death's head moth?  They are both basically organic battle tanks that can fly.

49

Off topic / Re: Cryengine is announcing Linux support!

« on: 24 March 2014, 03:23:40 »

Oh, I recognize that there is a good chance that nothing sinister is going on with any given game, but nobody knows just how big the problem is.  It seems like every report that comes out shows that the surveillance is more extensive than anyone ever thought possible, so I think that being cautious is warranted.  I doubt that the NSA is approaching many small-time game developers, but for popular and corporately-owned properties like Crysis I think it's a real possibility.  For anything by Blizzard, Zynga, or EA, it's even worse to the point of being basically a given.

50

Off topic / Re: Cryengine is announcing Linux support!

« on: 22 March 2014, 16:55:38 »

It's not paranoia if it's actually happening.

Also:

http://xkcd.com/743/