Megapack Updates - units, animation and naval units

[victorj]

Here are some suggestions for the MegaPack, it needs an update of the factions, Glest died since then no further updates on magitech, many new versions came in MegaGlest, forward little changed, remains magitech same thing did not add new units upgrades... MegaPack was not expanded along, others were added 5 new factions "MegaPack - titi".

MegaPack improve in:
"another faction to complete the cycle of 8/8 players online all factions 8".
I'm suggesting it is necessary to have a more complete game, especially when it comes to games in style rpg.
new characters!, reanimation from the old to the best moves and graphics
need for units explorers!, explorer the map
units of Water (naval)!, attack by water
new homes, - replace the same buildings magitech, copied to the same Megapack ex.: blacksmith in the Norsemen...
new sounds! (mainly replace the copied magitech sound), voices of the workers repeated in all the "megapack 5"
way to evolve the level building!, mainly a second level of defense towers ...

And that there megapack best hope going forward with the new mod campaign that will be added

note: if you could help to contribute but I'm not a programmer. I seek to contribute in other things in MG.

[uuu]

As far as I know, titi considers megapack more-or-less complete, that is, it is quite fun to play, and does not need much changes.

Of course, we would really like new (existing suitable) factions added to megapack, e.g. Romans from Vbros pack were a great addition, and they fit nicely.

[victorj]

yes I know, woodsman also fits well with my hand, I do not like the sounds are repetitive and lack of movement and reality more of the characters in MegaPack. Magic and Tech had its last update in Glest,
and were never modified in MegaPack. I think MegaGlest not changed much in the inner part of MegaGlest for expanded MegaPack, the main.

As far as I know, titi considers megapack more-or-less complete, that is, it is quite fun to play, and does not need much changes.

Of course, we would really like new (existing suitable) factions added to megapack, e.g. Romans from Vbros pack were a great addition, and they fit nicely.

[-Archmage-]

I am currently, conceptualizing graphics improvements to the Megapack. I personally never play the Megapack because it's so cartoony and fluffy feeling compared to magitech.
I think a Megapack 6 is definitely something that needs to happen, and I would be willing to help with all aspects, though mainly graphical stuff.

I already have a few re-animations from way back when I was making Romans 3.0. If Titi shows any interest in a MP6, I will definitely join in.

[titi]

@victory: Its not very fun to read comments like these! There was changed A LOT in megaglest and if you did not realize it yet you maybe did not play it a lot yet. Its so much changed and improved you cannot even list it here.

regarding the megapack: No, there will be no big changes in the megapack itself at the moment!  I am not willing to experiment with this, as its the basic game data and its fun to play vs AI and human( if its not uuu  )! The point is that this main data package has to be ready to play everything else can be done as a mod.

BUT: If people start to mod the megapack and put extensions inside make new models and so on I see no problem! If this new mod is better than the original megapack it may replace it one day, or we can use parts of it wich have prooven that they are fun and balanced and copy them to the Megapack. All this is easily possible with the included mod system. But as I said, no experimenting inside the megapack itself at the moment.

Hint: With the next version you will have faction links! Using them new factions will have the possibility to play vs megapack factions quite easily without need to copy them over. ( already available in SVN-version ). This feature will hopefully result in some new factions which are well balanced with the megapack and  we might get some new factions into the megapack one day. 

[-Archmage-]

Hmm I'll start to work on something maybe...

It'll be purely a graphics improvement.

[softcoder]

Nothing stops anyone from changing megapack in their own new techtree, proving to the community it has better graphics and balanced game play. Then you might want to start talking about having it used, but as history shows, many people talk a lot about doing something, only to end up doing nothing.

[uncle]

I agree. Create your own copy of Megapack and change whatever you want. If players will like it, suggest titi to implement the changes in Megapack.

[tomreyn]

Re: titi

When was Glest tech and magic factions have not been updated with new units in MegaGlest, MegaPack has graphics and moviments bad in compared to magic and tech ... Buildings and sounds copied from magitech.

This does not seem to be a quote from Titi, it looks more like it's you are speaking there, Victor. You both say that Tech + Magic factions were copied into Megapack (which, I think, is what initially happened, before Titi modified them and added the four other factions, or five now, with Eliminators' Romans), and that these factions were bad. This is not just an insult on the hundreds of hours Titi spent on creating the Megapack (ask yourself: how much have I spent on improving this game, yet?), it also seems like a contradiction. If, as you say, the data was just copied, how could it be any different?

Please think more before you write, and don't make demands without showing that you are willing to spend time on actively improving the game, too.

[softcoder]

Its open source feel free to make it better, but we certainly will not take seriously comments from people with no contribution to our work.

On the left side:

Thousands of happy downloads and many happy players of MegaGlest

On the Right side:

0 contribution from VictorJ and 0 happy users (and an unimpressed megaglest team)

[-Archmage-]

I'm actually working on MegaPack improvements already. If you guys are interested to know what I have planned, or wish to help me out, just send me a PM.
Once I get one faction completely upgraded, I will make a topic, and talk to Titi about updating MG's official data.

Tech and Magic obviously have better graphics than the Megapack. But you have to consider 5 extra factions is a lot of work, AND Tucho is professional. Also consider how busy Titi must be. Wife, work, kids, life. Ya know? So don't beat him up, give him a hand. And the best way to help other than programming would be to join me in working on a large scale MP improvement.

And if you aren't much of a 3D artist, or crappy with GIMP, you can always just play the game and report bugs!


So for anybody interested in helping me, these below are the areas of talent needed:

Animation(I will be strict as this is my best area, you gotta be good)
Programs: Blender necessary.
Difficulty: Hard

Textures(A lot of textures on some of the earlier factions[indians] need detailed improvements to their textures)
Programs: GIMP preferred, anything able to edit '.tga', '.png', and '.jpg'.
Difficulty: Medium

Particles(Gotta be able to improve on MP's particles)
Programs: Notepad++ preferred, anything able to edit .xml files.
Difficulty: Easy

[victorj]

Its open source feel free to make it better, but we certainly will not take seriously comments from people with no contribution to our work.

On the left side:

Thousands of happy downloads and many happy players of MegaGlest

On the Right side:

0 contribution from VictorJ and 0 happy users (and an unimpressed megaglest team)

softcoder, I personally have nothing to say to you, you are the chief creator of this great game, are you more help with growth MegaGlest) and it helped the growth of Glest, you are totally correct in saying that I not help at all, "I talk too much without help", but be aware that I want to be compared MegaGlest class gaming titles as paid: Age of Empires ... Staff came to thank you, I learned that the Campaign will is near, I long ago suggested save game for mg and campaign mode, thanks to all who contribute.
Happy? and I say, has very few megaglest online playing, you've played sauerbraten(cube 2) in linux? compared the numbers of people playing online megaglest and very little, but that does not come under discussion.

[MuwuM]

victorj, would you mind to use the quote-box for quotations and not as box for your comments? If you doesn't know what quotations are look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation.

I think everone knows, that the game-data of Megaglest is not as professional as in other (even open-source) games. That may come from the fact, that g3d is not the best file-format, which was discussed in other topic's, yet or the fact, that the number of skilled 3D-artists for g3d is very small. That's why I totally agree, that better models could improve the game, but a day usually has only 24h, a week has about 7 days, which makes 168h. Megaglest is developed by 2 people which results in 336h. You usually have to work 40h (or even more) per week, which leads to 256h. Then you should sleep atleast 7h per day, which reduces the time left to 158. Then you spend about 2h per day in traffic, which leads to 130h. Then you may have other things in your life, that aren't megaglest 3h per day: 88h left. And then you should not forget about eating, trinking, toilet, etc. 2h per day, which leads to 60h. (All numbers are approximated) Thats about 30h per developer per week, which is 4h 17 min a day. That time is used by softcoder for developing great features and fixing annoying bugs. Titi's time is filled with smaller features/bugs and testing.

The game you mention (Cube2: Sauerbraten) had/have 8 programmer, 4 level-artists and 12 other artists. Further Sauerbraten has all-in-all not so many 3d-models as one usual megaglest-faction has. So you may get a feeling, why the developer are quite happy to have a stable data-set. NOBODY would mind to have nicer models and animations, but unfortunately there is not enougth time / people working on this.

PS. I'm pretty shure that you weren't the first one to request savegames for megaglest.

If you really want a game that could easilly stand in a row with Age of Empires try to help working on megaglest or search for other people that'd like to, but had not found us, yet. I know that it is not so easy to build great g3d-stuff but I'd say, that everyone is able to do xml-stuff.

[victorj]

This is not just an insult on the hundreds of hours Titi spent on creating the Megapack (ask yourself: how much have I spent on improving this game, yet?), it also seems like a contradiction. If, as you say, the data was just copied, how could it be any different?

Tom, I personally like the MegaPack and I like the work done on it, I played very Glest, you should know what I mean, I suggest this, because I like megaglest, want a good set of free software , reason of the suggestions was to want a game keeps getting better! everyone persebe MegaPack that has less than the graphic magiteh (agreeing fully with -Archmage-.
.there are sounds Megapack copied from megitech, as a worker ...

titi congratulations really liked your work done, but we can more and better:

@victorj*: Its not very fun to read comments like these! There was changed A LOT in megaglest and if you did not realize it yet you maybe did not play it a lot yet. Its so much changed and improved you cannot even list it here.

When was Glest tech and magic factions have not been updated with new units in MegaGlest, MegaPack has graphics and moviments bad in compared to magic and tech ... Buildings and sounds copied from magitech, in megapack. Copied to the same Megapack ex.: "blacksmith" in the Norsemen... disregards o'que posted about the game has not changed much, has it wrong could not express myself right.

[-Archmage-]

The quality of the 3D Art doesn't have much of anything to do with the format in this case. Time, and skill are the main factors.

NOBODY would mind to have nicer models and animations, but unfortunately there is not enougth time / people working on this.

I'm working on this....alone.

[ElimiNator]

I can help.

[Omega]

Ok, I'm late (great ski trip), and this has already been voiced, but I do think that many of the earlier MegaPack models could use a remake. In the time the Indian faction was released (before there even was a MegaPack), it was the "norm" to use retextured Magitech models. However, that isn't really the case with current mods; anything that is almost entirely retextured pretty much dies out quickly. The MegaPack is more-or-less balanced (more so than most mods), and the later factions are great graphic-wise, though I can't help but think we could improve the models, textures, and icons of the earlier factions considerably.

I'm neutral on adding more units to each faction. While it seems novel, there's the difficulty of balancing things out, and I overall question the usefulness of an "explorer" unit. An "explorer" is more along the lines of a game with a democracy system, than the combat-based (Mega)Glest. Water units don't currently exist in MegaGlest, have AI difficulties to be considered, and the majority of maps don't support water units, so would end up largely unused.

I don't see any objection to adding Woodsmen to the MegaPack. It is a quality faction that fits the pack well.

And on a final note, while I understand there's a only so many people actually working on MegaGlest and related mods, hasn't this topic got a touch heated? Is an opinion really worth "nothing" just because the person in question doesn't know how to model or program? The skills needed to contribute to MegaGlest aren't something one usually learns in every day life, and to be good at them, you really have to go out of your way. Obviously the majority of people won't have these skills. However, surely the comments of a regular player shouldn't be shot down; the developers may not agree with them, but it's just an opinion, and I don't see anywhere in this thread that the requester is forcing changes or expecting their opinion to be used. It's just a request, like all other requests. So rather than saying that we won't "take seriously comments from people with no contribution to our work", how about we just stick to discussing the actual comment?

[tomreyn]

The skills needed to contribute to MegaGlest aren't something one usually learns in every day life, and to be good at them, you really have to go out of your way. Obviously the majority of people won't have these skills.

This is a myth. See How you and anyone can contribute to MegaGlest.

Obviously it's not for everybody (me included) to program in C/C++ or to create high quality models, but this is really just a fraction of the ways how you can contribute.

[Pizza90]

my 2 cents: I think victorj (like uncle last time ) didnt want to sound too pretending he just didnt know that there are just two developers and they dont work full time on megaglest. It's good that someone proposed to improve the graphics and the animations of the megapack (even if i think only small things will be necessary), imo a nice improvement would be to add the idle animations to all the factions of the megapack so romans are not the only one to have them

[-Archmage-]

imo a nice improvement would be to add the idle animations to all the factions of the megapack so romans are not the only one to have them

Well, I'll be reanimating a lot, I'll add some idle animations if necessary.
Mainly I'm focusing on walking, attacking, and death. Most of these are simply unrealistic(no offense to anyone).

[victorj]

I'm neutral on adding more units to each faction. While it seems novel, there's the difficulty of balancing things out, and I overall question the usefulness of an "explorer" unit. An "explorer" is more along the lines of a game with a democracy system, than the combat-based (Mega)Glest. Water units don't currently exist in MegaGlest, have AI difficulties to be considered, and the majority of maps don't support water units, so would end up largely unused.

Maps discarded I think not, you can create a naval blockade of units not to be produced in the map that there is no water, and I am also willing to help make maps and map to re megaglest . Explorers would be nice but not very much work would need little ....