The proposal to use third-party engine to create games

[Vitaliy12J]

Hi, I'm a longtime aficionados game in War Zone 2100 and wanted to ask, why do not you use the side of the engines for future game development. For example there is a good engine Unity3 http://unity3d.com/, which make the game in War Zone 2100 is quite simple and it will take to it with the whole not much time.

Playing in a new guise it would look much more attractive and zavaevala would be even more aficionados.

Sorry for bad English, with respect of Russia.

[NoQ]

viewtopic.php?f=30&t=3645

[Safety0ff]

Hi, though it might not take much time if there was people doing it full time, we just don't have the man power to do it.

Not only would it take fair amount of time (1+ years,) there isn't a huge incentive for people to undertake the long and arduous process of recreating warzone.

Believe me, many of us have dreamed about redoing warzone, but it just doesn't seem to be in warzone's future right now.

[aubergine]

Out of curiosity,how many of the WZ Devs currently work for games companies?

[dak180]

Out of curiosity,how many of the WZ Devs currently work for games companies?

As far as I am aware, zero.

[stiv]

For example there is a good engine Unity3

Idle speculation like this is great fun, but Unity3 lacks one important requirement for any WZ engine: it is NOT multi-platform.

Any possible solution is going to be Open Source and run on at least Linux, OSX, and Windows. (if we didn't care about multi-platform, we could drop Windows and OSX, even though both our Mac users would be outraged)

[aubergine]

I took a look at Unity and it does seem to be multi-platfom with the possible exception of Linux (although it seems there is a Java player which would possibly run on Linux).

For me the biggest worry about unity would be it's performance on large maps - it seems heavily focussed on FPS type games from what I've seen of it so far, but maybe that's because I was playing a browser-based (Flash) demo that was insanely detailed with lots of trees, etc.

[lav_coyote25]

(if we didn't care about multi-platform, we could drop Windows and OSX, even though both our Mac users would be outraged)

seriously??

[stiv]

One would certainly be outraged, the other would probably resign himself to the inevitability.

[i-NoD]

Oh, cmon! Not this again...

[aubergine]

This is the only decent RTS game for Mac IMHO.

[stiv]

I took a look at Unity and it does seem to be multi-platfom with the possible exception of Linux

For the purpose of this discussion (which I think is worth having), let us stipulate that 'multi-platform' means, at the very least, the Big Three: Linux, OSX and Windows.

The other non-negotiable requirement is some sort of Open Source license so we can freely distribute the code and art content.

IMHO, the quickest way to get new technology into WZ is to treat it as a system integration project and not a development project; use existing libraries where ever possible and write as little code as is necessary to glue them together. The Pumpkin boys wrote all their stuff by hand because they had little choice. Today, it's a brave, new world.

[aubergine]

Have you ever thought of taking a cross-platform open source browser, say Chromium, and embedding warzone in it?

Unless in "developer mode", most of the browser UI would be hidden (tabs, bookmarks, etc.). When the "warzone browser" loads, it would show a web page rather than the main menu. Warzone would expose some JS objects/functions/etc., to the web pages it displays.

For example, on the Game Options web page, there would be an object with game option getter/setter properties - this would allow the web page to display current settings, and when user changes settings, it allows the web page to tell warzone what the new settings are (warzone then responsible for actually storing them, etc).

This would allow all the basic "screens" (main menu, options, load game, etc) to be developed as web pages = much easier for people to customise / improve.

When a game starts, it's a case of a web page calling one of warzone's exposed objects, for example:

Code: Select all

warzone.newGame(
  map, // URL to map
  players[...], // an array of players and their starting positions
  NO_SCAVENGERS,
  LOW_OIL,
  CAMP_BASE,
  ALLIANCES_TEAMS
);

Warzone would then start the game, the user seeing the 3D map, etc. The game itself could possibly just a pre-installed browser plugin or something?

Chromium obviously has it's own JS engine, it has features for auto-update, obviously has lots of internet connectivity stuff - eg. you could display forums inside warzone, or the add-ons library with single-click installing of add-ons (via download manager), etc.

[Safety0ff]

Have you ever thought of taking a cross-platform open source browser, say Chromium, and embedding warzone in it?

Interesting concept, it should probably go in a separate thread as this one seems to have become derailed.

Oh, cmon! Not this again...

Indeed, this topic seems to have exploded beyond the scope the OP intended (in my interpretation.)

This one is very tempting to lock...

[aubergine]

Have you ever thought of taking a cross-platform open source browser, say Chromium, and embedding warzone in it?

Interesting concept, it should probably go in a separate thread as this one seems to have become derailed.

Done: viewtopic.php?f=32&t=8850