Outerra forum

Anteworld - Outerra Game => Tech demo, support, updates => Topic started by: zuluknob on March 29, 2013, 05:58:40 pm

Title: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: zuluknob on March 29, 2013, 05:58:40 pm
I don't want to come off as ungrateful for all the work you have done on the engine and editor but i think it's time you did some work on the game itself. 1 year on and my player char isn't even there anymore when i press 8 never mind being able to do anything. Seriously i think its about time you did some work on the game i pre-purchased not just on tweaking your engine. On another note where are the 3d trees you posted a topic about nearly 2 years ago(May 25, 2011)?

Again i understand that a lot of work had to be done to get the engine, editor and importer working right and you have done a great job, but for some time now it just seems to be tweaking of the engine and adding in un-necessary things like rocks while nothing has been done in regard to the actual game.  In the next six months i would like to see a fully animated char able to interact with the environment in at least some of the ways that have been talked about. The engine is good enough as it is(if you add in those trees ;)) for you to make an alpha of the game. Plus if you start giving us a game to play then more people might buy it...
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: Jagerbomber on March 29, 2013, 10:33:44 pm
I almost couldn't disagree more, sorry...

Also, I think we're still talking 2 people here......
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: ZeosPantera on March 29, 2013, 11:10:33 pm
You bought into the alpha testing of the engine. Whenever the game is done, you have it. They are doing things at their own pace and trying to please mufti-national conglomerates who want this engine for military simulation.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: zuluknob on March 30, 2013, 12:26:49 am
Yeh i know it's 2 people. It could be more if they added a game to the engine as more people would buy it. Personally i don't call aimlessly driving/flying or placing roads a game. but whatever floats your boat...(oh yeh...no boats yet...:P)
just look at http://pathea.net/planet-explorers (http://pathea.net/planet-explorers) No where near as good an engine as outerra but is about to get steam greenlight and kickstarter funding...why? Because its a game not a engine/editor.  http://www.indiedb.com/games/planet-explorers/news/planet-explorers-kickstarter-update (http://www.indiedb.com/games/planet-explorers/news/planet-explorers-kickstarter-update)

Afik kickstarter isn't an option for these guys atm though. But getting a game into here will do loads for sales and then they could employ some others like with minecraft. He sold over 1 million copies at 15 euros each before he hired anyone, and that engine is cak, but it's a great game.


I hope this isn't vapourware like so many other games because of all the work they have put in. I just think its time to change focus to the anteworld game so it will bring in more cash so they can hire more people so they can speed things up. After all it was over a year ago that this section of the forum came into being and they started selling it. They are in danger of someone else beating them to it and anteworld turning in to yet another procedural full world game rather than one of the first. After all, the engine has been public for quite some time now and game devs do look about to see what others are doing. I know of several procedural world games in the pipeline(some stalled due to funding, others well on their way).

Don't get me wrong, i'm not saying they are lazy or anything( i only have to look at how many updates they do to see they are not). I just think they need to start making the game. Tweaking, refining and fixing the engine can be done when they have more money coming in and more(some) staff.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: zuluknob on March 30, 2013, 12:31:55 am
You bought into the alpha testing of the engine. Whenever the game is done, you have it. They are doing things at their own pace and trying to please mufti-national conglomerates who want this engine for military simulation.

not exactly.. "The demo comes with the whole planet Earth that can be explored in a free-camera mode or in a 8-wheeler truck. People who like it and/or want to support us and the development of Outerra engine can buy the alpha release of Anteworld at a discounted price ($15), half the amount for the final release. "

My point is thus-far there is no alpha of the game, there's just an engine.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: cameni on March 30, 2013, 05:35:48 am
Let me say that I can understand the frustration, we are well aware that only a once there's an actual game we can be getting a bigger exposure and all that.

OT was always primarily developed as an engine, because obviously using it for just a single game would be a waste. However, developing an engine with this ambition is by no means an easy task. Normally it would have been developed in secrecy and revealed only a moment before becoming ready, but of course that would require a large amount of funds and contacts throughout the industry, which we didn't have.

With Anteworld and the tech demo release we wanted to show people and developers that:

We could not be selling it as an engine to the users, and we knew that we needed to make it a game to get people interested. As it was released, we thought mainly the people who wanted to support us and the development will be buying it, and it's indeed so for most. That doesn't mean we aren't on to making the game - we definitely do, but we still had a huge amount of work to be done on the engine functionality itself before we could proceed on to the game. It's expected that once there's an actual gameplay it will become more widely known. Right now we are mostly attracting tech enthusiasts and simulator people, which make a relatively tiny part of the user spectrum.

You must realize that the games you are comparing us to use existing engines, they can focus on the game itself as they don't have to deal with the engine development. Planet Explorers uses Unity, and that means they can kick start fast, but they can never reach the scale with it (they don't intend to, which is absolutely ok).

If we wanted to make just another game on a stock engine, it would be already released, but it wouldn't be able to perform as OT does. Plus we don't want to make just another game limited by the capabilities of common engines. Do you?

Right now the development goes in a couple of directions:

The past year was mostly the engine work, we weren't happy with the progress presentable to our users. This year should bring much more active content, please be patient with us a bit more - we believe the end result will be worth it, and OT will become the basis for many games/sims.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: KelvinNZ on March 30, 2013, 08:18:29 am
This is a chance for engine development to step up a notch or ten! I for one know not of the backend workload that Brano, Angrypig, and whoever else working on it, is under but I do know that evolution of this kind of tech is at the next phase. You know, we all complain when something is missing this and missing that as well as not being scalable for more advance tech in the future, well, now you have an opportunity to embrace it and get excited that there's something being developed that will allow a real sense of freedom in the virtual world, one that no scripted game could allow because if the less superior methodology behind it.

I know for a fact from my Biome research alone that the texture work alone is a huge undertaking not to mention the physics, modelling, and terrain elements and their integration with each other.

If you want instant gratification to move a character and shoot someone then you might find those already made scripted games suitable. This however, my friends, is something worth waiting for as you will hardly find anyone out there with such ambition, knowledge, and skills to create something you are actually asking for. Most are commercially driven in that there's always something to stop development if it is not in the business model. This is a more eclectic approach whereby the Devs are considering whatever they can to make this engine as real as it can be; now that is a true Indie Developer way.

I cannot say any better than this; good things come to those who wait, and if you don't want to wait, then you will miss out on something great! Your support will help move this project along much faster than without the OT community merely by the feedback alone.

K.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: Unsurt on March 30, 2013, 07:51:46 pm
Quote
(coming next week a release with FPS mode and explosives/rt craters)

WAW!!I am very happy to read this news, you are doing a very good job guys.

Sorry for my english
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: mctash on March 30, 2013, 09:23:36 pm
I think that while OP has a valid point in some respects, let's not be too hasty. The work of Cameni and Angry Pig is pushing us towards a quantum leap in what is possible in games or sims. When I payed up for the alpha I was well aware that this could take years to come to fruition due to the magnitude of the project and the relatively tiny dev team. Even if it takes 5 more years I will be happy if what is available at the end comes even close to the ambition of the project. Its a real game changer in my opinion and I would rather slow but steady progress than rushing it and ending with something far short of expectations.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: Krutan on March 31, 2013, 06:22:11 am
As long as new contents are added, I don't really care that much about a game. Of course I want a game some day, but there's no reason to rush it. Anteworld has much more features today than it had on day one, and explosions and craters next week will be awesome :)
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: zuluknob on March 31, 2013, 04:38:18 pm
thanks for your reply cameni. i am glad to hear that you have been working on gameplay elements and that we will be able to start testing them soon.

The reason for my post is that as the engine has been public (very public with all the youtube videos) for quite some time now and that another team of more people could beat you guys to it. A quick search of youtube and google brings up loads of other engines that have similarities to your engine or game concept, maybe not as sophisticated but there still there, i can only guess as to what is being developed in secret. But i do know that devs often look at others work and emulate if not outright ripoff the ideas. With all the work you guys have put in i don't want to see you get left behind because of the simple fact that 2 people can only code so fast.

Just a suggestion but just for now i think you should pick an interesting island somewhere of a reasonable size, say a couple of hundred Square k and flesh out the biome and gameplay so you have something more to sell so you can get more staff. With that the rest of us can post comments/videos/twitch streams everywhere and get it to go viral.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: deathevor on March 31, 2013, 04:39:55 pm
Personally I like Outerra mainly for the way is developed/presented.
For me, its killer feature is that Developers stay in contact and instantly react to feedback.
Almost a year after I've purchased it, it definitely worth the money paid for it.

I think it's now up to us (users) to fill this world with entertainments and create a game from it.
And I'll stay happy if developers will just continue to add features and tools for us to make our "contribution" more available and easy.

As an examples of such conributions, I'll leave this here:
Outerra Vehicles (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_tfQ18imaE#ws)

The only thing that I could suggest (request) now, as a feature that could bring more game into it, is Multilayer.

Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: deathevor on March 31, 2013, 04:44:06 pm
Just a suggestion but just for now i think you should pick an interesting island somewhere of a reasonable size, say a couple of hundred Square k and flesh out the biome and gameplay so you have something more to sell so you can get more staff. With that the rest of us can post comments/videos/twitch streams everywhere and get it to go viral.

No, no, no.... Hate you for that. :)
Get yourself a Microsoft Flight... You'll get your island :)

Sorry if text sounds aggressive, it's not meant to.
It's just I (Hope that most users does) see Outerra as a Sandbox for game creation.
So never wait a game from Outerra developers. However, as mentioned previously, I expect it from others (Me, You, Outerra users, 3rd parties).


Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: zuluknob on March 31, 2013, 05:56:40 pm
Just a suggestion but just for now i think you should pick an interesting island somewhere of a reasonable size, say a couple of hundred Square k and flesh out the biome and gameplay so you have something more to sell so you can get more staff. With that the rest of us can post comments/videos/twitch streams everywhere and get it to go viral.

No, no, no.... Hate you for that. :)
Get yourself a Microsoft Flight... You'll get your island :)

Sorry if text sounds aggressive, it's not meant to.
It's just I (Hope that most users does) see Outerra as a Sandbox for game creation.
So never wait a game from Outerra developers. However, as mentioned previously, I expect it from others (Me, You, Outerra users, 3rd parties).

1. I find flight sims boring as watching paint dry. I know quite a lot of you don't but that is a small market. The concept of anteworld will have a much bigger market.
2. I'm not talking about outerra, i'm talking about anteworld. The suggestion is so they aren't daunted with fleshing out a shit load of biomes, and the suggestion isn't for them to leave it at that either. It's just a stepping stone to the full game that they have envisioned. It is for all of us to be able to show it off and get them some customers so they can employ more people.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: deathevor on March 31, 2013, 08:23:37 pm
...

Did you mentioned what game you want?

zombie dayz type game
?
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: zuluknob on March 31, 2013, 10:05:06 pm
...

Did you mentioned what game you want?

zombie dayz type game
?

yes...anteworld. as described by the devs ages ago and stated how many times in this thread. the zombie dayz type game is just an additional idea for far in the future like all the other suggestions.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: zuluknob on March 31, 2013, 10:08:06 pm
in case you missed it... http://www.outerra.com/game.html (http://www.outerra.com/game.html)
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: deathevor on March 31, 2013, 11:17:13 pm
Quote
earth re-colonization game, where players start to build on our home planet again
Quote
while the players themselves would provide the content to liven up the world
Done
Quote
Offline sandbox mode allowing to freely explore and modify the environment
Done
Quote
Online mode with resource mining and a basic economy, cities, transport networks and trade
Basically a multilayer with a bit of mining,trading logic. Already requested.
Personally, I'm waiting for Multilayer as well.
Quote
AI or scheduled traffic will be visible
Would be nice to see at some point.
Based on recent posts, I hope the trains will be implemented.

But! that are plans for full game.
We all purchased Alpha:
Quote
Initial alpha version will focus around the exploration, driving and flying a limited number of vehicles. These should cover major vehicle types, with more vehicles coming later also perhaps from the community.

I think, now, we have more than was offered at first place. (Road Editor, Importer, Sandbox, Craters (soon))


Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: zuluknob on April 01, 2013, 11:47:04 am
your missing the point. us few people who see the potential haven't made them enough money to employ more people. to get large amounts of customers they need a game to play. aimlessly driving/flying placing roads and importing models with no point other than testing is not really a game. We actually pre-purchased the full game which consisted of early access to the alpha and later versions of the full game. One of the things that made the difference between the demo and alpha was that you could spawn a player char by pressing 8(admittedly it was pants and just slid round the land and collided horribly with the terrain), that appears to have been removed. Off hand the only thing i can think of that has been added in the last year as far as gameplay has been the addition of keyboard controls.

Within a few years i can see that a fair sized chunk of the engine will need to be re-written as raymarching engines will start to take off. At least one (brigade 2) is near realtime on a 2x gtx470 (i would guess that a titan can do it fine without all the unrenderd noise) NEW "Brigade 2 Engine" NextGen-Graphics Trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyY9pQEJkSk#) Brigade - Real-time path tracing engine - WIP (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXZ33YoKu9w#ws) Yes i know it's not the same type of engine as outerra, it's just a look at one thing that is coming. another is infinity universe, he is preparing to do a kickstarter this year of a combat game based on his engine to get funding for the full thing. 2 year old video but...Infinity Pre-Alpha Tech Demo April 2010 - Part 1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7eREddMjt4#ws)


Now the addition of craters on the one hand sounds like fun(most people like blowing stuff up) but on the other hand it's just another unnecessary addition like the rocks were as far as the game they described goes, though it is a bit like digging... My concern is that they are now starting to spend to much time on the skin when there are major bones missing. If they can put a game into the engine as it is they will get a nice chunk of cash...far more than they seemingly are getting from a flight sim company. In the long term if they can make the engine they want to, they stand a good chance of making a nice chunk of cash but in the short term a game (if it sells)will bring in far far more. Thats how companied like epic and crytek have been able to fund their engine development in the first place.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: ChookWantan on April 01, 2013, 12:52:01 pm
Did you even read Cameni's response? The FP mode was taken out because a BETTER version is coming within the week. Not to mention the biome work and numerous other things these guys have on their plates.

You are asking for some gameplay to be implemented, but you don't seem to realize that they are trying. You want more gameplay to bring in more money to get more gameplay, which first requires more money. It's a catch-22.

 The only difference between you and most people on this forum, is that you don't seem to have any patience.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: cameni on April 01, 2013, 01:04:43 pm
If they can put a game into the engine as it is they will get a nice chunk of cash...far more than they seemingly are getting from a flight sim company.
Um ... who said anything about a flight sim company?
Making a flight simulator right now would be an extremely risky business. Technically the market is a niche, requires a high detail and a lot of content, and despite the removal of MS from the contenders it's a tough competition.

Now you are absolutely right about the income from the alpha preorders being insufficient for our growth. But OT comes with a unique set of features (unique in the sense of seeing them together: real data, scale, detail range, deformations), and as such it's quite interesting for many "serious" application areas out there. This was always one of our directions, and it's actually the major reason why the progress in the game seems to be so slow, as we were working on lots of background stuff for projects that are being developed here (in cooperation with other companies/licensees, to be revealed when ready). Weren't it for that, we would probably have a gameplay already, since a playable game would be the only way to get the income needed for the acceleration of the development.

Quote
Now the addition of craters on the one hand sounds like fun(most people like blowing stuff up) but on the other hand it's just another unnecessary addition like the rocks were as far as the game they described goes, though it is a bit like digging... My concern is that they are now starting to spend to much time on the skin when there are major bones missing.
The game was devised to show the unique features (unique in the context), real-time terrain deformation is definitely one of them, so it's supposed to play a role in the game.

The only difference between you and most people on this forum, is that you don't seem to have any patience.
Actually, zuluknob has valid points and a fairly healthy (realistic) view of the matter, constrained only by incomplete information. As a user I would be concerned myself, asking questions about how this project means to survive and develop. I'd be expecting by now a lot more activity in getting more users/players in, knowing that there needs to be some critical mass in order to sustain the development, and that the current rate and awareness about OT/Anteworld isn't nearly enough.

Perhaps the only difference would be that I'd instead start wondering what's going on behind the scenes ;)
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: zuluknob on April 01, 2013, 01:46:49 pm
Someone else mentioned the filght sim/military angle and i thought that it had already been talked about elsewhere on the board.

Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: Foxiol on April 03, 2013, 07:21:12 pm
Just be patient. I post a little here but I´m here since 2011 and come here to check the web every week, try Outerra to see if it has really cool updates, etc.

This is way too big and ambitious, and just think twice at what they are trying to achieve here: a graphics engine capable of represent an entire planet (in real size) with an ecosystem, destructible environments, wildlife, physics capable of doing everything you can think of, weather and day/night cycles, you can even go to space and in the future (if I am not wrong) even go to the Moon or other planets...

All that with great detail, quality and fidelity only "limited" by their talent and from what it is possible to make in OpenGL and thank god not because of not having enough time. It will be impossible to do this with a limit.

Be patient man. How much you paid for this? You are going to get a great and huge game for that once it finished. ;)

Also yes, you are right in what others do, how gaming is evolving and developers looking at others developers to "stole" ideas and make it possible "faster"...maybe that is true but you won´t get what Brano (Cameni) and the rest of the guys who are working on this are going to achieve once finished.

You are going to enjoy those craters soon as the rest of us here. That is something at least...is cool to see how this is evolving and how step by step we can do things that you can´t in other games or engines.   
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: atazs on April 03, 2013, 07:32:10 pm
Have to agree here tough i understand that its not easy work. I think that multiplayer should become a bigger priority even in the engine's current form. Just being able to move around in 1st person and in vehicles with others or build what we can do right now would be enough. Also you said that kickstarter is not an option. Why not? Ive seen several more established games trying kickstarter and gaining money. That would get rid of the "catch 22" situation.

I almost couldn't disagree more, sorry...

Also, I think we're still talking 2 people here......
Its been several years tough. 2 people working on an amibitious engine is just not enough. I am sure there are people who'd volunteer to work on this.
Just be patient. I post a little here but I´m here since 2011 and come here to check the web every week, try Outerra to see if it has really cool updates, etc.

This is way too big and ambitious, and just think twice at what they are trying to achieve here: a graphics engine capable of represent an entire planet (in real size) with an ecosystem, destructible environments, wildlife, physics capable of doing everything you can think of, weather and day/night cycles, you can even go to space and in the future (if I am not wrong) even go to the Moon or other planets...

All that with great detail, quality and fidelity only "limited" by their talent and from what it is possible to make in OpenGL and thank god not because of not having enough time. It will be impossible to do this with a limit.

Be patient man. How much you paid for this? You are going to get a great and huge game for that once it finished. ;)

Also yes, you are right in what others do, how gaming is evolving and developers looking at others developers to "stole" ideas and make it possible "faster"...maybe that is true but you won´t get what Brano (Cameni) and the rest of the guys who are working on this are going to achieve once finished.

You are going to enjoy those craters soon as the rest of us here. That is something at least...is cool to see how this is evolving and how step by step we can do things that you can´t in other games or engines.
I am here since 2010. What you are saying is true but by the time this gets done at this pace there will be several other better games. Take a look at infinity. Its been in development for god knows how long. 7-8 years? And there is hardly anything other than an engine. Same thing applies here. Then what happens? A game called Star Citizen came along, did a kickstarter, gained 10 million and began working on its own space game that looks better and promises more things. Now that has been done in a course of a few months and is also being developed by a bigger team and also promises alpha in late 2013 while infinity continues to being developed with no alpha or anything in sight. So the hype for infinity died down and everyone moved onto Star Citizen with only the hard core fans staying behind waiting, and waiting for 8 years now. Now this is just an example but the same thing could happen here.

Now dont get me wrong i am not being impatient here, i can wait, but what i am saying is that by the time this gets anywhere near what is promised if it continues at this pace, there will be better engines or games like this. A good way to do something about all this would be starting to talk to companies or people who would be interested in developing a game on this engine seperately so that a game and the engine could be developed at the same time.

Companies like maybe bohemia interactive? Valve? Or other inde developers.  I dont know really i am just trying to help because i honestly dont want this to be overwhelmed by other games/engines.


As for right now: someone mentioned that an improved first person and craters are coming next week. Is that true or was it an april's fool?
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: zuluknob on April 03, 2013, 10:51:15 pm
I will probably play with the craters for 30 mins or so then go carry on betatesting games in my list like planet explorers, darkout, path of exile, simcity(:P) and hopefully the alpha of godus.

Part of the reason for the success of star citizen was the hour long presentation @ gdc 2012 chris did with some nice concept footage to show everyone, that and its a chris "wing commander" roberts game. thats why i kickstarted for the freelancer :D while i didn't bother with the elite kickstarter. chris was much more on the ball with letting the customers know where their money was going and how much we would be involved with the game (like these guys do) while david's kickstarter was poor and i couldn't see where the money was being spent.

I don't think they can do kickstarter from their country yet...saying that though star citizen made 2 million on kickstarter and 6 million on their own site.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: SpaceFlight on April 04, 2013, 05:31:47 am
I don't know if "Star Citizen" is comparable to Outerra or Infinity (I-Novae), since it is using CryEngine 3, so they perhaps don't have to work as much on the tech itself as is the case here and with I-Novae.
Also, I don't think travel between planets and the landing part, will be seamless in "Star Citizen", which does not mean it is going to be a bad game, but I guess there are engine limitations with Cryengine in this regard, which make these procedural engines (Outerra, I-Novae) all the more interesting.
I would like to think there is a lot of pioneering and experimentation with regard to the tech going on here.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: cameni on April 04, 2013, 06:28:39 am
Yea that's how Kickstarter works: you must be either someone, or do a very good presentation aimed at sufficiently large audience, showing advanced concept footage. Or both, preferably. You practically must have the team booked already, because showing that you have a team skilled enough is a part of the presentation.

I didn't follow Star Citizen in depth, but from what I've read and seen initially, it's mostly a space game, not having the planetary detail level of Infinity, seamless transitions etc. I don't know, I've never been a fan of these games, but it doesn't matter since OT is somewhere else. Infinity has been interesting to me because of pushing the technological edge on the planetary front. Innovation costs a lot of time, there are many dead ends if you want to achieve something challenging. Throwing more people at it doesn't speed it up much; it can speed up only the things that are paralellizable, like the content creation. And promises and concept art aren't the same thing as the delivery. It will still take SC time to get anywhere, unless it's supposed to be just a technologically mediocre stuff, another not-so-empty space MMO game. These things aren't of comparable experience, however much you want to convince yourself. Good luck creating planets even with detail range less than Infinity's (which is less than OT's) in Cryengine.

Maybe the big companies doing everything in secrecy are right, because people routinely underestimate the amount of work needed on new different approaches. But the big companies also usually recycle all the stuff and go down the beaten path too ...

Why aren't we doing the Kickstarter now:

There are more issues, but these are the main ones which are important for us.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: zuluknob on April 04, 2013, 01:21:59 pm
With sc the first thing we are getting our grubby mitts on is some kind of garage program where we can have a wander round inside/outside our ships and mess with parts. We are expected to get the multiplayer combat prototype at the end of the year with the final game expected the end of next year. i say final but it wont be all of it, they will be adding new contend weekly/fortnightly in the form of new star systems ect. We have been getting concept art of the main cities on earth ect so we will be able to land on planets in at least some minamal way. The game will also be able to be run on private servers so will be moddable to do anything that cryengine 3 can do(crytek/cloud impereium would be stupid if they aren't looking at doing a full planetary engine). If the mod is good enough they will consider putting it into the main game. Given chris' past games it should turn out very good, especially as he hasnt got some suits controling the money.

Elite dangerous will "probably" have a full planetary add on as a dlc if the game sells well.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: atazs on April 04, 2013, 01:28:13 pm
I wasnt comparing Star Citizen to outerra or anything. What i was saying is that because infinity took so much time to make(and its still not done) a better game comes along and takes all the people away from it. Now the same thing could happen to outerra. A different game that is going to be like this or uses an engine like this could come along and take all the people away.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: Leanier on April 08, 2013, 12:08:59 pm
I haven't posted on the forum yet, but I have been following this for a few months.  While I have noticed that development is slow (understandable due to the scope and team size), There is actually a lot of content already in the game that would be fun for more of a "game" type of experience.

As others have said, I think a huge leap in allowing it to be a "game" would be multiplayer.  If this was added (even in only a LAN state) it would make it a lot more fun to build a town/city with friends, or even just exploring/flying together.

That said, if it were me developing it, I think that a simple form of multiplayer would be a high priority now.  Not worrying about cheating or griefing yet, just something for a few friends to play with.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: zuluknob on April 08, 2013, 04:59:01 pm
oh yay! a multiplayer map editor.... sigh.. now, admittedly minecraft is a bit like that, but it has a player char that can directly interact with the enviorment. being able to import your own models, edit the script, place models and roads is an editor not a game.
Before you start with the  "but minecraft doesn't do what this engine will be able to do in 10 years" crap. I do know...  I wonder how many of you are actually people who would play anteworld sometimes...
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: deathevor on April 08, 2013, 07:07:44 pm


The problem that I see with developing a GAME is that:

You like Minecraft and I don't.
I like Sims and you don't.

So I'm up to have a game, but asking devs to start to focus on it will only make them busy and force to go one way.
And that's what I'm afraid of.

So even I want a flight sim with all Interfaces and Logic (as main thing), I still understand that it is better just to ask for tools to create them myself (3rd Party).
As the logic here is following:

- If Devs will choose a Minecraft, I probably will no longer be interested in it.
- If it will be a strategy game, the same thing.
- If they will choose the Flight, Race sim - I'll stay, but again in this directions there could be wrong ways for me. As if they'll do one island (like Flight did), I probably
won't be very happy.
- BUT if they will keep making new tools and features, this will lead to 3rd Parties creating different games from it (Minecraft type, Flight sim and others)
And those groups (companies, fans or others)  will do this more fanatically and more accurately, specializing on certain game type.

Google is a good example - always liked the way they used users to massively develop a content (and create games) by providing easy to use tools (Google earth and many others).
Even it didn't suppose to, but as a result you can find many games based on it :)
Driving - http://geoquake.jp/en/webgame/DrivingSimulatorPerspective/ (http://geoquake.jp/en/webgame/DrivingSimulatorPerspective/)
Flight sim - http://www.gefs-online.com// (http://www.gefs-online.com//)


All above is taking in account that Anteworld supposed to be a game, and Outerra is the engine I'm looking for.
The truth is, that purchasing it, I actually wasn't interested in "trading" game, and always looked at Aneworld as an Outerra Engine (demo).


What I do support in your post is to keep Outerra growing (as a team and financially l as well).
But in here I see it as not through a game, but through engine capabilities and clever monetisation. (As Google mentioned above)


Personally, we (users) also can support Outerra (apart from paying for alpha) team in this by (re)publishing their achievements, creating content and helping this world this world to grow and attracting new users.
The same way a year ago I found Outerra just because somebody posted a video and tagged it as Flight Sim. Bought it straight away and never regret.



P.S> Damn would be good to be able to buy and send Outerra as a gift - My lazy 3D modeller is a miser.
Want to buy him Outerra (as additional present for finishing job), as he always spare money for such things :D
He is still a good guy :)


Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: zuluknob on April 11, 2013, 08:15:45 am
1. i suggest you read their description of the game they want to make and see cameni's comment in this thread about not making a flight sim. they stated over a year ago what the game anteworld would be(roughly). if another company decided to pick up the engine to use in their flight sim that would be cool but this engine is a long way from being marketable for that purpose. a long way...

2. i'm not that bothered about minecraft as it is so limited in scope and i do play and test sims...just not flight sims where you fly from a to b. I just want them to spend some time on the game (anteworld) itself rather than just the outerra engine side of things. still develop the engine but some work on a game would be a good idea not just for me/us but for them also as i have previously explained.

3. I wish people here would have a look out there to see what else is being developed and see just how close to loosing the market outerra is becoming. Even the military side of things(i have a friend who makes simulations for the m.o.d.). i cant say for sure yet (until i get my mitts on the sdk)but it looks like unreal4 engine may have the capability to create huge landscapes(expansive vistas they have called it). given the things that are being talked about with star citizen(cryengine3) and elite(inhouse engine), procedural planets are about take off again. 

4. i am a gameplay tester which means i need a game to test. atm this is a editor. if being able to walk/drive/fly around in an engine was called a game then cryengine and unreal engine would be called a games.

5. so this isn't me crying "where is my game boo hoo" i have plenty of other things to test, this is me saying they need to get some gameplay going for their sakes. or loose out to other companies as this engine has been very public for quite some time and it wouldn't take long for the majors to add in (if they aren't already)what is unique-ish in outerra(realworld data has been used before just not to outerras resolution or mapsize). So my previous suggestion as far as the anteworld games goes is that they flesh out one island and some gameplay(not editing) so they can have something to show potential investors. once they have more money coming in they can hire others and have two dev teams. one for the engine and one for the game. then maybe in a few years a company will pick it up and make you a flight sim of your dreams.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: atazs on April 11, 2013, 12:24:16 pm
5. so this isn't me crying "where is my game boo hoo" i have plenty of other things to test, this is me saying they need to get some gameplay going for their sakes. or loose out to other companies as this engine has been very public for quite some time and it wouldn't take long for the majors to add in (if they aren't already)what is unique-ish in outerra(realworld data has been used before just not to outerras resolution or mapsize). So my previous suggestion as far as the anteworld games goes is that they flesh out one island and some gameplay(not editing) so they can have something to show potential investors. once they have more money coming in they can hire others and have two dev teams. one for the engine and one for the game. then maybe in a few years a company will pick it up and make you a flight sim of your dreams.
This
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: deathevor on April 11, 2013, 02:36:10 pm
is
 :)
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: zuluknob on April 11, 2013, 02:51:33 pm
SPARTA!
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: deathevor on April 11, 2013, 03:00:47 pm
:D
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: Jagerbomber on April 11, 2013, 05:23:39 pm
SPARTA!

*CAKETOWN!
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: new2lw on April 28, 2013, 03:22:39 pm
I don't know if "Star Citizen" is comparable to Outerra or Infinity (I-Novae), since it is using CryEngine 3, so they perhaps don't have to work as much on the tech itself as is the case here and with I-Novae.
Also, I don't think travel between planets and the landing part, will be seamless in "Star Citizen", which does not mean it is going to be a bad game, but I guess there are engine limitations with Cryengine in this regard, which make these procedural engines (Outerra, I-Novae) all the more interesting.
I would like to think there is a lot of pioneering and experimentation with regard to the tech going on here.

That's what's been said, they want seamless transitions from space to planet.  But it may not be in on release...  They said they have tricks for cryengines level size limit.  I'm excited for the potential of Star Citizen.

I came from Star Citizen to these forums because you guys were nicely linked by examples of terrain that could work for full planets.  Looks like you guys are doing a good job so far.  Don't get roped into having to do things the way investors say you have to, I agree with other that say that crowd funding is the way to go and you should move that direction as soon as possible.

Keep up the good work
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: SpaceFlight on April 30, 2013, 04:49:12 am
I don't know if "Star Citizen" is comparable to Outerra or Infinity (I-Novae), since it is using CryEngine 3, so they perhaps don't have to work as much on the tech itself as is the case here and with I-Novae.
Also, I don't think travel between planets and the landing part, will be seamless in "Star Citizen", which does not mean it is going to be a bad game, but I guess there are engine limitations with Cryengine in this regard, which make these procedural engines (Outerra, I-Novae) all the more interesting.
I would like to think there is a lot of pioneering and experimentation with regard to the tech going on here.

That's what's been said, they want seamless transitions from space to planet.  But it may not be in on release...  They said they have tricks for cryengines level size limit.  I'm excited for the potential of Star Citizen.

I sure am interested to see how they are going to pull that off in Cryengine3. I pledged for Star Citizen, but I am more interested in what will become of I-Novae at this point, mainly because they are building it from the ground up with seamless transitions from space to planet surface in mind.
2013/14 seems to be a good time for space sim fans.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: zuluknob on April 30, 2013, 07:12:53 am
should be easy enough as they are working closely with the cryengine devs
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: PRiME on May 03, 2013, 02:15:33 pm
I think once we see some basic network MP code that lets people place objects and build things together then we will be able to call it a world builder sim game a little bit more. 

I wanna get into making a tank MMO but atm really would like some MP system in place and also more functions on vehicles, we getting close however. Also where are those 3d trees already lol.


Also a endless (figure of speech) space sim with this engine could work, the way to do it is have many star systems on a map and have the void in between be travel-able via warp speed, create a special effect and have a system that generates the space when disengaged. Basically it instances the space region where you drop out of warp so you don't get the floating point limit issue. Star Citizen is going to work this way, so no unlimited space. Only unlimited space game I know about is Infinity and that's a LONG way from getting done.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: zuluknob on May 04, 2013, 04:50:49 am
elite frontier did it ages ago.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: atazs on May 13, 2013, 11:37:55 am
Bump. Cameni can we get some update on this please? At least something about a simple multiplayer?
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: cameni on May 13, 2013, 04:59:59 pm
What should I say apart from what I said already here earlier (http://www.outerra.com/forum/index.php?topic=1623.msg18190#msg18190) in this thread ...
We are doing what we can, and we are well aware of the problems. But developing a game and the engine (and especially engine that's different) isn't comparable effort-wise to someone using an existing engine to develop a game.

There are people here who apparently believe that something like OT or Infinity can be quickly redone in CryEngine or Unity, and that we just gave them an idea and now everybody is going to do it. Well, anything is possible, but you might ask for example the RealTime Immersive how is the scaling up of the CryEngine going for them. There are streaming/paging engines that can handle the globe but can't scale down to the ground level (like FSX), and there are ones that are great with levels a few km large, but do not scale well to larger areas (except in their marketing materials) and can essentially forget about the whole globe. Why are these companies efforting with these technologies that basically only scale as fast as the hardware does? Because it's still less risky and cheaper for them than developing new technologies that would require all new tools and new content and new skills etc. At least until someone else develops the new tech and proves it in the field.

You seem to agree with this:
5. so this isn't me crying "where is my game boo hoo" i have plenty of other things to test, this is me saying they need to get some gameplay going for their sakes. or loose out to other companies as this engine has been very public for quite some time and it wouldn't take long for the majors to add in (if they aren't already)what is unique-ish in outerra(realworld data has been used before just not to outerras resolution or mapsize). So my previous suggestion as far as the anteworld games goes is that they flesh out one island and some gameplay(not editing) so they can have something to show potential investors. once they have more money coming in they can hire others and have two dev teams. one for the engine and one for the game. then maybe in a few years a company will pick it up and make you a flight sim of your dreams.
This

This: "realworld data has been used before just not to outerras resolution or mapsize". Yeah. Because scaling things up must be trivial, even when it wasn't designed that way. That's why Arma 3 world size is 4 times that of Arma 2 at the same resolution and the same amount of artists and designers. And in BF you can now fly a jet faster than a hot air balloon without having to circle permanently in order to avoid running off the map, right?

Quote
... flesh out one island and some gameplay(not editing) so they can have something to show potential investors. once they have more money coming in ...
One island or the whole world doesn't make a difference with the procedural tech. Plus we are already working with other companies in order to get money coming in and expanding. But guess what the problem is - the engine needs more work to support everything needed for the sim/game development. And that's what we are doing - the technology is being actively developed in cooperation and with interoperability with external data sources and tools in mind, and ultimately it will benefit the gamers here as well.
We could hack together a quick monolithic game to raise the interest, but what good it would be if it could not be used by anyone else, without the whole toolchain that is required when using an engine. Unfortunately there's a lot of stuff to implement in a procedural engine, since it has to replace lot of what otherwise would be work of artists (which is both a disadvantage and an advantage).



But with all that said, we still want to satisfy our supporters here. And multiplayer is high on the list (even though it's not required by our licensees, as they will be using their own networking, suitable for their projects - it differs case by case). We already outlined here how to plug it into OT, but there's a couple of things that need to be done before it. A small one is fixing the random permutator to work the same way on Nvidia and ATI cards - there's a slight difference at the moment between the generated terrain and tree positions. But mainly preparing the internal structure so that object data can be efficiently replicated across the clients on global scale.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: atazs on May 13, 2013, 06:41:25 pm
What should I say apart from what I said already here earlier (http://www.outerra.com/forum/index.php?topic=1623.msg18190#msg18190) in this thread ...
We are doing what we can, and we are well aware of the problems. But developing a game and the engine (and especially engine that's different) isn't comparable effort-wise to someone using an existing engine to develop a game.

There are people here who apparently believe that something like OT or Infinity can be quickly redone in CryEngine or Unity, and that we just gave them an idea and now everybody is going to do it. Well, anything is possible, but you might ask for example the RealTime Immersive how is the scaling up of the CryEngine going for them. There are streaming/paging engines that can handle the globe but can't scale down to the ground level (like FSX), and there are ones that are great with levels a few km large, but do not scale well to larger areas (except in their marketing materials) and can essentially forget about the whole globe. Why are these companies efforting with these technologies that basically only scale as fast as the hardware does? Because it's still less risky and cheaper for them than developing new technologies that would require all new tools and new content and new skills etc. At least until someone else develops the new tech and proves it in the field.

You seem to agree with this:
5. so this isn't me crying "where is my game boo hoo" i have plenty of other things to test, this is me saying they need to get some gameplay going for their sakes. or loose out to other companies as this engine has been very public for quite some time and it wouldn't take long for the majors to add in (if they aren't already)what is unique-ish in outerra(realworld data has been used before just not to outerras resolution or mapsize). So my previous suggestion as far as the anteworld games goes is that they flesh out one island and some gameplay(not editing) so they can have something to show potential investors. once they have more money coming in they can hire others and have two dev teams. one for the engine and one for the game. then maybe in a few years a company will pick it up and make you a flight sim of your dreams.
This

This: "realworld data has been used before just not to outerras resolution or mapsize". Yeah. Because scaling things up must be trivial, even when it wasn't designed that way. That's why Arma 3 world size is 4 times that of Arma 2 at the same resolution and the same amount of artists and designers. And in BF you can now fly a jet faster than a hot air balloon without having to circle permanently in order to avoid running off the map, right?

Quote
... flesh out one island and some gameplay(not editing) so they can have something to show potential investors. once they have more money coming in ...
One island or the whole world doesn't make a difference with the procedural tech. Plus we are already working with other companies in order to get money coming in and expanding. But guess what the problem is - the engine needs more work to support everything needed for the sim/game development. And that's what we are doing - the technology is being actively developed in cooperation and with interoperability with external data sources and tools in mind, and ultimately it will benefit the gamers here as well.
We could hack together a quick monolithic game to raise the interest, but what good it would be if it could not be used by anyone else, without the whole toolchain that is required when using an engine. Unfortunately there's a lot of stuff to implement in a procedural engine, since it has to replace lot of what otherwise would be work of artists (which is both a disadvantage and an advantage).



But with all that said, we still want to satisfy our supporters here. And multiplayer is high on the list (even though it's not required by our licensees, as they will be using their own networking, suitable for their projects - it differs case by case). We already outlined here how to plug it into OT, but there's a couple of things that need to be done before it. A small one is fixing the random permutator to work the same way on Nvidia and ATI cards - there's a slight difference at the moment between the generated terrain and tree positions. But mainly preparing the internal structure so that object data can be efficiently replicated across the clients on global scale.
Thank you for your reply. I know its not an easy job to develop something like this but its good to hear that multiplayer is high priority.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: zuluknob on May 13, 2013, 06:49:27 pm
seeing as you quoted me to answer his question...
1. the largest gameworld to use dem data before you guys was fuel, it illustrated perfectly why they dont make massive worlds for games. it was empty, repetitive and boring, which is a problem inherent with procedural environment engines(not enough variety in base content). now i know that your game is very different as the users will(are but are unable to share it properly yet) create content as it goes on so there should be plenty to do. arma 3 is a bad example as all assets are placed to compare with real world placement from photographs not proceduraly generated. if they had the artists, time and will, they could make it much bigger. mapsize is a limitation of how much work the artists can do in a amount of time not the teams coding talent.

2. a island compared to the whole world is a massive difference. how many biomes does the earth have? how many different plants? how many soil/rock types? to say that it doesn't make a difference indicates either a lack of thought or a unwillingness to flesh things out properly. my suggestion was to fence off an island for the game and fill out the biome and gameplay(it would end up worldwide same biome atm but if its fenced off the user wouldn't see it and whinge about it being the same everywhere) 2 years ago you showed us procedural trees. are they in engine yet? no.

3. have you got multiple branches running or something? last thing i noticed was the addition of craters(admittedly i dont check very often now and there are bound to be some bugfixes)

4. basically what you appear to be saying is that you aren't developing the game for customers that have given you money, you are developing the engine for non paying licencees in the hope that they will buy it from you some time in the future. if so that could be likened to a breach of contractual obligation to us to provide a game which we payed for. "People who like it and/or want to support us and the development of Outerra engine can buy the alpha release of Anteworld at a discounted price ($15), half the amount for the final release. Doing so will give you access to regularly released alpha/beta updates of the game, together with the final version when it's done." (before anyone jumps down my throat saying i payed for the engine it says "game"...) While it doesn't give a timescale it does not say that if potential licencees show interest we will stop development of game assets in favor of them. As said before, as it stands there is no anteworld game, its just an editor. near zero gameplay has been added(one has been removed,the player char) in the year since purchase and by the sounds of it there will be none in this year.
/end rant.....lol
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: cameni on May 14, 2013, 02:02:14 am
1. Scaling up is not just a problem of making more content, when the engine can't handle the extra level of detail. Which is increasingly bigger problem when it wasn't designed to scale. There are confirmations of the problem from everywhere where they attempt to scale terrain in these engines, and scale the visibility.

2. The problem with an island is that suddenly we are at the level of other developers who are doing islands because that's what they are limited to, but have an army of developers and artists for it, and ready made engines. I can see what happens, when people start comparing it. Wow, that's some strategy there, shame it would wipe us out ...

3. Not sure what you mean by branches. Versions of the engine? Yes, there are different versions, with API for plugging in simulation code.

4. I don't know how else to explain that to add game content, like character animations, the engine has to support the character animations. See? I'm sorry that you aren't satisfied with the progress, we would like it to be much faster ourselves, but it doesn't help comparing it to other island games on stock engines that can focus just on the gameplay and the art.
We didn't stop the development of the game, technically it wasn't even properly started yet. We said game because that's what you bought, and that's what you'll ultimately get, not an engine. But it says right here: "People who like it and/or want to support us and the development of Outerra engine ...". Because some engine functionality has to be developed in order to make a game ... but I already said that multiple times and it didn't help any.

One dominant area that can use a global terrain that is based on the real world data are the military simulations. Not games, but serious army stuff. Believe me that if other developers could easily offer both the scale and the detail with their streaming engines, they would do it because there's a high demand for it. Anteworld is a tech demo giving you access to the technology that goes that way and already offers some of that experience. The price is that the tech needs a whole new toolchain to get to the level, and currently it is still lacking many of these tools.
But we don't want Anteworld to end up as a game on an island and get lost in the sea of other islands. We want to utilize the potential of the engine fully with it. Our existing agreements give us the right to use most of the stuff being developed in cooperation for our game. That includes, for example, ballistics, physics, effects ...
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: AKNightHawk on May 14, 2013, 04:56:29 am
I would like to put in my two cents on this. It seems that zuluknob and others whom might be complaining about the game not being developed does not understand. Cameni and Angry Pig are the only two people working on this engine. (I believe. But I might be wrong.) To be able to create a game zuluknob there has to be a engine. And to have a engine to create the game it has to be developed. cameni did not just pick up a engine that was already out there. They are creating it from the ground up. coding every single feature the game needs. As he said. There can't be characters without player code. There can't be awesome vehicles without vehicle code. The engine can't render without the rendering engine. There can't be pretty particles without the particle engine. And all the other things needed to create the game. Without them. There is no game. And all that takes time. LOTS of time. Take it from some one whom has been developing his own game for the last 7 years pretty much by myself. Except my coder. It takes years to get to the point to make a full game when there is only two people developing it. And put on top of that cameni and angry pig developing the engine from scratch. The ground up. It took me 7 years to get a some what decent and playable game going. On a already being developed engine.

It will take time for them to even create anteworld. (Hope I spelled that right.) and to do that. They need money and support only by people like you. That way they can spend the money on things they need to develop the engine. And to get things they need. Game dev is not cheap. I alone over the past 7 years have spent more then 15,000 dollars on my game.

Which I plan on moving over to this engine when the development is more robust. And we can do more. But all that takes time. Need to be patient and let them develop the engine first. Because without it. There will be no game. And if people starts rushing them that is where  they can mess up. Trying to make people happy. Too many people pulling them in different directions can kill the game and engine as well. Trust me. I know this from experience. Let them worry about what should be done next. And focus on the engine until it is ready. They know what they are doing. I know it can be frustrating waiting. But that is all we can do. Let them do there job and I guarantee it will be worth it.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: PRiME on May 14, 2013, 08:01:10 am
Maybe they can do a kickstarter for the game Anteworld soon and show prototype features. I believe people will want a Earth rebuilder sim that has MP and mod-ability. But perhaps they are just not close enough to doing such a thing (am sure they mention it somewhere). You really need more then 2 people to make fast progress on development, still waiting for basic MP system and 3d trees/clouds etc...
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: zuluknob on May 14, 2013, 09:30:40 am
When i said about the island i made it clear in a previous post that it was just to have something to show and possibly start a kickstarter with, not to do an island and thats all.

You don't need to add full skeletal animation atm to have a player char in engine as you already had one and we don't need to see it atm. Whats most important as far as gameplay goes is having a player char able to interact with the env and some way of sharing with other players the models and areas they have created(possibly some kind of torrent distribution backend) Just watch this take off when people can share content with others, not just screengrabs or youtube videos.
You have plenty of people on here creating content that is being ignored. Give them some unified way of sharing and exploring that content.

@AKNightHawk...suggest you read all the thread before posting....
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: pasto on May 14, 2013, 09:58:31 am
it's just waisting time to answer someone, who wants a game based on outerra engine, but doesn't want the  outerra engine to be developed...
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: necro on May 14, 2013, 10:01:28 am
@zuluknoob:

I can explore everything without an "avatar". Dont know why you should need one. The ufo mode works well and you see the content with your screen, not with the eyes of that avatar.

Beside that its your decision to test the content which is posted in the model area. That doesnt depend on missing characters. I didnt get the correlation like you. So maybe i'm thinking to simple.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: Chaoz on May 14, 2013, 10:06:35 am
I'm sure cameni will be happy to refund you your money, if you think it wasn't spent wisely. But you just paid for the promise of a game, when and where wasn't part of the deal, so either be happy with what you get or get your money back and leave...
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: zuluknob on May 14, 2013, 10:22:45 am
you seem to be missing the point. they need money. the quickest way to get more money coming in is to do the alpha of the game. the engine as it stands(they could have a much more advanced version we haven't seen) is years away from being a commercial product given all the things that need to be added in, and that there is only two of them working on it. while a decent alpha could take 6 months.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: aWac9 on May 14, 2013, 10:38:00 am
only when we see a pizza, we realize that the secret is in the dough.
You can choose the condiments you want but first you must prepare the base.
They know where to go and how to do it and it's not hard to intuit. The important thing here is the core, ie ... the heart.
time to time.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: krz9000 on May 14, 2013, 11:18:31 am
zulu...they dont need more money (well everyone does) they need more time. the team has a clear vision what outerra wants to be,...they have the skills to do it.....but it takes time.

i understand that you are impatient but outerra might not what you looking for. this project will go on for years and the candy we get from it is not a final product but be able to see it develop.

if you want to play games just buy one. there are plenty of games (i guess arma3 would be something since its a nice sandbox with a big playarea).

what i want to say is...time cant be cut short with outerra. be patient and take a loo sometimes. i doubt that they will hire more developers (that would create a huge amount of overheat and does not fit the coding style of the current team (i guess).
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: zuluknob on May 14, 2013, 11:47:59 am
you seem to be getting mixed up between outerra and anteworld, this thread is about the game anteworld, not the outerra engine. While i realise that you can't have one without the other, the engine as it stands(and has stood for some time) is good enough to start adding gameplay elements to it to prepare for a proper alpha release of the game.

With the additions i have suggested along with the community creating content they could have a decent alpha in a small area(like most alpha/demo's do) in 6 months or so. If you look at what is missing from the outerra engine atm you will see that there is years of work to bring it up to current standards never mind what they will need to add in years to come. 2 people can't compete with a full team. They need more coding staff and a producer to prioritize their work(for instance there is no point in doing a full skeletal animation system when there are no npc's in the game and you cant even walk about anymore. A nice thing but not needed yet for an alpha of the anteworld game).

But to get those staff they need money....lots of money. The quickest way is to get the alpha out there and maybe a kickstarter/indegogo campaign. Once they have more staff things will progress much faster to finish the game and fund the engine to be in a saleable state. This is how epic, crytech, techland and many others fund themselves in the first instance...with games. There are a few who only have an engine and no game like ungine.

Good engine licences go for something like 300k(little to no support and royalties payed) up to 1.2 million(full technical support with no royalties to pay). But that is for fully fleshed out engines and outerra is no where near that level yet and don't forget that they are multi-format engines(pc,playstation,xbox and wii). A decent game can make far more than that. Look how much minecraft made before he formed his company and hired more staff(approx 15 million euro). Before anyone goes on how minecraft is a different game...well duh! It's just an example of how much they could make in a short time if they concentrated on getting an alpha out there, although it is comparable in some ways(content creation, crafting, exploring and sharing with other players). They could also make sod all, but thats the same risk as concentrating on the engine. I have friends and relatives who have been in the industry(inc military simulation) for decades so i do know roughly how much needs to be done for an engine/game and can see that this engine will be left further and further behind at current rate of work just because 2 people can only code so fast. They have a good vision for their engine and i want them to be able to create it and succeed in what is a highly competitive market.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: pasto on May 14, 2013, 11:56:23 am
you did not buy just anteworld. since the very begining it has been told to you, that anteworld will be the first game based on outerra engine... waste of time...
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: zuluknob on May 14, 2013, 01:56:38 pm
"People who like it and/or want to support us and the development of Outerra engine can buy the alpha release of Anteworld at a discounted price ($15), half the amount for the final release. Doing so will give you access to regularly released alpha/beta updates of the game, together with the final version when it's done."
key words there are..."buy the alpha release of Anteworld" which atm doesn't exist.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: Chaoz on May 14, 2013, 02:50:20 pm
Pre-alpha

Pre-alpha refers to all activities performed during the software project before testing. These activities can include requirements analysis, software design, software development, and unit testing. In typical open source development, there are several types of pre-alpha versions. Milestone versions include specific sets of functions and are released as soon as the functionality is complete.

Alpha

The alpha phase of the release life cycle is the first phase to begin software testing (alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet, used as the number 1). In this phase, developers generally test the software using white box techniques. Additional validation is then performed using black box or gray box techniques, by another testing team. Moving to black box testing inside the organization is known as alpha release.
Alpha software can be unstable and could cause crashes or data loss. External availability of alpha software is uncommon in proprietary software. However, open source software, in particular, often have publicly available alpha versions, often distributed as the raw source code of the software.
The alpha phase usually ends with a feature freeze, indicating that no more features will be added to the software. At this time, the software is said to be feature complete.

from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_release_life_cycle

so as you can see going by that definition Anteworld has every right to be in alpha stage since testing has begun and not all features are already present...
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: zuluknob on May 14, 2013, 07:53:20 pm
err...no. as near zero development has been done on anteworld(you could crowbar craters into the gameplay category but i think they are more for the potential licencees, like the latest addition...smoke). All work has been done on the outerra engine/editor(even cameni said as much in a separate post)(yes i know that they need a engine to put the game into and they have it). I suggest that people have a look in the forum for what the devs described the anteworld game to be and realise that as yet the game only exists in their minds and on the forum. outerra.exe is just that...outerra not anteworld.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: PRiME on May 14, 2013, 09:57:30 pm
I'm sure if they had a larger team to get these features in for anteworld they would, atm from what I have read they are focusing on core engine components such as rendering (ati/nvidia) performance and stability. Which is part of anteworld and common for alpha development (check steam early access and you will find many titles in this stage 'starforge/kineticvoid' etc). So until they expand their workforce from 2 core developers I don't think we will see too much playful features added. 

In saying all that it would be a wise idea for the lads to try and find a way to move along allot faster before some big company comes down and steals all the ideas and builds a better engine in a fraction of the time (due to them having hundreds or more staff capable of doing it). Atm I don't really see anyone doing that 'just yet' except other indie developers because AAA companies don't believe in procedural programmer for the larger part (in my observations).
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: cameni on May 15, 2013, 01:27:07 am
err...no. as near zero development has been done on anteworld(you could crowbar craters into the gameplay category but i think they are more for the potential licencees, like the latest addition...smoke). All work has been done on the outerra engine/editor(even cameni said as much in a separate post)(yes i know that they need a engine to put the game into and they have it). I suggest that people have a look in the forum for what the devs described the anteworld game to be and realise that as yet the game only exists in their minds and on the forum. outerra.exe is just that...outerra not anteworld.
Yes, that's right, we said as much. And we also said that engine needs work before the imagined game play can be added. Everyone seems to understand that.
Now, you are basically complaining that the development is too slow and the game is far yet, and suggesting to dumb it down and cut it short and get just any game play in there, right? Might set up a poll to see if many people think that, but so far it doesn't look like it was the case.

If you are complaining that Anteworld cannot be called an alpha game because of whatever definition of an alpha game, then we simply just don't agree there.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: PytonPago on May 15, 2013, 11:25:57 am
err...no. as near zero development has been done on anteworld(you could crowbar craters into the gameplay category but i think they are more for the potential licencees, like the latest addition...smoke). All work has been done on the outerra engine/editor(even cameni said as much in a separate post)(yes i know that they need a engine to put the game into and they have it). I suggest that people have a look in the forum for what the devs described the anteworld game to be and realise that as yet the game only exists in their minds and on the forum. outerra.exe is just that...outerra not anteworld.
Yes, that's right, we said as much. And we also said that engine needs work before the imagined game play can be added. Everyone seems to understand that.
Now, you are basically complaining that the development is too slow and the game is far yet, and suggesting to dumb it down and cut it short and get just any game play in there, right? Might set up a poll to see if many people think that, but so far it doesn't look like it was the case.

If you are complaining that Anteworld cannot be called an alpha game because of whatever definition of an alpha game, then we simply just don't agree there.

 ... no need to have the mood getting down, he just hasnt gone trough the forum properly before posting (and he may have done that by now already after some reactions, and understood) ...

I dont think there is any reason to go this debate along, except getting links to some threads about antenworld plans and your dev. financing method chosen for the easy-way approaching people. :P
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: zuluknob on May 15, 2013, 12:55:05 pm
No i am suggesting that you do what nearly everyone else does to get a kickstarter/indegogo or suchlike campaign going, that is to create a section of your world that is much more fleshed out and less buggy for people to see. At no point have i suggested that you leave it at that. The only reason to fence it off to an island for the demo is so you can limit the work you have to do on the biomes.

My complaint such as it is, it's really an attempt to get you and others to see sense, is that since the model importer you have worked(excluding bugfixes and things you haven't shown us yet) on rocks, craters and now smoke(unless your potential licencees are world of tanks not much use atm) While those are needed in the long run for the engine, as far as what anteworld alpha demo needs they are far down the list. There are much more important things to do.

If your recent work is to satisfy a potential licencee i hope you have a written contract of intention to buy with figures already negotiated for when you have all the things they need for their production working or they could turn round at any point and say...sorry but we have decided to go with a more established engine.

I guess that it would take you all of a day(if that) to add a player char that can walk, run, jump and crouch as it would be just manipulating a camera(how many first person games can you see the player char in? not that many, so its not needed yet). How much longer to copy and modify the crater part to add in digging or inverting it to fill in holes or add mounds and make it persistent(save the table you are using)? How long to add in an inventory and interface? The ability to pick up and place/drop objects? Seeing as how you can already interact with models you load in not too much i guess, and i'm sure if you asked the community they would be happy to provide you with items. As most of that is just copying and modifying your existing code i am guessing that most of that could be done in a couple of weeks maybe a month. It will need more than just those things though before a demo but it is a start.

Even with loads of videos published on youtube, there are all of just over 3000 people registered here, why? Because everyone i show outerra too say the same thing...."ooh...pretty...what can you do?" When i show them they say..."so its an editor?" and their interest stops there. Having a playable game demo will bring in more customers and once you have more money coming in you can get more staff and move things forward at a faster rate.

No one in their right mind would run a fundraising campaign by nearly finishing their game before showing it off. They make a small area work nicely with a lot of the basic features enabled and not too many bugs. It's why i showed you planet explorers, but you chose to go on about how its made in unity and missing the point, crappy looking and using an existing engine though it is, people are excited about it and willing to give them money because of the gameplay, a gameplay which sounded similar to anteworld in some ways.

It looks like you are relying on selling the engine to fund the game when it's usual to do it the other way round. Make a propper demo(not an engine demo like now), get funding via a campaign, get more staff, work on both at the same time with a view of finishing the game before the engine is totally finished, sell the game, "finish" the engine, sell the engine to everyone interested and roll about in big piles of cash. :)
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: pasto on May 15, 2013, 02:07:35 pm
as i understood, money is not the problem. time is. with core engine components more people does not always mean faster development (if you dont want to sacrifice the quality)... good software is usually made by very small teams and as soon as the core is ready (basic toolset with stable architecture), you can employ an army of programmers / artists.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: necro on May 15, 2013, 04:49:59 pm
The question is, why do you care about the money outerra wont earn because of not being a finished demo? Its not your money, so calm down. In my opinion  the projectowners should decide what and when parts will be implemented. I am so lucky that there is no big publisher who is stressing the development all over the time.

You free to create your own world engine. You can create thousands of islands if you wont. Noone is forcing you to take outerra for your "projects".
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: zuluknob on May 15, 2013, 07:57:15 pm
I care because i don't want to see their engine become just another failed attempt. The past is littered with failed game engines good and bad, most of them failing due to lack of funds.

 lol @ the publisher comment, have you not read cameni's comments. "things going on behind the scenes"...."licencees" from what cameni has said, it sounds like a company or other entity is interested in their engine, but they want more functionality before they consider licencing it from them. So it looks like your fear of someone else pulling the strings is the case.

Your failure to understand the existing island's purpose in an alpha demo is not my problem. Maybe you should read from the beginning before posting...
To which "projects" do you refer? Actually...don't bother to answer.
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: ChookWantan on May 16, 2013, 12:07:02 am
This whole discussion is a recurring loop. We won't be able to convince Zulu that what we say is true, and he won't be able to convince us. Does this need to keep going?
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: PytonPago on May 16, 2013, 01:22:38 am
I care because i don't want to see their engine become just another failed attempt. The past is littered with failed game engines good and bad, most of them failing due to lack of funds.

 ;D ;D ... i asure you, this project is going down only after Zeos, Cameni, Angrypig, Kelvinir, me and a lot of other people here drop dead after a FoxDie-like attack by microsoft  ;D ;D ... im not good at math - what would be the probability of that happening ?  :D

     As for my opinion, its better to have such open right-at-start pre-pre-alpha fun going on, as there is a lot of issues to be found and got resolved than just by a closed test-group. The suggestions from the people, and contributions in free-to-use stuff or theory makes them see better the expectations and push the limits of the engine further ... and make the community around it happy-er.
     why so soon to fund - well, many big companies have some investment-funds, small ones tend to work hard labor jobs some years to have some free months to do so, if not picked up by some investor (witch would conceal it at some ways to protect its investment and probably had an attitude of "your balls are mine, so do ..." at these developing guys).
      Yes, some people may take it as a bad joke .. tho, seems to work for the folks sticking to the OT project, and they have an idea of what it will take in means of time and work to be done to take it to a final engine (yes, a lot to do ... but we like to see it grow and poke them from time to time :) ) ... and they show the progress regularly, getting it to the test, so no issues there. And that is the main thing to be at a pre-pre-purschage project of any kind, to see that its not dying (as that is your point if i understand you properly). Asking Cameni how they do in this regard is just a post away anyway. :)

       As the license goes - its still an engine to sell as thought, so if finished it will be for sell to game/stuff developers to use. Doe freeware-content and community work there will be as by all the mod-able engines and games. :)

So ... Zulu, welcome, and stick by, comment and stop by for any progress, play whyte the importer or just have fun and discuss whyte people all your visions. People here are great, planet so big, things to model/import - a lot, devs. are save and sound, and responding, and working ... and if problems arrive - well, there is no unsolvable problem in this world (just a possible lack of will), so we handle them like real men! :D
Title: Re: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :(
Post by: cameni on May 16, 2013, 02:33:27 am
It's why i showed you planet explorers, but you chose to go on about how its made in unity and missing the point, crappy looking and using an existing engine though it is, people are excited about it and willing to give them money because of the gameplay, a gameplay which sounded similar to anteworld in some ways.
I think it's you who is missing the point here, planet explorers can do gameplay because they don't need to implement the basic engine functionality required for that gameplay. You tend to simplify things by comparing it to something different and then neglecting the differences. Even though I believe your good intentions with this, this style of arguing by reducing apples to oranges and then comparing it to bananas leads absolutely nowhere.

Actually we aren't as much interested in licensing the engine, we don't imagine ourselves as a company forever providing just the support and not having any fun creating anything ours. We still need some income in the process, and we can't get funds by early licensing the engine for games because it's not yet usable in that regard (repeating: not even for our game yet). So we are licensing it for special simulators that can use it even in its current state, and that's providing us with some extra funds for further development as well. That's that thing "pulling the strings", but it's reasonable since at the moment it's the only area that can directly use the engine, apart from this tech demo that you are complaining about. Regardless of how you reduce and bananize the work needed to implement what is needed for the gameplay, of how you speak about fleshing out an island as if the procedural approach did care and we were manually preparing the terrain or what.

We are well aware that we have mostly special fans here and no significant portion of pure gamers that don't care about the technology and potential and see just a temporary fun. We know we would need to provide a gameplay to gain the interest of these, that's all true and fine. We will add the gameplay when we are able to do so, and when we can exploit the abilities of the engine with it.

I could repeat that thing about the engine that needs to be gotten into an usable state first, but you'd come out with some other reduction anyway because you know better.

All said, locking the thread to avoid further pointless looping.