Outerra forum
Anteworld - Outerra Game => Game & gameplay discussion => Topic started by: fooff on November 29, 2017, 10:07:13 am
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AAAND....
here we are again! :)
This time I let some more time pass after my last post so people cannot complain too much about my insistence.
Just kidding, I don´t give a * about what other people think, I just completely forgot about this project until today.
And, looking from the forum, it seems like I´m not the only one =|
So, ritual question: any updates? Not talking about the engine (which also look stuck, last update is more than 1 year old?), but about the game, is there any movement towards anything concrete?
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It is rather depressing. Gaps between updates got longer and those deployed mainly targeted tweaking the world's appearance. No documentation for any of the new functions. The promised flood of functionality from basic elements migrated from TitanIM never occurred.
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The project is very very alife, but it is in the oven ... so we can not touch that cake for now... Do not desperate; the wait is worth while. :)
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The project is very very alife, but it is in the oven ... so we can not touch that cake for now... Do not desperate; the wait is worth while. :)
How not to reassure people 101
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The frequency of publication of new tweets in Outerra Dev Screenshots, presented in two graphs: a linear graph and a pie chart:
(http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=lc&chbh=a&chtt=Frequency+of+publication+of+new+tweets+in+https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fouterradev%2F&chco=ff0000&chs=600x300&chd=t:11,6,2,1,6,1,6,5,2,1,1&chl=February|March|April|May|June|July|August|September|October|November|December&chds=0,11)
(http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=bvg&chbh=a&chtt=Frequency+of+publication+of+new+tweets+in+https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fouterradev%2F&chco=ff0000&chs=600x300&chd=t:11,6,2,1,6,1,6,5,2,1,1&chl=February|March|April|May|June|July|August|September|October|November|December&chds=0,11)
If several messages were published on the same day, they were counted as one. As can be seen from the graph, starting from November 2017, the frequency dropped to 1 screenshot a month, and this is still happening (January 18, 2018). Half of January passed, and the last tweet was published on January 3. The trend persists.
I can draw one of the following conclusions:
1) In November, developers encountered unforeseen problems, which slowed the development and which have not been resolved so far.
OR:
2) The developers have made all the necessary innovations in the program and since November they are busy with testing and debugging, so there is no new material for the screenshots. In this case, the development of the next version of Outerra is in the final stage and soon (according to Outerra standards) we will get a new version.
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And, you know.... Holidays.
You guys are being way too critical & analytical about this... At least in this manner.
::)
Nobody, not even the devs, can accurately say when something will be ready for release, in advance. That's really, just how it goes. And of course some things take longer than others.
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And, you know.... Holidays.
1 September (1992) - Day of the Constitution of the Slovak Republic
15 September - Day of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows, patron saint of Slovakia
1 November - All Saints’ Day
17 November - Struggle for Freedom and Democracy Day
24 December - Christmas Eve
25 December - Christmas Day
26 December - St. Stephen's Day
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_holidays_in_Slovakia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_holidays_in_Slovakia)
Are there more holidays in November and December than before? 2 days in November and 3 days in December. That's not a lot
The decline began in October (2 tweets), in which there are no holidays, and since November the frequency of publications has reached a plateau of 1 tweet per month.
Drawing the timetables for tweets can look funny, but in fact I'm just trying to brighten up the time in anticipation of news.
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Nobody, not even the devs, can accurately say when something will be ready for release, in advance. That's really, just how it goes. And of course some things take longer than others.
Look, nobody is asking for a release day here, so do not try to convince me we are pressing too much.
I've been here since 5 (FIVE) years, and all i always asked for was a few clues about the game.
Generic answers were given, and ZERO progress was shown.
I just would like you guys to be more open: what are you working on? do you have any short term goals? Do you have something on you hand or just ideas? And in that case what kind of ideas do you have? Show us! Or have you simply decide to abandon the project?
Anything, but talk! Sorry but after 10 years of developing you cant afford the luxury to be vague about your work anymore, without looking like scammers
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Because the pictures of lakes and improved shorelines isn't progress shown?
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I backed this game like 5 years ago. Sad to see there is still no game yet. LOL
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Its true that we dont have a game yet. But in my case is the less as long as i enjoy the engine itself. But i suppouse this will be depending on each person. So those who want the game are understable.
A game with character animated and other folks in net will be great for sure but i enjoy enough the engine during years for 15 bucks. Probably the game/simulator i open in my computer and use for longer time. So worth what i paid, while wait the progress and the game.
Thats said. I can see the progress of the engine. Now have accurate terrain, rivers, trees, and soon lakes, shorelines, roads, buildings. New textures and pipeline engine, and much more.
Another good thing on the game, we (comunity) will be surelly very active in his concept and options. Something that we cant say about almost any other games.
This is slow because its a huge and ambitious proyect. And the game still not the priority while the engine is not ended for make a good complete game with all the options avaiable.
Probably the most ambitious proyect we ever saw (are we allright in that?)
And all this huge job Coming from two guys and not from a big trademark, its understable that they need to earn $ while they do all this sexy engine for all us. Cant be scam even if they spend lot time more in release the game. Its just a diferent develop system where we help with early adoption to make it posible.
I feell more grateful for their job coz i can enjoy this great proyct engine than scamed xD. But i talk for just my case.
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Well said, josem75! The journey is as fun as might be the arrival!
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The reason why in this forum I almost always write in Spanish is because it is my mother tongue and I do not speak English. So, all the semantic nonsense is the responsibility of the Google translator. Although I would like to express myself correctly in English to better understand what I think.
We all have the right to have our own vision of Outerra and it is good that it is externalized. Each one exposes their own sensitivity, and all are respectable.
I will talk about mine, which will be at the same level as any other.
The first thing that comes to my mind is to remember how I discovered Outerra. I remember it was in a video called Himalaya, in 2010, where a Cessna flew some incredible mountains and landed on a track with a certain inclination. At that time I was already flying flight simulators and what I was seeing seemed incredible to me. We were in front of an engine that was capable of representing the entire planet with good graphics and acceptable fps, and all for a 3D engine with incredible fractal algorithms.
The first thing to say about this engine, ... is that there is nothing like that anywhere else, and they have no competition, not even those companies with great resources can achieve what these guys have achieved.
When everything started, we knew that resources were few and that initial symbolic support ($ 15) was needed for the project to have some continuity. There was talk of a game, but we all knew that it would only come to light once the engine matured and traveled a long route that would end in an API or SDK. Personally, the game never interested me, because if it did not have wings it would not work, but that was the least of it, the important thing was to support and encourage them, and not be demoralized by the size of the company. and that everything had a final compensation or reward.
Then there was talk of an agreement with Itanim, which was great for the future of their company as they gained more support and shared with us the idea that many of the advances would be added to Outerra Anteworld, as it has been ... for that reason why today we can enjoy those incredible landscapes, lights and infinity of elements added in time to the engine.
For my part, nothing against objection, on the contrary, encourage them not to lose the projection that brought them here and see this impressive engine grow as we see our children grow.
When you've been living with Outerra for so long on your PC, it's so familiar to you that if that anagram were not there, I'd miss you.
;)
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I, for one, am very satisfied with OA, yes, there are features that I would like added or improved, but am prepared to wait for them to be implemented. My main interest is in watercraft and scenery, and OT blows me away with its scenery rendering.
I have another platform where I can very well operate watercraft with a large degree of reality, yes, it does lack many of OT's splendid features, but gives me perfect water conditions where I can control wave height and water depth, futhermore, watercraft are stable. The Scenery is as good as you make it!!
I know that improvements will come in time to OT, but we do not want them rushed, when they come they should be good.
Many people want different features included in OT, but they must realise that their particular wishlist may not be granted in the next update when it comes.
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Quick note Lesnikus: the drop you noticed in november/december happens every year (in forum posts by the devs, updates). It's because ITSEC happens in that time of year and they are extra busy doing support for TitanIM.
Some devs like to be open about everything they do, and publish builds quickly, despite bugs and having sometimes to roll back features because they are sub-par, creating a long string of not-future proof content. It's not how OT devs work, and even if it can result in long periods of silence, I (for one) can appreciate that. It's a perfectionist and carefull approch, even if it takes time.
It's not like if they were selling 240$ versions of the Cessna for "project support" and premium backers 8)
That said, if you are on the Discord, you can see the devs are here, working.
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Quick note Lesnikus: the drop you noticed in november/december happens every year (in forum posts by the devs, updates). It's because ITSEC happens in that time of year and they are extra busy doing support for TitanIM.
Thanks for the detailed explanation, it calmed me down.
That said, if you are on the Discord, you can see the devs are here, working.
I did not know about Discord chat, thank you. I only looked at twitter and there the news does not always appear often, so any delay caused concern
aWac9, agree with you. I met Outerra in 2008, after reading a note in the game magazine and immediately thought: the project is too ambitious, it is impossible, the development will be closed in a couple of years. After that, I forgot about Outerra for a long time. How surprised I was when I learned that the developers have released a demo and are constantly developing their project! I am amazed by the perseverance of the creators of the engine.
josem75, incredibly well said! I'm also not interested in the game, I'm interested in the engine and the ability to realize my game in it. To play not in game, and to play with the engine. I do not know how this will be realized in the end, in the form of modding of Arma level or as a full-fledged SDK, but for me the engine and its capabilities is more important. For me, the most anticipated innovations are:
1) A fully-fledged cities and a buildings generator that will accurately repeat the outlines of buildings from the OSM and take into account the necessary tags (roof shape, facade material, etc.)
2) 3D trees
3) Powerful scripting / coding, allowing you to create your own gameplay.
4) The ability to run the game without the Internet, DRM free. I understand you guys, every developer struggles with the illegal distribution of their product, but I feel like I'm the owner of the purchased game only if I can play it, regardless of the Internet, servers, etc. Internet activation is evil.
When all this appears, it will be possible to say that Outerra met my expectations
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Because the pictures of lakes and improved shorelines isn't progress shown?
To you, Jaegerbomber, and to all the people who replied saying the engine is great and they are all happy about this: yes, the engine is great, but this post is about the GAME.
And yes, the pitures of shorelines and lakes is a show of progression, but thats exactly what frighten me: since i backed the game I always received continous (small) progress in the other direction (the engine) and not nothing about the game.
This is like asking an architect to build your house and for five years he continues to show you how good the new doors appear in the 3D data. I GOT IT DAMN IT, START BUILDING ALREADY
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Gentlemans understands please one thing at last - OT is not a Game, but OT is a ENGINE!
What you will build for a game based on this Engine is up to you. As an example TitanIM builds its own game and does not wait until the OT- Engine
completely done, but goes along with the same step with OT - Team and does with every path to renew their own game.
So, one more time - OT is a Engine! Did they finally understand that? And what they themselves will build for a Game, they will then betray us, if
they are done with the Engine.
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Well, here an excerpt from outerra.com:
Anteworld* is a world-building game on a massive true-to-life scale of our planet. Returning aboard an interstellar colonizer ship built in the Golden Age of Mankind, players arrive on the planet earth to discover civilization and humanity vanished. They will have to rebuild the civilization - exploring, fighting, and competing for resources while searching for clues to the disappearance of humanity.
The game will contain several modes, the basic one will be a single-player game but with player-built locations being synchronized and replicated between clients. That means player can settle in a free location of his choice where he can build and play, and when he goes exploring he'll be able to observe and visit other sites where other players are building their world.
There's going to be also a multiplayer mode for gaming in the existing world.
Sim-connect mode should allow to use Anteworld as an image generator for another simulation program.
In fact, Anteworld is meant to create the basis for an Outerra game/sim platform, allowing to create mods and new game modules that would run on the existing backend.
*The name comes from Latin prefix Ante-, with the meaning of prior-to in time. A world that was.
I personally don't need a game. I like the ever evolving sandbox. Since the subject is the whole world, the task is endless.
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Gentlemans understands please one thing at last - OT is not a Game, but OT is a ENGINE!
He gets that, just nobody wants to say "Anteworld". :P :))
And yeah, I'm mostly with 2eyed on Anteworld/Outerra being a sandbox. ARMA-like kind of. But I'm more interested in scenic driving (including multiplayer) and, well... (real world) city building (even if it's only visual). But of course, at world scale, it looks like this is being done for us. Which is cool, technically. (very cool) But it takes away from building (in my case, recreating) the world ourselves. Leaving us to do other things. Which, of course, could be plenty of things (and not in empty settings... unless of course we were to go somewhere with nothing around). As long as its all moddable. But I do lean more towards real-world re-creation. (and yet, don't think that I want post-apocalyptic, lol).
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To predict it "Anteworld", must have finished first a Engine. Do we have a finished OT - Engine? No. So, wait and drink the Tea ... everything for his time. :P ;)
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I was accidentally watching this video about game developer mistakes.
I don´t know the developers of Outerra, but i´m fairly confident you are experiencing mistake number 5: getting stuck in perfection.
https://youtu.be/DbySIjG_wgg?t=665
Outerra engine is not finished yet, but it is good enough to support any game.
If developers REALLY want to go on wit the Anteworld game, they could have started anytime, but for some reason they prefer to tweak the engine until it is a perfect replica of the world.
If that´s the spirit, I can already tell the developers that you´ll never reach anywhere: the real world is way too complicated to simulate exactly and if you really wanna finish (start) a game just accept that the engine won´t be perfect any soon, and start with the game with what you have realized (which is already very, very good).
If, on the other hand, you are not really interested in developing a game, please just say that and continue to tweak your engine, I wont stress you any further.
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Well I think that the developers aren't really tweaking the engine to make it look pretty or exactly simulate the real world but rather improving the engine enough so that other game developers can use the engine to achieve whatever goals they have got. No developer would put out their product before being assured that it has enough features or has enough juice to create something worthwhile. Outerra is one of its kind and we are all new to this vast engine so we may still be missing a lot of technical details that the developers are trying to combat to render Outerra a true game changer.
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I'm going to chime in on the 'more gameplay' side of the debate. I get that the devs want to polish off the world before building a game, that they plan to contract the engine out to other projects (so an extant game isn't necessary), and that Outerra's sandbox status allows for a variety of possibilities. However,
- The world is finished enough at present to at least start creating gameplay. A game is still a big project, and leaving it until last will probably prove a poor choice.
- An engine should still prove it can pull off complicated gameplay features, and come with support for more common features like inventories and AI paths.
- More gameplay features won't hurt the nature of a sandbox. A game might, gameplay shouldn't.
- Not terribly many games want or need an entire planet as a gameplay location. Simulators might be able to make use of it, but most simulators are created by big companies that can afford to create their own tech.
The archery minigame was a step in the right direction, but it didn't offer objective-oriented play or a failure state. It can't be ended without leaving the game, and because it's triggered by a keyboard shortcut instead of a menu, content creators can't create their own minigames without overwriting the original or other community minigames (not that there are any, but still).
Also, while I like creating content, I can't really rationalize it as an alternative to gameplay. Building structures and plopping roads is fun, but if my beef with the current state of affairs is that I've got a big, beautiful place I can't play in, building my own big, beautiful place to not play in doesn't really solve my problem.
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The problem is that in order to be able to secure funding for the ongoing development, we have to work on the engine and on the world (and simulation aspects, physics etc), licensing it to selected consumers as that's our main source of funding. A whole world engine and also any game development on it costs a lot of money and we'd never be able to pull it off just from the early access sandbox sales, which make up just a tiny fraction of it. Other funding methods exist but everything has risks, and the biggest risk is us not being able to reliably estimate the amount of work needed for anything, and I believe we would eventually sink because of overly ambitious project unable to keep funding itself.
And that's basically it. While we would like to spend much more time on a game or on the gameplay functionality for the engine the game depends on, we have to balance it until the situation allows us to expand and spend more time on games we want to make, or a magic investment turns up that doesn't suck up our souls. Licensing was never our primary goal and we are reluctant to enter into any new agreements that would force us to support old versions and take even more time from our hands.
If developers REALLY want to go on wit the Anteworld game, they could have started anytime, but for some reason they prefer to tweak the engine until it is a perfect replica of the world.
I get that the devs want to polish off the world before building a game, that they plan to contract the engine out to other projects (so an extant game isn't necessary), and that Outerra's sandbox status allows for a variety of possibilities.
This oft mentioned polishing - most of the projects that need the whole world do not require any more polishing, sure they could use it but everybody realizes it's a compromise vs the world scale, and what matters are the capabilities. We would happily release a game with the current state of the world. Well, maybe that would not be such a good idea without 3D trees unless it's a simulator, but anyway.
Outerra engine is not finished yet, but it is good enough to support any game.
I wish. Maybe it looks good enough, but the infrastructure needed for any game is still not sufficient. The gameplay elements we deem necessary, in various stages of development:
- easily extendable multiplayer code
- scriptable gameplay objects, compatible with the networking and with the large world scale
- character controller that can handle open terrain but also interactive cockpits
- helper stuff that can e.g. automatically drive cars on roads or navigate them
- ...
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The habit do not do the monk.
The speed is relative, everything will depend on the observer, we only agree in the position in which it is now. Just as when we identify an objective, we give the spatial and temporal coordinates.
From my observation we are going at a good pace, taking into account variables of economic type that work the same as gravity in physics.
We had a route, and that will be the route, we only hope that things will go well and with their time.
In recent months it has worked that an added value, which in my opinion, is important, and has been the construction of complex cities with some ease, which together with an easily multiplayer multiplayer code, will make Outera used and at the same time be financed as an engine that can be used by other existing and mature simulators,,, I think of Falcon 4.0 or Fly simulator, or other weapon types, it could be downloaded outerra with a reasonable high price, which could be used by a wide community that would help economically to the development of a platform of Outerra Anteworld.
There are many alternatives, and the important thing now is to take the engine to a Beta phase.
and above all thanks to the outerra team for always keeping us informed.
I was rereading my message and I was wondering ...
Did I say some nonsense? ::)
(http://gifmaniacos.es/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/socorrooooo...-gifmaniacos.es_.gif)
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It's been a long time since i visited the board and now see that others see what i have been saying for years, where is anteworld? Anteworld is what i contributed for, NOT funding to develop an engine for others.
Camini, we already funded you to make a game but by the sounds of it you have used that funding to develop an engine for others. You have an obligation to deliver what we payed for or refund ALL of us. For the love of god please start on the game, not endless engine tweaks. Once you have the startings of actual gameplay then you will draw in more customers. More customers = more funding = bigger team = faster progress = more buzz = more customers. I told you this years ago and still nothing has been done to the actual game, the engine was good enough to start building a game around several years ago. /end rant, see you in 2 years...
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Have you heard of DCS World? The first thing I thought of when I saw it is that it needs Outerra.
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It's been a long time since i visited the board and now see that others see what i have been saying for years, where is anteworld? Anteworld is what i contributed for, NOT funding to develop an engine for others.
Here, here.
Clearly publicly funding the engine for private military, not us.
I doubt he has any intention of completing this project/game and releasing a competing consumer product that could lead to other things down the line (Godot/Unity/Unreal competing engine for game devs to use).
Sadly I do not agree that he is obligated to do anything, he is fully in his rights to give us all the middle finger and tell us to spin on it. THAT is the way these things go, kickstarting any project via any means does not really have any guarantees.
It's a HUGE SAD missed opportunity for him by selling out to the military, but that's life and the US military gets 750b+ each year so I don't blame him for wanting some of that to improve his personal life endeavours. That's human.
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I just want those global buildings, a working GPS route to follow, and I would feel better.
Waypoints for races would probably be nice too (if we can ever multiplayer).
But somewhere else down the line, globally random Battle Royale circles, hopefully? :P (minus in the ocean)
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After only coming across this thread this morning, I've had a thought. What if cameni and his crew were to throw open the door to making OT fully open source? There are thousands of highly capable people that would be itching to help accelerate the development of the engine.