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[atazs]

What should I say apart from what I said already here earlier 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?

... 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.

[zuluknob]

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

[cameni]

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 ...

[AKNightHawk]

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.

[PRiME]

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...

[zuluknob]

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....

[pasto]

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...

[necro]

@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.

[Chaoz]

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...

[zuluknob]

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.

[aWac9]

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.

[krz9000]

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).

[zuluknob]

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.

[pasto]

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...

[zuluknob]

"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.