an interesting concept ...

[zuzuf]

I found something here:
http://p211.ezboard.com/fta2totalannihi ... =240.topic

What would you think of an option to give players the ability to take control of units with a first person view, with later the possibility to have more than one player per side - for example one takes the control of the whole army leading all troops and others taking control of specific units using first person view, and maybe the ability to switch between roles.

That would only be an option, so that we can still play TA.

I think that could be fun, and might turn some games into massive multiplayer battlefields.

[Balthazar]

I think that it`s a very nice idea and could be really fun. But it`s really huge amount of coding, and we should add this only after stable multiplayer support.

Do you know BattleZone 1,2 series? Same way here, yeah, this could be very cool.

Also - do you remember the game I`ve send you - Crimsonland? Making something similar in TA3D would be much easier, than adding thirst person view.

But later there could be different combination of this game types... Wow, I`ve got some nice ideas!!! I`ll write you later today, then think about them more.

Anyway - I`m voiting for 1st person view.

[zuzuf]

There is something nice with 3D engines : changing/adding camera managements systems isn't hard at all !!! It doesn't even require too much coding, it's not hard at all to implement, we'll only have to add a first person set of keyboard commands to move .

[Balthazar]

Zuzuf, you are right and you are wrong at the same time.
What for TA3D player will need direct view? Imagine the scene - there are huge battle between two players - 200x200 units, and one of them is human. Does it make sence?

Direct Unit control needed if there are few units in battle, so player skill can change the score of the battle, but when I can send 100 times more units to attack him - direct view became absolutely useless. Just the feature for "chekbox", useles, but "WOW, WE HAVE EVEN DIRECT VIEW in TA3D"!

Also - about coding - you`ll need add network support for this particular unit to be controlled by different player, not race, but single unit. Also - in 3D shooters latency should be much less, than in TA3D, so when you shoot something - it is really there, so it won`t jump in another place because of latency thingies. Then it is unit - engine can fix it, then the human shoots - precision is very important.

Direct view could be VERY usefull in other TA3D game types. I`ll write some examples, when I`ll finish to think them throught.

[Balthazar]

In continuation of my previous thought - direct view game should look like - game with small unit limit - something like 50 battle units.

And unit, controlled by player, should be able to level up, and PC-controlled shouldn`t be able to level up, till some player occupies it.

So the game will look like playing chess - leveling up player controlled units and trying to kill enemy player controlled units - so they`ll begin to leveling from the newborn units.

For gitting XP for Base commander - new units became available for building...

That`s not my NEW GAME IDEAS, but just continuation of previous message.

Any suggestions?

[zuzuf]

We could add options available for mods. For example you can build units but they need to be controlled by a human (or a bot) to move -> the unit needs a pilot. Or if you want to fight against a huge army then a mod can add some bonus to the human/bot controlled unit: it might dodge some missiles/bullets, have more fire power or even more hit points, that could be modified by a mod or a script, so that you can play everything you can imagine, from small groups of units controlled by human/bots to huge armies controlled by a leader who has increased resistance and/or power.

Remember that this is only a feature of the engine, we should let modders free to use it the way they want. Even in ways we didn't imagine (in a cinematic scene ?). We only give the tools and a few examples showing how to use those tools .

I can just imagine a FPS on a battlefield as large as supreme commander's maps (some of those maps have been ported to TA and they look really cool, I'll post some screens of them!! )

[Balthazar]

Post some

[Balthazar]

Post some and plz and check Peugeot service if you`ll have time

[zuzuf]

I've uploaded new screen shots to the gallery:
http://ta3d.sourceforge.net/shot-en.php

[Balthazar]

WOW!!
They looks really amazing!!!!
We can add direct view feature now as alternative vision type. Like fixed and free.

[zuzuf]

yes, I was wondering how we would switch from one mode to another, it will be more user friendly to use the same icon for all camera modes.

[zuzuf]

Ooops, I forgot to tell you something,
you'll find those beautiful maps here:
http://tawp.tauniverse.com/maps.html

[Balthazar]

Thanks! Now we`ve got plenty of cool maps to play with

[Balthazar]

One more note - it`ll be very hard to gather 50 player in TA3D at the same time, at least not right after 1.0 release. So there are really should be some kind of restrictions to number of players.

1. Most clever idea is something like capture the flag or king-of-the-hill gametype, where not too much people - something like 11x11. Or lesser. One player is TOTAL commander, and the others - are squads members. TOTAL commander gives orders to them - and they see in map what and where should they do.

2. Most clever Idea is improvment of defence.c idea. Where several players are fighting in the small arena-like map with spawned units. Players get exp and became stronger, AI units appears more often and more powerfull. Arena may be switched to long map where players should reach the end and destroy enemy base.

The main problem that BattleZone the best game of this kind, UT2004 the best game in 3D shooter kind and so on. TA3D can`t be best in all this by default, so players will play such gametypes only if it is funny and have something, that other games have not.

That`s why I suggest only add new direct (first person) view and wait till TAD almost ready, then we`ll be able to think a little more about all this

[zuzuf]

Yes, you're right, but I think TA3D can offer something other games don't:
the battlefield can be very huge.

But you're right we'll wait a bit before implementing all those game types. We'll at least need to wait until Lua is implemented since it will be easier to implement those games through scripting.

[Balthazar]

Well, the old ideas is up again? LUA was implemented, multiplayer support seems to work as it should... So ?

[zuzuf]

let's release 0.5.0 first, then we'll work on scripts/maps/first person view to allow several original games ( I am sure we can implement a First Person Shooter that way )