DescentBB

With Crysis descending among us very soon as the most graphical and customizable game of 2007, I was wondering if anyone was planning on exporting Descent gameplay into it in the form of a mod similar to Into Cerberon. Sandbox 2 seems to be very friendly.

This might be the most viable engine yet to make an excellent mod. I've looked at the editor and it's pretty forgiving where importing models and which builder you use.

It's scripting engine and volumetrics are pretty nifty too.

I am planning on buying Crisis in the near future, and yes, I have full interest in this. I have been hoping for awhile that others would be interested. I am finished with editing Bungie's products!

We should organize...

why create yet another project? this could easily turn out like the many other attempts we have seen over the years (abandoned). even if you succeed in making something playable, it will bind players to vista only. very short sighted.
you have a small community, compared to others. you want an audience as wide as possible. you shouldn't limit it by soft- and hardware requirements.

as for IC, even doom3 is demanding much from computers, though it looks awesome. this is why i think that crysis requires a new computer first, just to find out that this new mod so and so sucks.

i propose: try to help the IC team. they have the most promising project for a respectable amount of time, it's already playable and they are still working on it. supporting it can't hurt

Floyd wrote:why create yet another project? this could easily turn out like the many other attempts we have seen over the years (abandoned). even if you succeed in making something playable, it will bind players to vista only. very short sighted.
you have a small community, compared to others. you want an audience as wide as possible. you shouldn't limit it by soft- and hardware requirements.

as for IC, even doom3 is demanding much from computers, though it looks awesome. this is why i think that crysis requires a new computer first, just to find out that this new mod so and so sucks.

i propose: try to help the IC team. they have the most promising project for a respectable amount of time, it's already playable and they are still working on it. supporting it can't hurt

For one, Crisis will run fine on XP. Graphic-intensive apps like that typically do better on XP anyway. So the audience is not too wide. It can expand- hell, the game was rated as the most customizable of 2007. If the mod was made so good that it was worth buying the game- then it has great potential.

A newer pc would be required, but hey...we all update at one point or another.

jshaner wrote:...
So the audience is not too wide.
...

well, that is the problem to begin with. it is not just XP or vista. think mac or linux too.
then, not all of us can afford a computer a year (weren't you the one for whom $20 was too much for Doom3? heh!). i don't want to argue with you, because i believe you will still bring up other arguments or whatever. i'm just suggesting what i think is advisable. you left the one with IC out

Floyd wrote:

jshaner wrote:...
So the audience is not too wide.
...

well, that is the problem to begin with. it is not just XP or vista. think mac or linux too.
then, not all of us can afford a computer a year (weren't you the one for whom $20 was too much for Doom3? heh!). i don't want to argue with you, because i believe you will still bring up other arguments or whatever. i'm just suggesting what i think is advisable. you left the one with IC out

I have not intentions of arguing. (maybe it is just the way i convey things )

I have to say, that what you are going at is quite advisable. All I currently have that is fairly new is this pc, which will (slightly over minimum) run crisis, according to EA's online tester.



Aynway....I would just like to invest my money into something that I can not only play and enjoy, but something that is technical and can be edited fairly easily. IC would be good to play, but I believe that editing it takes quite some time to learn.

It would probably be a lot better to support IC. I think that even considering that, I am still wanting to start a project of my own. Be there an audience/bundles of supporters or not, I would still like to go through with it. (IC is quite tempting though...)

Who can afford a pc every year anyway?

2003 hardware will work just fine!

IC has no stick support nor will it. (no fault of the team's)

that depends. i hear that the joystick emulator works somehow. that, and if the source gets released it's easy to implement it.
there is also the option to try and get ID implement it with a patch. interplay/outrage for instance didn't ignore customers back in the day.

Duper wrote:IC has no stick support nor will it. (no fault of the team's)

I wouldn't say that. With the source code the input systems could be expanded and native joystick support added. Remember, there is an Xbox version of Doom 3 the definately uses the "joystick".

When ID releases d3 source i bet Hexetic will have stick support in IC in a very short time.

Duper wrote:IC has no stick support nor will it. (no fault of the team's)

but quake 4 does - same engine

almost the same engine. There are differences significant enough that the IC team doesn't want to use it.

I found Q4 better than Doom 3. Brighter and was smoother.

Actually, we understand Q4 does *not* have working joystick code. QW:ET does.

Floyd wrote:why create yet another project? this could easily turn out like the many other attempts we have seen over the years (abandoned). even if you succeed in making something playable, it will bind players to vista only. very short sighted.
you have a small community, compared to others. you want an audience as wide as possible. you shouldn't limit it by soft- and hardware requirements.

as for IC, even doom3 is demanding much from computers, though it looks awesome. this is why i think that crysis requires a new computer first, just to find out that this new mod so and so sucks.

i propose: try to help the IC team. they have the most promising project for a respectable amount of time, it's already playable and they are still working on it. supporting it can't hurt

*cough*
MechWarrior: Living Legend
*cough*

I'd like to point out that Merlin post this a while back. THIS is why. Visually, it will beat the pants off of anything that Doom 3 can produce. (no offense guys you ARE doing a great job!)

And about systems requirements. ... where were you when D3 Descent)came out? don't you remember how people were complaining about system requirements then?? and what about Quake 3 which came out about the same time? Same thing. ..pfft. now you can run either on a GAMEBOY. *snicker*
At any rate. I say why not? .. there is the obvious ... because no one WANTS to. And that's understandable. BTW the MW mod is slated for release this October.


... oh and "Vista only"??? I can run Crysis on XP fine. could you expand on that?

Floyd wrote:think mac or linux too.

If you are worried about requirements, Crysis Warhead (SP) with Crysis Wars (MP included with Crysis Warhead) is coming out September 16, 2008. It is a repackage of Crysis with a big improvement on performance. Add the fact that it will only cost $30, and I can see this game going to places Crysis didn't. People will not have to worry about needing Vista for Very High settings or needing anything more than a $600 PC to play the game with awesome graphics and awesome FPS. More important, you can get the same graphical experience you got with Crysis provided you have the hardware. You can even use the same maps since both use Sandbox 2. I got Crysis back in February and I loved it and I plan on getting Crysis Warhead this Christmas.

Into Cerberon was a good idea, but the problem is the project is taking too long. Sure, they have some versions out, but they can't do as much as Descent 3, there are only a few maps, and now you are limited by Doom 3 graphics, no DX10. Waiting for a version of Into Cerberon that would bring back the total Descent experience is like waiting for Core Decision (seeing a pretty good website with a release date of October 2006 turn into a sidenote on an ugly website turn into a forum with an unknown launch date turn into a forum that is broken). Now I'm not trying to discourage Into Cerberon development. It works for those who like Doom 3. But then again, Doom 3 is almost gone with Doom 4 coming, and I have seen little support from the creators of Doom to help modders, at least it is not advertised so that I can see it. On the other hand, Crytek hosts forums for modding their games:
http://www.crymod.com/portal.php
http://farcry.crymod.com/portal.php

The support for Crysis modding is enormous. And the modding and mapping projects are yielding results that remind me of the days of Descent modding and mapping. Of course, Crysis does have a few minor downsides:
1. Sound is processed via Crytek's software engine (CPU) and cannot be accelerated through the use of products like X-Fi.
2. Physics is processed via Crytek's software engine (CPU) and cannot be accelerated through the use of products like PhysX via PPU or GPU.
Of course there may be ways around items #1 and #2 if a modder simply finds a way to have the CPU send the x86 sound and physics processing sets to a CUDA GPU and have the GPU process them (though through CUDA, not PhysX for physics). Although I don't know how well a GPU can process audio information. Anyway, Crysis audio is already awesome and you can just have a Xonar take care of that.

Of course if a Descent Into Crysis is ever going to be made, people in the Descent community first need to show interest in both bringing the Descent experience back and interest in utilizing CryEngine 2. Then Descent modders need to come together and forum a modding group at Crymod, buy Crysis or Crysis Warhead if they don't have the game already, maybe read up on some of the tutorials Crymod has released on modding (there are a ton), and start modding.

Unfortunately for me, I have no artistic talent, nor no programming skills. The only thing I really have is hope for Descent's revival, but as they say, hope don't pay the rent.

WarHead went gold.

In case you failed to notice, a very small subset of PC gamers have Crysis. The vast majority of PCs cannot run Crysis. You need to understand your target audience better. If Descent is your goal, your target audience is more happy playing on D2X or DXX-Rebirth than on any current engine.

If you want to support the community, you should make some content for the engines you already have.

I'm looking to get crysis soon, its become very cheap to buy off places like amazon and stuff. And since Warhead was released.
After only playing crysis on a friends computer, i was pretty amazed by it. But putting descent into crysis, that is a big big big project. Good luck!

Kyouryuu wrote:In case you failed to notice, a very small subset of PC gamers have Crysis. The vast majority of PCs cannot run Crysis. You need to understand your target audience better. If Descent is your goal, your target audience is more happy playing on D2X or DXX-Rebirth than on any current engine.

If you want to support the community, you should make some content for the engines you already have.

same was to be said when D3 came out if you recall. Not many of us played over 30 fps. .. IF you were lucky.

I have a low mid-range system. (single core ath 64 3500+) Crysis runs fine. Sure, not all out, but it runs easily playable.

the add on is supposed to make it more hardware friendly. There's the Mech Mod being made on this engine as we speak...er type. It's due out Q4 08.

Duper wrote:same was to be said when D3 came out if you recall.

And Descent 3 failed.

Kyouryuu.

Quake 3 was right there with Descent 3. Both were used for benchmarking because of thier high end requirements. Q3 is still going strong. I think the \"pass or fail\" has a lot to do with user base. Descent has always been a bit esoteric in the gaming universe.

There were gameplay factors involved that ripped the community right down the middle too. D1 and D2 were largely played on Kali and Kahn. D3 basically killed p2p play. It was there, but it sucked. Even now, there are folks that only play D3 and folks that only play D2 (and D1).

Hardware requirements was really a non-issue inside a year and a half. Still a bit steep, but playable.

If you want a real down side to Crysis, then look at hackability. THAT alone has pretty much stopped any online playing growth. It's rampant and I won't play it online any more strictly due to that.