DescentBB

Hey, I have been hired by a company (Keen Software House) as the Lead Level Designer and I know some people have mentioned Miner Wars around here but I wanted to make some stuff officially known to you guys because it's really exciting.

First of all - I have shelved Geocore for now. Geocore = my project. Core Decision = Zach's project.
Two different things, I do not work on Core Decision anymore - that is his ball game.


I do plan to finish Geocore after this project but I feel Miner Wars has the potential to be very very cool, and I am really liking what I am seeing on the development side. I think a lot of people will be surprised at how \"descenty\" it can feel.

Now about Miner Wars -
We are making a game that has a responsive 6DOF engine with a selection of ships and activities, as well as a really nice editor. On top of all that, there are destructable asteroids that can be shaped, mined, and used as a basis for placing prefabs and such in the editor to make your own base/mine/level/whatever you want. Asteroids can be made non-destructible as well. There will also of course be interior structures that we call Digital Architecture. These are mines, bases, refueling areas, hideouts, and other designs that are built into and around asteroids. Some of these areas will be very large and dungeon like, very similar to instances but without loading into an individual space. I will leave you with this for now:




These are already a few weeks old, I will get more up asap. The music is just what I had playing in the background while i took the movies.

So, if you're interested come grab the benchmark and check out the site at http://minerwars.com We are working on a facelift for it soon and we have a large team of people doing a lot of work here so I think you guys can finally believe that there is indeed still hope yet for 6DOF.


Pics: http://www.minerwars.com/Pics.aspx

Videos: http://www.minerwars.com/Videos.aspx

Downloads: http://www.minerwars.com/Downloads.aspx



We just opened up the private test build to some pilots:

http://www.minerwars.com/ForumTopic.aspx?id=624

We are on Digg and Reddit as well.

Actually Psi, a number of here have been following it very closely and are involved in it. (i'm not among that number)

Great to hear you're with that team. Should be fun! The game looks to have great promise. I'll definately give it a whirl when it comes out!

Awesome Psi! We look forward to your progress!

Looks quite fun Be sure to give us all the latest updates!

I didn't even come close to covering everything yet, I will post more info when we have it but we have quite a few exciting things going on I can tell you guys about right now. We sent a team of guys to E3 to scout publishing and show off what we have. They hit with success, and we are already well into publishing talks with large publishers and investors (won't name them because I'm not sure I can), and one of our guys also landed an Intel partnership, the terms of which I am not sure but right now it's just a logo on our site, not my area so I won't say too much about it.

The really cool thing is that we have a team of around 40 people, some active some not so active, but the core is around 10-15 people that are solid and we are cranking out results like nobody's business. Our main Coder - inventor of the game and Lead Developer - he is a monster and is turning out the work we need to see progression happen on a regular basis. It's really the programmers we have to pat on the back here for all they do day in day out, programming is not exactly sunshine and bunny wabbits and Marek Rosa is spending upwards of 90 hours a week on this. Props to him, without him we wouldn't have a game.

Since I joined the team some two months ago or so we have seen the addition of tons of things such as:

Editor
Control Assignment
Disable Autolevelling
Joystick Support
Script/Storyline development
Radar
Mining tube/collector
AI for enemies
Model Importer
Interior Levels (my job)
Seeking Missiles
Tons of sound updates courtesy of the one and only Dan Wentz.
Music courtesy of Dan Wentz, Artimus Bena, Ansel Leos, and Sonik (myself)

- There is definately more but that's off the top of my head.


On top of all that stuff, here are some of my favorite things so far about what we have:

Boost in any direction (imagine being able to AB backwards/up/down/left/right in Descent)

Make your own base in your home sector using the editor to place prefabs around a voxel or static asteroid and then save it out as your home base.

In-Ship Radio (not implemented yet and features may change) that allows communication, news, hacking, and music all in one box.

A great team of willing artists and programmers who are all working together very well to create both a game for YOU and jobs (and a game :]) for US. It's incredible to see results, and very rewarding.

Dude, we know!

Here:

viewtopic.php?t=16854

viewtopic.php?t=16817

viewtopic.php?t=16719

Those are only the most recent. We've been following this over a year.

And not just here either. The D2X-XL forum and PD.net are also having regular updates for this.

Did they get the 24 test pilots?

I'll believe it when I see it.

VonVulcan wrote:Did they get the 24 test pilots?

Yes - they are running the pre-alpha now and taking screenshots, reporting bugs, etc.

Missions and actual gameplay shouldn't be too far off, but I can't give any real estimate. At the rate we are adding stuff it might be there in a rudimentary fashion within 4 months, that's just a guess though.

Giving an estimated software release date is given based on your best guess based on the limited amount of data you have at that given time and based on previous projects that you have worked on.

So it is hard to know exactly when the project is going to be done even if you are extremely close to the finish of the first release.

I've been writing software for over 32 years... and still my best estimates are way off many many times.

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Imagine if you will that you have NO Maps and No method for getting said maps... then You have to build a 2 way road across America from New York to Los Angeles without a road map and without knowing the terrain nor knowing what you will find in between. You only have say a compass setting to get to from one end to the other and the approximate mileage that it will take to get there.

That is what you deal with on a regular basis when writing leading edge software products.

But the payoff at the end makes the struggle well worth the effort!

Sweet Videos... Keep up the good work.

Looks a ton like descent with a bit of Freespace 1 and 2 tidbits added.

I like it!



\"Space simulation fans can use their beloved joysticks to maneuver the ship in space.\"

Drool drool drool... Hehehe!

Understood, however these programmers seem to be hitting their milestones with good accuracy and the stuff I mentioned is in that list, upcoming sooner than my estimate in fact, as I just learned in our meeting today. Granted, we can always hit a snafu that halts forward progress but let's just hope things move along as planned :]

Oh - just to be clear those videos linked above are not representative of the game overall but simply the inside-the-asteroid part of it that is pretty reminiscent.

There is much more to see on the main site and coming very soon there will be a TON of new content as we push for our next major release which will be aimed at our publishers and gaining more testers. New intro, more weapons, the first interior architectural content, more functionality, etc.

Glad to hear that on the target dates for pieces of your current project.

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Only programmer on my large project... and things just keep getting added after the base plan was setup.

I can finally start to see the \"light at the end of the tunnel\". (to borrow the over used phrase... and the Descent 3 trailer.)

At least we are close to the end of it soon for Release 1.

There are always things to add that would make it even better... the hard part is stopping long enough to review what you have accomplished and then fixing those nagging little issues that any large project runs into along the way.

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Looking forward to seeing this game come out.

Thanks for the sneak peeks.

Do you have a publisher yet?

I tried to submit some of my music. It seems I'm the only one who's submitted music whose primary genre is industrial (the genre that the devs want).

It's baffling me that they're taking so long to respond (especially because they've already responded to those who submitted their songs after I did).

My song is called \"Blood Moon\". Uses orchestral instruments for industrial purposes.

We do have a very interested pubilsher and the next demo will be the one that basically determines if we get them (and our funding) or not, so we are all trying hard to make this one sizzle.


Actually, you are not the only industrial musician, but we have actually decided that we have enough composers as far as I know, you could contact Dan Wentz to find out otherwise if you like.

SirWinner: sounds like you are experiencing the dreaded \"feature creep\" - I am glad you are nearing some sort of milestone so you can at least celebrate a little before diving right back in :]

I may see if I can get the Winnipeg Free Press to review Miner Wars. They do a game review every Thursday, and it could probably generate some interest in this city.

My brother, my best friend, and I are all looking forward to this game.

As for the music: thanks for letting me know this early that it won't get in. Now I can put it back on my charity drive album (Splintered Sanity Ultra EP, raisng money to clean up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill). If it had got accepted, I would have had another challenge as well: Making a new theme song for the D2 Alien 1 Boss (the EP part of the album is one theme song for each of the D2 Counterstrike bosses. I believe I've got four of those songs already).

Man that is some very commendable activity, and your offer is quite generous but any review would have to be of the Pre-Alpha Test that we have now which is certainly not feature complete, making me think it might be better to have reviews done of our product a little further down the production pipeline.

I would like to hear your work - do you have a link to your stuff so i can listen?

Thanks.

I'll PM you the music tommorrow. It would definetely be great to have an actual game developer look at it and tell me what he thinks, but at the same time I don't want everyone hearing my latest music for the Ultra EP before it's released (and the music I've made for it is my best work so far... all my friends agree).

And for the review, I meant I'd urge them to review it when it gets released.

Sweet, well if it's of any interest to you i've been making music far far longer than game content, so I will give you my best input on your audio work, looking forward to hearing it and hoping it's as epic as your friends think :]

Here is a taste of my latest genre kick - Dubstep caught my ear and didn't let go so i've been making it for about a year now trying to come to terms with the style and produce something worthwhile.

http://soundcloud.com/ssp

I listened to some of it. It reminds me of some of the songs in WipEout Pulse. Very nice work.

*sits crosslegged and stares at browser, waiting for update post*

Sign up on their forums...

Now that I have the opportunity, I would like to contact Dan Wentz, to ask for his opinions and criticism on my music. Is there any particular way I should do it? Do you think a PM would be too forward?

If I don't get a response soon I'll go ahead and PM him. I'll write a draft in the meantime.

EDIT: On the other hand, it doesn't look like the Miner Wars forum supports PMs (wierd). Is there any other way I can contact him? I suppose I could try to find his email.

EDIT2: Never mind, I found his email. Hopefully he'll respond.