DescentBB

Hi there,

I`m from a small indie game-dev company and am considering possible future projects to develop.
One of them is obviously a remake of my beloved Descent.
We`ve got the engine, experience and some money to self-fund the development (art&music assets and programming). As for artists, there are plenty local to my area. As for programming, I`d be the only one (since it`s my engine after all). From my latest estimates, I could modify my engine to support basic Descent gameplay (6 DOF, collision detection, flying through environment, basic AI) within 2 months.


We`d be targeting 1 GHz PC with GF2Ti card for optimum play and low-detail version to run on 500 MHz CPu with TNT1-class cards.

Basic Features:
- Strictly indoor (as in Descent 1)
- No \"Adventure\" elements of Descent 3 - just pure action with basic Keys/Reactor gameplay
- same AI behaviour as in Descent 1 (if it`s good enough, why change it ? )
- No multiplayer (this is the single most costly feature) - maybe if the sales are good, next version could have MP
- Story would be created only upon approval of the project - this is the smallest cost of all
- Name of the game would be chosen in later phase (\"Descent\" is TradeMarked and its owner defunct (AFAIK)).

Graphics Features:
- Levels lit with Radiosity method to give them a realistic look and soft environment shadows
- Lava look of the \"Incredibles\" movie (finally a realistic lava in Descent)
- Dynamic Volume shadows
- No bumpmapping to keep the specs low


The BIG Question: Would there be 500 people willing to buy new Descent for $29.95 (online download of the game) ? This is our break-even point.

First thing is: you can't make another Descent. This has been tried, and it has failed - twice. Once was even an official attempt. The rights to Descent are not available - and certainly not to a developer with a budget of $15,000 in total.

Personally, I doubt you can sell 500 copies of a single-player-only 6DOF game, based on Descent.

You are up against stiff competition now too: Into Cerberon is well-advanced, and Core Decision is also due for release this year, by a fully funded professional dev' company (HighOctaneSoftware).

You've set your system requirements far too low. A 1GHz machine is nothing but a slug, And 500 MHz? Well, that is good for a file server only. Or a boat anchor. Players today are generally not interested in any game which doesn't at least push their machine reasonably hard.

Not meaning to pour cold water on your idea, but I suspect you are trying to bite off more than you can chew.

Deep World - Free Descent 2 clone (almost finished)

Into Cerberon - Free Descent mod for Doom 3 (under development)

Core Decision - Standalone Descent like application using cutting edge gfx tech (under development)

Omega Wing - Descent style mod for Half-Life 2 (under development)

I doubt you will be able to make any money with another Descent 2 clone, esp. when facing a commercial competition like High Octane with their Core Decision.

Btw, what Mobius said about the targetted hardware requirements is perfectly right. 1GHz? GF2? That's already pre-historic stuff.

VladR wrote:("Descent" is TradeMarked and its owner defunct (AFAIK)).

Not entirely true. An Interplay CO dropped by the IC forums the other day and assured us that Interplay was still quite alive.

...nuts....

Hmmm... I'm currently developing a Descent clone, too.

Don't listen to the pessimistics on this board. If it's a good enough product, it will sell. If you give the decent community exactly what they are looking for along with the eye candy, then they wil buy it.

But it all depends on the skill of your development team and your ability to capture the true essence of Descent. Anybody can make a clone, but a \"true\" descent is something entirely different when it comes to gameplay, physics, etc...

If you think you can do it, go for it. If you wonder and worry about what other people think, you won't even start. Never know, you could be the next ID, Valve, or Bungie.

I wouldn't buy it. Descent is what it is; a classic game played by few.

Admiral Thrawn wrote:Never know, you could be the next ID, Valve, or Bungie.

not without an original idea he won't.

i don't think it's a very good idea to purely remake Descent if you are trying to turn a profit. Coz Descent has already been done. Even in the sequals they added new areas of interest and innovation with every release. But to remake Descent to be almost exactly the same (actually, worse! no multiplayer ) as the old Descent without adding some kindof highly interesting innovations... why would anyone choose to buy THAT over the Dx1 and Dx2 projects, or any of the free Descent mods that Diedel mentioned?

Diedel wrote:Deep World - Free Descent 2 clone (almost finished)

Into Cerberon - Free Descent mod for Doom 3 (under development)

Core Decision - Standalone Descent like application using cutting edge gfx tech (under development)

Omega Wing - Descent style mod for Half-Life 2 (under development)

I doubt you will be able to make any money with another Descent 2 clone, esp. when facing a commercial competition like High Octane with their Core Decision...

basically VladR, to me your project doesn't sound exciting or innovative enough to be able to pull the kindof profit you are looking for .
If you wern't doing this for profit, then i'd react differently. But since it's about money - i'm giving you business and marketing advice: i don't think your idea (in it's current innovationless form) is a sound business venture.

mmm Sorry but prolly not gonna work... keep plugging away though...

A gallant effort but ... what Mobius said is so true.

Duper wrote:

VladR wrote:("Descent" is TradeMarked and its owner defunct (AFAIK)).

Not entirely true. An Interplay CO dropped by the IC forums the other day and assured us that Interplay was still quite alive.

...nuts....

IPLY couldn't sell off the Descent IP as part of their Chapter 11 firesale (THQ wasn't interested), so they retain the trademark rights for "Descent". Also, the contract between IPLY and Parallax Software still stands, even though only Matt Toschlog and Mike Kulas, who both now work for THQ, are the company's only employees.

Actually Matt Toschlog retired from THQ a long time ago.

Zach

DCrazy wrote:IPLY couldn't sell off the Descent IP as part of their Chapter 11 firesale (THQ wasn't interested), so they retain the trademark rights for "Descent".

Actually, they abandoned the Trademark registry with the USPTO and retained the copyrights.

what does that imply legally?

but VladR, if you have any cool new ideas to add into it - keep us posted. We don't want to discourage you from making something cool and fun

Well, then my info is out of date. My description of the situation was current when I was working on D4 for Orbital.

Well, it seems I have misunderstood the needs of Descent community. While browsing another forums I noticed that many people would like to have another game like Descent, so my understdanding was that there is some market.
However, if you want a Doom3-quality game, it needs much bigger budget and therefore it`s left for those publishers that have been fooled by some enthusiastic team that such a game can turn a profit. Or maybe they`re working for free and publisher has only some other minimum costs with this project (so he can easily recover with minimum sales), I really don`t know.

The gfx quality I was aiming for is something around Unreal2 interiors - i.e. Radiosity-based lighting and similar spaceship interiors.

Still, if that wouldn`t be enough for Descent fans, then I`ll rather not spend half a year working on something unsellable.

On the other hand (based on my latest information),there seems to be quite a market for an Aquanox-like game (also 6DOF). I`ll have to pump up the visuals a bit more than they have since it`ll have to be of current commercial quality (boxed version), but it`s not going to be a huge cost in underwater environment anyway. Besides I already have basic underwater environment implemented because of one of our screensavers.

Still, thanks for the feedback.

VladR,

it looks like you have rather misunderstood the current offerings in the realm of Descent.

There is D2X(-XL) offering a very playable Descent 2 with the same look and feel of the original game (you can even make it look as pixelated) for the die-hard old-style D2 fans.

Then there is Deep World, looking like a beefed up D2 with all the modern gfx features including dynamic shadows and what-not, using a segment based engine like D2.

And if you want top-notch gfx, there are IC and CD.

Which forums you have visited made you believe there is such a high demand for a new Descent game? I know most English and German forums where something about Descent has been said in the recent past (and be it in a small enthusiast thread not related to the general orientation of the forum), and there isn't such an overwhelming desire for another Descent game. It's mostly those people who already know Descent that would have a new such game.

There is simply no room for a commercial D2 clone somewhere in the middle of that. If you'd offer it for free, people would welcome it, but not for 30 bucks (make it 20, and personally, I would buy your game, but I don't know how many people besides me would do that. A hint: You could ask Novacron whether he'd allow you to use his hires Descent textures, once they're all done (/me makes a mental note to bug him about it ) and offer him some money for it. That might speed up game development if you wanted to do it anyway.)

Given the number of downloads of the D2X versions for Mac OS X (over 40,000 in the last 9 months), and the lack of D3 support for OS X, there might be a market on OS X - but don't take my word on it.

Diedel

The problem is money in the end... a new game is fine and all, but if people are going to pay for it they're going to expect something in return - not just a single-player-only game with outdated graphics because, you know, it's kind of like Descent - if we want that we can go play Descent 2, because it already has all of that (and the graphics are slowly but surely improving, too).

If it's original, and pushes the boundaries of where the Descent series has gone, and especially if it provides interesting material for those otuside of the community (it doesn't HAVE to have red-hot graphics to be interesting, note), then people are going to be interested. If not, you're going to struggle.

yeah when it comes to Indy games, people thesedays will happily pay for innovative gameplay. The top graphics games seem mostly to be done by the big publishers, so concentrating on graphics probably isn't a good idea for an Indy game producer, your current suggested level of graphics sounds fine to me - but you have to have something to add interest. It needs some kindof innovative GAMEPLAY, that's what made Descent so great - it was a far out way to navigate (6 degrees of freedom WTF!).

I dunno exactly what you were planning for your game, i guess it'd take a while to draw us out a mental image. But to me it just sounded like Descent with updated graphics, if that's all it is then it doesn't really sound worth buying to me. But if it's more than that, if it has some good aspect that'l get people interested, then please tell us!

my opinion anyway, everyone's got one i bet

I agree with roid; if you're going to 'clone' descent, do something a little different with it so you stand out from the competition. There are a lot of ideas floating around out there, on this board and on others. Pick an approach that makes your game different in terms of gameplay.

Personally I'm all about the multiplayer; if a descent clone doesn't do network play that cuts my interest in half right there. 95% of my time playing the descent games has been in network mode.

So, I'll throw out a few ideas that I don't think people are using, some of these may be impractical or unworkable, but then again maybe not:

- hyperrealistic physics. Its the difference between real life tennis and pong. Puts off newbies; but the hardcore players will like it.

- a sort of mechwarrior style customization scheme, where you can earn points to upgrade your machinery.

- some kind of scheme where you can build your own weaponry from various components. I think nTrap was working towards something like this.

- dynamic environments.

- a persistent online world.

- make the keys embedded in bots instead of static, so you have to find a particular bot and kill it to clear the level. Maybe a 'brain-bot' like in starship troopers.

- put emphasis on co-op mode instead of single player or anarchy.

Duper wrote:what does that imply legally?

Well, basically that the name "Descent" can now be used in title to be associated with a Video game. In other words, you could create a game called "Descent 4" without fear of Interplay. You would, however, be best served to go ahead and capture that trademark with the USPTO just to be sure.

However, the copyrighted portion will deal in more detail with things such as art, storyline, code, names such as "Pyro GL", etc....but only matching up exactly with what was filed with their copyright.

Change the art of the ship to have wings that swoop backwards and call it a "Python". Change the story, and use different code....that sort of thing.

BTW, this is not legal advice and is not intended as such. This is solely an expoloration in hypotheticals.

DCrazy wrote:Well, then my info is out of date. My description of the situation was current when I was working on D4 for Orbital.

Not entirely out of date, as you probably would have wanted to keep things such as the original "Ships", physics of objects (which I assume would be in the code), etc..

In doing that you would also need the copyrighted materials. However, I believe that could be gotten around with a royalty if they would be so inclined.

But yes, at the time I believe Interplay still held the Trademark to "Descent". I have already began looking into acquiring those rights personally.

I'd like to see a Descent 4 but the rights still belong to Interplay for a while it seems.

Good Luck on the project whatever direction you head with it!