Reviving Transfusion...somehow..

General discussion relating to the Transfusion project.

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Innomen
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I can speak to that...

Post by Innomen »

I'm no coder but human motivation is my area so I'll talk a bit about that.

The reason multiplayer only is scorned in this context is simple.

People do not play well with others. Also, in economic terms any multiplayer affair is a "network good." That is, the more the merrier and by definition new games have fewer players.

You have to look at the psychology of competition. If you think that's irrelevant ask yourself why games like mafia wars make so much money and yes I realize money isn't the point of this but marketing is effectively what you guys are talking about aside from the technical issues.)

Playing a multiplayer beta that you are not developing for is low on psychological rewards.

I join a game, I play with people, I win... big deal part of me says there are like 50 players total, my victory is hollow. Or you lose and well, few people actively enjoy losing.

I'm anti competition personally so I'm PVE coop, as opposed to PVP.

In this case there is no PVE, there aren't even easy access to bots to practice on. (think crimsonland 3D heh)

Some people dislike working out in public for the same reason. People prefer to do their baby step stumbling in private.

People need a feeling of accomplishment. And there's just nothing to accomplish here for the end user except some vague notion of the enjoyment you get during the game. A modern version of "it's not if you win or lose."

The problem with that is if you're going to sell the experience as valid on its own merit why bother with blood? Why not simply play some other more developed FPS?

I mean if I just want dark themed FPS madness deathmatch I'll play painkiller. It was developed FOR that.

By focusing on multi-play you're rejecting the thing that makes blood worth looking at again in the first place. Its personality. Its history.

Now if you made some sort of PVE co op type option like unreal tournament invasion mode, only with zombies, and/or you added something to accomplish and show off like the leveling ability of COD, then you'd be on to something, but then again, that really wouldn't be blood anymore would it.

I can't speak for everyone of course but I'm here for nostalgia. I'm here to one day see blood how I remember it. I don't remember it as blocky and pixilated, as it looks to my modern eyes.

I want to find all the movie references again and listen to the cultists shouting in Sanskrit, and then set them on fire lol.

The remakes of quake and doom for example look like I remember doom looked. I want the same from blood.

Whatever form it takes, if you want people to be interested, there has to be something they can do right away by themselves, to motivate them to do "the work" and setup multiplay.

And the more players the more glory to be had for developers and that's a valid economy perspective when we're talking about volunteer effort. Sure some of you may do it for fun, or intellectual puzzle value, but you're also doing it to share your art or to be thanked. Very few people paint and then burn their work. They want it to be seen.

All disclaimers apply. I know its volunteer, I'm not complaining, no I can't do any better myself, I know no one is forcing me to be here, I appreciate how hard this is, etc etc etc.

But speaking for end users, we're a selfish fickle lot, we really don't care about any of that, we just want to poke a rat with a pitchfork and chuckle. :evillaugh:

Sorry for the soap boxing, its in my nature. (I'm used to representing large groups. I was body president in college hehe) :wink:
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DustyStyx
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Post by DustyStyx »

Very well said, Innomen.
Innomen wrote:Now if you made some sort of PVE co op type option like unreal tournament invasion mode, only with zombies, and/or you added something to accomplish and show off like the leveling ability of COD, then you'd be on to something, but then again, that really wouldn't be blood anymore would it.
I don't see a problem with doing something like this. Promoting the ability to explore ideas like this is largely why I started the repurposing thread. Use Transfusion as the trunk, develop your branch, and maybe feed back to the trunk with anything new redevelopments that are fundamentally "Bloody".

Corbin, the models are broken up between PSK/PKA and MD3 because we were in the middle of converting them to PSKs.
However, there are instances where it makes sense that we still have a mixed model setup, in the case of the fat zombie, because the PSK represents the enemy (needs skeletal animations) and the MD3 represents his projectile vomit (a separate, fairly static model entirely)
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Willis

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Post by Willis »

Corbin:

As DustyStyx stated, the multiple model types are not a bad thing. In fact, they are a very good thing. We used PSK/PSA for advanced animations with better bone support, which is great for animation, not as great for networking code or physical file size. For mostly static, or models with very few frames, md3 is still most certainly preferred, as there is no quality limit beyond design, which both formats can be equally as bad or good at.

However, we now have another advanced alternative to PSK/PSA called IQM/IQE which has better support for open formatting, and exporting from Blender, a free program which we may look to in the future, as exporters to PSK/PSA are more limited. But the md3 models would still remain as is.


Innomen:

It's excellent that you speak of what you want. But I think it's clear we all "want it all." However, I speak from a "chicken or egg" perspective in that there is so much needed to get to where the project needs to go, but multiplayer and singleplayer share a lot of base code, however, singleplayer requires much more built on top. Trying to build from the top down is irresponsible, and in many cases, just entirely not possible.

When I started attempting singleplayer work, I was faced with two major problems: lack or map support (switching from q1bsp to q3bsp is a lot of work, and a lot of the mapping efforts thus far have been incomplete), and incorrect basic gameplay.

How can you kill a zombie with a pitchfork as you did in Blood when the pitchfork in TFn fires at the wrong speed and does the wrong amount of damage? How can make it through passages when the player is the wrong size? How can you jump to platforms when the player's physics don't let you jump at the correct angle?

Those are all core gameplay issues, and like it or not, multiplayer is the easiest way to refine those. In fact, multiplayer isn't even the motivator, it's, as I stated, core gameplay, which from the front side, is only instantly visible on the multiplayer side to the public. The fact that singleplayer builds on top of core requirements should make it a bit more obvious that there is only one place to start -- core requirements.
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Just sayin...

Post by Innomen »

I understand that, but the facts remain. From a marketing stand point (I can't usefully comment on the technical side) announcing that you're focusing on multiplayer makes most people go away.

Multiplay is open ended. People can envision you tinkering with it forever. In the minds of the end user there is no criteria of completion for multiplay so they just go away and think I'll check back someday. but if there was something stand alone and maybe you write in an update checker, you are in effect motivating them to check far more often, follow your progress far more closely and they have something to show friends.

You can say I'm being greedy, that I "want it all" but I'm not, I'm being realistic. Without Some kind of stand alone element (new) people are just not going to spend the time. :shrug:

If you want to (or have to) develop the engine that's fine, but really, is making "new game" some kind of bot arena or zombie spawn box seriously as difficult as creating the whole single player game? Because that's kind of what it sounds like you're implying.

I'm not saying flawless remake tomorrow, or scrap the whole project, I'm just saying ANYTHING single player really needs to be the priority, even with a broken engine, people will play it if there's something, anything to play.

Not trying to debate, just responding. I don't need everyone to agree with me. I just want to be heard and I think I have been :)
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Willis

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Re: Just sayin...

Post by Willis »

Innomen wrote:I'm not saying flawless remake tomorrow, or scrap the whole project, I'm just saying ANYTHING single player really needs to be the priority, even with a broken engine, people will play it if there's something, anything to play.
I thought that too, until I started singleplayer development and found just how far off the core gameplay element was. Note, I'm one of the few developers who HAS made a singleplayer effort, but in retrospect, I know why no others made that leap, it's jumping too far.

As I said, I don't consider the necessary work to be done as focused on multiplayer, but rather core gameplay, which effects both multiplayer and singleplayer, but in the front stretch, multiplayer is the only tangible part.
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Ahhhh...

Post by Innomen »

So basically it's a false dichotomy.

It's actually 3 parts. Core, then branch to multiple and single.

That's hopeful I guess. Really whatever it takes to see it actually happen, I'm for.

All your revelation does though is scoot back my opinion. The second a "core" is developed, all my arguments will apply hehe.

I wait... :P
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Liberation
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Post by Liberation »

Corbin wrote:Those monster models, why were they broken up with Unreal format and then Quake 3 format? I would be willing to combine everything into one (I heard PSK/PSA is what you guys prefer) to make it easier if it's too complicated to switch between them. Just a thought.

Single-player does sound cool, doesn't it?

I also looked through a lot of the monster code in your SVN, it all looks like its ready to go. Why don't we try spawning the entities in a map to test it all out or something?

If you had looked at a few more posts you would of found that it had been done.

My personnel view was that there was going to be a few SP maps done for TF to get people motivated then move on the MP side of things.

Ive got the cultist using W_ weapons, i need to look at the ai, its on the todo list. Also found the butcher didnt have any frames in its .psa file, i checked with milkshape.

BTW I Live...AGAIN you said about rotating brushes, there is a way with .qc to make a func_rotate. :D
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zZaRDoZz
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Post by zZaRDoZz »

Bot game with networking (DON'T CALL IT MULTIPLAYER) FTW. :lol:

In all seriousness though willis, don't we lose most of the advantages of MP the second we confront the network code? How can I test physics with a latency of 1000 and a fps of 4? I know its not that bad for most but you get the idea. Developing interest was a goal in dusty's re-purposing thread. Maybe all this will change once nexiuz netcode is ported over. For now there isn't a practical way to test in mp. Also tfn need to let new people get up to speed.
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I Live...AGAIN
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Post by I Live...AGAIN »

Liberation wrote:BTW I Live...AGAIN you said about rotating brushes, there is a way with .qc to make a func_rotate. :D
This makes me happy. :D
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Liberation
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Post by Liberation »

Image


Ok, I was working on enemys but ive hit a bit of a wall with the AI, so i decided to have a go at remaking the HUD using qsqc.

The screenshot shows the new hud, which needs the armor and inventory coding in and the enemy weapon models which i need to find a way of tweaking the postion, but still some small progress has been made.
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Willis

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Re: Ahhhh...

Post by Willis »

Innomen wrote:All your revelation does though is scoot back my opinion. The second a "core" is developed, all my arguments will apply hehe.
And once the core is complete, that will leave multiplayer more than 75% complete, while leaving singleplayer closer to 25% complete. I'm saying once core is done, there won't even be much more to do in multiplayer, because it is such core gameplay in itself.
Liberation wrote:Ok, I was working on enemys but ive hit a bit of a wall with the AI, so i decided to have a go at remaking the HUD using qsqc.

The screenshot shows the new hud, which needs the armor and inventory coding in and the enemy weapon models which i need to find a way of tweaking the postion, but still some small progress has been made.
That's good news. If you don't mind, I'd like to catch up with you on IRC sometime to get to know your development platform, and see if we can get you commiting to official repositories. I'll try to remain accessible while at work over the next few days in the same channel you previously met with others in, just highlight my nickname. If you want to set up a time, that would be cool. I'm in CDT (US) timezone. I'm open most times, but tonight 7-10pm CDT is not good for me.
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zZaRDoZz
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Post by zZaRDoZz »

@ liberation

Nice work. Tommy looks like it might benefit from a size increase.
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Liberation
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Post by Liberation »

Hi Willis it would be good to have a chat, i'll try and be on irc this time onwards (for about 5 hours or so) for the next few days. PM me if you have a prefered time.

Cheers zZaRDoZz, and yer the scalings out, lucky thing is its the same way edge scales things :D just got to get the postions right, maybe i have a look at the player code.... ramble :D
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