Breaking the mold

[goodkebab]

guys....dont forget that Counter Strike was a mod of the Half Life engine.

That is a household word even if you dont play the game.  The success/failure of our project wont be because it requires UT2007.  Dont forget that CT is based on the same engine as UT2003 (or similar).

Our game will do well if we can meet the following requirements:

1.  loyal gameplay and graphics of CT
2. excellent use of the game engine
3.  excellent distribution and marketing
4. support from the existing community

This game is not going to play like UT so dont worry about that.  The fact that you would have to buy a game you would not normally play....just to play our game is an understandable problem.  But then, people want something for nothing are parasites.  I suspect a crack for UT2007 wont hurt us, and anyone that really does not want to buy the game would do so anyways.

[HeyBlinkin.]

Btw, Mic once said that the game will be optimized to play on a range of graphics cards.  Will this be possible with the UT2007 engine?  Every time I see a video of UT2007, it feels like next gen omg, but is it possible to incorporate older graphics cards with it?

[Overstatement]

guys....dont forget that Counter Strike was a mod of the Half Life engine.

That is a household word even if you dont play the game.  The success/failure of our project wont be because it requires UT2007.  Dont forget that CT is based on the same engine as UT2003 (or similar).

Our game will do well if we can meet the following requirements:

1.  loyal gameplay and graphics of CT
2. excellent use of the game engine
3.  excellent distribution and marketing
4. support from the existing community

This game is not going to play like UT so dont worry about that.  The fact that you would have to buy a game you would not normally play....just to play our game is an understandable problem.  But then, people want something for nothing are parasites.  I suspect a crack for UT2007 wont hurt us, and anyone that really does not want to buy the game would do so anyways.

CounterStrike (and Day of Defeat) is different. CS was a shooter for the shooter community (HL is a shooter) and it was also released as a standalone package to reach a wider audience and make money. But if CT is unplayable to a large amount (relative to other games) of anyone due to it's uniqueness and steep learning curve, how will people who play UT respond? The "people that want something for nothing are parasites" is a terrible attutite for any nonprofit team especially one that makes a multiplayer exclusive game.

CT is "based on" and PS is a "mod of" are two different things. That's why we have phrases like HL1 is a "heavily modified verison of" the Quake 2 engine. And mods usually exhibit some sign of it's engine (just an observation).

Don't people read my posts? You definitely need a valid CD-key and maybe a valid .exe file to play online. You don't get those with pirated software.

Btw, Mic once said that the game will be optimized to play on a range of graphics cards.  Will this be possible with the UT2007 engine?  Every time I see a video of UT2007, it feels like next gen omg, but is it possible to incorporate older graphics cards with it?

No one knows! That's the beauty of unreleased software. But with the recent releases of games that force higher shaders with no visible reason (other than Oblivion, never seen a game support parallax out of the box), I think we can guess that we are screwed.

[goodkebab]

Anyone that plays a mod will have to own an original game regardless.  We are no different in that regards.  If we can get this released independantly, all the better.  If we decide to not use UR 3.0....and use open source engines....we are no longer making a mod.  If that happens, we are actually making our own game from the ground up.

The whole problem that UBI had with the Versus series is that it was not attracting enough players, so they dumbed it down with a noob friendly gameplay in DA.  That is what inspired Project Stealth. The versus game suffers from lack of players....but we dont intend on changing the gameplay.  We can provide tutorials and information....but the core of CT is going to stay the same.

About the crack issue....we might as well drop it because nobody is encouraging the use of it.  It goes without saying that Pandora Tomarrow Multiplayer was cracked...disadvantage was you couldnt install patches.

[MacBryce]

I still see Unreal Tournament 2003 on shelves in stores and its price is ridiculously low, but I don't think that a lot of people would pick it up to play a mod. I'd assume that we have to host our own server for the game so we could always remove the UT2k7 CD-key validation from it, but it's not the most elegant of solutions.

[Jordan]

Would there be any way to distribute only the needed .DLL to the users, along with the ProjectStealth source?

[Overstatement]

Would there be any way to distribute only the needed .DLL to the users, along with the ProjectStealth source?

If you mean "can we use UR3.0 and make people download only the parts to make the game work?", the answer is probably but it's highly highly illegal. Free software and engines however....

[Spekkio]

Hey,

I didn't realize this forum became so lively. I saw some good ideas in this thread, but I'm with Goodkebab in thinking that the first iteration of the game should be a CT clone with minor upgrades/fixes. The reason for this is that it's many of you guys's first project. Sort of like an upgraded "classic SvM." Better to use a pre-conceived layout before going crazy with the new stuff. Then you can mod that to incorporate the new ideas as you see fit.

Someone already mentioned what could be a nice balance touch to current SvM: a battery life on camnet.

As for some of the ideas on "breaking the mold":

I think remote hacking could definitely be incorporated into the next version of SvM. The thing is, how do you want the game to play? Do you want there to be more conflict or less?

Tin's idea of the security system where you can only activate a certain % of the whole thing is somewhat interesting, but it seems a bit too complicated to be user-friendly.

Commander mode would be dumb. I want to play the game, not sit there and tell people what to do. I'm one of the people who thought playing commander in BF2 was a yawnfest, and requiring a commander on a team is just dumb. If you want the game to gain popularity, you have to give people the sense that they're hunting the spies, not that they're just sitting around barking orders.

The new passive defenses mentioned here (pressurized floors, moving lasers, heat-sensitive rooms) are awesome. I think those definitely can be implemented. For the pressurized floor rooms, you'd probably have to put a pipe in the room which you can slowly creep through on, but if you want to pass quickly or be able to defend yourself you have to shoot out or hack something.

Goodkebab is right though: don't try to do too much at once. Most of the custom maps fall into that trap and they end up sucking.

[Overstatement]

Hey,

I didn't realize this forum became so lively.

We're as lively as they come. Rank #12 on google for "Project Stealth"! Right after some sort of photo journal.

[frvge]

That's of a rollercoaster.

[Vega]

Sorry for the massive necro but.....what the hell happened to my FIRST post?  Everything I said was gone, replaced with NATURAL SECURITY, yet it shows no evidence of an administrator changing it.  Is someone messing with our forum?

[frvge]

Not that I know.

[greenday5494]

hmmm....just had an idea today...

Where the head of the security network are NPCs behind locked doors of an office.  They are basically the eyes watching the cameras, can control securtiy gates etc. ...and the spy team has to disable these NPCs as an objective(break their neck).  This will then disable cameras, lasers...etc.  Mercs of course have the best interest in making sure these NPCs survive.

personally.....i am not buying the commander mode at all even if it was functional.  This is 2vs2 atm and possibly more...but a commander would fit when you have 10vs10 or something.

And on a side note with the chechnya map....Soviets were advancing  to destroy the place...the Mercs were just hired guns for another shady govt.  The merc objective could be anything from transportating a nucleur bomb....to guarding kilotons of Herion.
Would be a wicked objective that the spies would have to hack a comm center and frame the mercs with a barrage of soviet artillery.   That is something i could see hapening in espionage.

cool idea, but i woud really like that to be an OPTION, so your not forced to do that. options=awsomeness

[Gawain]

escape moves totally suck. tell me one good reason to add them or stfu. commander mode?? this is not bf with like 12on12 players, artillery and satelite scan etc XD
i don't know if battery on camnet is a good idea, it allows spies to sit out the problem. a worse picture quality and no vision modes should be enough balancing (+better/more spytraps)...
i don't like the keycard idea, it's provoking aggro.

i like security systems that close doors when tripped (like in pt museum). i also like the possibility to bypass security systems without disabling them by good timing (factory corridors), stealth gadgets or teamwork.
interactive elements on maps rule if implemented the right way (digger room on factory, hacking panels on river mall etc), and maybe new security systems could be fun (but plz don't spam them all into one map).

[InvisibleMan999]

escape moves totally suck. tell me one good reason to add them.

The only escape move I liked was diving through a window. That one totally made sense and was cool. Instead of the usual "hop over" the spy does when you go towards a window.

The other ones, especially the ceiling leap, was really stupid.