News The Future of Red Alert: A Path Beyond

[Venom]

If dogs were made into AI bots, would it be possible to put them in a fan map without any major updates needed for APB?

[Dadud]

 

can we add some US based servers in the future? i feel like im back on dial up and its kind of soiling the experience.

 

To be fair, when the server was US-based back in the day, 100-200ms is a perfectly playable ping. The fact that the game has dumb netcode ironically makes it more accessible for players with higher latencies. even 300ms+ is still playable, albeit fairly warpy. Game engines like Source cack themselves with pings like those.

 

i have to aim ahead 5 feet to hit anyone. i thought these days were behind me when i finally got off dial up a few years ago.

Edited January 19, 2016 by Dadud

[Raap]

In my opinion, opening up another server will split the player population, something that wouldn't help anyone.

 

The only realistic approach is making the game as ping independent as possible, through limiting the amount of actions in the game that depend on ping (actions requiring perfect timing, and such). As well as potentially raising the TTK in order to 'buy time' for slower connections, although I think the TTK in APB is pretty solid where it is right now, a few oddities aside.

 

I suppose if the network code ever got improved, and we'd have less rubber banding, the overal experience should improve regardless of ping, as well. But I suppose that after 13+ years I should really give up on that dream?

Edited January 19, 2016 by Raap

[Dadud]

what about abandoning W3d altogether and using the framework that renegade x has built? apart from the nostalgia, what benefit do you get with sticking with a 14 year old game engine?

Edited January 21, 2016 by Dadud

[Chad1233]

Well the Renegade engine is practically an open book now thanks to the TT staff, it's possible to do anything to the W3D engine as long as they have the talent we could see network code being re-written or have DX11 support if they really wanted to do that.

Though i could be wrong about this.

Edited January 21, 2016 by Chad1233

[Raap]

what about abandoning W3d altogether and using the framework that renegade x has built? apart from the nostalgia, what benefit do you get with sticking with a 14 year old game engine?

 

There is something about W3D that keeps it an appealing engine to work with, and despite it's age, it has mostly everything needed for all existing W3D projects, besides support for more fancy graphics, multiple processor cores, 64bit, and a better network code.

 

Beyond that, switching to another engine is swapping out one set of instructions for another one, while making nearly all existing work obsolete. New engines are best left to new projects, ideally something that cannot be done on W3D (a massively multiplayer game for example), so you'd actually get proper benefit from a different engine.

[Einstein]

what about abandoning W3d altogether and using the framework that renegade x has built? apart from the nostalgia, what benefit do you get with sticking with a 14 year old game engine?

 

I think I can safely say that all of our projects are past the "half-way" mark as far as completeness. And how long did that take? If we started moving to another engine, we would not only be creating an ungodly amount of unnecessary work, but would likely be killing every project that made the move, because of the need to basically "start over". The RenX engine wasn't designed for the type of "C&C mode" gameplay capabilities that are inherently available in the W3D engine. If we moved, we would just have to hack up a different engine that we all know less about. Like raap said, new engines are best suited for new projects. This has been discussed many times just here in the last year, not to mention brought up numerous times at BHP as well when some of the projects were hosted there. The point of this place (the hub part) is for it to be a literal hub for all W3D projects. So we can all work together and not let projects fall to the wayside. Strength in numbers. We have something really special here. Not only do we have the largest collection of W3D projects that has ever existed all operating under one roof, but we also have the largest amount of still-active W3D engine developers here. In other words, at no other place can you find the number of "W3D people" that we have, as well as the potential that comes along with that. We all didn't come here just to switch engines guys.

 

APB is the first to make it to a "released" state, but I do not expect it to be the last. We have something here that is more than just strength in numbers, and that thing is dedication and willingness from all the project leaders to see their projects through to completion. And I can say with 100% certainty that it is the support of the fans and players that keep them going. It drives them, quite literally. That is why at every opportunity I have, I encourage them or otherwise help out in any way that I can. Because them finishing their work on this engine is the shortest path to completion! I would like to encourage anyone that shares these feelings to do the same. Whether it be just being a loyal player of the game, or a tester, a content creator...whatever you can do, if we have a need then we'll use you. And all of us can drop an occasional encouraging word to the devs. I guarantee it will mean a lot.

 

I'll get off my box now. I hope I have properly answered your question.

[OWA]

what about abandoning W3d altogether and using the framework that renegade x has built? apart from the nostalgia, what benefit do you get with sticking with a 14 year old game engine?

I work with this engine because it's fun and I enjoy it. The benefits of this engine are that it's pretty lightweight and easy to mod, providing that you're making a C&C AoW type game.

[Dadud]

Im honestly suprised its lasted this long, the netcode, graphics, and dwindling playerbase are all nails in the coffin. You'll have to bury W3d sooner or later.

[ChopBam]

Im honestly suprised its lasted this long, the netcode, graphics, and dwindling playerbase are all nails in the coffin. You'll have to bury W3d sooner or later.

The graphics are better than they were a decade ago, the netcode is comparable, and the playerbase is comparable, so I wouldn't consider any of these things to be "nails in the coffin." Where oldbies left, newbies stepped in, and as long as there is a community to have fun playing these games, and as long as Windows keeps supporting them (and last I checked, Windows 10 does), they'll be fine. People play new games, sure, but in this community many of them keep playing these games regularly. See: APB Delta.

[Coolrock]

I would say that advertising would go a long way. There are way worse free to play games that people play compared to this. There is nothing wrong with the engine, and a lot has improved over the years it seems (haven't been sent to bluehell yet). APB always had a decent player base when Renegade was still around, along with the forum community that stuck around for so long to keep playing. There is plenty of room for improvements, but that doesn't mean it's dying down anytime soon. I would say the server is an issue currently though. Being at around 160+ ping constantly today would be a huge turn away for most players in this day and age. I was warping around a lot, and had a lot of issues trying to hit tanks. Before we start talking about ISP issues, I'm on a very high Internet speed, and I've yet to have issues playing on European servers, or even Japanese servers.

[Jerad2142]

If dogs were made into AI bots, would it be possible to put them in a fan map without any major updates needed for APB?

Pre 4.x/5.0 no it wouldn't be possible without making a .pkg; however, in 4.x/5.0 it is completely possible to add completely new human class skeletons to a map. It would require about 128 animations though (idle animation set and an weapon pose).

[Raap]

I would say that advertising would go a long way. There are way worse free to play games that people play compared to this. There is nothing wrong with the engine, and a lot has improved over the years it seems (haven't been sent to bluehell yet). APB always had a decent player base when Renegade was still around, along with the forum community that stuck around for so long to keep playing. There is plenty of room for improvements, but that doesn't mean it's dying down anytime soon. I would say the server is an issue currently though. Being at around 160+ ping constantly today would be a huge turn away for most players in this day and age. I was warping around a lot, and had a lot of issues trying to hit tanks. Before we start talking about ISP issues, I'm on a very high Internet speed, and I've yet to have issues playing on European servers, or even Japanese servers.

 

Advertising would likely bring legal issues with EA.

 

In a perfect world, the game could be put on Steam for $5, where the money goes to Steam for hosting/advertising costs, and then provide players an easy way of hosting their own servers. This last part is currently not even possible without significant effort, to my knowledge. (Really trashy games make it onto Steam for prices lower than that, it's not at all far fetched that in this scenario, W3D projects would be boosted by thousands of players.)

 

However, turning APB or any W3D project into a profiting project, would be causing significant complications in many areas, not the least of which would be crediting previous contributors, and all of that is hard to figure out since there is no documentation on this.

 

If memory serves me correctly, APB actually got pulled from a Steam-clone application due to them getting cold feet about potential legal issues with EA. The same will repeat in nearly any advertising scenario of any notable magnitude until EA provides a legal document stating they agree/dont care/whatever. Then even if that were to happen, W3D Hub is not a business entity, so who would officially own it? Etc.

 

In other words, it's not an easy process to advertise these projects.

 

Then I am also of opinion that W3D wouldn't be ready for masses of players. The single thing that would drive them off in large quantity, would be W3D's netcode. The netcode does not allow for highly competitive play, which is something that people demand in the age of CSGO and MOBA's.

Edited February 1, 2016 by Raap

[Coolair]

kappa

[OWA]

kappa

Well, I'll be damned. Hey there Coolair!

[Skunkerdoodle]

It's a very old engine, that much is for sure. But lots of players would be awesome. Advertising nonetheless doesn't have to be by profit, most people seem to have shown up from stuff like CNC-Net, Moddb, Youtube, etc. I myself found out about APB from Moddb while searching for RA2 mods. There's certainly outlets available, and those outlets probably should be taken sooner rather than later. Games like this need more community, and the lack of players is kind of self-perpetuating; thankfully if we get more players again it may stabilize since this whole genre is fairly specific and the price tag is quite reasonable, with no hidden strings or high hardware requirements.

 

As for the netcode, APB was, until Delta, paced differently than for instance RenX. It was more slowed, strategic, maybe just how I'm remembering it, and what set it apart in my mind was the more tactic/strategy influence. That's what always separated Renegade from CS and other fps games. Competitive was more "clever", although Delta's pacing seems far faster.

[Abillioncats]

I come back and W3D has taken over the world ahahahahahhaha.

 

Anyway it's awesome that APB is still alive and kicking, as soon as I finish downloading the update I'm getting on

[testman]

I also would like to see current W3D projects switch to Renegade X as platform for development, and therefore communities could merge into one even bigger, greater community.

[Isaac The Madd]

That would remove the point of them being W3D projects.

[Einstein]

I don't want this to come off as an abrupt "NO!" because thats not how I mean what I'm about to say at all. I'm just going to summarize (nicely) the past 3-4 WARS discussions that have already been had on this exact topic.

 

It isn't feasible at this point to do what you're suggesting. The main reasons being that 1.) the Renegade X engine simply was not constructed for this type of gameplay (nor was any other engine aside from W3D for that matter) and 2.) when the games have come this far on the W3D engine already, switching engines would likely re-create all the hurdles we've overcome thus far. Don't get me wrong - there are benefits to using other engines as opposed to the odd bird that is W3D. But W3D is "home" to our devs. Its what they know and its what they're comfortable with. If the people we have developing our games don't want to all but completely start over just to make some things more visually appealing, and at the cost of years more time....I can't think of why anyone would blame them for sticking with the W3D platform. We do want the games to get finished after all. Moving engines would likely keep that from ever happening, just because of the amount of change and the amount of time that it would take to properly do it all.

 

I do not want to discourage any of you reading this from going out on your own on a different engine and making an awesome C&C game! If you have the power to do it, then by all means do it! But the general feeling here is that we will (at least for now) stick with W3D.

[Raap]

If there were more programming contributors, all things used on W3D could be improved.

 

W3D is quite an "open book" for most people here, but most people do not have the "writing skills" to add to it.

[OWA]

I also would like to see current W3D projects switch to Renegade X as platform for development, and therefore communities could merge into one even bigger, greater community.

To be honest, part of why we work with this engine is because it's enjoyable and a fun challenge. Moving to UDK/RenX would just invalidate all of the knowledge that we have gained over the years, which seems like a massive waste just for the sake of better shaders, tools and netcode. W3D does a lot of things very well, which is pretty cool considering Renegade was such a niche game.

[ganein14]

I'd only support a switch over to Ren X when everything that's been done with W3D can be effortlessly swapped over...that or all of the developers somehow miraculously gain godlike powers with said engine.

[Jeod]

I just wanna know one thing!

 

...will forum mafia still exist?

 

Edit: *wobbles over to the off-topic section for extreme mafia shenanigans*

Edited September 7, 2016 by Jeod

[Einstein]

Hey welcome back! Yeah man, in fact you just missed one!

[Jeod]

Einstein did you go by an old name? I don't recall you specifically. I only found out about the whole BHP split thing because I was looking for the old mafia games I played in. Always loved going back to read those from time to time. Too bad the forum is gone.

 

P.S. Launcher's downloading things now. I'm curious about Delta! Say, given the rise in F2P games on consoles (PS4 and Xbox One), do you see any possible future with that route? It would probaby boost the playerbase a ton.

[VERTi60]

WB Jeod!

 

I was shouting my lungs off to keep the mafia threads in general forum alive after split but unfortunately almost everything except dev logs were purged from the copied forum DB. Since the demise of BHP we lost all the precious mafia threads.

I'm running APB themed mafia games if you're interested though, they are easy to play and easy to host.

[Jeod]

Definitely interested. I hear one's starting in October? I'll keep an eye out.

[Einstein]

Einstein did you go by an old name? I don't recall you specifically. I only found out about the whole BHP split thing because I was looking for the old mafia games I played in. Always loved going back to read those from time to time. Too bad the forum is gone.

 

P.S. Launcher's downloading things now. I'm curious about Delta! Say, given the rise in F2P games on consoles (PS4 and Xbox One), do you see any possible future with that route? It would probaby boost the playerbase a ton.

 

No, always Einstein. Though I did go inactive a couple times, each lasting a couple years so its no surprise if you just missed me entirely. I remember you vaguely.

 

As far as consoles go, we would have to switch engines to accomplish such a thing. We don't really have the team for making that happen, but we are trying to make the existing projects the best they can be for the PC

[VERTi60]

Definitely interested. I hear one's starting in October? I'll keep an eye out.

 

We'll have a normal APB mafia next week, in Oct if I find time and players we might have an RPG too.