Some more Trashy details

[Kreegle]

<strong>[ -> N/A]</strong>

Damn, when a game is named "Trash", it's hard to avoid using crappy headlines... but oh well. <b>Conan Currie</b>, top dog over at <a href="http://inhumangames.com/">Inhuman Games</a>, has revealed a little more info on <b>Trash</b>, the post-apocalyptic realtime-strategy game he's working on at the moment.


First up, there's this post on <a href="http://boards.gamers.com/messages/messa ... e&id=zzzuf" target="_blank">Mass Production and Resource Gathering</a>:<blockquote><em>We are trying to balance trash so that mass production is an option but is not the necessarily the best path to victory. We didn’t want to put in place artificial limits like the “up keep� in War Craft 3. We wanted to limit mass production with subtleties of the game design.


This is how we do it:


Unloading trash takes as long as it does to harvest it. This makes unloading docks more important. Unload docks are somewhat expensive. The unloading docks for the Mutants and Machines can be built anywhere, but they only handle one unloader at a time. This encourages you to build multiple unloading docks if you wish to increase the throughput of your trash gathering. If you build multiple unloading docks in one area, it will require a substantial investment. Once all the nearby trash is harvested, these unloading docks are not very useful.


The Human unloading dock (the salvage yard) can only be built on top of junk yards. Junk yards are randomly scattered about the map. Humans must be selective as to where they build their unloading docks. If they choose to occupy a junk yard with their unloading dock, then the junk yard will not be available as a site for other structures, like certain upgrade structures. Only the Humans’ unloading dock can service multiple unloaders at once.


You can share you unloading docks with your teammates, no matter what species they choose.</em></blockquote>There's also <a href="http://boards.gamers.com/messages/messa ... zzug">this post</a> where Mr. Currie replies to a guy who whinges about games being too drawn when it's inevitable you're going to lose. Invigorating stuff!

[Section8]

That's actually a really fucking cool idea, having production waste that must be disposed of. It could be used in heaps of ways, obviously limiting mass production like the info says, but if it also takes up space on the map, it forces players to expand if they are safely dumping behind their own fortifications, and if they are dumping outside them, it's another useful strategy for opposing players to target disposal units.

It could even be expanded upon further by taking the idea of "One man's trash is another man's treasure" and have race specific waste output, and races that can utilise another races waste. The more you mass produce the more resources are available to your enemy. Fun.

[Hatamoto]

At least the developers not lying about the graphical quality of the game when they call it TRASH.... also the units looks used, humvees with little tank turrets? let me guess; "a little slower than the machinegun variant but packs more armour and is good against lightly armoured targets, and completely sucks against infantry, cause thats the light versions job"

a good game or not, its not leaning one bit to how i imagine Fallout. (developers probably not aiming for a fallout look, but what the heck... what about that little good thing called inspiration? ) :idea:

:x

[Dan]

At least the developers not lying about the graphical quality of the game when they call it TRASH.... also the units looks used, humvees with little tank turrets? let me guess; "a little slower than the machinegun variant but packs more armour and is good against lightly armoured targets, and completely sucks against infantry, cause thats the light versions job"

a good game or not, its not leaning one bit to how i imagine Fallout. (developers probably not aiming for a fallout look, but what the heck... what about that little good thing called inspiration? ) :idea:

:x

This is a post apocaliptic game, there is no reason for it to be similer to Fallout (or any other PA game out there) in any way.

[Hatamoto]

tried to avoid a reply like that by adding that bit of text in the end of my post...

[Megatron]

At least the developers not lying about the graphical quality of the game when they call it TRASH.... also the units looks used, humvees with little tank turrets? let me guess; "a little slower than the machinegun variant but packs more armour and is good against lightly armoured targets, and completely sucks against infantry, cause thats the light versions job"

a good game or not, its not leaning one bit to how i imagine Fallout. (developers probably not aiming for a fallout look, but what the heck... what about that little good thing called inspiration? ) :idea:

:x

I think the graphics are ok. A bit more detail on the robots though...

and just because it's a pa game doesnt need it needs to look like fallout. There's inspiration, then there's stealing.

[Dan]

tried to avoid a reply like that by adding that bit of text in the end of my post...

I saw that.
I still think your'e wrong, and if you wanted to avoid the reply you could have not written that part at all.

[Hatamoto]

oops sorry, didnt realize impulse wasnt allowed seeing as though its progress is featured on dac, u could expect some similar qualities to the fallout universe.... ask me, i think this un looks a little like KKND2, but in 3d.... i just cant see how this title will stand up to the upcoming c&c: generals. Of course its possible for a cheap looking game to be fun, just take fragile alliance for example. personally i think real time strategy has been done best when presented in 2d, 3d just makes for blocky ugly details on the units.... take the turret humwee from the screenshots... sure, they couldve done the textures alot better, but that would probably slow down gameplay for some people. If they had included an option for higher detail graphics it would have been in the screenshots..?
Im gonna save my hope for Fallout3, and not some cheap looking title called (looks like, smells like) trash.

[Saint_Proverbius]

3D allows for a physics engine a lot better than 2D does. I was skeptical about how well 3D would work in an RTS, until I played Total Annihilation.

[Rosh]

Oh, yes. C&C. The game that has been re-hacked so many times and is a complete rip-off. Modders could offer more to the game than Westwood's "expansion packs". The game that, to date (RA2), has had it's LOS proven time and again to be crap, the pathfinding is poor (lets not forget the retarded harvester drivers that when presented with two paths, will pick the one closest to the enemy base), and the unit creation method (only one building can have units come out of it at a time) is a load of crap to the point where C&C players usually get their asses handed to them when playing a game that's not "who can crank out a shitload of units from one spot and then swarm the enemy base". I believe Gord had a chuckle when he met one of those when playing StarCraft. The idea of "two production points" or even "two bases" is a foreign concept to the fools at Westwood. Their design really allows only "one giant clusterfuck base", as their AI usually demonstrates.

TA (forget Kingdoms) is damn good in not only having user-created units, but has a good balance of sea, air, and land units for each side. Rather than the laughable "one side has a navy, the other side has subs and an air force" of RA. I don't know what Generals is, but I've long given up in having any hopes of Westwood's garbage have any playability or worth outside of the bargain bin. Dune II was great, C&C was good, too. After that, it just became a tired re-hack that just used the same flaws while adding in token new "features" and "new" units, under the guise of a "new game" with a full price tag. Tesla dogs have been around since RA, same with fire-breathing, etc. if you know how to mod it (basically editing an .ini file).

3d is good for the physics of an RTS game. Not so relevent for an RPG unless you're going to make it an action slasher (which usually turns out to be hell to control). TA did 3d use well. It's to give a good advantage to the terrain, like placing artillery on a higher point for a longer range, or to see further than normal. Or, putting some units at the end of a choke-point out of sight to ground units for a nice ambush. It also allows for aerial units to be able to dodge various heights of attacks or to give a good ballistic trajectory of artillery shots and even accidental hits of units getting in the way at a certain altitude. Explosions are also better taken into account in 3d.

3d is quite useful to the RTS genre, and if it doesn't look pretty enough for you, I'd suggest you go enjoy Final Fantasy or another vapid little eye-candy game.

[Spazmo]

Rosh, I'm sorry to correct you, but "enjoy Final Fantasy" is an oxymoron.

The main problem with 3D in RTS games is the camera. There are countless 3D RTS games where the developers apparently decided it would be super fun if the camera could never be in any useful place. The default camera view is often the camera from PFC Johnson's colonoscopy. I have only ever seen one 3D RTS where it made sense for the camera to move: Homeworld. If it's on the ground, leave the camera alone. I think Warcraft III got it right with a traditional top-down view.

[Red]

And they reproduced the same idiocy in Emperor's of Dune... I build a factory, ok, so I build a second. Not only can the second not build the units at the same time as the first, but production rate wasn't even increased!

I think Empreror's of dune was just a "3D testbed" for the next C&C (Clone and Conquer the market?) since basically the units are already all the same as what you'd expect from the next C&C, only with new models appropriate for the theme... The worst part IMHO is that they lsot the entire "concrete slabs idea" idea (which was already toned down in Dune2000). I can easyly understand why it was annoying to have to put slabs everywhere but it added value to the gameplay - and quite frankly I'd rather have to build concrete slabs to reach far parts of the world then be forced to place bogus buildings as you do now.
Another bad point of the engine is it still doen't interpolate the missing frames in either animation and rotation... I mean you're creating a 3D engine, please take the time not to make the damn animations look all "clunky" specially since you have the means not to (unlike sprites where hte only thing you can do is increase the number of rendered frames)...

TA didn't suffer from any of those limitations...

[Rosh]

(snipped)

Yeah, Dark Reign 2 was a good example of how poor some can be. TA did it tilted top-down, and it was good in that aspect as well.

And they reproduced the same idiocy in Emperor's of Dune... I build a factory, ok, so I build a second. Not only can the second not build the units at the same time as the first, but production rate wasn't even increased!

Oh, how shitty...but par for their Special-Ed golf course.

I think Empreror's of dune was just a "3D testbed" for the next C&C (Clone and Conquer the market?) since basically the units are already all the same as what you'd expect from the next C&C, only with new models appropriate for the theme...

More like "Crap & Clone".

Westwood is far worse than the Inbred Engine. True, the Inbred Engine is fairly crap to begin with, but Westwood is making the same shit all over again with the same things, but with different looking units/whatever, while adding in useless bullshit like ice breaking over rivers. Their LOS and building scheme are the poorest in the market, and the whining of C&C players when they move to games that are more involving with tactical aspects is legendary.

The worst part IMHO is that they lsot the entire "concrete slabs idea" idea (which was already toned down in Dune2000). I can easyly understand why it was annoying to have to put slabs everywhere but it added value to the gameplay - and quite frankly I'd rather have to build concrete slabs to reach far parts of the world then be forced to place bogus buildings as you do now.

Yes, the clusterfuck building scheme that lends nothing to tactics or multiple fronts. You should see a C&C player whine when they get attacked in a Hammer and Anvil. "Clever" for a C&C player is splitting their huge-ass swarm of units into two and attacking from around the hill with each at the same time.

Another bad point of the engine is it still doen't interpolate the missing frames in either animation and rotation... I mean you're creating a 3D engine, please take the time not to make the damn animations look all "clunky" specially since you have the means not to (unlike sprites where hte only thing you can do is increase the number of rendered frames)...

You have to understand that Westwood's C&C/RA division(s) is/are still developing for 10 years ago and it shows in most everything they do.

Be kind.

TA didn't suffer from any of those limitations...

It sure didn't, and had a LOT of player-made mods/additions that made the game great to play. Westwood doesn't really help along their player-modding, since they can't afford to. They pump out tesla tanks to the hungry masses of morons that purchase their games - as something new and exciting. Tesla hounds and suicide soldiers (or even ships that shoot nuclear explosions) have been around since RA, so their updates of "new units" are nothing more than a joke rip-off scheme to force people to shell out the wad of cash to "upgrade".

I guess the thing that gets the Westwood Cattle is the live-action movies. Funny, Ed Wood had better dialog and acting in his movies.

[Red]

C&C titles still sell regardless of the quality just because of the momentum it created...
Hence the "Clone and conquer"... They still conquer the market, sadly.

As for an engine, Emperor's of dune is a somewhat decent engine... I mean it's entirely3D... In my book IE's been worst ever since they introduced voxels into the picture in the game - even though some units shouldn't have been converted to voxels. One of the funnyest things about when they introduced the whole voxel concept in the game series, people complained that "the walking units looked really ass". Little did they know that they kept the aformentioned units as sprites!

Damn it, I have that game Oh yeah... C&C Timberium Sun (or something)... I can't find the CD though (no big loss though - and while I looked for it I found a MOO disk. I dind't even know I had MOO! wtf?)

Another reason I think Emporor's of dune is a "Testbed" is because they realeased a (crappy) map editor for it. Now if it was a good game maybe people would actually invest time in it, but it's not so um... I don't exactly find that as a valid "test" to see if life of the game will actually become longer if they release the editors... I'm sure they tested this on the Dune license so that they don't make a mistake whilst releasing then next c&c - the license which actually makes money.

As for the movies...
Ugh... All acting sucked in all Westwood released games. Apart from "voice only acting". Of notes comes to mind the first installment of Lands of Lore in which the CD version featured Patrick Stewart... Though he didnt' exactly do a lot of talking

[Dan]

As for the movies...
Ugh... All acting sucked in all Westwood released games. Apart from "voice only acting". Of notes comes to mind the first installment of Lands of Lore in which the CD version featured Patrick Stewart... Though he didnt' exactly do a lot of talking

Red Alert or C&C (I'm not so sure which one) was featuring James Earl Jones, wasn't it? It was funny seeing him there.

On the subject of 3D engines, I liked BZ's engine.
It's a little different as it places you on the battlefield, but it's quite fun to direct an attack when you are sitting inside your tank or scouter.

I think it would be great to use that engine with air units, so you can fly and command the attack.

[Rosh]

Too true, Dan. BZ had that nice way that made you feel like a real commander on the field. It's one of the points of the game that I really appreciated.

[Spazmo]

C&C: Tiberian Sun featured James Earl Jones. C&C: Red Alert 2 features a surprising amount of actresses whose past experience was in "erotic films".

[Red]

The problem in WW games isn't the acting per say... it's the immersion of the actors... Well, in dune it was anyway - though I know for C&C they used a lot of actual stages rather then the lame 3D render which just kills the game...

But still, a lot of they actors in there weren't very good (in TS anyway, I never played RA2 but the preview of it seemed ass).