Ogre Computer Game

[FJCestero]

I'm coming late to this mainly because AurochDigital strikes me as pretty good at what he/they do and I didn't want to sound presumptive by holding forth. I'm fairly sure AurochDigital has already thought of what follows:

Stacking: Yeah, the color-shift thing was... um. Anywho, it's a place-holder so that's fine. The question is what to replace it with? The zoomed in state was awesome (actually, suggestion?? when zoomed in, have the units in a hex appear in a random or variety of formations. Don't have every hex with three units stacked in it put them in the same 'V' formation or whatever. Looks arcade-y. Bonus points if you can make the zoomed in units location and facing(?!) depend upon its hex-side of entry). You should already have the guts of such code to do this, since you're preserving that information for the OGRE...maybe??

Ok, so zoomed out... this one's tougher. I've thought about it and I can't think of anything better than to just show the same icons/units from the zoomed-in state, but bunched together in the same hex as it shrinks or expands. By all means keep the zooming functionality, but no break in graphic representation (even though it was pretty cool): Let the player decide what's 'good enough' for him or her in terms of details. This might be a double-good thing when you start to worry about how to represent 2 Heavies (one disabled), 1 GEV, 1 MSL (also disabled) and 2 infantry squads (one of which is a HWT in a bunker) all in one hex. What single icon in the zoomed out state could represent all that??

Animation: LOVED it! Though I must add my voice to those concerned about the wide turns outside the hex to come about on a new course. Suggestion? Use what you showed for moving into the three forward hexes of wherever the OGRE is pointing, but for the other three have the OGRE do a "tank turn" in place before proceeding. That way you don't have a new player, who just saw an OGRE drive through his adjacent hex full of tanks, not wonder why none of them got rammed or engaged in over-run combat. Most on this list understand how graphics can differ from the back-end game model, but new players might not. Don't throw away the "wide turns" animations, just figure out how to use it during over-run combats, when you zoom in and where that sort of animation is a kewl bonus.

Moving on, I'll now try to anticipate your problems: namely how to animate those Secondary Batteries, who are, honestly, pointed in the wrong direction. High-angle fire is probably a nightmare to represent visually in a simple manner so that any new beginner can mentally keep track of what's going on. You could have them go horizontal before they direct-fired, but then you might have a player wondering whether those things are guns or antenna... try maybe an audio cue: a "BLAM! Weeeeeeee....BOOM!" thing? I dunno, I'm gonna throw this one to the board for discussion.

For the Main Battery: bonus points for when firing direct it actually *points* at it's target in the other hex (as when, if there's three other units stacked there, the MB points at the ONE it's trying to kill) before it fires.

Ogre Missiles: bonus points for a "cold launch" animation out of the tube before the main stage ignites... oh, and mushroom clouds. Must. Have. Mushroom Cloud.

AP Batteries: bonus points for having some rounds 'spark' harmlessly off (invulnerable) armor units if they're in the same hex when a stack of infantry gets mulched.

Next up: Explosion animations. Please don't do generic game explosion animations (unless you must: neither time, nor budget is infinite). These are Saturation Nuke sub-munitions after all. May I suggest some of the Fuel-Air explosive videos on youtube for inspiration? I mean, if you haven't already...

Lastly (and sorry about the length), may I request track marks? You know, in the ground, at least for the OGRE, permanent for that game, as a record of where it's been? Big, thick, scenery chewing, track marks? With bonus points for where they transect any Missile Tank that's been run over? I'll understand if you simply de-rez the other victims, but we hates the Missile Tanks my precious!

(And extra bonus points for having two AD&D characters showing up next to the tread marks with a sign that reads "Beware the Ogre" and discuss how easy this next quest to is going to be :-)

I'll stop now.

[schoon]

Originally Posted by Dave Crowell

Not a fan of the rainbow coloured stacking.

Entirely agreed on this point. I much prefer the "close up" stacking, where the units exist individually in the same hex, to the rainbow concept.

[AurochDigital]

Originally Posted by HeatDeath

An interface I'd love to see in a strategy game would be browser-style "Back", "Forward", and "New Tab" buttons, so you can split the game state off to a new game, try strategies in parallel, and backtrack to a previous point to try something else.

I can see how this might affect player tension and suspense though, so they should probably be an option you can select only at the beginning of a game.

[An additional interesting option would be to allow players to disable them during the game, but not re-enable them.]

To pick up on the ideas here. Like the idea - what we're looking at is ability to replay games so can see how it unfolded - key for multiplayer too, to remind you what has happened. However the new tab idea, like it, but given how we're making it full 3D replicating that many render-cameras would mean a player would need a beast of a PC to run it and we're aiming to keep it more accessible on hardware. Thanks.

[AurochDigital]

Originally Posted by FJCestero

I'm coming late to this mainly because AurochDigital strikes me as pretty good at what he/they do and I didn't want to sound presumptive by holding forth. I'm fairly sure AurochDigital has already thought of what follows:

Stacking: Yeah, the color-shift thing was... um. Anywho, it's a place-holder so that's fine. The question is what to replace it with? The zoomed in state was awesome (actually, suggestion?? when zoomed in, have the units in a hex appear in a random or variety of formations. Don't have every hex with three units stacked in it put them in the same 'V' formation or whatever. Looks arcade-y. Bonus points if you can make the zoomed in units location and facing(?!) depend upon its hex-side of entry). You should already have the guts of such code to do this, since you're preserving that information for the OGRE...maybe??

Ok, so zoomed out... this one's tougher. I've thought about it and I can't think of anything better than to just show the same icons/units from the zoomed-in state, but bunched together in the same hex as it shrinks or expands. By all means keep the zooming functionality, but no break in graphic representation (even though it was pretty cool): Let the player decide what's 'good enough' for him or her in terms of details. This might be a double-good thing when you start to worry about how to represent 2 Heavies (one disabled), 1 GEV, 1 MSL (also disabled) and 2 infantry squads (one of which is a HWT in a bunker) all in one hex. What single icon in the zoomed out state could represent all that??

We're looking to change this as the feedback was not all that positive ;) So when units are stacked, an icon to indicate it will replace the unit 3D model, though looking at camera zoom still to give scale to show all the units on a hex.

Originally Posted by FJCestero

Animation: LOVED it! Though I must add my voice to those concerned about the wide turns outside the hex to come about on a new course. Suggestion? Use what you showed for moving into the three forward hexes of wherever the OGRE is pointing, but for the other three have the OGRE do a "tank turn" in place before proceeding. That way you don't have a new player, who just saw an OGRE drive through his adjacent hex full of tanks, not wonder why none of them got rammed or engaged in over-run combat. Most on this list understand how graphics can differ from the back-end game model, but new players might not. Don't throw away the "wide turns" animations, just figure out how to use it during over-run combats, when you zoom in and where that sort of animation is a kewl bonus.

We've got this flagged as something we need to resolve early on, as right to point to how it can have issues.Good ideas, so we'll put them into the mix...

Originally Posted by FJCestero

Moving on, I'll now try to anticipate your problems: namely how to animate those Secondary Batteries, who are, honestly, pointed in the wrong direction. High-angle fire is probably a nightmare to represent visually in a simple manner so that any new beginner can mentally keep track of what's going on. You could have them go horizontal before they direct-fired, but then you might have a player wondering whether those things are guns or antenna... try maybe an audio cue: a "BLAM! Weeeeeeee....BOOM!" thing? I dunno, I'm gonna throw this one to the board for discussion.

For the Main Battery: bonus points for when firing direct it actually *points* at it's target in the other hex (as when, if there's three other units stacked there, the MB points at the ONE it's trying to kill) before it fires.

Ogre Missiles: bonus points for a "cold launch" animation out of the tube before the main stage ignites... oh, and mushroom clouds. Must. Have. Mushroom Cloud.

AP Batteries: bonus points for having some rounds 'spark' harmlessly off (invulnerable) armor units if they're in the same hex when a stack of infantry gets mulched.

We've got to balance here the fact that the 'gameboard' is still an abstract view, as each hex is pretty bit, even with an Ogre in. So when one unit shoots, it's not directly firing at the unit, but into the hex so we're focused on showing that 'reality' (if you see what we mean) but great notes, so thanks!

Originally Posted by FJCestero

Next up: Explosion animations. Please don't do generic game explosion animations (unless you must: neither time, nor budget is infinite). These are Saturation Nuke sub-munitions after all. May I suggest some of the Fuel-Air explosive videos on youtube for inspiration? I mean, if you haven't already...

We're creating new SFX for the game, so we'll pass the comments on to the 3D artist doing the work!

Originally Posted by FJCestero

Lastly (and sorry about the length), may I request track marks? You know, in the ground, at least for the OGRE, permanent for that game, as a record of where it's been? Big, thick, scenery chewing, track marks? With bonus points for where they transect any Missile Tank that's been run over? I'll understand if you simply de-rez the other victims, but we hates the Missile Tanks my precious!

(And extra bonus points for having two AD&D characters showing up next to the tread marks with a sign that reads "Beware the Ogre" and discuss how easy this next quest to is going to be :-)

I'll stop now.

lol, Tactics Ogre anyone?

Re tracks, it's something for us to think of when doing the particle effects, but again the abstraction nature of the Ogre concept is part of our thinking here.

Great feedback all round though, lots of food for thought...

[offsides]

Originally Posted by AurochDigital

To pick up on the ideas here. Like the idea - what we're looking at is ability to replay games so can see how it unfolded - key for multiplayer too, to remind you what has happened. However the new tab idea, like it, but given how we're making it full 3D replicating that many render-cameras would mean a player would need a beast of a PC to run it and we're aiming to keep it more accessible on hardware. Thanks.

Not wanting to overload the hardware is totally understandable, and a good thing(tm). But as a compromise, maybe you can have a button to 'fork' the save file, that will automatically make a copy of the current game status using some combination of the current game file name and when it was forked, and that would allow players to open up the forked save file later for similar results. That's certainly easier than having to save the game as a new file and then reopen the old one, or any of the other tricks us savegame fiddlers have used over the years... :)

I'm really looking forward to seeing how this develops, though I'm still hoping for a Linux version right out of the gate... *hint, hint* :P

[GranitePenguin]

Originally Posted by offsides

I'm really looking forward to seeing how this develops, though I'm still hoping for a Linux version right out of the gate... *hint, hint* :P

Someone: "What's that PC for? I thought you didn't use Windows."
me: "That's my Ogre PC"

[dwalend]

Originally Posted by GranitePenguin

Someone: "What's that PC for? I thought you didn't use Windows."
me: "That's my Ogre PC"

That's your GEV-PC.

[offsides]

Originally Posted by GranitePenguin

Someone: "What's that PC for? I thought you didn't use Windows."
me: "That's my Ogre PC"

Er... I think my wife would crush my like a Mark V rolling over a D0 CP...

[Tim Kauffman]

I hope this is within the purview of this topic...is there any possibility that 3D models of OGREs and other units will ever be made available for purchase to be used for creating visual imagery of OGRE by fans?

I have a lot of conceptual scenes and even live action sequences as well as FanMade units I'd like to make with imagery of battles of the Last War and later, and having those as 3D Models would allow me to make them. Otherwise I only have time to be a hack and nobody really likes that. It gets too close to copywrite of others works, and can come off as being disrespectful, when in fact it is the contrary, as the works of others have been the source of the inspiration.

I have to emphasis that artwork can be incredibly beneficial to an IP, words alone can be great, but if you also have some cool visuals in the mix as well to compliment, and I would argue the more the better, especially in a world like the OGREverse.

Having those 3D Models would allow me to have the time to do some 100% original stuff for OGRE. I can also assure you I am not the only one who would want to use them to help explore the OGREverse and come out of the nuclear fires of the Last War with some hopefully entertaining imagery that would compliment it.

No doubt there would have to be some legal use conditions, ect but I really think it will help the OGRE IP if this were made available.

Please consider, I have a lot of ideas in various stages of iteration, because it would really help bring the OGREverse to life...lol...well, not THAT real. ;)

[HeatDeath]

That won't happen. And it wouldn't be up to Auroch regardless - I guarantee you they have zero authority to re-license any SJG IP they've licensed.

"The distinctive appearance of the Ogre cybertank" is a registered trademark of Steve Jackson Games. If SJG don't vigorously protect it, they lose it.

You might just as well ask Coca-Cola to release high-quality vector-art of their logo for fans.

Even if, for some reason, it did happen, that dream would end the instant someone released, for example, an extremely offensive, highly partisan political cartoon starring a certain billionaire or a certain former secretary of state in a compromising situation with a MkV. Their having violated a "legal use condition" would be irrelevant. The damage would be done. As someone said on another thread "Doing something with 0.1% risk every day means you have a serious problem every three years."

That's the nightmare for SJG, which is why this won't happen.