BOTF 2

[Flocke]

What does Bethesda have to do with this?

Bethesda currently owns the exclusive license for publishing single player based star trek games.
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_i ... story=7914
So if you'd wanna see a new Star Trek game and it's not a MMO, you'll have to urge Bethesda.

[KrazeeXXL]

Thats true, atari do not know what to do when it comes to gaming of this caibre. Star Trek games now are really more along the works of Bethesda, who do try but they will never be Microprose really. It really is a shame Microprose got bought really, we might have gotten some more awesome games.

I disagree on all points here. And I think it's in good hands with Bethesda. If they make a game then they make it big and absolutely awesome *looks at Fallout 3*

So I think whatever they do in direction of ST games will beat the pants off Microprose.

ST is changing atm and we'll see how the gaming industry will react. Somehow I doubt that we'll ever see something like BotF again. (made by a big company)

But to err is human and I do it a lot

[Tethys]

Krazee, they (Bethesda) already proved their inferiority by making Star Trek Legacy. Even Bridge Commander (developed by Totally Games) was better than that, and BotF knocked the pants off any other trek game ever made. Maybe its the 4x strategy, or maybe its just how in depth it is. Never gets old for me, havent played BC for a few months, but still play BotF daily. That should tell you somehthing

[KrazeeXXL]

yea but Microprose's games weren't all awesome, too. Legacy was indeed a bunch of crap. Never played Bridge Commander though.

I just think of Klingon Honor Guard which was totally bugged and unplayable. (at least for me)

[Tethys]

Bridge Commander is the best Star Trek space combat simulator available since 2002 when it came out (and until Excalibur comes out *drool*). Many many mods and ships for it, its great for roleplaying, making video, and fun to blow things up

I just wish they would stop bashing the star trek franchise by making all these crappy games and movies, and get back to making what real Trekkies want. Better yet, they need to just ask us what will work and listen 100%

[Army37]

Krazee, they (Bethesda) already proved their inferiority by making Star Trek Legacy. Even Bridge Commander (developed by Totally Games) was better than that, and BotF knocked the pants off any other trek game ever made. Maybe its the 4x strategy, or maybe its just how in depth it is. Never gets old for me, havent played BC for a few months, but still play BotF daily. That should tell you somehthing

I agree...been playing BotF since the beginning on a Pentium 100 using Win 95 way back in 1999...I don't recall how much RAM I had at the time but I remember my hard drive was 100 or 200 MB LOL.

Now on WIN 7, with 1 TB hard drive, 6 Gig of RAM...time flies

Note: BotF has been the only game I played on WIN 95/98/2000/XP/Vista (I don't recall if I ever had the Millenium version ) and Win 7

and I'm pretty sure it will see several more operating systems

[KrazeeXXL]

and I'm pretty sure it will see several more operating systems

I hope that, too!

btw on my K5-100 I had 16 MB of RAM and on my P200MMX I had 32 MB at this time

edited: and I never had ME, too

I just wish they would stop bashing the star trek franchise by making all these crappy games and movies, and get back to making what real Trekkies want. Better yet, they need to just ask us what will work and listen 100%

I totally agree but from 6 million+ fans y should they ask us?

[Xordan]

Hello, new guy here.

I was actually getting some nostalgia about BOTF a few weeks ago and was considering doing a rewrite of the entire game A bit of searching found this place.. surprising modding community this game has.

Anyway, the biggest problem in creating a 'BOTF2' is getting artists to make new models for all the ships (and gui's etc.) and writing an AI for singleplayer and combat. Recreating all the rest of the game functionality would be pretty easy for a couple of good programmers to do in a few man-months.

So, if there was enough people able to do the art and AI, I would be interested in implementing all the game functionality. Big 'if' there though

[Flocke]

Hi Xordan, welcome to AFC!

hmn, a seductive offer.
If you want to make it open-source or at least for free - and I think I can assume that - well, than art should be the least problem. There have already been a few attempts in creating a fan based botf2 and there are many people that like to share their work. Especially have a look at http://www.star-trek-games.com/ BotE and Supremacy are the most popular ones
You might even ask to join one of the teams.
That said, Supremacy is in work for several years and still seems to be far off from being finished and BotE, well, you should play it to make your own mind

In case you're really willing to start a new project - I'm sure many people would love to help - you first should define a guidline or concept for the gameplay and differences to botf and the other fan projects. What do you want to change and what to keep? Starting a poll on what people want to have, you'll get elsewhere but not to a result
But I'm sure everyone wants to have a great 3D combat system.

All in all, expect it to be much more work than a few months - it would be a full time job and the best ideas often come when you're about to finish.
Tell us some more about your capabilities - there have been many people claiming to fulfill anything but in the end got nowhere.
Maybe you just design a simple prototype first - that would also help yourself getting a better grasp of what the game should be.

However, I wish you good luck, but speaking for myself, I currently have too much else in the work.

Sry if I didn't sound that enthusiastic, I'm sure if you're a well programmer, you'll soon get more than enough applause.

cheers, Flocke

[Xordan]

Hi Flocke,

Yeah, anything I make would be open-source.
I've looked at BotE and Supremacy (website seems down for me right now) briefly before. BotE didn't look great, Supremacy looked more promising, though I'm not really aware how many people are working on it or what 3d engine it uses.

Heh, as for gameplay, I've only played the original (unmodded) BotF. I'd want something similar, perhaps with more depth and complexity though. Perhaps what's what Supremacy is trying to do also. I would design the game itself quite differently.. make it pretty generic and highly moddable (to the extent that you could make any turn based space game with it), and improve the graphics quality... If I were to go ahead with it I'd probably need a complete breakdown of every feature and component of BotF to the tiniest detail and then figure out what to drop and what to add. Best to plan properly before jumping in to it.

My capabilities... well in the open source world I'm one of the core contributors to the CrystalSpace 3d engine and I worked as one of the lead programmers for 5 years on a MMO called PlaneShift. In the real world I'm a GPU compiler engineer for a graphics chip company.

Yeah, I'm aware of the difficulties of making a game, which is why I'd only do it if I could get a team together. I am however more than capable and well experienced in the area of 3d graphics and games. Unfortunately not AI though

[Flocke]

Supremacy looked more promising, though I'm not really aware how many people are working on it or what 3d engine it uses.

It's build upon Microsofts XNA Framework and .NET 3.5/4.0 as far I know.
I doubt it's a good base, but actually have no idea about it.
Anyway, the 3d combat is planned as an external dll plugin and is in work by an "relatively" (think I've to be careful saying so *g*) unexperienced fan using - I forgot which engine, maybe even CrystalSpace
For Supremacy itself mike strobel is the main developer (and I think also the only programmer).

Heh, as for gameplay, I've only played the original (unmodded) BotF. I'd want something similar, perhaps with more depth and complexity though.

That's a big problem, it's quite vague and there are many conflicting opinions about. E.g. some love extensive micromanagement, I hate it. I like a more comfortable automaticly managed system with ability to concentrate on the important tasks. It's hard to balance out the gameplay, but especially regarding BotE, I believe a managable interface and gameplay actually is the most important key in terms of gamedesign.
You'll truly have to invest alot spirit in this.

Perhaps what's what Supremacy is trying to do also.

Don't you want to find out or did you already cancel that game?

I would design the game itself quite differently.. make it pretty generic and highly moddable (to the extent that you could make any turn based space game with it), and improve the graphics quality...

That's exactly what Supremacy and BotE are aiming to do as well.

My capabilities... well in the open source world I'm one of the core contributors to the CrystalSpace 3d engine and I worked as one of the lead programmers for 5 years on a MMO called PlaneShift. In the real world I'm a GPU compiler engineer for a graphics chip company.

If that's true, that's amazing!
I think that would qualify you more than. You're not joking and you're none of those trolls that have been visiting us lately? really?
Ok, well, I still have no time but if it's going well I'll for sure try to help.
Havn't worked on AI yet either and am not nearly as qualified and havn't tried Crystal Space yet but prefere Ogre3D, but learned quite much about game development in my hobby time knowing some about everything.
I think if you're going to develop this, you could simply skip AI and let it for a later time, supremacy is going this way, too. And if you're really that good you might attract some people of the other fan projects.

Yeah, I'm aware of the difficulties of making a game, which is why I'd only do it if I could get a team together. I am however more than capable and well experienced in the area of 3d graphics and games. Unfortunately not AI though

Haha, well, the common way for such projects (and I'd thought you know about) is to just start it and then get people together setting up a team. It's hard to get a team together before and can cause alot of troubles. It's much better to work together on this when there's already a base. And with hobby projects you can't be sure whether people will keep in the team or have the necessary knowhow anyway. You should always have the motivation to continue although everyone else drops the team or has other things to do. You can't expect a huge programmer community like with CrystalSpace. Still you can watch out what people are around, true, but it would be bad to fundament a hobby fan game on whether people are available. They might come and they might go.

At least artists you have here more than enough and also some people knowing a little about programming or that are willing to learn about.
Don't be dazzled by the current inactivity of many great modders, coders or fan developers. Motivate them and they might join you.

cheers

[Xordan]

It's build upon Microsofts XNA Framework and .NET 3.5/4.0 as far I know.

Eww, lol. I don't think I'll go there then. I'd like something that works well on linux and mac as well (and written using stuff I know).

That's a big problem, it's quite vague and there are many conflicting opinions about. E.g. some love extensive micromanagement, I hate it. I like a more comfortable automaticly managed system with ability to concentrate on the important tasks. It's hard to balance out the gameplay, but especially regarding BotE, I believe a managable interface and gameplay actually is the most important key in terms of gamedesign.
You'll truly have to invest alot spirit in this.

Yeah, I have various ideas floating about on 'cool stuff' that would be nice to have. But core functionality I haven't thought a huge amount about. I understand that to be really successful a game needs to cater for the preferences of different people. Avoiding micromanagement could be done by having a lot of that stuff optionally managed automatically. Then you can just enjoy blowing up ships and stuff if that's what floats your boat. It really does need a bit of a brainstorm to figure out the specifications and how to handle different preferences. I totally agree that interface is one of the most important, if not the most important aspect of a game too

You're not joking and you're none of those trolls that have been visiting us lately? really?

Yes, I'm not a troll

Haha, well, the common way for such projects (and I'd thought you know about) is to just start it and then get people together setting up a team. It's hard to get a team together before and can cause alot of troubles. It's much better to work together on this when there's already a base. And with hobby projects you can't be sure whether people will keep in the team or have the necessary knowhow anyway.

Yeah, however usually things progress far far quicker if you have the software, the art and the other data being worked on in parallel. I'm used to people coming and going in the projects I've worked on before. Usually it's required to have a few core developers (one coder, one artist etc.) who stick with it for a game to be successful though. One guy can't do it alone.. unless he's a superhuman good-at-everything guy (which I'm not)

At least artists you have here more than enough and also some people knowing a little about programming or that are willing to learn about.

Yup, I've been browsing the forum a bit and there are some good modellers here Though I notice that the quality can be improved a lot - more triangles, better textures, more advanced rendering features etc. Though I imagine the quality is based around the capabilities of BOTF, rather than reflecting the ability of the modeller So perhaps we can get some good stuff done.

I'll have a better think about how I want to go about things. Perhaps I can get a few friends together and get something working. I'm sure that pretty pictures would be good motivation for other people to help out.

[thunderchero]

A simple solution is to program everything with vanilla art and ships than add artwork later. (If it does not work it would be a lot of time wasted)

thunderchero

[Xordan]

A simple solution is to program everything with vanilla art and ships than add artwork later. (If it does not work it would be a lot of time wasted)

Agreed. However if it takes 1 year to write the game and 1 year to make the art, the game will take 2 years to make instead of 1 with that approach. I admit that it's hard for people to invest the time in making art without knowing that the game will actually ever be done though.

[thunderchero]

Agreed. However if it takes 1 year to write the game and 1 year to make the art, the game will take 2 years to make instead of 1 with that approach. I admit that it's hard for people to invest the time in making art without knowing that the game will actually ever be done though.

But while art work is being worked on it would be a playable game and give more incentive to create art work quicker and even better....