Quote: "I've never meet a programmer/artist/musician who knows all the answers (myself included!!)."
kev that IS the point... alot of the developers believe that they CAN do everything and they DO know everything.
They take on projects that quite frankly are out of thier league.
i'm not saying they shouldn't take these games on, but that they should sit down and LEARN first.
Tomb Raider, Quake or Tekken are not particularly ambitious, infact quite the opposite. Sit down and strip away the layers of what makes each of these games...
Tomb Raider
... Grid Base Worlds
... Single Texture Based Texture Groups
... Each World Includes all Media
... Standard Grid/Box Collision
... Automatic Weapon Tracking on the nearest enemy when you start shooting within a set range
... Simple Object Based Menu System
... Trigger & Set System (for puzzles)
... Simple Always Try to Get Close As Possible And Attack Ai
... Ai Pathfinding (simply 2D grid based)
... premade animation Trigger
that is tomb raider, everything revolves around those things ... there i no Gravity per-say as it is simply Sliding Collision Based on a Grid.
a single data type for health, weapon/attack power, attack distance, ammunition - you don't need anything more for TR Original.
infact TR is based on a Portal Room System so you only deal with upto 32x32 grid squares each one equals 6ft (3 steps)
after all that its a case of making the models & animation, TR uses a combination of Static Mesh and Animated/Moveable Mesh for the levels - moveable for blocks, and such ... static which = another collision box.
... ... ...
there isn't any need to try to be as fancy as TR Chronicles with volumetrics or lighting effects and such... just to make a similar game.
the work that goes in to get just a demo going isn't alot and once you have the engine done for the demo the new levels are just a case of adding media.
on the other hand MMO's and RPGs are highly different and difficult to create because you have to take into consideration ALOT more things.
my point isn't that the developers should be aiming at current/future technology ... my point is alot of people either create games which could work on a 386 without Dx fine, else they overlace thier game with unnessiary effects.
DarkBASIC Pro is capable of running a reasonable scene of around 5,000 polygons @ 60fps on a P2-233Mhz Mmz w/TnT2 8Mb w/Dx8.1 w/Win98
it is more than possible to create games for everyone not just those with highend systems without resorting to crappy 2D.
Or remaking some stupid classic that most programmer could actually make quite easily using Java for a Cellphone!
the point here is that developers just arn't using those melons they call brains when they get into development.
you might look at Tekken as an over ambious project, but really what is tekken?
2 models, in a square ring - technically fighting only in 2dimensions XY.
each fighter is human so you can make a skeleton for them which they can ALL use.
each fighter is made up of the exact same number of sections.
you have fist-left,fist-right,leg-left,leg-right + directional controls, and if your within Nth amount of miliseconds and you hit another it would be a case of perhaps a combo is performed.
Collision is simple Box again based per limb.
and the only thing each player has as a stat is health.
your not looking for like super special moves, or broken bones or even new areas of play.
just 2 people in a square fighting... the backgrounds are skyboxes, the throws (if not countered within Nth miliseconds) are premade animations.
i mean really what exactly is the overly difficult part?
alot of developers here look at games in the context of "i'll make tekken, so what can tekken4 do?" ... when really they should be starting from the basics of what a fighting game SHOULD have at its core and just work from that.
ONCE they have something stable and fun THEN then can add extra's if they feel it needs it...
but i think people would like to have a valued changed from always playing bloody quake clones & mods or brand new versions of classics.
there are no just plain level headed developers in shareware that i've seen - it shouldn't be about impressing a publisher with what it looks like or is capable of, leave that to the professionals.
the only aim of a shareware developer is to make a game which is fun to play to the point where players will pay you to get the rest of the game unlocked.
Victory Road
could be a game like that, if it was actually as playable as daytona.
