Comments - Bahl

Well, that is the point of these events at that size of a community, isn't it? It would be a waste of time to try playing when nobody is on... but it is great to know when you can get a decent game :-).

Yay, finally this becomes a true RS 2.0 ;-).

Oh... I'd absolutely love that girl. The only one of the whole parade of fine ladies that I'd actually fall for on first sight. No chance to withstand.

Well, you could read the last lines by Chrome: The Exterminatus Game Group on Steam will continue to schedule three games a week for the foreseeable future.

Why so serious? Capitals and all? It's not like there has been promised anything or what?

purged in the fire of multiplayer rage :-)

Is that a cybot in the background? reminds me of an old Q1 mod :-).

Well, I still wouldn't call RivalSpecies1 dead. We've released public alphas the last months and we are working on a little twist of gameplay for it. So while I'm far from saying this mod is alive, I'm also far from saying it is dead. I'd call it undead ;-).

That sounds all very promising, but for now I guess I should be simply patient :-).

Oh right, thanks! I hope some other avid fan of your concept will soon replace this long wall of text in your engines comments first page soon :-).

Thank you for your in depth article :-). I guess the way we can express ourselves in text is inherently limited, though. As far as I understand your description, you are promoting the concept to implement such a game logic library as I intend in level 2.

My intention is however, to bend the scripting concept in level 3, implementing a separate 'language' that has inbuilt support for basic game logic concepts. You could possibly see it as an alternate to DragonScript, with more (and more complex) abstract datatypes (an extension of your convenience classes in a sense).

With your exchangeability of the framework, you probably mean, taking the game logic scripts to another platform? Surely that is possible but implementing level 3 on another engine, but I assume it would be easier with a more accumulated game logic library. The script would then be scripting the libraries classes, instead of the engines classes. As far as I assume, engines may look rather different when it comes to the structure of their implementation, but game logic comes in rather constant concepts.

I'm proposing a library of those concepts built on the engine, made scriptable.

Instead of a library of those concepts built on the scripting module that inherits the structure of the engine.

I assume, the library of those concepts can be better focused on easing the game scripting if the script language is designed exactly for that, instead of when it is designed to allow an implementation of such a library or any other library.

I'm not sure if I was able to make my point, but I tried my best on an evening after two rather straining days at work :-). I'm trying to convince you of DSL, domain specific languages, in this case a domain specific language for gameplay design.

Aye sir ;-). Moddb.com

Thanks for updating the doxygen :-). Let's see if I can summarize the API in a few handy words.

- under common the folders curve, math, shape for base geometry, color data classes and operations on them.

- the folder filesystem plus under common the folders string, xmlparser, file for base text persistence classes and operations on them.

- the folders logger, errortracing plus under common the folders exceptions for cross cutting error handling.

- the folder resources which seems to include mid and high level visual entities, artificial intelligence, physical and networking.

- the folder systems, containing the folder modules, containing interfaces for all modules, which then probably during runtime get their different implementations plugged at the will of the user.

All in all a neat setup :-). Maybe slightly unbalanced folder tree and a bit inconsistent sorting of the related structures, but oh well, systems grow and have a life ;-).

Now taking a look at the scripting:

- first impression is, it seems to be heavily relying on events and the implementation seems to be required to implement a lot of callbacks for AI, physics, rendering, network... . That sure covers the necessities for game logic, but seems quite cumbersome as a base layer.

- first idea is, I'd want to provide base game logic entities like avatar, tool, material, product, monster, machine, and some abstract game facilities to bind all the nuts and bolts together to something easily accessible. But maybe my short skim over the documentation made me overlook some gems that possibly already fulfill such desires?

Thanks for the information, I shall patiently wait for the doxygen update :-).

well, it confirms my expectations :-). It is good information though, that all engine classes are wrapped as an API by the three existing script modules.

What I would want to do, is implement more high level game logic facilities inside compiled code (unscripted) and then probably add a different script on top that makes use of these facilities. maybe you could call it a game logic tool box. As long as I don't know what is already part of the API, I can just guess, that I would want such a tool box.

Is there some sort of documentation available of the current API wrapped by the scripting modules?

Not necessary. I am mostly interested in some technical information concerning how the game logic can be plugged in. there seem to be modules to support dragonscript and two others, but I will probably want to plugg unscripted. that probably means, I'll implement an own 'script' module that implements the game logic, and there I'd be interested in the API.

I really like the entire approach of this project. I would like to use this technology for an anticipated project, but after reading the homepage and wiki, I understand that it is in a premature development phase. Do you have any sort of project communication like quakenet IRC? The epsilon forum seems to be down.

Don't whine around just because it wasn't your option that won... .

Reminds me of Z. ohhh i loved the humor and the gameplay was simply amazing :-).

not a bad idea. afterall, we are almost exclusively using our own content, so it wouldn't be much of a problem.

well, its more than just deathmatch... it has a couple of features that are pretty common now though. you can capture 'artefacts' and bring them somewhere, you can capture 'areas' (standard CTF) and you can destroy things. each of these things will gain you points and depending on the map can even cause a victory of your side. it has vehicles too... with all these things its much like unreal tournament 2kx. however, the balancing sucks and it has crashbugs.

Thanx, certainly the will, by the time I succeed in doing it, it will be long overdue as well though.

Well, we've been around for something like 8 years now, and we were the fourth mod to ever register on this platform. We've been on Intense/Squats former platform as well and so on blah blah. Who cares? Certainly not you, but to look at some images and say Fail! is certainly a Fail as well. Welcome in the world of epic failure, feel free to make yourself at home while I'm working on porting this to hl2.

I could and would, but I think it doesn't make much sense right now. I think what we'd need for it to make sense is a new release of it. well... I certainly haven't given up on that, but this feels rather like I'm gonna release when duke4 is coming out... .

well yes, there is one alpha server running. you can get the latest alpha form www.rivalspecies.com.. It does require HL1 though.

well, I do have an alpha version of it. It's not fully functioning however. I still consider it one of my projects, but atm I'm heavily overworked.

heh, thanx for your offers to help! we currently have a new public alpha version alongside the usual beta. so that means, if you want to help, go to rivalspecies.com, take a look at the news and download the current alpha and a have a go at my little alpha server :-).

on oder news: today its official, we are going Source! that means, im recruiting alpha testers for the Source version on our forum! thats also, where skills with hammer can factor in :-D. so if you want to map for RS 1.5 (the Source edition of RS 1) then swing over to our board and start a thread about it.

and for clarification: dont confuse RS 1.5 with RS 2. RS 2 is a complete redesign for Source by the name of Exterminatus. RS 1.5 is 'just' the porting over of RS 1 in all its oldstyle glory to Source.

recently our oldest and most (single?) active clan acquired a server! so its actually possible to play the game again AND there are actually people playing it :-). you may still have problems to find players on the server depending on your timezone, but the european evening hours are a good time to look for a game. as well, joining our irc.quakenet.org channel #wh40k is a damn good option to ask for a game.

you can download it from the FILES page on www.rivalspecies.com (yeah the link was broken, but its fixed now.)

yep, i thought the same. especially with ET:QW. looks like the perfect mix of Q4 and BF.