I love it when I find a glitch or error, something definitively wrong in some way. I'm not being sarcastic or funny, I actually get a sense of personal satisfaction from solving problems. The bigger the headache you're getting from something the more it excites me to take on the challenge. Which is why I always say that problems are fun.
That in mind what I'm currently dealing with isn't quite a traditional problem, just a lack of forethought. One tester found an almost game ruining strategical oversight. Apparently because my system for releasing bosses is based on the items (souls?) you've collected, and if you chill in one area and get a ton of kills in advance, while you may not get extra keys you do still get these pick ups. You can then proceed into the next level and unlock all the bosses at once, use an overpowered spell to kill them all, and move right along, rinse and repeat.
Right now I'm playing with several solutions, for starters instead of letting you choose when to release a boss it's now immediate with no choice which honestly I'd planned from the start but received some complaints and after talking with them about what specifically they didn't like about it we've now managed a solution I think they'll find quite satisfactory. The second is to have a tracker for each floor of how many you killed on that floor so the doors don't automatically unlock based on that, the number was previously incremental and now it's more of a slightly fixed number altered by the floor number variable (non-multiplicative) and they're happy about the idea of seeing how well they did on each floor though I'll have actual results tomorrow of how much they like it. I've also added a behind the scenes timer tracker that shows after you game over how long you took on each floor. I'm also dumping that info to see how the game progresses from floor to floor to make sure the variables are balanced right, because if everyone consistently dies on the same floor then obviously I've done something wrong.
I also added a little spice by picking bosses at random, there were previously 12 bosses alternating a set to each floor, now it just picks one for each cage with fixed master boss levels every 10 floors in which you encounter 4 of the same boss and a 5th super powered version of that boss, though to my knowledge none of the players have made it to the 120th floor yet without that slight cheat or whatever you'd call it.
I'm doing other minor tweaks to make it easier for them to get that far and thinking about making an actual final level. The final level however will be beyond nintendo hard, I'll make it level 1,000 and have it include every single mega boss, and enemy you've killed that far along with a final gatekeeper with an ungodly health bar, just so you'll have hope that I can crush.
Though not to be in direct defiance of occams razor as it pertains to entertainment (a bit of a stretch I know) I'm also thinking about overstepping the apparent simplicity of my current auto-allocation system available to the player and implementing a more sophisticated system of balancing regen rates, accelerated regen rate, mana tank max storage per rank and overall, along with spell power and related in a more calibrated methodology. Essentially the idea is that you can invest points (again thinking I might just call them souls) into categories and each category will have a graphed curve you can view to see how powerful the spell is, how long it takes to charge / cast (for power spells not streams) and mana cost, and any other variables and based on how you invest determines how the curve changes to reflect these stats. For example you might want a simple power spell to charge really quickly so you'd invest in its early stage mostly, but if you charge it into its second or third stages it means you really want more power so you'd invest in that area for that stage, and perhaps you instead want to cast a standard power spell really cheaply so you'd invest there, and while if you invest enough all the stats can improve you'll likely suffer in other areas for it.
This principal also applies to your actual mana regen, the max mana per tank by rank in which you effectively have 3 mana tanks and each of their regens are based on the investments in them, and you can invest in how potent the magic in them is because they all basically boil down to a value of the first tank after all the math is processed. Right now they're set up so that a single point of mana from the second tank is worth several mana points, which when you use mana from that tank your spells by default charge quicker, are more powerful, etc.
I can tell you right now I will not be letting you cast different spell types together, and even lasting spells like the lava do not interact with other spells and I won't be programming them to either. That is just beyond my current skill and wouldn't really make a huge difference in players. I'm still considering screens for you, I'm just still playing with the HUD, if any of you are familiar with UDK and unrealscript just let me know and we'll collab a bit so you can help me get it displaying right. Right now I'm working on getting the "crosshair" or otherwise known as reticle to be based on a variable which is the current range of the spell whether you're doing an area effect spell, a target cone, or a straight stream/beam. I can manage it slightly by state but nowhere near where I want it at.
I should save some more for another post.... Say something about all this in the comments so I know you exist please.
Showing posts with label Features. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Features. Show all posts
February 23, 2012
February 20, 2012
Combat Progression
(in relation to the full game)
One game mode I have is like tug of war infection
essentially both sides are out to kill the entire enemy team, one killed a player changes sides to kill his old team mates, but of course if they kill him he switches sides again, so you basically have to kill everyone at once, and with the large number of players I have that can take a while and is actually quite fun
Another mode is a kind of juggernaut mode that is more of a team effort type game in which if you don't have total cooperation and good leadership you'll fail, every single player in the game has to shoot the juggernaut at least once or he can't die, it's a smaller game type mode with only 16 total players, the juggernaut is all powerful and deadly, he's actually one of the main characters from the storyline of the game so it'll make sense in multiplayer when you face him as to why he's all powerful
essentially he has a really large life tank, is crazy fast, nearly a one hit killer every time, and if you let him get away he'll regenerate quite nicely, fortunately for you after every player has shot him he has a variable that kicks in which determines how much damage he takes each time he's hurt and every time he's hurt it goes up, it's kind of like a super smash bros thing
basically the more you hurt him the more you can hurt him and the quicker he can be hurt
eventually when he starts getting shot he'll be taking too much damage to just be standing out in the open and taking it
the players are generally well equipped with heavy weapons and explosives but even that won't save them if they don't know how to use them like a team
another juggernaut mode is the more classic you kill you become scenario, so there's a lot of classics actually that are in here, TDM, CTF, HQ, KOTH, FFA, etc though I'll admit I'm really on the fences about including FFA when this is a highly team based game
The entire multiplayer evolves by rank from a COD Hardcore to a more halo approach, in the early rank only one or two bullets will kill you but towards later ranks as weapons and tech advance you actually get plasma shields and kinetic barriers and other forms of protection that lead you to living much longer lives usually and a gun fight might go from a couple seconds to nearly a minute
Additionally there's all the combat boosters each player has access to and in a couple rare cases so far I've actually seen two players constantly shooting at eachother for nearly two minutes and after running out of ammo they basically got into a fist fight rolling around and punching etc because they were both basically juggernauts
which is something I should've mentioned sooner, that you can fist fight other players, it's not quite fight night or DOA / Virtua Fighter (pick your 3d poison) but it's a little better than mirrors edge which wasn't half bad
There's choke holds, neck snaps, torturing for information, assassination, and various other nifty combat techniques which you'll get to experience
That should satisfy you for a couple more days
One game mode I have is like tug of war infection
essentially both sides are out to kill the entire enemy team, one killed a player changes sides to kill his old team mates, but of course if they kill him he switches sides again, so you basically have to kill everyone at once, and with the large number of players I have that can take a while and is actually quite fun
Another mode is a kind of juggernaut mode that is more of a team effort type game in which if you don't have total cooperation and good leadership you'll fail, every single player in the game has to shoot the juggernaut at least once or he can't die, it's a smaller game type mode with only 16 total players, the juggernaut is all powerful and deadly, he's actually one of the main characters from the storyline of the game so it'll make sense in multiplayer when you face him as to why he's all powerful
essentially he has a really large life tank, is crazy fast, nearly a one hit killer every time, and if you let him get away he'll regenerate quite nicely, fortunately for you after every player has shot him he has a variable that kicks in which determines how much damage he takes each time he's hurt and every time he's hurt it goes up, it's kind of like a super smash bros thing
basically the more you hurt him the more you can hurt him and the quicker he can be hurt
eventually when he starts getting shot he'll be taking too much damage to just be standing out in the open and taking it
the players are generally well equipped with heavy weapons and explosives but even that won't save them if they don't know how to use them like a team
another juggernaut mode is the more classic you kill you become scenario, so there's a lot of classics actually that are in here, TDM, CTF, HQ, KOTH, FFA, etc though I'll admit I'm really on the fences about including FFA when this is a highly team based game
The entire multiplayer evolves by rank from a COD Hardcore to a more halo approach, in the early rank only one or two bullets will kill you but towards later ranks as weapons and tech advance you actually get plasma shields and kinetic barriers and other forms of protection that lead you to living much longer lives usually and a gun fight might go from a couple seconds to nearly a minute
Additionally there's all the combat boosters each player has access to and in a couple rare cases so far I've actually seen two players constantly shooting at eachother for nearly two minutes and after running out of ammo they basically got into a fist fight rolling around and punching etc because they were both basically juggernauts
which is something I should've mentioned sooner, that you can fist fight other players, it's not quite fight night or DOA / Virtua Fighter (pick your 3d poison) but it's a little better than mirrors edge which wasn't half bad
There's choke holds, neck snaps, torturing for information, assassination, and various other nifty combat techniques which you'll get to experience
That should satisfy you for a couple more days
February 18, 2012
Stat Tracking
SOoo yeah... stats, we all love to know our K/D and W/L but what else do you really like to know? Accuracy as we currently rate it is extremely unreliable therefore I'll have no part in tracking how many shots you've fired and whether or not they were anywhere near your enemy much less hit it. I do however like to track kills and deaths in relation to weapons to determine your average effectiveness with a weapon and its attachments which is no small feat as I am now aware of.
Side note, I hate being restricted on weapon attachments, in my game if you could logically equip an attachment without interfering with another you can put up to 12 on any weapon, though it's unlikely you'd go so far it's not unreasonable to have a forgrip, grenade launcher, laser sight, flashlight, scope, silencer, banana clip maybe with a double / reverse / flip clip filled with hollow points or FMJ's, and a hair trigger or alternate butt / stock, etc point being that there's no reason you can't trick out your gun then give it a paint job
Right now aside from all the in game normal stats used for your character and their level I also track an additional 30 stat types relating to your combat effectiveness which I then in turn use to give you an effective combat rating so other players might better gauge your skill instead of relying on levels
You also have a team rating based on peer review and commendations from squad leaders or inverse in which you've been punished for disobeying, though if you were punished by a squad leader with a bad rating or was then mutinied against your punishment will be reduced or eliminated so it won't be held against you, this helps people know you're a real team player
I might not seem like I know what I'm doing at times, but when it boils down I know what I'm doing and I like to think I'm good at it even if I'm not good at talking about it I've always thought showing is much better than telling and prefer to do so as often as possible
For a number of reasons I'm not yet ready to actually show you though just yet
so just fill in things you like in the comments and let me know what you really want to make sure I track in game and I'll be sure to post if I've done it or had plans to do it or have decided to do it because of your comment
Side note, I hate being restricted on weapon attachments, in my game if you could logically equip an attachment without interfering with another you can put up to 12 on any weapon, though it's unlikely you'd go so far it's not unreasonable to have a forgrip, grenade launcher, laser sight, flashlight, scope, silencer, banana clip maybe with a double / reverse / flip clip filled with hollow points or FMJ's, and a hair trigger or alternate butt / stock, etc point being that there's no reason you can't trick out your gun then give it a paint job
Right now aside from all the in game normal stats used for your character and their level I also track an additional 30 stat types relating to your combat effectiveness which I then in turn use to give you an effective combat rating so other players might better gauge your skill instead of relying on levels
You also have a team rating based on peer review and commendations from squad leaders or inverse in which you've been punished for disobeying, though if you were punished by a squad leader with a bad rating or was then mutinied against your punishment will be reduced or eliminated so it won't be held against you, this helps people know you're a real team player
I might not seem like I know what I'm doing at times, but when it boils down I know what I'm doing and I like to think I'm good at it even if I'm not good at talking about it I've always thought showing is much better than telling and prefer to do so as often as possible
For a number of reasons I'm not yet ready to actually show you though just yet
so just fill in things you like in the comments and let me know what you really want to make sure I track in game and I'll be sure to post if I've done it or had plans to do it or have decided to do it because of your comment
February 16, 2012
Tweaks
First I'd like to mention I finally got a clue and turned off captcha, if it doesn't work please say so because I went into old interface to make sure it was off
Now for the meat of this short story, I've not done a single thing of particular interest in the last couple days, I've merely been tweaking and balancing and polishing in general, finally got my lava stream spell to stick and survive for a little while in addition to making it look smoother more lava like and use less processing power allowing you to use it more with more enemies on screen before any drop in frames
right now I've maxed my system to about 20,000 enemies before things start to slow down
in order to do that though I of course had to essentially turn on god mode by disabling death for touching enemies and erecting a barrier around the player that keeps enemies away so they don't just horde you in a way you can't kill them
For your comments because I can't find an easy poll option I'd like to know if you'd like to have a god mode option in the final release or if you think it's too tempting to use that you'll give in and the game will be destroyed for you
of course if I were to include it I would disable leaderboard tracking that I haven't even implemented yet, though I do have a personal best high score table
What stats would you want tracked anyway? I for one was never a fan of accuracy because I've heard of a thing called cover fire, in addition to the fact it's always based on hit and miss not where they were hit or how close they were to being hit etc
keep in mind I'm only discussing stat tracking for the mini game right now, the main game I have a system setup already and it was a big enough pain I'm not likely to change it, I'll tell you more about it in my next post
anyway for now I was thinking of tracking the deepest floor you've made it to which I've already implemented, and was going to add bosses killed, because # of other enemies killed even by type would be a ridiculous number after one or two hours of play, and it wouldn't be hard to add a real scoring system to the game in which I could add tracking to though right now I don't have that
and perhaps a favorite spell type
essentially there's the fire based spells, nature / earth based spells, and manipulation spells which help you or hinder your enemies or both such as slow or poison, though I'm thinking of adding one more to really round things out but I can't make up my mind which is focused on other things to begin with
basically water and air wouldn't make much sense and wouldn't be very versatile so I'm open to suggestions
Now for the meat of this short story, I've not done a single thing of particular interest in the last couple days, I've merely been tweaking and balancing and polishing in general, finally got my lava stream spell to stick and survive for a little while in addition to making it look smoother more lava like and use less processing power allowing you to use it more with more enemies on screen before any drop in frames
right now I've maxed my system to about 20,000 enemies before things start to slow down
in order to do that though I of course had to essentially turn on god mode by disabling death for touching enemies and erecting a barrier around the player that keeps enemies away so they don't just horde you in a way you can't kill them
For your comments because I can't find an easy poll option I'd like to know if you'd like to have a god mode option in the final release or if you think it's too tempting to use that you'll give in and the game will be destroyed for you
of course if I were to include it I would disable leaderboard tracking that I haven't even implemented yet, though I do have a personal best high score table
What stats would you want tracked anyway? I for one was never a fan of accuracy because I've heard of a thing called cover fire, in addition to the fact it's always based on hit and miss not where they were hit or how close they were to being hit etc
keep in mind I'm only discussing stat tracking for the mini game right now, the main game I have a system setup already and it was a big enough pain I'm not likely to change it, I'll tell you more about it in my next post
anyway for now I was thinking of tracking the deepest floor you've made it to which I've already implemented, and was going to add bosses killed, because # of other enemies killed even by type would be a ridiculous number after one or two hours of play, and it wouldn't be hard to add a real scoring system to the game in which I could add tracking to though right now I don't have that
and perhaps a favorite spell type
essentially there's the fire based spells, nature / earth based spells, and manipulation spells which help you or hinder your enemies or both such as slow or poison, though I'm thinking of adding one more to really round things out but I can't make up my mind which is focused on other things to begin with
basically water and air wouldn't make much sense and wouldn't be very versatile so I'm open to suggestions
February 14, 2012
Crack Your Neck
Crack your neck like a badass (BA) and put on some red hot chili peppers cause you've got more testosterone than Clint Eastwood and Duke Nukem put together and you're about to open a platoon of marines sized can of whoopass on these little dots all over your screen.
That was the comment I gave to my testers today for the mini game I've been working at. Not to be confused with my main game this is a fairly simple top down shooter style game. To overly simplify the more you kill the more that spawn, everything you kill drops an item, that item you can use to make you more powerful in respect to a couple of categories and sub types, your ability to shoot is based on a kind of energy / mana bar / regen rate, there are bosses, bosses drop keys to the next level, the next level is like this level only harder, there's an unlimited number of levels, and an unlimited number of enemies, you kill X# of enemies to gain a boos door key to unlock the boss, upon killing the boss he simply respawns and you do it all over again, by the time you get all the keys (one from each boss) you'll probably have killed each boss several times.
The number of enemies spawned at first and growth rate are determined by level as are the number of things they drop / more accurately the power of the one thing they drop. You have multiple methods of dealing with them that I'll save until the game is actually ready for public tests which I will likely share with you. So go about your day like a BA for today and see where it gets you, be alpha and you won't regret it.
That was the comment I gave to my testers today for the mini game I've been working at. Not to be confused with my main game this is a fairly simple top down shooter style game. To overly simplify the more you kill the more that spawn, everything you kill drops an item, that item you can use to make you more powerful in respect to a couple of categories and sub types, your ability to shoot is based on a kind of energy / mana bar / regen rate, there are bosses, bosses drop keys to the next level, the next level is like this level only harder, there's an unlimited number of levels, and an unlimited number of enemies, you kill X# of enemies to gain a boos door key to unlock the boss, upon killing the boss he simply respawns and you do it all over again, by the time you get all the keys (one from each boss) you'll probably have killed each boss several times.
The number of enemies spawned at first and growth rate are determined by level as are the number of things they drop / more accurately the power of the one thing they drop. You have multiple methods of dealing with them that I'll save until the game is actually ready for public tests which I will likely share with you. So go about your day like a BA for today and see where it gets you, be alpha and you won't regret it.
February 06, 2012
For the dude with the manly name.
I feel the need to explain how this is all "technically" possible with current tech. I'll preface by telling you that you would need a relatively newer computer but if you can run BF3 at full specs then you'll at least be able to run mine at low end full 32fps consistently. I've worked diligently to maintain that number even under the most brutal explosions and building collapses.
A lot of this comes from omission in which simply if you're not looking at it then it's hidden and if it's in motion and hidden it's still being processed but much quicker due to not needing to be rendered. Objects that are naturally hidden other than buildings are simply removed until you're in proximity, more specifically they're never there to begin with until you are and go away when you're not around. When a building collapses they're removed unless you're in there with them in which case they're treated specially to avoid excessive computation from all that bouncing around you know they'd do.
After a building collapse I cheat a little and use a lot of dust to hide things to increase processing speeds by removing rendering of the now almost impossible to see building, but I assure you I'm not swapping things out in that dust, all the buildings dynamically fall and damage other buildings which means I couldn't do that if I wanted. The entire building is set up in a destructible fashion but is also set in chunks that are responsible for large sections breaking away which can be manipulated to save valuable processing cycles. Again by using instancing I generally save a lot of processing by only having to change location and rotation values which is also easier to process in this destruction process.
I take heavy advantage of RAM when it's available, you'll need no less than 4GB to run this and if at all possible I'd honestly suggest up to 16GB though 8 should suffice to run smoothly at full settings. I basically load as much of the game into ram as I can to significantly increase data rate to feed things to the processor instead of waiting on the hard drive to respond for info requests. By more or less loading the entire game into RAM you'll almost never see a loading screen after the first and if you do it'll be short in addition to never having to deal with chugging frames.
It's sad that the Ageia PhysX card went away / got taken over because a dedicated PPU would make my job much easier. Granted NVidia and ATI/AMD now use graphics cards with thier linking systems respectively SLI and CrossFire to use a graphics card as a PPU however in my experience at the time when PhysX came around it stomped out graphics cards trying to do its job and continued to do so even after NVidia took over for quite some time. Now there's no competition it's a worthless card but what if it had continued down its path as a stand alone? I would love to see what it would have become because almost any game dev could use that to make a game like mine and never worry about a lot of these things. I will recommend that you have a secondary graphics card set up for physics for my game as I will be taking advantage of it, however I will also state that it won't be necessary it just makes things a little smoother and accurate.
A lot of my physics is almost a complete cheat. While I do in deed have a full physics system programmed to run so far it's hard to run it with low settings and a single GPU and still maintain frames so I had to find an alternative to support it. On high settings you'll get the real physics running and it'll definitely show. On low settings I've essentially created smaller variables with less dependents and don't require absolute outputs instead there's a lot of guess work involved. A sniping scenario for example, mid to long range in urban area, there's streets with wind blowing in a relatively consistent direction but at different speeds and other variables. In the full physics settings you'd actually calculate each variable to determine exactly where to shoot. In the low end settings you end up grouping all these variables and getting one relative value of offset and get a vague idea of where the bullet should go and that's where it lands. By precisely calculating the bullet let's say it hits the mark dead on after you've accounted for everything, but then you switch settings and none of the variables have changed one bit, now you shoot again and instead of hitting the mark dead on you're now nearly 6 inches off mark. It might not seem like it makes a difference in vague talk but I'm sure that example makes it clear, on low settings the computer just guesses a random area of where the bullets lands and if you make that shot 100 times you'll probably never hit the same spot twice, where as with full settings so long as nothing changes you'll hit that same spot every time.
The buildings collapse isn't actually determined by normal physics running in the game instead it works on an architectural algorithm to determine stability based on remaining structural supports and when it's determined unstable it collapses based on that information. To save from constantly processing this info it's only calculated whenever a structural support is damaged there by saving a lot of processing. This is primarily why the building is separated into chunks because each chunk depends on a specific support/s and if they've become destroyed part of the building may collapse while the rest remains intact.
Truly the most intensive thing in the game are explosions and boy are there a lot of them. I've tried and tried to reduce the time it takes to calculate everything in an explosion and I've met with minor successes yielding enormous results but I can go further and I know it. Right now the game can handle roughly 30 explosions simultaneously in and around each other in which has been included with physics programming to group any overlapping explosions and cut processing on that. On lower settings I've also removed the shockwave effect other than determining it's intensity and distance to shatter windows but other than that the rest of the effects have been removed on low settings. On higher settings the player can get knocked over or suffer various effects from simply being to close to an explosion and surviving. This also effects bullet physics for all players which thankfully doesn't require much processing to handle. The majority of explosions are all player controlled so I've been working heavily on the grenades and c4 etc to try and preprocess as much as I can and have various computers in the same network all process the data in parts and simply relay all the parts around but doing so consistently had been proving difficult so I'm rethinking that right now trying to find a suitable alternative. I haven't been successful in transmitting each players explosion around and simply having each computer process whatever explosion it's responsible for then simply sending the renders around because it only works when there's just one explosion and doesn't account for all other explosions in the same area. Right now basically every player has to process all the info by themselves. In persistent world this isn't a problem because it's handled by the various servers which all process it all at once and tell every player whats up. So when it comes down to it I need to find a more efficient method of creating and calculating explosions which right now I'd say I've got half complete. Basically the explosion is just an animation and the rest is a matter of behind the scenes work based on it's output radius for the various stages of the explosion. What I need to make better is reactions to this information, reduce the number of times anything gets calculated in relation to a given explosion so that way it doesn't get done several dozen times right away, instead it'll only be calculated once and force it to go through a specific process and time before it can be allowed to be recalculated again and if I do it right then I should be able to increase my number of simultaneous explosions in the same area to at least 100 if not closer to 1,000 which should suffice for any scenario.
Last but not least is just an addendum to structural design. Inside every building is a series of triggers to play around with lights, and various other things linked to an object that if damaged cuts "power" to the building preventing lights, and other things and this is important because it's not alone. I also have "gas lines" which when shot simply output a particle stream of fire which can damage the player etc among other things you'd expect to find in a building. What does this matter you say? I'm completely removing it from multiplayer because it's a great source of frustration and wanted to see if you would miss it in campaign or if I should work diligently and dedicate resources to making it work in multiplayer. Not many of you to say much but I'll still take it under consideration anyway. Chances are I'm taking it out all together, however I may just put it in a subsequent future game if it's something you'd think you'd want.
A lot of this comes from omission in which simply if you're not looking at it then it's hidden and if it's in motion and hidden it's still being processed but much quicker due to not needing to be rendered. Objects that are naturally hidden other than buildings are simply removed until you're in proximity, more specifically they're never there to begin with until you are and go away when you're not around. When a building collapses they're removed unless you're in there with them in which case they're treated specially to avoid excessive computation from all that bouncing around you know they'd do.
After a building collapse I cheat a little and use a lot of dust to hide things to increase processing speeds by removing rendering of the now almost impossible to see building, but I assure you I'm not swapping things out in that dust, all the buildings dynamically fall and damage other buildings which means I couldn't do that if I wanted. The entire building is set up in a destructible fashion but is also set in chunks that are responsible for large sections breaking away which can be manipulated to save valuable processing cycles. Again by using instancing I generally save a lot of processing by only having to change location and rotation values which is also easier to process in this destruction process.
I take heavy advantage of RAM when it's available, you'll need no less than 4GB to run this and if at all possible I'd honestly suggest up to 16GB though 8 should suffice to run smoothly at full settings. I basically load as much of the game into ram as I can to significantly increase data rate to feed things to the processor instead of waiting on the hard drive to respond for info requests. By more or less loading the entire game into RAM you'll almost never see a loading screen after the first and if you do it'll be short in addition to never having to deal with chugging frames.
It's sad that the Ageia PhysX card went away / got taken over because a dedicated PPU would make my job much easier. Granted NVidia and ATI/AMD now use graphics cards with thier linking systems respectively SLI and CrossFire to use a graphics card as a PPU however in my experience at the time when PhysX came around it stomped out graphics cards trying to do its job and continued to do so even after NVidia took over for quite some time. Now there's no competition it's a worthless card but what if it had continued down its path as a stand alone? I would love to see what it would have become because almost any game dev could use that to make a game like mine and never worry about a lot of these things. I will recommend that you have a secondary graphics card set up for physics for my game as I will be taking advantage of it, however I will also state that it won't be necessary it just makes things a little smoother and accurate.
A lot of my physics is almost a complete cheat. While I do in deed have a full physics system programmed to run so far it's hard to run it with low settings and a single GPU and still maintain frames so I had to find an alternative to support it. On high settings you'll get the real physics running and it'll definitely show. On low settings I've essentially created smaller variables with less dependents and don't require absolute outputs instead there's a lot of guess work involved. A sniping scenario for example, mid to long range in urban area, there's streets with wind blowing in a relatively consistent direction but at different speeds and other variables. In the full physics settings you'd actually calculate each variable to determine exactly where to shoot. In the low end settings you end up grouping all these variables and getting one relative value of offset and get a vague idea of where the bullet should go and that's where it lands. By precisely calculating the bullet let's say it hits the mark dead on after you've accounted for everything, but then you switch settings and none of the variables have changed one bit, now you shoot again and instead of hitting the mark dead on you're now nearly 6 inches off mark. It might not seem like it makes a difference in vague talk but I'm sure that example makes it clear, on low settings the computer just guesses a random area of where the bullets lands and if you make that shot 100 times you'll probably never hit the same spot twice, where as with full settings so long as nothing changes you'll hit that same spot every time.
The buildings collapse isn't actually determined by normal physics running in the game instead it works on an architectural algorithm to determine stability based on remaining structural supports and when it's determined unstable it collapses based on that information. To save from constantly processing this info it's only calculated whenever a structural support is damaged there by saving a lot of processing. This is primarily why the building is separated into chunks because each chunk depends on a specific support/s and if they've become destroyed part of the building may collapse while the rest remains intact.
Truly the most intensive thing in the game are explosions and boy are there a lot of them. I've tried and tried to reduce the time it takes to calculate everything in an explosion and I've met with minor successes yielding enormous results but I can go further and I know it. Right now the game can handle roughly 30 explosions simultaneously in and around each other in which has been included with physics programming to group any overlapping explosions and cut processing on that. On lower settings I've also removed the shockwave effect other than determining it's intensity and distance to shatter windows but other than that the rest of the effects have been removed on low settings. On higher settings the player can get knocked over or suffer various effects from simply being to close to an explosion and surviving. This also effects bullet physics for all players which thankfully doesn't require much processing to handle. The majority of explosions are all player controlled so I've been working heavily on the grenades and c4 etc to try and preprocess as much as I can and have various computers in the same network all process the data in parts and simply relay all the parts around but doing so consistently had been proving difficult so I'm rethinking that right now trying to find a suitable alternative. I haven't been successful in transmitting each players explosion around and simply having each computer process whatever explosion it's responsible for then simply sending the renders around because it only works when there's just one explosion and doesn't account for all other explosions in the same area. Right now basically every player has to process all the info by themselves. In persistent world this isn't a problem because it's handled by the various servers which all process it all at once and tell every player whats up. So when it comes down to it I need to find a more efficient method of creating and calculating explosions which right now I'd say I've got half complete. Basically the explosion is just an animation and the rest is a matter of behind the scenes work based on it's output radius for the various stages of the explosion. What I need to make better is reactions to this information, reduce the number of times anything gets calculated in relation to a given explosion so that way it doesn't get done several dozen times right away, instead it'll only be calculated once and force it to go through a specific process and time before it can be allowed to be recalculated again and if I do it right then I should be able to increase my number of simultaneous explosions in the same area to at least 100 if not closer to 1,000 which should suffice for any scenario.
Last but not least is just an addendum to structural design. Inside every building is a series of triggers to play around with lights, and various other things linked to an object that if damaged cuts "power" to the building preventing lights, and other things and this is important because it's not alone. I also have "gas lines" which when shot simply output a particle stream of fire which can damage the player etc among other things you'd expect to find in a building. What does this matter you say? I'm completely removing it from multiplayer because it's a great source of frustration and wanted to see if you would miss it in campaign or if I should work diligently and dedicate resources to making it work in multiplayer. Not many of you to say much but I'll still take it under consideration anyway. Chances are I'm taking it out all together, however I may just put it in a subsequent future game if it's something you'd think you'd want.
February 04, 2012
Go Big or Go Home.
While not necessarily my favorite saying I've always had an attraction to it. The primary concept is that nothing is worth doing only have way you should go all out every time and since you're going that far why not try to go even bigger and better than you'd planned. While you might think 640 player combat sounds insane now I'd like to remind you that it's more than likely that it will be possible in the next 10 years. This could likely mean that either a ps4 which hopefully won't be for at least another 3 to 4 years, or a ps5 (assuming they stick with the name scheme) would likely support such a network. This is primarily because of our estimated rate of expansion in networking tech and availability. Rendering all this would likely be very very easy by the time the networks can handle it assuming it's not already easy to render something like that considering what I've seen in some tech demos. In support of my claim I would like to point to a certain company however I'm not entirely sure their networking system actually supports all the players I'm thinking of in close proximity though I do believe it does I haven't had the opportunity to actually test it therefore I'll refrain from such evidence for now. Instead I'll think about some of the other minor "BIG" things.
For example I'll talk more about persistent world. While I originally set out to make a dynamically fracturing script system for all objects in the game world I found it to computationally strenuous and had to abandon the idea until tech could handle it or I find a more efficient method. I hadn't heard of voxel systems at this point or some of the interesting tech companies propelling it or I might have seriously considered it as an alternative. At this point I'd moved on to instancing which is the process of essentially reusing an object and simply changing it's locational and rotation values which saves tremendous amounts of resources if you can reuse an object enough. The instance generally uses the same info already processed by the system and therefore very little needs to be computed to reuse it. Taking advantage of this I found a method to successfully recycle objects particularly fractured objects that would all be destructible separate from each other so that destroying the original didn't destroy instances of it and vice versa. This is one reason why I can afford a 100% destructible world without worry of frames per second. The real secret to it however is all in the physics system which has been by far the most entertaining and frustrating part of the process. You'll find in a lot of initial systems that things don't like to fall because they have no reason to in a computer world. I've managed to implement a system that will make a building fall if it's not structurally sound anymore. I've also managed to incorporate this with other physics in the game to get a more accurate picture of how this building would collapse and how it's effected by gun fire and explosives. Separate from architectural physics I have an entirely different sub system for gun physics to determine velocity, bullet drop, wind and humidity variables, etc. The primary system used to determine damage dealt to a player is based on bullet velocity in a generally scalar form while most sniper rifles use a vector based system for more accuracy at range, and by that I mean realistic accuracy not processing accuracy. For more information I suggest a wiki page on the subject to understand it more thoroughly. To give you a vague outline you have a given bullet with a given mass that is accelerated to a given point which then begins to decrease over time until it hits an object in which it then is reduced by an amount determined by the impact angle and material accounting for penetration if the speed is not reduced to zero. With a player damage is determined by the force of the impact where as with buildings and environmental objects a special calculation method is required to accurately allow the bullet to pass through a surface if it passes through at all and may adjust the angle of the bullet and its speed though not necessarily if for example you're shooting through a paper door. If not for my system, shooting a paper door would stop the bullet instead of allowing it to pass through. Upon receiving an impact the object is then fractured based on various variables to determine how much of the object chips off or is destroyed. All objects have a given set of fractures already in predetermined shapes and sizes so this is a matter really of figuring out which "chunk" is removed.
The reason things do not reset is the server is kept running as is even if no players are connected and they're simply joining a game in session that only ends when I reset the server. So you'll again start with a clean map and just keep destroying it brick by brick until nothing remains, and among all that rubble you'll fine a lot of great combat and sniping holes and hiding spots in general which will be played almost entirely differently than when you were still able to go in and around buildings and subway systems. Though again until I can really support a large scale number of players this might be isolated to sections with only mid sized groups of players at a time. Even still it will be quite an epic battle every time. Going back to what I mentioned about squads it's time I break down the specific system. Squad 1 is the objective squad responsible for actually doing things. Squad 2 is the support squad which keeps Squad 1 alive and helps them get to the objectives. Squad 3 is the specialist squad including the only sniper on your team, your medic in the first two ranks or a different class I won't yet reveal in the latter two ranks, your heavy vehicle which is a tank in the first rank and a kind of mech in the latter ranks which gets progressively bigger by rank, in rank 4 it's literally the size of a skyscrapper and still controlled by one player, and last but not least you have your artillery man. The artillery generally doesn't see actual combat but is instead kept busy bombing everything as ordered by the leader of Squad 1 or 2 which share a very similar list of commands. Squad 4 is your vehicle squad consisting of an APC driver and gunner, and an aerial vehicle of some kind and its gunner. In the first rank there's either a hind or apache attack helicopter which carries squad 2 around and they man a machine gun or can repel down and provide additional ground support. In the latter ranks squad 2 tends to parachute down from the artillery controlled ac-130 type plane while the normal pilots are now cruising around in fighter jets defending the ac-130 against enemy jets, attacking the enemy ac-130 or providing bombing runs and other aerial support. If the artillery gun ship is destroyed Squad 2 has an alternative spawn which I also won't disclose just yet. The decision to remove the sniper rifle from the average player was for a great and many reasons but it really came down to a matter of scale. This game is so big I can't afford to ever let it turn into a sniping match and therefore each team only gets one sniper which may choose to chill with artillery in the first couple ranks and be a long range support or be a combat sniper providing support in closer range combat which still might be considered long range or at a distance but is much closer than chilling with artillery on the edge of the map.
I'm open to answering some questions if you have any. In the next post I'll describe leader powers and their ability to reward and punish the squad for listening or not to their orders and the squads ability to punish a bad leader.
For example I'll talk more about persistent world. While I originally set out to make a dynamically fracturing script system for all objects in the game world I found it to computationally strenuous and had to abandon the idea until tech could handle it or I find a more efficient method. I hadn't heard of voxel systems at this point or some of the interesting tech companies propelling it or I might have seriously considered it as an alternative. At this point I'd moved on to instancing which is the process of essentially reusing an object and simply changing it's locational and rotation values which saves tremendous amounts of resources if you can reuse an object enough. The instance generally uses the same info already processed by the system and therefore very little needs to be computed to reuse it. Taking advantage of this I found a method to successfully recycle objects particularly fractured objects that would all be destructible separate from each other so that destroying the original didn't destroy instances of it and vice versa. This is one reason why I can afford a 100% destructible world without worry of frames per second. The real secret to it however is all in the physics system which has been by far the most entertaining and frustrating part of the process. You'll find in a lot of initial systems that things don't like to fall because they have no reason to in a computer world. I've managed to implement a system that will make a building fall if it's not structurally sound anymore. I've also managed to incorporate this with other physics in the game to get a more accurate picture of how this building would collapse and how it's effected by gun fire and explosives. Separate from architectural physics I have an entirely different sub system for gun physics to determine velocity, bullet drop, wind and humidity variables, etc. The primary system used to determine damage dealt to a player is based on bullet velocity in a generally scalar form while most sniper rifles use a vector based system for more accuracy at range, and by that I mean realistic accuracy not processing accuracy. For more information I suggest a wiki page on the subject to understand it more thoroughly. To give you a vague outline you have a given bullet with a given mass that is accelerated to a given point which then begins to decrease over time until it hits an object in which it then is reduced by an amount determined by the impact angle and material accounting for penetration if the speed is not reduced to zero. With a player damage is determined by the force of the impact where as with buildings and environmental objects a special calculation method is required to accurately allow the bullet to pass through a surface if it passes through at all and may adjust the angle of the bullet and its speed though not necessarily if for example you're shooting through a paper door. If not for my system, shooting a paper door would stop the bullet instead of allowing it to pass through. Upon receiving an impact the object is then fractured based on various variables to determine how much of the object chips off or is destroyed. All objects have a given set of fractures already in predetermined shapes and sizes so this is a matter really of figuring out which "chunk" is removed.
The reason things do not reset is the server is kept running as is even if no players are connected and they're simply joining a game in session that only ends when I reset the server. So you'll again start with a clean map and just keep destroying it brick by brick until nothing remains, and among all that rubble you'll fine a lot of great combat and sniping holes and hiding spots in general which will be played almost entirely differently than when you were still able to go in and around buildings and subway systems. Though again until I can really support a large scale number of players this might be isolated to sections with only mid sized groups of players at a time. Even still it will be quite an epic battle every time. Going back to what I mentioned about squads it's time I break down the specific system. Squad 1 is the objective squad responsible for actually doing things. Squad 2 is the support squad which keeps Squad 1 alive and helps them get to the objectives. Squad 3 is the specialist squad including the only sniper on your team, your medic in the first two ranks or a different class I won't yet reveal in the latter two ranks, your heavy vehicle which is a tank in the first rank and a kind of mech in the latter ranks which gets progressively bigger by rank, in rank 4 it's literally the size of a skyscrapper and still controlled by one player, and last but not least you have your artillery man. The artillery generally doesn't see actual combat but is instead kept busy bombing everything as ordered by the leader of Squad 1 or 2 which share a very similar list of commands. Squad 4 is your vehicle squad consisting of an APC driver and gunner, and an aerial vehicle of some kind and its gunner. In the first rank there's either a hind or apache attack helicopter which carries squad 2 around and they man a machine gun or can repel down and provide additional ground support. In the latter ranks squad 2 tends to parachute down from the artillery controlled ac-130 type plane while the normal pilots are now cruising around in fighter jets defending the ac-130 against enemy jets, attacking the enemy ac-130 or providing bombing runs and other aerial support. If the artillery gun ship is destroyed Squad 2 has an alternative spawn which I also won't disclose just yet. The decision to remove the sniper rifle from the average player was for a great and many reasons but it really came down to a matter of scale. This game is so big I can't afford to ever let it turn into a sniping match and therefore each team only gets one sniper which may choose to chill with artillery in the first couple ranks and be a long range support or be a combat sniper providing support in closer range combat which still might be considered long range or at a distance but is much closer than chilling with artillery on the edge of the map.
I'm open to answering some questions if you have any. In the next post I'll describe leader powers and their ability to reward and punish the squad for listening or not to their orders and the squads ability to punish a bad leader.
February 01, 2012
Mental notes.
Message received, you don't want to know about my personal life. Moving on I'll direct your attention to the classic "mental note". I frequently jot down notes in my project logs mostly because I keep them open for just such an occasion. Today however I was thinking on a feature for one game that I'd already pretty much locked down all features I wanted in it. The simple idea was how the MW3 killstreaks even under "support" generally don't do much supporting, and the ballistic vests have to be applied by everyone every time etc. I was thinking on a scenario in which the better an individual does the better equipment the team gets. While the squad leader gets his main abilities he could get additionanl unlocks by having a high performing team. Other things like the ballistic vests could be set up to automatically be applied to everyone when they spawn, although I don't have such a thing in my game and it wouldn't fit, if it were however then that's how I'd have it set up. I have a feature already in the game that could take advantage of this....
But the whole idea of killstreaks just doesn't fit my game. If ever I do a game with killstreaks though I'd definitely remember this. Certain features like that would be early work to make sure they're in good. Vests, extended mags, hollow points, w/e point is that if it's reasonable for a team to have it then it'd be an option. Picking on MW3 specifically for a moment I'm fairly aggravated at the perk setups. In MW2 there was a system and it made sense as to why a given perk was classified as a type 1, 2, or 3, and that's no longer the case. Additionally I still wish I could have something like extreme conditioning or slight of hand with my scavenger perk without using the specialist strike package. Ideally slight of hand should be a weapon perk not a class perk, and things like the attachment perk should be levelable like attachments pro and allow you more attachments at once. Realistically the average soldier would probably have a scope and extended mags for starters if not a different kind of ammo and or a silencer and would carry more than 3 clips of ammo. Any movement towards that reality would make me very happy. There's all kinds of tweaks I'd make but I won't rant, instead my only serious complaint that I have beyond anything else in the game is the gun balancing and selection, rebalance the guns and give us a few new ones (or at least bring back some of the ones in previous games you took out) and I probably would be so happy I'd never even think to complain. Dual fmgs, too powerful, m4 too weak, handguns too weak, sub machine guns in general too powerful, juggernaut dies way too quickly. Which on a side note I might add that the juggernaut armor isn't meant for combat scenarios, they do have a suit of armor that is, why didn't they use that instead of E.O.D.? Why will we never be able to switch firing modes? (single shot, three round, full) Shotguns are a secondary why did you put them back to primary? What's being done about spawn camping? rant rant rant
Back to one of my games, the multiplayer (still heavily under work) is structured into squads, with one squad leader in 2 squads and the other two squads report to one of them. The squads with direct leaders are foot soldiers basically while the other two are specialist and vehicle based squads such as driver and gunners or pilot and co pilot etc (won't reveal other details). Similarities can be drawn to MAG in that manner but that's where it ends. A majority of the gun leveling system is like a hybrid of fallout 3 and FFXIII chrystarium. While I've made the majority of the system, certain aspects still need fine tuning which is why I'll refrain from specifics for now. Basically though you do have stats that generally level up though repetition. The more you reload the quicker you reload, the more you run the faster and further you can run, the more you get shot the less you flinch, etc. There are perks you buy, but they all stick with you and instead of picking classes you can pick characters that you level differently. You can change your weapon loadouts within a character as well however from early tests that generally wasn't a big wanted feature. Originally I had a stock system in mind for the game as a way of earning money which you would then spend on loadouts and you'd earn contracts etc but my testers didn't like it so I removed it. At various points after significant alterations and tweaks I've added it back in and out as the testers like the idea just not the execution. When it's out they say it feels like something is missing, and I've used that to add several features which have helped significantly diminish that demand for more however it still remains. There's no veterancy however there is something distantly similar, in which after you've reached your level cap by playing in a higher rank you can increase your level in the levels below. So a normal character cap of 55 or 65 if reached on every rank of MP might end up with a level 255 at the lowest rank.
The one thing that unfortunately will deter more players than anything else is the fact that I've implemented a mandatory campaign completion to play the highest level of multiplayer. You have to beat a section of the game to unlock a rank, sections are essentially acts and difficulties. The first act is easy and will unlock rank 1. Act 3 is hard and unlocks rank 3. The epilogue is nearly impossible and unlocks the final rank 4 and the persistent world mode but only the upper echelon of players will ever get that far. If you couldn't do mile high on the original modern warfare you'll never beat this. Persistent world I'm thinking about opening up early on like rank 1 instead though to draw a wider range of players. The whole idea of the ranks and campaign link was to weed out complete and total noobs for players looking for a challenge. Persistent world however is as it sounds, you start with the main location of the story and it's a never ending multiplayer deathmatch intended to have minor overarchs such as clan HQ's where a clan can claim territory, and factions which every clan would have to chose a side and they'd claim street sections as you play. Trying to get a significant number of players to make this interesting though has been proving difficult in terms of connectivity and bandwidth. Right now the average game has 32 players, while persistent mode has roughly up to 128 if nobody is doing anything, I wanted to increase this number to something more ambitious like 640. The entire persistent world is all destructible and so you start with a pristine city and over time you see how it gets destroyed and buildings collapse and how warfare evolves on the fly. Right now I'm thinking on isolating sections of the city and having roughly 64 players in a territory at a time and filter it that way so while the whole city is still being destroyed by other players you're only dealing with info relevant to your area.
These are just some of the small features in the game. I'm saving the really big ones for the "BIG" announcement. Suffice to say if your mind was blown by this, it'll likely be liquified and vaporized when you get the full details. And for those of you worrying about guns, so far I've put in a little over 60 working guns, and have plans to implement over 100. And they're not all "modern" weapons, I have plenty of sci-fi futuristic weapons as well I'll tell you in a later post. However I absolutely do not have any "ancient weapons" or old school classics. No thompson or ppsh or model 1887 and I also don't have any swords or crossbows or longbows. I have a couple items that might be considered a sword or bow in the right context however you'd probably call it a lightsaber before you call it a sword, and it's nothing like that either so don't freak out and start calling lucas or think it's a star wars thing because it's not, go play TOR if you want that sort of thing. The GOW torque bow was similar to a futuristic crossbow, and I may have something you could compare to that however I believe you'll find them distinctly different in several key areas. With that in mind I'll leave you to stew on the awesomeness.
But the whole idea of killstreaks just doesn't fit my game. If ever I do a game with killstreaks though I'd definitely remember this. Certain features like that would be early work to make sure they're in good. Vests, extended mags, hollow points, w/e point is that if it's reasonable for a team to have it then it'd be an option. Picking on MW3 specifically for a moment I'm fairly aggravated at the perk setups. In MW2 there was a system and it made sense as to why a given perk was classified as a type 1, 2, or 3, and that's no longer the case. Additionally I still wish I could have something like extreme conditioning or slight of hand with my scavenger perk without using the specialist strike package. Ideally slight of hand should be a weapon perk not a class perk, and things like the attachment perk should be levelable like attachments pro and allow you more attachments at once. Realistically the average soldier would probably have a scope and extended mags for starters if not a different kind of ammo and or a silencer and would carry more than 3 clips of ammo. Any movement towards that reality would make me very happy. There's all kinds of tweaks I'd make but I won't rant, instead my only serious complaint that I have beyond anything else in the game is the gun balancing and selection, rebalance the guns and give us a few new ones (or at least bring back some of the ones in previous games you took out) and I probably would be so happy I'd never even think to complain. Dual fmgs, too powerful, m4 too weak, handguns too weak, sub machine guns in general too powerful, juggernaut dies way too quickly. Which on a side note I might add that the juggernaut armor isn't meant for combat scenarios, they do have a suit of armor that is, why didn't they use that instead of E.O.D.? Why will we never be able to switch firing modes? (single shot, three round, full) Shotguns are a secondary why did you put them back to primary? What's being done about spawn camping? rant rant rant
Back to one of my games, the multiplayer (still heavily under work) is structured into squads, with one squad leader in 2 squads and the other two squads report to one of them. The squads with direct leaders are foot soldiers basically while the other two are specialist and vehicle based squads such as driver and gunners or pilot and co pilot etc (won't reveal other details). Similarities can be drawn to MAG in that manner but that's where it ends. A majority of the gun leveling system is like a hybrid of fallout 3 and FFXIII chrystarium. While I've made the majority of the system, certain aspects still need fine tuning which is why I'll refrain from specifics for now. Basically though you do have stats that generally level up though repetition. The more you reload the quicker you reload, the more you run the faster and further you can run, the more you get shot the less you flinch, etc. There are perks you buy, but they all stick with you and instead of picking classes you can pick characters that you level differently. You can change your weapon loadouts within a character as well however from early tests that generally wasn't a big wanted feature. Originally I had a stock system in mind for the game as a way of earning money which you would then spend on loadouts and you'd earn contracts etc but my testers didn't like it so I removed it. At various points after significant alterations and tweaks I've added it back in and out as the testers like the idea just not the execution. When it's out they say it feels like something is missing, and I've used that to add several features which have helped significantly diminish that demand for more however it still remains. There's no veterancy however there is something distantly similar, in which after you've reached your level cap by playing in a higher rank you can increase your level in the levels below. So a normal character cap of 55 or 65 if reached on every rank of MP might end up with a level 255 at the lowest rank.
The one thing that unfortunately will deter more players than anything else is the fact that I've implemented a mandatory campaign completion to play the highest level of multiplayer. You have to beat a section of the game to unlock a rank, sections are essentially acts and difficulties. The first act is easy and will unlock rank 1. Act 3 is hard and unlocks rank 3. The epilogue is nearly impossible and unlocks the final rank 4 and the persistent world mode but only the upper echelon of players will ever get that far. If you couldn't do mile high on the original modern warfare you'll never beat this. Persistent world I'm thinking about opening up early on like rank 1 instead though to draw a wider range of players. The whole idea of the ranks and campaign link was to weed out complete and total noobs for players looking for a challenge. Persistent world however is as it sounds, you start with the main location of the story and it's a never ending multiplayer deathmatch intended to have minor overarchs such as clan HQ's where a clan can claim territory, and factions which every clan would have to chose a side and they'd claim street sections as you play. Trying to get a significant number of players to make this interesting though has been proving difficult in terms of connectivity and bandwidth. Right now the average game has 32 players, while persistent mode has roughly up to 128 if nobody is doing anything, I wanted to increase this number to something more ambitious like 640. The entire persistent world is all destructible and so you start with a pristine city and over time you see how it gets destroyed and buildings collapse and how warfare evolves on the fly. Right now I'm thinking on isolating sections of the city and having roughly 64 players in a territory at a time and filter it that way so while the whole city is still being destroyed by other players you're only dealing with info relevant to your area.
These are just some of the small features in the game. I'm saving the really big ones for the "BIG" announcement. Suffice to say if your mind was blown by this, it'll likely be liquified and vaporized when you get the full details. And for those of you worrying about guns, so far I've put in a little over 60 working guns, and have plans to implement over 100. And they're not all "modern" weapons, I have plenty of sci-fi futuristic weapons as well I'll tell you in a later post. However I absolutely do not have any "ancient weapons" or old school classics. No thompson or ppsh or model 1887 and I also don't have any swords or crossbows or longbows. I have a couple items that might be considered a sword or bow in the right context however you'd probably call it a lightsaber before you call it a sword, and it's nothing like that either so don't freak out and start calling lucas or think it's a star wars thing because it's not, go play TOR if you want that sort of thing. The GOW torque bow was similar to a futuristic crossbow, and I may have something you could compare to that however I believe you'll find them distinctly different in several key areas. With that in mind I'll leave you to stew on the awesomeness.
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