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I had a crazy idea that maybe somehow in the near future would be possible. Now Coldstone is currently not a programmer's game engine correct? Most of the programing is done for you, making it a simple to use system. It is easy to code, but want about advanced programmers, of people who want start to learn programing? They cannot use many of Coldstone's features because they are somewhat basic. Take blacklite's interesting discovery:
Quote
Originally posted by BlackLite: **Off a whim, I changed the extension of one of my events into a text file and 'lo! it wasn't a jumble of characters! This means that you can script, in the more literal sense of the word, your events. I checked out the rest of the different items, but have not found anyting of much use yet. Only the events (mostly) are of any good.
**
What if there was a way to totally open that up to scripting, maybe in a more complex, debuging version of Coldstone? Ambrosia could release a program that you could read the scripting of each map, character, movie, event, etc. making Coldstone fully customizeable and being able to support both beginners and advanced programmers/designers alike. Also, maybe Colstone could support 3d design as well, like maybe a form of the new Goliath engine Beenox is working on.
The Vatz is our current title under development. It uses our latest 3D technology, Goliath, under development at Beenox. Goliath is a powerful 3D engine that has the power to bring the most demanding game concepts to life. First person shooters? Thrid person action games? Real time strategy? Goliath can do all these. It already features such things as real-time shadows, dynamic lighting, open logic architecture, console, optimized environment rendering, occlusion systems, advanced physics, and much more. They could also have a character/NPC edtior and worldmap editor in with the programs, as well. I think this would be the greatest idea to bring this huge gaming lmerged engine together, theby closing the gap of 2d and 3d, advanced and basic.
My question is: is it possible? And would Ambrosia, Beenox, and whoever else is involved, want to do that? I would go for it. A definate buy for sure. It would take professional quality games to the next level.
------------------ -The ZeroWarrior
Now THAT is a GREAT idea! I would be behind it all the way if it became a reality. But unfortunately, there would most likely be quite a few hurdles for integration. Otherwise, that would most definitely be one of the best engines I have seen on the market.
------------------ Whose cruel idea was it to put an 'S' in lisp?
If it allowed people to use the simple events type interface to make games like coldstone already does it would probably be the best game creation package ever.
------------------ Pilky (url="http://"http://www.mcubed.cjb.net")M cubed homepage(/url) Cheesiest film line of all time "Flash I love you but we only have 14 hours to save the earth" from Flash Gorden
Originally posted by Pilky: **If it allowed people to use the simple events type interface to make games like coldstone already does it would probably be the best game creation package ever.
It would, if it worked out that they could create such a beast. You could have it simple for most of the programing, drag and drop, and for advanced effects, you would be able to custom code certain items. I think it could happen. it would be a few years off, but it could happen, And if it did mind you, it would revolutionize the game design industry. I did a search for game design programs, and ninety-five percent of them were for Windows. 95%!!! If Ambrosia and Beenox brought their might together once again, maybe with a little 3rd party outside help. I'd say Macintosh would be the leading computer of choice for the majority once again. Anything's possible.
I don't think there are any out there that are flexible enough to have drag and drop + programming + 2D + 3D + support for games on PC and Mac. If this new coldstone had all these ( and it ran on windows ) Ambrosia and Beenox would make a heck of a lot of money (assuming they advertised it )
did anyone take a gander at the bold print directed at CGE users:
"This engine will NOT be available to the public."
this 3D engine is likely headed straight to the xBox platform. beenox is a licensed developer, and that will probably be where the Vatz is headed. They're making their dreams come true.
its unlikely that the engine is too user friendly. Its more than likely that it does have a map/terrain editor that is very easy to use, its likely something akin to CGE as its their starting point. Someting akin to what Eidos uses for TombRaider
but again the bold print. Its not going to reverse itself, they stand to make hundreds of thousands of dollars from Goliath, commercial engines run easily at $2000, i believe that's the price for commercial usage of the nanosaur engine. ------------------
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' RPG Cliché Dictionary ' ..
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(This message has been edited by ellrx (edited 08-13-2003).)
What about other 3D engines to the public? There are other 3D engines that I have heard about. There are other options...
3 of which can be found at (url="http://"http://www.idevgames.com")idg(/url) 2 are available for download, another will likeely be released to the public after thee udg2003 contest concludes in november.
------------------
... bwahhaaaaahaaaaaugh fooooolish sammurai.
So the 3D version is out of the question (if i understand the above messages correctly).
<Warning="Wild Thoughts ahead">
But what about paying Ambrosia some more to get access to the source code of CGE? Since there will probably be no further development on the engine and we are most likely the only ones ever going to use the CGE, that would be their best bet at getting more out of it.
But maybe that would be more advanced than one bargained for and we need to pay for Real Basic to use the engine as en extension to RB.
Well i might consider doing it, depending on how much Ambrosia would want to see. andd how usable the code is.
</Warning>
But unfortunately my impression is that Beenox is the onse sitting on the source code. From my writings with Ambrosia I have come to the conclussion that they are at their whim. Beenox does not work on updates so their will not be an update.
jeroen goulooze sez: So the 3D version is out of the question... I wouldn't touch that code. Due to the amount of features present that do not work according to the languages that derived it. sounds that do not execute, actions that are overridden. Limited conditionals, arcane methods to get simple things to work, hardwired buttons, the need to know both C++ and RealBasic, its lack of informative necessary error messages. All joking aside there is a keen likelyhood that portions of comments, are in French.
I have a strong sensation that Ambrosia the publisher will not turn over the rights, there have been a steady stream of users, besides it potential to generate direct income, it drags people from all over the world. We have no knowledge as to what agreement they've entered into, but i don't think it called for regular maintenence and progress.
the back aand forth time spent between ther code (even when coded structurally) might eat up days.
it'd be less expensive to just use RB yourself.
the time spent pining, petitioning, propositioning, could be used to build objects and behviors that can be applied over and over again, if designed properly, will take the mystery and guess work out of it.
icarus.
We should e-mail Ambrosia about this idea. Just to see what they say.
The Penguin
------------------ The penguin rules the world.
We should ask who is in charge of developing coldstone. If beenox does all the development and they don't work on it then we are all stuck aren't we
Plan 2: If the whole beenox idea doesn't work and they vow to never let the source of Coldstone see the light of day, or coldstone ends up falling behind in maintenance and never evolves to the next level, I think that prehaps a group of hobbyists that know how to code and have a TON of time on their hands, pick up some freeware engines for 2D and/or 3D (if any) and attempt to integrate them into a coldstone similar environment with all of the bells and whistles that User Friendly game engines lack. If it was well constructed and maintained by that pool of developers, then THAT would be worth buying. It also may end up being the only way for such an engine to come into the market :frown: ...
the last thing you wanted to hear;
"Beenox does all the development, you are stuck."
they don't have the resources to continue to develop CGE further (they need a coder)
Its still a useable product.
It's all very depressing.
------------------ Poor little Johnny, of whom we'll see no more, for what he thought was H2O was H2SO4.
Beenox has someone working on patches, last I herd they where planing on using a newer version of realbasic to update Coldstone. But I've been out of the loop for a while so they may have decided against it.
------------------ Thanks, GrahamVH graham@warcraftcentral.com Coldstone Developer (url="http://"http://www.warcraftcentral.net/legends/main.html")http://www.warcraftc...gends/main.html(/url)
Real Basic and Ambrosia/Beenox have worked together because of the bugs beenox encountered during recompiling the old source code in a newer version of Real Basic.
This resulted in a newer version of Real Basic.
Unfortunately this has not resulted in an updated version of CGE, yet. Why? Most likely because of the hollidays/summer recess etc. The newer version of Real basic was released somewhere in july.
Originally posted by ellrx: **jeroen goulooze sez: So the 3D version is out of the question... I wouldn't touch that code. Due to the amount of features present that do not work according to the languages that derived it. sounds that do not execute, actions that are overridden. Limited conditionals, arcane methods to get simple things to work, hardwired buttons, the need to know both C++ and RealBasic, its lack of informative necessary error messages. All joking aside there is a keen likelyhood that portions of comments, are in French.
Well, what if you scrapped the merged engine and created one big engine? It would be extremely similar to Conitec's 3D Gamestudio (Check it out here: (url="http://"http://www.conitec.net/a4info.htm")http://www.conitec.net/a4info.htm(/url) ) They say it's easy to use but I've used it a bit, and it isn't that user friendly, and it isn't that great. If you could start from scratch and have a 2D/3D engine, it would eliminate the use of merging two game engines together. No complex coding. Also about the actual coding for the game: You could make click and drag games pretty easily (that's one thing that 3DGS got somewhat useable), but you could have a coding screen on the side and it would show you all of the code in that particular area, and then for all the objects (similar to Cinema 4D's approach. You could then inbetween the basic coding that you could drag to that object, you could code more advanced stuff, like reflection, or morphing or whatever. I'll send a e-mail to Ambrosia to see what he thinks can be done. I've already sent a few e-mails to Beenox, but I don't think they want to answer me. And yes, I did read the fine print about the Goliath engine not being opened to the public. I was using this engine as a point of reference: If they could do that on their own, why not cook up something similar for a new coldstone engine? It would drive sales for the Macintosh, and that's something I willing to fight for.
(This message has been edited by zerowarrior150 (edited 08-19-2003).)
Well? what do you guys think? Is it something we should ask for? How many would use it? How many would pay for it. Also, I have e-mailed Ambrosia about this, and basically they have said that it's a great idea, but right now they're banging their heads against the wall trying to fix the cross-platform problems. They are working on it. But they didn't say whether or not this engine would be an option in the future, but I'll keep you guys informed. Anyone want to say anything?
"contract a hungry/aggressive/obsessed/posessed developer" "build with minimal attribution to the source, for dissection and understanding only" "upgrade program, $15-$20 for upgrade" "append/expand the beta team from v1" "call it ColdStone 2. Not version 2" "Let Glenn's bug page be your stand by" "Release time-expiring links to structured polling systems, to garner structured concise input at appropriate junctions of development" "K.I.S., S.(oftware Guys)"