Escape Velocity On Xbox Live

@voinianambassador, on Jun 18 2008, 12:35 PM, said in Escape Velocity On Xbox Live:

I think you'd have an easier time starting from scratch. Not least for reasons of licensing! EVx is quite an old game now, and while it was ground-breaking in its time, the things you'd need to create a clone are a lot more commonplace nowadays. 3D modelling tools, for example.

Would that be theft of intellectual property? Not if you were creative enough to come up with your own setting, look, and feel. Space trading goes back to Bell & Braben's 'Elite' - maybe further. Top-down space combat dates back to 'Asteroids' - again, maybe further... there's not a whole lot about any of the EV games that you wouldn't be able to replicate. Just as long as you don't fill your universe with Emalgha, Voinians, the Strand War. That really would be weak. Not least because we've all played those games to death.

Think of this as an opportunity to redesign the game. Build in more commodities. Allow more than four planets in a solar system. Put equipment mass in kilos instead of tonnes, so you aren't restricted to missiles weighing zero, or multiples of a tonne. Allow shields with different properties against different weapons? Gravitational effects near black holes? Allow events to change the politics of the galaxy over time, regardless of the player's actions? Make planets much, much bigger, and make ships handle differently while over a planet? And so on... enjoy the possibilities - don't just make a clone!

Some elements of the EVx franchise should be retained, I think, including:

• The ability to outfit ships with a variety of equipment

• Capturing ships, hiring escorts, looting wrecks

• Campaign play that changes the politics of the universe

• Lots of missions

• Capability for players to create new content

I've thought about trying my hand at an EV-like game. Don't really have the time, unfortunately. Still might be fun to write the basics, though.

I can tell you, as someone who has ported C/C++ Windows/Mac software to the Xbox using XNA as well as constructed editors for the EVN engine (A long long time ago ) that porting the EVN engine to XNA would be a One man 6 month job, tops. Including debugging, not just the raw port. The reason being XNA is actually a very good system for rapid development of a game, and the C# language has a number of tools for working with and converting C/C++ code.

BTW, getting clearance for an XBLA game is actually pretty easy. Your game just needs to not suck, so EV is already 90% there

We haven't thought about the sort of people that this would attract...

Also the complaints.... ("why is it cheaper on mac/windows etc????") then the topics about how Ambrosia sucks and EV isn't worth it etc, these boards would have an influx or bad language and yobbos (not saying that all the people who play xbox are yobbos.... but I know a few who are).

I'm glad that EV isn't played by that many people (compared to other games like Halo etc) sorta like being in an elusive club.