Any chance of KF being rebuilt for UT3
- Thread starter mamoo
- Start date
Nope. I was having a beer with a mate at the weekend who works at Lion Head Studios (Microsoft) who said he had seen the NPD industry sales data. So purely heresy I am afraid but it did make me laugh to imagine Ramm, Alex and the rest all driving around in Ferraris (200,000 x $14.99)!
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Anyway u can't tell KF is on UE2004 XD
The graphic are just a lot f****** optimized
Look beautifull
Anyway the gameplay > Graphic ...
Good Graphic is usefull but come after ...
Some game i play at max haver the graphic f***** ugly beside KF
The UT3 engine is more than graphics. It incorporates different physics, too. I want to say that the only thing I can see the UT3 engine doing better than the current UT2.5 engine is dynamic lighting. Other than that, I'm pretty darn content with what I've got in the current KF package.
Well as far as I am aware, NPD does not track digital distribution numbers (at least as far as steam is concerned. Valve does not release those numbers to anybody to my knowledge except to the publishers/devs involved with the game)
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. You seem to be knowledgeable of and interested in the game industry. I'm 1/2 of that.
And long winded:
I don't think it would need to be as expensive as UE3. It is, after all, and with all due respect, more like a mod than a full game. It seems to me it's most like the equivalent of a more complex game mode like assault or the like. Being a s/w engineer w/20+ years of experience, IMO it shouldn't require a re-code as much as a simple translation to the current version of uscript. If that would even be necessary. I don't see why a port would be less efficient. Yes going from one thread to many is orders of magnitude more difficult. And in that case a rewrite is the way to go. But a complete rewrite isn't. Most of the internal logic is reusable. Total rewrite really means the "permission" to change anything needed to meet the new requirements. Eg selecting the next enemy can be atomic the thread level. As is deciding to swing the chainsaw, etc. The existing code should be fine. I'm not even sure that the multi-threading extends out of the engine itself. Like parallelizing graphics ops doesn't extend upward of the graphics card's driver.
However...
<fantasy-mode>
I would love to see Epic and other engine producers would have a special licensing agreement with smaller, indie developers that was more favorable, perhaps paid for by a small cut of the profits and a BIG splash screen saying something like: An Epic indie license. Thus, Epic supports the indie community. Except for tech support, the cost of a delivering an engine is nil. This could give them signficant market share in the indie community and hopefully a small low-risk profit stream like you mention below. Support should be affordable.
</fantasy-mode>
First, I hope there is no take over. That often implies that games are trashed unless they're expected to be $M sellers. If Epic or other engine makers would consider a plan like mine, then the indies could continue to infuse new ideas into the gaming industry which are sorely needed. Indies are not slaves to stock holders and so can follow their own vision.
Another thing I think would be cool in the industry would borrow somewhat from the open source community. KF could publish specs, sketches and whatever else is needed for the the mod community to produce assets. The chosen asset would then be integrated into the game. The artist could retain the copyright for the art (like iD does when GPL'ing the source code to their older engines) but would allow it to be used gratis. The mod community already does this w/o retaining copyright. This would have a large benefit: exposure of the artist to the industry. When the job req says: "must have delivered a finished game" they are qualified. And since a sold product gets, I would imagine, more attention from the industry the art can be considered a portfolio and resume. Since the artist retains the copyright, hse (unisex he/she) can use it wherever hse goes.
??? Any mod devs reading this? Would you be open to doing something like this?
But assets are not the most important thing about a game.
I, for expample, play mostly for gameplay, not for graphics. Better graphics are like frosting. But gameplay is the cake and the party.
Consider Deus Ex, a game from the last millenium. It is still the best game I've ever played. I played it earlier this year and found something new in it even after playing at least 7/8 times before. It used the UT engine after it was quite mature (ie outdated). Graphics do not a game make. My second fav is System Shock 2 which has almost laughable graphics. But incredible audio, which can add more to a game than graphics. 3rd is BioShock. Wonderful graphics. Designed by the same guy as System Shock 2. The game play was, however, simplified from SS2. The graphics did not make up for it. But graphics can improve an already good game.
With respect to DLC, it has pluses and minuses. A big minus is that, over time you can pay more than you would've just buying the next version that contains all of the DLC. You do get the pieces of DLC quicker, so it becomes a value judgment. Eventually TWI are going to have to offer more value in their DLC. Even tho it's a pretty unfair comparison, look what you get for FO3 for $10. There've been 4 chunks o' DLC for FO3, each providing a couple of hours of game play, totaling $40. That's close to the price of the original game with just a fraction of its content.
I don't know if DLC is nickel and diming me to death or keeping me nicely entertained until the next full game. I do know that I'd rather not have it if it's taking enough resources to push the release date back.
Or Not.
cx
And long winded:
I'm ignorant here. The behavior code is largely uscript -- otherwise I don't believe it couldn't've been implemented as a mod -- and that is supposed to be very backward compatible. And, in any case, the logic is already designed and that's far more important than learning any syntax changes, if any, in order to implement it.
I don't think it would need to be as expensive as UE3. It is, after all, and with all due respect, more like a mod than a full game. It seems to me it's most like the equivalent of a more complex game mode like assault or the like. Being a s/w engineer w/20+ years of experience, IMO it shouldn't require a re-code as much as a simple translation to the current version of uscript. If that would even be necessary. I don't see why a port would be less efficient. Yes going from one thread to many is orders of magnitude more difficult. And in that case a rewrite is the way to go. But a complete rewrite isn't. Most of the internal logic is reusable. Total rewrite really means the "permission" to change anything needed to meet the new requirements. Eg selecting the next enemy can be atomic the thread level. As is deciding to swing the chainsaw, etc. The existing code should be fine. I'm not even sure that the multi-threading extends out of the engine itself. Like parallelizing graphics ops doesn't extend upward of the graphics card's driver.
Ah. Now we come to the fly in the ointment. Engine licensing and asset creation. These would be a huge problem (don't forget bump mapping). Yes, probably show stoppers.
However...
<fantasy-mode>
I would love to see Epic and other engine producers would have a special licensing agreement with smaller, indie developers that was more favorable, perhaps paid for by a small cut of the profits and a BIG splash screen saying something like: An Epic indie license. Thus, Epic supports the indie community. Except for tech support, the cost of a delivering an engine is nil. This could give them signficant market share in the indie community and hopefully a small low-risk profit stream like you mention below. Support should be affordable.
</fantasy-mode>
Again a very large fly.
First, I hope there is no take over. That often implies that games are trashed unless they're expected to be $M sellers. If Epic or other engine makers would consider a plan like mine, then the indies could continue to infuse new ideas into the gaming industry which are sorely needed. Indies are not slaves to stock holders and so can follow their own vision.
Another thing I think would be cool in the industry would borrow somewhat from the open source community. KF could publish specs, sketches and whatever else is needed for the the mod community to produce assets. The chosen asset would then be integrated into the game. The artist could retain the copyright for the art (like iD does when GPL'ing the source code to their older engines) but would allow it to be used gratis. The mod community already does this w/o retaining copyright. This would have a large benefit: exposure of the artist to the industry. When the job req says: "must have delivered a finished game" they are qualified. And since a sold product gets, I would imagine, more attention from the industry the art can be considered a portfolio and resume. Since the artist retains the copyright, hse (unisex he/she) can use it wherever hse goes.
??? Any mod devs reading this? Would you be open to doing something like this?
But assets are not the most important thing about a game.
I, for expample, play mostly for gameplay, not for graphics. Better graphics are like frosting. But gameplay is the cake and the party.
Consider Deus Ex, a game from the last millenium. It is still the best game I've ever played. I played it earlier this year and found something new in it even after playing at least 7/8 times before. It used the UT engine after it was quite mature (ie outdated). Graphics do not a game make. My second fav is System Shock 2 which has almost laughable graphics. But incredible audio, which can add more to a game than graphics. 3rd is BioShock. Wonderful graphics. Designed by the same guy as System Shock 2. The game play was, however, simplified from SS2. The graphics did not make up for it. But graphics can improve an already good game.
With respect to DLC, it has pluses and minuses. A big minus is that, over time you can pay more than you would've just buying the next version that contains all of the DLC. You do get the pieces of DLC quicker, so it becomes a value judgment. Eventually TWI are going to have to offer more value in their DLC. Even tho it's a pretty unfair comparison, look what you get for FO3 for $10. There've been 4 chunks o' DLC for FO3, each providing a couple of hours of game play, totaling $40. That's close to the price of the original game with just a fraction of its content.
I don't know if DLC is nickel and diming me to death or keeping me nicely entertained until the next full game. I do know that I'd rather not have it if it's taking enough resources to push the release date back.
Or Not.
cx
Warning: Long unstructured rant
The thing is games companies are profit making businesses, only sometimes does that aim actually coincide with making the best "gamer's game" for its customers. And this separation tends to increase with the scale of the operation.
Your average customer is not a gamer in the sense of the inhabitants of this forum and therefore their perception of what a good game is derives primarily from its own marketing in the first place and what the industry deems is that status quo. This is why graphics are so important for big titles; the gameplay can be worse than pong but Joe Average has to see anti-aliased individually simulated blades of grass brushing against his overpriced HD screen Viacom made him buy because that is what he expects and will pay for.
Hence my argument that if Killing Floor wants to break the glass ceiling of its current distribution demographic it will need to metamorphose into a full pricetag game replete with appropriately expensive to produce next gen graphics. At which point if actual gameplay development gets sacrificed the true gamers may or may not jump ship rightly feeling sold out but what the hell they're just walking sacks of meat with a wallet * cough cough metal gear cough *
Neither Epic nor anyone else will do an Indie game scheme of the altruistic kind you outlined because:
- God forbid some innovative competition actually impacts their bottom line, why would they make it easier for these impudent startups they would rather crush or take over.
- They (and other companies) would rather hoover up the talent that'd produce them, assimilate them into their own organisation and force them to work in developer chain-gangs on the latest version of Formula One / FIFA Championship
Such things are only done in the real world when:
(a) It looks good from a marketing/PR/recruitment point of view
(b) A regulatory body comes with a big anti-monopoly stick (which is what I think should happen and the EU over here may end up doing)
Look no further than the recent furore over the XBox Live Arcade Indie section. Essentially as a PR stunt Microsoft opened up their platform to Indie developers with their whole XNA scheme.
Except it started getting a little bit too successful so a phonecall later there's a cap of 40 Indie titles annually on a platform where the marginal cost of distribution is 0 and every extra game is potential revenue from the platform's point of view. Clearly there are other interests at work here * cough cough EA's racing games cough *
Going to your mention of an open source model Gabe Newell gave an interesting interview on the idea of community funded games, which is probably the closest real games companies will get to open source today:
http://kotaku.com/5318368/valve-let-fans-fund-games-development
However the cynic in me views it as a PR stunt (so everyone continues to anthropomorphise the CEO of a multinational as their gaming buddy/altruistic gaming visionary) or just a novel way to avoid having to drum up conventional investment in an economic downturn.
The thing is games companies are profit making businesses, only sometimes does that aim actually coincide with making the best "gamer's game" for its customers. And this separation tends to increase with the scale of the operation.
Your average customer is not a gamer in the sense of the inhabitants of this forum and therefore their perception of what a good game is derives primarily from its own marketing in the first place and what the industry deems is that status quo. This is why graphics are so important for big titles; the gameplay can be worse than pong but Joe Average has to see anti-aliased individually simulated blades of grass brushing against his overpriced HD screen Viacom made him buy because that is what he expects and will pay for.
Hence my argument that if Killing Floor wants to break the glass ceiling of its current distribution demographic it will need to metamorphose into a full pricetag game replete with appropriately expensive to produce next gen graphics. At which point if actual gameplay development gets sacrificed the true gamers may or may not jump ship rightly feeling sold out but what the hell they're just walking sacks of meat with a wallet * cough cough metal gear cough *
Neither Epic nor anyone else will do an Indie game scheme of the altruistic kind you outlined because:
- God forbid some innovative competition actually impacts their bottom line, why would they make it easier for these impudent startups they would rather crush or take over.
- They (and other companies) would rather hoover up the talent that'd produce them, assimilate them into their own organisation and force them to work in developer chain-gangs on the latest version of Formula One / FIFA Championship
Such things are only done in the real world when:
(a) It looks good from a marketing/PR/recruitment point of view
(b) A regulatory body comes with a big anti-monopoly stick (which is what I think should happen and the EU over here may end up doing
)Look no further than the recent furore over the XBox Live Arcade Indie section. Essentially as a PR stunt Microsoft opened up their platform to Indie developers with their whole XNA scheme.
Except it started getting a little bit too successful so a phonecall later there's a cap of 40 Indie titles annually on a platform where the marginal cost of distribution is 0 and every extra game is potential revenue from the platform's point of view. Clearly there are other interests at work here * cough cough EA's racing games cough *
Going to your mention of an open source model Gabe Newell gave an interesting interview on the idea of community funded games, which is probably the closest real games companies will get to open source today:
http://kotaku.com/5318368/valve-let-fans-fund-games-development
However the cynic in me views it as a PR stunt (so everyone continues to anthropomorphise the CEO of a multinational as their gaming buddy/altruistic gaming visionary) or just a novel way to avoid having to drum up conventional investment in an economic downturn.
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This is what I've always heard also.
I think someone's full of you-know-what.
I'd be interested to know how many "copies" of KF have been sold and also how many character packs have been sold also.
Same here. I'd love better dynamic lighting and better physics. From what I understand, the physics-enabled objects were removed or disabled since the physics were buggy.
The game looks fine, but better physics and dynamic lighting could really add a lot of atmosphere.
He wasn't commenting either way and Tripwire can neither confirm nor deny the possibility of KF2 right?
Try and get any games company to authoritatively say either way on any upcoming sequel and their answer will keep changing with the wind, the reason being the timing and manner of announcment has all sorts of publicity and investment implications. So the first point of disclosure is not going to be in passing in a random forum post.
As thrash already point out, he was calling gusone's BS about:
- NPD only tracking retail sales not digital download figures as can be seen on their own website and which would be near impossible using their retail tracking techniques.
- The likelihood of a random forum-goer being privvy to a report that even the publishers of the product in question themselves haven't seen, that would be worth millions to any investor, analyst or industry insider and would therefore be very closely guarded, under NDA and not the sort of thing you discuss with a mate in a pub. Further what Lionhead would be doing with advance market research figures when they are a game development studio not the Microsoft marketing & strategy group is also highly dubious.
It is generally inadvisable to (attempt to) BS company reps about the sales of their own product!!
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I wouldn't call it due diligence, just ****waving
There are only a few titles on Steam that I've seen to have ever published sales numbers at any one point in time. Valve being one, to demonstrate the system works, and a couple indie to show it's possible for small devs to be successful on Steam.
As part of due diligence in a Pub conversation your mystery source we shall hereonout call Deepthroat brought along top secret market research data that even the publishers of the game featured do not have?!
Then if I come I'll play Kim Jong Il and bring along all my nuclear missile specs cause I have a mate that makes tea at BAE Systems who fabricated the Pile'O'BS MkII guidance system and he told me them...
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The old graphic of KF (but very good) make the succes of the game. With his l4d graphic (recent), it's a Game4Kid ! No gore, no drakness ....
It's Like counter strike and counter strike source (where the terrorist are not look like terrorist, i think).
It's Like counter strike and counter strike source (where the terrorist are not look like terrorist, i think).
I haven't read the whole thread but I have this suggestion: If TWI doesn't comes up with a sequel and there's a demand for it - money making opportunity for some of you right there.
Except
It would have to be a completely different concept going under the name Killing Roof or something lol
unfortunately after looking at the OST forums, that game is dead player amounts have dropped massively in the past 6 months, besides i think killing floor is already ported to ro hence the reason that you can find the german uniform and other things form ro a midst the chaos of chain saws and uniforms
Since I value objective fact and Tripwire themselves had expressed concern over these figures attributed to NPD, I contacted them directly myself.
My business has an account with them (completely different industry) but anyone can write to them and confirm this.
My business has an account with them (completely different industry) but anyone can write to them and confirm this.
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