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 | Re: I get jealous when I see other... | |
| Posted By: Forrest of B.org | Date: 2/22/05 9:32 p.m. |
| In Response To: I get jealous when I see other... (Nicholai) : engines, like the build engine or the crappy doom engine, being "more
: I mean, : They add more and more features, trying to improve the feel of the game, and
: Or why not add features that can be turned on/off via MML, LUA or something? : We fans should ask for more features, like a particle system(that wouldn't
: Anyway : I just get angry when I see doom doing free floating bridges and having
The opinion I have always been of is that enhancing the Marathon engine to do features categorically beyond its original scope - not just breaking limits or utilizing new technologies, but doing things the game never supported, like dynamic lighting and true-3D objects - is a rather pointless venture. It's like trying to fit wings onto a bicycle instead of just building an airplane instead. (And before anyone cites the Wright Brothers - they made have run a bike shop but their early planes were far from bicycles with wings). It would be awesome to have a Marathon map importer into a more modern engine which is technologically compatible with Marathon (mostly just that it can support 5D space, so everything doesn't break). You could then use those imported Marathon maps as the basis of a proper 3D port of Marathon. But I'm learning from some of the more skilled mappers around that it's usually easier to rebuild something from scratch using the original as a design pattern, rather than try to extend the original itself. So, yes, having a version of Marathon redone in a modern engine would rock. Updating Aleph to do things utterly beyond its scope isn't going to do that, it's just going to create a new, slightly-less-outdated engine that happens to be (mostly) compatible with older Marathon maps, though they won't take advantage of things like that without first rebuilding the maps... in which case you might as well just rebuild the maps in a newer, better engine. In short: o) Enhancing Aleph One should be focused on taking what the original Marathon engine did and doing it better and cleaner, with fewer arbitrary limitations (higher resolution graphics, more polygons per map, longer viewing distances, bigger and rearrangable interfaces, etc) and support for more modern technology (newer platforms, OpenGL, TCP/IP networking, etc). Focus on those features and make the thing stable and that's all you need from Aleph One. o) Remaking Marathon in a more modern engine is best done by actually remaking Marathon in a more modern engine. Trying to hack Marathon, as it is, in a hacked up Aleph One with hacked on lighting and hacked in bridges, will just give you a hack project in the end, without the polish of the original Marathon and still without the flash of a truly modern engine. That said, I'd really like to see the latter actually get done someday, but I doubt it's ever gonna happen. Maybe get those guys who did the Halo 2 CE mod to try it (some group "ported" Halo 2, with all the new weapons and interface and new features and a lot of the netmaps, BACK to Halo 1 Custom Edition). I'd buy Halo CE and even the new graphics card I'd need to run it if there were a Marathon port to the Halo engine. | |
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