Similar games as role models

Discussions about the look and feel of Orxonox.

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beni
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Similar games as role models

Post by beni » Wed Feb 27, 2008 3:33 pm

For case studies I checked out "Darkstar One" and "Freelancer". I compared them with Orxonox in various points and here what I've found out:

First a bit general information about those two games:
Freelancer (2003)
Freelancer is a space trading and combat simulation computer game developed by Digital Anvil and published by Microsoft. The game allows players to pilot a starfighter and visit many star systems. They can engage in combat with other starfighters to protect traders or engage in piracy themselves. They can also visit planets and space stations to look for jobs and to engage in commodity trade. The single-player story ties up the player, in the role of Edison Trent, in a series of missions to save the Sirius sector from a mysterious alien force. As the story progresses, restrictions on player activity are gradually released, and total freedom is granted at the story's completion. Players are given total freedom from the beginning in multiplayer mode.
Darkstar One (2006)
DarkStar One is a space simulation computer game developed by Ascaron and published by CDV.
The DarkStar One is a unique and advanced starship built by the murdered father of the player character, Kayron Jarvis. In the beginning of the storyline, Robert gives Kayron the Darkstar One some time after his father's actual death. He tells him to train with the Darkstar One alongside Arin, a friend of Robert, hence the tutorial. After the training, Robert tells Kayron about the real reason behind his father's death. His father's ship had been sabotaged by a friend of his father. Consequently, in an escort mission, Kayron's father could not control his ship and he inevitably died under enemy attack. Apparently, the Darkstar One was left for Kayron.
The player is able to travel through up to 300 solar systems in more than 20 clusters. The game consists of six races within the game universe: the Terran, the Mortok, the Raptor, the Oc'to, the Arrack, and the Thul. Each race has unique ships, weapons, space stations, and battle tactics. All of these races, except for the Thul, are part of the Galactic Union, a UN-like body formed by the Terran after the galactic war, which had left the Terran empire in ruins and had made them very vulnerable to attacks.

All information from Wikipedia

Visuals
Now obviously the graphics from DSO are a lot better than the ones from FL. While the amount of polygons in FL can be counted by hand the models from DSO look a lot better and the variety is great. Every race has it's own type of ship and they sometimes also have an organic look.

What I noticed during the game is, that the details at the ships are not really important. Huge ships are so dangerous, that you cannot go close enough to look at the details. Also many ships can only be found during combat and then you don't really have time to have a close look.

The universe on the other side is really well done. Both FL and DSO have great asteroids and use fog. The skyboxes in DSO are really nice to look at.

Orxonox falls in between. Our models we have so far are a lot better looking and have more polygons than the ones in FL. The huge variety and the advanced design in DSO is still better and we could learn from their designs and looks.

Excitement and Story
FL is fun. You're getting chased through the universe and systems. The universe is rather unstable and fleeing from stations because they're blown up is usual business. Unfortunately the random missions you have to solve are very generic. Still they're always altered a little bit, so even if you're familiar with a type of mission you can get surprised.

Scripting scenes are not that good, but exciting and really help with the story. Especially on foot where you are not allowed to walk around freely the scripted scenes are exciting and even the generic conversations add a lot to the atmosphere.

DSO has render scenes, but not very exciting ones. Why do they show the boring stuff in cool render scenes while the exciting stuff has to be experienced in the cockpit? Also the whole universe is just the same and after traveling to about 15 of the 300 systems you have seen all what's there to be seen. It gets boring quite early.

The missions are too generic. Just read the first few lines of the mission description and you know exactly what will happen, every single laser shot of each ship.

For Orxonox it will be very important that we add a lot of exciting missions and that the random missions have enough randomized parameters. Scripted scenes should occur at key moments and the really important stuff shouldn't be discussed over radio while in combat.

upgrading and ships
FL: You can be a combat pilot or a trader. The game basically gives you the possibility to choose from 3 different kinds of ships. Those ships can be equipped with weapons and several defense mechanisms.
It is fun and since the game always shows you the ships you would need, it really is fun to make missions to be able to afford the next best ship.

DSO: You have only one ship but you can upgrade it with so called artifacts. Those artifacts increase the slot number, equipment class and some plasma power. If you do not have those artifacts you cannot upgrade you're ship with the available equipment. A very harsh restriction, but that makes the game challenging. The equipment is huge and consists of many modules, but often you don't really have the choice, because there is always one version of each module which is the best.
So after getting new artifacts you just exchange your laser 2 with laser 3 and the shield class 4 is available and can be exchanged with class 5. The upgrading is not really fun.

In Orxonox it will be important to have a variety of artifacts and upgrade modules. It is absolutely useless to have modules which are just upgraded from 2 to 3 or 5 to 6 and have 10% more power, velocity or whatever rate. Each part needs advantages and disadvantages. We can learn from role play games. One typical example is two weapons with different damage and fire rate, but in the end damage per second is equal. The player can then choose if he rather wants to aim really well or just shoot many weak shots.


I hope this sensitizes you guys to improve our game style. Of course you're invited to discuss, about what I found out and ask questions or even talk about other games. Paedu talked about a certain game today. I look forward to talk about the game design with respect to other games.
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Post by BadElvis » Thu Feb 28, 2008 10:11 pm

I don't know where you take the time for doing such great research studies from, but thanks for your great work. I find the part about story and excitement especially interesting. We just have to see, that the person who later designs the missions, really reads all the story-related pages.

Greetings, F.-

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patrick
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Post by patrick » Fri Feb 29, 2008 12:53 pm

I agree, very well done research!

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Post by x3n » Sat Mar 01, 2008 9:36 pm

good summary, i agree in most (or all) points you mentioned. did you also studied the steering?

i played gta: san andreas yesterday for some hours. the freedom is great, but the best moments are when the AI acts like in a real universe with other actors than the player. i was walking through the town when suddenly a car speeded down the street, chased by the police with heavy gunfire, passers-by jumping aside and gang-members shooting at the police car... this is so much fun! but those moments are way to rare in gta: san andreas.

in orxonox we should try to create such moments too. actions that aren't triggered by the player but by other persons. this creates the feeling of a living world where the player is only a part of the whole thing.

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Post by nicolasc » Sun Mar 02, 2008 7:33 am

Full ACK - though I don't really know GTA:SA, but in FL there is a similar feature. I happens quite often that a bunch of pirates tries to attack a station, or that a patrol get caught in a dog-fight...

All in all, the universe should be self containing...
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Post by beni » Sun Mar 02, 2008 11:49 am

Of course I also studied the steering:

FL: Normally the ship only flies in one direction. You can change the direction by pressing the left mouse button. Then the further the mouse is away from the middle of the screen the faster you turn your ship around. You can also avoid pressing the left mouse button by tapping the space bar once. Then the game changes to free mouse mode. In this mode, it's not possible to use the in-game menu (for instance, docking at a station), but that's okay since you need the free mouse mode only in a battle.
FL is third person, but can be changed to first person.

DSO: Normally you fly where you're looking. The further the mouse leaves the middle of the screen the more drastic are your maneuvers. By pressing and holding the spacebar, the crosshair changes to a cursor and the HUD can be clicked on (for instance, howl in a container or something).

Of course all the HUD clicking things can be reached with shortcuts as well (in both games), so the mouse could work as crosshair alone, theoretically.

@x3n: I know exactly what you mean. If two pedestrians meet each other they start talking about nonsense. It's really funny, but it makes the stupid AI more believable.
That happens in FL quite a lot, that pirates attack a station. Also the stations and ships exchange messages all the time. Scanning and docking and everything works with communication.
DSO is not so interested in showing a busy universe. On stations you think something is going on, that's good. But out there you just hear some usual complaints of freighters waiting in line for docking (strangely the player never has to wait to dock).


All in all. I realized that loose story snippets every now and then are really refreshing. In DSO it gets boring quite early because you think you know it all. In FL there is news broadcast all the time so you also get to know things which do only bother you insignificantly. But it's really cool for the atmosphere. Story snippets in shows, papers and radio transmissions are important to show a whole, self-containing and most important, exciting universe.
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