Kevin's Watch

i personally think the 1st chrons would make a great real time strategy soaring woodhelvin, mithil valley, dooms retreat, doriendor corishev, garroting deep, seige of revelstone.

also it could work as a RPG sarting at the lorestrat growing into a lord

the second chrons could work as a RPG aswell

There used to be a MUD based on the Land. I never played it, but I've heard several people talk about it.

There was also (I think) someone making a conversion for Neverwinter Nights that was based on the 1st Chronicles. Not sure what ever became of that, though.

With the modding tools that are available for most pc games, we here at the Watch could actually make the game ourselves.
We would simply need to choose a game engine with which to work, and then find a game with available developers tools. Since the source code is rarely released, the game would have to have similar attributes to the fantasy world we would create.

I currently work with the Q3 engine modding Medal of Honor. You can check out some of my work HERE. Go to the Alsace:DON menu and take a look.

As a Quake 3 Arena player, I would agree - the engine is quite good and flexible. There's a reason the game has lasted this long. However, The UT2004 engine is more up-to-date - and capable.

We need huge draw distances; otherwise it's pointless to represent the Land when you have fogging reducing visibility to 300 feet.

Yes, but it would be tough to have a minimum hardware requirement of a nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra. Not everyone has $350+ to spend on a graphics card.

But small draw distances defeats the whole nature of the Land. When TC first appears in the Land, he surveys the geography - sees the majesty of it all. To stand on KW and see a fog with hills nearby coming out of it would be wrong.

But I agree with you; who could afford a powerful graphics card? That's why we wait a few more years.

I agree with using a first-person 3D engine for a TC game. I'm not enthusiastic about a TC real-time strategy game, as I'd prefer a completely immersive 3D experience. I also agree that the game should be able to draw huge areas of the Land without fog. I'm aware that some game engines are better at rendering indoor areas and some are better at outdoor areas. That was an issue in gaming a few years ago, anyway, but is that still true today? Obviously you don't want an engine that's going to choke every time you look across the Land.

Mind you, I don't have a cutting edge graphics card either. Budget constraints mean I can only dream about something like a Geforce 6800 Ultra for now. But as LM says, in a couple of years that level of graphics power will become affordable. Heck, I might even have enough funds by then to put together a whole new system. By then I should hopefully be ready for TC Unreal-style! Or Doom 3 style.

While I agree that a graphics card will limit the experience, I am not as convinced about the farplane issue.
Since the farplane is variable, it can be conditioned to suit the requirements of the game at the time.
For instance, when Covenant views the great expanse of the Land from Kevin's watch, there is no reason why the farplane would have to be any less than 20,000 world units. BTW...with the quake engine, scaling is usually 16 world units= approx 1 real world foot. That farplane distance would give a realistic "mist" as far objects recede.

Since there is no real action in that scene, you would not experience any chop, and an fps (frames-per-second) of as low as 20 would be acceptable.

Of course in scenes where cpu-eating AI are present, you could not expect the engine to draw the same amount of polys and still keep fps at an acceptable level.

The key is in the design itself. Illusions of size can be generated with low poly counts, and little strain on the gc to produce smooth playable levels.
By manually telling the game engine what to draw at any given time, you can also greatly improve the performance within a particular area.

Granted, a few years down the road when the 6800 is more affordable, there will be more room for inefficiency in design, although the designer cannot compromise too much, since the game would need to be playable by more than those with the means to afford the latest gc.

What do you mean by 'farplane'?

The 'farplane' is the distance you can see in the level before everything fades into fog.
So basically, it is the fogginess of the level. As the farplane number increases, the fogginess decreases.
It is completely controllable by either building the distance into the level, or incorporating it into the level script.

The main reason why everything becomes a "fog" is so that the engine no longer has to draw what is beyond the farplane distance.
This lowers the poly-count, thereby increasing the framerate, and producing a smooth level. The Q3 engine divides the world into triangles, called polys, and renders the world as groups of these triangles to create all the other shapes you see.
The less polys the better.
Hence the farplane, or "fog." It helps lower the poly-count.

If there are not many other things going on at a particular time, more of the Land can be drawn, since the cpu will not be pushing its limit to run thread-driven events.

Oh I understand the need for fogging, just that I had never heard of the term 'farplane' before. Thanks for letting me know what it means.

The UT engine handles detail-at-distance better than the Q3 engine.

But, perhaps we are looking at this wrong. Perhaps a series of scenario games:

- Lord Mhoram's Victory - Fight Satansfist's army
- Journey to Mount Thunder - Fight your way through Mount Thunder to retrieve the Staff of Law
- Battle of Doriendor Corishev - Defeat Foul's army or escape to Garroting Deep.

that sound pretty good

How about the Far Cry engine? Excellent at large draw-distances (farplane?) Super visuals (water, trees, grass etc)

Let me know when the games done, I'd pay good money for it!!!

The Far Cry engine would be perfect!

Forget about paying for it. With the developer tools, we here at the Watch could make it and simply ditribute it for free to all interested Watchers.

And I concur with the use of the FarCry engine.
Anyone know if an SDK is available for it? (Software Development Kit)

I played the MUD. It was ok, except there were no players. The descriptions weren't bad either ,but if you're not into MUDs, you're not into MUDs. It's too bad more people aren't.
Don't have to worry about graphics cards with muds :p

JemCheeta wrote:I played the MUD. It was ok, except there were no players. The descriptions weren't bad either ,but if you're not into MUDs, you're not into MUDs. It's too bad more people aren't.
Don't have to worry about graphics cards with muds :p

Or fun, either. Hell, you may as well roleplay in a chatroom or on MSN messenger.

I'd like to see a Mario Party style TC game, myself. Can you imagine it? Playing as cute little cartoon versions of popular SRD characters! There'd be such games as "White Gold Ring Toss", "Hold Lena Down", "Rockbrother, Paper, Scissors", "Tickle the Bloodguard", and "Forestal Karaoke"!

Scorn the Terrible wrote:"Hold Lena Down",