Lots of work
Oh wow, I've been so busy in the last few months that everything has pretty much taken second place. I originally started writing this post about how busy I was in January!
Anyway, I've been doing all sorts of things to make up for it so I guess I better "show and tell".
Hardwar
I've did some stuff on the Hardwar remake. It looks like the source code is not going to be available anymore, a shame because I could quite quickly change the DirectX code to OpenGL rather then having to generate my own damn game. The problem is with the copyright, no one owns it, so I can't get a copy until I find out who does own the code, then I can ask them for the copyright. This issue is seperate from the "who has an copy of the code" issue.
I've started in Ogre3d which is a Graphics Engine and I am currently debating if I show stay with it or not. It is good, but the support on Linux is lacking and there are so many dependencies on it.
To be honest I haven't done much on this project and it's been pushed to the back burner while I work on my university work. It is a shame but I am sure you all know the deal, work first.
Crimson Bounty
At university, we finished our game team project. Our goal was to build a game within so many months. We managed to achieve this goal even with a lack of a commitment from a few members of the team.
It looks pretty good for what it is and I am really happy to have worked with the people who did help push this to be a success* when it could have easily been a failure.
* - Success is measured in "You can play the game".
The game was made in XNA and C#, our team had a big problem trying to figure out how to get boned animation in XNA to work as it's not really a supported thing, but luckily we got it done in time for it to look good on the screen.
Other complaints about XNA (which there are many) no MP3 support (you have to use wav files) and you can not distribute your games after you make them, some kind of Microsoft license prevents you from doing this.
Open Zone 2
So another open source project I have been involved in is a server emulator for the MMORPG Everquest 2. It's been interesting to look at an MMO server internals and how the client handles things, but mostly I have been working on file formats for the project.
Recently I was able to figure out some file formats to load up select parts of the level data. I figured it was going to be a quick project to complete and let people add their own content so I have been prioritising to finish this first ahead of my other open source projects. The end result would be a few exporters/importers that would let people add their own content to the game.
Here's a few screenshots of the Hit file viewer. Hit files are collision data, or data that stops people from falling through the geometry.
It's not that interesting right now. It's the draw files which are the more interesting ones (and the most difficult so far to figure out) as they hold the information to the models that are shown on the screen getting this data is important if we want to change the character's looks or add our own levels, etc.
In my oppinion I think that Sony should have written the draw file format like they did the hit file format as from my oppinion it's much cleaner and clearer to understand. Maybe I'll change my mind later on though, perhaps because I have completely mis-understood the draw format.
I started a new project called Open Zone 2 which is all about this stuff, so if you want to look at the code, that's where you should go.
Shader Stuff
Finally I have been working on an assignment for university. It's a program that loads up some 3ds files, textures and shaders and draws it all in SDL / OpenGL.
It's been a challenge to get it working in OpenGL because you have to do a lot more low level stuff then you would have to in DirectX, but I think I made the right choice because I have learned so much more information about how things are done.
I think that if I had taken the easy route and done it in XNA I probably wouldn't have learned much at all so I am quite happy with what I have done in this respect.
I wished my university taught more OpenGL but the general feel is that "I have to be different" (lecturers words) so I guess maybe I will not get as high of a mark as I might have done if I went with the all Microsoft solution.
So I have some waves with alpha at 0.5f and in the second picture I have some bump mapping. The bump mapping looks horrible because there is some problem with my tangent calculations I haven't quite figure out yet.
Both shaders are pretty basic and I am currently working on some better shaders. I don't think I'll get much further though since the assignment is due in two weeks and I have not even started on the written part.
I am getting pretty tired of doing this shader assignment. I have been working on it since the start of the easter holidays and I haven't had some time out in ages. It is quite difficult from the screenshots to see the volume of work involved in getting this running but it has been an uphill battle with some parts, for example getting shaders going and other little debugging bits.
Well that is four months of news for you on all the stuff I have been working on.
Unfair pricing in the MMOG industry
Look out for MMOGs that unfairly price their games on the UK market. Everquest 2 and Eve-Online currently charge UK gamers more then their US counter-parts for the exact same game.
As you can see from the chart above Everquest 2 charges £13.99, which is around $27. This is around double the price that our US friends are paying for the exact same type of account.
Eve-Online is another offender by charging exactly the same amount in Euros as they do Dollars. The dollar price for living in Europe would be around $22 for an eve-online account or around £11.
This is totally unfair business practices and I am sure you will agree with me that they should half the price to come in line with other industry players, which according to the chart is around £8.99.
This may sound like a small change but if you take into account the extra $7 a month for an eve-online account in Europe then that is £42 extra you are paying each year because you are British instead of American.
Everquest 2 is the worse at charging an extra $12 to UK consumers which adds up to £72 extra a year. Surprisingly, when I looked at Sony Online Entertainment's (SOE) other MMOG Planetside I found that they charge a fair rate of £8.99 a month.
If you're in other parts of Europe then you're paying even more money then both UK and US consumers. The lowest price in the chart of €12.99 is around $20. At this current time Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) has a special deal for US subscribers of $9.99 a month. A US subscriber of D&D could get two accounts for what it costs an EU consumer to have one.
Apricot starts taking pre-orders
I noticed over on the Apricot blog that they have begun taking pre-orders for their new game.
If you have no idea what Apricot is, it is the project name of a blender foundation's funded project to make a game of commerical quality.
Their primary reason for doing so is to find and fix the problems a game company might have with using Blender (3d modelling program) and Crystal Space (used to make games) in a commerical environment.
The final product of project Apricot will be a commerical quality game that runs in Windows, Mac OSX and Linux. The code will be open source, the content will be under an open license.
If you're a self publicist kind of person, then pre-order the game before 1st February and you will have the choice of including your name in the game's credits. The blog states they're aiming for 1000 pre-orders before the new year.
A little warning, they haven't actually decided what type of game it will be yet, but we know it will be based on the film from another project that the blender foundation is sponsoring called peach (as pictured above). This means the game is a long way off from being finished.
If you're a big advocate of open source like I am then you'll know what to tell people to get you for Christmas.