Anyone else taken a look at Battlecruiser: Millenium over at 3000ad?
I'm 96% done downloading the High Content space demo, and I can't wait...
::drools::
Next is the planetary engine...
::drools::
Ooh, make that 97%!
ID:194437
 Mar 19 2001, 3:47 pm
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On 3/19/01 8:47 pm Spuzzum wrote:
But for Christ's sake, it's only software development! Honestly, I find it practically impossible to get that many errors in a single program; it's really quite simple to make a game that does what you want it to. All you have to do is understand what you're doing. Hmm, must be an Amerikan company? | |
Hmm, must be an Amerikan company? Actually, I think Derek Smart has globetrotted so many times he can be considered somewhat multinational. But yes, technically he's American. 3000ad is mostly a group of freelancers now, working to make "The Game", as I understand. They've got a deal with Electronics Boutique that they'll ship the game factory-direct to the distributor, avoiding the publishers, whom screwed Derek around rather royally initially in the development of the first game in the Battlecruiser series. In fact, it was GameTek and Take 2. They chopped out parts of the game and distributed it practically without a manual to make the game meet the due date. Heh, must've really PO'd Mr. Smart. =) This is the new version of the same game, based off the same code but with a ton more features and Windoze support. The concept is rather good, but there's a lot (a lot a lot) of bugs that need ironing out. (Honestly, though, I think Derek can't get over himself... he's rather insulting when it comes to attacks on his game. For example, on the newsgroups, someone insulted Battlecruiser for being buggy (back when it really was buggy, and I guess now when the new version is too ;-) and instead of doing what any self-respecting developer would do and ignore him or her, or make a light-hearted comment, he downright insulted the guy for not paying attention to the game. Now Derek's in the middle of a nasty flame war which has been going on for years.) (Actually, I might sound like a hypocrite here, someone thought Spuzzbomb was stupid and I lost my cool. Apologies on that one. =P) | |
Well, I got the download and everything all right, and the program is rather fun...
But for Christ's sake, it's only software development! Honestly, I find it practically impossible to get that many errors in a single program; it's really quite simple to make a game that does what you want it to. All you have to do is understand what you're doing.
I just spent the last hour getting the damned thing to work. Not only was it non-user friendly, but it also didn't work straight out of the download. I had to change three options in the config files manually just to get the danged thing from dropping me back to windows at the main screen. And I met and exceeded all of the requirements. When I finally got it done, I played it and enjoyed myself. But then for some reason it changed one of the configuration options so the arrow keys no longer pitched and yawed my ship. Fine, I went to change it... and there's no section in the key layout that lets you configure those keys.
So I went to uninstall BCM and reinstall. Fine, that worked all right... I went to start it up again. Page fault.
I'm doing a clean reinstall now, and all I should have to do is redo what I did before. Thanks, Derek.
So to anyone who wants to try out the demo, the game itself is fun when you get it working, but be warned that you need to know your computer pretty well to be able to do it.