My Thoughts on Sauerbraten

by dchauvette on 03/17/2008 20:14, 60 messages, last message: 05/01/2008 10:31, 31420 views, last view: 05/18/2024 04:09

Disclaimer: I appreciate that sauer is open source and I do much appreciate the work that people put into it. This is not a bitchy moan, this is just some constructive criticism.

So, graphically, Sauerbraten looks fantastic. Or at least, with shaders on. Problem is, looking fantastic at 5 frames per second makes gameplay a little difficult. Therein lies my first point: go for some major graphical speedup to make things faster, because at the moment, even using the old fixed-function pipeline, the slowness does my head in on some maps (skycastle jumps to mind, yes, I know it's a complex map). Consider using things like dynamic VBOs, more culling on models, things like that.

Okay, second point is on attention to detail everywhere. Sauer has great graphics, but the sounds seem a little hackish, the physics is simplistic and the music is, if you'll pardon my saying so, apalling. It pains me to say it, because I'd love to think Sauerbraten could take on the big boys FPS-wise, but those really, really need to be cleaned up.

Third point: single player. The AI, while fun for a time, can be downright idiotic - jumping off into space springs to mind, little to no pathfinding, and (one that always confused me) a complete inability to use the springboard thing with which the players get to fly around.

Again, this is just constructive criticism, not a whine - I love sauer, it's good fun to play and of course open source. But it still needs work.

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#21: Music

by marcpullen2 on 03/20/2008 03:35

I know my music isn't for everyone, but keep in mind that the stuff I did (in the packages\fanatic folder) was meant 100% for Sauerbraten deathmatch games.

For example, some newer stuff I've been toying with:

http://www2.fanaticalproductions.net:8080/temp/offline.mp3

I think that might work well in a large DM or team game.

Since you mentioned you sort of liked the intro the 11.ogg, I assume you were looking for more of a background or story telling type of sound track, maybe like the music in World Of Warcraft. I've done some stuff like that with the live guitars and with MIDI based instruments that you might like better.

But the stuff that I wrote for Sauerbraten was meant to be energetic and aggressive. Most people like that style for DM and by far it is the most downloaded set of albums I've done since 1996 (total downloads around 23,000 downloads from 3 combined albums), maybe only the Cube album has been downloaded more by itself (around 17,000 downloads).

But if you don't like it, that's not surprising, and it doesn't bother me. Not everyone likes what I do, and I don't expect everyone to like it. :)

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#22: ..

by ATIRULE on 03/20/2008 04:36

love the new track 2.05 2-45 was my favorite part love tje drums

I am not sure why some say the music is repetitive I guss some people don't like that Great distortion you use and the heavy cords { I love them

I turn the music off for play but I ave been known to load all of them into winamp and play them over and over AT FULL BLAST \

!~keep up the great work~!

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#23: Re: bots

by JadeMatrix on 03/20/2008 05:07, refers to #20

Navmesh... that makes me think of someone's suggestion of layers. Clipping/noclipping could be applied as usual, and the corridors could be a separate layer.

Or just increase the bot ai to AVOID to certain extents aiclipped areas... much more natural than just running in place.

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#24: ..

by James007 on 03/20/2008 12:17

i like your music, the new track sounds good *listening to it right now*

eh im a metal fan :P

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#25: ..

by Pxtl on 03/20/2008 16:44

Simple, predictable AIs are a good thing, imho - it allows the player to understand the scenario they're faced with. A complex AI makes the game feel unpredictable. The problem is that, as a mapper, you have to be aware of the AIs abilities and limitations so that you don't let the user exploit their weaknesses to easily.

I'd like full-out bots too, and maybe even bot-based enemies in SP, but as a fully separate feature from the stupid-monsters.

I'd just rather see more diverse monsters, actually - kamikaze monsters, flying monsters, immobile turrets, etc.

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#26: ..

by enigma_0Z on 03/20/2008 18:56

Music:

Don't get me wrong. I really don't dislike the music, but it seems a bit flat. There's not much variation between tracks, and the audio itself seems to not have many highs and lows. It may be an artifact of low bitrate encoding, or something else, but in short, the tracks seem to lack "punch"

In contrast, Fanatic's Cube soundtrack was awesome, I really liked it, even though the music was of the same genre, it still had punch and variation. It still had impact.

AI:

I think that the dumb monsters are good, but they need to be a bit smarter: suicide prevention mostly.

But, I also think that new types and smarter monsters would be good too. I'm really hoping for a turret-style monster, perhaps rockets at a higher rate of fire? A Grenade monster would be cool too.

Bots: YES. Very yes. I really do miss competing against somewhat intelligent "things" without being online.

Graphics:

They're great to me. I really have no complaints. 90% of the maps run at 60 FPS + on my system (nVidia 8400 GS)

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#27: Re: ..

by Hirato Kirata on 03/21/2008 04:40, refers to #26

there is a grenade monster, a spider with grenades instead of webs was added to CVS about a month ago

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#28: Grenade Monster map

by rknigh21 on 03/21/2008 22:47

Hi Here is a map http://www.clearcrystal.co.uk/rk_d4.zip using the “grenade monsters” (aka spiders) as well as our old friends. This is a smallish single player map I created as a learning exercise which worked out quite well (I think). I had updated from the cvs and re-compiled not realizing any map I now made would not be compatible with the current release!

If you want to play it you will have to recompile sauer from the latest cvs or wait fro the next release.

Have fun.

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#29: Re: Grenade Monster map

by JadeMatrix on 03/22/2008 03:59, refers to #28

Can you post it on Quadropolis? (Is registering still frozen there?)

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#30: most of it is bull

by CC_machine_ on 03/22/2008 10:42

i agree with him on framerate. using occlusion queries built into *cough*some*cough* graphic cards is going to annoy quite a few people.

everything else, the game is heavy metal oriented. this is our project, not yours. fanatic produces great music for the game. the sounds are great too, what do you mean "hackish" ?

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#31: Re: Grenade Monster map

by rknigh21 on 03/22/2008 14:42, refers to #29

Would if I could but cannot register. It says I have to prove i'm human!

Any suggestions ?

Robin

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#32: Re: Grenade Monster map

by SheeEttin on 03/22/2008 14:56, refers to #31

Just registered a new account just fine.
Are you sure you're doing the captcha correctly?

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#33: Re: most of it is bull

by ATIRULE on 03/22/2008 17:15, refers to #30

"i agree with him on framerate. using occlusion queries built into *cough*some*cough* graphic cards is going to annoy quite a few people."
....
um wtf

@ CC_machine_
every car on the market that was made after 1998 has hardware occlusion querie support with the expection of intel inboard video chips Sis and few old other misc ones. even if its not supported the dev's in the cvs have added a software occlusion system for the very old cards that lack hardware support [IE intel GPU chips]
by why. anything that old most likey is 2 old to run sauerbraten anyway So I am not seeing a point to your statement

[IE slow CPU low ram ect ect excluding the gpu specs]

.hack//trolled

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#34: Re: most of it is bull

by ATIRULE on 03/22/2008 17:16, refers to #33

damm I thought I killed all the typos

line 1 "ever card " .. ... ..

EDIT FUNCTION PLEASE

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#35: Re: most of it is bull

by ATIRULE on 03/22/2008 17:18, refers to #34

DAMM
EDIT FOR MY EDIT

every card

LOL

where is the edit post button ....

from now on i am just goona do this to correct the typos as there is NO edit button

YAAya FOR SPAM!

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#36: Re: Grenade Monster map

by rknigh21 on 03/22/2008 17:29, refers to #31

Ok sorted it out I must be human after all. Map uploaded to Quadropolis naw called sp_massattack.

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#37: game style..

by Rafael Ferraz on 03/31/2008 19:58

I like this game, but i think that would be better if this game follow a real combat simulation game style.. this would help to improve physics simulation, and other stuff too.. And of course you could release a quake like deathmatch mod..

because make life like games is more dificult.. and once you have better real life game engine you can mod to other kings of FPS..

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#38: (correction)

by Rafael Ferraz on 03/31/2008 20:00

(other kinds of FPS)

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#39: It never ceases to amaze...

by yetanotherdemosthenescomputer on 03/31/2008 22:14

You all ever notice that what most people want is a bunch of "features" that would make Sauer and awful lot like other games, often the most popular pay-for FPS at the time?

It's like this: "Please change Sauerbraten into a clone of game X, which cost enormous amounts for teams of developers to make, so that I don't have to pay for game X. Oh, and do this within the next three weeks, okay?

The latest round seem to coincide with CoD4.

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#40: Re: It never ceases to amaze...

by Julius on 03/31/2008 22:18, refers to #39

lol, couldn't be more true :D

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