My Thoughts on Sauerbraten

by dchauvette on 03/17/2008 20:14, 60 messages, last message: 05/01/2008 10:31, 31422 views, last view: 05/18/2024 17:57

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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#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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#41: ..

by IllvilJa on 04/01/2008 00:49

CoD4? What's the matter with ppl?

Of course SANE ppl would pick to request sauerbraten to become a clone of the Battlefield series. Now THATS a game to imitate! ;-)

And we are partly there! We already got capture mode :-D!

(CoD4 on the other hand... well...)

(Yes, of COURSE I'm dignifying my Preferences. Anything wrong with that?)

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#42: ..

by IllvilJa on 04/01/2008 00:55

Ah another twist on the theme 'get Sauerbraten to look like paid-for FPS X'...

Sometimes paid-for FPS X got most things right, except for a handful of screwed up things which are out of reach of modders to correct due to hardcoded stupidities in 'FPS X'.

So, letting Sauerbraten be the basis for a opensourced version of 'FPS X' has the very nice option of hacking away the least favourite design flaws of the original 'FPS X' game. Geting those broken things right can at times be worth the price of spending time hacking and sacrificing some features from the original 'FPS X' game (because an open source copy of 'FPS X' ARE most likely to need to skip some features to save developer time...).

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#43: ..

by James007 on 04/01/2008 01:13

I dont really care for Sauerbratens game play, but i think it is a very unique game engine and can make some pretty cool stuff.

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#44: Re: ..

by yetanotherdemosthenescomputer on 04/01/2008 02:57, refers to #41

2142 is a great horrible game.

I love playing it, but EA/DICE have managed it terribly. Quite fun, except that they overpowered the shotgun in the latest patch, and one of the air transports' gunner seats doesn't work at all (bulletless tracer rounds).

Oh, and CoD4 is fine in hardcore mode. :P

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#45: Re: ..

by SheeEttin on 04/01/2008 05:01, refers to #42

cf. the ET:CE mod by ezombie & co.

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#46: ..

by IllvilJa on 04/01/2008 10:12

ezombie and friends are doing fantastic things, but they have decided to not pursue the option of including player driven vehicles.

And you CAN'T substitute the BF series with a game without vehicles for the players. Ok. Not quite true, there are some BF players out there who hates vehicles with a passion, players who probably would enjoy ET:CE. But for some of us BF-addicts, the vehicles on the battlefield are half of the fun.

Ok. Back to more important stuff (way to fun discussing on this forum ;-) )

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#47: Convert

by dfjkhsdjkfhdsconorfhdsjk on 04/01/2008 15:40

I converted a CVS map to the last release when it was still new.


There is a line or two of code in sauer that checks the map version, and wont open it if it is newer, I just took that out then you can /savecurrentmap. That converted it, it came out find, and since I had not used any lava in the map (Which wasn't in release, but was in CVS) so it was ok.

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#48: Bots/AI

by Quin on 04/04/2008 04:41

People may not remember, so I put here a little reminder.. Even though I discontinued SauerMod in favour of taking up the BloodFrontier project, the code is readily available in the vault:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=198419&package_id=246945&release_id=542083

If you're serious about wanting bots, etc. feel free to use the code there.

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

by Megagun_0 on 04/04/2008 16:38, refers to #39

So, is there anything BAD with that?

Is including new gamemodes to Sauerbraten that are innovative (such as UT2004's Mutant, Assault and the new modified Domination mode, or perhaps Onslaught (but without vehicles perhaps?) not something to pursue, since it'd make Sauerbraten that more fun?

Why are you putting down an idea someone has with the statement that that idea comes from another game, when instead you could put it down (somewhat) by saying that vehicles aren't easilly implemented (physics!)..

Other games are something to learn (and 'steal') from, not something to completely avoid. Other games can be seen as 'betatests' of certain features, which you can then also implement in your own game..

Now, if you want to counter this post by claiming that Sauerbraten is meant as a game engine that other people are meant to work on: Why isn't the game conent licensed under something that encourages modding, then?

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

by JadeMatrix on 04/04/2008 17:17, refers to #49

Author prerogative. Or author ignorance.

It's the code that would need changing, though, and that's "strictly regulated" even though it's open source... all you can do is suggest stuff, unless you can code in C++. Then, if it fits the style of the rest of the code, it _might_ get implemented.

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

by demosthenes on 04/04/2008 19:42, refers to #49

One question at a time.

Yes.

No, but that's not what I was referring to.

The idea was to make the game "life-like", which is much harder than I think the poster realized. It looked like how-not-to-start-a-mod, only they were looking to change the development direction of the entire engine.

Not in this case, as the whole structure and type of FPS would have to change (from quakey to life-like), as well as needing new art assets.

The game content is not licensed by the same people as the game engine, and not all of the creators of said content wish it to be modified, or included in other works.

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

by a`baby`rabbit on 04/04/2008 23:55, refers to #39

Same old cycle of events, there hasn't been a Sauer release for a while and so the 'I want' generation is getting twitchy...

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