Cube Engine Games

Cube & Cube 2 FORUM

A CS clone with Cube/Sauer

by rtf on 06/10/2004 08:43, 25 messages, last message: 06/15/2004 19:56, 7256 views, last view: 05/18/2024 21:17

Ya, sounds stupid I know. I'm not taking it too seriously, but I thought about it and there's a reasonably strong case for why I(or someone else) would want to work on such a project.

Mod projects that clone CS are a dime a dozen, but none of them EVER want to share their code. This is a silly notion - if you're making a clone it should be an open-source clone because with clones, you can get project members more easily - they already know what the game's like after all. (wheras if you're making something wholly original, nobody will help unless you pay them - they'll have no passion for it) Cube is successful in that sense because it's very similar to existing DM games, and it probably would have had a harder time developing to where it is if it weren't able to build from that.

Another advantage is that because it's free, it'll end up with a bigger community. Maybe not a bigger community than CS was at peak, but probably a larger one than what we see from Cube today. That brings trouble of course, but it will also translate into benefits like more servers, (possibly)faster engine development, and a greater amount of content, all of which can bleed back over to the main project and help it too.

There are gameplay reasons too. CS is an old game now, and it's stablized into something that I'm not sure anyone is completely happy with. The pace is painfully slow, little strategy is needed on most maps(which are now mostly uninteresting variations on loops) and the combat is an awkward, unsatisfying compromise between realism and balance, constantly tweaked while the silly money system that perhaps causes the most trouble sticks around. It could really all do with a major revision, something that really advances the design.

Lastly, using Cube/Sauer would open up new technical possibilities. With real-time modifiable terrain, explosives could add to gameplay by allowing some/most walls to get blown up - so if all the exits are camped, you can make a new one.

Of course, I wouldn't want any clone project to intrude on the main game - that's Aardappel's decision after all. It just seems like a project that would really make sense.

Board Index

#3: Re: Shogo

by rtf on 06/10/2004 12:34

(Bah, another long post. I've made dozens of these tonight for some reason or other.)

100% realism, ha. No, there are a lot of things incongruious with that goal in CS, starting from the shooting system, which seems to imply from its insane viewshaking that we have people controlling recoil with the strength of 10-year-olds. Then there's the money system(they're supposed to be well-funded groups, but you buy your own equipment?) and the absence of fire-select systems on most guns(semi, burst, full? no, just tap the trigger) and the number of bullets it takes to down a man(usually far too many) and the list continues from there...

100% realism was done in Rainbow 6, before CS even came out. It's OK, but the pacing is still slow, and the weapons too deadly. I like it better than CS, though, because it's NOT trying to be an ugly compromise.

Since you asked... my ideal "CS-alike" would not be realistic, but it also wouldn't be muddled and indistinct like an SoF or RTCW - that is how I recall those two, at least. Haven't played Shogo. It would have weapons about as deadly as Cube, but with slower playerspeeds and more positional options(sprint, walk, crouch, prone, leaning), additional character customization(skills) and a replacement of the ineffective, winner-takes-all money system with an enforced "once each round you can add a skill or choose a piece of equipment" that would allow for a balanced progression of strategy. The point of it being to make the game like a "thinking man's Cube," where while the pace is slower, there are still lots of major decisions to make. It should not be just "run over here and shoot" or "crouch there and shoot" but rather a whole range of options; something that rewards a continually creative approach to defeating your foes, and lets you come up with a new surprise every round, game after game.

Earlier versions of CS were closer to this, actually; the speeds were a bit faster than presently, there was no penalty for monkey-jumping, they were still using the regular(static) HL crosshairs and you could do a good job of shooting on the move...but not so much as to be an all-out fragfest. Also, weapons stayed from round to round, so you could build up an "armory" at your spawn, running anything more than you could hold with extensive use of the "drop weapon" key. The maps actually helped - with their strange balancing, many of the firefights started to make use of shooting through the walls...don't see that happen so much today, do you?

It was choppier in some respects, but early CS held my attention a lot better. When I tired of it I went to Firearms HL, which does some of the things I mention - more movement options, more strategies. But FA has a slightly different goal, which is to have a wide range of weaponry, and (since RC2.0) to put it into a "war themed" setting, which I felt was an unnecessary restriction. But later on, as the versions came down working on this angle, I realized that it had its own merits, too; by focusing on the war theme, there was more emphasis put on the "role-play" of being a soldier. It wasn't a surface imitation as in, say, RTCW, but neither was it OpFlash 100% realism. It gave you little things, small options through the weaponry and a new skill system, that defined your play. They were not overly distracting, and you could play well even if you ignored them for the most part. The maps contributed to this by being more atmospheric than before, and balance was usually maintained because both sides had the same weaponry and potential for victory(unless the map was bad).

That is the sort of thing I'd like to see. A "role-play" counterterrorism FPS. CS is too bare-bones for that; it does some things yet not others, and tends toward a restrictive, unified style of play for all players between the map styles and the weaponry choices. Balanced, but hollow.