Havoc89

UE4 eh? we should chat sometime

There definitely is a lot of frustration in Renegade X. We briefly discussed addressing this specifically for Firestorm in the DevTalk. Most players prefer to play the classic remake maps over new ones that aren't as claustrophobic in their layout even though a lot of the non-remake maps do address choke points and base locking specifically. This is something we've struggled with in the base RenX game partially because at it's core it is a remake of the original game. There is a charm to keeping things somewhat similar to the original game, and deviating too much will take away from that charm and nostalgia. There is a balance that we have to find, that respects the original game, but also addressing major issues from the original game. A lot of this is being addressed in Firestorm simply because its not a remake and we have the freedom to explore and alter things. Claustrophobic choke points, and isolated infantry or vehicle only areas are things we generally want to remove from the map design. Instead create a more balanced mixed combat setup along with key areas to help create points of contention to help make more of a tug of war style of play. As per veterancy, that was introduced to help limit insanely long games that last way too long to help bring them to an end. This is another aspect that feels like its a necessary element to address 1.5h+ maps which was a huge problem before it was introduced. It is at the end of the day a bandaid fix for the core gameplay issues. Whether this system or something like it will be in Firestorm is another discussion we're having internally. With Firestorm we want to specifically address the core issues in a more robust manner.

While we're on the subject, and since we're being very transparent. Here is some extra old footage that pre-dates our already old alpha test footage that you saw in the DevTalk video. Some of this footage is over a year old.

Let's talk about Firestorm, DevTalk #1 is here! We show off old pre-alpha footage, talk about evolving Renegade's C&C Mode, and the challenges of bringing Tiberian Sun to FPS Stay tuned for more updates! https://renegade-x.com/ https://www.facebook.com/RenXFirestorm https://renegade-x.com/discord

Big day today! As of today the Remasters of Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert 1 are now available for all! If you haven't gotten your copy, head on over to steam or origin and help support this game! http://www.commandandconquer.com/ Buy on Steam Buy on Origin Welcome back commanders!

Since the average time for a single round is fairly high, its under stable that some people have to leave mid match. There are also a few very high and very low skilled players in this small community. On top of that role diversity is a very broad scope in C&C mode, so any player of any skill range can end up having varied amounts of contributions in each map depending on how they wish to play that day or that round. So I guess my question to you guy is, would you guys be okay with not being able to change teams manually and potentially moving over to the losing team mid or even late game? The last time players were prevented from changing teams it was met with a fair amount of frustration, and it will be again if the auto balancer is more aggressive. You may be the top 5 player on your team who's winning, and suddenly get swap over to the losing team. This is obviously the worse case scenario since you would have had to put a lot of effort into bringing your team to a winning scenario and now you're forced to be on the losing team. But the upside is that in theory teams can be more evenly balanced. Again, worse case scenario. Are you all prepared for such a thing? I also need to point out that there is a miss conception of what MMR is. It is definitely not a magic number that is 100% representative, but rather an estimation. As mentioned before, because the role diversity is very broad it allows anyone to be in a varying degrees of effectiveness. Some one with a very high MMR can be killing it one game, and the next game be chilling as a repair/defensive player. So before anyone says that auto balance on start up can solve the team balance. I need you guys to understand why it alone cannot solve the entire problem. Start up balance can provide a decent base. But players changing their play styles can throw it out of sync, and thus a more aggressive mid game MMR would need to be employed. I'm not talking about micro-details but more broad scope macro concept. When it comes to details, everyone will have varying opinions. So once again, are you guys prepare for such a system where you are not allowed to swap teams as freely as you'd like. And are you prepared for such a system that adapts mid game to reshuffle and re-balance the teams with as little or as many players as the system requires to make things fair?

Totally understandable. It is very difficult to handle auto balancing when players keep playing with different names. We've been discussing enforcing account registration for this purpose. Right now stats are either tracked to steam accounts or if no steam account then the player name. So all someone needs to do to circumvent using their account is to play without steam. Enforcing accounts alone would not be enough as it is easy to make alternate accounts as well. This is an area where a bit more foresight is needed. There is a far bigger problem which is the core mechanics of the game. In order to "fix" that, Renegade X would need to detach from OG Ren even further and change the fundamentals of the game. At that point this would be an entirely different game. A change like that at this point is too late to do. By no means was OG Ren designed well, and a lot of those issues are inherited in Renegade X due to the nature of the project being a remake at it's core. Yes things play differently but only really on the surface level. At it's core its very much the exact same as OG Ren, and that's the part that would need to be changed in order to address a lot of these issues. The question to ask at that point is, does it make sense to do that or to do something new. I dont believe it makes sense to change the core mechanics of the game to fix the fundamental issue. Better ramp up for new players and better auto balancer will definitely help to elevate some of the issues and concerns. Edit: My info is out of date interms of balancing.

Renegade X has only come this far because of the unrelenting spirit of the fan base. Its been an absolute pleasure and joy to work on this project as it would really have never reached this point without all of you. This is a passion project from the fans and to the fans! So from the bottom of our hearts, thank you all for sticking by us for so many years. You guys are the ones that keep us going. So... Thank you!

Hello, I'll start by explaining the 2nd video first since its pretty easy to explain. The second video is a case of the game displaying a lower LOD quality version of the rock mesh than the main LOD which is the actual physical mesh with collision. LODs are Level of Detail. Each mesh can have a low detailed version of the same mesh from a distance to reduce the amount of geometry being rendered at any time. What this means is that the mesh can have a slightly different shape because of less geometry on the lower quality version. So in the first video the sniper can be seen hitting the rock (you can tell because of the impact effect) which at a distance has a shape that is a little bit inaccurate to the actual shape of the rock. So it appears as though you're aiming at the character, but you're actually aiming at the rock. Now the first video which is a bit more of a complex answer. Short answer is yes its correct, and the reason is lag. For those whom may not know what the Ping number represents, it is a the time in milliseconds it takes your computer to send or receive data from the server. A ping of 100 means it takes 100 milliseconds for the data from the server to be received and displayed by your computer. Keep this in mind as we dive further. Multiplayer games have something called a server tick rate. Tick rates are the number of times a server processes everything in the game every second. You may or may not have heard of modern shooters using a tick rate of 60, which means that the server updates 60 times every second. The greater this number the better the accuracy. UDK and thereby Renegade X is using an 6+ year old game engine (6 years ago was the last update to this game engine but the game engine itself first saw the light of day in 2007), and on top of that this game engine is restricted to a single CPU core. What this means especially for servers is that the game cannot process a lot of data especially because it can only use a single core. Because this is also a very old game engine, it does not have a very high tick rate for servers. Its a little unclear as to what the exact tick rate of UDK is but its speculated to be around 30. This means that on the servers the data for all of the players, their weapons, any projectiles, vehicles, and whatever else is being processed 30 times every second. A Tick Rate of 30 means that the accuracy of the data compared to what you see on your computer with whatever frame rate you have is no where near one to one. We know that in the video it takes 5 frames from starting to move, and getting killed. It shows the enemy ramjet tracer to still hit the old position before the player started moving. The smooth high FPS you get on your computer is not what is processed on the server. The server is basically locked to 30 FPS, and positional information hasn't updated until the next tick on the server. So lets say this video is at 60 frames per second, but the server is updating at 30 frames per second. This means that your game is not able to tell the server that you've started moving until every second frame. Now lets factor in the time it takes for your computer to talk to the server. This is the ping which is how long it takes in milliseconds to tell the server that your position has updated. Lets say your ping is 50 which means it takes 50 milliseconds for the computer to send your move key input to the server, and another 50 milliseconds for the server to send the updated information back to your computer. The time it takes for the data reach the server may be longer because the server only processes data once every 0.033 second or 33 milliseconds (Tick rate of 30). So the move order may take up to an additional 33 milliseconds before it can be processed. This process is necessary before all other players can be notified that you have moved. But it gets worse. You have to now take into account the other player's ping. Lets say they are also at 50ms. This means that for the other player it will take 50ms(your PC to server) + 33ms(Time to process on server) + 50ms(Time to transfer to enemy) for a total of 133ms before the enemy player is shown that you have moved on their screen. What this means is that on your video clip it took 5 frames with your recording FPS likely set to 60fps. So 5 divided by 60 = 0.083 second or 83 milliseconds. This means that you have been moving for 83ms which is well under the 133ms needed before your new position is received to the enemy player. So on the enemy screen you still haven't moved and are in the old position. As this game uses client side hit detection, it means that they successfully landed a shot on their PC displaying your old position. On your screen the enemy's tracer appears to hit the old position, but because of lag it means that neither the server nor enemy player has had enough time process that you have moved. This is one of those cases which will always be a problem because of the nature of data transfer. Unless you're playing LAN there is no way around such a small narrow window of time. This is true for all multiplayer games and not just Renegade X. This delay can be reduced with both faster internet connections to reduce ping, and faster tick rates on the server to reduce time to process new information. However a delay will always exist. Hope that helps.

So... planning on updating the visuals?

Dew it!

Its a pretty good idea. Gives GDI a means to stealth check without blindly firing in to the void all the time.

18 years ago, today Command & Conquer Renegade was released to the public. It brought us millions of collected hours of multiplayer gameplay around the world. Even today, the original game still has an active player base. This game was so inspiring that we, Totem Arts, banded together to create a fan-made remake. Exactly 6 years ago, today the Renegade X Open Beta was launched to the public. Today is a very special day indeed! So let's celebrate ... to mark the occasion, we figured we would share a little something about what we're up to next! Commanders, get ready! It's time you saw the future, while you still have human eyes!

I'd love to try out those nod vs nod maps. @limsip I haven't had any time to take a look at paradise to be perfectly honest.

You play with fire?!

Looks good. Seems a bit big. Like 2-3 hand of nod. Also take into consideration renx map sizes plus vehicle sizes. I'd recommend making the building as small as possible. GDI WF as a good example. The bay just fits a mammoth tank.