Renegade X: Black Dawn - Download Now!

[Havoc89]

Hostile much?

I went through most of the Mastering UnrealScript tutorial from UDN where you code fish AI, and it just seems like something that's within the scope of UnrealScript. That doesn't make me an expert by any means, but I don't see why you couldn't work out a system of defining where the cover is on a map and and making AI enter "get behind cover" animations, etc, etc.

Also do you have some sort of source for the fact that they had to edit Unreal's source to get AI to move from cover to cover?

The truth about AI is that it just wasn't given any priority. On the programming side we were concerned with getting things that will be reused for MP first, such as basic and intermediate level functionality for weapons, vehicles, and characters. We wanted to improve the AI, and we did try to find programmers that would be solely dedicated to AI, but they just were not easy to come by. Sure there are programmers out there that can, but we could not find anyone willing to do it for free. Since RenX is all about mutliplayer, we had to work with what we had, and what we had was the standard AI that comes with UDK/UT3 Demo. Black Dawn's main objective was to establish a good foundation for multiplayer.

By the way you make it sound as if AI coding is an easy task to do, but there are AAA games with teams of programmers dedicated to AI that screw it up sometimes, what makes you think a small group of volunteers with only a handful of programmers can pull off some kind of brilliant AI for a game that isn't really about single player to begin with? If you can come up with better AI, and want to contribute, by all means, we'd love to have some assistance on that front, but if you cannot, then you don't really know what you're talking about, because if it was easy, we would have done it already. Yes one can code a cover system in UScript, but that was never the issue.

[mjfabian]

The truth about AI is that it just wasn't given any priority. On the programming side we were concerned with getting things that will be reused for MP first, such as basic and intermediate level functionality for weapons, vehicles, and characters. We wanted to improve the AI, and we did try to find programmers that would be solely dedicated to AI, but they just were not easy to come by. Sure there are programmers out there that can, but we could not find anyone willing to do it for free. Since RenX is all about mutliplayer, we had to work with what we had, and what we had was the standard AI that comes with UDK/UT3 Demo. Black Dawn's main objective was to establish a good foundation for multiplayer.

By the way you make it sound as if AI coding is an easy task to do, but there are AAA games with teams of programmers dedicated to AI that screw it up sometimes, what makes you think a small group of volunteers with only a handful of programmers can pull off some kind of brilliant AI for a game that isn't really about single player to begin with? If you can come up with better AI, and want to contribute, by all means, we'd love to have some assistance on that front, but if you cannot, then you don't really know what you're talking about, because if it was easy, we would have done it already. Yes one can code a cover system in UScript, but that was never the issue.

Oh, the AI I programmed was only easy because I had a tutorial holding my hand. Having tried to actually get a vehicle working in UDK I have nothing but respect for all the scripting that's been done so far. I don't think you should bother trying to make the AI better because it won't matter with multiplayer anyhow.

If you go back and read my posts I never once complained about Renegade-X's AI, or suggested that the team spend time improving it. So I don't know why you're getting all defensive. I was speaking hypothetically and responding to the idea that one couldn't implement a cover system using unrealscript only.

[Whitedragon]

Not really liking the controls and physics in this, feels like you just took UT3 and turned down the speed on everything. I'd like to see you guys get away from the UT3 style controls and physics as much as possible considering they were pretty terrible.

Looking forward to see what the MP release will be like.

[Vipeax]

I went through most of the Mastering UnrealScript tutorial from UDN where you code fish AI, and it just seems like something that's within the scope of UnrealScript. That doesn't make me an expert by any means, but I don't see why you couldn't work out a system of defining where the cover is on a map and and making AI enter "get behind cover" animations, etc, etc.

Also do you have some sort of source for the fact that they had to edit Unreal's source to get AI to move from cover to cover?

I was speaking hypothetically and responding to the idea that one couldn't implement a cover system using unrealscript only.

Where was it said that it's not possible? Yes, you have to write code for it, which essentially edits the source of your game. I never said it's impossible. All I said is that they had to write their code for it just like anyone else. And yes, it's totally doable, but it ended up on a low priority when the deadline was said and bugs that appeared later on (mostly caused by rushed commits to hit the deadline) made it impossible to get the time to even do that. I'm actually very experienced in writing AIs for games (and simulations), however a good AI that is actually clever simply takes time and to make one for the multiplayer (where you can make 1000s of decisions on what you are going to do next) that isn't just there to score free kills would take years, if current hardware could even calculate it for say 20 bots without freezing up...

[XD_ERROR_XD]

if current hardware could even calculate it for say 20 bots without freezing up...

well, i really don't think you should throw 20 AI's in 1 server (if there would be an intention to). that is simply stupid (no offence), because even a server with 3 people on each side, they can still pull off a nasty trick or 2.

the point is here that if you would throw too many AI's in there, it makes the game laggy and boring.

having 20 AI's in a med-small map would give targets EVERYwhere, which causes them to just shoot everywhere but the real players which decide to stay unseen for a few seconds until the AI finds another target, and then go gold farming, which takes the fun out of the game. the game is supposed to be challenging, and not to just rush an empty base with a mammy like a rambo or something.

when i was young, i used to play a lot of Puzzle Pirates.

the AI in that game was extremely simple, but still was capable of performing all necessary tasks no sweat.

what you had over there was a ship on the sea with a capacity of 75 people, with about 10 bots, which was the absolute minimum to get a ship moving.

you, as the captain of the vessel, had the command over the bots, which first would choose their taks automatically, depending on their 'skills'. some would repair the ship, some would get the ship on to speed etc etc etc.

but if you were being attacked, and if your ship was damaged, you could order a few bots to get to repairing stations.

and when the ship would get like 25 people on board, every time another one enters, 1 bot left, and vice versa.

so, what i suggest to do with the AI (for now), is to keep the bots equally stupid as in C&C renegade, give them fixed routes to walk, let them choose at random where to go at the beginning (and let them stay there), but that everyone would able to control the bots.

and imagine the GDI refinery being attacked, and when someone shouts defend the refinery, let the closest bot to the refinery walk a fixed route to the refinery, and that's it.

i suppose this isn't too difficult to pull off, becuase this is very similar to the AI C&C Renegade had. you only have to rewrite the scripts.

[Vipeax]

i suppose this isn't too difficult to pull off

It is dificult. The AI in Black Dawn exists out of over 10.000 lines of code and it's still stupid and does only 3 things: follow units around it, try to shoot at units that are considered unfriendly and grabs it's best weapon by comparing weapon weight values.

Just to be clear: I'd like to at least give stuff a try, but by the time I will even manage to get them to move around the base and manage to find Master Control Terminals to repair damaged buildings (and actually point their guns at them till a building is full health), I'd be late for the release date of the MP.

[XD_ERROR_XD]

It is dificult. The AI in Black Dawn exists out of over 10.000 lines of code and it's still stupid and does only 3 things: follow units around it, try to shoot at units that are considered unfriendly and grabs it's best weapon by comparing weapon weight values.

Just to be clear: I'd like to at least give stuff a try, but by the time I will even manage to get them to move around the base and manage to find Master Control Terminals to repair damaged buildings (and actually point their guns at them till a building is full health), I'd be late for the release date of the MP.

did i say AI's had to be able to repair buildings? i said make them equally stupid as the ones of C&C renegade

the only thing you need to add (to the C&C renegade AI then) is being able to let them run laps at another place. and really, when you pulled this off, you already have an AI with only a fraction of the amount of scripts you would get in other games. right?

no offence, but you really seem to dislike the idea of AI. you don't even agree with any of our suggestions...

[Vipeax]

did i say AI's had to be able to repair buildings? i said make them equally stupid as the ones of C&C renegade

That would result in

I'd rather play a 4v4 than watching people get a 600.0 kd (and 99.999 credits) cause they killed random AI bots.

no offence, but you really seem to dislike the idea of AI. you don't even agree with any of our suggestions...

No offense taken and yes, I disagree with any AI implementation for a multiplayer that would not play at least as good as the worst players do.

[[NE]Firestorm]

good, do not implement any AI for multiplayer

[XD_ERROR_XD]

well, that is that i suppose

[Demigan]

Vipeax has done a lot of hard work on the AI (more then a thousand lines!), yet, AI are a tough and complicated thing, needing many more to be very competent.

The thing is, now everybody seems to be bitching about the AI, that he has done so much hard work to build. Apparently, it isn't the best AI, but do we really need one in the MP?

If you want to have criticism on the AI, do so constructively. The reactions of Vipeax show that it's not fun to have hours of work dumbed down to 'it sucks', even though it isn't a main feature of the game. It is very discouraging to continue working so many hours when people don't even think to appreciate what they got, and simply expect triple A standards when it's released. If you expect a team like Totem Arts to continue their pretty damn well good work so far, give criticism, not flames!

As I said before, I think it should be considered a bèta, with all the bèta problems. We seem to have covered the AI part well enough, so I suggest to let it lie, the AI is a last resort to fill up empty spots in a team, not a necessity.

Yours sincerely,

Demigan.

[[NE]Fobby[GEN]]

Talking about AI is good for critique of Black Dawn as a demo, but what we're more concerned about are things that effect us on the long term. For the campaign, we used what was available to us from the AI and improved that a notch through code and kismet. What we'd like to hear are comments on the things that will stay with Renegade X long-term. For those who played the UT3 beta, you can see that all the weapons function differently in some minor or major way. Commenting on things like recoil, weapon handling and weapon effects is a worthwhile venture for us. Commenting on the HUD is also worthwhile. Same with character animations (third person reloading and movement), effects (Ion Cannon and explosions), audio (gun and tank shots), performance, vehicle cameras (like the APC and other fast moving vehicles), and things like that. For example, there were critiques on the installer (which again, is something built into the UDK that we did not edit) and we have learned to use a custom installer instead from now on. This kind of beta was a necessary step because only through a demo release can an indie game get proper attention outside of its community. And it created an overwhelming response as we all see, 70,000 visits to our site in just 4 days and at least 35,000 downloads. Through this kind of preview we can get the information we need to make a proper multiplayer game.

[Vipeax]

Vipeax has done a lot of hard work on the AI (more then a thousand lines!), yet, AI are a tough and complicated thing, needing many more to be very competent.

The thing is, now everybody seems to be bitching about the AI, that he has done so much hard work to build. Apparently, it isn't the best AI, but do we really need one in the MP?

Oh no, we barely edited it (of those 10.000 lines maybe 600 are ours), due to lack of time. It came with that much by default just to get those simple tasks done. I'm merely pointing out that it will take a long time to get it done properly. Had I not sucked so much on time I'm sure BD would have had a better AI, but for a multiplayer I see a lot more complains coming up when a server uses bots, to fill up the slot count to let's say 10 players, when those bots are almost target dummies. Especially making them dynamic to be able to do their thing on any map, not just a hard-coded set of movements for 1 map, takes a lot more time and effort than people seem to think and I just want that to be clear. An AI is something that is very time consuming and yet, especially for the multiplayer, should not be even near the top of the priority list.

Fobby, Havoc and the rest of the team just all want to let the old project go and start on a new one, the multiplayer, with a lot of new & fresh knowledge, obtained by creating Black Dawn. Delaying it for months just for an AI would not be the way to go. Even the most simple animations, cinematics & mission scripts have taken weeks, if not months, at times. Almost everything toke more time than originally expected, releasing the project is more than just a working download, for some it's a relief.

By releasing Black Dawn as a game a lot has been learned in the last 2 weeks, and even a lot more over the entire project timespan. Black Dawn WILL, for 100%, make for a better Multiplayer version on the UDK. It simply taught the entire team many new things and we all want to put that new knowledge into action, in a way that the team considers the best. The multiplayer version will be made better from the ground up than both the UT3 version as well as Black Dawn have been.

[a1ph4riu5]

Hi, I would like to add some more positive criticism, because I really enjoyed playing through this mini-campaign. The cut scenes are really well done and it gives everything else the feel of a professionally produced Renegade sequel. It actually makes me quite sad to see "what could have been", as much as it makes me happy to play some "new" Renegade missions. Very nostalgic for me. Good job on actually following through with this, because creating even a short single player campaign can't have been easy.

I said quite a bit about Black Dawn over at another forum (bluehellproductions.com), and I'm going to copy/paste some thoughts that you might find useful. So here goes:

The most obvious turn-off is the mechanic for killing you 5 seconds after you drive into a patch of jungle that "isn't part of the mission." It's completely stupid and counter-intuitive. Lots of times, it looks like driving through the jungle is a shortcut that you should be able to take to the next mission objective. You're actually going the right way, but you get killed. It doesn't make any sense why you'd die for driving through some trees to kill some tanks, instead of taking the road but ending up in exactly the same place. That kind of dumb stuff is something that will turn people off in droves, out of frustration. If they wanted to make you take a mostly linear path through the levels, they should have used natural blockers, like APB is doing for the map boundaries. At least that way it makes sense to the player why you can't drive through this area.

snip

Can't tell a big difference between the difficulty levels. The AI is very bad, due to standing still so often. It's very easy to snipe everybody in the head, on any difficulty. But at the same time, it does kind of feel like being the Commando in C&C. Since that's what he did... run around one-shot-killing everyone, lol. I don't think the hardest difficulty is anywhere near hard enough though. Just the enemies doing way more damage to you would make you need to use cover more often, and use health/armour power ups intelligently. I haven't noticed taking much more damage, but it might be because everyone is getting shot in the head before they can shoot.

So while I applaud you guys a lot for what you've managed to achieve here, I don't think this singleplayer release is "finished." I know you probably want to just go full steam ahead on your multiplayer version, but if you leave Black Dawn as is, I think it will turn some people away. I don't want to sound mean, but the "death 5 seconds after driving through an area it looks like you should be able to drive through" is unforgivable. I think you should probably go back and spend some time making this release as polished as possible, so that too many players don't quit screaming "WTF WHY AM I DYING FOR DRIVING THROUGH SOME TREES IN THE DIRECTION OF MY OBJECTIVE!!???" then never come back for your next release. I think you need to make sure you support this version and don't just call it "done." Doing that will give people more faith in your next release being high quality, so they will want to keep following your progress.

If you do decide to continue doing some work on Black Dawn (and I think you should), finding a better way to keep the player from leaving the "mission area" is a must. Don't just have people die because they didn't drive their tank in the direction that you imagined them driving it. If you want them to go in a certain direction, block all other directions in a way that is intuitive to the player. Natural blockers, like trees that are too close together to drive a tank through, razorwire, etc. Do something so that it looks like you can't get through that way. Just because you guys know how you're "supposed" to play the missions, doesn't mean that the average newbie does. As soon as I figured out which paths you wanted us to take, I had a lot of fun with your game... but I am a longtime Renegade fan, willing to overlook the bad stuff because I like the idea of an updated Renegade so much. Don't assume that casual players will tolerate a counter-intuitive system of where you are allowed to go on the map. They'll just uninstall the game. Most people don't care that you did all this for free, or that you want to focus on more important things. You have to sell the game to them by having it be high quality and enjoyable, not making excuses if it isn't.

I'm saying this harsh stuff because I really, really want you guys to succeed.

Lastly... while I understand why you couldn't make the campaign longer, it is just too easy to complete. Can't you go back and mess with the difficulty levels so that people can get more replay value out of this? You've put so much work into something that many will play for a few hours, then never play again. What else is there to do once you've completed the missions two or three times?

Is it possible to add many more waves of enemies on the hardest difficult levels? To make the game last longer and be more difficult, without needed to improve the AI? For example, have the "besieged tank battalion" contain more friendly tanks, and have the battle last much longer, with many more waves of LTs and APCs... before the A-10 scripted event occurs. The same goes for the battle outside the Nod base. You could have several waves of all kinds of Nod units come out of the base, rather than just that one wave of Artillery. You could also have more power ups and vehicle drops occur on harder difficulties, to enable the player to keep fighting against more waves of enemies. I don't think the enemy does enough damage on the hardest difficulty either. I could hardly tell the difference, and I expected to be forced to use cover and search for health/armour packs to stay alive. Instead, I waltzed through the whole thing just as fast as before.

I hope you'll at least consider my ideas, and good luck.

[a1ph4riu5]

Very sorry for the double post, but I am unable to edit my post for some reason. My text disappears and clicking on the box where it ought to be doesn't bring up a typing cursor.

Just wanted to say, I didn't even mention the graphics. The reason why is because the graphical assets are so good for a free shooter, there's absolutely nothing I have to say about it. This graphics certainly don't disappoint, providing your PC can handle it I guess.

[XD_ERROR_XD]

yeah, if you leave the thread for too long you won't be able to edit anymore. even if no-one else has posted yet. kinda sucks

[arnyswart]

Just wanted to say, it was awesome to experience the gameplay on the new engine. I had a great time playing as havoc, dodging and moving. I have played UT but this was surreal. Only one downside, at one stage my HUD disappeared, but a quick restart of the game restored it up.

I found it reasonably challenging on the highest level and will look forward to the multiplayer.

[HolySnail]

1 thing i don't like about black dawn is how it blocks you from moving around (i.e. the "YOU ARE WALKING OUTSIDE THE BATTLEFIELD? LAWL LET ME KILL YOU")

i mean during the part where i have to hold the line with 2 meds or something, i can't even drive my tank through the bushes, it just forced me to go around and join in the back, thats ridiculous. not like you have not made that part of the map but just limiting access to stuff... very "modern game"ish, but not renegade imo

[R315r4z0r]

The play area boundaries should have been shown on the map.

[SoulWatch]

None of the links are working for me to download

[Fffreak9999]