| Posted on 11-Oct-2003 12:39 GMT by bbrv | 21 comments
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GLADIATEUR!
Please see our lastest post on amiga.org!
It is a new game coming to the Pegasos and MorphOS!
R&B
This thread began here on amiga.org. You can trace the thread through the concept until today. It was developed as a Community and it offers another example of what is possible when cooperation takes form.
It is going to be a great project and it will be the first game developed inside this community that will be distributed by a MAJOR organization...more to come!
R&B
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List of all comments to this article| Sorted by date, most recent at bottom |
| Comment 1 | bbrv | Registered user | 11-Oct-2003 10:55 GMT |
| Comment 2 | SlimJim | Registered user | 11-Oct-2003 11:23 GMT |
| Comment 3 | JoannaK | | 11-Oct-2003 11:37 GMT |
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| Posted by bbrv on 11-Oct-2003 11:59 GMT | Subject : Re: New Game Possibility, the second thread
Posted : 2003/10/11 14:49
Alkis, you are right, so with full credit to Andrew Korn, here are a few sections from the Gladiateur Design Document he has written:
1. Introduction
1.1: Abstract
The purpose of this design document is to specify the direction for the Gladiateur project. This entails the development of a game based on Eli Chouraqui’s stage production “Gladiateur”, telling the story of the Spartacan revolt in late republican Rome, which will have both on-line multi player and offline single player aspects. It is anticipated that the game will be a scaled released, with the singleplayer game ready to coincide with the launch of the Gladiateur stage play in October 2004. To aid rapid application development, the game will utilise the Northland game engine. It is hoped that the multi-player online version will require minimal changes to the codebase to turn it into the on-line development, so that when the server-side game elements are complete, there will already be a significant installed client base who will require only a small download to patch the executable and supply any last minute additions. The current intention is to provide a fully playable and compelling on-line game with the Northland engine, while allowing for an easy transition to a later release of a first-person perspective 3D client. Ideally both the Northland engine based 2D client and the 3D client (utilising an as yet unspecified 3D engine) will be interoperable with the same server software - in other words by having a shared data set, the server should not necessarily have to differentiate between clients. While it is anticipated that certain clients for a 2D engine (network operators / DTV providers, for example) would prefer to run dedicated servers, allowing both engines to work on the same servers would provide a number of unique advantages. Not only would this make the game inviting to a wider range of tastes, but a client-independent server opens up the option of allowing the game to be played on a more limited hardware base - an example could be a later release of a client for hand-held devices that would allow people to continue their game when away from their desktop.
Later on in the 16,000 word document...
Appendix Alpha: Historical Accuracy
There are things to be said both for and against historical accuracy in a game of this type. In general I am in favour of retaining as much historical accuracy as we can get away with. The average game player may not be an expert in the historical era, but they will have a certain amount of knowledge of the era, and whatever level of knowledge they have they will at least subconsciously expect to see reflected in the game. Whenever they come across something which jars with their expectations, we lose a touch of that suspension of disbelief that really keeps people involved in a game, movie, book etc. However it has to be recognised that we are not producing a history work, we are producing a game. Thus inevitably we will have to make compromises between the demands of a good game and the demands of history where thesetwo clash. A good example of this is the issue of gender. While this won’t really come up in the single player game, in the multi player game, players will want the choice of male or female characters. For the sake of gameplay it would, I believe, be a huge mistake to attempt to recreate the sexual prejudices of historical Roman society. If someone wants to play a female gladiator or senator, we should let them. There is in fact some historical precedent - there were female gladiators, although admittedly they seem to have been considered something of a sideshow and probably almost never fought male gladiators, and there were a few women who found ways to gain themselves significant political power. In this case it would be best to just gloss over the differences. One of the problems we have with a historical setting is that we have to rely on history for our content, while we are competing with games set in fantasy and science fiction settings where the only limits are imagination. This raises an interesting question - with the multi-player game, will players find a world where the enemies are all human beings less interesting than one where they can fight orcs one day and dragons the next? Interestingly there’s another game with a gladiatorial setting currently in development where the designers have clearly decided that humans aren’t enough, as they have released screenshots of gladiators fighting animated skeletons. We can add a few wild animals to the monster roster without tainting historical accuracy, but we do have the option of adding in the odd monster from Roman and Greek legend for the sake of variety. My inclination is to say that with a bit of imagination we won’t need this crutch, but this is an issue for the multi player game and doesn’t need a quick decision. Whilst most of this is really only of concern in the design of the multi player game, there is an important question to raise with regards to the single player story. Just as it is sometimes necessary to compromise historical accuracy for the sake of gameplay, it is also sometimes necessary to compromise historical accuracy for the sake of making a good musical, and in the case of Gladiateur Eli Chouraqui has not shied away from compromise - the story of the musical differs in a number of major details from the true history of Spartacus, although the outline is of course the same. The compromises Chouraqui has chosen to make are largely aimed at creating the personal context of the musical, but this is not really something that can be accounted for in a game of the type we are discussing. Spartacus’ right hand man and general, Crixus, is surely far more important to a game concerning Spartacus’ campaigns than a musical concerning his personal story. My intention in this case is to find a new compromise which brings much of the detail of Chouraqui’s interpretation into a slightly more historical context, although obviously allows what neither history, nor the demands of good storytelling, could allow - to put it simply, in a game Spartacus has to have a chance to win.
Andrew, you did a GREAT job with this document and we looking forward to you leading this project!
Also, our congratulations to e.p.i.c. in getting Northland ready. And, WELCOME Titan Computers to the project (now that Papyrus Office is in BETA and BurnIT is ready to go), who will now bring the multiplayergame engine to Northland.
Expect to see a new kind of *Developer Connection* up and running next week at http://gladiateur.pegasosppc.com
Didn't greenboy give us a new definition for developers?
It will be a very successful project, because very good people are and will be involved in making it happen.
Sincerely,
R&B
Added Note to ANN: Joanna, once it is up and running, as with the Pegasos, MorphOS, even as OS4, there are always more and new possibilities. You have to take the first step to run a marathon...;-) |
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