Unreal Engine 4 & Battlezone

[TheJamsh]

I guess I might be one of the few Unreal Engine enthusiasts around here, but I figure some of you may have some interest in this either way, particularly in relation to beloved Battlezone series.

It's been roughly a year now since Unreal 4 was publicly announced, and while all the new graphical goodness is as pretty as you'd expect, my personal interest lies with the new Kismet 2 'Blueprint' system. For those who are unaware, Kismet is Unreal Engine's Level-Based Visual Scripting system, essentially comprised of lots of nodes that do all the complex work for you which you simply link up together in chains. The current incarnation of Kismet operates on the active level only (like a map-specific bit of code for BZ2), but this looks to change with Kismet 2, where the new blueprint system gives you classes and much more solidified code. The current Kismet can be expanded if you have some knowledge of C++ or Unreal Script (I'll get to that cookie in a moment), but requires somebody with real knowledge of Unreal's code and C++, something 'we' as a BZ community don't have.

As you can see, the new Kismet 2.0 is incredibly powerful. It seems possible to create entire games inside this simplified language. So, other than complex legal issues which can be worked around with ease, what's to stop us recreating BZ2 like this? Bear in mind, this isn't the only interesting change. Unreal 4 completely swaps out Unreal Script for C++, something which many people around here are more than fluent in. Unreal 4 is getting closer to a Development-Kit style release every day, I'm sure it's only a matter of months before we can finally get our hands on that new tech. Just putting it out there guys

We've seen promises of future Battlezone-like games in Unreal Engine already, for example the Bionite: Origins project which originally coined itself BZ3. None of them however really lived up to expectation, which is unfortunate as I think the talents of Jayden and N0str0m0 in particular have gone to waste. My overall point is though, nothing has ever truly come to fruition. I haven't stuck around the BZ2 area much for a while now, but I notice Gamespy functionality is now fully withdrawn and only the most dedicated players willing to set up their own server systems remain. Huge shame really, hopefully it's still kicking though. Unreal Engine 4 might give the game an opportunity to dramatically extend it's life, the arty guys around here can get in touch with programming without REALLY having to learn anything complex.

So yeah, discuss

[Ded10c]

If the opportunity to write the story for a proper Battlezone game arose, I would grab it by the throat. It's an idea worth pursuing and with developers having started to blend the genres together again (looking at you, Nuclear Dawn), such a unique blend might be exactly what the gaming environment needs.

[bigbadbogie]

I've already started recreating BZ2..... in BZ2.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/battlezone-ii-hd-mod

Gotta finish QF2 first.

You want a shot at a real BZ3? QF2 is your best bet. It continues much of the storyline from the BZ2 vanilla campaign, woven around the Fleshstorm series. It's most likely going to be bigger and longer than the original BZ2 game.

It's also more than 60% finished and in constant production - not to mention that it has an obsessive compulsive maker who would finish the mod even if he thought that nobody would ever play it.

One day I'd like to try modding in a different engine, but certainly not before my BZ2 engine mods are done and dusted.

[Ded10c]

You do realise I may well want to retcon QF2 all to hell and back when it comes out, right?

[bigbadbogie]

I don't know how much room I've left for that. The story is already absurdly highly detailed.

My biggest current story issue is deciding whether or not to leave the universe open at the end.

In other words, should I have a Mass Effect 3 type ending which prevents any further story telling or leave it open ended for other future mods?


P.S - damn this flew off topic quickly!!

[Ded10c]

The cycles have already created an open-ended universe that will continue on forever regardless of the current cycle. The more open-ended, the better.

I've made huge discoveries about the story recently; those cycles I speak of are not necessarily the fanon we had all assumed.

[bigbadbogie]

*Plays the ignorance card ... ... ... truthfully*

What cycles? Not Reaper invasions?

[Ded10c]

The Titan Cycle.

When a race are destroyed by Furies, their world is captured and turned into a biometalloid. This world then hunts down other worlds to do the same thing to (this is how the chthonians discovered biometal in the first place).

Parts of that were elaborated by Avatar, but the basic idea was actually established by some of the maps included in Battlegrounds. It's debatable whether or not it's canon, but since it was officially released it has a better case for it than anything you, I, or anyone else here will ever create. Including FE and Fleshstorm.

[bigbadbogie]

That is just... bad.

since it was officially released it has a better case for it than anything you, I, or anyone else here will ever create. Including FE and Fleshstorm.

Whether something is canon is determined by community majority opinion, not by whether it was officially released. If something is official, all that that means is that it was made by a profiteering corporation rather than an individual/group with a passionate hobby.

Many BZ1 players do not even consider BZ2 to be 'canon' at all. If giant biometal planets floating around slaughtering races for no reason whatsoever is the best storyline available, I can't say I blame them.

Battlezone is a cold-war/post cold-war scifi story. It isn't Dr-Who. Before BZ2 mods, there were no living aliens anywhere in the story.

The Cthonians on Icarus created Furies themselves. They didn't come from some invading biometalloid.

[Ded10c]

What canon is is debatable of course, but to a writer it is determined by Word of God before popular opinion. Thus canon from my viewpoint is the official stuff. I see canon as a scale though, not a black-and-white sorting mechanism.

The BZ1 players that do not consider BZ2 canon (not as many as you think; it's more a vocal minority from what I see - and bear in mind I'm active on their forum) do so largely because they have misinterpreted BZ2. That's their problem and doesn't change what BZ2's content actually is. The floating planets idea comes from Battlegrounds as much as it does BZ2. Most people haven't played BZG, so I'm not treating it as pure canon (remember my sliding scale point). I'm saying it has a better case for it, not that it is more canon.

Source key:
Regular text: Explicit canon.
Italicised text: Debatable canon (here Battlegrounds, Forgotten Enemies, Fleshstorm, and Uncle Avatar's Storytime)

There may not have been living aliens appearing in the story, but the survival of the chthonians was most certainly implied. Remember the city on Elysium (and Alpha007 - BZG). There are explicit appearances from more than a few, and direct mentions of even more. - FE, FS

Yes, the chthonians on Icarus created Furies. The invading forces were known by different names to the chthonians and humans; Titans to the chthonians, Cerberi to us - FE, UAS.

Also, I should note here that Slaor passed the majority (I'd like to think it's all of it, but sadly there's no way of being certain) of the story he had written about the Cerberi to me before he died. He was one of the driving forces behind FE's story. The origins of the Cerberi were heavily related to the story Avatar wrote, to the point that you can't really take one without the other.


Note: I've seen it happen before and don't want it to happen again, so just in case; no hostility intended. Ever.



EDIT: I've just posted this on bz1.org and it's relevant to discussion:

I dislike the idea that the story was misunderstood. I'm scouring the credits now to double-check, and three people are credited as writers across the two games; Veronica Milito (BZ1's intro), Joanne Buckley and Joseph Donaldson (BZ2 "additional writing"). From there the only people who are likely to have had story input are the designers - George Collins, William Stahl, Jens Anderson - or the artists - Kino Scialaba and Carey Chico. Four of those five people had equal or greater input on BZ2. Unless Jens Anderson wrote the entire thing by himself, I'm not sure a mistake is even possible.

[bigbadbogie]

The floating planets idea comes from Battlegrounds as much as it does BZ2.

Where in BZ2 is there any reference to that?

[Ded10c]

Yes, Core and the Dark Planet (and the Ro'chukn moon in Battlegrounds). The idea itself didn't arrive until FE's time, but that's where it sprang from.

[bigbadbogie]

Core is a fully alchemated planet designed to support biometal/organic hybrid (Scion) life. The Dark Planet is a partially alchemated planet. They have no other purpose.

The reason for the creation of the Cerberi was not that the Dark Planet was a 'biometalloid' Fury ship, but that the core-supercomputer was severely damaged and driven insane by the 'night of infamy' attacks. It became the 'mother-god' and set fourth to satisfy its psychotic bloodlust.

The Cerberi were the result of a catastrophic failure of the Dark Planet -- certainly not its aim.

[TheJamsh]

I've already started recreating BZ2..... in BZ2.

I too did something similar a while ago, when Serenesis started getting way out of scope I worked on some higher-res stuff of the original models with help from M0str0m0 and Jayden, the resulting effort was pretty damn good if I say so myself. I even vert-anmiated it and added some particles for wet weather, trails, grinding accross the surface etc. Nevertheless though, It'll never reach the same LOD in BZ2's engine as a modern engine. Unreal taught me a lot about Shaders (I do Technical Art & Particles for The Somme now). There's a lot more too it than additional polies and bigger texture sheets these days unfortunately.

This is more of an idea than anything though, to get people thinking. I'll more than likely be experimenting with something like this depending on how easy the new Kismet is to use, and how powerful it really is.

I do miss BZ for it's simplicity, I hope the new Unreal brings back the ability to make a full game with just one person. I was particularly fond of my particle effects.

[Ded10c]

Core is a fully alchemated planet designed to support biometal/organic hybrid (Scion) life. The Dark Planet is a partially alchemated planet. They have no other purpose.

The reason for the creation of the Cerberi was not that the Dark Planet was a 'biometalloid' Fury ship, but that the core-supercomputer was severely damaged and driven insane by the 'night of infamy' attacks. It became the 'mother-god' and set fourth to satisfy its psychotic bloodlust.

The Cerberi were the result of a catastrophic failure of the Dark Planet -- certainly not its aim.

Your post is entirely correct. The two parts of the story weave together with a great deal more complexity than I can make clear by paraphrasing it- I make things sound bad when I do that. I'll send you a pm, I'd love to discuss your interpretation