View Distance - A Stong Selling Point Missing

[Psychedelic Rhino]

Since I installed the latest build a few days ago, I had the opportunity to look at some older versions and also look at BZ1.4 as comparisons of what I was checking.

I had not forgotten the beauty of long distance views in BZ, but had sort of put them out of my mind since BZE and now BZ1.5 are locked down visually, except for resolution. And I must say, the 1900x1200 in both BZ1.5 and BZE are spectacular and give the game a nice visual lift.

But I still say what is sorely missing in both, is the ability to see MUCH further. PCs now have absolutely no issue seeing a good 50% further than what is set now in both BZE and BZ1.5.

BZE1.3 is always looking for new players. BZ1.5, someday, will do the same. My question is simply this. If you were someone looking to come back or looking for a free and awesome game to play online, and you found, downloaded and checked out the game, what would you think is more impressive. . . the images on the left. . . or on the right?

I strongly feel both BZE1.3 and BZ1.5 are handicapping themselves by making players bath in fog, when 98% of newer games give close, if not full, horizon distance views.

[Zero Angel]

This has been my thought about what has been going on in BZ2 as well, and it was debated in the strat community whether most players thought the the 'visibility boosting' hotkeys were inethical or not -- with the 'for' argument being that BZ2 came out when machines werent capable of handling longer vis ranges, and the 'against' argument being that not everyone knows how to boost their vis range; though it would be good for everyone to have that knowledge. So it leaves some players on an uneven playing field.

I do have an idea, and please note that while I have never played BZ1 and I don't have any personal interest in what happens there I do think my idea may be worth considering. And my idea is a shell (graphics option)

Visibility: [200%, 150%, 100%]

You might consider such a thing if a large majority (>75%) of your player base is capable of running at 200%.

[General BlackDragon]

Of course the longer view range looks better

[Psychedelic Rhino]

Visibility: [200%, 150%, 100%]

You might consider such a thing if a large majority (>75%) of your player base is capable of running at 200%.

Actually stock BZ, or now called BZ1.4, already has the ability to crank your view distance till your PC crashes. It's the render.cfg file.

BZ1.5 and BZE1.3 locks it down to a tiny bit more than what you are seeing in the right side screen shots.

[Apollo]

Would you want to play someone who can see a mile in the game and you see 500 meters?
Is the game about beautiful view distances?
Is fair game play important at all?
Is the fog part of the game or just there to annoy players and obstruct their view?

I don't think Battlezone is still for sell and when compared to new games... Bz can't compete, even for free.

[Zax]

Would you want to play someone who can see a mile in the game and you see 500 meters?
Is the game about beautiful view distances?
Is fair game play important at all?
Is the fog part of the game or just there to annoy players and obstruct their view?

I don't think Battlezone is still for sell and when compared to new games... Bz can't compete, even for free.

In order: No, I would not, if there were a radar range+sniping weapon that could shoot me from that distance. Strat, no, they could see me coming sooner.
BZ1? No
No
Neither. It is to prevent the 4mb graphics cards of the time from melting into a pool of silicon. My first bz machine was a P133, later a P166. Diamond Multimedia...something or other. And keep in mind that was in software mode, so all that BZ goodness had to render through my P133. That's including every bit of BZ, not just the graphics.

I've since moved on to a quad core phenom at 3800, and graphics aren't even being run through that anymore. They are being run by my 1gb of memory 800mhz video card.

Not everyone has that hardware, but the principle is the same (as BZ isn't using a fraction of that available computational power). If you buff the view range to 500 meters to everyone, I would be quite shocked to see ANYBODY complain about graphics hits. Especially with the DX9 offloading that from the CPU. Now, it is to my understanding terrain is still done on the CPU...but that may be for bz2. I am so mixed up with these 2 games

[Apollo]

[In order: No, I would not, if there were a radar range+sniping weapon that could shoot me from that distance. Strat, no, they could see me coming sooner.
BZ1? No
No
Neither. It is to prevent the 4mb graphics cards of the time from melting into a pool of silicon. My first bz machine was a P133, later a P166. Diamond Multimedia...something or other. And keep in mind that was in software mode, so all that BZ goodness had to render through my P133. That's including every bit of BZ, not just the graphics.

I've since moved on to a quad core phenom at 3800, and graphics aren't even being run through that anymore. They are being run by my 1gb of memory 800mhz video card.

Not everyone has that hardware, but the principle is the same (as BZ isn't using a fraction of that available computational power). If you buff the view range to 500 meters to everyone, I would be quite shocked to see ANYBODY complain about graphics hits. Especially with the DX9 offloading that from the CPU. Now, it is to my understanding terrain is still done on the CPU...but that may be for bz2. I am so mixed up with these 2 games

When Bz came out, I had a PII 350 and 8MB on my video card. It got 45fps
So everyone agrees the fog isn't part of the game and just there to cull the draw distances for PC's of the time right?
Well BzE is capped at a view distance of 500 meters and i believe this thread qualifies as a complaint. (and you can be sniped at 500 meters)

[Psychedelic Rhino]

I'm looking at both BZ1.5 and BZE in two ways.

First, does it, and CAN it offer more. I say easily.

Second, how can you get people to want to play it. If bumping up the view distance helps sway people to stay and play, I say we should go for it.

To me there's little substance in arguing if increasing view distance effects strat or DM. There's been a lot of gameplay changes to both BZE and BZ1.5, so debating something that would greatly enhance the game's look to help sell the game at the arguable small expense of some other aspect makes no sense.

[Apollo]

I'm looking at both BZ1.5 and BZE in two ways.

First, does it, and CAN it offer more. I say easily.

Second, how can you get people to want to play it. If bumping up the view distance helps sway a few to play to stay and play, I say we should go for it.

To me there's little substance in arguing if increasing view distance effects strat or DM. There's been a TON of changes to both BZE and BZ1.5 (as I JUST explained above about the Sas), so debating something that would greatly enhance the game's look at the arguable small expense of some other aspect makes no sense.

There is a point that Ken said a memory leak may be occuring at a distance.
That may sway a few in both ways as the lag increases.
We aren't talking about changes that impact the performance with those strat and dm changes, if you can see a mile in game and it runs fine on your new pc and the remote player trys to do the same distance as you and slows his pc down soo much that all you see is lag, you'll be unhappy and quit the game.

BzE has dbl the default view distance, 1.5 has 50% over the default ( 500 meters/375 meters) the weapons shoot 300 meters or less(except snipe @ 500) even if fog was not meant to be there, you would still end up increasing lag for that long view distance.
This may be more acceptable IF Ken added the remote player stats so you can see the fps and resolution similar to Bz2.

[Psychedelic Rhino]

BzE has dbl the default view distance, 1.5 has 50% over the default ( 500 meters/375 meters) the weapons shoot 300 meters or less(except snipe @ 500) even if fog was not meant to be there, you would still end up increasing lag for that long view distance.
This may be more acceptable IF Ken added the remote player stats so you can see the fps and resolution similar to Bz2.

On maps such as Venus, I say absolutely, view distance is 'part of the design'.

On maps such as Mars, where there is virtually no atmosphere, and especially Europa maps where it's a vacuum, the design would be infinite distance if possible.

But as to allowing freedom, just add view distance as a selection on the setup screen. Players joining could decide if they want to have the crappy FPS if their PC is not up to it. I highly suspect you would discover people would pick view distances as high as their PC would handle.

[HitchcockGreen]

BzE has dbl the default view distance, 1.5 has 50% over the default ( 500 meters/375 meters) the weapons shoot 300 meters or less(except snipe @ 500) even if fog was not meant to be there, you would still end up increasing lag for that long view distance.
This may be more acceptable IF Ken added the remote player stats so you can see the fps and resolution similar to Bz2.

On maps such as Venus, I say absolutely, view distance is 'part of the design'.

On maps such as Mars, where there is virtually no atmosphere, and especially Europa maps where it's a vacuum, the design would be infinite distance if possible.

But as to allowing freedom, just add view distance as a selection on the setup screen. Players joining could decide if they want to have the crappy FPS if their PC is not up to it. I highly suspect you would discover people would pick view distances as high as their PC would handle.

I agree with this. That being said, no one, on any modern computer, is going to want to play against someone whose computer can't handle the distance and lags out a game. As it stands now with all flavours of BZ you have a significant cap on playability with ping and lag. Indeed the longer viewing distance does look better.
In a strat game that runs over an hour, that lag will make the game unplayable. And by unplayable I mean essentially pointless. At least in a DM the laggy player can leave and re-enter, sacrificing only his leaderboard placement. A player leaves a strat game and it's as good as over.

So there has to be a balance. Viewing distance to the point where it causes no leaks. I think we can safely assume most people are using at the very least windows xp with a half-decent onboard gfx card that can easily handle bz.

And yes, there are only a couple of instances within the game where fog is more of an aesthetics thing. (as you said, Venus being one, Titan being another - Europa actually does have an atmosphere, and one that does contain oxygen, but it's an extremely thin atmosphere ). The majority of planets and moons having little to no atmosphere.

[Ultraken]

Fairness issues aside, BZ's rendering system is doesn't scale well so this would have to wait until I revised it.

[Psychedelic Rhino]

Now those screenshots above are a bit extreme. You're seeing right at 700m. I was simply giving an example of what looks more appealing to players.

You're exactly right, there would be ALL sorts of issues in strat, especially in the end-game. What I would imagine is very workable would be seeing around 600m in DM and around 525 in strat.

[Nielk1]

I know the BZ2 solution in 1.3 is to have the map set the max distance and allow for reductions in a player's local view distance but not an increase. Thus the maps are as intended.