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America's Army => General Chat => Topic started by: Petrol on Tuesday, January 27, 2015, 16:46:50 PM

Title: Americas Army Operations Clone
Post by: Petrol on Tuesday, January 27, 2015, 16:46:50 PM
I've decided to write here about my idea, because shout box is full of various discussions.

I'd suggest we should launch new project which goal will be to create clone of Americas Army operations. As we know works of  the United States government are in public domain, but developers don't want to share code with us. That's not a problem we can create it by ourselves! We just have to get all hands on deck! You should see that we have all the animations, models, maps and other data that can be extracted from the game. What we have to do is to rewrite the game core which is closed and can not be easily decompiled.

Staying with Unreal Engine is not best opinion, because it is closed and old. It would be better if we chose some "modern" and open engine, like idTech4 or closed but quite good Source. We may think about integrating game witch steam API to provide Accounts management and servers browsing and/or matchmaking, etc...

So guys please share with me you opinion about that. Should we try to get founds on kickstarter or rather do it as volunteers?
Title: Re: Americas Army Operations Clone
Post by: ELiZ on Tuesday, January 27, 2015, 17:04:31 PM
AA2 resources(staticmeshes, materials and textures) is not good enough to be present in a modern game on it's own. Just look at my converts of the AA2 maps that is available in AAPG. Almost direct converts all of them, and it still looks like UE2.5 even if it's done on a newer engine.

So it's not just the core that need re be redone, assets will be have to be redone as well, and then you can as well just play AAPG or any other FPS...

But if you get a team together, good luck..
Title: Re: Americas Army Operations Clone
Post by: Petrol on Tuesday, January 27, 2015, 17:17:16 PM
Main point of my idea is to create new game which will preserve all important things. Game can look little bit old shool, but engine he will be fresh. There will be possibility to preserve things like physics bechavior of granades. If we get money on kick starter we will be able to employ graphics, designed and programmes.
Title: Re: Americas Army Operations Clone
Post by: Spanky on Tuesday, January 27, 2015, 18:18:30 PM
I'll say what I've said before about this but please don't let it ruin your enthusiasm.

We don't have the source code so we can't change everything freely. To solve this, we'd need to start from scratch like you're describing. It would have to be on a new engine since I doubt we can get a UE2 license. While ELiZ proves things can be ported in both directions (newer to older, older to newer), that's just assets. We would have to re-code the core parts of the game. Sounds great and we could probably get a team together to do it but there's a catch; It won't have the same feel as AA2. Never will. Even the AA devs themselves with all the source and just moving up engine builds in UE2, they couldn't keep gameplay the same. Everybody has their own favorite AA version. When you think about writing all new code, you're talking about building an entirely new game that doesn't have appeal from the AA2 audience. You're then talking about competing with all the other shooters on the market. Look at ARMA, Battlefield and Call of Duty, they each have their own niche market and nothing will ever compete with them. Building an AA clone would directly compete with ARMA. There's another game that has been on Kickstarter that pretty much is an AA clone, aiming for small-scale realism. There just wouldn't be any room in the market for competition, at least not without a paid or promise to be paid and dedicated dev team with no speciality gaps.
Title: Re: Americas Army Operations Clone
Post by: Koden on Tuesday, January 27, 2015, 19:26:37 PM
Imho (just imho) you should rather work on modding an already existing game instead of creating a new one. Besides, as Eliz said there's AAPG (which comes with a version of the Unreal 3 editor), which will be released in its -hopefully- complete version in a few months (they said "spring 2015). Also, there's Ground Branch which has been in development for a few years by now ( http://www.groundbranch.com/ (http://www.groundbranch.com/) )

 
Title: Re: Americas Army Operations Clone
Post by: Spanky on Tuesday, January 27, 2015, 19:46:58 PM
Thanks Koden, that's the one I was thinking of.
Title: Re: Americas Army Operations Clone
Post by: ArmyAntiCheat on Tuesday, January 27, 2015, 20:09:42 PM
If you can make AA like Arma, then why not;D I don't play that game because I get loads of lag, but good luck if you do want to do something like this, you'll need a lot of passion for this, but I support the rest :)
Title: Re: Americas Army Operations Clone
Post by: teddy_grizzly_bear on Wednesday, January 28, 2015, 01:34:04 AM
I don't think this would work. Lilke Spanky said, if you recoded it, you will get a new game, not the same one on a different engine.
Title: Re: Americas Army Operations Clone
Post by: Petrol on Wednesday, January 28, 2015, 01:38:52 AM
We are able to recode it, and make it looks and bechieve just like original. We just have to extract some constats like: movement speed, air friction, ground fricition, bouncing, throw distance....

Spanky: UT2 is litle bit old, havy, closed and usupported.
Title: Re: Americas Army Operations Clone
Post by: Alex on Wednesday, January 28, 2015, 01:45:25 AM
We are able to recode it, and make it looks and bechieve just like original. We just have to extract some constats like: movement speed, air friction, ground fricition, bouncing, throw distance....

Spanky: UT2 is litle bit old, havy, closed and usupported.
Sure you can get numerical settings from UE2, but how UE3 and Source and other engines handle those numbers will be different that how UE2 handles them. With a new engine the game will feel different by default.
Title: Re: Americas Army Operations Clone
Post by: Petrol on Wednesday, January 28, 2015, 02:15:06 AM
You have testing map on original. You are throwing there granade. Next you are setting throw throw speed, granade mass and air friction to acheieve same trajectory.
Title: Re: Americas Army Operations Clone
Post by: teddy_grizzly_bear on Wednesday, January 28, 2015, 02:18:21 AM
Plus there are TONS of things that make AA2 feel the way it feels. Some of those tings you'll probably never even think of until you make a new game and go like "This doesn't feel right!". It's to do how your character reacts to pose changes and weapon changes, to stairs, to falls. It's to do how others see you character acting in those situation. It's just SUCH a complex ensemble I'll be willing to bet it's impossible to mimic on another engine.
Title: Re: Americas Army Operations Clone
Post by: Petrol on Wednesday, January 28, 2015, 02:57:31 AM
Teddy, It is obvous that we can not easly find all the things that should be reimplemented in new game, but we have comunity which can give as feedback. They can submit issues when they found something that should be corrected. If we get money we can get first creators and developers.

Jeśli jednak jesteście zbyt leniwi, żeby ruszyc wasz tłuste p?łnocno-amerykańskie dupska, to walcie się na ryj. :)
Title: Re: Americas Army Operations Clone
Post by: [SWISS]Merlin on Wednesday, January 28, 2015, 04:19:19 AM
i do play aa2, because i love it like it is now. to much changes (like 203 on hospital) will kill the original touch of it.

to get the feeling of a newer engine, i go to play aa4 from time to time.

but nice effort from your side.
Title: Re: Americas Army Operations Clone
Post by: Petrol on Wednesday, January 28, 2015, 06:47:39 AM
Merin, game exeprience will not change, that is our target!
Title: Re: Americas Army Operations Clone
Post by: CroCop on Wednesday, January 28, 2015, 16:08:02 PM
So it's not just the core that need re be redone, assets will be have to be redone as well, and then you can as well just play AAPG or any other FPS...

But assets shall not be a problem at all, we have all those skilled MAAP devs, right?
Title: Re: Americas Army Operations Clone
Post by: CroCop on Wednesday, January 28, 2015, 16:17:36 PM
Jeśli jednak jesteście zbyt leniwi, żeby ruszyc wasz tłuste p?łnocno-amerykańskie dupska, to walcie się na ryj. :)

Good old Petrol. An unrealistic dreamer.

No, you can NOT duplicate the same feeling, you nab.
Title: Re: Americas Army Operations Clone
Post by: teddy_grizzly_bear on Wednesday, January 28, 2015, 16:50:48 PM
But assets shall not be a problem at all, we have all those skilled MAAP devs, right?
All of them? Not at this point.
Some of them are still here some of the time, though.
Title: Re: Americas Army Operations Clone
Post by: NoBigDeal on Wednesday, January 28, 2015, 17:52:46 PM
We are able to recode it, and make it looks and bechieve just like original. We just have to extract some constats like: movement speed, air friction, ground fricition, bouncing, throw distance....
You have no idea what you talking about ...
Besides, porting to a different engine it's a worst scenario - translating the code / phisics will be impossibe in term of duplicate AA2.5 game mechanics.

... if ever (I suggested this before ...) the best option is to port this game to UE3 - UDK is for free (I would suggest UDK-2009-11-BETA ... installer is very lightweight (only 600MB), very stable and it has all you need to create a new game.  UnrealScript can be ported directly because of backward compatibility. Models and animations can be use from AA3 - only its Net code needs to be rewrite from scratch.


BTW:
Jeśli jednak jesteście zbyt leniwi, żeby ruszyc wasz tłuste p?łnocno-amerykańskie dupska, to walcie się na ryj.
... Behave ...
Title: Re: Americas Army Operations Clone
Post by: Petrol on Friday, January 30, 2015, 03:57:15 AM
Better listen him, or this game will die.
Title: Re: Americas Army Operations Clone
Post by: ArmyAntiCheat on Friday, January 30, 2015, 11:00:27 AM
Better listen him, or this game will die.

Its been dying for years, still keeps going :)
Title: Re: Americas Army Operations Clone
Post by: Petrol on Friday, January 30, 2015, 15:03:51 PM
http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agonia (http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agonia)