Bad news posted

Firstly, please work on not sounding like a know-it-all, especially since you aren't part of the team and weren't part of the decisions made by them/us. If you think you can do better, do it!

Personally I like not having too many people around. It means that you both have a close-knit community, which in turn helps with teamwork in-game since you know what people's playing and leadership styles are. Quality, not quantity . It's not that we are an elitest bunch, but we can't stand people who aren't prepared to put a little work in, find things out for themselves, and are unwilling to compromise. And as others have said, these days there's an automatic assumtion that any mod for UT is dead and no point in even looking.

Distribution in this day and age isn't such a huge issue, since most people who play these games have broadband. Take AA for example, IIRC it is over 800MB and there are thousands of people who play it. The main purpose of Steam, whatever they say about it, is to crack down on piracy and cut out the publishers so the developers can take a bigger cut of the profits.

As has been said many times, we do this in our spare time. Our lives change, we get new jobs, families etc etc. so the amount of content team members can vary tremendously. But nothing changes the skill of the individual, and the connection they have with the team. Taking on monkeys who don't really care about the mod, further than it is popular so it will make them popular, or just to put something on their CV, is a bad idea. There needs to be a level of devotion to the team and the mod for anything of quality to be produced and the old-timers, even if they have little time to work on it, always make the best content.

As for other games... I've played Raven Shield, Battlefield 1942/Desert Combat, Red Orchestra, and none of them have really shaken my favourite. Yes they all have nice graphics, physics, vehicles, whatever you want to praise, but there is always a flaw that is really off-putting. Raven Shield has its glorified crosshair, RO, well it's just a personal dislike of WW2 games, BF2 is wholly an arcade game. Yes there are others, but nothing combines all the features as well as Inf does. It's a difficult thing to live up to for a sequel, and a somewhat half-hearted sidetrack to HL2, or 'just another realism mod', isn't the way to go. No offense yurch/mute/beppo etc., I really appreciate the work you have put in, but once it moved to HL2 the team lost commitment to the project.

Anyway, rant over, apologies if it makes no sense at all or steps on anyone's toes.

Well, personally I agree with Jayhova. It's the engine. It's just too old. The game itself is awesome. Very well done. Very realistic. If it could just be ported over to HL2. I can just imagine playing the Gatehouse map in INF:Source. I know that a port would almost be as hard as starting from scratch because of having to learn new code, but on the bright side, a lot of the base calculations, templates, etc are already done. And of course a lot of weapons, skins, etc would have to be redone from scratch. I understand that people have real lives, but I hope that the INF team will reconsider going to HL2, especially since its already out. Then maybe the INF MOD Team would work on it some more.

I agree with j03, if some of the devs have no time find someone who has. The problem in INF is that it is to personal. The devs are oldshool, know eachother and all that. When they have no time the mod is on ice.

And other mods? When someone has no time the coder-slot, modeler-slot, or whatever is free and is mostly filled very soon, the mod goes on in progress.

Those are two different kinds of modding. The one is more of a personal taste thing, the other is a matter of pulling out a product.

Logan6 said:

It's the engine. It's just too old. The game itself is awesome. Very well done. Very realistic.

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I´m probably one of the few that thinks exactly the opposite. To me the engine is old and 'crappy', but playable as long the mod is playable. The mod (INF) is where I have a problem with.

For a realism game good visuals are nearly equally important as concept, but the concept is the most important.

Well, personally I agree with Jayhova. It's the engine. It's just too old.

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That's not what Jayhova said. Maybe that's what he meant, but that's not what he said.

The mod doesn't NEED to be 400 some odd MB's to download. It's bloated with maps and textures that aren't hardly used.

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Yes you are right, INF is bloated with maps and textures that aren't hardly used. Which means they are used a lot... which is true. So why don't we need that odd 400+ Mb again?

I really wonder Psychomorph: how many hours have you spent playing INF (online) overall? 20? 30?

From my humble estimation you've spent easily 10x the time on theoretical elaborating tiny glitches and inflating 'em by writing long obsessed suggestion lists

I.e. you suggested an infinite amount of runningspeeds just a few weeks ago and since then it has become this "be-all-end-all" question to a decent realism-shooter.

Same with low ready. We know the implementation isn't perfect but currently aiming low in aim mode is pretty close and serves the same purpose.

You have definitely good ideas but many won't make a huge difference gameplay wise it's more about teamplay, communication, tactical movement than if the playerpawn hold his gun 2 inches higher or lower...

Seeking perfect realism? Look here

Well, since the topic seems to have changed to "feesible" mod attempts...

So far, realism mods have always been for arcade-style sci-fi/fantasy FPS. This doubles the amount of work required because the entire armory, player models, environments, movement physics, etc needs to be retooled from scratch. Why not mount a realism mod for a commercial game which allready attempts to be realistic, but merely falls short (ie Rainbow Six, Brothers in Arms, etc). There are some games now which are allready pretty realistic to begin with. Usually, it's just relatively minor things, like movement speeds, an iron-sights view, and spread/recoil levels, which really set them apart from a mod like Inf. If the game allready has MP5's, M16's, spec ops, and functional maps, then it should only take a relatively small amount of work to tweak it into an Inf-style game.

I.E., engine concerns aside, if Yurch had made his HL2 mod for Rainbow Six or some other military game instead, we'd basically allready have a functional, relatively complete modern military realism FPS to play. Sure, the maps might not be totally realistic, and the sound effects might be a little hollywood-ish, but with the core element of Inf combat; the movement system, the aiming system, the recoil system, it'd still be a playable realism shooter. Once the basic stuff was done, things like better gametypes, maps, etc could be worked out later.

While the Inf team was planning something very large-scale and innovative, I think many would be satisfied with a game that simply gives you a space to run around in on teams and shoot each other realistically, on a new engine, even if it was just TDM, or something with basic objectives like demolition or DTAS. Yeah, it would be nice to go further than that, but that's clearly not feasile right now. Remember how long everyone played TDM in the 2.86 days and prior? It was fun, just because the weapons and movement was realistic (relatively speaking). Sure, that seems simplistic now, having had DTAS and EAS for years, but now the UT99 engine is old and decrepit, Inf feels akward and buggy, and the community continues to shrink and dwindle. I know the prospect of even basic Inf gameplay on a fresh new engine with a revitilized community has to apeal to some of you.

raven shield was not moddable.

my opinion. sure we would prefer full servers all the time, but i think its awesome that people are still playing inf 2.9, released for UT, a game that was out before i even had internet! a game i played on a Pentium 133.
this achievement is incredible. it shows the potential of the mod.
this mod is always underdeveloppement, and people like it.

some people abandonned it, but im pretty sure they are unhappy with the game they play with, and are constantly searching for new games.

i tried raven shield. and it sucks. i dont know how but online its just a bunch of cheaters who pwn me when i shoot first at 5meter range with a rifle. and people who whine because you are the last alive and go carefully "zulu gogogo".

the way i see it, is nowadays, inf is a new concept of online gaming community. a community where everybody almost knows each other. a community where everybody contributed to enhance the experience, as a server admin, as a mutator maker, map maker, map conversion-er , event scheduler, or by suggesting an idea (like ntkb and voice packs for example), or people suggesting a new map on a server. server admins are open minded and accept players ideas.

people who where not coders or mappers tried to make something for the mod, that shows how they love it. the mod is constantly evolving. people did not make new things for fame, but to play it themselves, and for their friends. sure everything isnt allways perfect, but i like that.

this is a "friends game" as i see it. the dtas or tdm or eas games are for specifics people, and the fun is always guaranteed, when you play with guys that are almost-friends.

Psych, this sounds nice from hull breach:

A large tactical element within the Halflife Engine is the use of sound. Within an environment with breathable atmosphere the players will be able to open and close their visor at will. With the visor closed sound will be muffled however you will have a reticle and additional information displayed. Opening the visor will remove your reticle and hud information (apart from vital information displayed on the rim of the helmet) but give the player the advantage of superior audio capabilities.

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For me, it's UT99's sound capabilities than are the biggest let down.

-No filtering
-Small radius
-Bad falloff
-Blargh

@Nuke:
I played INF frequently since I installed it the first time (2002, or 2001, don't remember).

And I didn't suggest infinite run, but the jog (which is slow) beeing an energy saving 'long' performable movement to proceed through the map, only when rested and healthy.

I don't base my suggestions on INF glitches, but just on pure real life observation and a tinny bit of logic, I do not invent enything, I just observe and ty to suggest how stuff could possibly be implemented.
Look how soldiers use a rifle in real life (mostly) and how you do it in INF, a huge difference are between them, a difference I dislike. That is a point that I don't even think to argue about, if somebody wants, he/she can argue about crosshairs and conefire aswell.
When somebody is fine with the current INF weapon handling, I´m fine with that, but he/she is not allowed to critizise the realism features I present, only the way I suggest can be critized/discussed, or doubts of feasibility.


@Zeep:
Yeah, I heared about Hull Breach few days ago and I was blasted from my seat.