VegaStrike Mod

actually, the WCU mod is starting with a privateer remake, and then is gonna morph and branch into a remake of all of wc in one timeline.

and the priv remake is nearingn completion. we've got all the missions, locales, ships, etc. visible weapon upgrades :)D), and i'm currently working on a demo ship (a stilhetto) with visible engine+afterburner upgrades, and visible wing-mounted missiles.

the gameplay is a little modified. there is some dilemma over the AI. we don't want it retarded like the priv AI, but anything better doesn't let you really handle 5 ships alone... like you could in priv. a cute little thing i added was that when you hurt a transport between 40% -> 10% health, it'll drop cargo little by little. So if you're careful you can pirate without killing :). of course you'll still get more of you kill it, but you will help your relations a bit with less kills. getting greedy and hitting the 10% mark to get all the cargo will just make the transport turn on you suicidally... also, the distances are different... more wc3ish. which makes keeping wcpriv style combat realy hard. it was meant for slow motion floaty fights. so some compromise will have to be made.

anyways, we're still working on adding multiplayer. the people coding it haven't been completely reliable, so it's in a state of perpetually half done. but ultimately it'll allow mmorpg style play.

and sometime in the future the engine will get an overhaul to support some newer effects. we have specular/reflective mapping, and damage mapping, detail mapping, etc. but normal mapping would be an awesome addition.

anyways, we were considering releasing the priv remake sometime soon (there are playable betas out), but there is still stuff to iron out.

-scheherazade
 
Wow, that sounds really exciting...I guess I hadn't realized how far along you guys were. Now when you mention that you have all the locations and all the missions...does that mean you can go to New Constantinople and go to the stock exchange or the bar there?
 
yes, you can goto all the places in new constantinople.

the guilds, the bar, the mission terminal, the trade panel, etc.
you got all the random missions, the fixers, the storyline-fixers, etc.

the only thing missing in that respect is that i think not all the audio is ripped form priv yet. a LOT of it is, and a bunch isn't. it's a toss up which person you talk to has a voice. in any case, all people have text typing otu what they say.

also, the chat screens aren't all ripped form the game. so when you talk to a fixer, you talk to them in the bar as a whole. it doesn't zoom in on them like it did in priv. but that's a matter of ripping out the textures needed. if we get al of them then we'll have the talking busts too.

-scheherazade
 
Wow, that that is exciting! I'm very much interested in this. Will there be an announcement when the project is complete?
 
You people read my mind! I've been saying that someone needs to make a remake of the WC games! Thank you so much for doing this!!! Please let us know when its ready.
 
well, you can go to the WCU forum section on the vegastrike site and nag mamiya0taru for the download link for the betas. we can always use more testers.

the gameplay needs the most work atm. combat is ok, but too hard. no particularly difficult, but its hard to go it alone.

probably when the scales + AI is finalized there will be a realease.
but i think mamiya0taru will be the final judge of scales. then i'll have to modify the AI into cooperating with it.

-scheherazade
 
Maj.Striker said:
Will there be an announcement when the project is complete?
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That had been the idea :D This was supposed to be kept rather quiet until it was done.

We've all heard about some great project that is in the works and will be released soon^TM but then it never comes and we are disappointed.. I wanted to avoid that. Anyway, now that you know that it exists we might have to make some sort of official announcement..
 
it's strange.... i've never tried to hide it. just nobody outside the group working on it would ever mention it, so i never talked about it.
although i did recruit LOAF's help a few times here and there.
this is [maybe?] the first time anyone has brought up WCU outside the WCU community.

although, i tried to get people to use the VS engine way back before WCU was around, back when WC SAGA was just getting started. So the engine was mentioned on the forums before. nobody on the forums cared much for it so i didn't bother talking more about it, heh :).

i guess not only was it a sectet, the secret was a secret to me.

-scheherazade
 
We ran a few updates back in 2001 and 2002 where someone asked for Visual Basic programmers. We do have a lot of updates on Vega Strike, and many of those feature Privateer material. I don't know if that means that some or all were actually WC Universe updates.

I have an e-mail from HellcatV from 2002 where he mentions something called Vegastrike: Privateer. With weeks or months between updates, that can get very confusing. It's likely that the two projects have blended together in our minds.

In any case, if you used the Report News link when you have some screenshots or a progress report, they would definitely make the news. We do keep an eye out for news, but some things will inevitably be overlooked.
 
I've downloaded & installed the Beta7 this morning, and it is just short of bringing tears to my eyes. Although I have an old machine set aside to run WC stuff, seeing the Privateer splash screen, hearing the music, ambling into the bar and - last but not least - chugging around space wirth a Tarsus is just grand. Sure, there are some bugs, but they may be depending on myself having a weird w2kp configuration.
Way to go guys. I'm looking forward to the coming releases, and if you ever need somebody telling you what a great idea this is and how much worthwile an enterprise, just drop by.
 
KrisV said:
We ran a few updates back in 2001 and 2002 where someone asked for Visual Basic programmers.
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Odd. Vegastrike doesn't use Visual Basic :) It uses.C++ and some Python.
We do have a lot of updates on Vega Strike, and many of those feature Privateer material. I don't know if that means that some or all were actually WC Universe updates.
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It is a bit tough to keep them apart, and some people don't actually want to. WCU was always a little ambitious for me. For years I have wanted to do a more limited Privateer remake. This summer, HellcatV and I began work on it in earnest, with help from many others, and we will almost certainly be done before the end of the year. I consider it to be a seperate project from WCU, though WCU is free to use anything or everything from the remake as they see fit, and I'll be happy to help them out, though I don't think I'll be able to devote as much time to it as I have the remake. Others consider the projects to be more connected, with the remake being an early release of WCU. That is fine by me :) However, there will always be a seperate standalone Privateer remake alongside a grander, more expansive WCU game.
In any case, if you used the Report News link when you have some screenshots or a progress report, they would definitely make the news. We do keep an eye out for news, but some things will inevitably be overlooked.
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You haven't overlooked anything, we haven't really tried to announce the project in a big open way yet. You'll hear as soon as we do :D The plan had been to keep it a bit quiet.. we have all heard of projects that we really look forward to that never are finished, and that is very disappointing. We wanted to avoid that, and only announce when there was a (basically) finished product. It is getting there though :)
 
Excellent...I'm glad to see this generating some interest.

Ideally criticalmass would tell us what exactly the issues with playing on his 2k system were.... because likely they are just bugs in the program code...and currently we do not know of any bugs---so given that you see some and we don't know about them...it's now or never that you tell us, buddy :) cus otherwise they won't magically get fixed by anyone.

Interestingly enough a lot of the current delay has been on finalizing the mac and linux release.
This is part of the "Leave No Computer Behind" legislation ... (or was it leave no monkey behind, I forget)

Anyhow... severe testing of the campaign line would be appreciated--because it's not something the developers can even cheat through... ideally someone would send us a savegame after each mission in the campaign--cus we can't just arbitrarily go to them willy-nilly like you might expect.
 
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