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Back in the day when I was working on another RTS of the era (Dark Reign 2), pathfinding was the bane of our existence. We weren't able to dial the pathfinding
by npunt 3y ago
Back in the day when I was working on another RTS of the era (Dark Reign 2), pathfinding was the bane of our existence. We weren't able to dial the pathfinding in because we'd pivoted late in the development cycle from the more innovative but complex 'walk anywhere on a 3d terrain' design to the ship-it-quickly traditional grid unit placement of 2d RTS'. This was the era of 2d RTS' transitioning to 3d, so everything was new and a bit harder than anticipated.
Just that one thing of having sub-par pathfinding made the game far worse, I'd guess at least a full point off a 10-point game rating. I believe we had to slow the whole pace of the game down because the player had to babysit units as they moved, which made the game far different from its extremely fast-paced predecessor and which the players expected from a sequel. I played DR2 again recently and it doesn't hold up almost solely due to pathfinding and the pacing that results.
- KptMarchewa 3y agoOn the other hand, specific, suboptimal pathfinding is like 80% of a Brood War charm. The game without die decades ago if dragoons and zerglings would blob optimally.
- nerdponx 3y agoArguably, low tech pathfinding is what gave us the tower defense genre.
- en3r0 3y agoRemember playing that demo over and over as a kid! Really cool that you worked on it.
- Aeolun 3y agoFor what it’s worth, reading about one of the first true 3D RTS games (after Ground Control) at the time was really cool. Even if I never actually played the game.
- formerly_proven 3y ago> Ground Control A surprisingly unknown title. Always wished it had a third campaign with base building or a level editor though.
- OOPMan 3y agoGround Control and it's sequel were great. Battlezone 2042 was also pretty good
- NSMutableSet 3y agoDark Reign 1 was the first online game that I ever played, back in 1997. I still have the manual somewhere...
- trog 3y agoI worked on that game! Started at Auran about three months before it shipped. Fun times.
- eiginn 3y agoLoved Dark Reign, I have the discs still, somewhere.
- gregoryl 3y agoFantastic game!
- Fuzzwah 3y agoI'm confident that I'm not the only old crusty Australian Quake player who got a smile from seeing trog comment on hn. Hope you're well bud.
- hakonhaki 3y agoCan’t recall Trog. I was living on the Labyrinth, Netspace, Ozemail and a few other quakeworld/TF1 servers back in the day :) Omega Enzo Red was the name :)