Joined: 03 Jul 2015 Location: between heaven and hell "the healln point"
Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 1:01 am Post subject:
[RA2/TS] game engine pieces of shit.
Subject description: i know that you will move it i think it deserves a research
hi all I decided to make a research about the IE problems in ra2 and how to disable it. first of all let's agree that EA Sucks and it could make the game more suitable for modding by removing the warhead IE and replace it with a none warhead JUST LIKE THE CAMEOS when there is no cameo it automatically replace the cameo to an undefined cameo which is xxxicon so why they didn't make it like that I know that it may be a game engine odd action but they could but 4 lines of code to do that it just look like that the ie with in front of their eyes and they just used "everything mustn't perfect" so they just left it and other thing the pals they could have made the pals into 16 bit and adjust the game engine to accept this or at least make multiple pals logic like
Artpal1= pal file
no in this point they reused their same old logic "everything mustn't perfect" and made a worse game.
and other thing which really annoy me the shadows why they aren't all equal in one angle here they used a different logic "difference is good" and made the worst shadows ever for units It does really seems that someone inside EA works for activation and he was ordered to make their game worse THIS REALLY SUCKS QUICK_EDIT
Also Known As: banshee_revora (Steam) Joined: 15 Aug 2002 Location: Brazil
Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 2:47 am Post subject:
I have this same feeling, Orac.
Anyway, badbully, this forum is for serious research on RA2 modding and the we do really expect is a readable post here. So, please, take a look at the topic below about the importance of a well written post (that may include a proper punctuation):
http://www.ppmforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=16724
So, please, take your time and rewrite your first post in a way that it can be read by the forum visitors.
Once we understand the nature of this post, we may figure out how to proceed, although so far, I'm not seeing it as a research and I think that some of the problems mentioned on it might have been fixed on Ares for a couple of years already. QUICK_EDIT
Saw the emoticons, didn't found any punctuation after the first 20 words, stopped reading.
Seems to be just some random rant. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
If you can't be bothered to correctly code warheads then it's your problem & not the game engines.
The game engine is now 20 years old (which I get the feeling is older then you), as such using a small amount of pal files was a necessary feature to make the game work on the computers of that time, not laziness or sabotage just the limitation of technology.
Since then several fan made patches have removed the limits on pal files tho, making such complaints redundant. _________________
Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 7:38 am Post subject:
Re: [RA2/TS] game engine pieces of shit.
First of all, the games were made by Westwood Studios. At the time EA was only in charge of marketing, packaging and retailing.
EA doesn't have the source codes for that matter cause they lost nearly everything when moving Westwood's assets from Las Vegas to Los Angeles after EA shut down Westwood in 2003.
Initially the games were never intended to be modded. Westwood ran the games in debug mode every time so they simply had no need for extensive internal error messages, the debug info told them everything already.
One of the reasons for the pal's is remapping(team color), without pal's in a true color environment i'd imagine it would be complicated and processing hungry to manage given the hardware that was available back then.
Westwood intended to make games that run for everyone no matter how crappy their PC was back then, of course that means they had to sacrifice things.
The shadows, indeed they are annoying, this is because they had a limited amount of time and simply didn't have the time to re-render everything using the final proper setup simply because the hardware available back then wasn't fast enough to do it in time for the scheduled game launch. _________________ Tiberian Dawn, Red Alert, Tiberian Sun ,Red Alert 2,Renegade, Command & Conquer 3,Tiberium and Tiberium Wars and Westwood related image & video archive
https://picasaweb.google.com/113361105083292812413?noredirect=1
Skype live:tomsons26
Don't forget to state who are you otherwise i'll ignore the invite QUICK_EDIT
Also Known As: banshee_revora (Steam) Joined: 15 Aug 2002 Location: Brazil
Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 3:07 pm Post subject:
Ok, moved away from Research and some uneducated person's post was deleted in this process. PPM is not the place to flame people regardless of how much you think they deserve it.
Joined: 22 Nov 2010 Location: Iszkaszentgyorgy, Hungary
Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 3:35 pm Post subject:
Uneducated?! I explained the reasons very well why the things he cries for happen. I do acknowledge I went full intolerant alongside it, but that does not mean the reasons behind my explanations were uneducated.
Dammit, Bansh, that was terribly low. _________________ "If you didn't get angry and mad and frustrated, that means you don't care about the end result, and are doing something wrong." - Greg Kroah-Hartman
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Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
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WeiDU mods: Random Graion Tweaks | Graion's Soundsets
Maintainance: Extra Expanded Enhanced Encounters! | BGEESpawn
Contributions: EE Fixpack | Enhanced Edition Trilogy | DSotSC (Trilogy) | UB_IWD | SotSC & a lot more... QUICK_EDIT
Sorry Graion, but I know you do get pretty emote pls? sometimes, even if it doesn't seem that way to you.
Not that badbully's post isn't asking for it, because it is. Ripping a game in that game's modding forum, where people like the game enough to keep playing it after 20 years... definitely fuel for a fire. _________________ "Don't beg for things; Do it yourself or you'll never get anything." Last edited by 4StarGeneral on Mon Jul 06, 2015 4:21 pm; edited 1 time in total QUICK_EDIT
Joined: 22 Nov 2010 Location: Iszkaszentgyorgy, Hungary
Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 3:52 pm Post subject:
For the record, I'm not pissed off because he deleted the post. I'm pissed off because that post was anything but uneducated. Aggressive, flaming, etc, I'd be fine with.
But yea, let's label posts explaining debugging principles - instantly crash on warhead typo, to make sure it gets fixed instead of failing silently to a fallback default - uneducated. Totally deserving it. _________________ "If you didn't get angry and mad and frustrated, that means you don't care about the end result, and are doing something wrong." - Greg Kroah-Hartman
=======================
Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
=======================
WeiDU mods: Random Graion Tweaks | Graion's Soundsets
Maintainance: Extra Expanded Enhanced Encounters! | BGEESpawn
Contributions: EE Fixpack | Enhanced Edition Trilogy | DSotSC (Trilogy) | UB_IWD | SotSC & a lot more... QUICK_EDIT
Joined: 19 Aug 2009 Location: Moscow State University
Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 4:31 pm Post subject:
Holy crap. I know WW had some monkey programmers but hey they made Red Alert 2, they could have written everything hardcoded in the exe (like TD) but no. They at least gave you the inis to edit. Be thankful to it. Yes WW does have shitty shadow logic(and a couple of other bugs) but you won't notice it if you play RA2, just play it, like all the players do. If you can, WW would fix "a bug of RA2",but WW is certainly not responsible for making RA2 engine not available for any of your crazy mod ideas (Smart AI that can learn from your tactics? No way!) _________________ Tired of grabbing my random SHP conversions? Why not learn to create SHPs for yourself? QUICK_EDIT
I would disagree with the statement that WW never intended it to be modded, they wouldn't have made it so modular if that was the case, and they had at least 6yrs of people modding earlier games to learn from...
Why wouldn't they make it modular? It makes it easier for them to develop if they can change INIs on the fly... just like was first implemented in RA1. Hardcoding every value doesn't make development easier for them, it means constant changes and pumping out quick test builds to give to the rest of the office is harder. QUICK_EDIT
They wrote it with INI's becuase the allowed the designers and artists to code in features without having to bug the programmers. This is why RA introduced RULES.INI, there was two programmers at least 4x the artists, turn around time was very short and this gave visual control to the artists to pump assets into the game without having to ask the programmers to change the required controls (unlike C&C95). QUICK_EDIT
Yes but they could have written a utility to generate microcode or anything else, and when it comes to the extensibility of the TS/RA2/YR engine, they already had years of people modding the old C&C editing rules.ini (like I did) to expect it would continue to happen. I'm 100% sure they knew it would happen and deliberately didn't discourage it... unlike some other companies. _________________ http://www.moddb.com/mods/scorched-earth-ra2-mod-with-smart-ai QUICK_EDIT
If they did not want to discourage people modding, why add encrypted headers to MIX files and special Digests to INI files?
That's some way of preventing modding.
Other than that I can totally imagine why they added INIs in the first place.
I hate being bothered while I'm busy _________________
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