I've been planning to do this for a while. My first attempt to making a game was a few years back when I tried modding a copy of UT2004, but quit from several reasons. The idea came back a few months ago when I realized I have enough skills to make a new game from Nexuiz, even if not as good as if made by a professional coder. The reason I wish to make my own game is that I've always been wanting to make a singleplayer based game over themes I've had in my mind (similar to Unreal maybe) and Nexuiz is the only project I can modify to such point. It doesn't plan to stay like Nexuiz although I plan to keep some parts from it. Since there is a lot to do I have many questions about this.

For a note, I'm not planning to leave Nexuiz nor make a game that should make people play it less. I love Nexuiz for what it is and like contributing to it with anything I can. If I make a change to my game that's still merge-able in Nexuiz and would make a good feature, I'll certainly be sharing it here. I totally plan to credit / link Nexuiz and its authors in my game too, and of course won't be selling it. Since I'll be working on it by myself for a good while, the earliest I can release a public version is around an year from now. Things I plan to keep and not keep from Nexuiz are:

- Weapons: I plan to keep some weapon models from Nexuiz but at least retexture them and change firing types.

- Player models: I plan to permanently keep some player models. I'll be retexturing some and turning them into monsters for singleplayer though.

- Menu: Will be using a different skin and rearranging lots of stuff... although I have other plans here.

- HUD: The HUD is one thing I plan to totally remake and arrange in a different way.

- Gameplay: Will of course be different and have its own settings.

- Music and Sounds: Will be changing most with stuff I found on Opengameart.

- Maps: Will be keeping many of them.

Anyway, onto the first question. My biggest concern was when and how to split the game from Nexuiz. I was planning to split it at a stable point (possibly 2.5.3) and make a new SVN repository, but would rather keep it updated from the Nexuiz SVN in areas where I won't be making changes. My fist question is if Tortoise SVN can be set to skip any conflicting subrevision, so revisions addressing anything I changed are automatically skipped. I'm seeing a lock feature in Tortoise... I'm guessing that locks files from being changed by SVN updates right? Second, when hosting your own project on SVN, is it possible to still update it from another source as well? Like mirror the original repository but with the changes I made.

Second thing I was wondering is if it's ok to let the game use the same server list as Nexuiz. Of course with a different slist modifier, I obviously don't want conflicting with Nexuiz servers and will change anything in that regard. I don't know any other DP-compatible server list, so if it's ok to leave it to the Alientrap one that would be great (I don't want to use Alientrap's server list if that's eating too much bandwitch or is rude in any way).

My third concern was where I could get new content from. There are already enough textures of different categories in Nexuiz, but I was looking for more music, sounds and especially more player and weapon models. If anyone knows any links that would be helpful. I've already been to Opengameart (awesome site btw) and google sketchup for models, but the ones there are hardly compatible with Blender which I use. Also is it ok to distribute converted Quake maps found on http://maps.nexuizninjaz.com/ from the licensing point of view? Like kzlegypt, dubenigma / Lucid Enigma... I don't mind them being Quake maps if they're ok to use.

I also have a question regarding the status of three things in Nexuiz: The Spiderbot / vehicle support, ODE physics and ragdoll physics (if any are in the works). If I can keep the unmodified parts of my game updated from Nexuiz's SVN I guess they'll be ready for both games when they will, but I was curious just in case. Also, if a character is already in .dpm format, will it need any other changes when and if ragdolls will be implemented?

I'll ask other questions if any come to mind. Thanks for the help... hope I can get it all working

Why dont you just mod DarkPlaces (http://icculus.org/twilight/darkplaces/) instead? Nexiuz was built on DP. It's NExuiz without the NExuiz gamecode.

r00k wrote:Why dont you just mod DarkPlaces (http://icculus.org/twilight/darkplaces/) instead? Nexiuz was built on DP. It's NExuiz without the NExuiz gamecode.

There are a lot of things I wish to keep from the Nexuiz gamecode, and I don't have Quake 1 either. My game would also take 10 years instead of 1 if I did that I'll be heavily modifying the gamecode though.

Why not just make a mod instead? By the sounds of it it would probably work out similarly.

My game plans to be its own game, and the modifications would be too big for that. I also won't be keeping some content from Nexuiz (the data folder is always loaded either way).

What do you mean with themes? A specific theme or different themes you could download? Adding story modes?

The mysterious Mr. 4m wrote:What do you mean with themes? A specific theme or different themes you could download? Adding story modes?

I meant the game's theme, what it's about how it looks / feels and such. I plan to add a story mode though, that's one of the main targets

I can help!

Mizu Kitsune wrote:I can help!

Thank you Until the game is 'solidified' to be what I'm intending however, I'll be working on it by myself at first. At some point I'll release it.

Can't wait for the new free game. You can release a trailer if the work is going well.

Perhaps you should think about working on Zymotic instead, ask Lee about it?

Samual wrote:Perhaps you should think about working on Zymotic instead, ask Lee about it?

Thats not a half bad idea, although I think he has his own ideas for something completely different. His own vision of what he wants his game to be, so working on someone elses idea probably doesn't seem particularly appealing.

Sepelio wrote:

Samual wrote:Perhaps you should think about working on Zymotic instead, ask Lee about it?

Thats not a half bad idea, although I think he has his own ideas for something completely different. His own vision of what he wants his game to be, so working on someone elses idea probably doesn't seem particularly appealing.

If I remember correctly, Zymotic isn't set in stone at the moment.. Perhaps it's open to changes.

Last I heard Vermeulen didn't really give a shit about it and was focusing on Capsized. That's why you no longer see zymotic on the www.alientrap.org website, he asked me to remove it.

Good luck with your game MirceaKitsune, I think you'll do well. Be sure to continue submitting patches that can help Nexuiz.

Thank you very much, I hope so And I'll surely keep working on Nexuiz too (already noted some useful code cleanups).

Sounds intriguing, what will be the major differences between your game and Nexuiz, besides a story driven campaign?

Will your game have or support character classes?

Also, a suggestion- don't abandon or neglect multiplayer. In my opinion the best games out there didn't choose between multiplayer or story driven single player, they chose both.

I think it is a really good idea that you plan to keep your game close enough to Nexuiz that new features can be easily ported back and forth, by the way. This could prove vital to your new project as well as being beneficial to Nex.

Been working on the game a lot, and modified a few basic things by now. Finished half of the new HUD design and replaced several weapon models and sounds (used some guns from Xreal and Alien Arena with permission). Also modded the Hagar into a Nailgun similar to the one in Halo (it shoots shards which chase enemies, stick to them and explode a few seconds later dealing their damage then).

Here are some screenshots of what I've done so far (the new HUD can be seen in the last 4 pics since I did it later). The pink circle on the HUD changes its color based on health and spins faster the more armor you have. I made it over UT2003's design since I like that HUD a lot. Future plans are to have an icon of each character over it. Next intended change: Turning the electro into an ice gun, with similar firing as the current electro but freezing and slowing players too.

I like how you condensed the HUD to utilize space. What is the purple circle? A radar, an energy?

[-z-] wrote:I like how you condensed the HUD to utilize space. What is the purple circle? A radar, an energy?

An icon of the character is meant to go there, that's only the background. It gets colored differently depending on health (at 0 health it's blue, at 100 pink, at 200 red). It also spins depending on how much armor you have (at 0 armor it's still and at 200 it spins the fastest). Think it's a nice quick way to get a feel of how much armor / health you have without looking at the numbers

MirceaKitsune wrote:

[-z-] wrote:I like how you condensed the HUD to utilize space. What is the purple circle? A radar, an energy?

An icon of the character is meant to go there, that's only the background. It gets colored differently depending on health (at 0 health it's blue, at 100 pink, at 200 red). It also spins depending on how much armor you have (at 0 armor it's still and at 200 it spins the fastest). Think it's a nice quick way to get a feel of how much armor / health you have without looking at the numbers

This is good, I like it, it's like a feeling of chakra

[-z-] wrote:This is good, I like it, it's like a feeling of chakra

Thanks. It will be a MMOish game in some aspects... I plan to make it something between magic and high-tech.

I might be completely wrong, but are those weapons models also from Xreal and AlienArena? Because at least the latter for sure are not free to use in other projects.

Overall it looks like a nice start however.

MirceaKitsune wrote:Finished half of the new HUD design and replaced several weapon models and sounds (used some guns from Xreal and Alien Arena with permission)

You must have missed that Julius

Julius wrote:I might be completely wrong, but are those weapons models also from Xreal and AlienArena? Because at least the latter for sure are not free to use in other projects.

Overall it looks like a nice start however.

They are from Xreal and AA. I asked for permission first... the Xreal content is CC and free to use and Irritant (the dev of Alien Arena who made the weapons) said it's alright to use them.

ahh sorry then

Nice pictures! But why would you want to use DP+Nexuiz for a MMO? MMO stands for Massive Multiplayer Online game. Massive means a massive number of players. DP is not designed for a massive number of players. Isn't there actually a hardcoded limit of 64 players?

GreEn`mArine wrote:Nice pictures! But why would you want to use DP+Nexuiz for a MMO? MMO stands for Massive Multiplayer Online game. Massive means a massive number of players. DP is not designed for a massive number of players. Isn't there actually a hardcoded limit of 64 players?

My mistake, I used a wrong word What I meant by MMO is a MMOish theme. Like guns combined with spells, possibly items and such. I do however have plans to make large maps that many players can hang on (a gametype similar to Garrys Mod).

Fairy Pyria ^^

I like where this is going!

Took a brake for a few days, but I made a couple of changes since my last post. Rearranged sbar, new firing types for the axe, air combo counter... and biggest of all changes, new health & armor models from opengameart.org together with special movement combos. You can use the axe to leap as well as buttstomp (press crouch while in the air to throw yourself down and damage everyone around you).

Also have some happy news. I spoke with div0 and he told me Nexuiz may soon be moved to a new GIT server, which could allow per-branch access to users. If so I can put the changes on a separate branch and the game could be available for everyone to play or test Until then, more screenshots (the symbols in the upper-left ring of the HUD circle show when a movement combo is available and can be executed):