Stainless - what we really want, ignore all other requests

[Donatello]

Ok guys, ignore all the crap that some of the guys are requesting. What the old-time and the most fanatic fans want is really simple and can be summarized like this:

We want Carmageddon 1 but with better graphics. That is the most important thing of all. If that is what you give us we'll promote this game so heavy you won't have to spend a dime on advertising.

What made Carmageddon 1 the most mother-fucking bitch-ass epic game of all are these 10 simple points.

1) The blood and gore, the real humans (not zombies, not dinosaurs, robots and other shit) and the funny way they act when you slide towards them and when you hit them. I guess they'll have to be 3D instead of sprites this time which will make it less funny but oh well, we'll deal with that. The driver portraits were funny as well and should preferably be back.

2) The crazy cars, the physics, the fact that you can fit performance and defensive upgrades. What is especially important is the way each car has its own physics characteristics. Power sliding and burnouts is a must! Car damage is a must obviously and not just scratched paint, we are talking proper damage here.

3) The tracks. They must be as insane as before. Huge ramps, huge drops, loops, tunnels, etc. The tracks must also vary between city and rural, coastal areas, snowy areas, etc. Long stretching straights with bone crushing ramps across buildings (with conveniently placed spectators at the landing spot) is what this game is about! Don't over populate the track with insta-stop barriers and crap, keep it clean but with plenty of spectator fodder.

4) The pickups should at least work the same as before but you can obviously add more types if you want.

5) The races should work the same way as before, either you race - or - you turn around and you DESTROY and all the AI act accordingly. I don't know how you guys managed to do it so well in Carma 1 but whoever wrote that code is a fookin genius!

6) Replays, we want replays that we can save and share with other crazy players like us. One of the car games that did replays the best ever was Driver 1, go take a look at it.

7) Proper multi-platform, don't skimp on the PC pleeeeease! I'll buy both the console and the PC version, I am making my promise to you today!

8) LAN support. Puulllllllleeeeeeeeeeeeease guys, I will rip my fucking eyeballs out and post it to you in an envelope if you don't include LAN support.

9) Online play as well would be awesome too of course.

10) Mod support please, we want to do our own stuff in the game as well, perhaps create our own tracks and shit like that.

Other things you don't have to worry about, no seriously, save yourself the time and effort:

1) No shitty DRM and no Windows Live please! If you have one of your programmers suggesting it, fire his ass immediately and send him my way!!! Steam is ok though.

2) DX11, the game must run smooth, don't overdo it with the graphics. If DX11 support is going to take a huge amount of extra effort, leave it out. (edit: Some guys reckon it is worth doing DX11 due to performance benefits, if the team can handle it then of course they should implement DX11 support as well)

3) GTA gameplay - This is Carmageddon, GTA is GTA, they don't have to be the same, stick to what made Carma so good.

4) Guns and weapons on cars - This may screw up the dynamics of the game, I think the pickups is enough, yep, don't need guns.

5) Linux support - I'm a heavy Linux user myself. But to be honest to put that amount of work into something only a very small minority of people will ever buy is not worth it. Rather spend time on other important things.

6) Online Social Interactivity - Guys, don't think this is going to do the game any good, we are not going to use it, simple as that. Stick to the gameplay please.

7) 3D support - It is a gimmick, it is a gimmick, it is a gimmick, geddit!? (edit: ok, for some guys it is more than a gimmick, your choice then guys)

8) DLC - We hate DLC, hate it! You can always bring out additional add-ons, but we don't want to pay micro transactions to see extra blood spatter and shit like that!!! Just make a good game and we'll buy the crap out of it.

9) WII support - Seriously, this is not a kids game, it is a humorous game for adults with childish minds.

10) No hip-hop music to try and make the game sound hip and modern please, Rock music is awesome of course.


So sticky this thread so you can keep reminding yourself of the game you'll be creating for us and we will reward you with lots of money in your pockets for beer and prostitutes.

[Stark]

I'm 100% behind most of this. Except for the part about 3D. As a 3DTV owner I can sign off for how awesome it is to have the blood splatters come out of the TV. I don't want it if it means a huge effort and that it will cheapen other aspects of the game, but otherwise: Go for it!

The 'gimmick' argument is getting old. Every bloody single development in gaming interfaces started off as a gimmick. 3D graphics themselves were gimmicks when they first arrived. Honestly, I think stereoscopic 3D is a necessary step towards true holographic VR gaming. The future of gaming!

[TheCoach]

I completely disagree on the DX11 part. DX11 is about being more efficient at doing graphics. So a well coded DX11 game on a DX11 supporting card will always perform better than a DX9 game on the same card.

[deABREU]

oh, the soundtrack in carma1...

fear factory - burton = BEST MUSIC. I ripped my carmageddon audio tracks into MP3 and listen to them till this day.

keep it industrial, keep it instrumental.

[Jack Dandy]

Pretty much same here. I'm sure they know what they're doing, though.

[Karma]

That's a handful of great remarks, Donatello! Also, wouldn't you love to hear the specific repair sound from the first two games in Reincarnation? I'd surely do!

[Donatello]

The 'gimmick' argument is getting old. Every bloody single development in gaming interfaces started off as a gimmick. 3D graphics themselves were gimmicks when they first arrived. Honestly, I think stereoscopic 3D is a necessary step towards true holographic VR gaming. The future of gaming!

The reason I see it as a gimmick is that my eyes adjust to the 3D vision within minutes and I don't "perceive" the 3D any more after a short amount of play. The same happens with movies. I'm not saying it sucks, but it is definitely not essential to the core game play of Carmageddon.

[Donatello]

I completely disagree on the DX11 part. DX11 is about being more efficient at doing graphics. So a well coded DX11 game on a DX11 supporting card will always perform better than a DX9 game on the same card.

Perhaps they can add it the same way Crytek did it with Crysis. Release the game with DX9 support and then add DX11 later. The Stainless team it seems is still very small so anything that will cut development time/costs while keeping to the game mechanics in Carma is good for me.

[Stark]

I completely disagree on the DX11 part. DX11 is about being more efficient at doing graphics. So a well coded DX11 game on a DX11 supporting card will always perform better than a DX9 game on the same card.

Perhaps they can add it the same way Crytek did it with Crysis. Release the game with DX9 support and then add DX11 later. The Stainless team it seems is still very small so anything that will cut development time/costs while keeping to the game mechanics in Carma is good for me.

Depending on when they started development, I'd say it would be silly to not include DX11 support from the get go. It's much the same API, so including it shouldn't increase dev time significantly. In the end, we get better graphics for less processing power, as DX11 is way better optimized to current hardware than DX9 is.

[Donatello]

That's a handful of great remarks, Donatello! Also, wouldn't you love to hear the specific repair sound from the first two games in Reincarnation? I'd surely do!

Yeah, I've kinda neglected the sound/music aspects. The scratching and metallic screeching noises, the screams, the music, heck, even the menu sounds is all important and I hope they bring some of that back but obviously in better quality, I just don't dig hip-hop very much (especially the oversold MTV kind) so I'll be quite happy if they don't add that to the music library.

[Bumpy]

Yup, the OP is right on. Carma 1 remake is what we want.

[Jookia]

I agree with almost all of that except for DirectX 11. You're trying to make a game to large audience yet it'd only be playable on Windows Vista and Windows 7? Also, GTA IV (from what I've read, please correct me if I'm a blithering moron) uses DirectX 9.

Uhh, could you add a small request: 60FPS. I don't know if it's just me personally, but 30FPS feels choppy. I heard John Carmack is planning for Rage to run at 60FPS simply because it's smooth, or on some other project.

[Cyclone Jack]

100% in agreement. Good write up Donatello, said better than I could have. :)

[Krazy_Kroz]

Good topic, and lots well said. But i was just thinking about weapons, and the film death race flashed in my mind. I think weapons would be cool as a power-up, or very VERY limited ammo, so its more a strategic option, rather than a 'full on take everything out that moves' option. It would be awesome to open up some maching gun fire to take out some tyres and remove some body panels, but not completely destroy a car quickly, cos that would be too overkill.

[Trent]

I agree with almost all of that except for DirectX 11. You're trying to make a game to large audience yet it'd only be playable on Windows Vista and Windows 7?

I totally disagree. Windows XP is over 10 years old now. There is absolutely NO point in actively supporting it any more. Frankly I can't see a single reason why any one would choose to stick with XP, not when Win7 is substantially better in terms of performance, stability, security and usability. Even more so with Win8 being released in a year or so. XP is dead and utterly outdated, anyone who still uses it out of choice are pretty dumb for not upgrading.

I would love for DX11 support in the game, but it's not a necessity. Whether a game uses DX9 or DX11, it shouldn't make any difference to the playability of the game it self. Not to mention, it is plenty possible to have both a DX11 pipeline as standard with a DX9 fallback for those who oddly refuse to use modern hardware and software.

[Jookia]

I agree with almost all of that except for DirectX 11. You're trying to make a game to large audience yet it'd only be playable on Windows Vista and Windows 7?

I totally disagree. Windows XP is over 10 years old now. There is absolutely NO point in actively supporting it any more. Frankly I can't see a single reason why any one would choose to stick with XP, not when Win7 is substantially better in terms of performance, stability, security and usability. Even more so with Win8 being released in a year or so. XP is dead and utterly outdated, anyone who still uses it out of choice are pretty dumb for not upgrading.

I would love for DX11 support in the game, but it's not a necessity. Whether a game uses DX9 or DX11, it shouldn't make any difference to the playability of the game it self. Not to mention, it is plenty possible to have both a DX11 pipeline as standard with a DX9 fallback for those who oddly refuse to use modern hardware and software.

I'm trying not to derail this, but if we all focused on designing software for the best platform, we wouldn't be in the mess of supporting Windows or Microsoft products (IE6?). But yeah, some people stubbornly refuse to upgrade, it may be due to money or simply because of legacy software (a government navy ship uses Windows 3.1 because of that!)

I'm not educated on DX11 and its features compared to DX9, so I'm not going to go there. But I do know that there's a lot of hype about it when you can accomplish said hyped features using extensions to OpenGL across both Windows XP and Windows 7, rather than just be stuck in Windows 7.

I'm not saying that we should totally support DX11 and no fallback, but I don't see the point in spending development time with DX11 when DX9 could do the job.

[Rizno]

Great post. I'd love to see a Carmageddon remake with some new additions.

[Fireman]

Don't turn it into a console port. Do the opposite.

[Espyo]

Quite a brute comment you have there, Donatello. Although I obviously agree there are some kiddies around suggesting crap that'll just ruin the new game, you shouldn't be so offensive with the title. Eesh.

That said, I got to disagree with two things on the "don't worry about it" list.

Adding Linux support would really be a secondary thing, but should not be considered "meh". That's the kind of attitude that makes Linux games be so rare. Because there is already a small number of games for Linux systems, people feel encouraged to make even less because "not many people will use it". Which in turn results in less games, which results in less motivation, etc.

The online support is kind of a must. There is one reason as to why we didn't play online much in the original games. It was hard to set up, for one. Either way, nowadays, it's even hard to play the original games, much less online. But now, with recent online multiplayer technology, and with a bigger community, there will be a lot of people playing online, I just know it. Heck, I'll probably play the single player mode and then spend the rest of my life playing CarmaReinc online.

Also, about the Wii being for kids. Please. This isn't /v/, try to be a bit more mature (granted, we're all immature punks looking to run over old ladies here, but...) Just because the Wii was targeted for more casual gamers doesn't mean everything on the Wii must be casual. That's stupid.

Other than that, the list is basically spot-on. Despite these suggestions already being mentioned in other threads.

A bit off-topic, but a good way to clean all these suggestion threads would be to just make small threads asking about "should we add X?", and people could give their opinions.

[Jet]

Yes, keep it old school and close to the roots. Just like the new Mortal Kombat and Duke Nukem Forever.

[Phen]

Ok guys, ignore all the crap that some of the guys are requesting. What the old-time and the most fanatic fans want is really simple and can be summarized like this:

That's pretty narrow minded, just because a new guy has an idea doesn't mean it should be expelled simply on the fact that he's new.

We want Carmageddon 1 but with better graphics. That is the most important thing of all. If that is what you give us we'll promote this game so heavy you won't have to spend a dime on advertising.

Then why not just get the Carmageddon 1 enhanced graphics pack? It makes carmageddon 1 look sweet!

Also

Honestly, this is not a community driven remake like some other classic games such as Quake 1 where the community is it's sole-contributor. Stainless obviously has thought about advertisement and while your statements of "we'll promote this game so heavy you won't have to spend a dime on advertising." are valiant and honorable I believe it will take a lot more then the few "old-time" Carmageddon 1 players are willing ot offer. I played Carmageddon 1 almost religiously back in the day but now I have a family and responsibilities and sorry to say I just don't have time to help advertise for this game much. I'm sure everfy other "old-time" Carmageddon player has has at least at least 12 years to figure out a path in life and actually can't help much with such a cause, though there are still dedicated people I'm betting and I hope this game gets as much publicity has possible! Go Stainless! I believe in you!

What made Carmageddon 1 the most mother-fucking bitch-ass epic game of all are these 10 simple points.

1) The blood and gore, the real humans (not zombies, not dinosaurs, robots and other shit) and the funny way they act when you slide towards them and when you hit them. I guess they'll have to be 3D instead of sprites this time which will make it less funny but oh well, we'll deal with that. The driver portraits were funny as well and should preferably be back.

Ahmen, I honestly enjoyed seeing both the 2D ped animation and the 3D ped animation in Carma2. It never really was an issue for me but I see some people hated it. Better 3D ped graphics and animation/AI would be superb!

2) The crazy cars, the physics, the fact that you can fit performance and defensive upgrades. What is especially important is the way each car has its own physics characteristics. Power sliding and burnouts is a must! Car damage is a must obviously and not just scratched paint, we are talking proper damage here.

Yes! Cars need to be torn apart! and buildings need to be collapsible!(Of course there should be a staggering amount of damage for a building to crumble, no houses made of straw here!)

3) The tracks. They must be as insane as before. Huge ramps, huge drops, loops, tunnels, etc. The tracks must also vary between city and rural, coastal areas, snowy areas, etc. Long stretching straights with bone crushing ramps across buildings (with conveniently placed spectators at the landing spot) is what this game is about! Don't over populate the track with insta-stop barriers and crap, keep it clean but with plenty of spectator fodder.

I couldn't agree with you more!

4) The pickups should at least work the same as before but you can obviously add more types if you want.

Yep. They definitely need to work.

5) The races should work the same way as before, either you race - or - you turn around and you DESTROY and all the AI act accordingly. I don't know how you guys managed to do it so well in Carma 1 but whoever wrote that code is a fookin genius!

Maybe a third option for destruction? Say destroying an optional target in the environment? Though this might raise controversy if you're trying to take a building or two down to ground level. If they can't take a joke, fvck'em.

6) Replays, we want replays that we can save and share with other crazy players like us. One of the car games that did replays the best ever was Driver 1, go take a look at it.

A replay gallery would be nice where all the players can upload their funniest/hardcore saved replays!

7) Proper multi-platform, don't skimp on the PC pleeeeease! I'll buy both the console and the PC version, I am making my promise to you today!

releasing the game on multipule platforms could possibly hurt release dates if they're going for a sync'd release with this idea. Who knows. The more Carmageddon freaks the better I say!

8) LAN support. Puulllllllleeeeeeeeeeeeease guys, I will rip my fucking eyeballs out and post it to you in an envelope if you don't include LAN support.

If it doesn't have LAN play they will also be receiving my eyeballs also with "FFFUUUUUU!!!" written all over them. :P

9) Online play as well would be awesome too of course.

I'm hoping for this! It would require MUCH work if there is a multi-platform release however. Xbox360 would have to have it's own online support same with PS3, Wii & PC.

10) Mod support please, we want to do our own stuff in the game as well, perhaps create our own tracks and shit like that.

Hell yea!

Other things you don't have to worry about, no seriously, save yourself the time and effort:

1) No shitty DRM and no Windows Live please! If you have one of your programmers suggesting it, fire his ass immediately and send him my way!!! Steam is ok though.

DRM is for birds and old people with a gestational infection.

2) DX11, the game must run smooth, don't overdo it with the graphics. If DX11 support is going to take a huge amount of extra effort, leave it out. (edit: Some guys reckon it is worth doing DX11 due to performance benefits, if the team can handle it then of course they should implement DX11 support as well)

As long as the graphics look up-to-date I'd be happy.

3) GTA gameplay - This is Carmageddon, GTA is GTA, they don't have to be the same, stick to what made Carma so good.

No Niko Belic in carmageddon reincarnation eh? Shucks! :P

4) Guns and weapons on cars - This may screw up the dynamics of the game, I think the pickups is enough, yep, don't need guns.

No guns, that's to twisted Metal'ish. My car is my bullet.

5) Linux support - I'm a heavy Linux user myself. But to be honest to put that amount of work into something only a very small minority of people will ever buy is not worth it. Rather spend time on other important things.

Linux FTW!

6) Online Social Interactivity - Guys, don't think this is going to do the game any good, we are not going to use it, simple as that. Stick to the gameplay please.

Personally I think online social interactivity would be a great thing for Carmageddon! Let people converse through the game, add lobbies so people can find games online within the game!

7) 3D support - It is a gimmick, it is a gimmick, it is a gimmick, geddit!? (edit: ok, for some guys it is more than a gimmick, your choice then guys)

3D support? Carmageddon 1,2,TDR and Carmageddon reincarnation will all be 3D! News flash! Its not a gimmick anymore its a way of killing! :P

8) DLC - We hate DLC, hate it! You can always bring out additional add-ons, but we don't want to pay micro transactions to see extra blood spatter and shit like that!!! Just make a good game and we'll buy the crap out of it.

I'm kind of for DLC. Paying for addons is another way for Stainless to get paid for their hardwork. I believe if you really love something you would support it and not expect them to do hard work for free.

9) WII support - Seriously, this is not a kids game, it is a humorous game for adults with childish minds.

If C:4 comes out on the Wii I will laugh so hard. Nah I'm just kidding its a wonderful console.

10) No hip-hop music to try and make the game sound hip and modern please, Rock music is awesome of course.

I think there should be a variety of music as long as it fits the Carmageddon universe's theme.

So sticky this thread so you can keep reminding yourself of the game you'll be creating for us and we will reward you with lots of money in your pockets for beer and prostitutes.

They haven't bestowed the powers unto me to make stickies, they will one day see I am a Carmageddon freak and grant me such privileges I am hoping.

[ForeignKid]

About the Sounds:

you(if stainless reads this) or they(if enyone else does) deffinitely have to work on them - they were kinda squeaky and repetitive.. and the quality of course sucked a*s..

sometimes they arent in the right place, for example if i were to drive my car relaxed by the seaside, while all other cars were dead, except the last one being at 1% of its HP, all the peds will still run around screaming..

I know many will disagree due to the fact they played the game over and over and they dont even notice them.. But believe me (thats what bible say) I worked in the area a bit, and I know what I am talking about :)

[Donatello]

Thanks for the feedback peeps. My original post was purposefully crass in order to fit with the nature of the game ;) so I had no intentions to insult or to belittle anyone, everyone's opinion does count, especially at this point in development. I'm also not saying that my requirements is law, I just felt the need to summarize the general requests everyone had and how most of the Carmageddon fanatics feel about it.

Then, the last thing to keep in mind is this... for a small development company like this who is yet to gather some investors/publishers to help produce the game it is going to be very difficult to just throw in every feature you guys want. So the idea is to keep it simple and to what made Carmageddon 1 work without too much feature creep (I've been developing software for 21 years so I know what feature or scope creep is). I would rather play a game with limited features that has been finely tuned and bug free than a behemoth that is slow and buggy because they ran out of investor's money and time to produce the game.

[GossamerSolid]

Only 5.6% of PCs out there are even DX11 capable, there's literally not point for the dev team to waste their time

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

[Deadhart]

Man, you've pretty much said what I wanted to say. I 100% agree with you.

[DashKiller]

Man, you've pretty much said what I wanted to say. I 100% agree with you.

+1 on that. If they do it like this, it will be awesome.

[Phen]

Something I think would be awesome and accepted is instead of just pedestrians, make gangs (maybe for each vehicle's side?) and if you drive by a gang/gang's territory they attack you (Yes gang peds attacking YOU on foot). So its just not the other cars/environment doing damage to you.

That would add levels of game play on its own, think (we have to weaken CAR-B's defenses so lets to take out some of it's gang members!

It would also be awesome to see a CTF (Capture The flag) or CTP (Capture The Pedestrian) gameplay mode where you have to spear/grab/hook a pedestrian and rush them back to a predefined location while other MAIN enemy cars attack you and their gang related mini cars (easy to destroy tho) chase you also.

This can also be played like this...

6 cars, two teams, 1 captain per team. The captain has to capture the ped the 2 supporting vehicles must help the captain retrieve the ped and bring them back to a predefined location. Meanwhile the ped is attached to the hood or something screaming their head off in terror.

the gameplay mode could be called kidnap, hostage,CTP or something awesome like that :)

[fiedore]

Why drop DX11 out?

I've invested a lot of cash in my pc so it could handle the directx and all the other effects.

Just one request: The thing I hate about new games is that when they're so detailed it makes distinguishing active things from background difficult. [thats why i hate cod black ops multi which is now in steam, can't tell who's on my side lol]

So please, make the graphic nice, but not overdetailed so we can concentrate on cars and carnage, not the buildings with scrapped walls.

[Stark]

sometimes they arent in the right place, for example if i were to drive my car relaxed by the seaside, while all other cars were dead, except the last one being at 1% of its HP, all the peds will still run around screaming..

So, if you were on the beach, knowing that there's a Carmageddon race going on, and you see a car shock full of spikes and other murderous devices. Would you really be all that calm regardless what the car was doing at the moment?

Standing still, driving along calmly, hopping up and down due to pinball mode, I'd sure as hell want to be anywhere at all else but on that particular beach. You never know when the driver will go postal. You won't know that there aren't five other cars coming to fuck this one up in the next few seconds. I'd run, I'd scream, I'd get the right fuck out of Dodge.

[Stark]

Only 5.6% of PCs out there are even DX11 capable, there's literally not point for the dev team to waste their time

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

This game is expected to release during 2012, it makes no sense to base your build on current statistics.

Also, nothing is stopping them from supporting DX10 for older systems. By the time of release, DX9 should be phased out in most systems. Complaining about this is like demanding DX6 support today.

[PorchefireH2]

Agree with everything. KEEP ALL THE ORIGINAL SOUND EFFECTS!!! That would be AMAZING

[ingway]

i agree - but making a new post so your individual post doesn't get lost in the 9-10 pages of the old "ideas" post is kind of a bitch move ... sci knows we want the original feel of carmageddon 1 back - but acting like this post is the only one of any relevance is really showing your self-importance.

[hammr25]

I agree with points 1-6 of the OP. Carmageddon 3 sucked because hitting people was de-emphasized in the game.

[Sinnabuns]

Good topic, and lots well said. But i was just thinking about weapons, and the film death race flashed in my mind. I think weapons would be cool as a power-up, or very VERY limited ammo, so its more a strategic option, rather than a 'full on take everything out that moves' option. It would be awesome to open up some maching gun fire to take out some tyres and remove some body panels, but not completely destroy a car quickly, cos that would be too overkill.

Why do you need guns? Carmageddon has never been about guns and it never will be. Leave that for other imitation game studios trying to up the ante.

Who needs guns when you can launch your opponent in to the side of brick building with a repulsivicator?

Who needs guns when you can slide sideways at 80mph and toss a turd mine rolling to the meager little chaps for a game of catch? Much more fun than guns. Learn how to drive you stunning cunt.

And don't even get me started on the pedestrian electro-bastard ray + nitro turbo bastard nutty butters...

Guns on cars have been done by everyone else, boring copies of each other.

If there are weapon power ups it will fucking suck having to drive around them.

[TuZhao]

Well said, Donatello.

I also dislike weapons in driving games.