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Roma Victor 2
Amhas
Member Posts: 2
in Roma Victor
Redbedlam has announced a new client engine for Roma Victor. The new client will be available for testing for participants in October via the starter/trial islands and KFR says they are aiming to release the full client towards the end of the year.
Along with the new client comes a whole graphical rehaul that can be displayed in a sneak peek video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvvneJ0OBPI&fmt=18
And also in image form here:
http://www.roma-victor.com/community/live/gallery.php
Not only will graphical updates come with this, but major performance improvements.
Here is a list of a few changes (quoted from KFR) that come with the client:
- None of the existing client-side bugs have been carried over to the new client
- Much higher performance all around - older machines will experience much higher frame rates and newer machines will be able to enjoy a very high level of graphical detail and still see higher frame rates when compared to the current client
- Hugely increased view distances
- Multi-platform - available for both Mac OSX and all modern versions of Windows (!)
- Full support for multiple display resolutions including widescreen
- Anti-aliasing
- Anisotropic filtering
- Transparency, reflections and refraction - water surfaces look fantastic
- Dynamic shadows
- Real-time dynamic lighting
- Natural-looking fog and distance fogging
- Vastly improved 3D surround sound system
- New improved user interface
- New particle effects
- New ground surfaces
- New trees, grasses, bushes and boulder objects
- New shader effects including bump mapping and specular highlights
- Greatly reduced load times
Comments
August State of the World
From KFR:
First off I must apologise for not getting to do this SotW sooner. So much was up in the air that we effectively had to maintain radio silence while we worked out just what the future was going to hold for us all. In short, we didn't want to make any promises or commitments that we couldn't stick to and it's been a while since we had a good handle on how we were going to proceed. That'll hopefully help to explain why we've all been so quiet on the forums - particularly in recent weeks. Secondly I'd like to thank you all for your continued support in the form of community efforts and VERM contributions - both are massively appreciated. Now, if you'll bear with me, this SotW is probably going to be a little longer than usual but it's worth it - buried within is some seriously exciting news!
I'll start by setting the scene. When we started development of Roma Victor there weren't too many options when it came to 3D rendering middleware and those engines that did exist were either unaffordable, unsuited to big seamless virtual worlds or both. So we had to hire a contractor to help us build our very own renderer to our specification. We were lucky enough to come across Jooky who is a one-man coding army and he ended up building the entire 3D engine for the Roma Victor client all by himself, which is no small achievement as any programmers amongst you will understand.
Since that time 3D engines have come a long way - and so have we. We always knew that in order to get Roma Victor to where we wanted it to be we'd have to make a far greater commitment to development than was allowed by the resources and finances that we had available. Roma Victor has never paid its way - in fact it hasn't even come close to recouping the huge personal investment that I and others have made. This has made it very difficult, if not impossible, for us to provide the significant updates and improvements to Roma Victor that we'd all like to see. So much so that when we could no longer afford to regularly and reliably pay Jooky, he began - quite understandably - to lose interest in both RedBedlam and Roma Victor, which in turn meant that client updates were less frequent and somewhat less satisfactory.
Now, I'm going to take a moment here to whip out a rather tired talking point that some of you will have doubtless heard me ranting about before. MMO's are hard. The technologies involved are insanely complicated - the organisational complexity of the various internal systems is pretty intense - and of course there are plenty of other resource hurdles that are more to do with design, content, community management and customer service than technology. This is why most MMO's don't even make it out of the door before the financiers pull the plug on whatever project is experiencing massive time and cost overruns. Just to give you some idea of how stark the statistics look, as far as business-launched virtual worlds go, fully 90% of them fail within their first 18 months. And almost all of the successful MMO's have had tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars pumped into them in order to get them off the ground.
So I am immensely proud of what our meagre team of a handful of enthusiastic and brilliant people - only a couple of whom have ever been dedicated to RV full-time - have achieved in developing, producing and releasing our own historically authentic real-time persistent MMORPG. We, for a tiny fraction of the cost and man-power, have achieved something that many huge multi-national corporations have either failed to do, have wasted millions attempting to do, or shied away from doing altogether.
With that having been said, the two most significant problems we've faced since Roma Victor's launch have been the various challenges presented by this lack of resources and the technical limitations of our own proprietary 3D engine, which is after all, the work of just one man. With that in mind I've spent much of my time in recent weeks and months attempting to do two things. On the one hand I've been trying to maximise RedBedlam's potential, turn it into a profitable business and thereby resolve the lack-of-resources problem. On the other hand I've also been trying to find a superior client solution.
Well, now I finally have some pretty good news on both fronts. RedBedlam's Virtiverse and ZoneBubble server technologies are beginning to attract some considerable attention from both existing and aspiring VW and MMO developers and, as a result, the business is finally beginning to take off after what feels like an eternity stuck in R&D. We've moved into new, albeit rather humble, offices and at long last most of the core team, which itself has grown a little, are now working in the same place on a daily basis. All of this means that we now have more time and resources to invest in RV and the technology platform upon which it relies.
The second bit of good news is probably the most immediately exciting as far as this community is concerned. As part of my quest to resolve RV's long-standing issues I've been on the hunt for a more up-to-date rendering engine for our client. It's not an easy hunt because the requirements aren't as close to those of conventional video game development as you might think and the list of appropriate engines is already pretty small. Most of them we either can't afford to pay for or can't afford to devote the considerable resources required to integrate them into our systems and customise them to suit our needs. A few months ago all that changed when we discovered one particular solution that could serve all of our needs most admirably. In fact it blew me away and one day I'll take the time to list all of the amazing game-changing things about this particular solution. It's pretty special.
I don't want to go into too much detail about it just yet but I can definitely confirm that the development of an entirely new Roma Victor client is well underway, and has been for a while. Now, I'll make an official announcement about this new client a little later in the year - we've still got a few things to negotiate and iron out - but in the meantime I wanted to share some of the excitement we're feeling with you guys just as soon as I could.
So I had Gally grab some screenshots and put together a little demo video to show off the new engine, which you'll find a link to at the end of this post. While we're on the subject of Gally I should probably point out that the reason he too has been quieter on the forums of late is that I've hauled him into even more of a production role and he's now spending most of his time managing the art pipeline and organising production across three projects. For one thing, all of our existing art assets need to be re-exported in a different format, which is pretty straightforward if you know what you're doing, but it is also pretty time-consuming and so it really is a case of 'all hands on deck' - especially since updating RV is not the only project we've got going on. As a result, Gally will be spending a lot less time answering forum questions and a lot more time actually building stuff, which is not to say that he won't be popping in from time to time with new screenshots and videos of our progress.
As I mentioned, I'll make an official and more detailed announcement about the new client another time but there are a few things that I can certainly shed some light on right now. Let's start by listing just a few of the most exciting changes brought by the new client solution:
Now that all sounds great but I know what you're thinking. So when's this gonna happen? We've heard nice things before and they've taken months to materialise - all this stuff sounds like it'll take RedBedlam years to get out the door. When will we actually see some of it? Well I have good, and probably somewhat surprising news on that front too. Internally we're already testing the new client and it's already about 80% feature complete. So here's the plan. In early October we'll make the free trial islands available - via the new client - to existing RV participants for testing. It won't be entirely feature complete at first but, depending on how things go, we're actually aiming to release the new client for RV proper maybe even before the end of this year at which time we'll do a proper re-launch in an attempt to bring in as many new players as possible.
OK cool, so what's all this going to cost? Well, again with the good news. Whilst this is a major update and has more in common with a sequel than just another client patch, by way of thanking Roma Victor veterans for sticking with us through thick and thin, we're not going to charge a penny for this update. When it's released we'll probably lift the special offer on account key prices (currently reduced to just £9.99) but that'll only affect new accounts.
Finally I should stress that the other oft-mentioned upcoming features and improvements that you already know we're working on are still very much part of the process. At any given time a couple of us have been dedicated to progressing things like construction, fortifications, hair, beards, boats, conquest overhaul, vigour/combat improvements, raids etc. The more keen-eyed among you will see clues to this in the video and screenshots linked below. Having now discovered our revised plans for the free trial you'll doubtless see why the free trial islands haven't been made available just yet. We didn't want the free trial to show how Roma Victor used to be, when it was just about to undergo the most significant update since the commercial test started back in 2005.
So hopefully this SotW post will go some way to explaining what we've been up to recently and with a bit of luck you'll be just as excited about all this as we are. For the first time in years I've been going to bed happy, pleased with Roma Victor's progress and looking forward to both Roma Victor and RedBedlam beginning to realise their full potential at long, long last. It only remains for me to share with you Gally's video and screenshots of the client that we've, with inspired originality, codenamed 'RV2'.
Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvvneJ0OBPI&fmt=18
Roma Victor has come along way since its release. Since I left shortly after beta I may subscribe and give it a go. To bad that MMORPG doesn't recongize Roma Victor as a mmo in its "release games" category. But the top 10 'why not' seems to be the rave.
This is great for Roma Victor. It is still the game with huge potential and could be even better than Mortal Online and Darkfall.
dont let u foul by what they say. It easy to talk harder to do. IN 4 YEars since realease in 2005 from what i read Little has changed and actualy in KFR statment he wants a re-release which means what i posted many time until now. RV was IN beta testing. A payable betatesting.
Oh oh and another thing. IF u play Barbarian u do a big mistake. KFr dont like barbarians and if u criticize him u get banned. IF ur roman and kiss his GOD feets ur not banned even if u use third party soft that makes u Uber soldier. Think twice before buying this CRAP
I leave a trace in your life
The game has been out for 3 years, not 4.
MUCH has changed since launch. There have been several hundred fixes and large and small additions to the game since then - all completely documented in the release notes kept in the forums.
Marker was banned from the forums - I believe for rants and raves that were very disrepectful to the developers and players. He violated the rules, simple as that.
Multiple players have been banned from the game itself for various reasons - mostly for altering client files which provided unfair advantages. Altering client files for any reason is against the policy you must agree to when you buy the game. Almost all (or maybe simply all - not sure) have been players on the barbarian side. Romans generally behave themselves in that respect.
Marker himself is universally hated inside the game. His own fellow barbarians in the starter town clap and cheer when a roman fighter kills him. Some have even assisted in hunting him.
Anyhoo, back on topic…...
You sure have been logged in a lot for someone who hates the game so much. Most people don't spend 8 hours a day in a game they hate. Perhaps being suspended from the RV forums on multiple accounts for repeated foul languange and belligerent behavior have caused you to seek attention here.
I saw on the RV news that you got killed just a bit ago. The entire community is bereaved. I heard some people say it made a great case for perma-death. If the game is so bad, maybe you should ragequit....please.
2 romans. lol actualy 2 stabbers comment. I dont play a game to be loved by others. I play a game to have some fun. this sint a game yet. its just a project.
I leave a trace in your life
Marker you are such a weirdo. You have spent nearly 2 years playing this game constantly and now you say it is crap? LOL.
lol i bought it in 2006 if u woult interested to know. And i keep playing this crap cause i bought it. why quiting? isnt a montly fee. if this fee will be placed not more then 10 persons will play the game
I leave a trace in your life
God Marker, give it a bloody rest. You play RV more than any other player I know. Yes alot of freemen hate you as well as romans. I was in that category not too long ago. You have started to change your attitude in game somewhat. For god sake don't screw it up for yourself.
Commander Jim
Were all living on knife's edge when will you fall off?
I played beta and it seemed ok but that was a few years ago. How does RV run now and what new features have been added. I read on the RV forums of a RV 2 and a trial.
Its better than beta by far performance wise. Still the odd crash but it is far better. Many more new features are in, still not what was promised at release but more. If you buy now at £10 it is better as the price will go up massively when Rv2 is released.
Commander Jim
Were all living on knife's edge when will you fall off?
[quote]In early October we'll make the free trial islands available - via the new client - to existing RV participants for testing. It won't be entirely feature complete at first but, depending on how things go, we're actually aiming to release the new client for RV proper maybe even before the end of this year at which time we'll do a proper re-launch in an attempt to bring in as many new players as possible.[/quote]
Here we go again. Another story to tell ur grandnephew, another lie of RedBedLame and mainly of his CEO KFR. we passed middle of octomber and yet no new testing trials implemented. Well for all others who wait an improvment of this game.... keep dreaming.
I leave a trace in your life
Can you do anything right? First you get banned from RV... for "questionable acts". Then you come here and flame baddly.
No I am not going to come out and defend RB for their flaws, but man your a piece of work.
So much crap, so little quality.