FreeGameDev

Hi,
There was no more development for the great real time strategy game glest for more then one year now and the community based GAE( a fork of glest ) is not as stable as it should be. This is why I started the megaglest project. Its more focused on stability then on new effects! ( update: I think we changed our mind and we have lots of cool new stuff now )
Another reason is that I made lots of data for this game and they are currently only available as a mod because no one can take part in the official glest development ( because there is no such development ). Now this mods have their own home .....

The current home of the project is:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/megaglest/

The main thread in the glest forum for megaglest:
http://glest.org/glest_board/index.php?topic=4930.0

My homepage where you find lots of good glest stuff too is:
http://www.titusgames.de

Here are some videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgAklu_C7oM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wn18W7_WRJg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8QM4yeWIl0



And here some screenshots of (mainly) my work:

Nice... I think however that the most important thing glest needs is a proper multiplayer lobby

The next step is more stable multiplayer ( which is hopefully nearly done now see http://glest.org/glest_board/index.php?board=12.0
chatting inside a connected game will be possible with this version too

Next step will maybe/hopefully be the lobby or auto downloading content.

I also think it should have proper gameplay. *runs*

Sindwiller {l Wrote}:I also think it should have proper gameplay. *runs*

Before you crawl back under your rock, why not elaborate a little and sum up what you mean?

I for one somehow felt weird playing Glest, because I never knew what I want to build (apparently I'm not well-introduced to the units, so a campaign that introduces the units in stages would be helpful) and thought the game speed (or maybe just movement speed or maybe just animation speed) was too slow.

I bet I would spend many hours playing the game if there was a tower defense level

About Megaglest: I think the egypt level/look looks pleasant, at least what I saw in the video. The red water level looks kick-ass too, so the visual additions seem rather well-done Is there some place to read a summary of additions that are not visuals/audio? (If any non-visual/audio ones have been made in Megaglest that is )

My problem with glest has always been the unit pathfinding.. But also the slowness that qubodup mentioned. But yeah, a megapack is cool, but why don't you help make GAE stable instead?

I for one somehow felt weird playing Glest, because I never knew what I want to build (apparently I'm not well-introduced to the units, so a campaign that introduces the units in stages would be helpful) and thought the game speed (or maybe just movement speed or maybe just animation speed) was too slow.

Even more so, once you think that you've finally grasped the tech tree a bit, you'll be attacked by a vast flood of annoying enemies of unbelievable fierceness (and probably a higher tech level than you are, too) - all that for no apparent reason. As a whole, the gameplay seems unrefined and dull to me. :S

I just started with megaglest and the current version has 2 new AI players . This was the first thing I ever made in C++! I'm a professionel Java programmer and I once was a C-pro too, but I never did anything in C++ before.

So whats currently stable and available in megaglest 3.2.3?:
- a new easy CPU player for beginners ( normal CPU is much too hard for real beginners in my opinion )
- a new megaCPU player which is stronger than the ultraCPU player
- only the needed factions are loaded so you can have much more factions in one techtree without endless loading times
- a patch to make xerces3.0 work ( I hope it works, the patch was send to me and I didn't tested it with xerces 3.0 )

The next official version will have much less choppy multiplayer support. But thats not me who does this, I think its made by a real c++ pro who obviously also has some problems with the currrent GAE results...

Why not GAE?
- I get my motivation from really playing the game for myself. GAE is a big programmers playground, but its a bugparade too...
- For me its really fun to fight with my boys in multiplayer games, so this is a must have feature. GAE never had a real working multiplayer and my skills are not good enough to finish the ideas in GAE for multiplayer ( and noone else is there who does this )
- The "Management" of GAE is a bit too free in my opinion ( but I'm not very involved here so maybe I'm wrong )....
- All the others there know C++ and I thought I'm a noob when i started
- There never was a real official/stable release of GAE, but thats what I want/need as a content creator
...
I really hope they put out something stable one day because there are tons of good ideas. But I for myself waited too long now and decided to go my own way.
The most important thing is I want to play Glest and I want somthing stable to play it! I want to fix annoying errors and I'm not hunting for tons of new features ( yet? ). Thats why I started it.

Can you polish the gameplay, too, while you're at it?

What do you mean? I like the current gameplay

titi {l Wrote}:( normal CPU is much too hard for real beginners in my opinion )

I agree. I felt worthless, guilty and weak after being slaughtered by the ai

The most important thing is I want to play Glest and I want somthing stable to play it! I want to fix annoying errors and I'm not hunting for tons of new features ( yet? ).

Very respectable aims. All my 7 thumbs are risen to not aiming too high as well!

Wise words qubodup. I agree with them all, In your last post that is

I like the first screen-shoot the most, looks nice. Even if I find the GUI lacking. Keep the good work up!

For what I remember of my test of glest, animations and actions really felt too slow.
The other problem was the difficulty of campaigns, the first one was won by my ally without any attack of my part, the second one was lost really quick, I didn't even understood what happened.

I think this game need a good tutorial introducing the gameplay.

I second that. But acording to Charlie, that would be a major undertaking.

Some new screenshots of the current megaglest beta with new particles, much more stable multiplayer support and now with up to 8 players/teams!:

Click on the picture!

Pretty!

looks good, i like the atmospheric lighting =)

Titi, do you work with the Glest Advanced Engine project? You talk about main Glest development being dead, but GlestAE seems to be in place to become the official continuation.

I try to, but look at my first post ...

for the atmospheric lighting:
Well I must admit this is only on the screenshots, its not part of the maps (yet). You can make a unit light emitting and by this you sometimes get these good looking lightings in a game, but there are still a lot of restrictions like a maximum of 8 active light sources and so on ...

We need a voice actor for the egypt faction. Thre are still missing sounds for scarab,ibis and snake.
Is here someone who is willing to help out?

latest windows beta is here:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5207065/Glest%2 ... nstall.exe

There is a new stable full version of megaglest now:

you can download it here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/megagl ... t_release/


Whats new in megaglest?
Version 3.3.1:
- fixed a bug with network consistency checks ( it wasn't completly active any more in 3.3.0 )
- network consistency checks are reported more user friendly (on server and client )
- all network related errors should be handled with a dialog and doesn't crash glest any more.

Version 3.3.0:
- New multiplayer version of megaglest! It should be much more stable now
and less choppy than original glest !
- New disconnect messages and chat in connect menu .....
- Now with several particles for every skill!
- black particles!
- Fire with smoke for every "burnable" unit ( even walking/flying ones )
- 8 player support
- Individual particle systems for damage indication
- More particles everywhere in the data
- New snow
- Ingame option to switch off all the new particles ( for slow machines )
- Morphing ground units to flying units
- Damage-all switch in splash definition works now
- Linux editor/g3dviewer/configurator are working and part of the linux
distribution too now
- New maps
- New tileset scrubland
- Editor with lots of comfort functions and 8 player (*.mgm) support.
The editor includes things like undo/redo, brush copy , mouseover display now

since Version 3.2.3:
- Only needed factions are loaded ( thanks silnarm ).
- a weeker CPU player was added for real beginners
- two new CPU players were added ( CPU-Mega and CPU-Easy )
- much much more data compared to glest ( factions/maps/tilesets ...)

there is a new release:
http://glest.org/glest_board/index.php?topic=5283.0

Here are the release notes:
Version 3.3.3:
- Font size adjustment can be set in the ingame options.
- Font colors can be toggled while playing using the 'C'-key.
- Bugfix for windows, ingame options can change resolutions now.
- Font Helvetica is used for linux and font Verdana is used for windows
- Fontsizes can be set very detailed in glest.ini
- Fixed glest.ini

Version 3.3.2:
- Changed windows version to use SDL and also added support for OpenAL sound
(DirectSound is still the default)
- Sound issues for windows users are related to a bad dsound.dll in the
mega-glest folder. Delete this file as it is not required since DirectX should
already be installed on your Windows installation.
- Textures may now be in any of the following formats (tga, bmp, jpg and png)
- Scenarios, Techs and Factions all allow for a custom 'loading' page when
starting a game. Mega-Glest will look for a file called: loading_screen.*
where .* is any supported graphic file type (tga, bmp, jpg and png). The
priority is first in the scenario folder (if loading a scenario) if not found
it looks in the faction root folder and if not found it will look in the tech
folder.
- Screen Resolutions can be changed in the ingame options menu now
- Added a LAN game auto-discovery feature. Clients may click the 'Find LAN Games'
button to search on your local network for another Computer hosting a
Mega-Glest game (a server).
- Mega-Glest now actually uses the ServerPort setting in the glest.ini
(the default port for glest is 61357)
- Added a read-only display ofthe configured Server Port # when joining a network
game.
- Added the ability to configure Fog of War per game session.
- Fully working Photo Mode where you may take good photos of your mega-glest
game / mao scenario by setting the value in glest.ini:
PhotoMode=true
- Added the ability to use a playername instead of the hostname when playing
in a network game. Goto the options area (Options button on main screen)
and type your custom playername into the Network Player Name edit box.
- Added the ability to rotate units when creating a unit (before placing it)
by pressing the R key (for rotate)
- Added camera zoom in/ out (like in GAE) by using the scroll wheel on your
scroll mouse
- Added MANY new configurable items in glest.ini (some are optional and may not
be in the ini file. Most options are described when you run the configurator
application.
- Added the ability to run Glest full screen on multiple monitors
(currently linux only) via the two settings in glest.ini:
AutoMaxFullScreen=true
Windowed=false
- Users may now save all user created context in their own customer folder using
the glest.ini setting:
UserData_Root=mydata/
where mydata is a folder under the current glest folder. You may use ANY path
in this setting.
- Glest allows users to specify a special folder to read / write the ini and log
files. To do this set an environment variable with the name:
GLESTHOME=/mycustomerpathtoawritablefolder/
- When experiencing problems, users may enable debugging to a logfile using the
following glest.ini settings:
DebugLogFile=debug.log
DebugMode=true
DebugNetwork=true
This will log all debug information to a file in the glest folder called
debug.log
- fixed a bug with not calling <unitDied> in lua scenario, when died due
to running out of consumable ressources like food
- fixed the bug which lets you loose the active command if one of your unit dies.
This was the problem that made it very hard to build buildings when you are in
a battle for example.
- When a AI is disable for a faction in a scenario this faction doesn't consume
consumable ressources like food any more.

What is the license of megaglest?
The problem with the original Glest was that the media was non-free. Have you changed this in megaglest? Is the new media free?

The project looks really great, it'd be a shame if it wasn't completely free ;-)

jonan {l Wrote}:What is the license of megaglest?
The problem with the original Glest was that the media was non-free. Have you changed this in megaglest? Is the new media free?

The project looks really great, it'd be a shame if it wasn't completely free ;-)

At some point glest media was released as GPL[it appears I'm wrong ^^]. At least the models were. Can you tell us further details, titi? :)

Well, maybe we should include this in the binary release too, the data is CC ( Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported )
This was what marthino finally decided for the original glest data. I jumped on the train too and now the whole megaglest content has this license.
( if you need another license, ask me , alot of stuff was made by me... )

here is what we have in svn:
http://megaglest.svn.sourceforge.net/vi ... runk/docs/
this is the data license:
http://megaglest.svn.sourceforge.net/vi ... iew=markup
and here is some more infos about the AUTHORS:
http://megaglest.svn.sourceforge.net/vi ... iew=markup

( yeah, we should really place this in the data so its distributed with every copy of glest )