3D Transport Tycoon

[Peter Dobrovka]

No, I didn´t work on it alone, there are several other people involved, but I was always the head of the crew and about 90% of the program code is written by myself. But I have no big talent in drawing graphics, so I leave that to better people. And never ask me about sound...

Yes, it was a hard time, and it is not over yet. The lawsuit is on 19th of March, and I am physically sick of it. The nearer that date comes, the sicker. It´s like fearing for my life.

Peter

[spaceman-spiff]

I can imagine you're getting sick of it, lawsuits can take for ages
But 90 % of the code , impressive

[SHADOW-XIII]

hehehe .. just think about UbiSoft faces when he release it

[Arathorn]

We won't have that problem with our project. No money and copyright means no lawsuits.

[SHADOW-XIII]

We won't have that problem with our project. No money and copyright means no lawsuits.

we may have if we use Transport Tycoon 2

[Arathorn]

But we will use Transport Empire. Btw what happens if we make an open source game Transport Empire and when that's done a company starts with a game with that name? How are open-source projects protected against that?

[SHADOW-XIII]

and there is another problem .. cuz there is a game Trade Empire ... I prefer other names...that names so noone can have any problems

[Hajo]

But we will use Transport Empire. Btw what happens if we make an open source game Transport Empire and when that's done a company starts with a game with that name? How are open-source projects protected against that?

Not at all. You need to register the name as trademark to get some protection.

c.u.
Hajo

[Arathorn]

And of course there's a price to that...

[orudge]

But we will use Transport Empire.

Says who? The vote is currently swinging toward Transport Master. Also, as far as I know, there is no other game with a name like that, while there are '... Empire' games.

Also, the game will be copyrighted, but not to any one company, etc, but to all the developers, graphic artists, sound designers, documentation writers, etc. Read the GNU General Public License in detail.

[Gspot]

Games like TTD and TTDX are officially 2.5D, not 2 D or 3D. 2D is what you see when you read a map (important issue for woman ). 3D is what you get with sophisticated hardware, software and other tools. What we consider 3D on our computers is just 2.5 D. Check the manuals of several Computer Aided Design programmes like AutoCAD, Arkey or 3Dmax.

There's no such thing as 2.5D. It's 2D because all the buildings and such are bitmaps, not rendered in 3D. It's isometric view.

I'd rather TT stayed in isometric view. I think a 3D view would just complicate things. It'd be harder to move around when it's 3D.

[Hyronymus]

There's no such thing as 2.5D. It's 2D because all the buildings and such are bitmaps, not rendered in 3D. It's isometric view.

Hmm, you mean they mislead me during my study for construction engineer? 2.5D is the name attached to what you produce as 3D in CAD programmes. It really is 2D (you are right with that) but it is referred to as 2.5D. The main view used for games is isometric indeed. But I doubt if all current games still use 2D rendered buildings. I really do think some games are using 3D rendered buildings nowadays (otherwise: why is my videocard so slow with SimCity 4?!).

[Gspot]

My mistake. I've never heard it refered to as 2.5D.

[Hyronymus]

It's ok, just a bit boosting of my side

[Peter Dobrovka]

There's no such thing as 2.5D. It's 2D because all the buildings and such are bitmaps, not rendered in 3D. It's isometric view.

Well, the terminus of 2.5 D really exists. It describes games which have a 3rd dimension but not fully.
The graphics of TTDX are 2D, there is no discussion. But the game...?
The squares of TTDX have not only x and y coord, they also have a height coord. TTDX has bridges and tunnels which allow to have more than one structure on the same square in different heights. So it is 3D. But there are some limitations which make it not really 3D. So it is something between 2D and 3D.
Doom (1993) was also a 2.5D game. It was in 3D - but not really.
Simutrans is a really 3D game with 2D graphics.
3DTT is a 3D game with 3D graphics.
Dungeon Keeper is a 2D game with 3D graphics.

I'd rather TT stayed in isometric view. I think a 3D view would just complicate things. It'd be harder to move around when it's 3D.

The engine has nothing to do with the userinterface.

Peter

[Gspot]

I didn't mean the GUI, I meant navigating and viewing the 3D world.

It might be easier to use a SimCity3k-style graphics engine (I haven't played 4k yet, don't know what it's like). I like being able to rotate the view and zoom in to street level. It's sometimes hard to see things, even with Transparent Buildings on (especially since bridges remain opaque). Plus it could still run on my crappy computer

Hyronymus: No worries, mate. I don't start Uni till September, anyway.

[anaconda]

No, I didn´t work on it alone, there are several other people involved, but I was always the head of the crew and about 90% of the program code is written by myself. But I have no big talent in drawing graphics, so I leave that to better people. And never ask me about sound...

Yes, it was a hard time, and it is not over yet. The lawsuit is on 19th of March, and I am physically sick of it. The nearer that date comes, the sicker. It´s like fearing for my life.

I can understand why you feel like that. From what I've understood from your pages, you've worked on this project mostly in your spare time for a long time. I don't know how many years you've been working on this but if I read it right, it was 2 years of your spare time for just the 3d engine?

I've asked around in alt.games.microprose.transport-tyc and got some answers from the other guys there about the current situation. I'm glad I could get the info from the man himself.

As I posted earlier in the thread, I bought the game because the tutorial in the demo looked great. But I was greatly dissapointed because I felt it was unfinished. And then I read about this dispute between you and the others.

I hope there will be a happy ending to this after all that you have been through. And if you get to release a new version, I'd buy it as fast as it comes to the stores or wherever it will be sold.

I know there is a forum in german about the new beta version, but is there other places I can visit without using babelfish all the time? I really want to stay updated in the progress. (Maybe you can post to a sticky thread in one of our forums?) As everybody else that has bought the game, I have a lot of suggestions to the game. But since I'm not that good in german, I can't check if those are allready considered/denied. And I don't want to bother you any more than necessary.

[Jan]

@Anaconda,
I enjoy the game till today tremendously. I think I got used to the flaws and building more and more connections till my P4 1.5 GHz choke. Then I start new one. After playing 3DTT so much, is very hard to go back to TTD and be limited by the bridges, tunnels, inefficient trucks etc. I been following Peter progress for years now, got still couple old alphas on my computers. It's a pity, what the b****** did to him.
Hopefully, on 19 will be over. 8 more days. Court denied VX motion for later date, so hopefully, this is it. Unless they will call the witnesses, another year will be wasted. Peter got over 100 of them. (all this info is from another forum)

I do have a problem with German also. But, if you download Google search for your browser, on right click you can choose "translate pages". Still machine translation, but better and faster then others. For more detailed translation, I did download free version of German-English translator, which give you more meanings to the words.
Here is the link: http://www.theabsolute.net/sware/getrans.html

[Jan]

Here is some pics from downloaded game, not mine...

[Arathorn]

Looks awesome, but the curves made by the trains still look a bit clumsy. I know it's a lot of work but it still needs a lot of polishing.