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I've been thinking about it for some years now, that I wanted to start this project, but always lacked the time.
It has to be very simple engine, with 2D graphics - a big picture as background, along with some animated gifs to make it look alive (that's how the baldurs gate 2 engine runs/ran).
Teamliquid contains some crazy creative people, programmers, artists - have you thought about doing such project?
I'm myself soon done with my programming education, specializing in artificial intelligence and could probably help out with the basic framework, but also some of the movements/interaction algorithms.
The biggest dream would be an open source engine, ready to be modded to become any 2D-platform game, but of course mostly focused on games such as Baldurs Gate.
Have you people done (semi big) projects like this? What's your experiences?
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Project design is rather complicated. It's a lot more work than you'd expect.
Not to mention actually creating a GUI and making it functional is about 30 times more work than creating a console-based application.
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United States47024 Posts
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you might wanna consider building something like that on top of an existing graphics engine, like the jME ( probably the best open source java 3D engine/framework at the moment ).
I dont know about 2d engines, but there are probably also some good ones around.
For projects like this be sure to map out all things you wanna do, stick to the plan and stick to the Waterfall model.
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Kyrgyz Republic1462 Posts
Well, I have tried both starting and joining a few projects such as this in my life  Needless to say none of them went anywhere. There are just too many things that are bound to go wrong with projects like this.
First and foremost, the people's enthusiasm quickly wears off. People usually expect that they are going to spend a little time programming fun stuff, while in reality they need to invest a huge amount of time into tedious, annoying tasks. Without good motivation (read: money) they tend to quickly lose interest and abandon the project.
This leads to the second point, for project such as this to succeed, a really enthusiastic and involved leader is required. Unfortunately, there are very few such people. Without someone to plan everything, make decisions and motivate everyone this will go nowhere. People will end up arguing, insulting each other and abandoning the project blaming others for being stubborn idiots.
And the third major point is that you need someone to very carefully architect the program and divide it into small tasks assignable to different people. It is much easier to make someone do something very concrete rather than "work on the project".
I am still willing to work on an amateur game project, alas, I am not a good manager and there are no well managed projects that would interest me 
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On October 02 2010 10:52 LiminalMadness wrote:you might wanna consider building something like that on top of an existing graphics engine, like the jME ( probably the best open source java 3D engine/framework at the moment ). I dont know about 2d engines, but there are probably also some good ones around. For projects like this be sure to map out all things you wanna do, stick to the plan and stick to the Waterfall model.
Any reason why you think Waterfall method is the way to go here? I think for a freelance project like this, waterfall would be too time-consuming.
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The waterfall model is a terrible suggestion... it's for larger projects which consumes more money and time. An iterative approach is better I've worked in many projects software engineer.
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yeah sorry should have been more specific, didnt mean the default waterfall model, more like a modified waterfall model, fitting to the project, i think it is also on the wikipedia page.
i was taught that iterative approach also counts as a modified waterfall model but might be wrong there.
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I definitely think it could be possible, with a team of 3-4 people =). 2D games are awesome.
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Either you:
1. are proficient enough to do it yourself in a reasonable time frame.
2. know personally 2-4 crazy people who don't need money and have the same interest and are willing to stick with it for a reasonable time frame
3. have considerable money to hire programmers.
If the answer to these is no, and judging from your previous blog you are just a beginner CS student, you're better off finding another team that is working on a similar open source project. Even bringing a simple 2D game with the same interface as another game to a polished state can take a considerable amount of time especially if you have a job or are a student. But good luck, because you have to start somewhere, and you'll get some good experience about open source projects when it burns out :p
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I am interested as a programmer even though I understand the project might not be completed.
Shoot me a PM if you're serious about getting it started.
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I wish you good luck because i would love to have new BG mods but i have seen many people saying on forums that they will make some "huge and amazing mods" and they always fail because the infinity engine isn't noobfriendly and you need a considerable dedication to make a real mod.
Oh and since i have no clue about programming i can't help you
P-S: I would love an easy map editor for BG like in NwN.
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On October 02 2010 11:17 Slithe wrote:Show nested quote +On October 02 2010 10:52 LiminalMadness wrote:you might wanna consider building something like that on top of an existing graphics engine, like the jME ( probably the best open source java 3D engine/framework at the moment ). I dont know about 2d engines, but there are probably also some good ones around. For projects like this be sure to map out all things you wanna do, stick to the plan and stick to the Waterfall model. Any reason why you think Waterfall method is the way to go here? I think for a freelance project like this, waterfall would be too time-consuming.
Also it's not a motivating model at all. When you don't see tangible results until very late.
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1st of all thanks for all the optimism! And yeah it would be awesome with an easy-to-use baldurs gate 2 map-creator... Or perhaps, even a little baldurs gate-MMO? (sexy!)
On October 03 2010 01:34 oxidized wrote:
I am interested as a programmer even though I understand the project might not be completed.
Shoot me a PM if you're serious about getting it started.
I might do that!  .
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Don't let people discourage you. Writing a game engine is doable even without existing knowledge.
The only thing that's really hard with this is keeping people motivated and on track.
I have never in my life finished a programming project in my free time because at the very first obstacle I give up. I lack the drive to do this in my free time however last semester I took the course Computergraphics 2 for which we had to write a 3D game engine in C++ with OpenGL 3.x.
It took us a good 1-2 months to get familiar with C++ and a higher level graphic language such as OpenGL but it's doable and there's a ton of resources out there on this topic [1].
Let me tell you that it can get very frustrating because sometimes you can encounter bugs/problems or you try to implement a well known algorithm and nothing works for a week or two. The only thing that can get you through that is drive and motivation.
Good luck!
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Wowowow, OpenGL is high-level now? What's low-level then? Anyways yeah it's extremely hard to organize anything that requires "precision" between hobbyists. Especially if it invoviles network programming imo.
Perfectly good waste of post 1k, too.
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Hah, sorry i meant to say low-level
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EPT
