Slashdot Mirror
Scorched Island 3D
kost writes: " There is clone of popular DOS game called Scorched Earth but this one is in three dimensions (very good concept). It is called Scorched Island 3D and you can download it here from FTP server or you can see some screenshots. It is a game where you try to shoot your opponent over the hill with different weapons and such. Disadvantages of the game include lack of sound and network play. " Ah, Scorched Earth. I spent a lot of quality time perfecting my angles to play the crap out of my friends and neighbors. It's good to see this game back. (michael: Enemy has rubber shield (the purple one), and is in a depression. Solution: napalm, contact triggers, fire shot that hits shield and immediately goes into the dirt next to him. Napalm pours out, fills up, and pours into the tiny hole in the rubber shield created by the shot hitting it. A single sweet second where the entire inside of his shield is full of napalm, held in by the shield, then, FOOM! Toasty.)
ESR touched on this issue after Carmack commented on the binary-only frontend. The truth is that Quake is written to rely on security through obsurity (obscurity being the binary where the renderer and networking protocols resides).
The truth is, if Quake had been written in such a way that there was zero trust for the client, it would not have ran as efficiently. Entity positions are sent to the client when they are supposedly in line of sight. In theory, this sounds good. However, the PVS (potentially visible set) has, with my visual estimate, about 10%-20% overdraw. Because of this, a number of cracks can be employed, such as a wrapper for your OpenGL library that will draw all surfaces with an opacity of 0.5f, making characters pop up behind walls before they get to see you.
The fact of the matter is that if the entity's data was sent to the client at the moment that it appeared on the screen, it would pop up because of network latency. In very lagged situations, you can even see this happen.
This is just one example of why networking security in games require different philosophies than that of normal application client/server design.
If there is no obscurity needed, you can have a completely client-to-client game.
The idea of a client to client game as you call it, or peer-to-peer, suffers from having to send all data to all players at all times. Doom required approximately four times the data as Quake did for the same number of players in the game. (Perhaps that's why Quake originally had 4*4 the number of players as Doom did when it initially shipped.)
BS. I have friends who cheat at closed source network games by looking over at my monitor, and I have friends who I would trust with my root password and keys to may house, let alone trusting that they won't cheat at a game.
For that matter, I play D&D where people roll dice in front of themselves and call out numbers that could save or kill their characters, and nobody checks, or worries that there is no system of checks in place. For another good example of "honor" based sports (where the reward is great and pressure is high) look into SCA combat and how they choose their king.
There are human factors involved in games that surmount any technical consideration. It's a darn shame when people forget that humans play the game, and just worry about 17 million filled polygons and 128 bit encryption.
--
Evan (Oh, and Merry Christmas!)
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
I got here early, and, as the old saying goes, mirrored early and often. You can thank me with karma points, even though I'm at 50 already. *GRIN*
si3d-1.1.1.tar.gz
si3d-1.1.1-1mdk.src.rpm
si3d-dynamic-1.1.1-1mdk.i586.rpm
si3d-static-1.1.1.tar.gz
si3d-static-1.1.1-1mdk.i586.rpm
------------
CitizenC
Why don't you guys all go out and buy copies of Worms, or Worms 2, or Worms Armageddon? We've evolved past tanks; the future is worms. Seriously, the last time I found an old copy of scorch kickin it on one of my disks, i fired it up, and it made me wanna play Worms.
"Death's Head? DEATH'S HEAD?" You're insane! You'll kill us all!"
And I said:
"Exactly. See you in hell, punk"
..and then my tank got zapped by lightning, and the wind was blowing MY direction, so of course I winded up blowing myself up.
Does anyone know what good the Tracer did?
When do we get Gorilla's! 3D? I have an urge to chuck some bananas man! :-P
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade