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02/2013 - Divergence back on indiegogo.com
Yrratic
Member UncommonPosts: 12
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Yrratic
Member UncommonPosts: 12
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Trying as hard as I can :P
It's almost up to 3K though already in less than a week! We just need to find a good venue to raise awareness of what we're trying to do.
www.Divergence-Online.com
Up to 6k now.
Not bad.
I funded $100. It seems like you have a big dream and lots of potential in this game. I wish the best for it because I'd really like to play it!
It really does remind me of Starwars Galaxies in terms of building and resources, etc. I LOVED SWG. So this will possibly be one of the best if executed right.
I'm a little bummed the vindicator can't be cloned :-/ but I guess that's how it is >_<
Pro-tip: Advertise where gamers mingle. Steam and Origin are the two biggest gamer clusters. If you can start a awareness thread there without it being deleted then you will gain awareness. Reddit is a major player in awareness too.
(It sucks you dont wanna see it)
Indiegogo gives a plan where you can keep most of the funds if you don't reach the goal.
Quote from kickstarter: "on Kickstarter, you either reach your funding goal or you don’t. If you get 99.99% of your funding goal, you’ll leave empty handed when the timer runs out. Keep that in mind."
Basically, exactly what LordVe just said...
The game has very very little advertising out there. Hardly anyone knows it exists. Even though many people are looking for a game like this to be in development, it's still having a hard time going viral.
So having an indiegogo allows him to collect money as he goes. He can start a new one later on when he needs more funding to match what he didn't get this time. Of course, I'd rather see him get a lot of funding now so he can hire help and get this game going faster.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Games currently are programmed rather crappy. There is no way around it, they just are. In the past, think 386/486 days, programs were written in such a way as to get the most out of the hardware the program was running on. Think about that for a moment. In those days, they had hardware that had less power than a graphing calculator does. They had no choice but to get the most out of what they had.
Since then, as computers have gotten faster and have gained resources that would have boggled the minds of programmers of that era, programmers have gotten lazy. With the advent of Languages like Java and the .Net CLR, programmers have been allowed to ignore, for the most part, all the low-level things like Memory Management. For little apps, this isn't much of an issue. Why worry about a program using 10MB of Ram when most systems have at least 2GB? The answer is simple. Just because they have Ram, doesn't mean that they have FREE Ram. Don't forget, you don't just have your program running, you have the overhead of an OS to deal with, and Windows is not programmed very well in the Resource Management Department to begin with, and the overhead of any other program that is currently running.
Take that program that is using 10MB of Ram as an example of the laziness that has crept over modern programmers. With a bit of time, the program in question could be made to use only 1MB of Ram. How you ask? Quite simply, by using the Memory correctly, and by only using what you actually need. A program does not need to send a copy of an object to a method when a Reference would do just as well. A program does not need to use an Int32 for a number that will never go above 65,535. An UnSigned Int16 would do fine in that case or if the number is less than 255, an Unsigned Int8. Every little bit counts when it comes to Memory. Think of all the Objects that a game contains. Think of all the Memory that is wasted by improper use of Types.
As to how Divergence can look better, Better Management of the Video Memory comes to mind. If someone has a good grasp of the concept, it isn't hard to show more for less. Take the end of the Video where he is going around with his friend. You see him turn up the Draw Distance and see quite a lot. Even I was astonished by the view. Then I thought of how it could be done. My best guess is that he programmed it to take into account the distance and what you actually see. If you were looking at it in Real Life, think of what you see, and what you actually don't. If you program your Renderer to only show what a player can actually see, and program it to show it in a definition that corresponds with the distance, and to ignore rendering what the player can't, you can have a High level of detail at minimal Memory Costs. You don't need to see the blades of grass of a hill 300 meters away.
This is fine and all for someone standing still, you say. How can it still be like that for a person that is moving? My answer, Pre-Rendering. The engine knows where a player is, it knows where it is looking, and it knows where it is going. If I know a player is moving at x speed in y direction, I can begin the process of Rendering the view ahead in higher detail and lowering the detail behind.
Now, all this isn't to say that any person will be able to run the game at the maximum Draw distance and definition. Most people won't since their computers are not up for it. But there is nothing to say that next year or the year after, hardware able to do so will be cheap enough for you to buy. So, Modern games are created to run on less powerful hardware. (It is a method of giving everyone the same experience when playing.)
TL;DR:
Most programmers don't use Ram wisely and Most computers wouldn't be able to run such high-end graphics so Programmers don't bother.
Check out GW2, Firefall or any number of other modern sandbox mmos and you can see that there are pretty amazing examples of high quality graphics out there. From what I've seen of the graphics of Divergence, it doesn't really look like it's ahead of those it's competing with, but graphics aren't the most important aspect of a game.
If you are comparing this engine to a 6-year old engine... well, there's your flaw. WoW has shitty graphics and is a bad comparison for sandbox mmos.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Why, because we support indie game companies that make titles better than the shitty AAA companies like EA?
It's a risk of course, but I've seen better indie games. Take Natural Selection 2 for example. That was purely funded on pre-orders and such and it's one of the best games ever made.
How do you think Indie games get off the ground? I have no problem suppporting games like this, even when there is nothing yet to actually do with it, as they are alway worth it in the end.
Hey.. we need some Divergence forum banners, like Elite Dangerous had and that other project currently on KS, which only has shiny banners but no gameplay footage
Divergence must be made, fantastic concept!
Secrets of Dragon?s Spine Trailer.. !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwT9cFVQCMw
Best MMOs ever played: Ultima, EvE, SW Galaxies, Age of Conan, The Secret World
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2X_SbZCHpc&t=21s
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The Return of ELITE !
Well, he isn't asking for a ton of money, and it seemed to be stuck for a while, but it has started to move again...I thought it wasn't going to make it, but now it looks a litte better.
Guy has done a lot on his own, so hopefully this will help him get closer to having a beta ready product.
I want this game to be made, it must be made.
Support this game and help this
Survivalist MMORPG
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg