Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
boat physics in mmo's
cochs
Member UncommonPosts: 92
Curious how much value you would put on realistic vs less realistic physics when it comes to how boats/ships work in mmo's.
For example Atlas doesn't use physics at all, it just does some simple logic to make ships rock a bit as if they were responding to the water, but it's not really.
Archeage goes a bit further, I think most noticeably in the bugs they have where ships can interact with each other badly. But they do have some amount of real physics driven buoyancy.
I'm curious about this as I work on a team where ships are a big part of the game. We have done a couple of iterations with more and less physics for the ships. The more version waves impact ships a lot, big waves can push you around and effect your speed, sometimes even effect line of sight. We can also do things like tidal waves and whirlpools.
But it's a significant amount of work for more realistic physics. And looking at all the videos and comments on Atlas I seldom if ever hear people complain about lack of more realistic physics. So we are still undecided on which way to go.
There are also multiple ways to do more realistic physics, honestly you could do down a rabbit hole on that. Customized physics would ultimately be better, we actually did a version of that. But to get all the finer points of that to 'just work' vs using the engine's built in physics, I'm guessing would be around 2x the amount of dev time. And the version using the engine physics around 5x the dev time of the Atlas no physics let's just fake some boat rolling and be done with it.
So probably more then most players care to know, but given that bit of insight would you think it's worth the time to have better physics? To the point where you can build more game mechanics around it? I'm interested in as a player would you really put much value on it?
For example Atlas doesn't use physics at all, it just does some simple logic to make ships rock a bit as if they were responding to the water, but it's not really.
Archeage goes a bit further, I think most noticeably in the bugs they have where ships can interact with each other badly. But they do have some amount of real physics driven buoyancy.
I'm curious about this as I work on a team where ships are a big part of the game. We have done a couple of iterations with more and less physics for the ships. The more version waves impact ships a lot, big waves can push you around and effect your speed, sometimes even effect line of sight. We can also do things like tidal waves and whirlpools.
But it's a significant amount of work for more realistic physics. And looking at all the videos and comments on Atlas I seldom if ever hear people complain about lack of more realistic physics. So we are still undecided on which way to go.
There are also multiple ways to do more realistic physics, honestly you could do down a rabbit hole on that. Customized physics would ultimately be better, we actually did a version of that. But to get all the finer points of that to 'just work' vs using the engine's built in physics, I'm guessing would be around 2x the amount of dev time. And the version using the engine physics around 5x the dev time of the Atlas no physics let's just fake some boat rolling and be done with it.
So probably more then most players care to know, but given that bit of insight would you think it's worth the time to have better physics? To the point where you can build more game mechanics around it? I'm interested in as a player would you really put much value on it?
Comments
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
Rafting wasn't useful to me until the Valguero map was introduced. We're still waiting to hear from Wildcard devs what Genesis' Turtle entails.
Think Ark's rafting was better done than Witcher's sailboat. Any other game I have played with boats/raft did not let me have piloting control. Or was to beta-glitchy to mention.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
If it's within reach, do it.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests