Carmageddon Megathread: Reincarnation -- hang onto yer helmet

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Yodzilla: Apr 29, 2005; Now who looks even dumber?

Beef Witch

The Kins posted:

RWS more or less died after their Russian outsourcing experiment (it's a long story...) with Postal 3 failed miserably, but then Postal 2 sold so inexplicably well on Steam that they managed to more or less reform the company purely off of that. They're currently working on a new Postal 2 expansion pack and a HD update/Android port of the original top-down game.

That's so loving bizarre.

# ? Nov 15, 2014 05:52

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# ? Apr 25, 2024 06:52

Shoehead: Sep 28, 2005; Wassup, Choom?
Ya need sumthin'?

Don't RWS have some sort of association with Stainless at the moment too?

# ? Nov 15, 2014 09:53

cubicle gangster: Jun 26, 2005; magda, make the tea

That sounds like a solid career move...

# ? Nov 15, 2014 10:27

DMorbid: Jan 6, 2011; Hello! I see you.

Nobby finally gives us an update about what's going on with the game:

quote:

Hi Carmafans!

I am well aware that just recently our contributions to keeping you all up-to-date have been thin on the ground � borderline non-existent (compounded by the - temporary - suspension of our Twitch output)... Apologies for this. So, it�s about time I gave you all some insight into what�s currently occurring here in Carma central.

Over the past couple of months, what's previously just been a very highly pressured dev timetable for the studio has reached yet another level of high pressure, as the team strove to hit our internally set Alpha date (which we've now done - but not made any announcement about, the reasons for which I will come to shortly). Hitting Alpha has also relied on some MAJOR code re-writes, which have all been part of the push to improve performance. Included in this is some deep work on the shaders, which then knocks on to all the materials that are in the game, which then need to be modified, and so on, and the knock-on of this is that we spend yet more significant time with a game that, while progressing, is either performing or looking worse than it did the day before and continues to do so for an extended period.

And so it remains the case that the single most difficult aspect of this development has been that we all agreed, way back when, to re-write Beelzebub (our own all-singing all-dancing engine tech) at the same time as developing the game. Would we make that decision if we were starting again now? Almost certainly not. But at the time, there was no middleware solution(s) out there that were good enough to achieve what we wanted (I'm pretty sure I've said most of this before - so, apologies for repeating myself).

So as I said, we hit the internal Alpha date and have given ourselves another compressed timescale to get to Beta. But the work leading to a successful Alpha has still left the game currently needing a whole stack of data changes to make it all come together and finally work as designed. And that's why we haven't made any big noise about it.

Meanwhile, our lead programmer - having finally got a window to work on it - is flat out improving the AI, and a group of us (me and Patrick included) has moved on to the small matter of gameplay balancing (for instance, I'm about to get on with the final placement of all the PowerUps in all the events, and by that I mean actually doing it, not pointing at a map and giving orders!).

So, that's a bit of summary of where we're at, and as you've all been speculating, we're now looking at "in the New Year" as our new completion date. But this also means we're currently in busy discussion on the publishing side of the fence too (self-publishing still being a relatively new role for us, one which we are still gaining experience in and so to a certain extent making up as we go along!). So, right now I'm not in a position to make any firm pronouncement on the new release date - and to be completely honest, I don't see that announcement actually coming until early next year.

I�d like to end by reiterating our truly massive lurve for you all, and our appreciation for all the support we get from you guys � because even when there�s grumbling going on it�s clearly just born out of your frustration at wanting to see something new and actually get to play the finished game, and I�m with you 100% on that sentiment, as is the whole team!

Anyway, we�re committed to reinstating the Streams as soon as the builds allow, so we can start to tease you all with the large amount of new content that�s now in the game and reinvigorate anticipation for the game! Plus we�ll have new comps coming along, and a programme of new tasters and so on into the New Year.

Cheers guys,
nob

tl;dr: team has been busy hitting the internal alpha date and are now working to get to beta (which has forced a ton of code rewrites that hosed with the shaders and such, so they didn't think they had a presentable build to show off on streams), and the new completion date is set as "in the new year."

# ? Nov 27, 2014 19:34

Delusibeta: Aug 7, 2013; Let's ride together.

Super tl;dr edition: game engines are hard.

# ? Nov 28, 2014 20:55

The Kins: Oct 2, 2004

Update! Stainless is giving Resurrection owners ANOTHER free game! Problem is, this one is a bit poo poo. It's Carmageddon: TDR 2000!

quote:

Now, being completely honest here, it�s well known that 1) Stainless didn�t develop TDR 2000 and 2) just about everyone we know thinks that it�s a bit POO. BUT, there�s no accounting for taste, and some people have actually asked us to release it. And so, just for those poor souls (plus anyone else who enjoys getting a �full package�) we�re more than happy to plop it into your Carma collection. And for the rest of us, well�. Maybe give it a spin every now and then to remind everyone what a GREAT JOB we did on Carmageddon 1 and 2!

The Kins fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Dec 4, 2014

# ? Dec 4, 2014 19:31

Zamboni Apocalypse: Dec 29, 2009

The Kins posted:

Update! Stainless is giving Resurrection owners ANOTHER free game! Problem is, this one is a bit poo poo. It's Carmageddon: TDR 2000!

Hey, free poo poo is still ~~poo poo~~ free.

# ? Dec 4, 2014 20:51

Oxyclean: Sep 23, 2007

TDR2000 had one fun element, or at least in the demo: If you were in the air(or was it respawning?) while your afterburner ran out, you'd just have permanent afterburner.

# ? Dec 4, 2014 20:55

Carecat: Apr 27, 2004; Buglord

Weird that they didn't sort out the engine when they were making it and now have to spend months sorting it out...

# ? Dec 4, 2014 21:01

Rush Limbo: Sep 5, 2005; its with a full house

I guess I can sort of see the logic. They knew they pretty much had to do it from scratch, so built something rather barebones to start with that they could then flesh out and expand upon where needed when they figured out exactly what they wanted to do or what they needed.

# ? Dec 4, 2014 21:12

King Vidiot: Feb 17, 2007; You think you can take me at Satan's Hollow? Go 'head on!

OH NO MAN posted:

Also, Sim has left Stainless to work at Running with Scissors. Not that her departure is going to affect the development since she worked in PR and marketing, but the Twitch streams won't be the same even if they come back.

Well it sucks that we won't get any more Nobby and Sim streams, but Sim's a decent sort and probably a good programmer so maybe she'll help the next Postal game to not suck.

# ? Dec 4, 2014 21:32

Doctor Butts: May 21, 2002

I still own Carmageddon 3/TDR 2000. I liked it, even if it wasn't much of an improvement over 2.

But I can't run it on my system

# ? Dec 4, 2014 21:48

King Vidiot: Feb 17, 2007; You think you can take me at Satan's Hollow? Go 'head on!

The Kins posted:

RWS more or less died after their Russian outsourcing experiment (it's a long story...) with Postal 3 failed miserably, but then Postal 2 sold so inexplicably well on Steam that they managed to more or less reform the company purely off of that. They're currently working on a new Postal 2 expansion pack and a HD update/Android port of the original top-down game.

Postal 2 on Steam is hands-down the best version of the game to date, it has all of the stuff of the GoG release plus they auto-patch it with new updates and tweaks and fixes every now and then, and on the holidays they add silly little updates that change small things in the main game. Also being able to add content through the Steam Workshop is really handy, I remember modding Postal 2 to be a bit of a pain in the butt way back when.

I imagine people have been buying it on Steam from word of mouth and Steam sales. It's kind of an "infamous" game at this point, so I'm sure people bought it at $2.50 just to see what the fuss was about. And people like me who've been playing the game since release in various forms re-bought the game for all the new stuff.

VV I think they're just atoning for how unbelievably lovely Postal 3 was. :v:

King Vidiot fucked around with this message at 02:02 on Dec 5, 2014

# ? Dec 5, 2014 00:30

Dark_Swordmaster: Oct 31, 2011

I have to out myself as someone who bought a boxed copy of Postal 2 at launch and having played over the years and with mods I can say that hands-down the Steam version isn't just improved, but it's SIGNIFICANTLY expanded. It's weird the amount of support it started getting so many years after release but modders and RWS have made it such a completely fleshed out game (at least in comparison to launch vanilla and its 5 minute load times) and it's a great version of a stupid murder simulator.

# ? Dec 5, 2014 01:18

The Kins: Oct 2, 2004

King Vidiot posted:

I think they're just atoning for how unbelievably lovely Postal 3 was.

Yeah, they CAN'T do anything to Postal 3, so they work with what they have.

quote:

Postal III didn't turn out how RWS had hoped.
The original plan was for RWS to do game design and style art, with Akella responsible for production (coding, game art, audio, playtesting, etc.). The project started out great with both groups working close together, then the first blow came with the Russian economy taking a hit and Akella lost their A development team and the project got moved to Team B. Looking back now we should have canceled the project then as there was no way the new less qualified team was going to be able to deliver a "A" quality game. The next big blow was when Akella started chopping away at our design (to accommodate the limited skills of the 2nd string team), this only got worse over time. From eliminating gameplay to single player only to PC only and scratching consoles. The hole kept getting deeper and the poo poo shovel was in full force. We didn't even get to see or play the game in the last 12 months of development, then the worst thing happened. Akella was desperate for money trying to prevent going out of business. They made the fatal decision to 'wrap it up' at alpha and call it done, releasing it to the Russian market, then on Steam for the international market.

Akella retains control of all the source code and assets for Postal III which they will not share with us or the modding community, so we are unable to fix Postal III ourselves, leaving a flawed and unfinished game. RWS also do not profit from Postal III sales and we stopped selling it ourselves the moment it was clear we would be unable to support the product.

# ? Dec 5, 2014 11:53

IUG: Jul 14, 2007

Just saw this on Facebook. It looks like they're entering beta with Career mode, achievements, etc.

http://www.carmageddon.com/news/valentines-day-massacre

quote:

Hey Carmafans! Nobby here, with HUGE NEWS of a HOT DATE for your diaries! Love is in the air, and I know every one of you Carmageddon Heads out there is a die-hard ROMANTIC� So that�s why we�ve chosen February 14th � Valentine�s Day � as the launch date for the Public Beta release of Carmageddon: Reincarnation! That�s right, this is going to be the Valentine�s Day Massacre to beat �em all!

Why not give the one you love the gift of CARNAGE on this special occasion, by buying them Carmageddon: Reincarnation and smashing them to smithereens in a wanton orgy of multiplayer mayhem! Give them a great big kiss on the backside with your pulsating Repulsificator, or maybe play Twister and screw their brains out! Get them gobbling your giant mutant tail thing while you oscillate up and down to the rhythm of their frantic ejaculations! There�s going to be a whole lot of red hot grinding going on, and we want YOU to come and DO IT with US!

The Public Beta release includes Career Mode, Freeplay and Multiplayer. It�s got all the Achievements and Challenges. It�s got a full complement of cars, levels and arenas. It�s got Smelly Bush collectibles (does that make it the �Pubic Beta�? Course it does!)!

So don�t forget, it�s the PUBLIC PUBIC BETA � we want you to play, play, play and tell us what you think either in the forums, or through our support system.

And we�re still giving away the original games too in our Carmageddon collection � that�s FOUR games for the price of ONE! Yes, buy Carmageddon: Reincarnation and you also get the original Carmageddon (the Max Pack, which includes the Splat Pack), Carmageddon 2: Carpocalypse Now, and Carmageddon TDR 2000! So now�s the time to jump in, buckle up, put the pedal to the metal and PUNCH IT� Forget 50 Shades of Grey � get ready for 50,000 Showers of Gibs!!

To coincide with this announcement, we�re releasing a new promo video that�ll help get you all champing at the bit in preparation for the 14th. Check out the action and see what a SIZZLING HOT Valentine�s you�ve got to look forward to! And while you�re AT IT, you�ll also be hearing excerpts from one of the game�s extensive playlist of music tracks. This track is written and performed by mega-talented musician and massive Carmageddon fan Morgan Hulston, AKA Morgue.

Everyone who already owns the Early Access build of Carmageddon: Reincarnation will find that their game is ready to be updated to the full Public Beta when they check out their Steam games list on the 14th February.

# ? Jan 30, 2015 15:16

DMorbid: Jan 6, 2011; Hello! I see you.

Yep, just saw that myself! Here's the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hBqFc65ol4

Bunch of new cars, powerups and levels (football stadium!) being shown off, and it looks like car splitting is in as well. :woop:

Not too sure about that music, but I'll be using my good old I WAS IN THE WAR Spotify playlist anyway so whatever.

Fortunately, Valentine's Day isn't really that much of a thing here in Finland, so I won't feel that bad when I inevitably spend the entire day getting drunk and playing Carmageddon.

DMorbid fucked around with this message at 15:36 on Jan 30, 2015

# ? Jan 30, 2015 15:27

Kyrosiris: May 24, 2006; You try to be happy when everyone is summoning you everywhere to "be their friend".

More importantly, multiplayer! God that's gonna be awesome. :toot:

# ? Jan 30, 2015 15:52

Shoehead: Sep 28, 2005; Wassup, Choom?
Ya need sumthin'?

Woke up to some awesome news. :black101:

# ? Jan 30, 2015 17:41

Bold Robot: Jan 6, 2009; Be brave.

I haven't been following the development of this at all since I kickstarted it like... 2-3 years ago now? Is this game looking any good? The whole Early Access/Public Beta thing makes me pretty skeptical.

# ? Jan 31, 2015 15:46

Shoehead: Sep 28, 2005; Wassup, Choom?
Ya need sumthin'?

Bold Robot posted:

I haven't been following the development of this at all since I kickstarted it like... 2-3 years ago now? Is this game looking any good? The whole Early Access/Public Beta thing makes me pretty skeptical.

There's an Alpha release up on steam that looks pretty promising. It's very basic and unoptimised but the cars handle nicely and crunch really well. Basically we're waiting on more cars and tracks, a campaign mode and mutliplayer.
There's a few other features that they've planned that aren't in yet like splitting cars in two and paint damage.

Anyway give it a go!

# ? Jan 31, 2015 15:57

King Vidiot: Feb 17, 2007; You think you can take me at Satan's Hollow? Go 'head on!

Bold Robot posted:

I haven't been following the development of this at all since I kickstarted it like... 2-3 years ago now? Is this game looking any good? The whole Early Access/Public Beta thing makes me pretty skeptical.

Yeah, it's pretty decent but you could watch the videos or even download and try it out yourself since you did pay money for it :v:

It's very much an alpha though, and the beta will probably be very much a beta. There are missing assets, certain cars not included/not implemented, the music (for now) is placeholder, the pedestrian killing feels pretty bloodless (literally, they just sort of gib), item placement is arbitrary and random because they're still feeling things out and experimenting. But the core gameplay feels fun even in its barely-finished state. Also the beta will probably be a lot better than the current alpha, which hasn't been updated since several months ago.

# ? Jan 31, 2015 16:13

DMorbid: Jan 6, 2011; Hello! I see you.

Bold Robot posted:

I haven't been following the development of this at all since I kickstarted it like... 2-3 years ago now? Is this game looking any good? The whole Early Access/Public Beta thing makes me pretty skeptical.

The pre-alpha we've been playing is pretty rough from a technical standpoint (you will not be getting steady framerates over 30fps unless you have a space robot computer from the year 2084) and only has a few cars and tracks, but I've still put 75 hours into it and had a ton of fun wrecking poo poo. The gameplay is 100% classic Carmageddon.

There was a period a few months ago when Stainless went into almost total radio silence and we stopped getting updated pre-alpha builds (apparently they had some pretty major issues with their in-house engine and then went through this huge crunch to get the game to alpha) and a lot of people were worried about the future of the development, but it seems like they've sorted everything out and are back on track. The beta looks to be feature complete, so it shouldn't take too long for them to get out of Early Access.

DMorbid fucked around with this message at 16:15 on Jan 31, 2015

# ? Jan 31, 2015 16:13

Rush Limbo: Sep 5, 2005; its with a full house

The alpha is very, very bare bones and poorly optimized. I guess internally they've got way more progress done, but this release is the first major update for a while.

# ? Jan 31, 2015 16:15

cthulhoo: Jun 18, 2012

I liked the alpha even though it ran at like 10 fps on my otherwise alright PC.

# ? Jan 31, 2015 16:17

Anime_Otaku: Dec 6, 2009

I've been watching this on and off, I don't have a PC so I was glad to hear that there is a Console version coming in the future, I wish they'd put Carma 2 on iPad, I have the first game and it's tons of fun even with touch controls.

# ? Jan 31, 2015 16:30

KingsPawn: May 23, 2006; E4!

Oh yeah! Carmageddon is back and I've got a reason to play chicken again. So stoked about the release on V-day. Hmm...maybe I should get my girlfriend a copy so we can go on a nostalgia trip.

# ? Jan 31, 2015 16:55

DMorbid: Jan 6, 2011; Hello! I see you.

Nobby is going to be showing off the new beta on the http://www.twitch.tv/carmageddon stream at 6pm GMT. (2 hours and 20 minutes from now)

# ? Feb 11, 2015 16:42

King Vidiot: Feb 17, 2007; You think you can take me at Satan's Hollow? Go 'head on!

Doc Morbid posted:

Nobby is going to be showing off the new beta on the http://www.twitch.tv/carmageddon stream at 6pm GMT. (2 hours and 20 minutes from now)

This is actually looking like a real game now, can't wait until Saturday

# ? Feb 11, 2015 19:38

DMorbid: Jan 6, 2011; Hello! I see you.

The new build is looking pretty great. I was wrong about car splitting earlier (I could swear I saw the Siamese Dream get sliced in half in the trailer), but what is there seems good. Lots of new cars, powerups, and environments (even if we only saw a couple of maps on the stream), better graphics/performance, car customization (paintjobs, rims, performance upgrades), multiplayer with eight players, career mode... yep, looking like a proper Carmageddon game now. Can't wait to spend Valentine's Day drinking way too much beer and playing this. :getin:

# ? Feb 11, 2015 20:12

King Vidiot: Feb 17, 2007; You think you can take me at Satan's Hollow? Go 'head on!

I think the highlight for me was Nobby getting the Wall Climber ability which let him drive on the tunnel ceiling (properly, with camera sticking close to him with relative perspective) and then an opponent actually picking up the Jupiter Gravity power-up that dropped him on his rear end.

# ? Feb 11, 2015 20:27

cthulhoo: Jun 18, 2012

How's optimization on the latest build?

e: im dumb

cthulhoo fucked around with this message at 14:44 on Feb 12, 2015

# ? Feb 12, 2015 13:25

Stentorian Hoot: Jun 14, 2001; Couldn't get it up...

Doc Morbid posted:

Nobby is going to be showing off the new beta on the http://www.twitch.tv/carmageddon stream at 6pm GMT. (2 hours and 20 minutes from now)

Who was the fat goon with a hoagie in his shirt pocket?

# ? Feb 12, 2015 14:11

TheCoach: Mar 11, 2014

Countdown to release

EDIT:

YES

TheCoach fucked around with this message at 13:19 on Feb 14, 2015

# ? Feb 14, 2015 05:32

Stentorian Hoot: Jun 14, 2001; Couldn't get it up...

Is it me or does this game run pretty rough performance wise? I have a pretty decent setup but I had to turn down a lot of settings to get this to run decently.

# ? Feb 14, 2015 15:12

Mokinokaro: Sep 11, 2001; At the end of everything, hold onto anything; Fun Shoe

Stentorian Hoot posted:

Is it me or does this game run pretty rough performance wise? I have a pretty decent setup but I had to turn down a lot of settings to get this to run decently.

They still have optimization issues? Guess I won't bother downloading it then.

The alpha was barely playable on minimal settings.

# ? Feb 14, 2015 15:17

Delerion: Sep 8, 2008; unf unf unf

It runs better than it did before for me, but still not nearly well enough.

It runs 20-30fps on a gtx760 but the graphics honestly aren't anything special at low-medium.

While i dont mind ~30fps on a slow-paced game i'd rather play a 'racing' game on 50fps minimum.

# ? Feb 14, 2015 16:47

Stentorian Hoot: Jun 14, 2001; Couldn't get it up...

Delerion posted:

It runs better than it did before for me, but still not nearly well enough.

It runs 20-30fps on a gtx760 but the graphics honestly aren't anything special at low-medium.

While i dont mind ~30fps on a slow-paced game i'd rather play a 'racing' game on 50fps minimum.

Sup 760 bro! I have a 760 SLI setup and an i7 and it runs like boiled poo poo. Once I turned some of the settings down it was playable and what I've played so far is a lot of fun.

# ? Feb 14, 2015 16:53

TheCoach: Mar 11, 2014

R9 270 here and game runs really well. I do see myself maxing it completely out when it goes full release and out of beta.

# ? Feb 14, 2015 17:00

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# ? Apr 25, 2024 06:52

Karrahad: Nov 4, 2010

I've got an i7 4790k and GTX 780, it runs around 35-60 fps maxed at 1920x1080. A major improvement over the 6 months old pre-alpha build.

# ? Feb 14, 2015 17:03

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