Darkwind: War on Wheels, January progress report

It seemed changes that were put into Darkwind: War on Wheels since last month, were a good opportunity to promote our game again on gaming sites.
Such promotion has always a small but significant impact on players and registrations.
We are still looking for more permanent players, but we are also aware more will join once wilderness code will be integrated. Racing on looping tracks is quite fun at the moment - I personally regret I can't play more often -, but it may also be boring some people.

This is where my role as a track designer is important. I need to keep exploring new ideas, tricks and design to add variety and challenge. On the other hand, new players are requiring more simple and forgiving race tracks, until they acquire enough experience.

We are also looking to limit size of the graphical package, and have been considering using a unique terrain with different track configurations. So was born the Junkyard, a single terrain on which we set up 2 race tracks, an combat arena and a driving school. We could certainly have come with more, but we also need to limit ourselves, and keep ideas for next tracks!

The Junkyard is using 3 different environment lightings: clear time, dusk and thunder. You have not only 3 tracks, but also 3 atmospheres! Though, this may change soon, with dynamic weather integration.
Thunder is in real time and is really looking good. It is currently stock TGE 1.4.

Testers experienced many problems during the lighting phase with the new tracks and new lights - we are still looking to let low end machines running the game (ones with 32 megs of VRAM), and to avoid this, instead of distributing mission files and have the client processing the lighting phase, server is sending pre-lighted missions (.ml). It has fixed some issues and are happy with that solution, especially as there are no extra bandwith requirements.
Next step is to speed up the FPS by better using LOD. It sounds always weird to speak of FPS in a turn based game, but it's true: camera moves in real time!

As I wrote, above, I'm regretting not being able to play more often the game. Hopefully, I have the possibility to run my own events on the server to test tracks and behaviour of the AI.
Latest changes in the graphics are always looking new to my eyes, and I can't stop watching them. Game Extract's Fx Pack has really added so much to the game I can't resist posting a few images from one of the latest Junkyard's track in beta.
And we know you are all looking for pictures, aren't you? ;-)

By the time pictures were taken, some sceneries (objects) were missing.
Flame particles providing lighting will also be real time to avoid the blocky look they have here.





And to finish this blog, our talented community members came out with a new blazing story fitting the universe.
I'm expecting to illustrate it with some ingame footage at a later time.

Hold your breath, you are aboard a car racing in a deathrace!

Quote:

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Deathrace
By Matthew A DeBarth

As the car whipped around the tight corner, Kevin Taylor held the wheel tightly and hit the gas. The rear end got a bit loose - the tires skidded sideways before they finally gripped - and then the car shot forward again.

"They were right behind us when we went in to that turn, so be ready for them!" Taylor shouted to his gunner over the screaming engine.

Taylor shifted and started getting ready for the next couple of turns, which could be taken at high speed with the right line and could knock them out of the race with any one of a thousand wrong lines.

"Here they come!" the gunner, 'Joy' Hicks, shouted back. He said something else, but it was lost in a sudden burst of fire from the rear-facing machine gun. The car filled with the stench of gunpowder and hot metal. Taylor stole a quick glance in the cracked rear view and saw two Marleys come around the corner, with a Alpha flying through the air above them. He looked back at the track ahead of him before he could see if the Alpha was going to recover or not. He couldn't afford to be looking back now, or else he'd end up hitting one of the sucker jumps along the edge of the cliffs too.

A series of bullet impacts moved across the dirt off to the right of them, coming directly for the car. The shill scream of bullets passing through metal filled the car, and their own gun fell silent. Taylor glanced over and saw Hicks slumped against the passenger side door, not moving.

He swore and reached back over his shoulder to return fire. The hood of the car behind him sparked as bullets bounced off the thick slab of armour, and the driver stopped shooting and juked to avoid taking any more fire. Laughing, Taylor turned back to the track again...and swore loudly.

He was way off his line - far too tight on the inside wall. He tried to correct, but it was already too late. He hit the little ridge of rock that reached out into the track and jumped off it badly. The car tilted as it it flew through the air, landed hard on the passenger's side on just two tires, then rolled twice before slamming into the outside wall and coming to a rest on its roof at the edge of the track.

Taylor shook his head and looked around quickly. He already knew he was out of the race, but now he was worried about whether he was going to get out of this alive. He looked over and saw that there was a large pool of blood rapidly under the dangling body of 'Joy' Hicks - not a good sign.

The cars that had been following his rear bumper all race now trained their forward guns on him as they passed, and each one put a quick burst into his wrecked car before going back to shooting at each other again. Taylor used the muscles he'd built up by hours of sit-ups to pull his head and chest up into the protective body of the upside down car, and grabbed for the release on his seatbelt. Just five or ten seconds, and he could get out of the car and make a run for it. Until then, he curled up as small as he could as guns tore the car apart around him.

He glanced down through his armpit and watched as one of Joy's arms was tore off be gunfire. Joy didn't respond. Another bullet punched a gaping hole in Joy's skull, and Taylor looked away.

The pounding hail of heavy fire eased up and stopped, and Taylor pulled the release on his belt and fell to the ceiling in a heap. He looked through the jagged holes in the back armour and saw the recently airborne Alpha on the ground, out of control, and coming directly for him.

"Oh, shi--"

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edit: fixed image tags...