Path: chuka.playstation.co.uk!news From: Mark Green Newsgroups: scee.yaroze.freetalk.english Subject: Re: PSX2!!!!!!!!!! Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 13:51:29 +0100 Organization: PlayStation Net Yaroze (SCEE) Lines: 66 Message-ID: <37E62DD1.8E5D7E2C@reading.ac.uk> References: <37DE9588.D78D019B@which.net> <861zbujqt9.fsf@foo.mel.cybec.com.au> <37E5EEC1.2E841B28@easynet.co.uk> <37e608dc.6716292@www.netyaroze-europe.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ssfmse3.rdg.ac.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (WinNT; I) X-Accept-Language: en Nick Ferguson wrote: > >I agree. It seems that most of the people calling for NY2 have yet to produce > >anything for the project's first incarnation. > I agree absolutely. There are perhaps 10-15 current members (based on > public output) who would make enough use of a NY2 for it to be > worthwhile. BTW, if there's anyone out there clamouring for PS2 who > has yet to get to grips with even the basics of 3D on the Yaroze... > well, what makes you think PS2 will be any easier to write for? People who haven't produced much on the Yaroze may be perfectly able to understand it but simply not have made use of it yet. One of the big points of Yaroze coding for a while was to gain job experience.. well, now people know that by doing that coding they'll only be gaining experience in a platform that's about to be obsoleted. I don't think PS2 will be easier to learn to write for, not least because 3D engines are complicated things to deal with no matter how well the interface is designed. But I suspect that it'll take less code to do cooler things. (Also, what did you mean by "would make enough use of an NY2 for it to be worthwhile?" Worthwhile to who exactly? Sony? They don't seem to gain much by us writing stuff on Yarozes, apart from good PR. If all these people are clamouring for NY2s, that means Sony will get to sell a lot of them.. once they've sold them, they've still got the money, even if the user never even takes it out of the box.) > The exception would be if we got limited/cut-down access to > "middleware" programs like the MathEngine SDK (which I've been fooling > with under Windows and found refreshingly simple to get into). That > would be VERY interesting indeed, as it would remove a number of > barriers for those of us with limited knowledge of 3D physics/maths. I > think that the reality of NY development has been harder than everyone > thought it would be when they first joined - imagine if we'd had > physics / collision libraries as well as the 3D libs? (yes, I know the > PS CPU's slow speed would make "real" physics impossible, but I'm > talking about the principle). Hmm, what about AI libs, too? ;-) Collision libraries would have been very useful, but physics-like systems don't take much time to develop that I've seen. AI libs would probably be impractical because there's far too much choice in AI to deal with. > I guess the ultimate extension for this would be a drag-n-drop GUI > that allowed you to make almost any game? These already exist in the > form of those cheesy "Create your own Doom game - no programming > required!" books/CDs but I'm talking about something a bit more > powerful and more technical. Do you think that ultimately there will > be a big(ger) divide between the programming and the "creative"/design > aspect of game creation? Does this mean that programmers, ultimately, > will be stuck working out 3D / Math / Physics / Object / Logic > "libraries" and dev tools whilst the technically less proficient > "designers" get to have all the fun? I mean, even more so than the > case is today? ;-) It's starting to sound that way, but programming when unrestricted tends to generate neat ideas too. But I don't think it would be possible to make an interface, programming library, GUI or otherwise, that could create any game at will. > Some would say that development is getting increasingly technical, so > is the techie / design divide going to get even bigger? Will > programmers get increasingly removed from the "creative"/design > process? I think this is quite an interesting question - if a worrying > one. Personally I think even more worrying is the increase in games that aren't designed by designers, but by marketers..