"Prey" is coming

[Phait]

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=5249



CNN Money is reporting that Prey, a first-person shooter from 3D Realms that was originally announced in late 1996, and long thought cancelled, will be one of the major new products revealed at next month's E3 Expo in Los Angeles. Prey, which originally starred "Talon Brave, a Native American, out to battle races of aliens", is allegedly being developed for 3D Realms by a third party using the Doom 3 engine, and will perhaps be published by Take-Two, although there is no official confirmation of this yet. However, the Id-approved, Raven-developed Quake IV, which also uses the Doom 3 engine, is officially confirmed to make an appearance at E3.




I'm surprised, I thought 3DR had become nothing, or bankrupt... something.

[Fat John]

What's the name of that thing when you miss the popular thing that everyone has had? Cause that's what this is.

[Warmaster129]

Remember when about 10^18 sites announced that DNF was using the Doom 3 engine?

If the news isn't from 3DR, it's probably bullshit.

[FireFly]

In this case, the news is from 3DR.

[Cerberus_e]

recently I have read something, but I'm too lazy to create a new thread for it:
Prey is in development. look: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=5249

so am I the first? http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Kev_Hectic]

There's a whole thread about this right here (http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=dnf&Number=814324&page=0&fpart=19)... actually there's been multiple threads about this news all over these forums.

[Hudson]

Kev_Hectic said:
There's a whole thread about this right here (http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=dnf&Number=814324&page=0&fpart=19)... actually there's been multiple threads about this news all over these forums.



I was going to say the same thing.

[torso boy]

this is so hilarious, the thread comes up and starts going into prey, and it being at e3. Then CNN reports prey might be shown at e3. Then the discussion goes into prey being on the Doom3 engine, and this article mentions prey being on the doom3 engine.

The take2 space at e3 is most likely the human head game, Serious Sam 2, DNF.

Don't get your hopes up on prey...but there is a slight possibility.

[avatar_58]

Whats with all this prey talk anyway?

[Enragiated]

If 3dr has been focusing their time into this and not DNF I'm not going to be very happy.

[Kev_Hectic]

avatar_58 said:
Whats with all this prey talk anyway?



Joe made this comment on the front page,

"P.S. Keep your eyes open for the unveiling of our next game very soon. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif"

and now everyone thinks that it's going to be Prey.



Enragiated said:
If 3dr has been focusing their time into this and not DNF I'm not going to be very happy.



I'm pretty sure it's been said more then a couple times by George that this unannounced project of theirs isn't eating into any of DNF's development time. They're working with another developer in the same capacity that they did with Remedy on the Max Payne games.

[Lengis]

Kev_Hectic said:

avatar_58 said:
Whats with all this prey talk anyway?



Joe made this comment on the front page,

"P.S. Keep your eyes open for the unveiling of our next game very soon. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif"

and now everyone thinks that it's going to be Prey.
.




[/QUOTE]

They don't think it's Prey. They know it's Prey. It's been announced already.


>>>>>>If 3dr has been focusing their time into this and not DNF I'm not going to be very happy.

This is stupid. It's clearly stated that the game is being made by a THIRD party.

[Kev_Hectic]

Lengis said:

They don't think it's Prey. They know it's Prey. It's been announced already.





It was? And where was it announced?

[Rider]

Kev_Hectic said:

Lengis said:

They don't think it's Prey. They know it's Prey. It's been announced already.





It was? And where was it announced?



maybe privately? I dunno, I still think they picked most of their info from the hype thread on the DNF section...

[BioHazard]

For anyone that's interested here's an interesting timeline for the development of Prey. (http://atlas.secs.oakland.edu/~lcmatero/prey/history.htm)

[IHerman]

Kev_Hectic said:

Lengis said:

They don't think it's Prey. They know it's Prey. It's been announced already.





It was? And where was it announced?


Same here.

Why hasn't anyone posted a link/quote yet that confirms this. The 20 page thread in the DNF Forum confirms NOTHING.

Give me something directly from 3DR, and not some BS article that's no more than speculation.

The quote Joe made on the home page was made on April 1st by the way. That and the added http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif don't make it sound very convincing.

I believe that once again speculation has resulted in a lot of uexcited people for no reason. It's interesting, but I consider it total BS unless someone posts a link to a comment made by 3DR directly.

Untill now the only "proof" there is, is the fact that 3DRealms purchased prey.com, but that doesn't say much.

[FireFly]

Nothing has been officially announced. However, Charlie's question has only one answer. It's most definitely not April Fools because of the PMs some people have been receiving, notably to one member who was banned for complaining that it wasn't DNF.

We get the hint, Charlie mentions that a pre-Duke 3D 3DR fan predicted they'd be doing this a long time ago. Lon Matero is the only well known long time 3DR fan, and guess what he predicted? (http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=apogee&Number=804683&#Post804683)

Independently, there have been several rumours that Human Head's unannounced game is Prey. Scott Miller later said that 3DR is working with an outside studio, in the same way they previously worked with Remedy, and that the game will be announced in 2004.

"H@LY S#!T!!

That's what you would be saying if we could show you the dozen characters with normal maps that we created for Human Head Studio's undisclosed project. We are incredibly proud of this work, and we are eager to share samples. Check back around E3 2005!" says Liquid Entertainment (http://www.liquidentertainment.com)

Then as you know, last year, 3DR bought Prey.com, a name which was selling for 850,000.

And then out of the blue we get the CNN article, citing several inside sources.

[KaiserSoze]

also, why would out of the clear blue sky joe just happen to make a thread asking about lon mantero's site?

[Rider]

KaiserSoze said:

also, why would out of the clear blue sky joe just happen to make a thread asking about lon mantero's site?



more fuel for the conspiracy machine http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[PlayfulPuppy]

IHerman said:
Give me something directly from 3DR, and not some BS article that's no more than speculation.




Read the last section on the page posted earlier in this thread (Where it talks about Human Heads activities).

I remember a lot of that stuff happening and not thinking that much about it at the time, but you've got to admit that there's a million-to-one chance that it's all merely coincidental.

It may not be Prey, but Human Head and 3DR definetly have something cooking.

And, 3DR are going to keep mum about this until E3, naturally, even if it's been guessed bang on the head. Which might be a bit disappointing for some, as if it is what we think it is, we've ruined the suprise. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

[Sayantan]

phait said:
"Prey" is coming



/me faints on the ground in surprise. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif
3drealms, you bastard, why didn't you guys tell us earlier. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/hhg.gif http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/doh.gif

Edit: Just a guess but ...................... Can the so-called third party developer by any means be RMD? They are also working on something unknown
*Oh god .... I love dreaming .............. But hey , god gave me the brain to do that too* http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Kristian Joensen]

Actually it's rumored to be Human Head Studios.

Remedy is unlikely because they know are financially independent thanks to 3D Realms.

[Night Hacker]

Sayantan said:
3drealms, you bastard, why didn't you guys tell us earlier. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/hhg.gif http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/doh.gif




Gee, I wonder. With all the BS they have put up with over DNF over the years, I don't think it's any surprise that they've kept their mouth shut about this.

Smart move on their part as far as I'm concerned.

[Claws]

What did anyone know about Prey really? How much of the game was conceived? What did 3DR demonstrate other than some tech video back in the day?

Prey wasn't much more than a bucket of hype surrounding some -now obsolete- tech.

Now we have a totally different company, designing a game which is totally unrelated to that tech (D3 engine), hence totally unrelated to that original game since the tech was all that was revealed about it in the first place. BUT it will be called Prey so naturally everyone has to orgasm from digital masturbation.

[Mountain Man]

My thoughts exactly. Prey was originally conceived to showcase new technology. The game concept was rudimentary at best as much of work at the time was put into the engine.

[Kristian Joensen]

Claws said:
Now we have a totally different company,



Here you are ignoring 3D Realms's extensive role, in Prey. Wich according to the rumors even was started as a inhouse game.


Claws said:
designing a game which is totally unrelated to that tech (D3 engine),



Here you are just guessing, you are assuming that they don't reuse any of the old tech. There is nothing stopping them from doing extensive modifications to the Doom 3 engine, even rewritting many sub systems like they have done with the Unreal Engine in DNF.


Claws said: hence totally unrelated to that original game since the tech was all that was revealed about it in the first place.



This is nothing more than conjecture, I bet that they will include some of the original tech from Prey, there is no doubt about that.


Claws said:
BUT it will be called Prey so naturally everyone has to orgasm from digital masturbation.



I doubt it 3D Realms would use the name Prey if it has nothing to do with thier original visions for Prey.

[Lengis]

Night Hacker said:

Sayantan said:
3drealms, you bastard, why didn't you guys tell us earlier. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/hhg.gif http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/doh.gif




Gee, I wonder. With all the BS they have put up with over DNF over the years, I don't think it's any surprise that they've kept their mouth shut about this.

Smart move on their part as far as I'm concerned.



It is? The news is out anyway, so someone talked. The fact remains that they announced a new game before they even completed DNF, so no it wasn't a smart move on their part.

[Kristian Joensen]

First Prey is not annouced yet. Second, what has giving info about Prey got to do with DNF ?

It is 3D Realms's policy to annouce games about 6 months before release, that is what they will be doing in this case.

If the game will be annouced next month it is becuase its close to be released. They can't delay their 3rd party games until DNF is done, that would be stupid.

[Claws]

Kristian Joensen said:

Claws said:
Now we have a totally different company,



Here you are ignoring 3D Realms's extensive role, in Prey. Wich according to the rumors even was started as a inhouse game.



Ok I'll bite. Here you are going by rumors, which rumors? I don't know. Whatever role 3DR has, they are not the developers.



Claws said:
designing a game which is totally unrelated to that tech (D3 engine),



Here you are just guessing, you are assuming that they don't reuse any of the old tech. There is nothing stopping them from doing extensive modifications to the Doom 3 engine, even rewritting many sub systems like they have done with the Unreal Engine in DNF.



Indeed there is nothing stopping them from modifying the D3 engine to have *gasp* PORTAL TECHNOLOGY! WOW! It's obsolete man. Been done before. Nothing special about it.



Claws said: hence totally unrelated to that original game since the tech was all that was revealed about it in the first place.



This is nothing more than conjecture, I bet that they will include some of the original tech from Prey, there is no doubt about that.



Again, what is there to include? Portal technology? That was all they showed after all.



Claws said:
BUT it will be called Prey so naturally everyone has to orgasm from digital masturbation.



I doubt it 3D Realms would use the name Prey if it has nothing to do with thier original visions for Prey.



Unless Prey was never really developed past that tech demo before it got shelved.

Perhaps by splitting my post into small sections you failed to comprehend my main point: You never knew anything about Prey besides a tech demo, shortly after that tech demo it got shelved.

All this new game has in common with the old 3DR Prey is the name, simply because that was all there was to the old Prey.

[Kristian Joensen]

You don't know that.


Edited:

Oh, and the kind of portal techonology they showed off in Prey has never been seen since or before.

What matters most anyway is that the game good and hopefully great not the name or the games connection with a old project.

[Duoae]

Here you are ignoring 3D Realms's extensive role, in Prey. Wich according to the rumors even was started as a inhouse game.




Ok I'll bite. Here you are going by rumors, which rumors? I don't know. Whatever role 3DR has, they are not the developers.




Erm... those aren't rumours. Besides, Prey is the brainchild of 3DR, they would not lose "artistic" control of one of their projects.

[Vexed]

PORTAL TECHNOLOGY! WOW! It's obsolete man. Been done before. Nothing special about it.


When?

[Gryph]

I think Red Faction used portal technology. But nothing has used portals to the extent the Prey tech video showed.

[Ronald McDonald]

If you don't like 3DRealms' involvement in games than why do you come to these forums?

[Warmaster129]

"Portal Technology" is old. Old, old, old. Every modern engine has it. But don't mix it up with "Dynamic Portal Technology", which is what Prey has. Dynamic Portal Technology has never (IIRC) been done before, and is completely awesome.

[yossa]

And impossible to base an engine on.

According to William Scarboro it caused (among other things):

spatial discontinuities
bad collision detection through portals
sound problems
problems with rendering characters moving across portals

[Kristian Joensen]

Maybe they solved those problem ?

[Sayantan]

Or maybe they dumped this dynamic portal ideology. They might just be making Prey based on the original story, and not based on the original Prey technology.
*Satan keeps his fingers crossed*

[Kristian Joensen]

Or maybe they solved some of the problem and they aren't using it in a way to cause the others.

[Ronald McDonald]

I don't know what to expect from with on the D3 engine.

But the D3 engine looks p00 to me IMO.
I hope they changed te engine enough to be atleast brighter, higher res textured and more colourfull than D3 is http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tinyted.gif

[Kristian Joensen]

Well 3D Realms have written their own renderer, ligthing system and animation system for DNF, so I am pretty sure they will do similar things with the Doom 3 engine to the extent they are necessary.

[Ronald McDonald]

We know for a fact that Prey was worked on since 2002 according to Evil Avatar.

You think 3 years is enough to make the proper ajustments to the D3 engine AND make most of the content http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif

The content alone seems like 3 years of work to me http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif

[Kristian Joensen]

Are you sure about that ?

Isn't just that Evil Avatars rumor is from 2002 ?

You also have to remeber that when they annouce it, it will be something like 6 months or more from release.

I also thing development will be faster becuase of all the year peviously worked on the project before putting it on hold.

Their are probaply lots of concepts and ideas that they can impement.

They could also bring some levels back, they could base character models on earlier character models, and so on.

[Ronald McDonald]

Kristian Joensen said:
Are you sure about that ?

Isn't just that Evil Avatars rumor is from 2002 ?

You also have to remeber that when they annouce it, it will be something like 6 months or more from release.

I also thing development will be faster becuase of all the year peviously worked on the project before putting it on hold.

Their are probaply lots of concepts and ideas that they can impement.

They could also bring some levels back, they could base character models on earlier character models, and so on.



So you think they've been working on it since before 2002 or after?

And yes I allready assumed the game would be released atleast this year. I'm also assuming that the content on DNF will take 3 years.
They've restarted contentwise since early 2003 so my prediction is DNF summer 2006 or x-mas 2006 http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Kristian Joensen]

Since maybe before 2002 or atleast earlier on the year than the Evil Avatar rumor.

Maybe 3D Realms started on in internaly mid/late 2001 and handled it over to Human Head Studios early/mid 2002.

You also have to remember that content creation and engine programming can be done in parallel.

[yossa]

Kristian Joensen said:
Maybe they solved those problem ?


Highly unlikely - if 3DR had the programmers able to make the idea of dynamic portals possible, they'd be as able to fix the problems - IF it was achievable.

Slightly off topic: I actually created a DM level which made extensive use of Unreal Engine's warp zones (static portals) feature for the original UT. Each corridor was actually a dead end connected with another dead end corridor in a diferent area of a map, while at the same time looking like a normal corridor (I feel silly explaining it, but it WAS cool). Basically you were seamlessly teleported to another place in a map each time you reached the dead end. It was a cool trick, but it had it's problems due to the limitations of Unreal Engine.

[Kristian Joensen]

yossa said:

Kristian Joensen said:
Maybe they solved those problem ?


Highly unlikely - if 3DR had the programmers able to make the idea of dynamic portals possible, they'd be as able to fix the problems - IF it was achievable.



If anybody has the programmers its 3D Realms.

[X-Vector]

If anybody has seen programmers come and go it's 3D Realms.

Anyway, this is a third party project now, so I'd expect the programming work to be handled by Human Head personnel.

[Kristian Joensen]

According to rumors and consistent with a quote of Scott Miller, 3D Realms started work inhouse on the game.

[X-Vector]

I'm assuming you're not referring to Prey's beginning in the mid-nineties?

Regardless, 3DR's has started lots of things, but it's the status quo that matters.

[Kristian Joensen]

X-Vector said:
I'm assuming you're not referring to Prey's beginning in the mid-nineties?



Nope, I am refering to now

X-Vector said:
Regardless, 3DR's has started lots of things, but it's the status quo that matters.



What is this supposed to meen ?

[X-Vector]

It means that only the current status of the project is of importance.
If indeed Human Head is working on the game now, it's Human Head that handles the programming chores, not 3DR.

I'd expect the situation to be similar to that of Max Payne and DN: Manhattan Project, where Remedy and Sunstorm respectively were responsible for development (and SCS for the original engine in DN:MP).
So whatever technical prowess 3DR possesses in your view, it would be pretty academic in the case of Prey.

[Kristian Joensen]

Not if it(Prey) contains significant amounts of 3DR code. As I stated 3D Realms started the development and Human Head contiued from their using 3DR's stuff.

That is what the rumor is about, Scott Miller has said that they have worked like that on one of their 3rd party games.

[X-Vector]

Even if that is true, one look at the history of development of DNF should tell you that gaming engine technology is work in progress.
Problems often start to rear their heads only in content creation (partly because during content creation additional requirements to the development code/tools become apparent and previously overlooked or underestimated drawbacks turn into roadblocks).

[Kristian Joensen]

Their is now law wich states that all of 3D Realms's projects should run into the same problems as they have with DNF.

Edited:

DNF is no typical project, besides Prey has already had it fair share of problems, they have most definetly learned alot of things the hard way through the long time Prey was in evelopent previoulsy, plus they have also learned through DNF alot of things to not do.

They have also learned with regards to 3rd party development from thier work with Remedy on Max Payne and Max Payne 2.

[X-Vector]

Prey already ran into the problem in its earlier indication, n'est-ce pas?

That's besides the point however, DNF and 90's Prey are merely examples, my argument is a general one.
The idea that any company can sprinkle some magical engine code dust on a project, curing past and potential stumbling blocks and pass it off to a third party with guaranteed success is rather naive IMO.

[lonestar]

when this thread got opened about joe's interesting comment on the frontpage, we should have put it in this forum in the first place, cause it was pretty clear it wouldn't be dnf, he was talking about.


@ronald

you wrote on the first page, 3 years wouldn't be enough for d3 engine upgrade and content creation. i don't think so. it's a pretty long time, remember, they didn't need to write it all from scratch (if this published stuff is indeed true). d3 engine is already there to build on it. that's a huge benefit concerning time consumption.

on the other hand, they have to get familiar with this not in-house engine.

[Kristian Joensen]

I didn't say they had guranteed succes.

Mainly, I think 3D Realms has solved their internal problems wich have delayed DNF and got Prey "canned(officially put on hold) the first time around.

They have hired alot of team members especially programmers. I see this as attempt to try if they can extend their solutions to Prey, partly by delegating it to Human Head Studios.

[Ronald McDonald]

How did you get so anti-3DR biased http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif

Don't recall you being so negative about 3DR http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif

[Duoae]

Warmaster129 said:
"Portal Technology" is old. Old, old, old. Every modern engine has it. But don't mix it up with "Dynamic Portal Technology", which is what Prey has. Dynamic Portal Technology has never (IIRC) been done before, and is completely awesome.



I wish people didn't get confused with these things.

A "Portal engine" is the rendering method used in the engine. It is an alternative to BSP. Many BSP-based engines (like the Doom 3 engine) have had half-portal techniques since the mid-late 90's. So you are partially true. Every modern engine uses a part of portal engine technology - culling and clipping of unseen geometry and effects.
The reason prey used the term "dynamic" portal technology was because it was a spin on the scientific terms. Ie. The actual portals that people walk through in game, they could be created when and wherever you wanted. I wish that 3DR had never called their portals, "portals".

For example: Area portals, Dynamic scene graph (DSG) technology and other types of vis-portal systems are all portal engine inspired code, ripped from the premise behind a portal engine and applied to the more rigid BSP engine system.

As far as i know, "portal technology" as you call it has never been achieved in any game before or since Prey (and maybe not even in that game properly). The "portals" (i prefer to call them gates, to avoid confusion) were not like the teleporters seen in other games, at least not from what i could see in the videos. They were more like physical doors in the 3-dimensional space in the game - the perfect example (i like to think) is of Quantum Leap. The character Al, constantly walks into the viewing room through that Door which slides up and down. It is a physical attachment to the 3-dimensional space (even if it is all a hologram) rather than a teleporter with a visual display from a camera at the destination.

In principle, both get the same job done, however you cannot physically interact with a teleporter - no gun can be fired through unless specifically allowed. With a "portal" there is no allowance needed because there literally is no space between the start- and end-point a physical continuation of "level space" is acheived... and for this reason it has been referred to as a 4-dimensional engine....

However, i may be wrong in some of my assumptions. Nobody is perfect.

[Lengis]

>>>>>>It is 3D Realms's policy to annouce games about 6 months before release, that is what they will be doing in this case.

It is? Gee, I would have sworn they announced DNF about 9 years before it's release.

[Rider]

it wasn't intended to take another 9 years...

but ofcourse, you already know that http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[Kristian Joensen]

Lengis said:
>>>>>>It is 3D Realms's policy to annouce games about 6 months before release, that is what they will be doing in this case.

It is? Gee, I would have sworn they announced DNF about 9 years before it's release.



They have learned from that experience. They won't be doing that ever again.

[Lengis]

About this portal tech,


You guys realize that the reason why it hasn't shown up in other games is because it's not that big of a deal anymore right? Yay, I can see a person on the other side of a portal, and I can shoot him. Who cares? Nobody bothered to play around with that tech because it's as useless as the standing taller feature in Ken's Labyrinth.


Another thing, what is the damn point of modifiying engines to include new features? I like epic's method of marketing their engines. Here's what we have for UE3, go have fun with it, it has everything you would want to make a great game.


If you want your engine to have unique features, make it from the ground up! 3DRealms made the mistake of trying to "add" new features to the Unreal Engine, and they wound up redoing nearly all the code. So what was the damn point in the first place? It didn't save any time at all, it actually contributed to the development time greatly.

[Kristian Joensen]

You clearly have not seen the E3 1998 video of Prey.

Edited:

I am also sick and tired of people prejudgeing this incarnation of Prey based on their dislike of the what was showen of the Prey in the 90's.

Judge this game on its own merits, wich you so far know nothing about.

Edit 2:

I found this (http://www.crus.com/software/previews/prey.html) great article.

To me it proves that Prey was more than portal technology.

[Lengis]

No one doubted just how ambitious Prey was back then. Back then, it's visuals were amazing, probably exceeding Unreal's. Problem is, that was it's major selling point, which isn't an issue anymore.

[Yenz]

The ultimate thing in "the goodie" folder on the prey disc would be a copy of the old version of Prey http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/love.gif (what they had then).
http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/love.gif Please George & Scott http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/love.gif



Kristian Joensen said:I found this (http://www.crus.com/software/previews/prey.html) great article.


One of the best articles about Prey http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Rider]

Yenz said:
The ultimate thing in "the goodie" folder on the prey disc would be a copy of the old version of Prey http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/love.gif (what they had then).
http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/love.gif Please George & Scott http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/love.gif



LamePrey on the official CD http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif I'd buy that for sure...

I really hope it's Prey, I can't wait to get my hands on that one http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Kristian Joensen]

Lengis said:
No one doubted just how ambitious Prey was back then. Back then, it's visuals were amazing, probably exceeding Unreal's. Problem is, that was it's major selling point, which isn't an issue anymore.



No it wasn't, plus it wouln't matter since is has no bearing on the qualities of this new Prey.

[Duoae]

It'd be nice if the Collector's version of Prey came with a "featurette" about the making of Prey and - inlcuding the E3 videos and a documentary style commentary by George and anyone else who was invovled. Maybe also some stuff from Liquid development as well - showing off the evolution of the models they made for the game...

[Kristian Joensen]

That would be great, I also like the idea of a LamePrey. But I am afraid that it just isn't gonna happen.

I have also been thinking about the engine, is it somehow impossible to combine dynamic portals(as opposed to static) with BSP ?

If so, why ?

[Duoae]

Kristian Joensen said:
That would be great, I also like the idea of a LamePrey. But I am afraid that it just isn't gonna happen.

I have also been thinking about the engine, is it somehow impossible to combine dynamic portals(as opposed to static) with BSP ?

If so, why ?



Well, at first you could have static cameras and teleporters..... then you had moveable (dynamic) cameras - DN3D, HL2... then moveable teleporters - UT...

A work around on the actual "portal" system in Prey could be to have simple teleporters that can be generated "on the fly" with a camera object at the destination and visual surface at the start-point....

A combination of UT's teleporter thingies (wth are they called?) and a camera object..... like in the guidable UT nuke weapon. So a mobile spawn entity (that's not character specific) and a mobile camera attached to the objects. I'm not sure if this is along the lines of what was done in the Prey engine to start with.... i'd need to be told or see source code. But from all i've seen it would suggest that this is not the simple case.

Come to think of it, i've never even seen dynamic generation of camera entities. The only cameras i've seen in games have been there from the start and the entities all linked up. Not that this should be a hard thing to do, they would have to be an object like a weapon/mine/crate or something....

[Kristian Joensen]

Your conlcusion would be ?

What could be made with the system you envision ?

[lonestar]

george said, all the old dnf material is gone, i think this goes for prey more than ever.

[Kristian Joensen]

Actually George has confirmed some things in like Las Vegas.

[lonestar]

he said, they still got some content from dnf based on what engine? i doubt that...

[Kristian Joensen]

The Unreal Engine, ofcourse. DNF is still DNF, and I am sure Prey is still Prey.

[Night Hacker]

Lengis said:

Night Hacker said:

Sayantan said:
3drealms, you bastard, why didn't you guys tell us earlier. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/hhg.gif http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/doh.gif




Gee, I wonder. With all the BS they have put up with over DNF over the years, I don't think it's any surprise that they've kept their mouth shut about this.

Smart move on their part as far as I'm concerned.



It is? The news is out anyway, so someone talked. The fact remains that they announced a new game before they even completed DNF, so no it wasn't a smart move on their part.



That's not news, it's speculation.

The fact remains is that they haven't announced anything yet! heheh

IF Prey is being developed by a third party and IF it is going to be annouced at E3 this won't be a surprise to me, it seems like standard 3DRealms buisness practise. The same way they have treated Max Payne 1, Duke Nukem Manhatten Project and Max Payne 2 to name but a few... this is nothing out of the ordinary as far as I'm concerned.

[Duoae]

Kristian Joensen said:
Your conlcusion would be ?

What could be made with the system you envision ?



I think it is "easy" to incorporate moveable/deployable teleporters..... but not sure about the actual engine idiosyncrasies of having a physical connection rather than a teleporter entity. I'm not a programmer.

With the system i stated above? Well, i guess it'll look the same or similar, it just won't be programmed the same or have the same physical properties that a "4-D" engines portals would/do.

[Kristian Joensen]

What do you mean by physical properties ?

Would you be able to duplicate all, some or none of the Prey E3 1998 Infinite Mhz interview ?

If the answers is some, then wich ones ?

[Duoae]

Kristian Joensen said:
What do you mean by physical properties ?




As far as i can tell from the videos, Prey used portal technology to physically link different parts of the 3-dimensional space of the levels. (Hence the reason they called it a 4-Dimensional engine) Imagine, if you will, a sci-fi way of desrcribing it. It was like a rift in space, linking planet X with Earth, London, 43 Mildew terrace. There is nothing behind the "anomaly", but the rift is able to be seen from the front.

"Portals are holes in space - connecting different geometric areas"

ie. Not teleporters in the normal, classic sense.



Would you be able to duplicate all, some or none of the Prey E3 1998 Infinite Mhz interview ?

If the answers is some, then wich ones ?



I wouldn't be able to duplicate any of the E3 1998 effects.

However, as i already said, you can have a camera (like in HL2) for viewing stuff - and the display can easily be set to be one-sided and transparent on the reverse. It also can easily be set so that when you turn the "viewing pane" upside down that the view will be affected accordingly.

Creating "dynamic portals" is "easy" as well - as i said, you could combine the teleporting tech of Q3 or UT with the camera and view pane thingies and apply it to a dropable mine. But making a physical rip in space between the two is beyond (AFAIK) what BSP base engines can do - that's if i'm interpreting the 4-dimensional thing correctly and it wasn't just spin-talk. Looking at the videos, they produce something much smoother and dynamic than a teleporter, but i suppose that's what it might be. As i said, i'd need to look at code or be told either way which it is.

So i would say, yes. Prey tech is possible but maybe not in exactly the same way..... ie. no shooting through portals, or if there is, then it is a secondary calculation that takes position, direction and force into account when hitting the view plane and translates it to the portal's opposite number..... i think that may be less computationally expensive than having a 4-D physical rip in space.....

[lonestar]

Kristian Joensen said:
The Unreal Engine, ofcourse. DNF is still DNF, and I am sure Prey is still Prey.



there were also the quake2 engine, that's why i asked.

talking about story, typical duke gameplay elements, the characters, and what 3drealms wants to achieve in general with this game, i'm sure dnf hasn't been changed alot.

but it's still another experience to play it on the unreal than on 3drealms proprietary game engine. differences in movement, animations and graphics. and i'm sure, they made the decision to leave some maps behind to replace it with other levels, when they started over. reasons can be design aspects or the implementation of gameplay elements in a more apppropriate world. i'm sure, there were moments where they realised, it's better to doesn't make it the same way like we had done it before.

george said, they couldn't bring their ideas and visions to ingame-life, cause of unreal engine's limitations. they can now do things, which weren't possible before.

it would be really interesting to see, how it plays and looks, the good ol' dnf build. making a comparison between the final version of dnf and the old one.:)

[Kristian Joensen]

Have you guys seen the E3 demo of Prey from 1998(I am not talking about the IMHZ interview here) its really cool.

[Ronald McDonald]

You mean the trailer?

[Kristian Joensen]

Yes, you could call it that. If this version of the game is just 1% as cool as that, then the game development industry can shut down.

[lonestar]

it's obviously a trailer.

hm, shouldn't be too long anymore 'til the announcement..... http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Kristian Joensen]

I am really looking forward to this game. I can't wait till they annouce it and give us some info.

[Viper Knight]

Kristian Joensen said:
I am really looking forward to this game. I can't wait till they annouce it and give us some info.


I wouldn't get my hopes up just yet.

[Lengis]

I'm looking forward to the game too. When this game was first announced, I was looking forward to it more than DNF. Hell, the main reason why they didn't make their own engine for DNF, was cuz they didn't want it to directly compete with Prey. Prey was supposed to be the big fish with the original, state of the art Portal Engine. DNF was using the cruddy Q2 engine, remember.

Today, I gotta admit, I'm less enthusiatic about it, but the D3 engine is a fantastic engine, and I'm sure the game will be great.

[szevvy]

I'm just hoping that the developers at 3d realms don't discover World of Warcraft, or we can kiss progress goodbye for a few years http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Gryph]

szevvy said:
I'm just hoping that the developers at 3d realms don't discover World of Warcraft, or we can kiss progress goodbye for a few years http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif


They are already avid players. Well atleast George Broussard is.

[Viper Knight]

szevvy said:
I'm just hoping that the developers at 3d realms don't discover World of Warcraft, or we can kiss progress goodbye for a few years http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif


If Prey is being developed by a third party company like Human Head Studios, and 3D Realms is producing, 3D Realms won't hinder the development of it at all.

[Michelangelo]

god I hope so

[Kristian Joensen]

Viper Knight said:

szevvy said:
I'm just hoping that the developers at 3d realms don't discover World of Warcraft, or we can kiss progress goodbye for a few years http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif


If Prey is being developed by a third party company like Human Head Studios, and 3D Realms is producing, 3D Realms won't hinder the development of it at all.



3D Realms helped Remedy with the game design, that is kinda important.

[Viper Knight]

Kristian Joensen said:
3D Realms helped Remedy with the game design, that is kinda important.


No. It was very important. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif Max Payne would have probably been quite different without George & Scott's sage advice and input.

[Gabrobot]

I'd just like to point out that Doom 3 is actually not a BSP based engine. It's a portal based renderer and calculates visibility in real-time. (I got this info right from Brian Harris at id Software) From what I know of Doom 3 and Prey's portal technology I don't think Doom 3 works entirely like Prey, but it is real-time and implementing user created portals and so forth shouldn't require any major changes to the core engine. I think this may be one of the reasons why the Doom 3 engine was picked, because all the other major engines such as Quake 3, Unreal, Source, ect. are BSP based which wouldn't be capable of doing what Prey did with portals, as you've pointed out.

Besides portals, Doom 3's unified lighting makes it an excellent engine for heavily destructable enviroments. It also lets level designers render the level in real-time as they create it in the editor (the editor is incorporated into the engine)...this seems very much like Prey as well. I really think the Doom 3 engine is the perfect choice for Prey, and I can't wait to see what Prey's like now. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Parkar]

Interesting.

[Gryph]

Indeed, that's one of the more interesting things I've read in a while.

[Duoae]

As far as i know, Doom 3 is still a BSP engine. It's just that the Vis and Rad functions are done in real-time. The actual geometry is pre-calculated. I hate to tell you, but a portal-based renderer is not a portal engine. It is a BSP engine which uses portal-type calculations/algorithms to tell the engine what to draw and when. The BSP "tree" is still there. Basically an upgraded Quake 3 engine.... which is what the Doom 3 engine is.



With traditional BSP based games, such old Doom or any Quake based game, raw maps would go through 4 compile stages: CSG (texturing), BSP (geometry), VIS (visibily sets), and RAD (lighting). While Id staff confirmed that the relatively quick CSG and BSP processes will still have to be run, the lengthy VIS and RAD processes will actually occur real time. The game engine itself is integrated into the devlepment cycle, rather then act as a disctinct entity as with Half-Life or Quake 3 mapping. This new methodology will give content developers much closer to real-time feedback in developing environments, allowing for shorter compile times and faster tweaking of major gaming aspects such as lighting and sound design.

[8IronBob]

Kristian Joensen said:

Viper Knight said:

szevvy said:
I'm just hoping that the developers at 3d realms don't discover World of Warcraft, or we can kiss progress goodbye for a few years http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif


If Prey is being developed by a third party company like Human Head Studios, and 3D Realms is producing, 3D Realms won't hinder the development of it at all.



3D Realms helped Remedy with the game design, that is kinda important.



Yeah, but did 3DR help Arush and Sunstorm when it came to DN:MP? That's another big game that 3DR was trying to make big as a filler for DNF, or something. You would think that would've been big enough to get another company started with Prey, too, like that Human Head Studios. I mean, 3DR wants only top-notch games with their labels, and nothing less (like id Software did with RtCW and Raven's games, yeah right, Carmack's not the type of guy who wants as much quality as 3DR does). Well, hopefully things'll be great with that game, I'd love to see what it's gonna look like eventually...

[Crosma]

Lengis said:
You guys realize that the reason why it hasn't shown up in other games is because it's not that big of a deal anymore right?


No, it's because it's incredibly difficult to implement. If you're writing a typical shooter then it's a waste of development time.

[Lengis]

>>>>>>>If you're writing a typical shooter then it's a waste of development time.

Yes, it is. What significant advantage does portal tech offer to gameplay? It's more like a gimick than anything else.

[Joe Siegler]

Lengis said:
>>>>>>>If you're writing a typical shooter then it's a waste of development time.

Yes, it is. What significant advantage does portal tech offer to gameplay? It's more like a gimick than anything else.



Once again, as you haven't played any of this stuff, isn't it a bit out of your league for you to act like you're an expert on how it's implemented in any game? http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Lengis]

Joe3DR said:

Lengis said:
>>>>>>>If you're writing a typical shooter then it's a waste of development time.

Yes, it is. What significant advantage does portal tech offer to gameplay? It's more like a gimick than anything else.



Once again, as you haven't played any of this stuff, isn't it a bit out of your league for you to act like you're an expert on how it's implemented in any game? http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif



I dono, it depends on how it's used. For a single player game, I can't imagine it being very usefull. It might be kinda neat in a multiplayer deathmatch type game (even the guy in that old e3 video said that), but those kinda died out after Quake 3. Deathmatch was good enough back then, but people want more out of their FPS these days.

[Damien_Azreal]

If you havn't tried it, don't knock it.

Just because it doesn't seem like a good idea to you, doesn't mean it won't kick all sorts of ass.

[Steve]

***** me. Prey is back... http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif

[Kristian Joensen]

Yep and according to George it has been in development since late 2001. Plus, 3D Realms have a policy to not reveal games until about 6 months prior to release so except to see Prey soon.

[Steve]

Out of the blue for me. I didn't take much notice of the threads in other parts of the forum as it just looked like a load of bull crap. But, I was wrong. Prey! http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Iggy]

Steve said:
***** me. Prey is back... http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif



Hell no.

[Kristian Joensen]

Yes it is, this is the official Prey forum you are posting in.

[Steve]

Kristian Joensen said:
this is the official Prey forum you are posting in.


I gathered that. Nothing escapes you http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[Kristian Joensen]

I was replying to Iggy.

[Iggy]

Kristian Joensen said:
I was replying to Iggy.


Kristian, the first part of Steve's post. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[Kristian Joensen]

Ahh, I understand know http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/hhg.gif