Hopkins on 9/12/2002 at 18:46

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Starting with jumping: Arx has quite possibley the silliest jumping I've ever seen in a game. You seem to go up, then along, and then down in a tremendous jerk, that starts and finishes stationary. Despite its jerkiness, it's still faster than your normal running speed! So many games still make the mistake of having jumping *faster* than running. It amazes me. "Severence" also suffered from this. Counter Strike is the only game that springs to mind with a good jumping model. Why is this? Can someone please tell me what is so hard about making a good jumping model for a 3D game!

Climbing: Why have no first person games, except for those using the Dark Engine (and TUT, of course!), ever got climbing right? When I say "right", I admit that the Dark Engine's climbing is still fairly unrealistic, but it's the only engine in which you don't get that feeling of "oh, for god's sake, why can't I clamber up onto this 3 feet high ledge". I was trying to climb out of a river in Arx last night but I couldn't because the bank was at waist level. Grrrrr. I assume that by making player movement more restricted you can cut down on level development time... Am I being too cynical or is there a good reason for this?