Frikkinjerk on 16/6/2008 at 04:18
Why not use the Dark engine? System Shock 2 pretty much meets all the requirements necessary to do a remake.
Shadowcat on 17/6/2008 at 01:33
While I'm sure that the Dark Engine can indeed manage a great deal of the required behaviour, everyone knows it's a pig to work with, and you can guarantee that there are things it just won't do (how many branching conversations with NPCs do you recall having in Thief/SS2?), which makes the lack of source code a huge issue.
Elzair on 18/1/2011 at 01:41
Since Arcane just GPLed the source code to Arx Fatalis, would it be a suitable engine for a remake? I heard the two games were quite similar.
Volca on 18/1/2011 at 13:27
I think it should be considered a "sin" to start yet another rewrite if abysmal is in such good shape and waiting for talented coders :)
Albert on 18/1/2011 at 22:53
Well that's true. But seeing as the game has fallen to the wayside in modern times, and is not easily attainable these days in a legal form, I don't see why a absolute remake using a modern engine would be bad. ;)
And the Arx Fatalis engine would be perfect for a remake of Ultima Underground. :D
PS: Why does everyone go all cross-eyed and gush over the Doom 3 engine? It may be old, but it still demands a pretty good system. Why not use the Source engine? It's available for both PCs and macs, and works well through wine.
EDIT: Though maybe I'm just biased for the Source engine. To counter it's fairly low system requirements and fairly good graphics, it is rather clunky.
xorxif on 27/1/2011 at 02:20
The Arx Fatalis Engine (especially in light of the fact that it is now open source,) would be the absolute best choice all around because it was designed originally to be the third ultima underworld game. It also can run even on older OSes, so people with older computers would be able to play it. It is really disappointing when a really great fan project can't be run because your computer is too old.
I've looked extensively at all of the various ports of Ultima Underworld, including the PocketPC version and most recently the PSX version. The full screen view in the PSX version with the small bits of the interface around really enhances the experience.
For a remake, I can't help wondering if it can be taken a step further...
In looking at all the ports and taking mental notes on things like item placement, item properties, event triggers, and such, I think it would be a GREAT thing to create not just a remake, but an editor that lets users create their own dungeons, items, monsters, spells, etc. based on properties of those things from the original game.
I know several fan projects of this type have been made for several games already, such as Zelda Classic for The Legend of Zelda series, rom editors for various console games such as the Metroid series, and so forth.
Has anyone done any design work or outlines for this lately?
twisty on 28/1/2011 at 11:21
Quote Posted by xorxif
The Arx Fatalis Engine (especially in light of the fact that it is now open source,) would be the absolute best choice all around because it was designed originally to be the third ultima underworld game...
...I think it would be a GREAT thing to create not just a remake, but an editor that lets users create their own dungeons, items, monsters, spells, etc. based on properties of those things from the original game...
By all accounts, creating a decent editor is an enormous task in itself and is why I asked Digi if Arkane were able to release their tools as well as the source code. If we take into consideration all of the failed UW remakes over the years and the reasons for it, as succinctly stated by Al_B, then I'm sure that a successful remake would be that much more feasible if dedicated modders were left to spending most of their energy modernising and remaking assets such as textures, maps and character models rather than coding core engine mechanics from scratch. Granted, a lot of coding to do with the UI and other features would still have to be heavily modified though.
Kethoth on 29/12/2012 at 13:30
Doom 3 engine is terrible for fantasy games, it is not suitable to create proper athmosphere. See The Dark Mod. And I think Ultima Underworld has perfect graphics and doesn't need a remake, except the interface.
twisty on 3/1/2013 at 08:07
Creating atmosphere is more of a design challenge rather than an engine restriction, and I don't believe that Doom 3 has anything in it's make-up that would restrict capable designers with the right tools and assets from implementing atmospheric scenes.
As previously mentioned in this thread, the real challenge would be to implement all the core engine game stuff.
Kethoth on 4/1/2013 at 07:44
Quote Posted by twisty
Creating atmosphere is more of a design challenge rather than an engine restriction, and I don't believe that Doom 3 has anything in it's make-up that would restrict capable designers with the right tools and assets from implementing atmospheric scenes.
It usually does unless modders are very hardworking and are going to remake everything. They usually depend on some graphical stuff that is already made in the engine, like textures and models. Next thing are features that are hard to modify, and this is stuff like color palettes, texturing techniques (plastic bump mapping) and lighting ambiences. We could just look at the games made on Doom 3 engine, they all look similiar, especially early titles on it were lazy to modify it. Artists in Wolfenstein (2009) tried really hard to make something out of it, and had much talent, which resulted in quite nice game, but still much of the athmosphere is characteristic, for example dark and gritty textures, color pallettes and lighting. And they probably modified the code a lot. It still doesn't suit series feel set by Wolf3D and Return to Castle Wolfenstein.
