ARES X

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ARES X It returns...

#1 gavin83209

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Posted 23 February 2008 - 01:07 PM

Quote

To put it in Ares terms, the odds of it getting ported are about the same as a Gaitori Fighter beating a Cantharan Gateship in playful one-on-one combat...

...But it is still possible, correct? The right ship in the right hands can take out anything.

Now that I feel confident enough in my rudimentary skills in C++ and XCode/Project Builder, I feel I can finally post on this issue. If anybody ever looks at this board anymore, please post to see if we can do a port or sequel.

This post has been edited by gavin83209: 25 March 2008 - 06:12 PM

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"Reality doesn't care if you believe it." -Boba Fett

Ares X

#2 eveningtoast

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Posted 07 March 2008 - 11:03 PM

gavin83209, on Feb 23 2008, 12:07 PM, said:

Well, I was thinking about this recently as well. I don't have any coding experience really, but I do a lot with graphics and graphic design. I would totally be up for trying to make an Ares X. Let me know.

-Andrew

#3 gavin83209

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Posted 08 March 2008 - 12:34 PM

I didn't expect a post this soon (thought these boards were deserted). To be quite honest, graphics work scares me and I would need a person to help with that. Any and all help is appreciated.

"Examine all obstacles carefully. With a little ingenuity, they can often be turned into levers." -Grand Admiral Thrawn
"Reality doesn't care if you believe it." -Boba Fett

Ares X

#4 eveningtoast

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Posted 10 March 2008 - 06:10 PM

It really was coincidence that I even stopped by the boards and saw your post. I was thinking about Ares recently, and the other day just decided to see the site, which led me to the forum. If you have AIM, my s/n is eveningtoast, feel free to IM me about it, and we can talk about this in more detail.

#5 gavin83209

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Posted 15 March 2008 - 08:57 PM

I unfortunately do not have an AIM account, although I am perfectly willing to talk about it over a PM or on this board.

"Examine all obstacles carefully. With a little ingenuity, they can often be turned into levers." -Grand Admiral Thrawn
"Reality doesn't care if you believe it." -Boba Fett

Ares X

#6 eveningtoast

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Posted 16 March 2008 - 10:35 PM

Oh ok, no problem. Sure, PM, messaging, any of that will be work.
I was just thinking that some real time conversation could be useful as well.
Okay, so first thing, I think we need to agree on a scope here. Are we literally just talking about porting the game over, story for story, or do we want to 'continue the story' from where it left off? Do we want to expand some of the ideas and features?
Personally, I think we should continue the story as there would be minimal point in re-doing the old missions. But thats just my 2 cents.

Andrew

#7 gavin83209

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Posted 25 March 2008 - 12:37 PM

My first thought was to do a port, but after some thought, I do believe that you are right and a continuation would probably be better. As for features, I believe that if we could give more choices to the player like the Escape Velocity games it would be a bit of an improvement. Maybe even simple things like choosing which of the allowed starships to start from. More ideas could be the ability to capture ships and blockade running missions.

"Examine all obstacles carefully. With a little ingenuity, they can often be turned into levers." -Grand Admiral Thrawn
"Reality doesn't care if you believe it." -Boba Fett

Ares X

#8 eveningtoast

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Posted 02 April 2008 - 10:03 AM

Sounds good. I will see what I can start doing with graphics. I need to get a OS9 machine running again so I can get screen shots to work from. Any idea on how you want to start building this thing?

Andrew

#9 gavin83209

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Posted 08 April 2008 - 09:02 PM

Not much of an idea, no. I think the easiest way would probably be an open-source engine to tweak and modify, although that could go a couple of ways.

"Examine all obstacles carefully. With a little ingenuity, they can often be turned into levers." -Grand Admiral Thrawn
"Reality doesn't care if you believe it." -Boba Fett

Ares X

#10 the_tree

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Posted 17 April 2008 - 08:23 PM

Hi,
I love the idea of a game combining EV's freedom with the fleet management and planet control abilities of Ares.

Perhaps you should try to contact Ares's original creator, Nathan Lamont? I think he works with this site:
http://biggerplanet.com/

Of course, just getting a OS X version of Ares would be great.

Good Luck

The Tree

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#11 gavin83209

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Posted 25 April 2008 - 08:33 PM

That is a small amount of progress, but I hear that other people have tried similar methods of contacting him and those that made it had been turned down. I will take this into consideration, preferably after we have made enough progress to at least look credible. See this page for a previous attempt. If you compile the block of code on the second page it actually says "Never Happen" if you type Ares2 and press return.

EDIT: The most recent post on biggerplanet's forums is 1 year 30 weeks ago. Looks a dead to me.

This post has been edited by gavin83209: 25 April 2008 - 08:37 PM

"Examine all obstacles carefully. With a little ingenuity, they can often be turned into levers." -Grand Admiral Thrawn
"Reality doesn't care if you believe it." -Boba Fett

Ares X

#12 rightlink

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Posted 27 April 2008 - 12:25 PM

I seem to recall incidentally e-mailing Ambrosia with this idea.

I believe that they said, that if there was enough call for it, it may happen. Of course, that was about a year and a half ago, so...
If you want to try, go ahead. I happen to have a copy of Ares, left over.

#13 gavin83209

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Posted 16 May 2008 - 09:37 PM

I do as well. Believe it or not, the copy on my old G3 is pre-Hera (I think v1.1.1). It is good to see that some people still take an interest in Ares.

"Examine all obstacles carefully. With a little ingenuity, they can often be turned into levers." -Grand Admiral Thrawn
"Reality doesn't care if you believe it." -Boba Fett

Ares X

#14 LNSU

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Posted 16 May 2008 - 10:01 PM

I'm working on an EVN-like game called Dawn Of Infinity. I'm converting the tremulous codebase into a 2d top-down game. If you can help me with that, I could easily switch to ares style. It has built in graphics rendering, camera zooming, building capabilities (you can build a base in trem). Oh, don't forget the armory. It makes it easy to switch what ship your in.

dawnofinfinity.org
send a pm to Captain Bob on these forums if you want to help.

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#15 gavin83209

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Posted 18 May 2008 - 10:03 PM

I am very interested, but I feel that I should remind everyone of this:

gavin83209, on Feb 23 2008, 10:07 AM, said:

Now that I feel confident enough in my rudimentary skills in C++ and XCode/Project Builder, I feel I can finally post on this issue.

I know the basic operations, but I still am learning the language.

After some thought, I have come up with a handful of questions:
1. Does DoI support Ares style dialogs (at the edge of the screen in addition to the floating ones with arrows seen in the tutorials)?
2. Does the construction feature use some form of regenerating resources?
3. Does the computer work similarly to the one in Ares? The most important features are the transfer control, build, next message/page, and mission objectives.
4. After glancing over DoI, I have gathered that it is fully internet capable. Is this permanent, or is there an on/off switch, a single player mode or other similar control?
5. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I'm assuming that you have the hyperjump system over the level system that Ares uses, given your brief description. I don't have much of a problem with either, given prior thought into an Nova-Ares Conversion. I have a plug that will let you fly the Ishiman fighter with some basic missions, but that's about it. It isn't uploaded, but I can upon request.

This post has been edited by gavin83209: 18 May 2008 - 10:05 PM

"Examine all obstacles carefully. With a little ingenuity, they can often be turned into levers." -Grand Admiral Thrawn
"Reality doesn't care if you believe it." -Boba Fett

Ares X

#16 LNSU

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Posted 19 May 2008 - 08:32 PM

1. Not implemented yet, but its not hard to make pop-up dialog boxes with story bits in them.
2. The construction feature can be very easily modified to use regenerating resources.
3. All of the available build items are stationary for now, but I could make it possible to use build points to "call in" or spawn a friendly AI bot. The computer has not been added quite the same as ares right now. Currently it is a mouse-based build menu, but that can be changed (with quite a bit of coding mind you, its not high on the list).
Note that the construction feature will be based loosely on the build features in tremulous (www.tremulous.net)
4. DoI is meant to be fully multiplayer capable. However, it is possible to implement a single-player scenario, as was done with Quake 3.
5. I haven't implemented hyperjumps yet. My current intention is to make the goal of every map to "land" on a hyperjump spot, which will allow you to choose which system to jump to (another map, or the same map with different characteristics)

My plan with this plug was to make it mostly nova-like, but perhaps if you help we can make it a fusion of the two.
You don't need to know too much C to help. There won't be any GUI coding for a while, and we're still working out the basics.

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#17 gavin83209

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Posted 30 May 2008 - 05:26 PM

Sounds like this is probably the engine that we will be using. All of the other open source engines that I found didn't support enough features like these to do much more than a single player campaign. I couldn't get the SVN to compile, so I am not sure quite what to do. If this is important, I am using mainly Xcode 2.0 and the rest of the Tiger tools. If necessary, I can upgrade to 2.5.

As a side note, this forum has roughly 1,100 views as of this writing.

This post has been edited by gavin83209: 30 May 2008 - 05:30 PM

"Examine all obstacles carefully. With a little ingenuity, they can often be turned into levers." -Grand Admiral Thrawn
"Reality doesn't care if you believe it." -Boba Fett

Ares X

#18 LNSU

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Posted 30 May 2008 - 07:08 PM

Don't worry about compiling it, were still having difficulties.
http://www.ambrosias...howtopic=119889
I think that using linux to compile it will work. I'm testing it now.

PM Captain Bob, he'll get you up to speed.

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#19 KGB

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Posted 20 June 2008 - 06:35 PM

Thank you for discussing this! I love you guys

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#20 tesqua

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Posted 30 June 2008 - 01:40 PM

I am thrilled to read that others remember this game Ares. Now about an OS X version, wouldn't you need the source code to do a "true" conversion? I know that Bungie was willing to release their code of Myth 2: Soulblighter and dedicated fans made a polished OS X version of the game. Great idea! Ambrosia on the other hand, has failed to update their great games that I PAID for: Barrack, Slithereens, Cythera, and Ares.

Come on Ambrosia, update Ares to OS X pleeeeeease. Or release the source code and let some fans do the work for you. You might just rekindle my interest in your company if you do.

Ares was the most recent Ambrosia game I paid for, because nothing since has been as good. And I can't even play it!

#21 adam_0

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Posted 30 June 2008 - 04:10 PM

I'm really excited about this. I have been a pusher for updating old games / reducing prices on old games, so this sounds really cool. The only thing is finding the original author - Nathan may have the rights to the game, and thus you can't publish without his consent.

... my other ride is an Ishiman Heavy Cruiser.

(x)enos. Awesome in a can. Without the can, though.

#22 bmac

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Posted 20 July 2008 - 03:58 PM

So am I... Although I'm on a windows box right now, so I don't expect to be able to play it anyway.

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#23 Lord Commander Anic

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Posted 28 July 2008 - 11:12 AM

I'm still flyin a Mac. I do hope you'll keep at Ares X. It sounds great. My old OS9 machine will die someday, so I'll need Ares X then!
Always glad to help if you need testing or some such thing.

Oh, so it is another bug hunt then...

#24 Fractal

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Posted 30 July 2008 - 11:57 AM

I've been playing Ares for a very long time, and I had thought of this notion of a new Ares many times. Wistfully. I'm so excited that there are indeed people who remember Ares! I hate that it's pretty much obsolete now. I have a iMac G5 OS X and an old G3 with OS 9. Unfortunately, the G3 couldn't connect to the internet if it tried to. I'd love to test this when it's ready. I'd love to help, but I have very limited C knowledge, as I just jumped in. I also am learned in a language called Revolution if it's any use. I also have Photoshop skills, but I only have CS1. However, I've never tried my hand at Ares graphics.

A note about Biggerplanet: don't you think it's sad that they don't mention Ares anywhere on their site, but they still have some love for it; their game Starbase Defender has several elements from Ares, such as PK Beams!

This post has been edited by Fractal: 02 August 2008 - 04:00 PM

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#25 LNSU

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Posted 11 September 2008 - 09:44 PM

bmac, on Jul 20 2008, 04:58 PM, said:

So am I... Although I'm on a windows box right now, so I don't expect to be able to play it anyway.

Fractal, on Jul 30 2008, 12:57 PM, said:

I've been playing Ares for a very long time, and I had thought of this notion of a new Ares many times. Wistfully. I'm so excited that there are indeed people who remember Ares! I hate that it's pretty much obsolete now. I have a iMac G5 OS X and an old G3 with OS 9. Unfortunately, the G3 couldn't connect to the internet if it tried to. I'd love to test this when it's ready. I'd love to help, but I have very limited C knowledge, as I just jumped in. I also am learned in a language called Revolution if it's any use. I also have Photoshop skills, but I only have CS1. However, I've never tried my hand at Ares graphics.
A note about Biggerplanet: don't you think it's sad that they don't mention Ares anywhere on their site, but they still have some love for it; their game Starbase Defender has several elements from Ares, such as PK Beams!

sorry it took me a while to get back to you, I forgot about this topic, but Quake is platform-independant, so bmac, being on a windows box is a non-issue (but I'm looking for coders, not players right now).
@Fractal, decent knowledge of C and programming logic is all you need, there are no special carbon/apple-specific libs, and all the SDL code was wrapper-ed by Id nicely. Try to compile the Quake 3 engine on your own for any system (windows, OSX, or linux) if you really want to help.

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