I was going to let you guys in on a bunch of information to help you settle down, but Michal jumped in and did it for me. I suppose I'll tell you anyway, so here's my giant compendium of CG information:
It'll be a 2D game with 3D graphics and will be something of a mixture between Soldat and Triplane Turmoil -- basically a 2D Battlefield 1942, but set during WWI. There will be large, open spaces to fly that resemble TT, while there will be places for the soldiers to run around what will resemble Soldat.
Instead of being normal planes, they will be hydroplanes. And no, there aren't any other vehicles because Michal tested them out and didn't think they were fun: "About vehicles: I got vehicles working in this game I'm working on. It will be possible for any kind of machinery to work in this game. I made a working jeep and I must say it isn't that fun. If you want jeeps or tanks in Soldat it isn't really what you want. You must realise that when you're riding a jeep in a 2D game you're moving in 1D really. You just press forward and backwards. That is not fun. Planes are fun or soldier with jetpacks."
Michal originally intended to have the planes be destroyed when they hit an obstacle at anything other than slow speeds, but is considering having them bounce off (no final word on this yet).
He also made two (ugly) test maps. I wouldn't bother checking them out, but you can download them
here.
And now for a quick QA session stolen from the original thread:
Q. Will there be islands and boats you can weave around (and crash into)?
A. Yeah that's why I need mappers.
Q. What file types will you be using regarding models and textures?
A. All major file types are supported, it isn't a problem because there are always exporters. Also you don't need DeleD for the maps because you can import 3DS file for example.
Q. What is your estimate on how many planes (players) this game will support per server?
A. As many as possible.
Q. What are some of the game modes that you are planning to create, and will there be a custom game mode option?
A. As many as possible.
Q. Will there be different roles of planes (Recon, Stealth, Fighters, Bombers...etc)?
A. As many as possible
.
Q. Will there be land or sea targets? If so, will players be able to control these units?
A. There will be infantry for sure. The interesting part of this game will be that you will spawn as a normal soldier and getting into a plane is just an option. Something like 2D Battlefield 1942.
Q. Wait, you mean...like Soldat, except with vehicles?
A. Well.. yes!
Q. I demand Zepellins
A. Zepellins must be!
Q. UDP or TCP?
A. I'm going to try reliable UDP completely in this new project, we'll see how it works.
Q. What kind of modding/customizing capabilities are you planning on? Can we expect anything like the equivalent of custom gosteks?
A. The game will be completely moddable. I don't know how much level of customisation I can get from gosteks because the main focus will be on planes. But I want it to be as customizable as possible.
Q. What kinds of graphical effects will be supported? Particle effects are a given, due to the 3D graphics, I figure; but are there plans for any sprite-based graphics to be able to use alpha-blending and lighting effects? Also, what 2D file formats can we expect to be dealing with?
A. The rendering engine uses Irrlicht (
http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/), so anything it supports the game will support. Check it out.
Q. Will there be destructible terrain?
A. I was planning to do destructible terrain but I didn't find a use for it. It's not really that big of an idea. There are limited gameplay possibilites for it and it's a lot of work to get done.
Q. Will the game have hurting plane debris like TT?
A. Hurting plane debris? Well this will be one of the games trademarks.
Q. If we make our own mods, would it be possible to have a cache that mod files from other people's server would be downloaded to?
A. I want to do this.
Q. Will people who already registered a copy of Soldat get a discount/free registration key for Crimson Glory?
A. People that registered Soldat should definitly get some benefit when buying Crimson Glory.
For anyone interested in the specifics of how the game works, all map files will be .dmf (the DeleD map file). All combat will be in the XY plane where Z = 0. Finally, things such as water are created by changing the prefix and tag on your object (eg. "zone_" and the tag is 0).
