At about that time, Activision and Pandemic Studios released the 20th anniversary remake of Battlezone. I was instantly hooked - and decided that BattlezoneII would be the game to cut my teeth on. Having created some initial 3D designs on my own, I joined a small team of developers who were already keen to create an official expansion for BattlezoneII after its release.
Sadly, marketing decisions by Activision and other factors meant that BZ2 wasn't the big hit it could perhaps have been and no official addons would ever be produced. It was also a bit rushed and underdeveloped - better reason than any to realise the full potential of such a radical and unique game dynamic. So I joined the BZ2 Community Project and a few years later Forgotten Enemies was launched.
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Some of the Hadean and Cerberus units from Forgotten Enemies |
That project was in all ways successful and is still being played and patched, even considered BZ2 "canon" by many fans. In designing vehicles and maps for FE I learned most of what I needed to know about 3D game design, and 3D design in general. However after even such a comprehensive expansion as FE, which more than doubled the original BZ2 assets, I now knew enough about the game engine to realise how much more could be achieved.
Thus Epic was born in an effort to really apply what I had learned creating FE - and finally make the game I always wanted to play.
The principle behind the project is really simple - by decreasing "wasted" geometry on terrain, you can increase view distances proportionately. BZ2 suffered from low visibility that was the inevitable result of it being made for low spec hardware and early GPUs. By decreasing grid density of the map, the engine was actually capable of displaying flight-sim view distances of many km rather than be maxed out at 450 metres or so. This increased visibility changed the dynamic of the game in all sorts of useful ways...
Modern rigs can run BZ2 at blistering framerates and the engine, although dated in many ways has recently received updates to use DirectX8. Stock BZ2 on its release was severely hardware limited in terms of how much geometry could be displayed. Current systems suffer no such limitations - provided you thin the terrain out a bit to compensate for the visibility, a modern GPU can display literally hundreds of units on screen at once providing the player with a (literally) commanding view of the unfolding battle.
Airforce in any real sense was previously impractical in BZ2 - low visibility meant that they'd largely be invisible from the ground, and vice versa. The bigger visibility in Epic allows for realistic jet dogfights and high altitude bombers. However the biggest flaw of stock BZ2 was that the level of remote unit management needed wasn't matched by visual range. Any squad more than 400 metres away was invisible to the player, therefore reduced to abstract flashing HUD icons and beeps. Fine control of remote squads was impossible beyond general "hold position" commands.
The long visual ranges allow a much finer level of remote unit command and control, making it feasible to individually control frontline units while still taking care of the base, or effectively coordinate massive mixed strikes on enemy strongholds as airforce streaks overhead. Even for an ageing game it's been called very pretty.
Increased visibility also meant that the alien hi-tech nature of BZ2 weapons and unit performance could be realised. Short visibility, coupled with some arbitrary balancing measures had pretty much reduced BZ2 weapons to popguns, even compared with WWII era RL weapons, let alone Mechwarrior style death cannons. Epic scaled assets are in many cases more than tripled in range and speed, as well as featuring updated visual FX - and finally live up to their descriptions as hi tech weaponry. Everything is bigger and faster and better, and this seems to have hit the right chords with both longterm fans and newer players.
Another possibility of HUGE maps and vis ranges that has been exploited is the potential to create high altitude or space environments. Epic Fleet Command game modes are still in development, but feature gameplay that can only be described as Homeworld from the cockpit, complete with capital ships, asteroids, resource gathering and static installations.
Gameplay is radically upgraded, and even early screenshots impressed certain Pandemic Studios developers enough that an Alpha demo was requested, with a view to full development. Sadly Pandi is now no more, but Epic is still being developed as I get time. There's very little chance I'll ever make any financial mileage directly from this project but that's not important. Game design should be about designing good games, even if they are firmly stuck in a niche that is traditionally not very profitable. You do this for simple love of a unique game, the reward is getting to play what you have created and share it with appreciative others.
Currently Epic V1.0 is available free from www.bz2md.com, requires retail BZ2 patched to 1.3PB5.1. The V1.1 update is in the works, set to expand the existing build trees and add some radical new maps and gameplay, as well as general bug fixes. Future updates will include more playable races, more maps, more weapons and better graphics as I get around to building them. RTS/FPS hybrid mutant fanatics stay tuned!
