Advice for planning a new game

[laxon]

I know OpenCS is currently not at the stage where work can start on a new game that isn't based on Morrowind's data. With that said I would like to begin planning a demo that can be created as soon as even a bit more stability is reached.

Currently my main questions are:

• Should I create the terrain heightmap externally? Or will a terrain editor be added similar to the rudimentary one in the existing CS?
• Do models and their textures have to be in the same format as they are for Morrowind?
• What are the goals for scripting integration? Will the scripting language be extended past 1.0 or will you include a more modern alternative?
• Since there was no analog to creating a new game in the original CS, what do you see the initial steps looking like? As in does a region get created first (to act as the gameworld) then is subdivided into cells and everything follows or? Curious to see how the 'new game' workflow is envisioned.

The main reason I am interested in OpenCS for game development is that I am very familiar with CS terminology and features as they relate to modding. And am hoping that that familiarity will allow for initial rapid prototyping.

Thank you for your answers!

[Zini]

Should I create the terrain heightmap externally? Or will a terrain editor be added similar to the rudimentary one in the existing CS?

We will have terrain editing tools and they won't be rudimentary.

Do models and their textures have to be in the same format as they are for Morrowind?

For now yes. There are more options for texture format, since we use a 3rd party component that can basically handles every image format ever created, but in practice these won't be very useful. Stick to the usual formats for now. In a yet unspecified release after 1.0 we will start supporting the native OGRE model format.

What are the goals for scripting integration? Will the scripting language be extended past 1.0 or will you include a more modern alternative?

We already extended the existing scripting language and we will continue to do so after 1.0.

Since there was now analog to creating a new game in the original CS, what do you see the initial steps looking like? As in does a region get created first (to act as the gameworld) then is subdivided into cells and everything follows or? Curious to see how the 'new game' workflow is envisioned.

Use the new game button. Then hit File -> Verify. Fix all the listed problems. Now you should have a basic working game. It is completely up to you how you continue from there.

[psi29a]

Since there was now analog to creating a new game in the original CS, what do you see the initial steps looking like? As in does a region get created first (to act as the gameworld) then is subdivided into cells and everything follows or? Curious to see how the 'new game' workflow is envisioned.

Use the new game button. Then hit File -> Verify. Fix all the listed problems. Now you should have a basic working game. It is completely up to you how you continue from there.

Does this 'new game' still depend on the Morrowind.bsa (or esm)? If so, are there plans on making it so that this is no longer a requirement?

[Zini]

A new game does not depend on anything. Of course creating a working new game will require the addition of at least a player character, which in turn will require a model including animations. If you want to go outside, you will need sky textures and so on.
But it is up to the content developer to provide all these.

[laxon]

Thank you for your answers. Is it worth giving this base process a start now, and is it currently possible to create+save+load a omwgame? I was able to create one but it seems that the save option is not implemented yet? Even if the loading/saving isn't complete that is.

I wouldn't mind helping out with any ongoing documentation for this process, as you release more support.

A non technical question, should the format be renamed to not include the omw prefix? Simply because it would probably be best to avoid the 'm' as its not related to Morrowind per say.

[Zini]

Thank you for your answers. Is it worth giving this base process a start now, and is it currently possible to create+save+load a omwgame

Not really. Even if we exclude addons there are still some features that aren't loaded and saved properly. Terrain isn't handled yet. Dialogues have problems. And of course it is possible that we still have bugs with some other record types. The test coverage for OpenCS has been pretty poor so far. Unless you can do without dialogues and exteriors for now (and are very courageous) it would be better to wait.

A non technical question, should the format be renamed to not include the omw prefix? Simply because it would probably be best to avoid the 'm' as its not related to Morrowind per say.

The project is called OpenMW, therefore omw.

[laxon]

Thanks, Ill await further progress in later versions.

[TheInternet]

What's OpenMW-CS like now for this? How much more useful is it? I won't do it if it corrupts stuff etc.

[Tinker]

Quite a lot has changed but not much more functionality has been added.

As Zini said testing is slow, perhaps due to the message about corrupting files on the start page, maybe making the message a little more friendly might encourage testers to try OpenMW-CS, without the risk of being mocked.