<![CDATA[[ghc]Games Forums - News]]> http://forums.ghc-games.com/ Wed, 06 May 2026 22:35:26 +0000 MyBB <![CDATA[4LOM says hello]]> http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=1112 Wed, 31 Jan 2018 15:01:46 -0800 http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=1112
Would love to gather a crew together for TTR too LOL.]]>
Would love to gather a crew together for TTR too LOL.]]> <![CDATA[I've got movement!]]> http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=1093 Tue, 26 Aug 2014 19:30:57 -0700 http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=1093
So, you may note that the place looks different. That's intentional, don't freak out.
This is the new forum board!

Now, as I'd mentioned in the previous thread, I wasn't able to retain the password info due to the systems being updated so much from the old board's version.

However, everything else should be in-tact. So, how do we fix that?

Well, you can head on over to http://oldforum.ghc-games.com/member.php?action=login and log in as usual and send me a PM with the password you want your profile to use on the new board. If your account's email is current, you should also be able to just request a password reset on the new board.

I'll be keeping the old board up for as long as needed. There's some flakey URL shennanigans as I try and get ttrgame.com pointed over here correctly, so if there's any problems accessing stuff, fire off an email at me: Reno @ ghc-games . com.

So, what, that's it?
Nope. The main reason for delay is getting a nice new dedicated server set up which this is all on and trying to get everything ported correctly. I also started a new job(naturally got hired right at the end of the fiscal year, so it's a bit crazy there).

In addition to that, in a few days I should have a Walkthrough demo up for the Radar level.
There's still some gameplay scripts I have to port and correct(namely the player and weapon state machines - kinda important for the main gameplay) but the basic level stuffs is done.

So what I'll be doing is releasing Radar first in which you can wander around and check out the level, and then release another level into the game, etc, etc until I get the rest of the game code ported to the new build.

At which point it can be packaged up with a bow and pushed out.

I'll be doing another post going over what the deal with the current build of the engine I'm using and whatnot in depth soon as well.

Wait, what, hold on!
What?

What's with this stupid 'ghc-games.com' garbage?
Well, I don't plan to ONLY have worked on TTR forever - just most of forever. As I'm approaching the breaking point with TTR being able to be put out in a playable state, I've started designing my first commercial game prospect. TTR's getting the attention, but I've started putting together design docs and the like for the next game.

If I've got more than a single game, it's easier to have some kinda company name so people have a nice, neat place to lob complaints at.

Like said, I plan to continue to de-generic-fy the place and fix up and URL problems, but [ghc]Games is gunna be the entity under which stuff I make goes out from.

*cue The More You Know jingle*

-Reno out]]>
So, you may note that the place looks different. That's intentional, don't freak out.
This is the new forum board!

Now, as I'd mentioned in the previous thread, I wasn't able to retain the password info due to the systems being updated so much from the old board's version.

However, everything else should be in-tact. So, how do we fix that?

Well, you can head on over to http://oldforum.ghc-games.com/member.php?action=login and log in as usual and send me a PM with the password you want your profile to use on the new board. If your account's email is current, you should also be able to just request a password reset on the new board.

I'll be keeping the old board up for as long as needed. There's some flakey URL shennanigans as I try and get ttrgame.com pointed over here correctly, so if there's any problems accessing stuff, fire off an email at me: Reno @ ghc-games . com.

So, what, that's it?
Nope. The main reason for delay is getting a nice new dedicated server set up which this is all on and trying to get everything ported correctly. I also started a new job(naturally got hired right at the end of the fiscal year, so it's a bit crazy there).

In addition to that, in a few days I should have a Walkthrough demo up for the Radar level.
There's still some gameplay scripts I have to port and correct(namely the player and weapon state machines - kinda important for the main gameplay) but the basic level stuffs is done.

So what I'll be doing is releasing Radar first in which you can wander around and check out the level, and then release another level into the game, etc, etc until I get the rest of the game code ported to the new build.

At which point it can be packaged up with a bow and pushed out.

I'll be doing another post going over what the deal with the current build of the engine I'm using and whatnot in depth soon as well.

Wait, what, hold on!
What?

What's with this stupid 'ghc-games.com' garbage?
Well, I don't plan to ONLY have worked on TTR forever - just most of forever. As I'm approaching the breaking point with TTR being able to be put out in a playable state, I've started designing my first commercial game prospect. TTR's getting the attention, but I've started putting together design docs and the like for the next game.

If I've got more than a single game, it's easier to have some kinda company name so people have a nice, neat place to lob complaints at.

Like said, I plan to continue to de-generic-fy the place and fix up and URL problems, but [ghc]Games is gunna be the entity under which stuff I make goes out from.

*cue The More You Know jingle*

-Reno out]]> <![CDATA[Preparing a new home]]> http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=1092 Mon, 26 May 2014 23:49:33 -0700 http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=1092
I\'m sure you\'ve noticed the sudden surge in spammers.

Unfortunately, the forum software we\'re currently on is so distressingly old, there\'s really not all that much that can be done to deal with them. The default spam-resistant options are in place, and they don\'t do anything. Honestly, I think they\'re probably using an exploit to post directly somehow, as if you look, none of those obvious spam users are even activated.

I\'ve mentioned before I\'ve been looking at setting up a new forum, however the issue is, as mentioned, this forums\' version is stupifyingly old(I think it\'s actual RC1 of mybb. ....yeah.)
With that, there\'s no easy way to move to a new forum and retain ANY of the current content. Threads, posts, usernames, etc.

Part of what\'s kept me from moving on with it is trying to think of a way to deal with that.
I could deal with threads and posts being lost if required, but I feel that losing the user accounts and logins would be a much harder blow.

However, given the boon in spam, I think a solution needs to be moved on soon, regardless.

So, what I\'ll be working on is prepping the new forum, and once it\'s ready, I\'ll have the current forum URL direct to that, while keeping this one live on oldforums.ttrgame.com or something of the like.

That way, anyone needing to recover their account for the new forum can log in on these old boards and PM me via their existing account with what they want the new board info to be. I\'ll set the user up for them so they\'ll be good to go.

I feel this is a good middleground. I\'ll see about doing some kind of query script to recreate the bulk of the user data, but the passwords would be in no way portable as the way they are handled is completely different now, hence the PM-me solution.

So yes, this week I\'ll be putting in time to get those boards underway and get as much content moved over as I can. At which point, I\'ll do the URL swap(with a helpful sticky directing to the old ones as needed) and we can start moving into our new home.

From there, I can provide additional news about work-things that have been happening recently, and where we\'re going from here.

-Reno out]]>
I\'m sure you\'ve noticed the sudden surge in spammers.

Unfortunately, the forum software we\'re currently on is so distressingly old, there\'s really not all that much that can be done to deal with them. The default spam-resistant options are in place, and they don\'t do anything. Honestly, I think they\'re probably using an exploit to post directly somehow, as if you look, none of those obvious spam users are even activated.

I\'ve mentioned before I\'ve been looking at setting up a new forum, however the issue is, as mentioned, this forums\' version is stupifyingly old(I think it\'s actual RC1 of mybb. ....yeah.)
With that, there\'s no easy way to move to a new forum and retain ANY of the current content. Threads, posts, usernames, etc.

Part of what\'s kept me from moving on with it is trying to think of a way to deal with that.
I could deal with threads and posts being lost if required, but I feel that losing the user accounts and logins would be a much harder blow.

However, given the boon in spam, I think a solution needs to be moved on soon, regardless.

So, what I\'ll be working on is prepping the new forum, and once it\'s ready, I\'ll have the current forum URL direct to that, while keeping this one live on oldforums.ttrgame.com or something of the like.

That way, anyone needing to recover their account for the new forum can log in on these old boards and PM me via their existing account with what they want the new board info to be. I\'ll set the user up for them so they\'ll be good to go.

I feel this is a good middleground. I\'ll see about doing some kind of query script to recreate the bulk of the user data, but the passwords would be in no way portable as the way they are handled is completely different now, hence the PM-me solution.

So yes, this week I\'ll be putting in time to get those boards underway and get as much content moved over as I can. At which point, I\'ll do the URL swap(with a helpful sticky directing to the old ones as needed) and we can start moving into our new home.

From there, I can provide additional news about work-things that have been happening recently, and where we\'re going from here.

-Reno out]]> <![CDATA[The Third Reich: Classic]]> http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=1079 Thu, 15 Sep 2011 20:34:22 -0700 http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=1079

Initially, I\'d hoped to get this announced sooner, and get some content posted with it, but a few remaining bugs stopped me from getting it together in a timely manner.
Having said that, I\'d like to let everyone know about TTR: Classic.

What is it?
Simply put, it\'s going to be a remastered version of the original TTR. Most of the old content will be directly ported into Torque, and anything absolutely requiring polish will get some TLC to bring everything up to bar. Think in similar terms of HL1 being updated to HL: Source.

In specific terms, many problems that plagued the original TTR due to engine limitations, such as collisions will be properly resolved. The maps will be worked over and tweaked so they all carry a fairly similar level of quality and detailing, and elements that were slated to be included, such as bug fixes and minor gameplay tweaks will be integrated.

Once it becomes more solid, I\'ll follow with a changelog/update list indicating differences between the original and Classic.

I\'d also like to let you all know that TTR Arena will be directly integrated into the game and expanded.

Why\'s this being done?
The new TTR game, that I\'ve been chugging on has been a bit of amorphous creature. Fixes, features, and additions being made to a broad spectrum of areas, from the engine to gameplay, levels to art. Given what the project was going to be, it\'s taking a fair bit of time to assemble, all the more so given the fact that other than occasional contributions, it\'s been a solo job. Its progressing, but it\'s still a ways out yet.

Given it\'s unstructured nature, I decided that it would be a good opportunity to take the existing work, and paring down to match the original TTR gameplay, and get a working rendition of the original, which comparitively, is a smaller product. It makes for a good point of consolidation, a more solid foundation, and a good way to keep things in scope of how TTR was, and will be, even as it expands and updates.
Quickly, this expanded to the point where if I was going to produce TTR99, but in the Torque engine, it\'d make sense to properly migrate it, and give it to you guys.
This gives you something to play, and can more directly contribute to the development of TTR going forward.

As things get closer, I\'ll do a suggestions pass at any minor grievances and bugs that people are aware of, and like to see tweaked/fixed, but feel free to busy up the Ideas and Suggestions board in the meantime.

Feel free to comment, and let me know what you think. Any suggestions for tweaks or improvements on Classic itself should be done in the Ideas and Suggestions section.

Thanks,

-Reno
]]>

Initially, I\'d hoped to get this announced sooner, and get some content posted with it, but a few remaining bugs stopped me from getting it together in a timely manner.
Having said that, I\'d like to let everyone know about TTR: Classic.

What is it?
Simply put, it\'s going to be a remastered version of the original TTR. Most of the old content will be directly ported into Torque, and anything absolutely requiring polish will get some TLC to bring everything up to bar. Think in similar terms of HL1 being updated to HL: Source.

In specific terms, many problems that plagued the original TTR due to engine limitations, such as collisions will be properly resolved. The maps will be worked over and tweaked so they all carry a fairly similar level of quality and detailing, and elements that were slated to be included, such as bug fixes and minor gameplay tweaks will be integrated.

Once it becomes more solid, I\'ll follow with a changelog/update list indicating differences between the original and Classic.

I\'d also like to let you all know that TTR Arena will be directly integrated into the game and expanded.

Why\'s this being done?
The new TTR game, that I\'ve been chugging on has been a bit of amorphous creature. Fixes, features, and additions being made to a broad spectrum of areas, from the engine to gameplay, levels to art. Given what the project was going to be, it\'s taking a fair bit of time to assemble, all the more so given the fact that other than occasional contributions, it\'s been a solo job. Its progressing, but it\'s still a ways out yet.

Given it\'s unstructured nature, I decided that it would be a good opportunity to take the existing work, and paring down to match the original TTR gameplay, and get a working rendition of the original, which comparitively, is a smaller product. It makes for a good point of consolidation, a more solid foundation, and a good way to keep things in scope of how TTR was, and will be, even as it expands and updates.
Quickly, this expanded to the point where if I was going to produce TTR99, but in the Torque engine, it\'d make sense to properly migrate it, and give it to you guys.
This gives you something to play, and can more directly contribute to the development of TTR going forward.

As things get closer, I\'ll do a suggestions pass at any minor grievances and bugs that people are aware of, and like to see tweaked/fixed, but feel free to busy up the Ideas and Suggestions board in the meantime.

Feel free to comment, and let me know what you think. Any suggestions for tweaks or improvements on Classic itself should be done in the Ideas and Suggestions section.

Thanks,

-Reno
]]> <![CDATA[It\'s back!]]> http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=1060 Tue, 17 Mar 2009 11:25:08 -0700 http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=1060
SC]]>
SC]]> <![CDATA[Interview with Reno]]> http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=799 Wed, 06 May 2026 15:35:26 -0700 http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=799
[Image: renopic3yv.jpg]
Personal Information

Name : Jeff Raab
Birthdate : 17-04-1987
Country : USA
City : Bellevue

1. Lets start from the beginning. How did you come across TTR and what made you stay?
Originally, I had come across TTR about a month or so before 1.0 was released. I found it through PlanetUnreal\'s mod section. The very heavy emphasis on realism and the good community drew me in, and as i slowly worked my way into the community, and the mod was finally released, i was stuck.

2. You are now lead coder for the game, where did you get the skills you obviously posess?
Honestly, i have to be one of the fastest code learners ever, or danged close to it. Truth be told, I was originally working to be on the team as a mapper (I\'m sure that my map TTR-OmahaBeach is STILL floating around somewhere, though i never got it done really). As I kept having issues with not having interesting enough effects to make me happy, I started to learn UScript so I could add my own effects and the like. And the rest, as they say, is history. I delved into the stuff like crazy, and by the end of my 4 month learning streak, I very heavily knew the ins and outs of the stuff, and likely the only ones who knew more than me where jaeg and LT. I worked on a few \"small\" code projects to show that I would be effective for TTR, which apparently got me tacked on Spunge and Stryker\'s lists, because when the time came, I was called. When jaeg had disappeared, and they needed someone to, at the very least, fill in till they found someone more capable, they picked me up to help out as the lead coder. And from there, I\'ve just stayed.

3. When did you consider getting on the team lending your skills to the development of the game and was there a special reason you waited that long to join the team?
I had started to work towards helping with TTR probably just before 1.2\'s release or so. The main reason it was so far along is because I had virtually no skills and needed to learn at least something first.

4. What part did you play in the switch to Torque?
I had originally spiked the idea to Spunge, who, to begin with, took it with alot of caution. As I showed him all that we could do with it, he slowly agreed. I then helped him convince the others that we could make the switch, and get TTR back on it\'s feet.

5. Being our local Torque oracle, are there any particular benefits switching to Torque, code wise, you want to say something about?
Code wise, first and foremost would be source code. We get all the code to the engine, source and scripts, which sets us leaps and bounds above simple modding, or many other engines out there. Coding\'s rather easy and straigh foreward, and is, if you know how to, capable of directly tying into the source code, allowing you to do some amazing things.

6. Any drawbacks?
Code wise, not too much really. Though we had a whole new art pipeline to try to get used to.

7. The community has heard about trouble getting certain things to work properly, like the grass thing. Any particular reasons for this and how do you respond to such \'setbacks\'?
Mostly it\'s because while I learn fast, I\'m still learning how alot of this works as I go. Del had several months of planning before even touching his main project, I basically dived head first into it, without really having worked out all the kinks or ideas. I was a tad overzealous, and I know better than that now hehe. The best way to deal with it, is to take a step back, look at the main problem and try to fix it, then carry on. Can\'t do much else than to fix it.

8. As mentioned you are the lead coder for TTR:T. How do you handle that ontop of all the coding? How do you coders divide the workload?
Currently, as there is only me and Del coding, we generally have 2 categories of code projects. Dynamics and Aesthetics. Del\'s in charge of dynamics like what happens when you shoot someone, or the like, and I\'m in charge of lots and lots and lots and lots of tiny little effects that pull everything into a more complexe and appealing scene. In other words, I tend to work to make the game prettier.

9. How would you describe the progress so far?
So far, we\'ve had only a few \"core\" projects that we\'ve been working on, such as indieGrass. As we get nearer to the completion, we\'ve started to fan out and look at other projects that would set TTR up on the next level, while still being able to let us work at a resonable speed. It kinda sucks when you have an awsome thing that\'d really set it apart, but you have to shelve it, at least till later, because there are more critical things to deal with.

10. How much time would you estimate you spend coding for TTR per week?
It varies. Of late, I\'ve been helping work on our main TTR core work for the past couple weeks, so my time\'s been fanned out between coding, management, and modeling/skinning. On a week where I mainly focus on code, I can get anywhere from a few hours in a day, to where I\'m up till 5am, and still wanting to code more. So it\'s really back and forth alot.

11. Okay, let\'s get down to the nitty gritty. The community have been allowed to ask you some questions and I\'ll bring some of those up now. Will there be different weather in TTR:T?
Yes, TTR will support dynamic weather. Weather will start and stop on it\'s own based on ambient properties, such as barometric pressure and ambient temperature. You might get snow and the like as well.

12. How about both day and night settings for maps?
Most definetally. Day/night opens up alot of different strategies, and will be fully supported in TTR. A fully functional day/night cycle has already been added and we are still working on all the things this can be used to do.

13. With weather and full day/night cycles coming, will we get to see different seasons?
Seasons tie very much into the weather. The different ambient properties required for the weather are based on what season it is. So the answer is yes, TTR will support the full gambit of seasons, including dynamic adjustment between them. The season system will be set up to have an effect on everything ingame, but that\'s something that\'s still somewhat underwraps, and will be covered in full later.

14. Seeing as it\'s vaguely related - we\'ve seen and read a bit about the HDR implementation. Could you explain it once again - in short?
[Image: 124401849_92fca11851_o.jpg]
[Image: 120130171_94fab642e4_o.jpg]
First, and absolutely foremost, is that i must point out the two types of HDR. The first is Camera-HDR, which is what you see in HL2, and the like. This uses bloom to simulate overbright, does exposure control, etc. Then there\'s Eye-HDR, which has yet to be used in a game to date. The differences start to crop up when we handle \'exposure control\' and overbright simulation. With the eye, unless you\'re looking AT a lightsource, or a surface that\'s completely reflecting the light\'s intensity, you dont have bloom. Your concrete wont glow because it\'s bright outside today. What *will* happen however, is that when the eye gets too much light to register all at once, the pupil will shrink, and lesser colors, or very similar ones will lose their sharpness. This is represented through washout. A surface will get very \"bright\" and lesser details such as cracks or bumps may be washed out, but you\'ll still be able to tell main details apart. This isnt simulated in Camera-HDR. The other area is the difference in exposure control. Where Camera-HDR controls lighting adjustments based solely on the light levels(again, like HL2\'s setup) the eye does it based on colors as well. So when you get very sudden light changes, as the pupil tries to adjust, there\'s still too high, or too low a range of colors visible, so all lesser details are lost. When you walk outside on a sunny day, the sudden change makes it so that your eyes arent setup to take all the color/light coming in, and a lot of lesser details will be lost. Our implementation will be founded on Eye-HDR.

15. Will the player\'s equipped gear matter on movement and world interaction?
We\'re gearing to make just about *everything* ingame have an effect on movement of objects and world interaction, You\'ll have individual grenades on your chest, your gun can knock over stuff on a table as you look around, etc.

16. Can you drop certain inventory items to gain better movement as you could with TTR:UT?
While you will be able to, the chances that the gain would be noticable is very small (unlike in TTR:UT, where you\'d find trails of M1 clips leading out of the spawn haha - Jognt anyone?) So while you CAN, unless you drop some thing really heavy (like all your nades, backpack, etc), chances of you getting any noticible gain is minimal.

17. To what level will the players gear be customizable upon entering the battlefield?
While I dont think we\'d go so far as to let the player pick the gunpowder grain in their bullets, we\'re looking at letting players not only pick team and class, but different weapons based on class as well. Multiple weapon choices per class are set up, and we\'re looking at allowing the players to choose the number of nades, extra bandoleers, etc.

18. Will we get realistic movements of the player beyond the standard running, walking crouching and proning?
We\'re trying to make movement not only act realistic, but feel very natural as well. Movement will handle differently in the different stances, and we hope to make each useful, while feeling completely natural as well.

19. Will the player be able to spin like crazy while prone - as in TTR:UT?
Haha, no, that\'s going to be fixed.

20. How about the HUD? Will there be one or will the game provide the necessary information through other visual or audio inputs?
We are actually working to make TTR HUDless. That\'s right, no more magical numbers, messages, or maps floating on your screen. We\'ve been working out all the kinks in the idea, and so far, it\'s looking excellent. Everything is capable of being conveyed through ingame messages one way or another.

21. How about the players ingame avatar? What kind of customization are we looking at here?
We want to let the players get as much customization as possible. We\'re currently looking at letting players pic things like if their sleeves are rolled up, helmet types, patches, and other various small things that when all different, allows most players to look resonably different from each other. Sadly, we have to stop at a certain point, as we dont have the memory or bandwidth to let people pick how many hairs are on their avatar\'s chin.

22. How about computer requirements? Looking at all that nice green grass, will my cpu and/or graphics card be able to handle the pressure?
*Everything* is being designed to run at TSE\'s minimum requirements. While we\'re stuffing alot of things in here, yes, it\'s all designed from the start to be as un-abusive on the machine as possible. If you have at least a 1GHz processor or so, ~512MB of memory, and a graphics card that can run shader model 1.1 or better, you\'ll be able to run it fine.

23. What about the shaders? Will people get excluded from the game because their card doesn\'t support x.x shaders?
TSE supports a procedural fall back system, so if your card can only support ps2.0, then it will scale everything back to what you can support. If your card doesn\'t support ps3.0 shaders, it will use the next best thing. At the lowest level, ps1.1 is *required* and we cant change that sadly. The terrain engine gets alot of it\'s speed from using shaders to optimize it, and we cant go letting different players have different terrains and the like, so ps1.1 is the lowest we can do. However, ps1.1 cards cost about $30 at most these days, so it shouldnt be hard at all to get at least that.

24. Will the game support non-shader cards at all?
Currently, we arent very seriously looking at it, but it\'s a vauge possibility. The problem lies in the fact that TSE\'s terrain engine, Atlas, is shader based, so we would have to find a way around that in order to implement a fixed function version.

25. Will the MAC, PC and Linux versions be fully compatible?
Yes. While TSE is currently being developed only on PC\'s, once it\'s OGL implementation is finished, we can quickly port it to the other platforms, and they will all work with one another.

26. What graphics and sound API\'s will TTR support?
Currently, TSE supports Dx based stuff only. The final version, however, will use both Dx based graphics and sounds, as well as OGL and OAL.

27. How big a download will the first release be?
Since not all the content has been created yet, we dont really have any final counts yet, but it will still be small enough where it can be downloaded feasibly. Likely a couple hundred megs.

28. Last technical question. A comparison shot emerged some time ago, curtesy of JoeB. I have it with me here. Could you explain what we\'re actually seeing?
[Image: Relief.jpg]
Ahhh, releif mapping. This thing, put simply, is amazing. In current and next-gen games, you have 3 types of spiffy surface rendering effects. You have bump mapping, normal mapping, and parallax mapping. Releif mapping, however, fits in another category all together if only for one reason. It simulates a complexe 3D surface solely through the video card, meaning you can have a simple wall model, apply a brick texture and a releif map, and presto-changeo, the releif mapping shader makes it so that the individual bricks displace the surface. It\'s not just an illusion either. You could walk and see the profile of the wall, and you could still see the individual bricks protruding from the surface. But that\'s not all, not only can we do that, but it will work with shadowing as well, meaning your dispalced surface will cast and receive shadows accordingly. Very, very, very impressive stuff. So what\'s the catch? Releif mapping can only run on ps3.0 cards. While we support fallbacks to the other effects for other ps versions, if you have a ps3.0 card, we\'re going to take some serious advantage of it. You\'ll be happy, we promise.

29. A few closing questions. What are your hopes for TTR as a game?
Honestly, I want TTR to be what we use to define not just WW2 games, but shooters in general. I hope TTR is a truely industry shaking game, just as TTR:UT was a modding scene shaking mod.

30. Do you have a certain something you will fight to get into TTR.
Lol, only one thing? Dang.
I\'d have to say it\'d be an interesting little sound system we recently came across. Sound in games would never be the same.

31. Anything in particular you would like to convey to the community now that you have the chance (promise I won\'t sensor you )?
I want to thank all you guys with putting up with our secrecy stuff, thank you all for holding on, and hope that we all can stay to see TTR get to where it should be.]]>
[Image: renopic3yv.jpg]
Personal Information

Name : Jeff Raab
Birthdate : 17-04-1987
Country : USA
City : Bellevue

1. Lets start from the beginning. How did you come across TTR and what made you stay?
Originally, I had come across TTR about a month or so before 1.0 was released. I found it through PlanetUnreal\'s mod section. The very heavy emphasis on realism and the good community drew me in, and as i slowly worked my way into the community, and the mod was finally released, i was stuck.

2. You are now lead coder for the game, where did you get the skills you obviously posess?
Honestly, i have to be one of the fastest code learners ever, or danged close to it. Truth be told, I was originally working to be on the team as a mapper (I\'m sure that my map TTR-OmahaBeach is STILL floating around somewhere, though i never got it done really). As I kept having issues with not having interesting enough effects to make me happy, I started to learn UScript so I could add my own effects and the like. And the rest, as they say, is history. I delved into the stuff like crazy, and by the end of my 4 month learning streak, I very heavily knew the ins and outs of the stuff, and likely the only ones who knew more than me where jaeg and LT. I worked on a few \"small\" code projects to show that I would be effective for TTR, which apparently got me tacked on Spunge and Stryker\'s lists, because when the time came, I was called. When jaeg had disappeared, and they needed someone to, at the very least, fill in till they found someone more capable, they picked me up to help out as the lead coder. And from there, I\'ve just stayed.

3. When did you consider getting on the team lending your skills to the development of the game and was there a special reason you waited that long to join the team?
I had started to work towards helping with TTR probably just before 1.2\'s release or so. The main reason it was so far along is because I had virtually no skills and needed to learn at least something first.

4. What part did you play in the switch to Torque?
I had originally spiked the idea to Spunge, who, to begin with, took it with alot of caution. As I showed him all that we could do with it, he slowly agreed. I then helped him convince the others that we could make the switch, and get TTR back on it\'s feet.

5. Being our local Torque oracle, are there any particular benefits switching to Torque, code wise, you want to say something about?
Code wise, first and foremost would be source code. We get all the code to the engine, source and scripts, which sets us leaps and bounds above simple modding, or many other engines out there. Coding\'s rather easy and straigh foreward, and is, if you know how to, capable of directly tying into the source code, allowing you to do some amazing things.

6. Any drawbacks?
Code wise, not too much really. Though we had a whole new art pipeline to try to get used to.

7. The community has heard about trouble getting certain things to work properly, like the grass thing. Any particular reasons for this and how do you respond to such \'setbacks\'?
Mostly it\'s because while I learn fast, I\'m still learning how alot of this works as I go. Del had several months of planning before even touching his main project, I basically dived head first into it, without really having worked out all the kinks or ideas. I was a tad overzealous, and I know better than that now hehe. The best way to deal with it, is to take a step back, look at the main problem and try to fix it, then carry on. Can\'t do much else than to fix it.

8. As mentioned you are the lead coder for TTR:T. How do you handle that ontop of all the coding? How do you coders divide the workload?
Currently, as there is only me and Del coding, we generally have 2 categories of code projects. Dynamics and Aesthetics. Del\'s in charge of dynamics like what happens when you shoot someone, or the like, and I\'m in charge of lots and lots and lots and lots of tiny little effects that pull everything into a more complexe and appealing scene. In other words, I tend to work to make the game prettier.

9. How would you describe the progress so far?
So far, we\'ve had only a few \"core\" projects that we\'ve been working on, such as indieGrass. As we get nearer to the completion, we\'ve started to fan out and look at other projects that would set TTR up on the next level, while still being able to let us work at a resonable speed. It kinda sucks when you have an awsome thing that\'d really set it apart, but you have to shelve it, at least till later, because there are more critical things to deal with.

10. How much time would you estimate you spend coding for TTR per week?
It varies. Of late, I\'ve been helping work on our main TTR core work for the past couple weeks, so my time\'s been fanned out between coding, management, and modeling/skinning. On a week where I mainly focus on code, I can get anywhere from a few hours in a day, to where I\'m up till 5am, and still wanting to code more. So it\'s really back and forth alot.

11. Okay, let\'s get down to the nitty gritty. The community have been allowed to ask you some questions and I\'ll bring some of those up now. Will there be different weather in TTR:T?
Yes, TTR will support dynamic weather. Weather will start and stop on it\'s own based on ambient properties, such as barometric pressure and ambient temperature. You might get snow and the like as well.

12. How about both day and night settings for maps?
Most definetally. Day/night opens up alot of different strategies, and will be fully supported in TTR. A fully functional day/night cycle has already been added and we are still working on all the things this can be used to do.

13. With weather and full day/night cycles coming, will we get to see different seasons?
Seasons tie very much into the weather. The different ambient properties required for the weather are based on what season it is. So the answer is yes, TTR will support the full gambit of seasons, including dynamic adjustment between them. The season system will be set up to have an effect on everything ingame, but that\'s something that\'s still somewhat underwraps, and will be covered in full later.

14. Seeing as it\'s vaguely related - we\'ve seen and read a bit about the HDR implementation. Could you explain it once again - in short?
[Image: 124401849_92fca11851_o.jpg]
[Image: 120130171_94fab642e4_o.jpg]
First, and absolutely foremost, is that i must point out the two types of HDR. The first is Camera-HDR, which is what you see in HL2, and the like. This uses bloom to simulate overbright, does exposure control, etc. Then there\'s Eye-HDR, which has yet to be used in a game to date. The differences start to crop up when we handle \'exposure control\' and overbright simulation. With the eye, unless you\'re looking AT a lightsource, or a surface that\'s completely reflecting the light\'s intensity, you dont have bloom. Your concrete wont glow because it\'s bright outside today. What *will* happen however, is that when the eye gets too much light to register all at once, the pupil will shrink, and lesser colors, or very similar ones will lose their sharpness. This is represented through washout. A surface will get very \"bright\" and lesser details such as cracks or bumps may be washed out, but you\'ll still be able to tell main details apart. This isnt simulated in Camera-HDR. The other area is the difference in exposure control. Where Camera-HDR controls lighting adjustments based solely on the light levels(again, like HL2\'s setup) the eye does it based on colors as well. So when you get very sudden light changes, as the pupil tries to adjust, there\'s still too high, or too low a range of colors visible, so all lesser details are lost. When you walk outside on a sunny day, the sudden change makes it so that your eyes arent setup to take all the color/light coming in, and a lot of lesser details will be lost. Our implementation will be founded on Eye-HDR.

15. Will the player\'s equipped gear matter on movement and world interaction?
We\'re gearing to make just about *everything* ingame have an effect on movement of objects and world interaction, You\'ll have individual grenades on your chest, your gun can knock over stuff on a table as you look around, etc.

16. Can you drop certain inventory items to gain better movement as you could with TTR:UT?
While you will be able to, the chances that the gain would be noticable is very small (unlike in TTR:UT, where you\'d find trails of M1 clips leading out of the spawn haha - Jognt anyone?) So while you CAN, unless you drop some thing really heavy (like all your nades, backpack, etc), chances of you getting any noticible gain is minimal.

17. To what level will the players gear be customizable upon entering the battlefield?
While I dont think we\'d go so far as to let the player pick the gunpowder grain in their bullets, we\'re looking at letting players not only pick team and class, but different weapons based on class as well. Multiple weapon choices per class are set up, and we\'re looking at allowing the players to choose the number of nades, extra bandoleers, etc.

18. Will we get realistic movements of the player beyond the standard running, walking crouching and proning?
We\'re trying to make movement not only act realistic, but feel very natural as well. Movement will handle differently in the different stances, and we hope to make each useful, while feeling completely natural as well.

19. Will the player be able to spin like crazy while prone - as in TTR:UT?
Haha, no, that\'s going to be fixed.

20. How about the HUD? Will there be one or will the game provide the necessary information through other visual or audio inputs?
We are actually working to make TTR HUDless. That\'s right, no more magical numbers, messages, or maps floating on your screen. We\'ve been working out all the kinks in the idea, and so far, it\'s looking excellent. Everything is capable of being conveyed through ingame messages one way or another.

21. How about the players ingame avatar? What kind of customization are we looking at here?
We want to let the players get as much customization as possible. We\'re currently looking at letting players pic things like if their sleeves are rolled up, helmet types, patches, and other various small things that when all different, allows most players to look resonably different from each other. Sadly, we have to stop at a certain point, as we dont have the memory or bandwidth to let people pick how many hairs are on their avatar\'s chin.

22. How about computer requirements? Looking at all that nice green grass, will my cpu and/or graphics card be able to handle the pressure?
*Everything* is being designed to run at TSE\'s minimum requirements. While we\'re stuffing alot of things in here, yes, it\'s all designed from the start to be as un-abusive on the machine as possible. If you have at least a 1GHz processor or so, ~512MB of memory, and a graphics card that can run shader model 1.1 or better, you\'ll be able to run it fine.

23. What about the shaders? Will people get excluded from the game because their card doesn\'t support x.x shaders?
TSE supports a procedural fall back system, so if your card can only support ps2.0, then it will scale everything back to what you can support. If your card doesn\'t support ps3.0 shaders, it will use the next best thing. At the lowest level, ps1.1 is *required* and we cant change that sadly. The terrain engine gets alot of it\'s speed from using shaders to optimize it, and we cant go letting different players have different terrains and the like, so ps1.1 is the lowest we can do. However, ps1.1 cards cost about $30 at most these days, so it shouldnt be hard at all to get at least that.

24. Will the game support non-shader cards at all?
Currently, we arent very seriously looking at it, but it\'s a vauge possibility. The problem lies in the fact that TSE\'s terrain engine, Atlas, is shader based, so we would have to find a way around that in order to implement a fixed function version.

25. Will the MAC, PC and Linux versions be fully compatible?
Yes. While TSE is currently being developed only on PC\'s, once it\'s OGL implementation is finished, we can quickly port it to the other platforms, and they will all work with one another.

26. What graphics and sound API\'s will TTR support?
Currently, TSE supports Dx based stuff only. The final version, however, will use both Dx based graphics and sounds, as well as OGL and OAL.

27. How big a download will the first release be?
Since not all the content has been created yet, we dont really have any final counts yet, but it will still be small enough where it can be downloaded feasibly. Likely a couple hundred megs.

28. Last technical question. A comparison shot emerged some time ago, curtesy of JoeB. I have it with me here. Could you explain what we\'re actually seeing?
[Image: Relief.jpg]
Ahhh, releif mapping. This thing, put simply, is amazing. In current and next-gen games, you have 3 types of spiffy surface rendering effects. You have bump mapping, normal mapping, and parallax mapping. Releif mapping, however, fits in another category all together if only for one reason. It simulates a complexe 3D surface solely through the video card, meaning you can have a simple wall model, apply a brick texture and a releif map, and presto-changeo, the releif mapping shader makes it so that the individual bricks displace the surface. It\'s not just an illusion either. You could walk and see the profile of the wall, and you could still see the individual bricks protruding from the surface. But that\'s not all, not only can we do that, but it will work with shadowing as well, meaning your dispalced surface will cast and receive shadows accordingly. Very, very, very impressive stuff. So what\'s the catch? Releif mapping can only run on ps3.0 cards. While we support fallbacks to the other effects for other ps versions, if you have a ps3.0 card, we\'re going to take some serious advantage of it. You\'ll be happy, we promise.

29. A few closing questions. What are your hopes for TTR as a game?
Honestly, I want TTR to be what we use to define not just WW2 games, but shooters in general. I hope TTR is a truely industry shaking game, just as TTR:UT was a modding scene shaking mod.

30. Do you have a certain something you will fight to get into TTR.
Lol, only one thing? Dang.
I\'d have to say it\'d be an interesting little sound system we recently came across. Sound in games would never be the same.

31. Anything in particular you would like to convey to the community now that you have the chance (promise I won\'t sensor you )?
I want to thank all you guys with putting up with our secrecy stuff, thank you all for holding on, and hope that we all can stay to see TTR get to where it should be.]]> <![CDATA[Christmas is upon us.]]> http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=784 Thu, 22 Dec 2005 15:09:22 -0800 http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=784
It has been a good year. A year of renewal. A year of rekindled fire. We have changed game engine, fired up the new forums, released the new and improved website, gotten quite a few new faces on the development team, reorganized and begun releasing information about the game itself. A good year.

Seeing as how many of the developer team members had never worked together with each other like this before, a good portion of the year was spent getting things organized, getting to know each other, exploring the game engine, getting to know our own abilities and limitations and seeing the vision of what we\'re striving towards as a team. We have evolved, matured - together. Together we have created the corner stones - the fundament - for our further development both as a team and with the game itself.

We\'ve also produced a lot this year. In particular our coders and 3D artis(s) have been busy little bees. The rest of us have also contributed with feedback, input to discussions, ideas, suggestions, blogs, riot control and more. But a special acknowledgement to the before-mentioned nevertheless.

As a result we\'re now well on our way to recreating/reinventing the game so many of us really want to see brought to life once again. With a brand new graphical coating, innovations, improvements and the same old, original feel to it all that we\'ve come to expect and cherish as our goal - we believe in what we do.

In part we have you - the community - to thank for that. Despite our different points of view every now and then, I truly believe that. You\'ve supported us, doubted us, nagged at us, praised us, confused us and inspired us. Never a dull day at work. For that we are thankfull indeed.

The other party responsible for our continued progress is our devoted team members. All of us do this in our own spare time - for some that means \"general life\" gets to ride in the back seat. We all want this project to be all that it can be and ,in their eagerness, I\'ve had to restrain certain members from talking too much about their work, due to the responsibility I have as PR Manager. It\'s not because their lack of wanting to tell you. If there are blogs that contain \'teasers\', it\'s simply because I have them tied up and duck-taped - but sometimes they free themselves of the ropes and start to scream about these things in pure excitement of their work. And believe me, it sometimes frustrates us all (The cost of rope these days...). But that is the line we have chosen to take and I will do my part to keep to it. A long story short - they are all hard at work whenever they get the chance no matter the hour of the day.

Unfortunately stress catches us all sooner or later. Good thing christmas is here. Let us all - community and developers alike - spend some time with our families and friends, recharge and recooperate. Gather strength to do what we want to do.

We - the development team - will all be back in action come 2006. Bigger, better, faster (*). We hope that you will rejoin us then and continue your support as it means a lot to us.

It has been a good year! Merry christmas to you all and a very happy new year.

PS : Keep a lookout for a little christmas gift around the evening of the 26th. Wink

[Image: MCaaHNY.jpg]
(*) Note : Bigger because of all the good food, better because of all the much needed rest and faster because I'll be getting broadband installed - sooner or later anyways.]]>
It has been a good year. A year of renewal. A year of rekindled fire. We have changed game engine, fired up the new forums, released the new and improved website, gotten quite a few new faces on the development team, reorganized and begun releasing information about the game itself. A good year.

Seeing as how many of the developer team members had never worked together with each other like this before, a good portion of the year was spent getting things organized, getting to know each other, exploring the game engine, getting to know our own abilities and limitations and seeing the vision of what we\'re striving towards as a team. We have evolved, matured - together. Together we have created the corner stones - the fundament - for our further development both as a team and with the game itself.

We\'ve also produced a lot this year. In particular our coders and 3D artis(s) have been busy little bees. The rest of us have also contributed with feedback, input to discussions, ideas, suggestions, blogs, riot control and more. But a special acknowledgement to the before-mentioned nevertheless.

As a result we\'re now well on our way to recreating/reinventing the game so many of us really want to see brought to life once again. With a brand new graphical coating, innovations, improvements and the same old, original feel to it all that we\'ve come to expect and cherish as our goal - we believe in what we do.

In part we have you - the community - to thank for that. Despite our different points of view every now and then, I truly believe that. You\'ve supported us, doubted us, nagged at us, praised us, confused us and inspired us. Never a dull day at work. For that we are thankfull indeed.

The other party responsible for our continued progress is our devoted team members. All of us do this in our own spare time - for some that means \"general life\" gets to ride in the back seat. We all want this project to be all that it can be and ,in their eagerness, I\'ve had to restrain certain members from talking too much about their work, due to the responsibility I have as PR Manager. It\'s not because their lack of wanting to tell you. If there are blogs that contain \'teasers\', it\'s simply because I have them tied up and duck-taped - but sometimes they free themselves of the ropes and start to scream about these things in pure excitement of their work. And believe me, it sometimes frustrates us all (The cost of rope these days...). But that is the line we have chosen to take and I will do my part to keep to it. A long story short - they are all hard at work whenever they get the chance no matter the hour of the day.

Unfortunately stress catches us all sooner or later. Good thing christmas is here. Let us all - community and developers alike - spend some time with our families and friends, recharge and recooperate. Gather strength to do what we want to do.

We - the development team - will all be back in action come 2006. Bigger, better, faster (*). We hope that you will rejoin us then and continue your support as it means a lot to us.

It has been a good year! Merry christmas to you all and a very happy new year.

PS : Keep a lookout for a little christmas gift around the evening of the 26th. Wink

[Image: MCaaHNY.jpg]
(*) Note : Bigger because of all the good food, better because of all the much needed rest and faster because I'll be getting broadband installed - sooner or later anyways.]]> <![CDATA[First german weapon made.]]> http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=763 Wed, 07 Dec 2005 01:09:44 -0800 http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=763 [Image: mp40_400.jpg] The first german weapon made for TTR:Torque is here. \"Say hello to my little friend.\"

The MP40 has now been added to the german collection of weapons in the \"Gameplay\" section. It\'s history and features are described as usual along with comparative images - real versus model and an animated gif of the full model.

Enjoy.]]> [Image: mp40_400.jpg] The first german weapon made for TTR:Torque is here. \"Say hello to my little friend.\"

The MP40 has now been added to the german collection of weapons in the \"Gameplay\" section. It\'s history and features are described as usual along with comparative images - real versus model and an animated gif of the full model.

Enjoy.]]> <![CDATA[M1A1 Thompson.]]> http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=705 Wed, 26 Oct 2005 04:04:46 -0700 http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=705
You can find it in the GamePlay Section[/url], under Gear & Equipment.

Enjoy.]]>
You can find it in the GamePlay Section[/url], under Gear & Equipment.

Enjoy.]]> <![CDATA[Reno\'s Project Revealed.]]> http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=663 Wed, 12 Oct 2005 01:58:16 -0700 http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=663
[url=\"http://www.thethirdreich.com/about.php?pid=8267\"]Direct Link[/url]]]>
[url=\"http://www.thethirdreich.com/about.php?pid=8267\"]Direct Link[/url]]]> <![CDATA[Interview #1]]> http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=641 Fri, 30 Sep 2005 02:13:25 -0700 http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=641 [Image: Interview_Jonathan.jpg]
[Image: spunge_pic.jpg]
Personal Information

Name : Jonathan Maeyens
Birthdate : 28-04-1983
Country : Belgium
City : Near Ghendt[/b]





1. Let\'s start off easy. You finally got the site launched. How much time went into this new site?
A lot! I’m a big supporter of open source software, so it’s no big surprise I chose PHPbb to power our forums. A standard PHPbb doesn’t really cater to our needs, but luckily there’s a ton of modifications freely available to expand its functionality. The only option was to manually select and add the modifications we need. This is where 90% of the time went to.
Overall, I think it took me several months to create a full PHPbb powered community portal (site + forums). Of course I didn’t work on them 7 days a week. They were something I did on the side whenever I had a few hours to spare.
As always a lot of things could go wrong, and they did. But I’ll spare you all those details. Very accidental I stumbled onto a new forum package called MyBB. I really liked what I saw because it incorporates many of the things I had spent so much time on, integrating into PHPbb. Fed up with the slow & tedious progress of PHPbb I tested MyBB for about a week on a free webhost and even though the package needs some fixes & time to mature, I’m really impressed by it.

2. Why change the site when the old one was very good looking and working well?
Why not change it? Smile I like to call myself an amateur webdesigner so naturally I always feel the urge to play around with web designs.
I think from time to time all sites need a facelift. As time passes, many people get tired of seeing the same old design over and over again.
On top of that TTR is no longer a UT MOD, but we\'re trying to have it be a worthy standalone game on totally different engine. Many people don\'t seem to know this yet, but that\'s a very big thing and an important change! To help symbolise that, we need to get rid of the old & bring in the new! The game is off to a fresh start and so should the website & community.

3. Regarding the new forums. Why split the main site and the forums?
Initially I had planned on having a community portal where site & forums intertwined completely. But in the end, most people just don\'t care about all that. Not to speak of the time it would take to create it...
Like most standalone games, I\'ve decided to keep the site small, stylish & informational with a seperate forum for our community.

4. How do the new forums compare to the old ones?
First of all, these forums are much more feature rich and the design is much simpler & straight forward. In fact, the design is so simple I\'m pretty sure that most people don\'t even realise what power these new forums house.
Some useful features I think deserve a special mention:
1. The ability to easily track posts through your User Control Panel.
2. Syndicate certain or all forums (newsfeeds)
3. The ability to help keep the forums an enjoyable place by reporting malicous posts to the moderator team.
4. The community itself is now in charge of awarding the \"good\" community members through a simple reputation system, so we no longer have a misleading ranks system, where people just spammed to get their postcount up and appear as a valued community member.
5. Apart from the members themselves, the threads can be rated as well. This immediately make good threads stand out from the bad.
6. There\'s an advanced PM system that looks a lot like a mail client, allowing for extensive & advance management of PM\'s like never before.
7. The much requested attachments features is now also available.
The list could go on, but most importantly, these boards are much faster then the old ones!

5. Anything special planned for the site in the time to come?
That would be constant tweaking & improving where possible or needed. In the not so distant future the foums will be upgraded to the latest version of the forum software however. This should bring forth some bugfixes, a lot of improvements & maybe even some new features.

6. Ok. Let\'s move on to what everybody is waiting for - the game. When did you decide to move to the Torque Engine?
Although UT2004 is a wonderful engine to work with, it was clear to anyone closely involved with TTR, things weren’t going as they should. Everyone on the team got burned out sooner or later and as time passed some lost all aspiration to mod & called it quits.

UT2004 is oversaturated with projects and with the rivalry between them, finding replacements proved to be nothing less then an extremely hard and close to impossible task.

During a conversation between Reno and myself he mentioned he had purchased a TGE (Torque Game Engine) license for a personal project of his and that’s where the idea of moving to the Torque engine sparked.

7. How did the rest of the dev team react to this?
The decision wasn’t made by one person, and the team in general agreed that if you look at the current UT2004 mod popularity, it seems all the time & effort needed to create a mod goes by almost unnoticed.

Just imagine the scenario of TTR arriving on the UT2004 scene at the end of its lifecycle… We experienced such a situation first hand with TTR on the original Unreal Tournament. It’s definitely a mistake we shouldn’t make again. Looking towards the future, the only sensible option was to port or restart development on another engine.

In collaboration with Reno, I spent weeks considering & researching various engines and Torque came out best. After our extensive research we laid the proposition on the table and everyone pretty much agreed this is the most logical move we could make. I think we had all come to realise at some point it was going to be really hard to create TTR on UT2004.

We haven’t just switched to another engine, it’s a whole new challenge for us, and I guess that’s exactly the spark we needed to light the fuse again.

8. How will this move reflect upon TTR as a game?
Obviously you can’t compare the Unreal and Torque engine. Both have their strong & weak points. Also the production process is different. The Torque engine really shines in it’s outdoor capabilities & networking code. So this means you’ll definitely get to see a lot of outdoor action and player counts possibly up to 128 a server. This will all contribute to a much different gaming experience then what we’re used to from other WW2 games. I don’t want to give much more information or details at this point in time. Maybe in another interview later on.

9. Why did you wait to release the information about the move to Torque?
Both a lot of research and internal organisation was needed first, before we were ready to handle the additional pressure of the public.

10. Has it been hard to keep things under wrap for so long? Did you ever just want to spill your guts about it?
Most definitely! With all the speculation going on there were times I really had the urge to scream it out. I know how frustrating waiting can get. I guess it’s a normal reaction for people loose faith at some point and that’s when they start speculating, criticizing the development team or leaving altogether. Still, it doesn’t reflect on us as a development team in any positive way.

11. How do you feel about finally letting the news out?
I’m glad the word’s finally out. It put a halt to the speculations & rumours that were going around and we’re very pleased to see people sparking some new interest in what we’re trying to do.

12. What do you think about how the community reacted to the dev team being silent for so long?
On the one side we really want to give something back to the people that follow and support us. But on the other, the community sometimes doesn’t understand how much it takes to actually do all this. From experience I’ve learned that in the end it’s a bad practise to reward negative community behaviour like speculating or criticizing with updates or news when it isn’t ready. Some things take time and waiting is unfortunately a part of the dance.

13. What do you think about how the community responded to the news about the move to Torque?
I’m really happy that so many in our community have received it in a positive manner and realise the opportunities we have. To be totally honest, I had expected much less understanding & much more arguments.

14. How has Garage Games reacted to this move?
Initially we didn’t plan on releasing this important information until we were a little further down the road. To our big surprise, when Benjamin Bradley, the Garage Games PR guru caught wind of our undertaking, he was very enthusiastic and mailed us right away offering his help through a front page “call to arms” news item. This article gave us a massive and positive response from the Garage Games community. So many thanks to you Ben and the Garage Games community.

15. Alright. Let\'s move on to even more game specific questions. What is this next generation TTR game going to be named?
”The Third Reich” with some suffix added to it. Since we are creating the battle for H?rtgen and its surroundings, it will likely be something along the lines of “The Third Reich: Hell in H?ertgen” or “The Third Reich: Battle for H?rtgen”. This leaves room for other campaigns.
”The Third Reich” is a powerful and controversial term that immediately indicates that whatever it is, it’s got something to do with the Second World War. I believe a bit of controversy just might give us the spotlight needed to set us apart from other WW2 games.

16. Does that mean that TTR\'s gameplay will be taking place in and around Hurtgen only?
For now our focus is on Huertgen & Huertgen only. A very early idea on the table is to package different campaigns separately as releases, each representing a different campaign of the war. Of course we never know what the bumps & kinks in the road the future will bring, so for now, it’s Huertgen only.

17. Any new features planned that you can reveal?
You wish…!

18. Are there any special features that you personally will fight for to be implemented in the game?
I want this game to be fun and appealing to a broad audience. I’ll always try to have an input that’s based on the “KISS” (Keep It Simple, Stupid) philosophy. Most of my input in various aspects of the game’s development is based on keeping that in mind.

19. Will vehicles still be available from the first release of TTR?
It’s early & hard to be specific about any details this early in development. There are no guarantees, but we definitely plan on having vehicles as soon as possible as they are a crucial element of the game and the Torque engine has great support for them.

20. Any tips/clues on what kind of vehicles we\'ll be seeing?
Your usual most common WW2 vehicles.

21. About weapons. Will all the previously seen weapons be available in the new game?
With all the WW2 games out there, many people already know most of the WW2 arsenal and you’ll definitely find them in “The Third Reich”. The weapon models are very detailed and I hope I can create skins to match the quality of the models.

22. How about quality of the work with an almost entirely new team working on it?
Every member of our team is talented in their own departments. I’m very confident that if we can bring together all our skills we can deliver a very qualitative game. The team atmosphere is very positive and enjoyable which makes for a productive work environment.

23. What will you be doing as a developer now that the site is almost complete?
I’m actually a level designer but I’m also pretty proficient with Photoshop so I’ll most likely be active in the level design and 2D art departments. I’m currently investing my time in skinning weapon models.

24. Finally, do you have anything to say to the community now that the news about the move to the Torque Engine is out?
Thank you to those that have stayed with us through all the rough times. Keep the faith & spread the word.[/font]]]> [Image: Interview_Jonathan.jpg]
[Image: spunge_pic.jpg]
Personal Information

Name : Jonathan Maeyens
Birthdate : 28-04-1983
Country : Belgium
City : Near Ghendt[/b]





1. Let\'s start off easy. You finally got the site launched. How much time went into this new site?
A lot! I’m a big supporter of open source software, so it’s no big surprise I chose PHPbb to power our forums. A standard PHPbb doesn’t really cater to our needs, but luckily there’s a ton of modifications freely available to expand its functionality. The only option was to manually select and add the modifications we need. This is where 90% of the time went to.
Overall, I think it took me several months to create a full PHPbb powered community portal (site + forums). Of course I didn’t work on them 7 days a week. They were something I did on the side whenever I had a few hours to spare.
As always a lot of things could go wrong, and they did. But I’ll spare you all those details. Very accidental I stumbled onto a new forum package called MyBB. I really liked what I saw because it incorporates many of the things I had spent so much time on, integrating into PHPbb. Fed up with the slow & tedious progress of PHPbb I tested MyBB for about a week on a free webhost and even though the package needs some fixes & time to mature, I’m really impressed by it.

2. Why change the site when the old one was very good looking and working well?
Why not change it? Smile I like to call myself an amateur webdesigner so naturally I always feel the urge to play around with web designs.
I think from time to time all sites need a facelift. As time passes, many people get tired of seeing the same old design over and over again.
On top of that TTR is no longer a UT MOD, but we\'re trying to have it be a worthy standalone game on totally different engine. Many people don\'t seem to know this yet, but that\'s a very big thing and an important change! To help symbolise that, we need to get rid of the old & bring in the new! The game is off to a fresh start and so should the website & community.

3. Regarding the new forums. Why split the main site and the forums?
Initially I had planned on having a community portal where site & forums intertwined completely. But in the end, most people just don\'t care about all that. Not to speak of the time it would take to create it...
Like most standalone games, I\'ve decided to keep the site small, stylish & informational with a seperate forum for our community.

4. How do the new forums compare to the old ones?
First of all, these forums are much more feature rich and the design is much simpler & straight forward. In fact, the design is so simple I\'m pretty sure that most people don\'t even realise what power these new forums house.
Some useful features I think deserve a special mention:
1. The ability to easily track posts through your User Control Panel.
2. Syndicate certain or all forums (newsfeeds)
3. The ability to help keep the forums an enjoyable place by reporting malicous posts to the moderator team.
4. The community itself is now in charge of awarding the \"good\" community members through a simple reputation system, so we no longer have a misleading ranks system, where people just spammed to get their postcount up and appear as a valued community member.
5. Apart from the members themselves, the threads can be rated as well. This immediately make good threads stand out from the bad.
6. There\'s an advanced PM system that looks a lot like a mail client, allowing for extensive & advance management of PM\'s like never before.
7. The much requested attachments features is now also available.
The list could go on, but most importantly, these boards are much faster then the old ones!

5. Anything special planned for the site in the time to come?
That would be constant tweaking & improving where possible or needed. In the not so distant future the foums will be upgraded to the latest version of the forum software however. This should bring forth some bugfixes, a lot of improvements & maybe even some new features.

6. Ok. Let\'s move on to what everybody is waiting for - the game. When did you decide to move to the Torque Engine?
Although UT2004 is a wonderful engine to work with, it was clear to anyone closely involved with TTR, things weren’t going as they should. Everyone on the team got burned out sooner or later and as time passed some lost all aspiration to mod & called it quits.

UT2004 is oversaturated with projects and with the rivalry between them, finding replacements proved to be nothing less then an extremely hard and close to impossible task.

During a conversation between Reno and myself he mentioned he had purchased a TGE (Torque Game Engine) license for a personal project of his and that’s where the idea of moving to the Torque engine sparked.

7. How did the rest of the dev team react to this?
The decision wasn’t made by one person, and the team in general agreed that if you look at the current UT2004 mod popularity, it seems all the time & effort needed to create a mod goes by almost unnoticed.

Just imagine the scenario of TTR arriving on the UT2004 scene at the end of its lifecycle… We experienced such a situation first hand with TTR on the original Unreal Tournament. It’s definitely a mistake we shouldn’t make again. Looking towards the future, the only sensible option was to port or restart development on another engine.

In collaboration with Reno, I spent weeks considering & researching various engines and Torque came out best. After our extensive research we laid the proposition on the table and everyone pretty much agreed this is the most logical move we could make. I think we had all come to realise at some point it was going to be really hard to create TTR on UT2004.

We haven’t just switched to another engine, it’s a whole new challenge for us, and I guess that’s exactly the spark we needed to light the fuse again.

8. How will this move reflect upon TTR as a game?
Obviously you can’t compare the Unreal and Torque engine. Both have their strong & weak points. Also the production process is different. The Torque engine really shines in it’s outdoor capabilities & networking code. So this means you’ll definitely get to see a lot of outdoor action and player counts possibly up to 128 a server. This will all contribute to a much different gaming experience then what we’re used to from other WW2 games. I don’t want to give much more information or details at this point in time. Maybe in another interview later on.

9. Why did you wait to release the information about the move to Torque?
Both a lot of research and internal organisation was needed first, before we were ready to handle the additional pressure of the public.

10. Has it been hard to keep things under wrap for so long? Did you ever just want to spill your guts about it?
Most definitely! With all the speculation going on there were times I really had the urge to scream it out. I know how frustrating waiting can get. I guess it’s a normal reaction for people loose faith at some point and that’s when they start speculating, criticizing the development team or leaving altogether. Still, it doesn’t reflect on us as a development team in any positive way.

11. How do you feel about finally letting the news out?
I’m glad the word’s finally out. It put a halt to the speculations & rumours that were going around and we’re very pleased to see people sparking some new interest in what we’re trying to do.

12. What do you think about how the community reacted to the dev team being silent for so long?
On the one side we really want to give something back to the people that follow and support us. But on the other, the community sometimes doesn’t understand how much it takes to actually do all this. From experience I’ve learned that in the end it’s a bad practise to reward negative community behaviour like speculating or criticizing with updates or news when it isn’t ready. Some things take time and waiting is unfortunately a part of the dance.

13. What do you think about how the community responded to the news about the move to Torque?
I’m really happy that so many in our community have received it in a positive manner and realise the opportunities we have. To be totally honest, I had expected much less understanding & much more arguments.

14. How has Garage Games reacted to this move?
Initially we didn’t plan on releasing this important information until we were a little further down the road. To our big surprise, when Benjamin Bradley, the Garage Games PR guru caught wind of our undertaking, he was very enthusiastic and mailed us right away offering his help through a front page “call to arms” news item. This article gave us a massive and positive response from the Garage Games community. So many thanks to you Ben and the Garage Games community.

15. Alright. Let\'s move on to even more game specific questions. What is this next generation TTR game going to be named?
”The Third Reich” with some suffix added to it. Since we are creating the battle for H?rtgen and its surroundings, it will likely be something along the lines of “The Third Reich: Hell in H?ertgen” or “The Third Reich: Battle for H?rtgen”. This leaves room for other campaigns.
”The Third Reich” is a powerful and controversial term that immediately indicates that whatever it is, it’s got something to do with the Second World War. I believe a bit of controversy just might give us the spotlight needed to set us apart from other WW2 games.

16. Does that mean that TTR\'s gameplay will be taking place in and around Hurtgen only?
For now our focus is on Huertgen & Huertgen only. A very early idea on the table is to package different campaigns separately as releases, each representing a different campaign of the war. Of course we never know what the bumps & kinks in the road the future will bring, so for now, it’s Huertgen only.

17. Any new features planned that you can reveal?
You wish…!

18. Are there any special features that you personally will fight for to be implemented in the game?
I want this game to be fun and appealing to a broad audience. I’ll always try to have an input that’s based on the “KISS” (Keep It Simple, Stupid) philosophy. Most of my input in various aspects of the game’s development is based on keeping that in mind.

19. Will vehicles still be available from the first release of TTR?
It’s early & hard to be specific about any details this early in development. There are no guarantees, but we definitely plan on having vehicles as soon as possible as they are a crucial element of the game and the Torque engine has great support for them.

20. Any tips/clues on what kind of vehicles we\'ll be seeing?
Your usual most common WW2 vehicles.

21. About weapons. Will all the previously seen weapons be available in the new game?
With all the WW2 games out there, many people already know most of the WW2 arsenal and you’ll definitely find them in “The Third Reich”. The weapon models are very detailed and I hope I can create skins to match the quality of the models.

22. How about quality of the work with an almost entirely new team working on it?
Every member of our team is talented in their own departments. I’m very confident that if we can bring together all our skills we can deliver a very qualitative game. The team atmosphere is very positive and enjoyable which makes for a productive work environment.

23. What will you be doing as a developer now that the site is almost complete?
I’m actually a level designer but I’m also pretty proficient with Photoshop so I’ll most likely be active in the level design and 2D art departments. I’m currently investing my time in skinning weapon models.

24. Finally, do you have anything to say to the community now that the news about the move to the Torque Engine is out?
Thank you to those that have stayed with us through all the rough times. Keep the faith & spread the word.[/font]]]> <![CDATA[Announcing Interviews.]]> http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=627 Fri, 23 Sep 2005 03:25:59 -0700 http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=627
There will also be a series of \"TTR Developer Presentations\" where I interview the rest of the developers on a more personal level, separated from the TTR environment. Where they are from, how they ended up working on TTR and so on.

First one of the developers to be interviewed is Spunge. Expect to see his first interview here early next week.

Rules for Interview Threads
1. Community Members can ask relevant questions to the interview subject. Only the interview subject will answer the questions.
2. Stay on topic and don\'t ask questions not related to the interview as they won\'t be answered.
3. Keep a civil tone in these threads. Our moderators will delete spam and offtopicness as they see fit.

Enjoy.]]>
There will also be a series of \"TTR Developer Presentations\" where I interview the rest of the developers on a more personal level, separated from the TTR environment. Where they are from, how they ended up working on TTR and so on.

First one of the developers to be interviewed is Spunge. Expect to see his first interview here early next week.

Rules for Interview Threads
1. Community Members can ask relevant questions to the interview subject. Only the interview subject will answer the questions.
2. Stay on topic and don\'t ask questions not related to the interview as they won\'t be answered.
3. Keep a civil tone in these threads. Our moderators will delete spam and offtopicness as they see fit.

Enjoy.]]> <![CDATA[And the countdown begins...]]> http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=582 Wed, 07 Sep 2005 11:18:00 -0700 http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=582 [Image: site_opening_small.jpg]
T minus ... and counting...
All ye of little faith! The time is finally upon us. The site is ready!

Jonathan has been working in overdrive the past weeks implementing many great features that will make my job a breeze, optimizing for cross-browser functionality, sorting and such. Yesterday I got the thumbs up signal from him and we are at go.

There will be changes made over time as new tools/versions are under way, so consider this an alpha - feedback - version of the site.

I will use the next couple of days to go through the site content and update/edit/tweak the items there to look their best and also look for spelling mistakes I\'m sure I\'ve made.

Friday, 1730 GMT, there will be a gathering in [url=\" irc://irc.gamesurge.net/ttr \"]#ttr on irc.gamesurge.net[/url] leading up to the release of the site at 18:00 GMT. An official count down has been started, as you can see [url=\"http://www.thethirdreich.com\"]here[/url].

During the gathering, both prior to the site going online and after, you are free to ask us questions about the site and other things concerning the game. Some things, however, we will not be answering just yet. Still, it\'s a chance for you to interact with the developers and maybe get some answers you\'ve been pondering.

Thank you for your patience.]]> [Image: site_opening_small.jpg]
T minus ... and counting...
All ye of little faith! The time is finally upon us. The site is ready!

Jonathan has been working in overdrive the past weeks implementing many great features that will make my job a breeze, optimizing for cross-browser functionality, sorting and such. Yesterday I got the thumbs up signal from him and we are at go.

There will be changes made over time as new tools/versions are under way, so consider this an alpha - feedback - version of the site.

I will use the next couple of days to go through the site content and update/edit/tweak the items there to look their best and also look for spelling mistakes I\'m sure I\'ve made.

Friday, 1730 GMT, there will be a gathering in [url=\" irc://irc.gamesurge.net/ttr \"]#ttr on irc.gamesurge.net[/url] leading up to the release of the site at 18:00 GMT. An official count down has been started, as you can see [url=\"http://www.thethirdreich.com\"]here[/url].

During the gathering, both prior to the site going online and after, you are free to ask us questions about the site and other things concerning the game. Some things, however, we will not be answering just yet. Still, it\'s a chance for you to interact with the developers and maybe get some answers you\'ve been pondering.

Thank you for your patience.]]> <![CDATA[The New TTR Site]]> http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=445 Tue, 21 Jun 2005 05:13:00 -0700 http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=445
The site is currently in beta testing and responds very well. There are still some small tweaks to implement and Spunge is hard at work stitching together small tidbits that I for one keep coming up with for layout and \"ease of work\" purposes.

The site is divided into sections of information that Sono and I are busy filling up with content. We have a few items in there already that will keep you busy for a while. Once the site is released I will open up a couple of threads to discuss those things here on the forums and I can even promise you some visual goodies.

The remaining time until the site launches we will spend creating content for the site and Spunge will keep ironing out what little is left of bugs and add those little things that make something perfect, being the perfectionist he is.

And as a proof we\'re not pulling anyones legs, here is a screenshot of the community page, text by yours truly and ofcourse the well known and often read forum rules. Wink

[Image: site_preview.jpg]
]]>
The site is currently in beta testing and responds very well. There are still some small tweaks to implement and Spunge is hard at work stitching together small tidbits that I for one keep coming up with for layout and \"ease of work\" purposes.

The site is divided into sections of information that Sono and I are busy filling up with content. We have a few items in there already that will keep you busy for a while. Once the site is released I will open up a couple of threads to discuss those things here on the forums and I can even promise you some visual goodies.

The remaining time until the site launches we will spend creating content for the site and Spunge will keep ironing out what little is left of bugs and add those little things that make something perfect, being the perfectionist he is.

And as a proof we\'re not pulling anyones legs, here is a screenshot of the community page, text by yours truly and ofcourse the well known and often read forum rules. Wink

[Image: site_preview.jpg]
]]> <![CDATA[NSFW Tag]]> http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=116 Mon, 24 Jan 2005 01:42:10 -0800 http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=116
NOTE : By unsafe we mean content (images, urls, etc) that might be a bit beyond what you want to pull up while at work or in a public place. Even if that is the case it still might be funny/have a point and thus not be deleted/closed. That is when the tag will/shall be used to give people a fair warning.

Moderators will edit this into any thread heading they deem [NSFW] if the author didn\'t.

Keep it in mind though, and try to remember to do it yourselves.

Thanks.]]>
NOTE : By unsafe we mean content (images, urls, etc) that might be a bit beyond what you want to pull up while at work or in a public place. Even if that is the case it still might be funny/have a point and thus not be deleted/closed. That is when the tag will/shall be used to give people a fair warning.

Moderators will edit this into any thread heading they deem [NSFW] if the author didn\'t.

Keep it in mind though, and try to remember to do it yourselves.

Thanks.]]> <![CDATA[Welcome.]]> http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=69 Thu, 20 Jan 2005 02:29:15 -0800 http://forums.ghc-games.com/showthread.php?tid=69
The Developer Team and the Moderators are already installed and busy. To help keep this place as friendly and usefull as possible please read the rules and abide by them.

Some of the features here are new to most of us, so I\'ll quickly go through them.

Reputation :
Every registered user has a certain reputation on our forums. You can find the information for each user under their avatar. If a user gets enough positive hits on his reputation he will gain one more green square. If he gets enough negative ones, he will loose one and even become red squares.

It\'s basically an interactive way of indicating who the nice, informative people on the forum are and who are the assholes.
I really do hope you guys will handle that well, allthough I somehow fear crazyness in it\'s wake.

You can send someone a positive reputation message by clicking the \"+\" under their name. Same thing with a negative reputation message, just click the \"-\". The receiver can not see who the message is from, so it might actually be nice to sign atleast the positive ones Wink

Rate Thread :
Rate Thread is something related to whatever thread you are currently in. You can find the \"Rate Thread\" selector at the bottom of the thread. If you really like the thread then rate it accordingly. Same thing the other way around.

Report Thread :
Anyone can report a thread. If you find something offencive or simply somthing worth letting us know about, then report the thread. You will be asked to enter information regarding what you reacted to and why. Anything serious and worth while will be taken care of accordingly. Please do not abuse this feature (for spam and general fun) as I hope we can avoid having to \"invent\" rules for that aswell.

I ask that you use these features wisely. If you find a good thread, then rate it well. Same thing goes for users. If we all decide to use this correctly it might actually become a nice little tool for us. Who knows Wink

Enjoy your stay!]]>
The Developer Team and the Moderators are already installed and busy. To help keep this place as friendly and usefull as possible please read the rules and abide by them.

Some of the features here are new to most of us, so I\'ll quickly go through them.

Reputation :
Every registered user has a certain reputation on our forums. You can find the information for each user under their avatar. If a user gets enough positive hits on his reputation he will gain one more green square. If he gets enough negative ones, he will loose one and even become red squares.

It\'s basically an interactive way of indicating who the nice, informative people on the forum are and who are the assholes.
I really do hope you guys will handle that well, allthough I somehow fear crazyness in it\'s wake.

You can send someone a positive reputation message by clicking the \"+\" under their name. Same thing with a negative reputation message, just click the \"-\". The receiver can not see who the message is from, so it might actually be nice to sign atleast the positive ones Wink

Rate Thread :
Rate Thread is something related to whatever thread you are currently in. You can find the \"Rate Thread\" selector at the bottom of the thread. If you really like the thread then rate it accordingly. Same thing the other way around.

Report Thread :
Anyone can report a thread. If you find something offencive or simply somthing worth letting us know about, then report the thread. You will be asked to enter information regarding what you reacted to and why. Anything serious and worth while will be taken care of accordingly. Please do not abuse this feature (for spam and general fun) as I hope we can avoid having to \"invent\" rules for that aswell.

I ask that you use these features wisely. If you find a good thread, then rate it well. Same thing goes for users. If we all decide to use this correctly it might actually become a nice little tool for us. Who knows Wink

Enjoy your stay!]]>