Improvements to the PC game

[Bayne]

[glow=red,2,300]If the new JW games include a re-make of the PC game, what improvements could be made?

I'd want multiplayer plus seeing the living martians more.
[/glow]

[Chris]

Improved pathing/AI. If you've ever tried moving several units of tripods around you'll know what I mean, they spend more time walking into eachother than moving around the map. Also for some reason, 2 tripods will be able to fire on a target but the third will just start moving in circles and cant seem to get in position.

Resources. I dunno about everyone else but it seems I never have enough and efficiency is always running low. The game just seems to becomes very drawn out after a certain point and I don't think that would be very fun for multiplayer, if it was included.

[Bayne]

[glow=red,2,300]Yes infuriating sometimes when an ironclad is shelling your tripods and they are running around in little circles in panic.

Last time I played through I found resources not so much of a problem. Once I discovered that hovering the cursor over the resource bar would tell you exactly how much of a resource you had, and how much more another factory would produce showed me that in many sectors I was burning up my resources building human farms that would produce negligible benefits, it being often better to leave the handling machines on idle after only building a handful of things and concentrating on the front and on resource rich sectors.

Would have been nice if that was esplained in the manual!
[/glow]

[malfunkshun]

i would prefer a brand new game or games.

1. turn based strategy, in the style of Master of Orion. i like strategy games, but i really don't like RTS games. they give me a headache, always worrying about whats going on here there and everywhere, and i get stressed out. the option being available to play as either the humans or the martians.

2. a first person shooter where you play the part of an individual soldier with the ability to take control of all kinds of vehicles... like a tank, a battleship, an armored lorry, even manning field guns. mission based, with the soldier having to complete various tasks to move on to the next level. obviously this would be a large departure from the novel, as the RTS game was, in order to give the humans a fighting chance. this game would have two campaigns... one from the human perspective and one from the martian perspective, each with its own unique missions and storyline.

[ArmoredTrackLayer]

I would like to see cannon fodder such as civilians and infantry. Also, The Cannon Batteries, lets see the crews! I think NOT seeing humans bursting into flames took away from the whole "Martian Overlord" experience. Plus, I think Martians should have to pluck up the humans and drop them into the farm

[Geis]

> 2. a first person shooter where you play the part of an individual soldier

"Just imagine this: four or five of their fighting machines suddenly starting off--Heat-Rays right and left, and not a Martian in 'em. Not a Martian in 'em, but men--men who have learned the way how."

Actually, I'd much prefer playing the Martian with the heat ray wiping out artillery emplacements, troop columns and dreadnaughts. Then, taking a break for lunch by chasing down a crowd on the run.

[malfunkshun]

Geis said:

Actually, I'd much prefer playing the Martian with the heat ray wiping out artillery emplacements, troop columns and dreadnaughts. Then, taking a break for lunch by chasing down a crowd on the run.

yeah i'd like that too...

one from the human perspective and one from the martian perspective, each with its own unique missions and storyline.

[Bayne]

[glow=red,2,300]Indeed, being able to play boths sides was one of the best features of the PC startegy game and one element sorely missed from the PS1 game.
[/glow]

[Stormdragon666]

malfunkshun said:

i would prefer a brand new game or games.

1. turn based strategy, in the style of Master of Orion. i like strategy games, but i really don't like RTS games. they give me a headache, always worrying about whats going on here there and everywhere, and i get stressed out. the option being available to play as either the humans or the martians.

2. a first person shooter where you play the part of an individual soldier with the ability to take control of all kinds of vehicles... like a tank, a battleship, an armored lorry, even manning field guns. mission based, with the soldier having to complete various tasks to move on to the next level. obviously this would be a large departure from the novel, as the RTS game was, in order to give the humans a fighting chance. this game would have two campaigns... one from the human perspective and one from the martian perspective, each with its own unique missions and storyline.

Why the second one could certainly be a very cool BF1942 mod.

[twistedrabbit]

I wish someone made a bf1942 mod of that!

I would like to see a strategy game that includes the Selenites from The First Men in the Moon.
Maybe a battlefield-esque style game combined with strategy...sort of how like Tribes lets you "buy" vehicles. -But take that to the more extreme.

[Stormdragon666]

twistedrabbit said:

I wish someone made a bf1942 mod of that!

I would like to see a strategy game that includes the Selenites from The First Men in the Moon.
Maybe a battlefield-esque style game combined with strategy...sort of how like Tribes lets you "buy" vehicles. -But take that to the more extreme.

Just imagine, your lying in a trench, all is still and you clench the handlebar and trigger of your machinegun, you hear some feint explosions from the other side of the hills.
a jeep races across the overlooking road the opposite direction of the happenings in the distance..........
Than suddenly a loud bang and a hissing sound, the tanks of your squad are on fire and your team is on the feet and moving to check out the chaos, to be unpleasantly surprised by some tripods.
The grenadeers and bazookamen engage them immediately, you jump in to a still working and abandoned tank and bravelly meet the invaders.



to make it a bit more fare for the humans, the technology would be in between the 2 world wars, so the timeline and the scenery would not deviate very much from the novell.

[Bayne]

[glow=red,2,300]Imagine a Master Of Orion style game with a variety of Wells referances. Martians, Selenites, Time Travelling Morlocks, Giant Ants, humans with land ironclads and flying machines. Maybe Humans could use food of the gods giants against Martian Tripods!

That could be way cool.
[/glow]

[JonT]

maybe improve the graphics slightly, add a few more new units perhaps? i would deffinetly like to see a lot more of the living martians, im not sure how that could be done but it would be cool. aslong as the specs aint to high so i can run it on my laptop

[coupe827]

This is a list of technologies that never made it into the finished game. The record no. refers to the record in the file I am hacking. You can ignore this.

Human vehicle

"record no. 8091 The landing craft is a converted vehicle ferry. It provides armoured transport to vehicles, and can place them on a shore without the need of a jetty."

Human construction

"record no. 9884 Construction of a temporary rail depot helps to speed up transportation."

Martian constructions

"record no. 14383 Matter transfer stations allow the rapid distribution of materials over great distances."
"record no. 14481 Advanced optical equipment allows us to view activities on Earth from observation platforms here on Mars."
"record no. 34323 Relay centre for the Elder Chambers."

Human technologies

"record no. 37082 New Alloy"
"record no. 38276 Sighting apparatus for moving targets"
"record no. 38523 Reading Martian symbols"
"record no. 38556 A basic understanding of the Martian printed symbols provides better interpretation of gathered intelligence."
"record no. 38753 Martian signal methods"
"record no. 38785 A knowledge of the Martians symbols and transmission methods provides improved interpretation of gathered intelligence."
"record no. 38990 Martian language"
"record no. 39016 A basic understanding of the Martian language provides greater interpretation of gathered intelligence."
"record no. 39194 not used Modified Faraday Cage"
"record no. 39383 not used Larger Capacitors"
"record no. 39954 not used High Energy Capacitor Shell"
"record no. 40164 not used Smoke Shells"
"record no. 40320 not used Chemical Rounds"
"record no. 40443 not used Researching ChemicalRounds"
"record no. 40636 not used Researching HeightAdjustableRounds"
"record no. 40818 not used Researching ImprovedDynamite"
"record no. 40865 not used Advanced Dynamite"
"record no. 41041 not used Mounted Martian Steam Cleaner"
"record no. 41259 not used Can Fire Glue Solvent"
"record no. 41445 not used Magnetic Field Generator"
"record no. 41646 not used Construct Dummy Buildings"
"record no. 41851 not used Construct Dummy Unit"
"record no. 42036 not used Concealed Pit"

Martian technologies

"record no. 44498 not used Enhanced Air Purifiers"
"record no. 44691 not used Larger Gas Reserves"
"record no. 44872 Mars based optical array"
"record no. 45111 Mars based telescope"
"record no. 45321 Mars based long range scanner"
"record no. 45574 Shock bombs"
"record no. 45761 not used Advanced Black Dust Canister"
"record no. 45975 not used Explosive Canister"
"record no. 46297 High energy shock wave"
"record no. 46476 not used Detect Infrared"
"record no. 47428 not used New Mixture"
"record no. 47580 not used Chemically Enhance"
"record no. 47760 not used Telepathic Amplification Device"
"record no. 47989 not used Detect Humans"
"record no. 48396 not used Terror"
"record no. 48531 not used Mental Shock"
"record no. 48687 not used Mental Blast"
"record no. 48843 not used Displace"
"record no. 48986 not used Cloak"
"record no. 49117 not used Mass Cloak"
"record no. 49265 not used Illusion"
"record no. 49408 not used Unit Illusion"
"record no. 49568 Lunacy"
"record no. 49685 not used Insanity"
"record no. 49828 not used Traitor"
"record no. 49967 not used Larger Explosive Charge"
"record no. 50164 not used Atomic Charge"
"record no. 50324 not used Larger Scanners"
"record no. 50492 not used Large Array Scanners"
"record no. 50677 not used Remote Control"

Human technology

"record no. 50841 not used Trenches"

Martian technologies

"record no. 51516 Researching Motion scanner"
"record no. 51692 Researching Advanced motion scanner"
"record no. 51737 not used Power"
"record no. 51868 Completed research for Intelligence"

I am attempting to hack the file further to make more sense of what it does and how it does it, when I am successful I'll let you know if you are interested. At best it could lead to more items being available for research that do not work, much in the same way as the mobile repair vehicle.

I have also found a method of customising your installation so that ALL the text that appears in the game can be changed to your own personal settings. Things like "Undefended Sector Lost" could now read "B@stards took our land"

Dean

[HTT]

[glow=purple,2,300]I had a play with it over the weekend (oo-er missus!) and the things that annoy me are:
1. When you've wiped out enemy forces, you set your tripods to decimate the command centre. You might as well go and make a cup of tea before they finish! I'd allow the user to do something else during this time.
2. When a pod lands in enemy territory, You can't let a handling machine start to build until the command centre is destroyed. It should be able to start while your scout ships are wiping out the command centre
3. Not being able to select individual tripods. You have to send them in groups of 3. I'd like to be able to split them up, rather than have two firing and the rear one milling about coz it can't get in the right direction.
4. Speed up the time switching between Sectors and War rooms.
5. Improve the video sequences
6. Ability to plot a roaming path for individual tripods.
7. To see the machines at work on what they're building
8. Include martians to control
9. A full flying camera mode - a bit like flying carpet/dungeon keeper, so you can be in the landscape more.

That's it for now - more'll come as I play it more!!

[/glow]

[coupe827]

I can help you with two of those things:

The reducing of the time delay on the briefing/debriefing screens and secondly allowing you to see what the martians are building and the size of their armies. These are configurable.

The others, well there might be something we can do in the future.

Dean

[JonT]

cool seeing what units they have would be handy. is it something to do with the registry files?

[coupe827]

Precisely.

You can modify the registry settings yourself manually and I'd be happy to give you some guidance to do so but it is at your own risk. Registry modification is OK but needs to be done with care. You may not know that I have a bit of software that does what you want to do automatically but as it is a commercial product I don't want to push it any harder on this group than I have done already.

If you want to contact me off the group then I'll be happy to show you how to make the changes yourself.

I am contactable at the yahoo group at this URL:

games.groups.yahoo.com/group/jeffwaynes_thewaroftheworlds/

I am coupe827, please feel free to join, get in contact and I'll give you the info. you need.


Dean

[ArmoredTrackLayer]

To be able to have horse artillery instead of fixed cannons would rock, it would bring something from the books into the game too.

[artillerymanfan]

Do ya think they'll re-release the PC game in coordination with the new movie and album or will they make a remake and/or sequel, I've been really aching to play the PC version and can't find it anywhere.