   Eternal Lands
  I know there are a lot of devs from Eternal Lands on gamedev, since I see it in signatures.  That's what made my try it, and I like the ideas, graphics and gameplay of it, but, shame oh shame, there's something very wrong with it Why oh why did you abuse and misuse it's 3D engine to use isometric projection instead of perspective projection?  And why did walking and looking around had to be made so slow, difficult and annoying?To prove that walking around with a much better 3th or 1st person view in a mmorpg works, see this: http://www.planeshift.it/pix/pics/screens/hydlaa02.jpg[edited by - Boops on February 4, 2004 7:16:55 AM]
  Using perspective projection, specifically with a free camera so the horizon can be shown, introduces many complications. You need an LOD scheme and geometry sorting and whatnot, to keep detail high for nearby stuff even when the view are covers many square miles. With isometric, you can simply organize everything into square patches and just render the ones currently in view, so everything can be max-detail yet still low-polygon overall, and it'll run on a wide variety of systems.   Of course, from a user standpoint, 1st- or 3rd-person is better, at least in my opinion. Specifically, I like third-person.~CGameProgrammer( ); -- Post screenshots of your projects. 100+ posts already in the archives.   [edited by - CGameProgrammer on February 4, 2004 8:20:18 AM];  CGameProgrammer is correct. Thanks to isometric projection, Eternal Lands runs pretty good on my system (P3 600 Mhz with TNT2) and can even get by on even older systems.But, on the plus side, if you have looked on the 'News' forum over at the EL site, theres a brand new patch (el 0.95 patch 3)that allows you to zoom in and out so you can see more around you and walk with less mouse clicks.   EDIT: and walking isn't slow. In fact, walking speed got doubled about 2 months back (around version 8.6)Sander Maréchal[Lone Wolves Game Development][RoboBlast][Articles][GD Emporium][Webdesign][E-mail] [edited by - sander on February 4, 2004 8:54:53 AM];  I can''t help it, I wish it wasn''t that way, but if I rotate the camera around in isometric projection I feel dizzy after a while, especially in cities with lots of buildings like white stone. ;  Did you turn off the ''auto camera'' option? That will decrease camera rotation a lot. I usually hang out on Desert Pines (if I am not away on moderation business. Yep, moderator over there too) and I only have to rotate when I go over the bridge near Grim''s.   Sander Maréchal[Lone Wolves Game Development][RoboBlast][Articles][GD Emporium][Webdesign][E-mail];  So is EL actually populated now? I tried it a number of months ago and it was empty.   ~CGameProgrammer( ); -- Post screenshots of your projects. 100+ posts already in the archives. ;  The current record stands at about 250 players or so. Usually there are between 80 and 150 players online (depends on the time of day).Also, the client has gone Open Source so if you really want your nice 1st person 3D perspective view, go right ahead and make it  Sander Maréchal[Lone Wolves Game Development][RoboBlast][Articles][GD Emporium][Webdesign][E-mail] [edited by - sander on February 4, 2004 11:17:58 AM];quote:Original post by Sander  Also, the client has gone Open Source so if you really want your nice 1st person 3D perspective view, go right ahead and make it  Well I could if the thing wants to compile in devc++ Isn''t it all about just changing a single matrix? :D 