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Carmageddon, Splat Pack,... what about another expansion?

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Toshiba-3
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Carmageddon, Splat Pack,... what about another expansion?

Post by Toshiba-3 »

Hi guys, just something that crossed my mind more and more recently. In the recent years, a handful of (very) old games suddenly got a brand new expansion. Or more generally speaking, retro games got more genuine love from both players and developpers/publishers.

The first great example that came to mind is Doom2's 2010 release on XBOX Live Arcade which came with Nerve Software's new expansion pack "No Rest For The Living".
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Age Of Empires II also got an impressive fan-made expansion "The Forgotten" polished and official Microsoft Game Studios sanctioned to be a DLC for the release of AoE2HD on Steam in 2013. And last year, another expansion "African Kingdoms" followed!
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Quite linked now to Carmageddon/Stainless because of Sim's departure to RWS, Postal 2 also got a brand new expansion in 2015 "Paradise Lost". Again, very well received by Postal fans.
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I talked about AoE2 up there, Age of Mythology is also going to get a new expansion (I heard that it'd be released on the 28th Jan) titled "Tale Of The Dragon". It's ofcourse all made by the same studios as those AoE2 expansions, Forgotten Empires LLC and SkyBox Labs.
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Razor also told me about the game RuneScape (Old School) which recently got an expansion as well, "Zeah: Great Kourend".
http://cdn.runescape.com/assets/img/ext ... -small.jpg

Weirder now: the other way around. 3DRealms upcoming game "Bombshell" is going to have a prequel using... the Build engine :syikes:
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Finaly, most of you heard about Romero's new take on Doom's E1M8 "Tech Gone Bad", 21 years after his last Doom map.
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So yes, this long introduction to discuss the idea of an official expansion/addon to Carmageddon (or to C2 if it inspires you more).
How cool would it be for example to have nobby and another artist at Stainless work now and then on a new level for C1, with 20 more years of experience in their pocket?
Or a CWA team being directed by Stainless producing and handful of new levels with several races/challenges for each, and a nice new lot of simple yet full of personality vehicles for another round at the greatest of mayhems?! :swheel:
Most of these examples up there are illustrations of developpers and their community working together and delivering a product that raises everyone's enthusiasm.

I think I'd see more of that Mayan theme, Nuclear silo/mine mashup, woods. Old docks with boats? A bit more of a scenario/setting added, at least in the decors.
Some assets/ideas from C:R could be ported back like lowpoly Shredlight, Siamese Dream, Toucan. Or the island arena.
Another direction could be to set the whole expansion in the 30s: peds, environnements and vehicles. Would require more documentation befoerhand I guess. Somehow that reminds me of the London 69 and 61 expansions for GTA1.

Do you have any ideas that pop up in your mind as you read this?
Also do you know other old games that got more love recently?
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Re: Carmageddon, Splat Pack,... what about another expansion

Post by CzechDeath »

Great article Toshmeister! =)

One thing that crossed my mind is that non of those games mentioned above got any kind of strong sequel, with maybe exception of Doom, which recieved Doom3 and upcoming DOOM (restart?)...

So to communities are still dwelling with the old games not caring about the newer far from the original sequels...

I would dare to say that such situation might not be the case for Carmageddon =D CR is quite brutal comeback, which, as far as I can tell, cauptured the spirits of old fans - mostly those who are left anyways...

So I would not see much point in revisiting the old pieces from developers stand point, simply because resources need to be poured in to CR.. =D

But hey It surely would be friggin' interesting and cool as hell =) If they indeed went and made say Carpocalipse Now:Madness of Max expansion for C2, featuring swamps and deserts and cars with slightly more bodywork... or something like that... =D

Or Splat pack: Splat there and back again, for C1 which would poke fun of tolkien's, new zeland world enhabited by sheep, hobbits, trolls, orcs and all the other things that would look great splatered all over the One eagle to rule them all... =D

I hope very strongly that old carmageddon content creators will croll out of their adult life - don't care about games anymore, caves and start to express them selves (again) with some awesome cars for CR...
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Re: Carmageddon, Splat Pack,... what about another expansion

Post by QTZ »

Another games which are worth to mention are Rollcage and Rollcage Stage II which are upgraded after several years by original team member. There is no new contents, but game is improved in original form. Also new Rollcage like game is under way - GRIP.

I think it's good idea! But it need to be done good!

I don't like the idea to made a new engine for the C1 like this stupid version for Android, but just to fix and improve existing one, similar as it has been made with Rollcage.

It need to fix errors in the engine that we already know from years, like limit for cars and tracks and other memory "leaks" based problems. Smaller problems - big APC counter fixed value for gears, caricons wrong height in hi-res (best to made a caricons as separate files for each car, best made to be compatible with current version - like add new optional entry in car txt file for selected resolution - to allow existing addon custom cars to work), also fix wrong fonts display with translation, etc. (those are simple fixes I think when you have game sources). Expand peds and powerups view distance. New features like add more resolution (scale the existing elements).

For the game content I think this should be similar to SP, so new cars (playable and cheat) and new tracks, new peds (so new zombies too and maybe also new robots - we have just few), that's it... Not changing theme just expand existing ideas. Graphics should stay in same style. Only a bit bigger textures where necessary (but as "big" I mean big in C1 scale, not as we have in games made for hi-end computers of today).

Also looking at Max Pack they wanted to integrate zombies to the game (it's broken in MP, but they started that work), so I think exec should have possibility to switch non only to boring mode, but also to another full mode with zombies (in original UK version zombies are working in full mode, where in MP they are work in boring mode which ruin game play). It also may be configured (file list for each mode) outside the exec in text file/s.

Don't know how they made this in C:R, but I'm afraid they dropped the zombies. The game is more attractive when it have mode which is called "censored", even when you don't like "censored" version if you know such version exist it made the "full" version more attractive.

In current philosophy we can't mix different types of blood on one track (even on one game session), so this will be nice to have possibility to define which kind of blood each ped have (when not specified use blood as default).

Also I really want to see a missing zombies in play - all that appear in C1 and SP! Currently only some of regular peds have their zombie alternatives, so zombie version is cut down in that way too (for SP there is only sheep zombie alternative).

About the tracks we can vote which environment is more interesting or for new ideas, for example I like castle from SP, and open area around it, but I'm not sure if I want several castle tracks...
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Re: Carmageddon, Splat Pack,... what about another expansion

Post by Razor »

I'd love an expansion for C2 that completely rips the piss out of TDR to be honest, despite the fact I enjoy TDR as a game, it's not Carmageddon, would be great for SG to have a proper go at that game officially in the form of an expansion pack for one of the older games, hell maybe even for TDR itself if at all possible.
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Re: Carmageddon, Splat Pack,... what about another expansion

Post by Harmalarm »

Now there is an interesting idea. I've played a couple of remasters and nostalgia boosters in games like:
- Jedi Knight II series, although these are basically unofficial mods with remastered models and textures
- The XNA build of Perfect dark. There was even one planned for Goldeneye, but unfortunately it got cancelled :(
- http://pokemon3d.net/.. also unofficial but so cool.
- Monkey Island

Wasn't aware of the new GRIP game though. I'm excited about that one.

I agree with QTZ on most points. If it gets done it needs to be done good. Engine improvement by removing the current limits sound like a must to me in order to give the game a new boost.

I think it is hard to determine a certain style or specific direction for an expansion. Each Track pretty has its own style or theme. Same with cars, they are so different each and every one of them. The whole game is basically a mix of excentric items put together in a gritty atmosphere. That's what I like about it in the first place.

Maybe we should look at what the game is still missing? Things like a jungle map? Or an underwater map, stuff like that? A heaven map, instead of the splat pack hell map?
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Re: Carmageddon, Splat Pack,... what about another expansion

Post by Toshiba-3 »

I wanted to come back on this :ssmile:

In my first post I actually forgot to mention that if I had been brand manager/Producer (I don't know the right term) for Carmageddon, I think I would have started the revival simply by going the retro route as discussed above. A new expansion for the old game. It doesn't cost much, you gather easy enthusiasm and that kind of news spread quickly on the net, I figure it's fun for studio artists to work on retro stuff especially if the game is legendary, and if you sell it... well it's already a bit of money for something bigger :sbsmile: Could have been a nice alternative to the Kickstarter to show to potential investors that the brand was still reaching an audience without all the hassle that goes with a KS campaign :sdead: Finally I just wonder if such an idea was even considered at some point at Stainless HQ.


Anyway, I get it that updating the actual C1 executable would seem like a priority in such a scenario but on the other hand that would be less fun that than just creating content and it would involve more money as "doing it right" in this case means a ton of work to rewrite many parts of the engine (and no, using current Beelzebub isn't an option, it's either they base it all on that software DOS source or they RE/hack the exe!). Also the GOG build is quite good even if it lacks a simple splash screen/menu to set modes etc.
As CzechDeath said, these new retro projects only happen with games that still have active communities that kept the game alive, so getting the game to run is rarely a problem and they could just go straight to the new content as Romero did again recently.

Razor: Or maybe it could have been the other way around! Stainless reworking TDR content in order to make TDR into a proper Carmageddon. Wouldn't have been profitable at all though :oops:

Harm: Yes, C1, SP and C2 are really just a big mix of eclectic settings etc. Though it wouldn't have hurt to have a kind of story/universe/thread hinted at in the decors. Like the implication of MagnaChem everywhere (there's Megacorp in C2 I think). Or details that shows the world acknowledge the existence of the death races (that's one of the thing that bugs me the most: besides the cops, the world seems unaware of the carmageddon).

Just by reading your comments I understand we'd all have a different take on such a project :slol: So really it'd be all up to the expansion producer, would be nice if nobs could share opinions on this :ssmile:



BTW, a couple more screenshots of Bombshell prequel.
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.ph ... st-4428768
No doubt it will be better than the actual game?!
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Re: Carmageddon, Splat Pack,... what about another expansion

Post by Razor »

Toshiba-3 wrote:I wanted to come back on this :ssmile:

In my first post I actually forgot to mention that if I had been brand manager/Producer (I don't know the right term) for Carmageddon, I think I would have started the revival simply by going the retro route as discussed above. A new expansion for the old game. It doesn't cost much, you gather easy enthusiasm and that kind of news spread quickly on the net, I figure it's fun for studio artists to work on retro stuff especially if the game is legendary, and if you sell it... well it's already a bit of money for something bigger :sbsmile: Could have been a nice alternative to the Kickstarter to show to potential investors that the brand was still reaching an audience without all the hassle that goes with a KS campaign :sdead: Finally I just wonder if such an idea was even considered at some point at Stainless HQ.
This is sort of what they did with the mobile C1 port.
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