Neal Stephenson's Clang

Wang Chung · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 8:38 am Post subject: Neal Stephenson's Clang

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18395724

Quote:

Sword fighting fans could soon be digitally duelling online thanks to the efforts of US author Neal Stephenson.

Mr Stephenson is seeking funds via the Kickstarter website to create a game that will accurately portray hand-to-hand combat with swords.

The game will build on years of research he has funded into different weapon types and fighting styles.

He hopes the move could grow into a larger project that turns his sci-fi novels into an open online environment.

Hands-on hero
The pitch for the game, tentatively called Clang, has been put on Kickstarter, with Mr Stephenson seeking $500,000 (£322,000) by 9 July to get development started.

Kickstarter works by letting members of the public put funds into ideas and projects they want to succeed.

In a video accompanying the pitch page, Mr Stephenson said players of fantasy and historical games that centre on hand-to-hand combat were poorly served by the controls they used.

By contrast, he said, players of first person shooters had a vast amount of customisation options at their fingertips that they could use to find their own way to play.

A similar suite of options was "glaringly absent" from most hand-to hand games, he said.

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We've got geeks in suits of armour, we've got geeks in front of computer workstations”

Neal Stephenson
It is hoped Clang would free gamers from the "prison" of repetitive button mashing currently used to represent duelling with a blade. The result, he said, could be described as "guitar hero with swords".

In the video, Mr Stephenson said he set up the Subutai Corporation a few years ago to start the detailed work needed to make computerised combat more realistic.

"There's a galaxy of real weapon styles and variations just waiting to be incorporated into games," he said. "It's the same story with fighting styles."

Using in-house sword makers and martial arts experts Subutai has built up a huge corpus of data about how to translate different weapons and combat moves into digital equivalents.

Mr Stephenson is seeking funds to pay developers to create a simple arena-style multi-player game in which people take each other on in sword fights.

Early trials have used Razer's Hydra controller to more realistically mimic sword fighting.

"We're ready, we've got geeks in suits of armour, we've got geeks in front of computer workstations," said Mr Stephenson.

"We've got a lot of people out there who like to play games with sword fighting in them who might be ready to step it up to something a little bit more interesting."

If Clang is a success, Mr Stephenson hopes it will help to turn his latest series of novels, The Mongoliad, into an open online world.

This, he said, was part of his attempt to find out what will happen to the craft of novel writing in the modern world.

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is now -=|CT|=- Frothy Mixture

Messy Recipe · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 1:47 pm Post subject:

Time to remake Siege mod?
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ABC News wrote:

Birds can disable planes, Ostrom said, by flying into the engines and shutting them down.

AlMightyBob · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 2:00 pm Post subject:

Messy Recipe wrote:

Time to remake Siege mod?

Only if you keep those glitchy ladders!

I have no doubt that this'll get funded, they even got Gabe Newell in the pitch video! Everyone wants a real swordfighting sim but I'll be holding off on backing. Could be great but so little is known about the final experience and that's really what this is at its core. Ultimately, will it be satisying? Jury's out on that one. Keeping an eye on it though.
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Erwin Rommel · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 5:13 pm Post subject:

Messy Recipe wrote:

Time to remake Siege mod?

We actually made some progress with Troy a while back before giving up.
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Messy Recipe · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 5:17 pm Post subject:

That's like saying you made progress to the moon in a 747. Very Happy

Might go a fraction of the way there but...there's a limit on what it can do.

AlMightyBob wrote:

Could be great but so little is known about the final experience and that's really what this is at its core.

Aye, personally if it was just swordfighting I think it wouldn't be that great. Like if you had an FPS where you just stand at ten paces and shoot.
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ABC News wrote:

Birds can disable planes, Ostrom said, by flying into the engines and shutting them down.

Erwin Rommel · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 6:12 pm Post subject:

Messy Recipe wrote:

That's like saying you made progress to the moon in a 747. Very Happy

Might go a fraction of the way there but...there's a limit on what it can do.

I mean, we had custom animations and some really cool stuff working (catapults that switched between flaming shots and regular shots, for example). But it was just so glitchy that it would have required a complete redo from the beginning to make things work properly. The refractor engine is questionable for melee combat, though. And that is probably the ultimate limiting factor.
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massive · Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 1:44 pm Post subject:

Messy Recipe wrote:

Aye, personally if it was just swordfighting I think it wouldn't be that great. Like if you had an FPS where you just stand at ten paces and shoot.

im sure their gameplay would include non-melee portions of the game, cuz that would be a tough workout - if you have ever done any hand to hand melee you know this - (maybe this can help the youth obesity problem here in the states..) unless it's like a match that could be broken into short rounds - for a breather in between

I wonder if this would translate into something like street fighter or tekken??

but it sounds tight - i'm definitely up for it as would be a couple of my sons
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Vlad Piranha wrote:

I'm offended that a zombie holocaust isn't on the list. It would be terrifying, sure, but it would be pretty sweet if you think about it.