Elite - The Darkness Falls (by C. Pinder & I. Bell)

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degojs
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Elite - The Darkness Falls (by C. Pinder & I. Bell)

Post by degojs »

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Ian Bell is helping Christian Pinder to finish Elite - The Darkness Falls (to be released this xmas).

http://www.darkkind.com/

"Some of the features of the intial release will be...

Full 800x600 screen utilisation (E-TNK only uses 512x512)

Variable frame rate (E-TNK runs at a fix 14fps).

Mouse and GUI operation.

Runs in 32bit and 16bit graphics modes.

Hardware texturing and lighting using DirectX 8.

All Ship models and textures, graphics,sounds and universe information loaded
from external files rather than hard coded.

An 'Elite Pack' containing all the Elite materials which will allow Darkness
Falls to be played in the Elite universe. A Dark Kind pack will be developed to
allow the game to function without using any Elite copyrighted materials.

Rudimentary fractal planet generation (needs a lot more work but the beginning
is there).

Ian Bell has kindly written the following features for Darkness Falls...

Non player centric movement (in E-TNK the player stayed at the centre of the
universe and everything revolved around him/her. This caused weird behaviour
like the planet moving).

Dynamic formation flying. Non player ships can now fly in a variety of
formations (even flying around each other). They can also fly in formation with
the player (e.g. as an escort).

Non player battles. Allows for scenarios such as police vs pirates etc that the
player can join in or not as he/she wishes.

Enhanced auto-pilot / docking computer. Non player ships can now fly in and out
of the space station. Also allows docking with other ships.

Proper collision detection. Uses ray/plane intersection. This will allow future
development of dynamic textures to show burn marks on non-player ships etc.

Ian is currently working on a dynamic starscape background to make the game more
visually pleasing.

There is probably a load of other stuff which escapes my memory at the moment"

What can I say.. marry xmas :))))
rayOK
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Joined: Tue, 12. Nov 02, 19:44
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Post by rayOK »

thanks for the info. i will be keeping a close eye on this one.

i wonder if ian bell is trying to get back at david brabham?
there was some animosity when they went their separate
ways, i vaguely recall, possibly, maybe, ?????

anyway another elite type game - yippeeeeee :D :D :D :D

:roll: :roll:

ray OK
degojs
Posts: 21
Joined: Wed, 6. Nov 02, 20:31

Post by degojs »

Yeah, the game can't compare to picture-perfect monsters like Freespace 2 or even X-tension 2.x BUT it's -- Elite. Reason enough for me to play it all night and day long. Since X2 is still months away, I'd say Right On Commanders Pinder & Bell :))
Avis
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Post by Avis »

Sounds interesting,
thanks for the info
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X-Warrior B AS
Moderator (Nederlands)
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Post by X-Warrior B AS »

Interesting...

Although by browsing through the FAQ etc. (everything except forum), the game is far from finished. Perhaps in time we'll see if it's worthwile :)
degojs
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Post by degojs »

heheh well, Frontier: First Encounters was far from being finished when released still I loved it (after patching it to 1.06) ... Seriously, Darkness Falls is (was) available for download for almost a year and the game was well, just like ol'-good-Elite on steroids. It was an early pre-alpha version, but still playable.. We'll see.. :)
Steel
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Post by Steel »

degojs wrote:heheh well, Frontier: First Encounters was far from being finished when released still I loved it (after patching it to 1.06) ... Seriously, Darkness Falls is (was) available for download for almost a year and the game was well, just like ol'-good-Elite on steroids. It was an early pre-alpha version, but still playable.. We'll see.. :)
Well if Mr Bell reads these forums (or yours I guess), tell him that he created a game that caused me many a sleepless night (Elite on BBC), I read the great manual a thousand times and loved *flying* side by side with the "Fer-De-Lance". (How I wanted to own one of those bad boys!)

Anyway, I'm glad Elite still lives on. Thanks for the link.

Steel
The_Rock
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Post by The_Rock »

link ain't working for me though. :(
"How very touching his meaningless death was. But this fight was never for mortals".
Scarecrow
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Post by Scarecrow »

It's not working for me either
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Commander Jamieson
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Post by Commander Jamieson »

Link is working for me, perhaps the page link will do it for you:

http://www.darkkind.com/header.htm

Thanks for the info too, I also will wait and see what develops with it :wink:
And yes, this is what it says unter "Downloads":

The first Alpha release of Darkness Falls will become available for download on 22nd of December 2002.


Cheers

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