12-12-2003, 04:15 PM
Hi,
As for the application, the more and more I think about it, the more and more I realise it is going to be a nightmare. You're right, it would be like re-writing Diablo2 from scratch minus the graphics and gameplay, but all stats and damage calculations would probably end up being about 60-70% of the game (in a programming sense).
Hardly. More like 5% or less. The network code, the client-server code, the graphics code are all huge. The stat and damage calculations are a piece of cake once the functional forms, parameter values, and order of evaluation are known. From what I've seen posted, the problem is that D 2 is (like all Buzzard products) a dog's meal of code. Dead code, spaghetti code, duplicate (or sometimes nearly so) code. Data read from exterior tables and ignored for hard wired values. Other bad programming crapola. Even with the source code, I suspect it would be nearly impossible to accurately guess how things *really* work. Working from the executable makes the whole proposition nearly impossible and not worth the effort.
You've got single player, you've got character generators. Like any chaotic system, D2 is it's own best model -- go from there.
--Pete
As for the application, the more and more I think about it, the more and more I realise it is going to be a nightmare. You're right, it would be like re-writing Diablo2 from scratch minus the graphics and gameplay, but all stats and damage calculations would probably end up being about 60-70% of the game (in a programming sense).
Hardly. More like 5% or less. The network code, the client-server code, the graphics code are all huge. The stat and damage calculations are a piece of cake once the functional forms, parameter values, and order of evaluation are known. From what I've seen posted, the problem is that D 2 is (like all Buzzard products) a dog's meal of code. Dead code, spaghetti code, duplicate (or sometimes nearly so) code. Data read from exterior tables and ignored for hard wired values. Other bad programming crapola. Even with the source code, I suspect it would be nearly impossible to accurately guess how things *really* work. Working from the executable makes the whole proposition nearly impossible and not worth the effort.
You've got single player, you've got character generators. Like any chaotic system, D2 is it's own best model -- go from there.
--Pete
How big was the aquarium in Noah's ark?