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I haven't really followed all the community additions to the story line/plot. But I sure think it's awesome there's so much creativity and initiative here.

Again I think it would be awesome if we were to create a current gen base on which we can create lots and lots o' Battlzone.

I understand there is some skepticism about creating Battlezone 3, perhaps it's wouldn't be very fruitful to create it with so many great mod already made or in development that could also be considered Battlezone 3.
So I though it might be better to ditch that idea and go for something that might be more interesting for all of us:

The core would mostly consist out of extending the vehicle API to incorporate the unique Battlezone vehicle handling physics. Most popular current platforms already have API's for wheel driven, track driven, and hover vehicles. Modifying it so that the hovering is authentic to that of the Bz tanks would be the core challenge. Second challenge would be to create generic terrain palettes (set of assets such as rocks or terrain features) that would give modders and mappers a powerful way to create very nice, realistic and detailed terrain. Third challenge would then be to program a versatile base building/unit creation API that's easy to modify and extend. However that would be all much further down the development schedule.

This would enable us to create high end content for it. If we develop it so that it's very open, well documented and modifiable, that would give the community much more power and possibilities.

After that I'm sure the community will pretty much take care of the rest Mods, SP, IA maps, we could take it anywhere we'd want. Reworking the old Battlezone and Battlezone 2, could be.

I've done some more research and I'm ready to approach some other developers to join me. Through my experience with mod building learned it's better to get something out quick and release often, to keep the effort and the support for it alive, and make the development a little more transparent/open. For now I'm thinking of just a 'proof of concept'. 1 vehicle, 1 slap of terrain, 1 weapon. That already implies a quite large amount of work. Think it would be best to just try to manage that first, and listen to feedback. If you'd like to join the effort PM me.

[Symptoms]

So I recently joined General BlackDragon in some Battlezone Classic testing and also TA5 with that. I got across a bug which GBD told me he is new to, so though I might share it here, perhaps some wiseguys here see the connection and are able to make a fix

Symptoms
About 30% - 50% of frames have graphical artifacts, seems like bad rendering. Triangles are misinformed, stretched out over the screen space, only lasting one frame. Some terrain polygons also fail to render.

No performance or gameplay impact it seems.

Bug concerns PB3, PB4 and TA5 so far. Haven't tested on any other updates. Graphics card: 9600GT.


Fix
Set skydetail to none.

Screenshots
http://img245.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=bz20041.png

I was rather think of something like a port/grand update of Battlezone, mainly focussing on MP because I think that would be easier to get a collectively agreed goal on then a singleplayer campaign, and thus realized faster/without much conflicts about visions of where it should fit in the story or changing the Bz universie. Just reworking all the assets, making a high-res and detailed terrain palette for map/world building, updating all the effects detail. Bringing it to Dx9, the game would be much more immersible with shaders and lighting of today gaming.

Then we'd have a powerful base/platform, from that you could take it anywhere you want, work on SP, mods, extend it with content.

I have no experience with modding Battlezone 2, so could be wrong on this. But wouldn't it be more effective + offer a much much better development perspective if we'd go for a platform that was design for modding? Also platforms like Unreal III or Source would bring in all the progress in gaming of the last few years and they are actively being maintained and developed .They are very well integrated with powerful development tools.

[Legal:]

Legal:

Spiritual successor

A spiritual successor, sometimes called a spiritual sequel or a companion piece, is a successor to a work of fiction which does not directly build upon the storyline established by a previous work as do most traditional prequels or sequels, but nevertheless features many of the same elements, themes, and styles as its source material.

While this term can apply to almost any media, it has most commonly been used with video games.

Reasons for creating a spiritual successor

Creative teams, due to the current nature of the publisher/developer system inherent in almost all computer games, as well as the continual purchase and takeovers (which sell the entire developer including its copyrights and trademarks) by conglomerate corporations, often fail to retain the copyright and trademark rights of their creations. This often makes attempts to create sequels for a product impossible for various reasons, such as the "core" of the studio being fired or replaced after completing a project while the parent company retains control of the copyrights and trademarks. A good example of this strategy is Electronic Arts, which has closed many studios while keeping their copyrights and trademarks, such as Bullfrog Productions, Origin Systems and Westwood Studios.

To get around this, creative teams will make a product that resembles the original game in some way, without copying or mentioning the original directly, notably omitting the title, story, and character names. For instance, the video games TimeSplitters and, more often, Perfect Dark are often considered to be the spiritual successors the hit video game GoldenEye 007.[1][2][3]

Other times, a spiritual successor is created when the original products were either poor commercial sellers and/or forgotten by the people that would purchase the product. By abandoning the original content's name (and perhaps its baggage as a forgotten product), the spiritual sequel can be appreciated by fresh eyes. An example of this would be BioShock, which has been referred to by its developers as the spiritual successor to System Shock 2.[4] Despite positive critical acclaim, System Shock and System Shock 2 both failed to achieve the expected commercial success.

As much as I'd just love to call this game by the name of Battlezone because nothing would be more right on, we can't because of legal issues if it get's big. But it's the game that matters not the title.

An obviously we can't directly use any of their work, but I don't believe that this would be any obstacle for the project, and even if we can't use any of their work we still wouldn't even have to start from scratch. There are many great platforms out there (like Unreal III or Source) that provide an excellent base for such a game with very good vehicle and FPS API's, and with huge communities supporting it, and that means a lot of people who have experience with it. Volunteers to work on such a project are always very easy to find, especially if we do the PR right. With some reverse engineering and an eye for authenticity I think we can very well bring the game to life, being true to the original Battlezone, with the classic look and feel while bringing in all the progress in gaming of the last years.

Money:

I can exactly explain to you how we'd go about to put such a game together with literally no venture capital or professionals
Just remember how many games that have became quite succesfull and are right up to par with professional work that all started as mods or enthusiast projects. I've worked on several of such projects before and have seen the results and what's possible.

Have you read this part of my post?  (below)

We shouldn't be lead to believe that we can't do this. There are so many examples of great games which came to life like this. Started by gamers, for gamers. Enthusiatst that started of with something like a mod for example. No venture capital, no professionals. Just a lot of love and labour. This is something that I'm sure of we can do! Certainly when I look at all of the talent and creativity that spawned all the mods/enhancements/fixes and expansions for Battlezone 1 and 2, and that's still keeping the game alive.

Really it would be a waste not to give this a shot.

So picked up Battlezone agian recently, and what a fine game it still is, and still there hasn't been made anything really like it. Quite unbelievable that still no one has taken up the challenge of creating some form of Battlezone 3. The games being eaten away by hackers and cheaters that we practically can't fight, we've got bugs, all the bad support for new hardware, drivers and systems. I can write a list of why we SHOULD do this! What's keeping us?

I'm just eager to find out (what seems as one of the last active of the few BZ cummunities that are left) to see what interest in the idea hides here.

Because isn't it just a shame when you read how much support and enthusiasm there is for the idea out there, there are hundreds of supporters and that's without all those people that loved this game but just don't follow it anymore, (for example: http://www.topix.com/forum/com/atvi/TU5UDAU2PR976PNTP, http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/ ... i?battlezo, http://www.battlezone3.com) and yet nobody has taken up the challenge.

We shouldn't be lead to believe that we can't do this. There are so many examples of great games which came to life like this. Started by gamers, for gamers. Enthusiatst that started of with something like a mod for example. No venture capital, no professionals. Just a lot of love and labour. This is something that I'm sure of we can do! Certainly when I look at all of the talent and creativity that spawned all the mods/enhancements/fixes and expansions for Battlezone 1 and 2, and that's still keeping the game alive. With some good thinking we can even get around the trademark issues with the title and that kind of legal stuff.

And it wouldn't have to be something that stays in development for countless years, venturing into the realms of vapourware. As we've got development all in our hands we could eventually take this where we want. But to keep it real / to something we can realize with a managable amount of work, I was thinking about starting with something like a fresh update, something that would kick Battlezone into the 21st century. It would bring us proper support and compatibility (no more bugs and exploits), much better development possibilities, a much more immersive gameplay with current gen graphics, physics, AI, etc. and all the possibilities that those provide.

Like they say: don't fix something that aint broken, the game still kicks ass today. But I do think that there are good reasons to do make a remake of the game in sense of a grand update, a port to the current state/level of gaming. And I'm confident that there are so many people out there that would love this kind of game.

I'm talking serious Battlezone revival here. I'd love to see this game get the recognition it deserves. I've had some experience with mod projects and working on games before, and we can do this! I tell you1!

I'd love to dedicate myself to getting a team together and making it happen.