Dolan wrote:1. Make AOE3 playable on dedicated servers -> this means rewriting the whole game, because the whole game is built around peer-to-peer synching. So it would have to be rewritten to allow client-to-server synching. This would eliminate all lag created by other players. If you lag, it's only on your end, it wouldn't affect anyone else. This, ofc, would mean extra costs for Microsoft to keep game servers up. (Yeah, I know, there is a potential drawback here: they would need regional servers, so, if you want to play with anyone around the world, you have have to join their regional server.) This would also eliminate any OOS issues.
This would indeed be a massive change, but really it would only improve things for people with good connection and pcs, which seems to hardly be the majority of players. When you think about it, the change could actually alienate a big chunk of the "lagger" playerbase, since they would be always at a disadvantage. FTJ should be fixed by this, though it'd probably be easier to just make the existing network code work better. Not sure why it should fix OOS. Lastly, as you mention, this would increase the costs of running multiplayer for MS by a huge amount. I believe we're talking multiple times more here. I'm afraid it's simply not worth it by any means, any way I look at it.
Dolan wrote:2. Optimise the game engine for multi-threading. Update graphics profiles for integrated GPUs and newer generation GPUs. This means the game would recognise graphic cards easier and wouldn't output so many errors if it didn't recognise a video card.
This would be nice. New GPU profiles should be relatively easy, I guess? Multi-threading would be great, but that's definitely not an easy one.
Dolan wrote:3. Native observer mode which would run without lag (because native). Make it possible for players to observe a game without being in that game (just like in LoL).
Not sure what you mean by "native", since the one we have right now is native by my definition. However, some speed optimizations could likely be made and afaik Aiz mentioned it before. Observe without taking up slots would be nice, but I'm not familiar with how it works on LoL. I'm guessing this would require the dedicated server thing from point number one, otherwise it would create immense lag for the actual players if it's p2p with potentially hundreds of people.
Dolan wrote:4. Fix pathing issues created by: map tiling system, unit models (units getting stuck in mines) and unit selection issues. Right now unit selection is limited to only 50 units because CPUs back then were much less capable than today. This limit can be increased by modding, but the game lacks the optimisations to properly use more system resources. Sometimes it doesn't even use GPU resources to the maximum. The game was made when video cards had 64MB of video RAM. Video RAM was much more expensive back then, so they wrote the game to run mostly on the CPU.
Although stuck units are annoying, I have to say it happens very rarely to me. Unit selection limit is a design decision, as Garja mentioned. That said, the optimizations are definitely lacking, since, as you say, the engine was made in a world of completely different technology.
Dolan wrote:5. Update the game to support DirectX 12 and Shader model 6.0. AOE3 was written between 2002-2005 to support DirectX 9 and Shader model 2.0. Since then, hardware and software graphics capabilities have increased exponentially. The number of representable triangles in a scene has increased by a few orders of magnitude (we're talking from like 65k triangles to tens of billions). Sound capabilities haven't increased as much as graphics ones, but still, so many sound issues in AOE3 could be solved/improved. And we could have multichannel real surround sound. What about in-game mic integration for team chat? What about game music in FLAC format (instead of MP3, like right now)?
Sounds nice, also a load of work.
Dolan wrote:6. Support for seeking forwards and backwards in game recs, as well as for jumping to another time frame in a recorded game.
While cool, as I'm sure you know, this would most likely require trashing the current recorded games system altogether and starting from scratch (for others, see
http://eso-community.net/viewtopic.php?p=237539#p237539).
Dolan wrote:7. Fix scaling issues for UI when players use monitors which have different aspect ratios: 21:9, 4:3, 1:1, 16:9, 16:10 etc. Right now, the UI basically stretches/shrinks fonts and textures to fit the available screen space.
I guess that's a thing, yeah.
Dolan wrote:8. Remove console commands from the UI. Create a whole new system of UI programming that makes it impossible to cheat using console commands (basically make Moesbar hacks impossible).
Well, not sure if it's needed now that we have EP anti-cheat to prevent exactly this.
Dolan wrote:9. Rewriting the networking part to make it work based on a client-server model should also eliminate lots of FTJ issues.
Covered in point one.
Dolan wrote:10. Add horizon and sky in maps on the edges of the game world.
Nice, I guess.
Dolan wrote:11. Re-make the game UI. Game UIs have evolved a lot in the last 12 years, they have become more modular, you can hide and display only the parts which are useful to you. You can also scale your UI as small or large as you need it to.
Sure. Judging by OBS UI, the current UI system even supports it to some extent, ES just didn't make much use of it.
Dolan wrote:12. New physics engine. Surely we can do better today than just ragdoll physics and variable building destruction models. Same for ballistics, particles and so on.
I guess. Don't really have a problem with the current one.
Dolan wrote:13. Canon animations should be fixed to make them shoot more consistently. Same for caravels and other warships which have a rate of fire which sometimes seems random or not predictable enough to control.
By cannon you mean like falcs? Those seem fixed to me, maybe I don't get what you mean. Warships are indeed awkwardly random though.
Dolan wrote:14. Improved map functions for balanced spawns.
It's not like balanced spawns are impossible, but perhaps it could be improved somehow.
Dolan wrote:15. If the game was rewritten for more modern hardware and software, then it would be able to use more resources (if available) and display more details. It could use bigger textures, more detailed sound, have smoother map terrain, better animations.
Well, seems somewhat like a repeat of some previous points, but yeah.