In the waning years of the Digital Decade (read: The '90s) several major video game companies who had tried to make their way as hardware developers in the beginning of the CD-era found themselves reduced to software-only developers. Some, like Sega and Atari, were quite successful up until the release of the first PlayStation. Others, like Commodore (not necessarily Amiga) and 3DO, through either abysmally bad corporate management or just plain mediocre products didn't even make it that far, as far as being console manufacturers goes.
Anyway, one of the above mentioned companies, 3DO, did make a few commercial successes, and it's one of these I'd like to talk to you TM Modders about.
The name of the game is "Merid--", I mean "BattleTanx". If you had a Nintendo 64 console, more than one controller, and at least a couple friends, you've played BattleTanx. It's basically Mad Max in tanks. The plot is that there's a virus that wipes out all but 0.01 percent of the human female population (I swear I've seen this plot in a movie before, only it was the men who were nearly wiped out and fought over). The game's main character, "Griffin", loses his wife a la Double Dragon, and takes his fight to the streets in five tons of armour, recruiting team members as he travels across the remains of post-WWIII USA. Long story short, he defeats the rival gang boss, rescues the girl, and a son, and sequel, are born. In BT: Global Assault, the single player campaign spans the globe (I'd like to see the ship that makes regular trans-Atlantic deliveries of whole tank platoons) as Griffin, Wife & Co. look for G's kidnapped son, stolen by a rival female leader.
Anyway, I've always felt that TreadMarks needed a stronger Single Player element. You know, plot-driven campaign and all that. Catering to the multiplayer community alone hits only half the market. I mean, even the Unreal Tournament series had SP campaigns (even though UT3's story ended in an unsatisfying cliffhanger with no chance of official expansion or sequel that would tie up the loose ends).
So, if this sort of Total Conversion were attempted, how hard would it be to implement some of the things TM doesn't provide for, such as destructible skyscraper ruins (Clearing buildings so as to make a clear path between your base and the enemy's base so as to CTF more efficiently was a BIG part of BattleTanx) or gunboats firing inland from offshore (shouldn't be too hard to make boats and "water physics", right?)?
this is what TM lacks out of most games, its just too simple
many of us from the TM community have many suggestions features and ideas, but due to the person who's working on the game (Rick) as well as the rest of the LDA team spend their efforts on hegemony nothing is changed however the most notably unchanged portion is the actual gameplay.
the most major reason TM wasn't as advanced as battle tanks is the fact that 3DO is a large company that produced consoles (previosly)
LDA was and still is a small indie company with 6 or so programmers and a few contributers.
the "source port" is extremely unlikely unless somebody knows how and wants to do the programing for a "source port" with the low chance if getting permission from LDA.
all i can say is if i knew how to program and get permission to improve or change TM i could make it way better than it is.
as TM has close too or as much potential as hegemony.
the problem here is nobody bothers to improve it and people who have been are killing us with unexplained waiting times that are long enough to make us all lose hope and doubt anything betters going to come of this game.
