[Assassins]

Virtual Pool 3


Год выпуска: 2000
Жанр: Sport (Pool/Snooker) / 3D
Разработчик: Celeris, Inc
Издательство: Interplay Entertainment
Платформа: (PC) Системные требования:
Минимальные требования: Pentium II 266, 32 Мб
Рекомендованные требования: Pentium III 450, 64 Мб, Direct3D 7 Тип издания: Пиратка
Язык интерфейса: Английский
Таблэтка: Присутствует Известные проблемы: После завершения игры по LAN - вылетает с ошибкой у игрока, который выходит из игры вторым. Описание:
Virtual Pool 3 - Бильярд с соперниками самого разного уровня мастерства и неповторимой атмосферой бильярдных. Полная версия позволяет играть он-лайн, проводить турниры и т.д.

Версия игры - 3.3.1.1

http://www.ag.ru/reviews/virtual_pool_3

Straight pool
9-ball
Rotation
10-ball
6-ball
3-ball
One Pocket
Bank pool
Fifteen pool
Basic Pocket Biliards
Cowboy
Honolulu
Bowliards
Cribbage
Snooker
3 Cushion Biliards
1 Cushion Biliards
8-ball - Midwest
8-ball - bar
8-ball - pab
8-ball - APA

В принципе, данная версия позволяет играть online, но, бывают вылеты из игры, у некоторых очень часто. Если кто-то хотел бы приобрести данную игру легально, причем, с внушительной скидкой, нужно сделать следующее: Пройти по этой ссылке и ввести слово vp3pc1104 - стоимость игры составит $9.95 Без этих манипуляций игра будет стоить 22$

1. Запускаем файл - VP3_3311.exe.
2. Устанавливаем игру.
3. Копируем файл vp3.exe из папкеи \NoCD\ в папку с установленной игрой - \Celeris\Virtual Pool 3 DL\.
4. Играем!

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* Игра тестировалась под WindowsXP SP3, Windows 7 x64.

          

          

          

There are quite a few people who dont check the VPHQ forum,they probobly dont check my site either,but just so that you know. As of October 11th 2009 and almost 9 years after the release of Virtual Pool 3, Steve Chaplin has confirmed that the next Gen game is under development but can only gave a very loose guess as to when something will be ready Цитата:

Цитата:

I think the art will be done in 3 or 4 months. Those artists are contract dedicated to VP, one manager, 3 workers. Probably working about 2 people full time.
The programming is harder to say, there is both offline and online to do and a lot of work. I have estimates out around 6 months right now but that will most likely go up.

Just wanted to let everyone know things are moving along, though never as quickly as I would like

We have the first room upgrade complete. Changed to using Maya and there were art export/import problems

The user interface is coming along, that has been a lot of work to redo everything, plus add new features. Quick Play is done, load/save game, the career room (where you pick players), career management.
Still to be done is career map, tournament brackets, in game interface, in game menu, online lobby, in game play choice and call pocket menus.

Rules customization is working. The current generic customization for most games is:
Break - default, winner, loser, alternate, trailing player
Call Shot - default, off, on
3 Foul - default, off, on
First Break - default, coin flip, lag balls, lowest rating
There is a some of the game specific done, more to be added
Money Ball Call Shot - off, on
Bank Pool Rack - long rack, short rack
Snooker - 15 reds, 10 reds, 6 reds, 3 reds

I was thinking of adding;
One Pocket - front pocket (normal), back pocket
8-ball, pocket 8 in - last pocket (last pocket your last ball went into, opposite pocket, bank, side pocket
Cowboy - normal (can either shoot ball or a carom), alternate (must alternate ball and carom)
Bowlliards - normal, rotation

Handicapping is in with the following:
Handicap type - games, points, multiple money balls, ball goals
Except for Straight Pool and Billiards all games can handicap by games
Point handicapping is applicable to Straight Pool, Billiards, Bowlliards, Snooker, and Cowboy
Multiple Money Balls is applicable to 9ball, 10ball, and 6ball
Ball Goals is applicable to Banks, One Pocket, Basic Pocket, and Honolulu

I'm thinking of adding:
Odds on the money, for wagers on any game
No count for straight pool (must run X balls to count on the score)
8ball handicapping on 8 ball - last pocket, side pocket, opposite pocket, bank
8ball handicapping on all balls - rotation, bank

Still plenty of other things being worked on too dull and boring to be worth speaking of but necessary

UPDATE 2

Things are coming along nicely, lots of work to do.
The new menus now have the custom rules and handicapping in with custom rules for 8 ball, 9 ball, bank pool, and snooker.
Working on the in game display, plenty has changed here, will post some sort of screen shots after a little more clean up.
Have icons for the information window close to done. FYI the information window tells about the menu item you are interacting with and the icon is a little extra info and flash.

The custom rules for 8ball are done completely (except online) including the CO. The CO turned out to be a pain, lots of modifications to get it to understand the rules.
Still have to put in the custom rules for the CO for other games.

Looking into a major physics upgrade. Don't know if this is happening or not, depends on cost and schedule.
Steve Chaplin(Mr Virtual Pool)

The art updates are for the menus (major), in game (minor), rooms (medium, upgrading what was done for XBox), plus hoping to add at least one new room.

Will have to do some web art as we need to do a web portal for the online version. I thought about doing everything in game but that is probably a mistake. I also thought about putting a web browser in game to access the web portal but right now the design does not do that. All presentation in game is a custom interface.
Certain things must be in-game:
Login
Lobby
Game Rooms
Chat
Messaging

Other stuff could be in game, web portal or both:
Sign up for an account
Player Stats
Tournament Admin
Tournament Signup
Tournament Bracket
Tournament Stats
League ...

The advantage of using a web portal is you can get to it any time anywhere. It also integrates into our web site and others. And it will be better publicity and give us more traffic.
That is why I'm planning on doing a lot of web stuff. Still have not decided if I'm going to put a browser into the game. That would be an easy way to access all functions from VP.

If anyone is interested in helping out on the web dev side of things PM me what kind of experience you have and what you want to do.
The back end will be:
Linux
Apache
MySql
PHP or ROR, have not decided which to go with yet

The front end will be:
HTML, CSS, of course
JS using JQuery library

The game art will be used and derived to get web art, though there may be some additional custom art produced for that as well.

Anyone out there that knows how to use Maya or Max and has the talent to build a room is welcome to give it a go, PM me before doing anythin,

IF YOU THINK YOU COULD ASSIST STEVE WITH ANY OF THE ABOVE YOU CAN CONTACT HIM VIA HIS PROFILE PAGE ON THE CELERIS FORUM EITHER EMAIL OR PM HIM FROM THIS PAGE

Для тех кто знает английский и может помочь проекту- линк для связи (на английском).

VP Online is not going to be free.

Thats whats been confirmed from Steve Chaplin that you ll have to pay to play VP4.

What information as to how much and how often has not been made clear,although it would be safe to assume some sort of membership system will be in place.

Will it be online only? or will you be able to buy the game and simply play your mates online through LAN...we dont know

This could prolong the life of vp3 simply by keeping those that never bought the game and wont pay for games all in the one placein the gamespy arcade lobby.

Whether the game download will be free we havent heard yet,but the facility to play on the VP4 server will be at a price.

So you may well be looking at a yearly fee subject to inflation it will increase,you may also look at it dropping as maybe people will not take up the offer and leave it alone and Celeris struggle to get customers.

What Celeris have now is a positive way of prolonging the life of the viritual pool series and charging to play on their server is not a bad thing as I would gladly pay,but its fine line between success and failure and so it has to be monitored very carefully how theyre going to sell this to you the public.Afterall they simply cant rely on people telling people about the new game in the gamespy lobby,the slow demise of virtual pool 3 and the DL version is proof of that....we simply dont get the numbers in gamespy as we ahould and although thats partly due to the router set up issues its also been poor marketing stategy by Celeris if they admit that.

Virtual Pool 4 will live or die in a very crowded market by making itself known to people,by competing with all these other free billiard games online that have cash prizes....how is Celeris going to combat this?

We as players already know its the best game, but its never been the best managed and promoted and its been like flogging a dead horse for the last few years as people have gone away and moved onto better places.

So the coming months are going to be very interesting let alone very important and for our own interest one of the most imnportant changes to how we play online. Краткая суть новости писал(а):

Цитата:

Virtual Pool 4 точно будет платным для игры в онлайн. Скорей всего полноценная версия для одиночной игры будет свободного распространения. Точные суммы пока не называются. Разработчики стоят перед сильной конкуренцией со стороны других онлайн бильярдов, именно по раскрученности и по количеству клиентов. Отсутствие клиентов связано с плохой маркетинговой политикой Celeric, сложными настройками для игры в онлайн. Для того чтобы проект хоть как-то начал подниматься было и принято такое решение.

Progress Report 5
Game:
Chat now supports multiple chat windows. They will be used for lobby, private messages, possibly ICQ (though not in the first rev), and game chat. The lobby will not support game chat. But the game does have a lobby chat so you can chat in the lobby while in the game. Also added color to chat text.

Normal mapping is working for the tables. The pool tables are dynamically lit using a custom lighting model that has a light bar for the table. The lighting is per pixel diffuse and specular with normal mapping for details. The tables now have diffuse maps, normal maps (with a specular component), and detail maps. Probably does not mean much for most of you but I'll translate to non-tech speak: The tables should look really good.

Have run a lot of physics experiments, hoping this will pay off with and improved model.

Web Portal:
The web portal is moving much faster now that our new designer Rob is on the team. My original design was oriented towards playing tournaments, ladders, and leagues. Rob said it needed to be user oriented and more social which I confirmed with an internet marketing guru. So the project has grown considerably but I think has much better chance for success because it provides a lot more value to the user. Key features include:
User home page showing your information, your event calendar, your money, your friends, your teams, your messages
User dashboard, present on all pages showing key information to you
Icon based navigation system
Integration with your facebook account
Your achievement page, has trophies, rankings, history
Community News page, has results and event promos
Pro blog, will be done by me and other guest bloggers

Tournament brackets are going to be pretty cool, modeling after this: http://www.ctsondemand.com/
Will remove some of the busy text and things should look much clearer. Scoring placement will be different, handicapping will be shown too.

Art:
Now have 5 rooms "finished": Garage, Hawgpen, Pitstop, DeepPockets, Hardtimes, and Beach house is in progress.
We are making multiple lighting passes with different tables. I want to be able to put any table in any room or what fits. I don't think the Snooker table will fit in some rooms.
Am getting close to having a bar table for the Hawgpen. The new tables have been problematic from the art, rendering, and physics issues.

UI:
Added chat into lobby, need to work on the server more to get the player list in, room list works. I'm thinking the static 1024x768 size used in the menus is not so hot for the lobby and may make that screen dynamic to take advantage of the complete screen space.

UPDATE 6
Art:
Beach house close to done.
Work started on Monte Carlo.
Going to do a couple of new rooms.

GUI:
New Career map in place.

Physics:
Working on new rail model.

Online:
Lots of activity here, tournament systems has got the basics working. Can create and play single or double elimination matches. The game server automatically creates rooms for tournament players, only allowing assigned players to play in that room. Match scoring and reporting works and online brackets are updated in real time. Plenty of bugs and little problems to work out but the basic tournament system is working. Still need to add the non-real time tournaments, and many of the pool rule options.
Have the draft navigation page up and running.
The friends system works.
Lots left to do on the user/social aspect.

Celeris Site:
Have prototypes done for a new Celeris web site. This will be intermediate until the VP4 site is up then we will move all the pool product material to the VP4 site.

Pro Tour Career:
Design is done, starting work on UI and XML reader.

UPDATE 7

Art:
Beach house is done.
Modeling done for Monte Carlo, still needs texturing and lighting.
Loch Lomond started.
Have Bar and Champ table, waiting for some possible manufacture deals before doing for all rooms.

GUI:
Just some minor touch-ups, need to get back to this.

Physics:
Work progressing slowly. Working on new ball collision physics and new rail model. After numerous experiments seems the ball collisions are more complicated than we had modeled. Trying to get the game to play more like real pool, including the variance seen in real life.

Online:
Dealt with a lot of nasty things that had been put off...
Disconnects - handled with message and option to save. Sort of like VP3 but right now match can't continue if you lose players. May put that back in for more than 2 players, makes sense in some games like ring game in 10 ball.
Quit Match - what a evil witch. You would think quitting would be simple but it is not. It has to be handled differently for each room type.
Normal Rooms - it is pretty much yes or no to the confirmation. With yes the player leaves the room, no cancels. Master gets setup screen, everyone else gets the Match Being Setup screen.
Challenge Rooms - at confirmation, you can quit leave the room, cancel, or quit and re-queue
Event Rooms (Tournament, Ladder, League) - at confirmation, you can save the game and quit, cancel, or quit and forfeit
And practice in these rooms is handled differently, the above is only for 2 players or more.
DQ player in a tournament by the Admin now works, all players in room are notified of the DQ, and a DQ message is sent to the lobby, brackets show DQ.
Forfeit by a player in a tournament also updates the brackets properly now.
Login Authentication is now secure using RSA encryption. This was critical as we don't want players accounts accessed by anyone but the players. The web portal uses SSL and the game uses RSA so hacking a player password will be nearly impossible given proper strength passwords are used.
Handicapping for tournaments is partially done, waiting for some DB updates to finish.
Still have not done non-real time tournaments, but getting closer to working on it.
Did some code re-factoring to clean up the design, nothing functional but is progress.

Pro Tour Career:
XML reader working, have season and player xml files.

Other Coding:
Did some code clean-up, things were out of hand with over 4000 macro definition and around 1000 art files for the UI. Actually ended up writing 2 programs to find unreferenced art files and unreferenced macros. Took all day to do that but better than trying to figure it out by hand.

Celeris Site:
Still not done but mainly delayed because web designer is so busy on VP4 site.

Web Portal:
Layouts have been update per our web designer.
meta tag editor added, for SEO.
Blog is in and working. Integrated Wordpress for that. Setup so articles can be commented on and discussed.
Alternate roles for users is in and working. This will be used so a user with some sort of administrative privilege can switch roles. For example if you are a TD and are going to setup a tournament or run a tournament, you would go to your account and turn on TD, now everyone sees you as a TD.
Editing tournaments is restricted depending on the current state and who is trying to edit the information.
Private messaging is in and working. We have an inbox, trash, and sent messages. Basic but nice.
Newsletter mailing list has been setup.
Event calendar has been started, this is the main way players find out about events and keep track of events they are signed up for.

Many in the vp3 lobby are wondering if you could give any kind of idea as to the current status of VP4, not like an update for what your doing at the moment, but more of a where you see its at towards actually having a game and having something that will be able to be tested or have a screenshot to wet theirs and my appetite

There will be some more information coming out. The progress reports were part of that information stream. Have been waiting to post screenshots when the new Celeris site goes up but it keeps getting delayed. I'll get something up soon.

We'd like you to push the boat out and plump for a ETA....early 2011 ? mid 2011...in fact any news is good news as the lobby members are getting itchy feet.
I have been reluctant to talk about release dates because of the following:
If I set and try to make a release date (the following must happen to meet it if not on schedule):
Hire more people - don't want to do that, have too many to manage already.
Cut out features - don't want to do that either, want this to be a really nice product
Release an incomplete buggy game - already did that with VP3 trying to meet Interplay's deadline
Slip the schedule - which is what has happened.

The good news is the schedule slip has not all been from just not getting things done on time. A major reason the schedule slipped is we decided that a user oriented social network was what we really needed. Unfortunately this made the web job more than double what was originally planned. But hey, we are building a state of the art online gaming platform and social network so that is not an easy task.

I know it won't release this year. Maybe in the first quarter of 2011, see how things go the next couple months. We will be starting testing soon, hopefully in October sometime.

--sdc

           

Art:
Loch Lomond done
Monte Carlo in final review
Will be re-lighting all rooms for better quality
Tweaking pool tables for better physics performance
Also working on improved look for table parts, cloth, etc.

GUI:
Put in tournament brackets
Tweaking Cue Shop layout
Have prototype for Cue Case

Online:
Completed asset management. Now can download new rooms, cues, pictures, logos, etc., both on demand or at lobby login. Includes changes to use XML description files for all assets.
Added Private Messaging. Players can now PM either in the lobby or in game. Any PM in the lobby will still exist when entering game rooms. In game also has a lobby tab so players can chat from rooms to lobby. All PMs are on tabs.
Tweaked lobby to take advantage of full window size
Handle tournament deletions on game server.
Added handicapping for tournaments
Added player rating display and player rating computation working with game server
Added player stats reporting to game server

Offline:
Added team play for offline, not planning on having that but easiest way to test for online. Ready to try integrating with online server.
Got tournaments in career working with new brackets
Added consecutive racks run and runouts from break for stats

Pro Tour Career:
Jon-Paul will update on this.

Physics:
Have basic model design, ready to start coding soon.

Web Portal:
Event Calendar has basic functionality. Month, Week, Day, List views. Can see events that are upcoming also can switch to your events (what you have signed up for). Non-Real time tournament match date/time negotiation is partially done.
Statistics page started.
Shopping cart is 80% done.

Celeris Site:
Final review, hopefully up next week.

Steve Chaplin quote
When pushed for a response on why hes not got a demo of vp4 planned his response was this

Not only will there be a trial but there will be a free online version as well.

Суть:
На вопрос: "Когда будет демо?"
Steve Chaplin ответил - "Помимо испытательной версии будет бесплатная версия онлайн."

Торент был полностью изменен 03.02.2010. Залита самая последняя версия игры - 3.3.1.1.
Просьба ко всем - перекачать торент файл и раздачу в целом!