What type of gameplay do you want in a sci-fi mod?

[Ennui]

Hey guys. I've decided to overhaul the design and start from scratch on a mod I've been babying for a while now, but not one you all know of. The setting is decidedly science fiction - futuristic, gritty, etc. The aliens come in a few types - lithe, agile and intelligent Primaries, who look very similar to the traditional idea of a little green man from mars, except they're more blue and taller (I've got some beautiful concept art of them but I've decided to withhold it until later) - and those terrifying monsters that they have created to fight for them, the intelligent fighting machines called the Warriors (working title :O). These could be compared to the aliens from the Alien films, or the Zerg from Starcraft (particularly Zerglings). There also may be a heavier variant of the Warrior called a Leviathan, which is closer to an Ultralisk (kind of a big four-legged organic tank).

The human resistance is composed of organized military forces, who are not nearly as bulky as Starcraft or Alien's Marines, but rather more similar to today's soldiers, but with cooler weapons. A lot of this has already been concepted, I'm just not revealing anything more than I have to. What I'm saying here is that the marines aren't wearing huge bulky suits of armor like they are in some science fiction.

The setting: war-torn cities and battlefields on Earth, and perhaps later on Mars, the Moon, or space stations.

Now: What would you like to see in this mod? What kind of gameplay - IE, control point play similar to Day of Defeat, objective play like CS, round-based, constant respawn, heavy focus on teamplay, light focus on teamplay, big guns, little guns, mounted guns, assault mode, lots of abilities to complexify gameplay, no abilities to complexify gameplay, etc.

Just tell me what something you'd like to see in a science fiction multiplayer mod, so that I can take it into consideration. I'm not saying the idea will be in the mod in any form, but I'll definitely review each one.

Thanks for all your help

edit: by the way, this isn't zombie master, in case any of you were scratching your heads.

 

[Ames]

Ultra-fast paced objective style killing spree with some large number of AI NPCs each player can command to fight in an all-out onslaught of senses. Machine guns blaring, explosions everywhere, insane vehicles with crazy amounts of hitpoints, rockets which can take out these vehicles in only a few hits and fire as fast as a machine gun, lasers which slice through players, melee weapons with crazy large physics forces and knock ragdolls back multiple feet into the air for that epic scale. A chaotic fight with some freaky techno music. Symbolism with easily differentiated forces like in Lord of the Rings, we can easily see the muddy, gritty black and red colors of Mordor which contrast the shining silver, white, and blue of the Human forces. Dragons, dinosaurs, spaceships, aliens, rag-tag bunch of humans Terminator-style, god-like beings all culminating in a battle of the ages, everyone fighting each other, factions blurred, exhilarating battles with large open spaces for charging at each other. People shooting one thing only to have ten, hundreds more swarm at them. In-your-face then rip off your skin and feed it to you action. Strider battles in HL2 only with lots of giant alien T-rexes, Godzilla things that blast your ass to hell with a plasma beam, giant starships, bunches of raptors amubushing your ass in the grass, space orcs, normal orcs, Uruk-Hai, Neo-style powers, melee moves of awesome, Striders, giants, fire-breathing dragons with wings that flap and stuff, Jormungand-huge style Dune worm snake serpents, Power Ranger mega-zords, ninjas, pirates, vikings, knights, catapults, trebuchets, ballistae, crossbows, longbows with correct arc that shoot exploding plasma arrows. Hydras, mthical beasts, titanic-sized robots of war charging at each other picking off the rest of the enemies easy as cake. Utra-BFG-styled-weapons that are a thousand times more powerful than a normal BFG that can kill anything. Apocalyptic magic spells or energy bursts which can completely destroy all enemies in an area. Flying vehicle fights in a huge multiple mile long space arena which can then swoop down from the sky to decimate land forces. Sea vehicles that can launch a carpet of bombs at a land target. A gigantic war effort that blows any other game out of the damn water into space, down sucked into a black hole with all kinds of ass-kicking. Think Supreme Commander only with an FPS and a thousand times more scope and an extreme adrenaline pumping eye-poking adventure. Thousands of things happening a minute. Hundreds of tracers. Things that can turn the tide of a battle only to be cut down by minor weak low-level soldier. Tactics like rushing or camping can be both rewarding and retarded. Good and evil fight each other and then some other guys. Every single thing designed to be awesome. Like rock-paper-scissors except the rock is a giant blowing up volcano with thousands of hydrogen bomb thetan bastards, the scissor is a frickin laser beam supernova explosion, and the paper is a dyson sphere designed to encapsulate a solar system or a galaxy or something. Thousands of deaths in only one round, people dying left and right, medics healing 20+ people in a minute. Multiple BF2-scaled battles which are largely weak and insignificant and barely affect the total outcome. Pyrrrhic victories, circle around each other flank my ass, Rome: Total War something like that, different groups and playing styles for every game player, play poker to beat a guy with a rocket, tetris your alien ass. Strategy is the overall winner as each side is crappily balanced. An RTS management system with a commander, RPG stat gaining system, why take control of a wimpy little space station or plant one little bomb when you can take control of a hundred space stations and plant a nuke. Crazy, mother****ing-assraping-violating all your senses, shoot everything that moves, think before you ****ing go there or you'll be swamped by a thousand Warthogs and Banshees instead of like two, giant bullshit, crotch grabbing, atomic bomb, large scale battles, every single second is another adventure, you spawn camp, you get wiped out by hundreds of crazy troops, twitch gaming, camping in fricking cave and mowing down hundreds of forces before having to be bombed out, gain hundreds of levels and become a god, giant Citadel style structures, Minas Tirith, Battle of Pelennor Fields, rockets are more plentiful than bullets, space ships whizzing above your heads, customizble classes, hundreds of giant colliding forces, bullet hoses, things that just kill in one hit, a normal player can't even be distinguished froma damn hacker because of all the crazy shit, huge war-torn ambushes, Save that damn Private Ryan and then blast all the Nazis to hell, Independence Day alien spaceship dog fights, **** you all, things that have superpowers, ****ing ****ton of ****ing shit mega ultra super awesome blow out your minds asskicking awesome to the ****ton infinite degree plus ****.

 

[Ennui]

I'd probably be annoyed if i wasn't laughing so hard.

 

[Ames]

It's every kickass thing in a game bundled up with love times a trillion.

 

[Humidor]

I don't have any immediate suggestions, but if it's not like cs, dod, or halo I'll play it :thumbs:

 

[Yorick]

In terms of gameplay, I want to see different things. Variety is something that will keep players interested and even coming back. Example, almost every chapter of Half-Life 2 puts you in some kind of new scenario.

So, yes, do some full out space battles. Do some with ship invasions. Do some levels with objectives. Do some levels with sneaking.

That would rock.

I want to see elements of games like System Shock, Deus Ex, and Half-Life 2, in conjunction to show like Firefly, FarScape, and Babylon 5. And I'll be happy. :thumbs:

I'm at your beck and call if you start to do this. =)

 

[63]

I second the crotch grabbing.

 

[Angry Lawyer]

Remember that concept that Erestheux made ages ago? It's still somewhere around here. But it was a cool aliens-versus-marines concept where you have a travelling squad commander (who has a hand scanner or something) that orders everyone else around (using waypointing on this hand scanner thing), and has to vanquish the Aliens. Man, I loved Erestheux's idea. And if you take that approach, I can furfill both my promise to you, and to him, in coding a few assets.

-Angry Lawyer

 

[Asknoone]

Oh dear, I've again forgotten the name of it

But yeah, variety.

 

[$kelet0r]

i think the key to success is to bring ww2 to the future
as in large scale infantry battles with armour too vulnerable to commit up front and thus kept back as mobile artillery (applies to both sides)
dday landings on space stations or planet(starship troopers film)
mobile infantry with insane firepower railguns, mini nuke launchers, machine gun fast firing plamsa grenade bullets on an OICW type weapon- aka it would atomise a human in one shot with accompanying visual affect but would be less powerful against the alien enemy(their armour,shields) - ballistics weapons only plz though

the world also seems to be crying out for a successor to Quake 3 - if well done having a very fast, smooth shooter with Plan of Attack-BF2 squads with insane firepower would go down great

as for level design go for outdoor urban environments or that type of limited outdoor space applied to another setting - hangar on a space ship, colony on mars

and rather than capture the flag you capture a whole building, bunker, level which is then the new spawn point and mobile fire point or else constant attrition with mobile spawn points like an apc, shuttle that acts as a fire platform that can be destroyed or moved to prevent destruction respectively - with the winning side destroying all the enemy spawns and the survivors


in fact having read the above all i this is what quake 4 should have been
bot support single player is obligatory

best of luck ennui

 

[Ennui]

I'm afraid I didn't completely explain everything I needed to for this. I've already got in mind very much what I want the feel of the game to be and the core concept of gameplay (thanks to a nice discussion with Angry Lawyer + my own ideas), but I want to see what people would want to see in this type of multiplayer so that I can keep that in mind while designing the specifics. Essentially, I was working off the feel and goal that I want to accomplish, and having decided what the best setting is I wanted to continue there with the core game mechanic (that I have now uncovered, and which fits it perfectly).

In any case, your criticism is well founded, and although I already meant most of what you said (miscommunication in the thread topic is what I'm blaming for that) thanks for it anyway because it's a nicely succinct summary of what I ought to keep in mind (as I tend to ramble).

Also, Angry Lawyer had the most incredible jumpstart idea that opened my thinking valve and practically renders this thread unnecessary. So, in conclusion: aww hell naw, and double whammy.

Look for some information and announcements about Xenos soon; the existing team is currently being rallied and I'm lighting a firework under their asses to get things moving once more.

 

[Angry Lawyer]

The moral of this thread? I have better ideas than all of you put together. Except Shens.

-Angry Lawyer

 

[Yorick]

The moral of this thread? I have better ideas than all of you put together. Except Shens.

-Angry Lawyer

Let the ball-clinging commence!

 

[Crispy]

One post in this thread made the word "Nob" spring to mind, whether it's supposed to be sarcastic or not. I do have a certain amount of respect for its author, but when they say things like that they go down in my estimation. It's one thing being an expert in your particular modding field, but IMO being an effective part of a team (or a community, which is why I'm posting this, even if it does risk offence and off-topic debate) means effective communication. Whether the aforementioned post is meant to be sarcastic or not is fairly irrelevant since the vast majority of its readers will note a largely arrogant and alienating tone.

Once again I apologise to Ennui for the possible derailing of this thread, but I felt that this needed to be said, and in public so that people in general understand that arrogance and elitism like that are not in the best interests of the modding community and don't follow a bad example.

We should be embracing and encouraging discussion, not belittling it.

 

[Angry Lawyer]

I was being facetious

-Angry Lawyer

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

Or, we should be developing a sense of humour.

 

[Crispy]

Oh wait you're right. Deity = infallible.

My mistake. Are we starting with the left foot or the right this time? Just so that I don't fall out of step... :angel:

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

Whoa there! I very nearly fell into that there sarchasm!

Enough.

 

[Crispy]

Hey, I was just being facetious, should we be developing a sense of humour?

I think I've made my point.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

I disagree.

However, that's quite enough derailment.

 

[Ennui]

Ennui agrees with this statement.

 

[Beerdude26]

Beerdude26 is confused :/

 

[specialmax]

I think it should have the power to turn "special"

 

[Bopomofo]

A note from an older player....

I want Aliens. And big guns. Errrm... that's it, really. Would that be OK?

Oh, also... some kind of global ratings system so I don't have to put up with 'Joo Noob fsker, I pwnz joo' or whatever, and also so I don't have to see a total expert having a really disturbingly weird time killing beginners on a 'newbies' server....

I'd love to be able to tick a filter which says... 'Find people who are about as good as me'

Some of us don't want to be the best, we just want to play an enjoyable game for an hour or so on a Friday night, with a beer (which many of the 'xprts' aren't old enough to know about... heh heh) and get a few kills now and then. Yes, we're rubbish.. so let us get on with it.

Hey, isn't it funny that when we say 'Pick on kids your own size' we now mean 'pick on kids who are as young and fast as you'....

..and how much better would a mod be that actually gave casual players a chance of winning. Implement some kind of grading system to let people choose servers, and a handicap system which penalises (or profits) people playing well outside their grade.

Right... I'm off to get 'LOL OMFG pwnzxrd ROMFALMFHO!!!LOLOLOLOL' [or whatever] by some 11 yr old counter-strike player with a 6Gbit connection and a nitrogen cooled uber-PC.

 

[Bopomofo]

Edit: Just noticed my posting status is 'Newbie'. Oh, the irony.

 

[Beerdude26]

And we frown upon double posting here (two posts of the same author directly below each other)

 

[Mechagodzilla]

Dang newbies.

 

[Ennui]

Somehow I think his post count of two puts him in a higher social order than our post counts of several thousands.

 

[pvtbones]

perhaps have a little cinematic when the map starts (new round?).

IE.

you find yourself strapped into a dropship as your commander briefs you on what to expect when they touch down. Through the window you can see several other dropships descending down on the planet (some not making down in one piece).

 

[Custoffe]

Is it slightly StarWarsy? Starcraft rocks though! Also it needs a good aiming system quite like CS with the recoil just right and the hitboxes to be precise.

 

[Beerdude26]

Ultra-fast paced objective style killing spree with some large number of AI NPCs each player can command to fight in an all-out onslaught of senses. Machine guns blaring, explosions everywhere, insane vehicles with crazy amounts of hitpoints, rockets which can take out these vehicles in only a few hits and fire as fast as a machine gun, lasers which slice through players, melee weapons with crazy large physics forces and knock ragdolls back multiple feet into the air for that epic scale. A chaotic fight with some freaky techno music. Symbolism with easily differentiated forces like in Lord of the Rings, we can easily see the muddy, gritty black and red colors of Mordor which contrast the shining silver, white, and blue of the Human forces. Dragons, dinosaurs, spaceships, aliens, rag-tag bunch of humans Terminator-style, god-like beings all culminating in a battle of the ages, everyone fighting each other, factions blurred, exhilarating battles with large open spaces for charging at each other. People shooting one thing only to have ten, hundreds more swarm at them. In-your-face then rip off your skin and feed it to you action. Strider battles in HL2 only with lots of giant alien T-rexes, Godzilla things that blast your ass to hell with a plasma beam, giant starships, bunches of raptors amubushing your ass in the grass, space orcs, normal orcs, Uruk-Hai, Neo-style powers, melee moves of awesome, Striders, giants, fire-breathing dragons with wings that flap and stuff, Jormungand-huge style Dune worm snake serpents, Power Ranger mega-zords, ninjas, pirates, vikings, knights, catapults, trebuchets, ballistae, crossbows, longbows with correct arc that shoot exploding plasma arrows. Hydras, mthical beasts, titanic-sized robots of war charging at each other picking off the rest of the enemies easy as cake. Utra-BFG-styled-weapons that are a thousand times more powerful than a normal BFG that can kill anything. Apocalyptic magic spells or energy bursts which can completely destroy all enemies in an area. Flying vehicle fights in a huge multiple mile long space arena which can then swoop down from the sky to decimate land forces. Sea vehicles that can launch a carpet of bombs at a land target. A gigantic war effort that blows any other game out of the damn water into space, down sucked into a black hole with all kinds of ass-kicking. Think Supreme Commander only with an FPS and a thousand times more scope and an extreme adrenaline pumping eye-poking adventure. Thousands of things happening a minute. Hundreds of tracers. Things that can turn the tide of a battle only to be cut down by minor weak low-level soldier. Tactics like rushing or camping can be both rewarding and retarded. Good and evil fight each other and then some other guys. Every single thing designed to be awesome. Like rock-paper-scissors except the rock is a giant blowing up volcano with thousands of hydrogen bomb thetan bastards, the scissor is a frickin laser beam supernova explosion, and the paper is a dyson sphere designed to encapsulate a solar system or a galaxy or something. Thousands of deaths in only one round, people dying left and right, medics healing 20+ people in a minute. Multiple BF2-scaled battles which are largely weak and insignificant and barely affect the total outcome. Pyrrrhic victories, circle around each other flank my ass, Rome: Total War something like that, different groups and playing styles for every game player, play poker to beat a guy with a rocket, tetris your alien ass. Strategy is the overall winner as each side is crappily balanced. An RTS management system with a commander, RPG stat gaining system, why take control of a wimpy little space station or plant one little bomb when you can take control of a hundred space stations and plant a nuke. Crazy, mother****ing-assraping-violating all your senses, shoot everything that moves, think before you ****ing go there or you'll be swamped by a thousand Warthogs and Banshees instead of like two, giant bullshit, crotch grabbing, atomic bomb, large scale battles, every single second is another adventure, you spawn camp, you get wiped out by hundreds of crazy troops, twitch gaming, camping in fricking cave and mowing down hundreds of forces before having to be bombed out, gain hundreds of levels and become a god, giant Citadel style structures, Minas Tirith, Battle of Pelennor Fields, rockets are more plentiful than bullets, space ships whizzing above your heads, customizble classes, hundreds of giant colliding forces, bullet hoses, things that just kill in one hit, a normal player can't even be distinguished froma damn hacker because of all the crazy shit, huge war-torn ambushes, Save that damn Private Ryan and then blast all the Nazis to hell, Independence Day alien spaceship dog fights, **** you all, things that have superpowers, ****ing ****ton of ****ing shit mega ultra super awesome blow out your minds asskicking awesome to the ****ton infinite degree plus ****.

Incoming : Shens :O

 

[Tollbooth Willie]

Incoming : Shens :O

Roger that intercepting NOW!

Like he said, we need a ton of shit crammed into it to make it a mod that will RAPE YO CAT/ DOG!

 

[Garfield_]

a team based game of course, with some element that forces the players to team up to survive.

 

[CrazyHarij]

Seriously, we should realize Shens ****ing idea to the max.

 

[Mechagodzilla]

Sorry CH, but i've already invented SUPER BOUNCY SPASTIC PRACTICE 3D: 3000 PS, which is A MOD IDEA COPYRIGHT OF MECHAGODZILLA 2005!

 

[Ames]

wE DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT COPYRIGHTS IN NORTH FOCKYOUSTAN.

 

[63]

Holy shit i thought North FOCKYOUSTAN was a myth!!

 

[Pesmerga]

Shens, I would love to read your english paper essays.

As a matter of fact, any test you even remotely goofed around on would be enough to send me into a cackling frenzy. I had my doubts, but nope, you are the man.

 

[Kouler]

Remember that concept that Erestheux made ages ago? It's still somewhere around here. But it was a cool aliens-versus-marines concept where you have a travelling squad commander (who has a hand scanner or something) that orders everyone else around (using waypointing on this hand scanner thing), and has to vanquish the Aliens. Man, I loved Erestheux's idea. And if you take that approach, I can furfill both my promise to you, and to him, in coding a few assets.

-Angry Lawyer

Its called Natural Selection, A Half-Life Modification.

 

[rambler]

i think iron sights would be very nice if implemented properly. a way you could get around the clumsyness of ironsights though would be to make more of a feature of the crosshair. you could make it look like some sort of tactical overlay generated by an implant. there could be weapons that disrupt this, causing it to distort and flicker. maybe a replacement to the laggy smoke grenade (not that it really is laggy anymore), could be a sensor disrupting grenade.

i would very much like to see some useable vehicles in game also, ideally some ghost in the shell type tanks - if only.

my one biggest comment would be that fast is not necessarily better. you can create a hectic atamosphere without ramping game speed. i find HL.CTF very dissapointing because i think it is stupidly fast, in my opinion it would benefit from being alot slower.

maybe another nice idea to force the battles to be bigger and more coordinated would be to have two bases on wither side of the map with an announced countdown to a dropship launch, say every five minutes. this gives you time to gear up and get onboard ready for the drop to a central battleground where the other side are also being dropped.

there could be sections where the ships fly side by side giving you a chance to fire on the passengers, and they at you, before the drop. there could be support fighters that could be manned, or dropship turrets - ahhh the possibilities are endless and unfeasable.

my last comment would be that i am always a fan of the armory. if you were spawned with only a pistol and you had to go and grab your gear before entering battle that would be a nice touch. perhaps you would be able to access different levels of the armory depending on your position on the leader board.