2 small mods that I would like to see...
<div class="IPBDescription">..for anyone who is skilled enough and wants a challenge read on...</div>I have been thinking about what would be nice to be put into the game, but the developers wouldn't necessarily have time to put in or want to invest the time to make, but would add a lot more depth to the game play.
A) A skin colour changer mod for the Marines team. A simple slide bar in the options menu that changed your skin tone. This would add variety to the clones that are the TSA without taking them out of uniform. I imagine this wouldn't be too difficult to do for someone who knew what they were doing. This could then be expanded to the Aliens if necessary. Further expansion could be armour detail changes... which ties in to my next idea.
B) Achievements! Who doesn't love being told they have just killed their millionth Skulk or their accuracy was the highest on the team. When you are the last man standing the Marines, your on 10% health and you manage to build an IP without dieing from the onslaught of Kharaa, you'll take all the joy of a little box saying Team Saver: "You just saved our asses Marine" with a similar message appearing discreetly in the corner of the screen for all your team mates so they know who to thank when they win the game. It's things like this that would be the last thing on the developers minds, but could probably be quickly implemented by someone with decent coding knowledge and some skill. The community could contribute ideas for achievements and I would be happy to do any image editing required (I need to use this 1st class honours in fine art asap ;) ) At first it could simply be single game achievements but later some kind of log file could store results in peoples NS2 file and so that long term states could be worked out. This could then lead onto tags and badges that could appear on armour in game (that's the link to my first idea). This could be in the form of battle scares or new skin tones for the Aliens (Black Ninja Skulk skin for multiple head shot kills with the skulk). Which would in turn give you more respect on a server and may allow you to swing commander votes if your commander is rubbish and they won't get out of the chair/hive.
These two ideas are clearly not going to ones that the UW team are going to do any time soon, and may never be able to do, due to time/budget constraints. So I imagine this would be an easy way to
1) increase the longevity of NS2 (how many of you have played a game just a little longer than you would to get an achievement that you have nearly got or played a different class because you want to get an achievement or a new ability... be honest now)
2) get your name on the credits if they decided to take up the idea and use your code (Now that would look good on anyone's CV). The chances are that it would be taken up, because they would both be easy ways to make the game have a lot more depth for (hopefully) not much effort and as I said above increase the amount of time players put into the game, thus making more people want to buy it because friends are playing it far more and also making the community stronger and last longer.
These are just small ideas, and I really don't have the skills to implement them, but if there is anyone who could do these, even in a basic form (I would of course, without question, help out with anything I can). I think, in the long term, this would really help the community and UW out.
What do you say? Mixed race Marine FTW? "Top Commander in Class: 1000 Games Won As A Commander. Golden Helmet Unlocked" Thumbs up?
A) A skin colour changer mod for the Marines team. A simple slide bar in the options menu that changed your skin tone. This would add variety to the clones that are the TSA without taking them out of uniform. I imagine this wouldn't be too difficult to do for someone who knew what they were doing. This could then be expanded to the Aliens if necessary. Further expansion could be armour detail changes... which ties in to my next idea.
B) Achievements! Who doesn't love being told they have just killed their millionth Skulk or their accuracy was the highest on the team. When you are the last man standing the Marines, your on 10% health and you manage to build an IP without dieing from the onslaught of Kharaa, you'll take all the joy of a little box saying Team Saver: "You just saved our asses Marine" with a similar message appearing discreetly in the corner of the screen for all your team mates so they know who to thank when they win the game. It's things like this that would be the last thing on the developers minds, but could probably be quickly implemented by someone with decent coding knowledge and some skill. The community could contribute ideas for achievements and I would be happy to do any image editing required (I need to use this 1st class honours in fine art asap ;) ) At first it could simply be single game achievements but later some kind of log file could store results in peoples NS2 file and so that long term states could be worked out. This could then lead onto tags and badges that could appear on armour in game (that's the link to my first idea). This could be in the form of battle scares or new skin tones for the Aliens (Black Ninja Skulk skin for multiple head shot kills with the skulk). Which would in turn give you more respect on a server and may allow you to swing commander votes if your commander is rubbish and they won't get out of the chair/hive.
These two ideas are clearly not going to ones that the UW team are going to do any time soon, and may never be able to do, due to time/budget constraints. So I imagine this would be an easy way to
1) increase the longevity of NS2 (how many of you have played a game just a little longer than you would to get an achievement that you have nearly got or played a different class because you want to get an achievement or a new ability... be honest now)
2) get your name on the credits if they decided to take up the idea and use your code (Now that would look good on anyone's CV). The chances are that it would be taken up, because they would both be easy ways to make the game have a lot more depth for (hopefully) not much effort and as I said above increase the amount of time players put into the game, thus making more people want to buy it because friends are playing it far more and also making the community stronger and last longer.
These are just small ideas, and I really don't have the skills to implement them, but if there is anyone who could do these, even in a basic form (I would of course, without question, help out with anything I can). I think, in the long term, this would really help the community and UW out.
What do you say? Mixed race Marine FTW? "Top Commander in Class: 1000 Games Won As A Commander. Golden Helmet Unlocked" Thumbs up?
Comments
about the second one: im not sure how steam handles the achievements for all games they are hosting. if this could be realised through steamworks, without having to take care about hosting a server ourself i see no reason to not add it. i liked achievements in every game and would like to see that in ns2!
Imho they're terrible because people always go crazy about them, which leads to people crippling games by farming achievements instead of actually playing.
Some stat tracking might be interesting though, if you at the end (or maybe even during) of every round could check how good accuracy you have, heat-zone map showing where you die/kill the most, and such.
Probably could be made persisting, but does not really feel neccesary imho.
And i like achievements, cuz they tell me these special things i did in game that most of the times i dont notice i did. And i think no one goes to play just to try unlocking achievements, thats stupid.
However, when achievements are done right is when they are done as challenges (and <b>maybe</b> discovering secrets), rather than simply as 'stat tracking' or 'milestone marking' - a simple example:
[x] <i>x number killed over your entire career</i> <b>no.</b> It doesn't matter how well you do, it's simply a matter of playing the game as much as you can until you reach that point.
[x] <i>reached level 4</i> <b>no.</b> You were going to reach level 4 anyway, why would you get an achievement for this?
[x] <i>x number killed in 30 seconds without taking damage</i> <b>yes.</b> This depends on your actual performance/luck.