cut scenes, map intros or "thumbwar"

RobB

I commented earlier that the game allways unwinds with a hive and a CC first.
It is hard to believe the bacteria, highly adaptable and stuff, would allways try the same strategy - and succeed with it.
nor the humans allways failing to detect suspicious biologic materials in an otherwise sterile and heavily monitored installation.
heck, the nanite saturated nanogrid would alert for bloody murder if even one single nanite is unaccounted for if that pan-galactic thread has been discovered already.

therefore, the game should either display short comic-like cutscenes like XIII (i think) or max payne (i think?), that randomly generate a story.

like, a scientist sliping on a patch of infestation, regaining consciousness just in time to see a proto-gorge eye-to-eye before he's webbed into a cocoon and fed to the hive as construction material. as the human's life sensor shuts down, the main frame alerts the security and they storm locked 'n' loaded to the last known location, burning everything to crisp when suddenly something sinister appears and slaughters them just before the evacuation is ordered, the 'map' sealed and a distress call send for the governmental clean up squads (local TSA division).

well, yeah. the thumbwar in the topic is regarding the possibility to tie little quick time events in to enhance early game by having more or less resources. Remember the scientist earlier? what if the baby gorge did a sloppy job when *quicktime* webbing him so he could *quicktime* escape, alerting administration? what if the security squad did a better job during <i>that</i> quicktime event?

yes, this <b>will</b> cause randomness, but I'd like to call it diversity as the same map will never play the same again twice, unless this feature is disabled by admins or competetive rules.
by the way NS2 was changed compared to NS, I get the feeling that is what flayra is aiming for after all, diversity and replayability!

Laosh'Ra

quite an interesting idea you got there.
personally i like having slightly randomised starting-(dis)advantages due to events, but i think a lot of people will not approve it: especially the type of people seeking their fun in competitive gameplay. think of clanwars!
also, if people start with an obvious disadvantage, they might be less motivated to give their best during the round...
so if this is going to be implemented, i'd prefer to see changes which add both (disadvantages and advantages) for one (or both) sides, and/or a serverside option to disable it.

Omega_K2

The idea sounds awesome and surely creates more diversity, especially if there is a large pool of these "events" :)
Actually, it might be a good idea to allow mappers to specificy their own events and the corressponding actions - if the cutscenes are currently not feasble, a mission description would suffice for now (which could later also include the cutscene). I think that would make the game world much more beleivable.

But also take into consideration what Laosh'Ra said; both sides should get some sort of advantage/disadvantage.

Some more ideas (may not be balanced, but I think it is interesting to see how they'd playout :P ):

(For mineing based maps) In an automated mineing system an anolomaly in scanner readings was detected; administration thinks it was due to an earlier power outage. Marines are send in to investigate the issue and repair broken power nodes.
Marines: Start with welders (as they are send in to repair)
Alienes: Start with increased areas of infection (as they had some time to spread out until the marine team was sent)


While researching unknown biomass which showed potential for new armor an incident in labotory occured. Sensors showed movement of unknown entities before they failed. Marine squad perepared for battle was send in.
Marines: Start with LV1 weapon upgrade
Aliens: Permanent increase in armor by a small amount (stacks with later increases)
(Idea here is to give aliens a late game advantage; marines get the early game advantage with LV1 weapons researched :) )


Reactor core overloaded due to unknown reasons and several power nodes went down. Marine Engineering team has been send with special upgrades to take care.
Mapwide change: Power nodes take longer to (re-)build, but are more resistant to damage (a buff and a nerf :P)


Heavy alien infestation was detected on a station. Due to the distance of the solar system from the main force, marine reinforcements took longer then expected to arrive. Administration has granted access to additional medical supplies.
Marines: Commander can drop Medpacks for free (or at a reduced cost, eg 3Packs/1Res)
Aliens: Marines on infestation constantly loose HP, if close to infestation they loose hp aswell, but sightly less

RobB

The main goal of this idea is to establish a believable background for a map, if the motivations are slightly different each time there's not much problems.

The most awesome NS map to date was later updated to remove the awesome: Marines start in a dark room and the floor lowers into a hangar with rotary lights flashing, alert claxon ringing - until the fusebox was shot or welded. That rocked hardcore and actualy gave an impression of background, making it more believable.

In the end, there'd need to be basic events (as in, global accross all maps) and map defined ones (local) - with lua present everywhere you could even have custom ones and a big market place for new events.

Individuality limited only by the userbase - and the admin installed QT-events.

Laosh'Ra

if they don't add it to the game, maybe someone will create a mod for this? there should be a similar interface at least (if there is a text-description and/or images).

here's another idea: let the loading screen show pictures and/or text for the currently running event! the text format should still be viewable ingame somehow (if people load too fast to read it etc.). if the events remain until mapchange, there should be no problems even for people who join mid-game as they'd simply see the same loading screen.

Webbie

I have to ask, why are you calling it 'thumbwar'?

When I hear that I think "One, two, three, four, let's have a thumb war!"

That being said, I think a (very) brief cinematic start to a match would be nice, maybe a bit of a flyby or something.