Starcraft 2 ideas
Davex
Join Date: 2010-12-28 Member: 76007Members
Join Date: 2010-12-28 Member: 76007Members
lets face it. a lot of the inspiration of this game comes from starcraft. alines are basicaly zerg. maybe we coud use some of the ideas in sc2 and implement em on this game, gorges are basically queens, they heal, they have a mediocre atack and they spread "infestation", maybe instead of the current placement of DI, there oculd be "infestation tumors", in wich the gorge would place the tumor but the commander would be in charge to put the new one just like in starcraft 2 (that way the gorge has a role to play but its up to the commander how much the DI can spread and in what direction), a speed upgrade like in zerglings on his atack would be nice for skulks, there are a lot of ideas to be found in starcraft 2. what do you guys think?
Comments
Seriously though, wouldn't you prefer that NS2 create a more unique experience, rather than sticking to the conventional game formula like they did in SC2?
BTW this should be in the suggestions forum, and the Gorge was invented a lot earlier than the new Zerg Queen. Skulks already attack quite fast (0.45s cooldown), any faster, and marines would die too quickly to this very (cheap) basic lifeform.
As for Dynamic Infestation, I would prefer that the Gorge be given the ability to create permanent Infestation, but at a higher cost (of personal res, or at least use up all its energy). Additionally, Gorges should have the ability to assist in the growth, and healing of Commander placed DI (like a building).
Actually inspiration comes from the alien films, which are likely the inspiration used by games workshiop to make the tyranids, which are what the zerg were supposed to be before blizzard lost the WH40k license.
Which is why the NS aliens don't look as stupid as the zerg.
Copying ideas rote from SC2 is not going to make the game popular, it's going to make it into a crappy SC2 clone.
Oh, and the Aliens DVD had pride of place on top of a bookshelf!
Well, prototype DI is basically that, except it can only be revealed and damaged by flamethrowers.
Also, automatic (dynamic): Rapid growth in unpowered rooms, and slow growth in powered rooms; assuming connection to a DI "hub" (i.e. hive; possibly resource tower). Otherwise, slow receding when in unpowered rooms and fast receding in powered rooms. It would be nice if DI would have a preference for spreading towards hubs and other patches of infestation, so you could connect two hives together, and a gorge could place a patch of infestation slightly apart from the main mass and they would grow towards each other until they get connected.
Oh, and the Aliens DVD had pride of place on top of a bookshelf!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Surely they've reskinned it. The art style itself is quite original considering that it's still the many times used space marines and aliens setting.
The main thingy NS borrows from SC is the tech tree. Skulk equals zergling, lerk equals mutalisk, gorge equals drone and onos equals ultralisk. The original 1.0 fade concept was pretty close to hydralisk with blink. Umbra equals dark swarm, catpacks equal stimpacks, alien tech is based on pretty strict 3-tier system, marine upgrades use the similar 3 step mentality too. All in all it's a very starcraft like RTS concept. Now they're adding the DoW/CoH squad mechanics and SC2 spine crawlers and creep.
I'm fine with the sort of unoriginal concepts, but obviously I'd also like to see them borrowed carefully and meaningfully. I'd like to see things added because they contribute to the game as a whole, not just because they worked well in some other specific game enviroment. Often it's still very difficult to see how the borrowed stuff blends in with the rest of the NS2 stuff and how its going to contribute the gameplay in an RTS/FPS enviroment with a lot of emphasis in the 3D instead of the more 2 dimensional RTS games.
I would say this is a fairly accurate assessment of how things are currently. A game is basically a space within which certain rules apply, and at the moment the rules of NS2's world seem blurred, undefined and broken.
I know that this is a beta, and things need balancing.
But we have seen balancing occurring (it hasn't worked imo) and small changes to areas of 'large' concern to the community, and it has increased confusion and frustration within the community and not really solved the problems at hand.
Most especially issues concerning weapon defined roles and their application, and oddities such as skulk stop leap, wall walking and alien FOV. To name a few.
I don't think as many people would be frustrated if UWE actually made comments to the like of "this is our idea of what it should be, but isn't quite there yet".
But when people are posting thread after thread about the flame thrower, and the like, all we hear is silence and no changes it becomes worrying.
If people rant about something, then it is clearly broken. A nice video of UWE talking about the Aliens/Marines the different weapons and what they want their roles to be would be great. It doesn't have to be 'spot on' just a rough chat regarding direction would be nice for debate.
This is what worries me most - that their vision for the release version of NS2 is too blurred, or too subject to change. I'd like to hear what their vision is for how the game will play, and I'd like them to show some conviction for carrying that vision through regardless of what anyone says or what problems crop up. A feature list, the way a typical game might play or the way a typical player might experience the game, and some explanations. We really need to see some sort of floor plan for this game-to-be.
When I map for example, I always start with a vision, but I know full well that I won't be able to pull it off, so what I mostly do is play around with the ideas I have and see how close I can get, and also see what works, some things won't work and so I drop them, some things don't come out right and it might be better to use a worse idea that can be better executed.
You will get problems when you make games, and you will have to adjust to work around them, and it will mean your game is not the thing you originally thought it would be, but it also means your game will be better for it, because if you don't adjust and drop things here and there, you won't get a game at all.
Every RTS has smaller units to start with, then they get bigger, and they have builders, etc. But omg... since SC2 has an alien-skinned faction... NS2 has stolen from them!
A lot of games have similar aspects. Learn to think a bit deeper than just seeing similarities and think it means "copied".
<!--quoteo(post=1833957:date=Feb 21 2011, 03:33 AM:name=Tacota)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Tacota @ Feb 21 2011, 03:33 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1833957"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->lol, seriously? People see two games with aliens that evolve... ZOMG CARBON COPIES.
Every RTS has smaller units to start with, then they get bigger, and they have builders, etc. But omg... since SC2 has an alien-skinned faction... NS2 has stolen from them!
A lot of games have similar aspects. Learn to think a bit deeper than just seeing similarities and think it means "copied".<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The truth lies halfway between Davex and Tacota.
Oh, and the Aliens DVD had pride of place on top of a bookshelf!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
oh you have internet now? next ns2hd reveal video plz.
Again, never bothered me, the vision I have when I start mapping is usually only tangentially related to the map, mostly I just map and see what happens, all I really keep in mind is the neccesary functions the map has to perform, like balance and suchlike, but really it's just a series of rooms which look pretty, depending on what I come up with as I go.
The specifics don't really matter, I can mess around a bit and see what works out, I might have a few ideas but it always changes during implementation.
It's probably safe to say they know what DI would look like if they had millions of dollars and years to do it, because we have plenty of concept art of it, but what matters at the moment is how they can best implement it within the current constraints.
Secondly, they're designing a game - essentially, a set of rules, whereas you're designing an environment. Their vision must necessarily be a lot more rigid than yours. People weren't just given a bunch of wood and some paint and somehow developed Chess - they constructed the pieces and they set out to structure and formalise it.
I imagine that even if you do map freely, you have actually drawn some sort of initial floor plan? This floor plan can change as you will, as you get a better feel for the map. If you don't, then I don't know what to say... that's just really bad design?
Plans change. Never does everything go according to plan and so plans always change. But if you go in without a plan in the first place, you're a brave and optimistic idiot. Possibly even a liberal arts major.
What I mostly had was the idea that the map consists of objective points and ground between them to fight over, that is the basic design principle, now it really doesn't matter what those objective points look like, how exactly they are arranged, in what way they are made into objectives (be it resources or spawn points or vehicle spawns or tactical advantage), only that you have something to fight towards, and ground to fight over. I had originally planned to make five capturable spawn points, as it stands I just dropped the most important one because I think the map would be better with fewer of them, but it doesn't change the point of the map, it just makes the objectives more spaced out and the field between them more expansive, shifting the emphasis over to the ability of squads to support each other across the field rather than rushing the flags, but that is just a particular flavour to the 'capture objectives by fighting over terrain' mechanic.
That is why the the map is so fluid, because it doesn't matter, it's all superficial details.
Likewise NS can be summed up by its principles, dynamic environments, asymmetric teams, a combination of RTS and FPS, it doesn't matter what guns players have, what the levels look like, what abilities the classes get, none of that is important, it's all just texture for the solid structure of the overarching principles. If you replaced the lerk with a sort of mobile structure which can relocate through the infestation and grow out of unusual places, and which could place and remote-trigger miniature whips, it would still be the same game more or less, you'd have a different alien to fight but the game itself would still be an FPSRTS with asymmetrical teams in a dynamic environment. But if you did that everyone would go 'oh god entire class change the game is no longer at all like we thought it would be' and then they'd play it and enjoy it because it's still NS.
I know I have a tendency to see things as abstract more than most people but it's never caused me any problems. I'm getting this new map done without any prior planning in very good time, and it's coming out better than the last one did, almost exactly as I had hoped it would. It has the massive amount of emergent content and scalability which were the key principles I had in mind, it doesn't look much like what I thought it would, especially as I didn't think about most of it, but it looks quite nice given the available assets and should do what I need it to.
Planning to a degree is important, but not the fine details, I don't think you need to plan them, and so many things are really just fine detail when you think about them.
I do a games design course, and I'm in a group making a small game for part of my course, and we take the same approach, there is a document written but I never look at it, neither does most of the group, really we just get together every friday and brainstorm ideas and talk about how wasted the programmers got last night. We get some good ideas and the programmers put them into the game, we talk about how the art assets are coming along and suggest changes, all we really keep in mind is that the visual theme is cartoony and the mechanic is a side scrolling shmup. Everything else is just fine detail, and subject to change.
There's nothing wrong with the planning approach, and it's probably a lot more neccesary if you have a 100 strong team, because you can't just bash out ideas and get them in instantly, but with a small team you all know each other, you can just talk and get ideas and throw the ones in that work, and see what does and doesn't. It isn't very professional, but it is quite effective I find.
Did it taste good?
You got lucky.
Put food in oven.
Wait 20 minutes.
Check food at 10 minute intervals thereafter.
Poke food with stick to check for cookedness.
When cookedness is achieved, remove from oven and consume.
Note cooking time for later use.
It is invariably delicious.
I use recipes for getting cooking times in advance, as doing a complex meal by trial and error would be expensive, and some things like the correct combination order and proprtions for cake mix, but otherwise no, no planning. Most things really don't suffer for +/- 20% cooking time, which for most meat is usually between 10 and 20 minutes variance. More or less just means it's a bit rarer or a bit crispier, and I like a bit of variety.
The hardest thing I find to cook is fried breakfast because everything takes less than 10 minutes and you need about half a dozen different pans and trays each with their own cooking times if you want a full one. I suck at multitasking.
I'm honest to god deadly serious when I say planning is not required for a lot of things, sometimes it is, don't get me wrong, but it isn't always required.
??????