I'd Like Your Help
DragonMech
Join Date: 2003-09-19 Member: 21023Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2003-09-19 Member: 21023Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow
in Off-Topic
<div class="IPBDescription">in designing a PC game</div> I've been on the NS forums for several months now, and I've come to ask you for some help. A few days ago, I was hit with what I hope is a brilliant idea for a game. Since then, my creative flash of insight has ended, leaving me with a game idea that is incomplete. I'd like you to help me fill the holes in the game. Before you get too excited though, I have no connections to any computer game industry, and anything I've thought up so far is at best an excercise in creativity. Unless a company like Unknown Worlds Entertainment (Viva Flayra!) or Blizzard swoops out of the sky and asks me for this, it will just be an idea. That being said, I'd like to ask you three things:
1) Would you play a game like this? (I'll describe it in a sec)
2) Do you think this is a good multiplayer game selection process? (Again more in a sec)
3) Will you help me fill the gaps in the game? (What ideas are needed will be described later)
If you don't want to help, thank you for your time. If you do, read on...
1) The game mechanic:
A) Controlling units:
This game is about the all-out war between five races. More on them later, but I will say each one is radically different. Each round of this game, one teammember is selected to be a commander. Everyone else has to follow his instructions. The commander sees the map much like the comm does in NS. He can build structures and units like any other RTS. How he can controll them is also similar, up to a point. Where this game gets unique is how he can give his fellow teammates controll of individual units and squads. They can then assume command of those units, and do with them as they will. The commander can give out waypoints for them to go to, or if he needs to take controll of them again, he can return command to himself only, and can 'lock' other players out. Here is where the game truly gets interesting: you can hop into First Person views of any unit, at any time & then controll it/them personally. Want to explore that ridge? Grab a hoverbuggy and move out! The commander will be informed of your progress through an expanding minimap, and can order you to explore specific areas with a click of the mouse. If your commander gives you a vehicle that can become a building (ie: Command & Conquer) you can set up your own base with it, as all units that come from a building under your control are yours & the commanders to share (his authority superceeding your own). If there is a problem with your commander, you can kick him out, but if you have no commander for a short time (30 sec - 3 min) you forfeit the game. (If there is no commander, you can just go to the 3rd person view and click on the command building to take command to prevent a loss)This would reduce micromanagement that normally a commander is burdened with - and let the game be far larger in sheer number of units in play at one time.
B) Gameplay
While playing the game, a subordinate can do things a commander cannot. For example, he could pilot his walker into an enemy building to destroy a key section. That is right - you can physically enter buildings, either on foot or in a small enough vehicle. While inside you will have to face defenders - so be carefull. But the ruisks are well worth it. Destroy the command station and the commander, and your enemies loose cohesion untill it's repaired. Also there is locational damage. Shoot a walker mech in his right leg actuator and it will start limping untill it 's repaired. Take out it's left and it will be immobile - but still be able to shoot you. Get a lucky missile into a jet engine, and you can kiss that jet goodbye. Hit the control antennae on a bug, and it goes berzerk attacking anything in it's path.
C) Terrain
The map isn't something you paly on in this game, it's something you play <i>with</i>. Want to sneak around a huge fortified base to attack a supply line? Dig a big tunnel(Team 5 can do it nicely)! Want to get up that ridge? Have a Terrral Beast (team 2) eat it's underside to bring down a section to make a path. Want to cross a river? A river-crosser (Team 1) will keep your little feet (or in team 1's case, massive 'mech legs) dry.
What do you think of that for a gameplay idea?
2) Multiplayer.
As I said before, this is a multiplayer game. Therefor, a set ammount of options are required at the start of each match. I'd like your opinions on this potential setup of screens to determine each game's settings:
Screen 1) Teams
You are asked: How many teams would you like: 2,3,4,5
If 5 is selected, the next section is bocked:
Vote which team(s) you want to play
Team 1
Team 2
Team 3
Team 4
Team 5
Preference (This is an option you set up elsewhere; it votes for you depending on what you set)
Abstain
Once you have selected, you hit confirm. The least popular team(s) are closed, and you cannot play them. Onto move on to the next screen.
Screen 2) The Map
In this screen, you can choose between
A) Random: A randomized map, with settings like "ammount of water" voted on.
B) A bunch of premade maps. Choose Random Premade, or select your favorite.
Screen 3) The "ReadyRoom"
Choose your team, randomly join a team, or spectate.
Screen 4) Commander
Step 1: Do you want to command? Yes or No. If you say yes, you are added to a list of potential candidates.
Step 2: Pick who you want for commander. The most number of votes wins.
That's it. Too long, too short, or just right?
3) Filling in the gaps:
Mostly, I need units and names for 4 of the five races, and names for the races. Buildings and technology ideas are also welcome.
First off, the teams:
1) <span style='color:gray'>THE MACHINES</span>
The Machines are the only race not native to the solar system this game takes place in. They have a tech structure similar to most RTS games, and they are the easiest to make stuff up for. I don't really need ideas for them.
Strengths: Heavy firepower
Weaknesses: The units this race has are expensive.
Unique units/abilities: The Phase Grapple. At their highest tech, the machines can annihilate huge sections of the map by the construction of a phase grapple satelite. It gives them one pulse per a certain ammount of time, say five minutes. Every pulse deals massive dammage to a square area of the map by hitting it with an energy pulse. Massive damage to anything, friend or foe, caught in said pulse.
2) <span style='color:orange'>THE BUGS</span>
Think "Starship Troopers" for the basic idea, but these bugs are much weaker. They rely on sheer numbers of cheap units to overrun their enemies.
Strengths: Lots of cheap & rapidly grown units.
Weaknesses: You need rougly a 3-5:1 unit ration to win in a battle. Also, no defensive structures.
Unique unit: Terral Beast. This huge bug has hte ability to break down ridges of huge size, and to dig up dirt. With said dirt it can make permanent landbridges and moats.
3) <span style='color:green'>THE VERDANT FORCE</span>
Mother nature has PMS and she's ticked! This is the most unique team yet. They have 1 resource: the forest. IT's like the creep in starcraft gone wild. The forest grows out from the Mother Tree (the CC of this team) continually, always expanding. In order to make a building, you place it on the forest. The forest around the structure stops growing untill it's complete. To make units, select a certain ammount of forest and click the icon of whatever unti you want. The forest selected will then gather itself up and make the creature in short order, but leave a spot of gorund bare that the forest will take time to grow over. You can direct the growth of the forest to certain areas in order to set up defenses there faster.
Strengths: You can make hundreds of units in seconds provided you have the forest for it. No dependancy on other resources.
Weaknesses: It takes a while to get buildings, and you cannot build off the forest
Unique unit: Nothing yet. I have though up some snake-like creatures, and a beast that shoots thorns. but nothing out of the ordinary.
4) <span style='color:white'>THE ARIAS</span>
A majestic race of flying beings, everthing they make is airborn - including buildings!
Strengths: Immunity to melee gorund units. They can slowly move their buildings.
Weaknesses: Weak ground units. Buildings have bad weak points (the air bladders that keep them afloat - shoot 'em and the building falls)
Unique unit: The Vortraxis. A huge airborn creature, this tough-as-nails creature is the bane of any building. This creature can fly fast enough to create a huge vaccum in the space behind it. Then it can slam its hard, cone-shaped nose into a building, causing it to collapse from the pressure of the outside air rushing in.
5) <span style='color:black'><b>THE ORDER OF THE BLACK STONE</span></b>
(The order of the black stone if you can't read that)
This is a race of humanoids. They have two arms, two legs, a head the reseblace to humanity ends there. They are all religious fanatics to the living rock - some kind of animated stone found nowhere else in the universe, apparently. This living rock is the source of their power. It moulds itself into whatever its worshippers need. This team is the master of stealth and deception. While you shake hands with your right, something sharp is in their left hand going for your heart.
Strengths: Cloaking. Underground movement, and the only sniper in the game. Their buildings are also tough as nails.
Weaknesses: No air units. Also, they lack power in out-and-out fights
Unique unit: The sniper. Remeber how I mentioned hitting a mech's leg actuators? This is the guy to do it with. It carries a huge range, high damage armor-piercing weapon with a slow RoF.
What do you guys think?
1) Would you play a game like this? (I'll describe it in a sec)
2) Do you think this is a good multiplayer game selection process? (Again more in a sec)
3) Will you help me fill the gaps in the game? (What ideas are needed will be described later)
If you don't want to help, thank you for your time. If you do, read on...
1) The game mechanic:
A) Controlling units:
This game is about the all-out war between five races. More on them later, but I will say each one is radically different. Each round of this game, one teammember is selected to be a commander. Everyone else has to follow his instructions. The commander sees the map much like the comm does in NS. He can build structures and units like any other RTS. How he can controll them is also similar, up to a point. Where this game gets unique is how he can give his fellow teammates controll of individual units and squads. They can then assume command of those units, and do with them as they will. The commander can give out waypoints for them to go to, or if he needs to take controll of them again, he can return command to himself only, and can 'lock' other players out. Here is where the game truly gets interesting: you can hop into First Person views of any unit, at any time & then controll it/them personally. Want to explore that ridge? Grab a hoverbuggy and move out! The commander will be informed of your progress through an expanding minimap, and can order you to explore specific areas with a click of the mouse. If your commander gives you a vehicle that can become a building (ie: Command & Conquer) you can set up your own base with it, as all units that come from a building under your control are yours & the commanders to share (his authority superceeding your own). If there is a problem with your commander, you can kick him out, but if you have no commander for a short time (30 sec - 3 min) you forfeit the game. (If there is no commander, you can just go to the 3rd person view and click on the command building to take command to prevent a loss)This would reduce micromanagement that normally a commander is burdened with - and let the game be far larger in sheer number of units in play at one time.
B) Gameplay
While playing the game, a subordinate can do things a commander cannot. For example, he could pilot his walker into an enemy building to destroy a key section. That is right - you can physically enter buildings, either on foot or in a small enough vehicle. While inside you will have to face defenders - so be carefull. But the ruisks are well worth it. Destroy the command station and the commander, and your enemies loose cohesion untill it's repaired. Also there is locational damage. Shoot a walker mech in his right leg actuator and it will start limping untill it 's repaired. Take out it's left and it will be immobile - but still be able to shoot you. Get a lucky missile into a jet engine, and you can kiss that jet goodbye. Hit the control antennae on a bug, and it goes berzerk attacking anything in it's path.
C) Terrain
The map isn't something you paly on in this game, it's something you play <i>with</i>. Want to sneak around a huge fortified base to attack a supply line? Dig a big tunnel(Team 5 can do it nicely)! Want to get up that ridge? Have a Terrral Beast (team 2) eat it's underside to bring down a section to make a path. Want to cross a river? A river-crosser (Team 1) will keep your little feet (or in team 1's case, massive 'mech legs) dry.
What do you think of that for a gameplay idea?
2) Multiplayer.
As I said before, this is a multiplayer game. Therefor, a set ammount of options are required at the start of each match. I'd like your opinions on this potential setup of screens to determine each game's settings:
Screen 1) Teams
You are asked: How many teams would you like: 2,3,4,5
If 5 is selected, the next section is bocked:
Vote which team(s) you want to play
Team 1
Team 2
Team 3
Team 4
Team 5
Preference (This is an option you set up elsewhere; it votes for you depending on what you set)
Abstain
Once you have selected, you hit confirm. The least popular team(s) are closed, and you cannot play them. Onto move on to the next screen.
Screen 2) The Map
In this screen, you can choose between
A) Random: A randomized map, with settings like "ammount of water" voted on.
B) A bunch of premade maps. Choose Random Premade, or select your favorite.
Screen 3) The "ReadyRoom"
Choose your team, randomly join a team, or spectate.
Screen 4) Commander
Step 1: Do you want to command? Yes or No. If you say yes, you are added to a list of potential candidates.
Step 2: Pick who you want for commander. The most number of votes wins.
That's it. Too long, too short, or just right?
3) Filling in the gaps:
Mostly, I need units and names for 4 of the five races, and names for the races. Buildings and technology ideas are also welcome.
First off, the teams:
1) <span style='color:gray'>THE MACHINES</span>
The Machines are the only race not native to the solar system this game takes place in. They have a tech structure similar to most RTS games, and they are the easiest to make stuff up for. I don't really need ideas for them.
Strengths: Heavy firepower
Weaknesses: The units this race has are expensive.
Unique units/abilities: The Phase Grapple. At their highest tech, the machines can annihilate huge sections of the map by the construction of a phase grapple satelite. It gives them one pulse per a certain ammount of time, say five minutes. Every pulse deals massive dammage to a square area of the map by hitting it with an energy pulse. Massive damage to anything, friend or foe, caught in said pulse.
2) <span style='color:orange'>THE BUGS</span>
Think "Starship Troopers" for the basic idea, but these bugs are much weaker. They rely on sheer numbers of cheap units to overrun their enemies.
Strengths: Lots of cheap & rapidly grown units.
Weaknesses: You need rougly a 3-5:1 unit ration to win in a battle. Also, no defensive structures.
Unique unit: Terral Beast. This huge bug has hte ability to break down ridges of huge size, and to dig up dirt. With said dirt it can make permanent landbridges and moats.
3) <span style='color:green'>THE VERDANT FORCE</span>
Mother nature has PMS and she's ticked! This is the most unique team yet. They have 1 resource: the forest. IT's like the creep in starcraft gone wild. The forest grows out from the Mother Tree (the CC of this team) continually, always expanding. In order to make a building, you place it on the forest. The forest around the structure stops growing untill it's complete. To make units, select a certain ammount of forest and click the icon of whatever unti you want. The forest selected will then gather itself up and make the creature in short order, but leave a spot of gorund bare that the forest will take time to grow over. You can direct the growth of the forest to certain areas in order to set up defenses there faster.
Strengths: You can make hundreds of units in seconds provided you have the forest for it. No dependancy on other resources.
Weaknesses: It takes a while to get buildings, and you cannot build off the forest
Unique unit: Nothing yet. I have though up some snake-like creatures, and a beast that shoots thorns. but nothing out of the ordinary.
4) <span style='color:white'>THE ARIAS</span>
A majestic race of flying beings, everthing they make is airborn - including buildings!
Strengths: Immunity to melee gorund units. They can slowly move their buildings.
Weaknesses: Weak ground units. Buildings have bad weak points (the air bladders that keep them afloat - shoot 'em and the building falls)
Unique unit: The Vortraxis. A huge airborn creature, this tough-as-nails creature is the bane of any building. This creature can fly fast enough to create a huge vaccum in the space behind it. Then it can slam its hard, cone-shaped nose into a building, causing it to collapse from the pressure of the outside air rushing in.
5) <span style='color:black'><b>THE ORDER OF THE BLACK STONE</span></b>
(The order of the black stone if you can't read that)
This is a race of humanoids. They have two arms, two legs, a head the reseblace to humanity ends there. They are all religious fanatics to the living rock - some kind of animated stone found nowhere else in the universe, apparently. This living rock is the source of their power. It moulds itself into whatever its worshippers need. This team is the master of stealth and deception. While you shake hands with your right, something sharp is in their left hand going for your heart.
Strengths: Cloaking. Underground movement, and the only sniper in the game. Their buildings are also tough as nails.
Weaknesses: No air units. Also, they lack power in out-and-out fights
Unique unit: The sniper. Remeber how I mentioned hitting a mech's leg actuators? This is the guy to do it with. It carries a huge range, high damage armor-piercing weapon with a slow RoF.
What do you guys think?
Comments
Yep. I'd like this to be a whole new stlye of RTS/FPS gaming. The engine would have to be very powerful to get the graphic quality I'd like to see if this game was ever made.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> The races are interesting.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->Got questions or a favorite?
thanks dessa
That being said, I must say something else. Being a 3rd year student at DigiPen Institute of Technology (A Game Design/Programming School) I can honestly tell you that this game is FAR too complex in it's gameplay to ever get done to the extent you're probably imagining in your head. Even a company such as Blizzard would be reluctant to take it on in my opinion. Although, looking at the insanity of halflife 2, Valve might be crazy enough to try.
- A RTS with 5 unique races is hard to make.
- A First Person Shooter is hard to make.
- Combining a RTS with a FPS is a major undertaking. Not to bash on NS at all, but in the end, it only has a RTS <i><u>style</u></i> interface for the commander, when you get down to the nitty gritty, it has *no* RTS A.I. which is a really hard thing to get right. So, imagine how long NS would have been in the making with just 3 more races and then having to make unique A.I. for each one since they all have special abilities......... Pure insanity.
- A digging system wreaks havoc on any physics system you might want to use for ground movement simply because nothing can be left to precalculation.
- Locational damage itself is a bit hard to program for, but what really kills locational damage is all the animations and art you have to make for it. It's like taking your 5 unique races, and turning it into 30+ as far as the art is concerned.
So, yes, it sounds like a fun game to play. But realize that you'll probably never see it made any time in the next 5 years. The trick to game design is thinking up ideas that lend themselves to fake effects easily. Like designing a game to be drawn in 3d, but designed in such a way that nothing can fly, go underground, or leave the ground plane in any way (Typically referred to as 2 1/2 D ("Two and a Half D")).
and i would advise to get rid of the digging, it will make the designing alot easier...
and try to get some inspiration in c&c renegade on how to get a c&c/fps/rts together
i like the first team...ive got an idea 4 em (u probably wont use it though), well they get like a (VERY, VERY EXPENSIVE ! ! !) invisibility upgrade...similar to the halo one...
and bout the tree race, i dont really liek those...get rid of em or merge em into one of the others is my idea to improve the game
anything else that u wanna ask me ? (ideas etc?)
Greetz, Rover
thanks dessa <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
NS doesnt have a copy right law on the commander mode. As long as you code it yourself its alright. Also NS wasnt the first fps/rts.
<a href='http://www.spellcheck.net/' target='_blank'>http://www.spellcheck.net/</a>
No free-form tunnels? someone hasn't played SimAnt heh heh heh.. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
More realistically, using your background / data could make a top-down strategy game (in the style of C+C) (2d only)
Second off, you have to have bot, unless you want a Planetside-esq gameplay. With all 5 teams, you need 14 players for 1 commander and 1 soldier (5 soldiers in the case of the Bugs).
To avoid bots eclipsing the players on the team, I suggest you make humans a cut above the rest, like Master Cheif in Halo, or Elites in WH40K. The human players should be roughly balanced against each other, and better than the average AI grunt.
You should have the human players as a seperate part of the tech tree, and not required for the majority of research. This will allow games with low amounts of players, in standard RTS fashion.
You should also have ways to reward players, either through bigger aliens or guns, or command of veihicles. I don't know how you would like to handle this. As it is part FPS, I would suggest something that involves combat to unlock upgrades. If they want to do base building, they would be the commander.
As for the gameplay choices, I would suggest that all map chosing, chosing # teams and whatnot is a server variable. Commander election and choice of which teams go should be the only in-game choices. Because you can have anywhere from 2-5 races, a single map would have to have about 4 sizes to accomadate each variation in team numbers.
To avoid alienating the players, I would suggest that any heavy weapons/big beasties/important units can be controlled by both players and AI. The commander should always have the option of locking abusive players out, but if you make the big guns only AI, players would get bored in the later parts of the game.
On the flip side, you will also have to design it so you can play in with only commanders, or, like Savage (shudder), only players. This means that, as stated before, human players cannot be integral to any part of the tech tree. I'm not sure if they should benefit from standard grunt upgrades, or if they should be a seperate part of the tech tree.
Gah. Long rambling post coming to an end. I hope you could make sense of some of that, and I hope it helps.
From the RTS side, the higher number of factions you attempt to use, the more they will be basically the same, and the harder it will be to balance. Chances are very high that you'll end up with 2 factions being the most useful, and they'll be the only ones anyone wants to play. Also, after the first 5 minutes, there's only going to be 2-3 factions left alive anyway. What do you do with the extra players? Spectating isn't any good for a decently long game, and if you're just going to have them switch teams you might as well just start with 2 teams anyway.
On the FPS side, FFA games get old really fast when there's more than 6-8 players. Someone will get ganged up on, and it will not be the least bit entertaining. Even consider TS, which has great FFA action: when there are more than 6-8 players (depending on map size), you can just spray bullets like crazy, because the map is saturated with targets. No amount of skill will save you when you are constantly being shot from every side. 2 teams is the only way that large games will have any lasting value.
So, yeah, you have a lot of rethinking to do if you want to do anything rts/fps hybrid. Even if you just wanted to do an RTS, you'd still have to cut down on the number of factions.
If you're going to go on with it, definately just worry about making a mod. It's going to be hard enough to get anywhere even without having to worry about building an engine. If you want more than about 16 players per server, I'd go with the BF9142 engine.
You should change that into a desgine document, personaly if I ever get an idea i just jot it down and add in to the pile, sorta like a scrapbook of my ideas, if it were ever stolen... <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
And as Flayra once said something along the lines of "If someone steals your idea you know its good".
It has a RTS-commander mode already built in, is capable of being played on a 6500 x 3500 square kilometer map, has vehicles, and just plain-well looks purdy. No tunnels though... They have a system that allows to create craters, but not tunnels. They plan on releasing it in February.
Screenies:
<a href='http://www.gatemp.com/data/news/2003/1202/soldner_08.jpg' target='_blank'>http://www.gatemp.com/data/news/2003/1202/.../soldner_08.jpg</a>
<a href='http://www.gatemp.com/data/news/2003/1202/soldner_10.jpg' target='_blank'>http://www.gatemp.com/data/news/2003/1202/.../soldner_10.jpg</a>
<a href='http://www.gatemp.com/data/news/2003/1202/soldner_11.jpg' target='_blank'>http://www.gatemp.com/data/news/2003/1202/.../soldner_11.jpg</a>
<a href='http://www.gatemp.com/data/news/2003/1202/soldner_03.jpg' target='_blank'>http://www.gatemp.com/data/news/2003/1202/.../soldner_03.jpg</a>
Sounds exactly like what your idea needs technically =)
Ah, another ideas man. God knows they're short of <i>them</i> in the gaming industry <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->