[Archive] The Unvanquished OLD PROPOSAL

[player1]

It's really great to see you guys continuing this discussion, and producing so many great ideas. I have some brief and general comments, and leave the specifics to you folks to work out. Again, thanks for bringing so much passion and creativity to this mod. Herewith, brief comments.

@The Me: Thanks for continuing to support this mod, and for showing leadership as regards continuing the discussion in a productive manner. As co-creator, I consider this work as much yours as mine. I greatly appreciate the time and effort you have put forth so far, and the dedication you have shown to producing something which is playable, yet simple enough to get made.

@Urscumug: I am extremely interested in having you bring this sort of analysis to this mod. Although we did not work entirely from the ground up, rest assured that The Me and I tried to bring a very similar approach in our discussions. That said, I would be more than happy to see a complete overhaul of the idea done by yourself and others, bringing a fresh perspective and helping to make the concept even more fully thought out. Please read the above quite thoroughly, as many of the ideas you are proposing are already present, albeit in different form. If I can help to explicate any of my ideas, let me know. Also, I think a wiki is great, if ppl are willing to be subjected to reversion, and if ppl are willing to create alternate versions of the concept, and also willing to let others completely change and edit their work. As this mod is open-source and freely offered, please feel free to take it apart and put it back together again as you see fit, and allow others to do the same.

Also, do not be entirely put off by the magic-seeming nature of the Unvanquished, or the mythologically fantastic creatures which are the basis for their models. Let me explain. Just because a society is technologically advanced in a scientific way does not mean that belief in the unexplained or the meta-"normal" simply goes away. If our own era is any indication, the opposite is true. As a secular, progressivist, materialistic world-view begins to take precedence, it can only produce a great up-swelling of counter-feeling, as each thesis contains the seeds of its own antithesis. Of course, succeeding generations are able to side-step such a dichotomous divide, and are able to produce a synthesis of the two ideas. Isaac Newton was as much a wizard as a scientist. Arthur C. Clarke said, "Any seeming magic is nothing but technology, sufficiently advanced." In the future, there will be a synthesis of the scientific method and the spiritual awakening, which produces the much-sought-after yet ever-elusive Singularity, only when humanity is able to fuse the materialistic viewpoint of Science with the life-affirming approach of True Spirituality. Thus, in the future, while Haos Redro and others pursued their greedy strategies of avaricious grasping after physical riches, an entire culture grew up, revering the mystical practices and shamanic knowledge of all human civilizations, in all times and places, which sought to balance the excessive materialism of the Interglobal Zaibatsus with a more spiritually aware and mutually respectful society. In addition, instead of modifying their environment, as the materialists are wont to do, the Unvanquished are willing to modify themselves, to accommodate the harsh conditions to be found on the many small worlds which they inhabit. Indeed, the Unvanquished long co-existed with the Aliens. Only when the Old Folk Humans and their machines finally made it far enough into space, with their ways of planetary rapine and system-wide pillaging, did the Aliens begin a war on the new arrivals. After literally decades of Old Time, the Unvanquished have entered the Human-Alien War, to put an end to the senseless shedding of green slime and clonal blood.

@Roanoke: I would also ask you to thoroughly read the above proposal, as many of the ideas that you are discussing are already included, albeit, as stated above, in a different form. Also, realize that we are not trying to overly complicate this mod. A player should still feel like he is playing Tremulous. If he hasn't done any kind of binding, pressing "Q" should still have a somewhat-expected, if novel result. We don't want to create a proposal that is so bloated that it simply will never get made (especially by volunteers working in their spare time, while they attend school or try to raise a family). Simplify. Edit. Clarify. Get to the heart of. Additional ideas are greatly appreciated, but ask yourself if they truly belong in this particular mod at this stage of its development, if they really add to the gameplay without being unnecessarily complex to implement, and if they couldn't just be added to a giant list of things that could get added later, or belong elsewhere. As to the spell-weaving ideas, we have tried to keep the game about getting kills, collecting bounties (evos/creds) and annihilating the enemy. It's still a first-person shooter/slasher/spell-weaver. You will see that there are many area-effect, team-effect, and magical-appearing attacks in the above proposal, if you take the time to read it thoroughly.

@Archangel: That would be awesome, if and when you could accomplish it.

@Amanieu: Thanks.

Thanks again, guys. Great work. Please continue.

[Roanoke]

Thanks for the reply, player1. What about my idea of alliances?

[The Me]

What about my magic idea? It fundamentally changes a lot of things, so I'd like some feedback.

Some of the classes have abilities which, even though they are not, could be labeled as "magical". And The Priestess, if she is doing her job, should provide "advantages" to teammates who stick around her. These "advantages" come from her abilities such as the bubble shield and her healing abilities.

As for alliance, like determining what happens to first-dead race, this is a minor detail/feature which we can discuss later, after the mod has working models and gameplay. For now, lets work on critiquing, creating, and testing the classes, structures, abilities, maps, and weapons.

[Urcscumug]

The dynamics of 3-race play will become quite involved and I also think it premature to discuss them considering we don't even have the basics down solid.

@player1, I think Arthur Clarke formulated that a little differently. But I don't think I want to get into that kind of depth of argument because we're getting sidetracked and if the majority wants to call it magic let's do so and move on.

So, the unified feeling of the race. The Unv feel like they're all over the place. I don't think that's a good thing. What can we do about it?

How about uniforms? I'm reminded of Star Trek, where a lot of different species were united under the uniform of the Federation.

[Roanoke]

What we need to do is find a list of things to do/focus on and do so.

[Hendrich]

Focus on:
-Each class and their powers, ups, downs, dis-advantages and advantages. Possible upgrades and what they could do for their team and what they shouldn't do for their team, and how to discourage doing something that the class wasn't built for doing. Also discussing estimated and possible attack rate/speed rate/health points/etc. 
(Ex. Battle Granger = weak attacks = no gain/advantage = Don't do it)
(Ex. Priestess = run into middle of battle = weak attacks + health(?) = bad, stay and help your teammates or choose another class)

-Same goes for buildables above.

-Concept sketching, modifying/adding to each sketch and specific body/clothing ideas & effects (particles like snow, lightning, dust, etc) that comes with the model animations.

-Modeling ideas, suggestions and improvements.

What not to focus on now:

-Animations.
First its best to figure out the size, shape and style of each model before animating it and decide what parts should be moving, or it'll look bad/awkward. (Ex. Tyrant animation)

-Back story.
Its not bad to think of one to base on how the models should look like that should reflect the storyline, but its best to have a good idea of the story then after making the models and such brush up/finish the complete story. Its not necessary at this point of development but I'm not saying write a sketch of the story, because maybe after the models/animation you want to change elements in the story.
(Ex. You think up of the story where priestess has magic necklace to heal people, but then you make the model, knowing that the necklace wouldn't fit with the already sexy model and fucked up the 30 paged story you wrote that related to the necklace in many parts of the story.) 

-Technical reasoning for each class. (Ex. Bio-mechanic fusion nuclear powered particles that  can be laucnhed by man that moves in human patterning behavior controls the shape, size, direction and patterns of other objects by kinetic energy which explains how (Ex.) the mage/whatever could move objects. 


Thats all I could think of right now and i think the above two is what we should be focusing on the most (Not saying every thought should be about the ones we should be focusing on and not thinking ahead for the other ones).

Btw, damn, 5 pages already? This thread moves fast.

[player1]

Right.

We need a modeler, and I think maybe we've got one in Futilrevenge, and a 2d artist, and we used to have one in Chess Guy.

We have a willing coder, but we are easily months away from being able to utilize his services. We could really use another modeler, another 2d artist, and an animator, as well as several mappers. As far as assigning tasks, I would like to see correspondents take on the tasks that they themselves choose, but here is how I see it. I would like to see Urscumug work on doing an analysis of this mod, based on his tables. I would like to see Roanoke provide a critique of this process, as well as a detailed, class-by-class critique of the current Mod Concept. I would like to see The Me continue to act as the representative of what has been presented so far, and to work as the point person to integrate any improvements Urscumug and Roanoke can provide. I would also like to see Amanieu and Hendrich look in from time to time, to provide the benefit of any guidance they can offer. If Hendrich has the time, I would like him to also act as a sounding board for any new concepts, and a sort of reality check for the Mod Review Panel, to keep them on task, and moving in a productive direction. These are just general suggestions; you are, of course, all free to do as you will.

Team Unvanquished?

player1 - backstory, concept, alpha version
The Me - critique, balance, alpha version
Hendrich - guidance, direction, alpha tester
Urscumug - detailed analysis of mod using point-by-point comparison
Roanoke - boundless enthusiasm, endless ideas, detailed analysis
Amanieu - coder extraordinaire, person for whom concept is being prepared
Archangel - possible wiki support
Chess Guy - website, 2d art, visual direction
Futilrevenge - modeler, great guy, kewl dewd

@The Me: Can you PM Chess Guy and Futilrevenge, just to make sure that these two extremely valuable team members are still interested, and have the resources that they need to continue? There is no rush. We would just like to make sure that they are still on-board, and feeling comfortable.

@Urscumug: I would love to see those tables, when you have had a chance to prepare them. Again, no rush, but I think this mod would definitely benefit from this sort of approach. Uniforms or insignia is a great idea. Basically, the Unvanquished are a confederation of three different, somewhat related groups: Priestesses and Artificers, the Angel-Daemonfolk (Japanese folklore); Nymphs and Mer-Centaurs, the Centauri Merfolk (Greek mythology); and Shojo-Nuns and Oni-Tanuki War-Wizards, the Obake-Daemonfolk (Japanese folklore). As always, though, these are just general ideas and class names. A Tremulous Dragoon is not a cavalryman, and the Tremulous Basilisk is not a lizard-chicken. The 2d artist and modeler should feel free to interpret these very general guidelines as they see fit. Suffice to say that the Unvanquished are a "race" of "mythical" beings, with "magical" attacks, who have entered the Human-Alien War of the 41st Century. How do we do that within the bounds of Tremulous gameplay? Your point-by-point comparison will help us to determine just this. I think players will be able to realize that the three teams are the Space Marine Dudes, the Big Bugs, and the Freaky Furry Warhammer/Starcraft-Looking Things. They're Space Pirate Ninja Mythological Beast-People, an amalgam of almost every idea ever presented for a Third Race, except for robots ('cuz I hope the Sentinel Robot mod will someday get made, along with Alien Upgrades and Human Sidearms).

@Roanoke: We need someone to recruit talent, especially artists, modelers, and animators. Interested? Also, would you be willing to do a class-by-class critique, or assist Urscumug with his analysis? Also, I agree with The Me that while the alliance idea is really cool, it should go in the list of Things To Talk About a Little Bit Later in the Development Cycle. It's still a bit early to figure that out, and I would even consider starting a poll, along the lines of: "If there were a Tremulous three-team mod, what would you prefer happen to the first team eliminated from the match? And, would you favor the ability to make an alliance with one of the other teams, yes or no, and why?" I think we could get a broad spectrum of community reaction, and try to implement the most popular solution, provided that it is a simple and straightforward way of dealing with the issue.

As always, thanks a million guys. Your interest and enthusiasm for this mod are probably going to be a major force in seeing it through to actually getting made.

Cheers!

[Urcscumug]

Sounds good.

[Roanoke]

Hm... recruitment. I don't think I'm the best candidate for that, as I have no idea where such talent congregates. As for critique and helping urc, it would be my pleasure.

[player1]

Copy that. Perhaps someone else is interested in the position of Recruitment Specialist?

Thanks for helping out, guys. I look forward to seeing the results of your analysis of the mod.

[The Me]

Sorry for not posting for awhile, but my computer is acting wonky, kept shutting down and freezing up. I mainly fixed it except now when it overheats it loses space. This is probably because my computer is old, so I am looking at new computers. Ill post the pictures of the unfinished models tomarrow hopefully. 

Posted yesterday :/
I don't know what to count him as though he says he has some unfinished models he was going to post today. Anyways it seems he has been working hard seeing that even with a semi broken computer he has multiple models (unfinished or not) which he thinks are good enough to post pictures of.

As for Chess Guy I pmed him. I haven't heard or seen much from Chess Guy and tbh I had asked +OPTIMUS+ If he would be interested in modeling. Unfortunately he declined (he's is too busy with school and his comic) I had also asked ceRra but I never heard back from him :/

So, the unified feeling of the race. The Unv feel like they're all over the place. I don't think that's a good thing. What can we do about it?

How about uniforms? I'm reminded of Star Trek, where a lot of different species were united under the uniform of the Federation.

At First, I agreed, then I realized that they are unified by their differences. Humans all look the same with that greenish/grey color skinny-ness and straight posture. Aliens are all thick, dark-purple/blue/red colored and walk on multiple legs. Pretty much, as long as we don't make any straight greenish/grey characters or thick dark-purple/blue/red characters, there should be no confusion.

@player1: recruitment is pretty easy and seeing as I still cant seem to find a .map atcs I have nothing better to do. If no one else wants the job I would certainly be willing to take it.

[Urcscumug]

It's not the confusion that's an issue, of course you won't mistake an Unv for a human or alien. I meant the sense of belonging.

Humans look very much alike and aliens are all insects and act and fight in similar ways. But if Unv will neither look alike nor fight alike... IMHO there needs to be something, even symbolic, that brings them together.

I can't think of anything other than a uniform. Distinctive outer markings, anyway. If the idea of a uniform is not appealing, how about tribal markings? Covering them in tatoos or henna paintings, or Native American war painting style of thing. Could even explore that avenue further and go with feathers and stuff.

It could look pretty sexy. Does anybody remember The Maxx? What do you think about one strong colors for the entire body, one or two stripes in equally strong colors (head, face), plus feathers?

[Kaleo]

I agree on the team thing. I wanted to propose a third class for teams (alternative to fighting and building classes) that buffs people in it's area somehow. Anyway, area damage is an interesting idea. Even better would be area damage+magic

There's a whole page of answers for this, and I didn't read it, so here goes with my idea.

This could be done in a sort of crossover Oblivion/WoW style. You take the buff ideas from WoW (like stamina/health buffs, mana(magic) buffs, strength buffs) and execute them in an Oblivion style, ie. you shoot them out of your hands (in the case of the Unvanquished, at least) at team mates, and it buffs them.

BRB! Booting up OS X/Photoshop to do a mockup.

DONE!
Human + Buffs.

[Roanoke]

This could be done in a sort of crossover Oblivion/WoW style. You take the buff ideas from WoW (like stamina/health buffs, mana(magic) buffs, strength buffs) and execute them in an Oblivion style, ie. you shoot them out of your hands (in the case of the Unvanquished, at least) at team mates, and it buffs them.

Yes, that is sort of what I envisioned. Except I envisioned it in a way that makes it your primary function, i.e. there's a class just for buffing.

It could look pretty sexy. Does anybody remember The Maxx? What do you think about one strong colors for the entire body, one or two stripes in equally strong colors (head, face), plus feathers?

That looks awesome. I think it'd go pretty well.

[Hendrich]

Kaleo, that seems like a reasonable idea (Morrowind kicks Oblivion's ass tho) as the classes might have "strength enducing" spells/attacs/implemenations that the other teammates needs to be aware of.
 
Aliens has those pointy things on their HUD that bolds to show that they're boosted and they see the world as if playing ZDoom in software mode with freelook on (In other words, when aliens look around is like they're looking through a glass). Humans don't really have anything but they can purchase the helmet, and so it would make sense to give the Unvs a way to see their skills/boosted states. The only problem is we need somebody to create the art of the icons and somebody to code the pics to appear on the top of the screen when boosted/buffed (Seems to me it can't be difficult to do).

[Roanoke]

Since red is the aliens' icon color, and blue is the hummies', why not purple for the unv? In any case, we first need to know what icons are necessary, and what those respective objects will do.

[Hendrich]

we first need to know what icons are necessary, and what those respective objects will do.

Agreed. but before that we need to finalize and agree which spells should stay or be modified. 

[Roanoke]

Well, what spells do we have?

[The Me]

Well, what spells do we have?

Read the first page, or go to the website.

For the color of the unavaquished, I was thinking yellow. Its unique and it then covers all of the primary colors and repesents the battles. Also, you may notice that the structures have already natrually taken that color.

@Urscscumug: Well why can't they have the feeling of unity by having a common enemy? By having the same home? By there magical abilities? Why do the even need to feel like they all belong together? Who in the game is going to run away from their team because they don't all look the same. I honestly doubt there will be any de facto segregation going on among the team unless as a joke such as when you see a blaster rush or basi/granger rush. I like them all being different, it represents the variety of abilities among the classes. Also we don't want the new race to look and act like the Justice League, they can already fly and turn invisible.

Kaleo, we also dont want to turn Tremulous into WoW/Oblivion either. I don't think we should have the types of buff you are describing. There are currently no plans for powers such as fear (making an enemy run away without control of his character) which players will use on the enemy and there are no powers the humans or aliens have to use on the Unvanquished. Healing will be performed by the Preistess and viles, therefore there really are no buffs that I can think other than increased damage (maybe add this?). Though I do agree the player should have some type of indicator when an action is being performed on him such as healing, I dont thing we need giant representative symbols at the top of the screen, instead we could have some small subtle indicator in the HUD.

For everyone who has just recently joined the project (Roanoke, Hendrich, Kaleo, and Urscscumug) I urge you to read every single page of this thread before you go any further. We have put a lot of work into the ideas we have so far and there is no need to start from scratch on the 5th page just because you were not here for the beggining of it. I urge you to read every page so you will understand the process of thinking which has gotten us thus far and you will see which ideas have been thrown out.

[Roanoke]

@Urscscumug: Well why can't they have the feeling of unity by having a common enemy? By having the same home? By there magical abilities? Why do the even need to feel like they all belong together? Who in the game is going to run away from their team because they don't all look the same. I honestly doubt there will be any de facto segregation going on among the team unless as a joke such as when you see a blaster rush or basi/granger rush. I like them all being different, it represents the variety of abilities among the classes. Also we don't want the new race to look and act like the Justice League, they can already fly and turn invisible.

Well, that's a bit of a cop out, to have a team unified by diversity. It's like we didn't bother to actually think of something and stuck them all together.

For everyone who has just recently joined the project (Roanoke, Hendrich, Kaleo, and Urscscumug) I urge you to read every single page of this thread before you go any further.

I already have =/ I started posting at page three.

[The Me]

Well, that's a bit of a cop out, to have a team unified by diversity. It's like we didn't bother to actually think of something and stuck them all together.

Look at the dretch and the tyrant, they look nothing alike but everybody knows they are aliens. The only reason they look the slightest bit alike is because they are of the same evolutionary chain. And who honestly is going to think that we were to lazy to think of a simple unifying theme? We just created a mod and designed multiple classes completely unique from each other we made multiple maps, modeled, and coded it but everyone will look at it and think "omg those lazy a** mother f*****s were to lazy to even make a uniform for this race."
 The reason behind creating a unifying theme would not be to make it look like we "bothered" but instead to prevent friendly fire and allow for easy recognition. But, as long as we don't make one of the classes look too similar to one of the curent aliens or humans, we should be fine and after a few games, the new players will recognize their teammates.

I already have =/ I started posting at page three.

Well then you should know that page one has each class and its abilities/spells

[Roanoke]

The aliens are unified. All aliens have multiple legs. That may be a small thing, but it is consistent, and it is what brings them all together.

[Hendrich]

So after some thinking, yea, its best to stay wit the "Tremulous style" of keeping the buff indicators at the Hud, but we still need to decide what icons should represent each spell/skill/etc and where on the Hud they should be located on.

Also, for the unifying of the characters, if it doesn't look human or doesn't have 8 legs, its a Unv. I don't understand how more complicated it should get, yes some of the Unv classes is human/human hybrid/human-based but it doesn't mean they'll look human based on P1's representation of them. If its that big of an issue, maybe they can share some sort of symbol on their back representing the alliance they made that is struggling to bring the end of the human-alien war.

[Kaleo]

So after some thinking, yea, its best to stay wit the "Tremulous style" of keeping the buff indicators at the Hud, but we still need to decide what icons should represent each spell/skill/etc and where on the Hud they should be located on.

Also, for the unifying of the characters, if it doesn't look human or doesn't have 8 legs, its a Unv. I don't understand how more complicated it should get, yes some of the Unv classes is human/human hybrid/human-based but it doesn't mean they'll look human based on P1's representation of them. If its that big of an issue, maybe they can share some sort of symbol on their back representing the alliance they made that is struggling to bring the end of the human-alien war.

For HUD icons, you could easily mock up some nice ones in less than an hour. I don't think it's that high a priority.

You'd want to make them unique for each race, however, to keep the aesthetics in order.

Basic, easy-to-understand icons, like a fist for strength, a crosshair for accuracy and a boot with wings for speed.

*sigh

Booting OS X.

I did an accuracy one. I tried doing a strength one, but if looked deformed.

[Roanoke]

For the color of the unavaquished, I was thinking yellow. Its unique and it then covers all of the primary colors and repesents the battles. Also, you may notice that the structures have already natrually taken that color.

Alien HUD is red, not magenta, so I believe it should be green by that logic (integrate forces of nature or something?). It is not hard to change the color of a 3d model, particularly at this stage.

Also, for the unifying of the characters, if it doesn't look human or doesn't have 8 legs, its a Unv.

Why not make them glow with a mana aura?

[The Me]

Basic, easy-to-understand icons, like a fist for strength, a crosshair for accuracy and a boot with wings for speed.

Please realize we don't have buffs.

Alien HUD is red, not magenta, so I believe it should be green by that logic (integrate forces of nature or something?). It is not hard to change the color of a 3d model, particularly at this stage.

Really? when people say the primary colors they say Red Blue and Yellow. They dont use the "correct" terms and say Magenta Cyan and Yellow. Either way, red is close enough to magenta and cyan to blue and the natural choice of the Unvanquished is yellow if we were to follow the primary colors. I personally prefer Yellow as it is very hard to confuse with red or blue and is not and combination of the two.

So after some thinking, yea, its best to stay with the "Tremulous style" of keeping the buff indicators at the Hud, but we still need to decide what icons should represent each spell/skill/etc and where on the Hud they should be located on.

Also, for the unifying of the characters, if it doesn't look human or doesn't have 8 legs, its a Unv. I don't understand how more complicated it should get, yes some of the Unv classes is human/human hybrid/human-based but it doesn't mean they'll look human based on P1's representation of them. If its that big of an issue, maybe they can share some sort of symbol on their back representing the alliance they made that is struggling to bring the end of the human-alien war.

Thank you Hendrich. As for the humanoid Unv, as long as we make them look "beastly" enough then we should be fine, give them hair, hunch their back and don't give them a uniform
 

[Kaleo]

Also, for the unifying of the characters, if it doesn't look human or doesn't have 8 legs, its a Unv.

Why not make them glow with a mana aura?

I had the idea of either an ancient greek look, or an Eldar look.

Basic, easy-to-understand icons, like a fist for strength, a crosshair for accuracy and a boot with wings for speed.

Please realize we don't have buffs.

Well, maybe we do now. You're being incredibly closed off to new ideas. Try opening your mind.

[The Me]

Basic, easy-to-understand icons, like a fist for strength, a crosshair for accuracy and a boot with wings for speed.

Please realize we don't have buffs.

Well, maybe we do now. You're being incredibly closed off to new ideas. Try opening your mind.

I'm not saying we will never have buffs, I am just saying that we shouldn't be making HUD's for things that don't exist yet. lets keep this organized, propose and idea and discuss it. Tell us why it should be added, what you see the benefits are and which class you think should get it. That goes for every one.

Currently we have about twelve different ideas floating around which some people think are already implemented and some think they won't be and others don't even think exist. Lets end all of them and tackle them one at a time, if you think buffs would be god Kaleo, then please by all means tell us what buff you think would be good and why, then we will discuss it.

[Roanoke]

Really? when people say the primary colors they say Red Blue and Yellow. They dont use the "correct" terms and say Magenta Cyan and Yellow. Either way, red is close enough to magenta and cyan to blue and the natural choice of the Unvanquished is yellow if we were to follow the primary colors. I personally prefer Yellow as it is very hard to confuse with red or blue and is not and combination of the two.

Those would be the primary colors of pigments, not light. Two separate things. Magenta is an intense pink, basically.

[The Me]

Really? when people say the primary colors they say Red Blue and Yellow. They dont use the "correct" terms and say Magenta Cyan and Yellow. Either way, red is close enough to magenta and cyan to blue and the natural choice of the Unvanquished is yellow if we were to follow the primary colors. I personally prefer Yellow as it is very hard to confuse with red or blue and is not and combination of the two.

Those would be the primary colors of pigments, not light. Two separate things. Magenta is an intense pink, basically.

I know what magenta is. I am just wondering why you are so opposed to yellow?