[Archive] The Unvanquished OLD PROPOSAL

[Annihilation]

No problem whatsoever.  Volt has full root access to the dedi so you can do anything you need, feel free to set up an actual server in the future when you're to that point since I haven't bothered to yet. 

[Kaleo]

So Egypt is scrapped.

/sadface

Ominous sounds should still fit, so I won't scrap them.

[player1]

You've never seen a manga interpretation of Atlantis/Egypt/Stargate?

Egypt is most certainly not scrapped, and I'll explain right after Burn Notice.

[Kaleo]

Well, I'm not entirely sure the current unit names would fit for an Egyptian setting. You could change them slightly i guess...

Medic (Priestess of Isis) [female] - Isis is the goddess of magical power and healing, "She of the Throne" who was represented as the throne, also later as the wife of Osiris and as the protector of the dead.
Scout (The Speed of the Desert Wind) [female] - The desert winds of Egypt were a powerful and terrible force. They were also incredibly fast and hot.
Spy (He Who Sees All/Servant Of Amun (Amun is also known as The Hidden One) [male, variant of Naiad] - Amun is a creator deity. He is also known as The Hidden One.
Soldier I (Evolute: Hand Of Sekhmet) [male] - Sekhmet was the goddess of war.
Soldier II (Evolute: Fist Of Sekhmet) [male] - Fist > Hand.
Heavy (The Wind Of Horus) [female] - This is a reference to both a Nile song and a (awful) novel called River God. The Wind Of Horus was the ship in which the Blue Crocodile regiment (the most powerful in Egypt at the time) used to ferry themselves along the river Nile.
Pyro (Disciple Of Ra) [male] - Ra is the sun-god. Sun > fire. Fire > pyro.
Sniper/Demoman (Whisper Of Seker) [male] - Seker was the god of death
Engineer (Artificer) [male] - Artificer fits with the whole feel of Egypt.

Also, I can't help but notice the similarity to TF2. I guess I'll just have to overlook this.

[player1]

@Kaleo: We just used the Team Fortress classes to give people something to latch on to, because the other terms are so new.

We don't need to so literally place a particular Egyptian deity or demigod in each role. Did you follow my link to the Ogdoad? Have you heard of the Hyksos? Ancient Egyptian history spanned at least 3 millennia, some would say twenty-five. Plus, we're talking about humanoids or aliens visiting Earth at some time in the remote past, probably before "recorded" Egyptian history, and if they were ancient astronauts, they probably visited many areas of ancient, prehistoric Earth, which is why records of them have become encoded in widely-scattered myths and the most ancient tales and legends of many cultures, from Atlantis to Aegypt, from Eire to Nihon. Just because we are using these manga terms doesn't necessarily preclude an Atlantean/proto-Aegyptian/Sea-Kings/Golden-Age-Ur-Kultur. I thought that when you were posting the Egyptian links to gods with creature heads that match these beasts (jackal, alligator, hawk) you understood that these would be much more broadly interpreted. Also, don't forget that this is TWO THOUSAND YEARS in the future, and TWENTY LIGHT-YEARS from Earth. National cultures, indeed, international, nay even interglobal cultures will be so inextricably mixed and confused, warped and distorted by being constantly retold and morphed in games, art, music, etc.

tl;dr: Don't be so literal. Just blend the overall look of Atlantis/Stargate/Egypt with Japanese folk demonology and Greek mythology. We're not retelling Egyptian mythology. We're just making some kewl player models for a game where all the Humans look alike, and the Aliens are some kind of dinosaur bugs. No-one really cares that much about the back story, anyway. They just want to frag enemies and rape bases.

Cheers! Thanks for putting so much thought into it, but let's not reinvent the wheel. Let's not try to exactly match any particular pantheon, unless it's something like the Ogdoad.

Priestess - fox-woman [female]
Artificer - dog- or jackal- or wolf-headed man [male]
Naiad - mer-wench [female]
Nereid - ditto [female]
Merman - a dude with gills and a trident [male]
Mer-centaur - a centaur with some fishy characteristics [male]
Shojo - a monkey-king drunk-monk character as a woman (they never had drunk Egyptian priests? there aren't monkeys in Africa?) [female]
Evolute-Oni - a giant with a club [male]
Evolute-Tanuki - hyena/dingo/raccoon-dog war-wizard [male]

Certainly they can be done in a faux-Egyptian, manga/anime style. After all, in this game engine, they're gonna look pretty chunky anyway. It is a shooter, and it is about frame-rate.

Also, if you doubt that there was a culture that spanned so large an area in the pre-historic era, I would draw your attention to the fire-drill symbol, megaliths, the Tarim Basin beginnings of Chinese culture and the proximity to Sumeria, the unexplained ethnicity of such groups as the Ainu and Tokharians, and the wonderful works of Martin Bernal (Black Athena), Marija Gimbutas (The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe), Riane Eisler (The Chalice and the Blade), and others. Not to mention Zechariah Sitchin, and others of the post-van Daniken milieu.

So, don't be depressed. Just don't try so hard to squeeze the square peg of this mod into the round hole of a specific period of the 3000-year history of Ancient Egyptian Religion. These folks came about 25,000 years ago. Our ancestors completely garbled the stories about them, which were further mis-interpreted by ethnocentric, anti-Semitic, anti-African W.A.S.P. 19th Century north-western European men with little or no working knowledge of the ways of either ritual magick or ancient mysticism.

Be of good cheer. You will get your Atlantis/Egypt/Stargate motif. It just will be filtered through a lens of Warhammer/anime/manga, and presented in a Quake-engine mod of a mod. The gods will be honored, not angered.

Lastly, it's not an Egyptian setting. It's a future culture that transcends national, international, global, interplanetary, solar, interstellar and meta-temporal boundaries. Free your mind, and the rest will follow.

Cheers, mate. I'm trying to accommodate your wishes. Follow the thousands of links I posted, and research some of the Japanese terms. I think you'll find plenty of overlap, and areas for a broader, multi-cultural approach.

[player1]

@Kaleo: I left a present for you at your Egyptian thread at the Unvanquished forums. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. Can you say Egyptian fennec-headed goddess? I thought you might like that. It took about three seconds to find, on Google. I'm gonna go get lots more.

Smile, Mr. Nile. I'm engineering another compromise.

[Volt]

Einstein said he is going to help (Amazing codder, was a in FMSTrem)

[your face]

Einstein said he is going to help (Amazing codder, was a in FMSTrem)

whooo!

[player1]

Einstein said he is going to help (Amazing codder, was a in FMSTrem)

whooo!

w00t!

[player1]

Art suggestion images for Pyroman: Kappa (Merman) & Sniper/Demoman: Yokai (Icthyocentaur) posted at our forums.

Just to be clear: The Merman can "evolve" into a Mer-Centaur. He starts out as a Pyroman-type class, and for 2 evos (bounties), he can evolve into a Sniper/Demoman-type class. He starts out as a sort of Creature from the Black Lagoon with a flame-thrower-ish weapon, and becomes a multi-limbed man-monster with a bow (and in S3, the bow shoots incendiary ammo).

Cheers!

[Kaleo]

What about some sort of etherial fire, as opposed to regular fire?

It'd help distinguish from the human flamer.

EDIT: WOOT! 2000th post!

[player1]

Oh, yeah, green fire or flaming acid, whatever you guys come up with, and somebody decides to make.

[Chess guy]

Just so you all know I haven't died, I'm working on the brazier atm, plan to finish it tomorrow Peace

[player1]

@Chess Guy: Glad to know that you're all right. I look forward to seeing your design for the Brazier. Thanks for giving The Me access to your site.

Cheers!

[Kaleo]

@Mod: Maybe move this into "Gameplay Changing"? It's a bit more than just a concept now.

[player1]

@Kaleo: I'll start a clean thread there as soon as we have some assets to display. With a much more concentrated version of the concept. Good idea, and I'll implement it SOON!

[player1]

Team-Building Exercise at the Unvanquished forums.

If you haven't registered yet, join us. We'd love to hear from you.

Cheers!

[Chess guy]

New concept art! The Brazier:



note: It's about the size of a machine gun turret, slightly larger perhaps.

(No, I'm no stannum yet  )

[player1]

Hi all,

I was thinking of simplifying the modeling and having a more unified visual approach, by just having a male humanoid (man or demon?) and a female humanoid (woman or she-devil?) and then having these two models wear a variety of head-dresses or masks or helmets, which would be shaped like the heads of Terran animals, and these would represent the classes and sub-classes, thusly:

Medic - fox or fennec
Builder - wolf or dog (or jackal or coyote)
Pyro - crocodile or alligator
Sniper/Demoman - mule or horse
Heavy - monkey or baboon
Soldier I - demon or devil
Soldier II - hyena or wild dog/dingo
Scout - facemask w/ octopus & squid motifs
Spy - facemask w/ crawdaddy & crab motifs

I think this would help to satisfy concerns that the Unvanquished needs a more unified visual "hook", simplifies the work for the modeler(s), and gives Kaleo (and others) the Egyptian/Atlantean/Stargate feel that they would like to see in the mod. I don't really want Egyptian clothing/wardrobe/uniforms, though. Just giant mask/helmet/head-dresses. The bodies can either be Humans in new uniforms (and hopefully a female model, too), or soemkind of humanoid demons.

Look at this:



Let me know what you guys think.

Cheers!

@Chess Guy: Awesome job, once again.

[Chess guy]

Thanks This project is helping my art and the project I'm no 3d modeler but it sounds like a good idea, perhaps different skinning (TRaK) and perhaps face (kinda like how the human helmet is a completely different head model iirc)

[player1]

Gentlemen,

Your opinion is being solicited. Please surf on over to this thread and respond as quickly and completely as possible. I thank you in advance for your assistance in this matter. Time is of the essence, and this is your chance to influence the visual concept for the mod. This window will probably be closing soon, as we begin actively generating assets for the mod.

Beast-people? OR, demons or humanoids wearing masks?

East Asian?

Egyptian?

Stargate-like?

3... 2... 1... 

[Kaleo]

I had an idea this afternoon.

What if the unvanquished were all manner of mythological creatures?

If not, Egyptian.

[cactusfrog]

I have been using crome on my laptop for a wile and i really like it. Its fast efferent and i really like the one bar for everything. I like how you can drag out tabs unto new windows to.

[CreatureofHell]

I have been using crome on my laptop for a wile and i really like it. Its fast efferent and i really like the one bar for everything. I like how you can drag out tabs unto new windows to.

what? 

[player1]

I had an idea this afternoon.

What if the unvanquished were all manner of mythological creatures?

If not, Egyptian.

@Kaleo: Please explain in more detail. I'm not quite sure what you mean.

@cactusfrog: (wrong thread or just non-sequitur response?)

[Kaleo]

I had an idea this afternoon.

What if the unvanquished were all manner of mythological creatures?

If not, Egyptian.

@Kaleo: Please explain in more detail. I'm not quite sure what you mean.

The Haos Redro corporation was attempting to produce warriors of their enemies nightmares, so they did. Centaurs, minotaurs, jackal-headed pharos, even shoggoths.

It's my opinion that we could cater for everyones tastes by doing this.

[player1]

Kaleo: True. I'm glad that you are staying within the original concept, with HR Corp. trying to create mutant super-warriors. That's why the original concept contained such a variety of characters. As a matter of fact, you were the one who pushed hard for an Egyptian visual "hook" for the mod. I would like something which is multi-cultural, or transcends earthly cultures. However, we could also be modeling for several years to achieve this. That's why I propose just using some kind of oversized, animal-head helmets, to simplify the modeling. The helmets could be heads of fantastic creatures, instead of Terran animals, including the various critters you mentioned. Thanks for broadening your suggestion, and trying to accommodate the wishes of others.

The uniforms should be some kind of form-fit coveralls, like a S.H.I.E.L.D agent or super-hero(ine).

As always, Kaleo, I thank you for your input, your ideas, and your enthusiasm for this concept. Thanks for taking the time to post.

Cheers!

[player1]

@Kaleo/Urscumug: Vortexx is asking for sound ideas at this thread. Please stop by and present your ideas.

[snb]

warhammer much?  OK, I like elves with aliens and human soldiers in multiplayer games as much as the next guy (well actually I don't, all mythological creatures suck ass.) but this isn't world of warcraft people. Its a FPS and with humans vs aliens.  A race of elves and crap from planet UBER 1337 doesn't make any sense in the tremulous universe. 

[player1]

Thanks for your input, and good luck with your mod.