Red Exodus

#1 Hi Mike.

Let me throw some ideas back at you.

1. Weapon damage? Do you mean realistic shooting from the weapons / abilities / powers, or do you mean the effects on the player / enemy like blood splats / reactions? If the latter, then you could have the enemy react differently to different weapons / abilities. This would be a big overhead rather than having one standard reaction for all damage, but you could cut this down by having reaction categories i.e. Bullet based guns, energy based guns, powers based on cold, powers based on fire etc. You could then easily add additional weapons.

As for realistic damage - everyone loves killing off the bad guys. It's what makes the game :), so a bit of dancing on the spot is good.

2. Definately, definately dont give the player everything at once, as they will try all the weapons and get bored. It gives the player something to work for. Does a marine go into the army as a general? Nope, he has to work hard to get promoted.

3. Give people the option to turn this off. It might be more work, but it will increase your target audience.

4. Work on completing the game before planning the beta testing - 6 months for a full FPS game better than Soldier of Fortune for a team of 1 seems a bit ... well, optimistic. You might want to think about increasing the size of your team, extending your deadline, or reducing the size of your game. Dont think about it in terms of comparing against a professional software house, they have lots of money, lots of experience, and lots of time.

As some more ideas for your design. How about integrating some of the weapons with some of the abilities, perhaps giving the soldier / demon the chance to get their hands on extra firepower. i.e A machine gun that fires spirits (ghost ripper?), or a whip that rips hearts out (soul shredder?) or an ability that summons small arms when you run out of firepower (ammogate?).

Hope that helps.


Craig
Indie Skunkworks

#2 Yes, it is a problem only having one person, but sofar its not that bad...im in the US Army right now and i dont have alot of free time (luckily stateside) but im looking to hire a Developement team to work for me when im away (ship over on Jan. 8th) and im willing to pay a bit of money.
I like your idea on Bullet reactions alot, one aspect i am going to incorperate is the melee weapons. Now most people would not think that in the modern world you would use them, but when your out of ammo, and fighting hordes of ugly things that are slimy and drooling, etc. What better? good for the heroes in Diablo...good for my Army Soldier. The Midevil weapons combat will be based on the numpad, using your standard HL WSAD to move and strafe (3rd Person). But Guns will be First person. What do you think about this?
But just for the weapons ive already modeled...SoF has nothing, trust me. Maybe in a few weeks ill throw a full Render of a gun to the GP here. I think i might just give the Demon a Great Axe and whip though...a soulripper like you were talking about.

#3 More ideas for you. One of the great things about a lot of PS games is the whole unlock thing. PC games on the whole dont seem to pick up on this.

Perhaps you could unlock weapons and powers as part of the players progression. You could also think about additional characters to play (lots of work I know), such as a half demon, half soldier (De-dier or Sol-mon heh).

You could even go a bit further and take a mix of black and white and P&P RPG's, which lets the player use the soldiers weapons, or the demons powers and get better in both (the more guns they use the better they get with them) i.e. Levels. Like diablo, you could buy demon abilities or buy soldier skills when you go up levels i.e. Use Plasma rifle, healing etc.

This could also affect gameplay by allowing your character into certain areas depending on his alignment (hero/demon) i.e. Someone could only get into an ammo area if they were not a high level demon, and a low level soldier. A demon could get into the soul store, while a soldier could get into the armory. *shrug* just a idea.

How are you having the demons powers depleted / replenished? Some sort of power gauge?

If you are in the army, you could use your knowledge of fighting tactics for the AI, and weapons for the player.

The melee fighting will need a bit of thinking about - it's one of those difficult things that works well with P&P games which tend to be one action per round, but harder to control in a computer game which you can swing, strafe, jump, dodge, retreat, advance etc in the space of a second. The only thing I would say is keep the keyboard / mouse interface the same for whatever parts of the game a player is on. So if your FPS fighting uses the left mouse to fire a gun, use the left mouse to melee attack. The hardest part you will have is selecting what powers / weapons to use if you have a lot of them.


Craig

btw. What is the exodus from, and which group of people is leaving? Go on, give away some of the storyline!

#4 I think that the whole realistic damage needs to be less limbs coming off and more impact damage.

And what do you mean by SoF has nothing? what have you 'got'? Personaly the idea of realistic weaponary in a demonic world seems to get away from my mind.

Are your weapons going to be so realistic that you have to 'work it your self' this is something I have often tought about to get people to learn more about firearms.

About earing firearms, well its more fun earning them, in that type of game. Maybe start off with the standard layout eg. M16A3 etc I don't know much about the standard layout of the US, but I'm sure you do, and then you could pick up some more different types as you go from say civilians, and other soldiers from different countrys eg.F88(AUSTEYR), MAG58(FN MAG), F89(M249), SR98(AW sniper rifle varrent), AN92 etc...

Is the weapons futuristic?

#5 Well, i was thinking about including a HL type player association within the game. You see a person, do as you wish with him, but on a higher scale - adding in inventory's. The game will mostly be based on Cooperative Play, but not required.

All the weapons are modern day, I guess you would start off with a standard Military Load for an Airborne Soldier from the 82nd (Like Me =)

M4a4 Carbine (.223 - 5.56x45mm) 240rnd Mag Load
w/e NOB gear, SFA Kit, Combat Bayonet (8"), 2 Fragmentation Grenades, 2 Yellow Smoke's, 2 Red Smoke's, 1 Phosperous 'nade.

Onto the weapon realism though - you will not have a crosshair, you either can shoot blindly in a hurry, or take aim with the Iron. The weapons will be incredibly detailed (about 1800-2200) Im looking to make the game a little high end. And all will be accurate to the US-Army standards (with range, firepower, etc.)

NOW THE STORY (A Little Bit, since you guys seem interested).

When a Pendent from Germany is brought out of a Fallen Cathedral and taken to New York City, nobody would have expected it was the gateway to an Demonic Realm. Suddenly the pendent opens, as it has every 5000 years before, opening the gateway and unleashing the 'Red Horde' (<---Red Exodus) Now the world turns to Turmoil, the Appocalypse is beginning. Demons and Dragons roam the land, slaughtering all in search of souls to keep them alive for another 5000 years, the military's of the world are almost whiped out immediatly. In the turn of trying to kill the Horde's creatures, they kill alot of innocent people.

But NATO has found the source of the problem, the pendent and hopefully by destroying the Pendent, the Horde will leave..or atleast destroy the gateway so no more come in. A group of US Soldiers (From Marines to Navy seals, you will encounter along the game) as well as British SAS, German KM, etc. Drop into the city, but get scattered around when there CH-47e is shot down by a dragon raoming the skies.

This is were you come into play.

#6 1. I'd like to see impact damage and death throws more like the original Turok than SOF. I found the ragdoll physics of SOF2 to be...well, hokey.

2. Give them a reason to continue playing. If there's no advancement, they may not want to continue. Especially if you are concentrating on an engaging single-player module.

3. Give a content filter option to let people turn on/off features.

4. I'd be interested, but I have a feeling that it will take MUCH longer than the projected release to even his alpha with a team of 1.

Good luck.

#7 About the story...

There should be something about where the pendant comes from and what it is. Right now, it's very contrived. I mean, there's some object from somewhere that just happens to open up a demon dimension.

Maybe you have something about that already and just didn't post it. If not, you should try to think of something.

#8 Mmm... a game with my nick! cool :P

Ehh... I'll have to take 60% in royalties for the nick usage ;o

#9 Well, just if you guys dont know...im willing to you show you a work in progress of the demon (concept 3 of 5) later it will be put to a vote by the GP when i get the website up but im just waiting till i have enough content to have a good website first.

This is a demon, i have a shitload of conceptual drawings ive done.

A note on this i might add is, im not going to just have one demon, i actually have drawn up three different designs, each with special ability's. And i have three dragons currently, one is almost ready to begin skinning.

#10 An idea im going to incorperate that has not been done with many games (Only OFP to my knowledge) is free roaming storyline. As a US Soldier, you are given an order (firs mission / chapter) to round up as many troopers, or men as you can to help you fight. And depending on were you go is were the story will go, so there will be a continuos and changing storyline, with alternate endings depending on what you do. What do you guys think of this, and how do you like my drawing of the demon you guys will be playing?
I can throw up some more drawings if you guys like???

#11 You probably will want to get more detailed with your storyline. It sounds good so far, but still generic, there are probably 10-20 games that have a demon-taking-over-the-world-and-you-have-to-stop-it theme. If its going to be a FPS, then you may not need to get too detailed with the story, but if its more along the lines of a RPG, then you will need to be very detailed. But I'm stating the obvious. Nice drawing BTW.

#12 Im actually going for an RPG / FPS type game, you will have an inventory. Im still working out difficulty's though, im all ears for some suggestions if you would like to make some.