Need ideas for this FPS...original ones

#1 I'd say a story may be a good idea, as that may lead to the rest.

#2 ok I'm a little new here but if your just looking for ideas then I've got one I haven't seen done before. What about something along the lines of an MMP fps, but instead of basing it around the idea that you choose a level or area map and skirmish, why not a full out war. lots of turrain and lots of people, just an idea. more to it that I would like to see, but maybe it's not what your looking for.

#3 That would work considering the game supports 124 players. A full out war would really just be a big team deathmatch game. Maybe if there was really something more to it. Perhaps any ideas on a storyline? Maybe we could also add ships, originally i wanted it to have a large mothership which players could enter, and launch vehicles from, or fly around (it moves slowly though). It would be the objective. Also, it would require ground units to play as well (not like BF1942 where everyone runs for the planes) because a small shield generator on the ground would enable the mothership to be indestructable. Destroying the generator lets you destroy the mothership. Just some ideas, please add more to the pile.

#4 Ok cool, I got a pretty good story which I just thought up. I like it because I cannot think of any games with a story like this, so here goes. We have the typical peaceful solar system populated by people. A civil war breaks out between the 3 leaders of a triumvirate ruling the area, and the main character is simply a soldier drafted to fight in the wars. It will develop like a book or like a lot of other games, but you won't be in charge, and you won't really have much power. I am thinking that maybe the player can choose one of the three factions, and each faction has completely different weapons and strengths and weaknesses. They all show their battlefield prowess, but one might rely more on slower moving artillery and light infantry, while another might be medium infantry and some lighter land vehicles and air vehicles. You get the idea. Basically you will follow your commanders into battle, and you will slowly progress through the ranks, and perhaps take a high position near the end. Battlefields will range from dense forests, to the hallways of damaged battlecruisers in orbit. I've also decided to redesign all of the weapons i had done previously, except for the sniper rifle, which is futuristic enough to go in. I will make an effort to have coop as well in this, which is most definitely a must. I want to basically focus on playability, replayability, gameplay itself, feel, range of focus and physics. I think that this will work out best if it is larger scale, which could end up in steep system requirements. With everything that i want in this game, it could take a while, which would be ok. Any comments on my ideas? Does the civil war thing sound like a plan?

#5 Trying to piece together a story to go with your favorite models or tech is a really bad idea...

#6 I disagree.

Since he has the tech set up, it may be easier to try and get the story to fit the tech.

#7 I'm just trying to make everything fit together, and modelling new weapons isn't too difficult for me. I just need a solid idea.

#8 bit new here, so correct me if i say something out of line

i like the concept with the full-out war based on 3 different factions. but how about this? why not make the 3 factions different races with different capabilities? like, one of them could focus on modern/futuristic ranged weapons, another on some sort of psyonic/magical abilties (ever thought of summoning fire on command? that'd be cool) and the last using some hyped version of ancient melee weapons. perhaps they're all fighting for the same scrap of land.
is that feasible or am i going way too deep?

#9 Well that would certainly take a lot of work. A lot of it. Its not a bad idea, but aliens kinda get boring in games like this. Or maybe its just me. Personally I like humans, and you can outfit them with all sorts of different things to make them look very different. I do like hyped out melee weapons, a kind of refined spear (plenty of blades coming off of it, in all different directions, and a kind of scissor mechanism at the tip would be pretty sweet!). Now that i think of it, this race would be humanoid of course, but the culture on their specific planets developed cloaking device type of mechanisms, so that they were silent predator-like in battle. Add that to their melee weapons and a very fast pace of movement (lets pretend that they are all warrior/athletes) would even them out on the playing field. Or maybe it wouldn't, but maybe in the battles they would appear in much greater numbers!
Another thing I was thinking today, was putting the 3 races in a battle with each other, but then adding in a 4th "race" which is a mercenary group being hired by each of the 3 battling races to kill each other. It could be battle-by battle type thing. Say, this group agrees to attack one place, then goes home. Then another faction asks them to attack a DIFFERENT place, and so on. That would vary the gameplay significantly, and you would be fighting alongside different allies constantly. Money made off of things like this would allow you to buy more vehicles or soldiers perhaps, or some other factor like that. Weapon upgrades would be sorta nifty as well. And getting more soldiers in your little group would allow for some replayability, with much varying difficulty. Think of halo, on the second mission where you are supposed to rescue the other marines. They might all die, or you might be able to keep a lot of them still alive. That sort of thing. Anyway, PLEASE add more ideas to the pool, I want to make this the most fun game in the universe.

#10 see, bright minds think alike
what a/b some sort of magic/psyonic attacks? i'm no real programmer, so i have no idea how hard those would be to script, but hey, it's an idea.
a mercenary group always adds about seventeen new facets to everything, since the only thing really holding them together is money. if the player played as a mercenary, they could switch sides, get the best of all 3 different races, some others stuff off the blackmarket. on the con side, that would get pretty tricky
btw, it would take years for any of us to build a really "alien" alien, one that doesn't look at all like a human. stick to the biped frame, those are wicked easy to do.

#11 it sounds like you have a pretty good idea going for yourself with this. the idea of a civil war between three different groups isn't too bad either. except I do have one question are you planning on having MMP or is this something your looking more towards a single player. cause you seem to be straying closer to that with the way you story's going. of course if your going fo MMP and also having the ranking system that would definitly be interesting. say that everyone starts as a grunt of some sort for their faction and then works their way up in rank depending on how well they do and also in what field they choose could affect how many openings their are for the positions and how high you could actually go kinda like a real military. just brainstorming though.

#12 It might be singleplayer though making it mostly multiplayer is good too. Restricting players two one or two lives, and putting them into different groups of soldiers would be interesting. Perhaps like rainbow 6 you could have the capability to take control of one of the bots if your main guy died. Whoever you controlled would be able to give out orders, that sort of thing. You could even make something up to integrate it into the game like that, like making the main character a parasitic otherworldly ghost phantom thingy which can switch hosts. I don't know, but i like the mercenary idea. Perhaps adding together the larger scale multiplayer capability (around 100 players is fine)with a mercenary group (it acts as one of the races, perhaps?) that players could either choose to play as, or choose to play one of the other 3 factions. For each specific battle there would be specific sides to choose from. They could be done in single player (it follows along with a story so it wouldn't be like a single-map-single game type multiplayer experience) as well with cinematics and stuff. I dunno. Also, we're trying out the nebula engine so if we decide to use torque anyway then the multiplayer capability will certainly increase. We'll see depending on our funds.

#13 Personnally I think that you've got a great idea going if you can pull it off. And I also think that you should stick with the idea of having 3 main factions and one neutral group, it leaves a lot open to be toyed with this way. I would also have to agree that sticking to mostly all humans would make the game better cause like you said aliens can easily get boring and theirs alot you can do with humans. I don't know exactly what your thinking about doing with the soldiers and all like with ranking and positions and such, but going off of what I said ealier what about having different jobs depending on what a player wants, I mean you could give them options of stuff like, recon/sniper, artillery, pilots, tank squads, i mean their could be quite a few possiblities if you went with full out war. And also these could easily be adjusted according to race/faction.
I mean if you throw in a group like you were saying earlier about it being more primitive with it's weapons and having cloaking, then whats to say their all that way. They would have to have some sort of regular infantry and even if they havn't developed overpowering vehicles or weapons doesn't meean they wouldn't have lighter vehicles. They could for instance have a mind set about battle that relies more on speed then anything else which would be the way they develope their vehicles. Or, just a thought here, but why couldn't they be the mercs then there could be good reason why they wouldn't have mass amounts of heavy vehicles or weapons.
I think with what you have going here it would be a great mutiplayer game, could be a good single player but it would be a lot harder to get a full story with twist and turnsand everything that make a great single player game. I was just thinking also about your parasite idea, i like it but if it's based far enough in the future then what's the point in have to come up with something like that, you could just have armor or shields or something. But the idea of the phantom thing is definitly cool. I mean if you don't end up using it as a main idea then it would be cool to see some thing like that used for one of the other factions, kinda like the bad guy's in Star gate SG:1. Hey their all ideas and it's fun to think about em so go ahead and have fun with them.

#14 Having the vehicles initially wouldn't be as fun. I'd say that we add a different edge to the game. You start out with only your dropship able to deploy you, but during a campaign on a planet, you can capture all of the stuff that your foes had. Like their vehicles, weapons, ammunition, etc. Then while your men marched off towards the next objective, they would carry it all along, and you'd get to pick and choose (like mechwarrior 3+4) what you wanted to keep or get rid of or what you wanted to use. Then, say, after you get paid for this mission, you could go back into orbit and sell and trade for new items (now that you have money and bargaining chips) as well as advertise to hire more soldiers. Kinda like resource management, but not while you're playing, just in between. For multiplayer it would make sense if the player played a higher rank (like a sargeant or an equiv). Each player would first fill the commanding spots (they could then command the lesser AI) and when you got more players the others could fill in the roles of the different teammate bots. Another thing I just thought up that would be cool is a directional system. Say a bot is piloting a vehicle of some sort, but you hop onto the back. You could either choose to drive or you could tell the bot where to go (create a waypoint with some kind of laser device perhaps) while you sat in shotgun and had the ability to fire upon foes. Those little things make games really fun to play. Another idea is the ability to turn over vehicles, then you could hide behind the overturned vehicle and shoot from behind it.

#15 I have a intresting fps game idea. THe game has 10 levels(all somewhat big). Anyway this is a dream so i don't think it will ever get done. but its cool.


This is how the story goes:
There are two waring factions of the same species. They split them selves into order(creators specializeing in genetics) and chaos(war machines) ( not realy there names but just useing to repersent them) . Chaos hates order with all there being and they scar there bodies to new forms to distinguse themselfs. And they have been wageing a war aganist order for millions of years. Well chaos stumbles opon a elder species(elder species are those that are genticaly pure and not changed by order) called deamons. Deamons are large beasts (without wings) that are highly intuned to the elements but lack control and constantly rage. Chaos saw this distructive power and realized there potential. So the recruited(controlled) them into there ranks to attack order. Order couldn't withstand this new enemy and was slowly loseing. So there genetic enginers used the deamons as a base and created a new class of deamon. One with grace skill, power, and was in control. This new form was capable at wielding the elemental engergies in powerful ways and they were also capable of accending to new levels of physical and mental strength.



Character:
You are playing a deamon warrior. Name unkown(me bad with names)
Special skills: Elemental magic useing 1 of 4 elements.
Special weapons: elemental sword (a basic extension of feeling and thought)
Leveling:Though not like a rpg you character would level. There are 3 levels capable. But there is no xp in this game. Instead you gain levels from the story. (ex: fighting super bad guy you can't beat so you "level up"(by useing your emmotions and skills)so you can combat your enemy.

Elements: Make up the ideals of the deamons.
Fire:aka courage
Water:aka humility
Earth:aka loyality
Air:aka wisdom

Quests:
quests are used in game to let the character choose his path. Some forced some opitional.
Quests are used to see what element your character is affilated with. For example say theres a friend who lost a chicken but you have no time: do you find it or leave him. Wisdom would tell you to leave because something more important is needed done. but loyalty would tell you to find his chicken.
Through quests your affilation will be added up.

Ships:
Theres a second aspect to this game space combat (whats a futuristic game with out it). Your ship starts out as a egg or a blank slate thats gathers your engergies and creates a ship that well best work with your element.




Here we go:

Training:
First level is training inside of your head (order is directly entering information into your head). Its like a dream but structured. Teaching basic movement and skills. But your training is cut short and you awake on a table.

Level 1:
Wake up....
You awake to the sound of clashing metal your base is under attack. Two lackies stand above you.They inform you of your situation. Your base is falling apart and the fact that its air borne doesn't help. So you need to get out. And they start leading you to the elevator. On the way there you will encounter your first "quest".
//A man won't evacuate his dog like animal is stuck in a fire in med bay 2. Help?(courage) or instruct him theres not enough time and to leave while he can(wisdom).??
Continue to the elevator get in and head down. But theres a problem...the system shuts down and you get stuck 7 levels down. You get out to find some enemies. your allies tell you about another elevator and its location in the back of the preperation room(kitchen). So you follow on through the cafateria. Half way in the fort shakes and the celling falls in on one of your friends. ///Quest 2: He instructs you to shoot him because hes not able to walk and he doesn't want to be tortured by the enemy. do you A kill him or B take him with you(which would cause you to travel slower and with a extra need to protect him)?? Contiue through to the elevator disposeing of any enemies in your path. Take it down.....>theres more but its not in my head yet>.

But eventally you escape and take a ship through a cave and out the another side of the ravene. and travel to your dispatch headquarters.

Intermission:::
You arive at the bustleing base on a foggy planet. Regain controll of character.
Instructions imeditly head to briefing room.

Once there your instructed of your 1st actual mission and introduced to your team. Consisting of 3 other deamons with varying skills and elemental prefrences.

A small minning colony is gonna be attacked. You are to travel to it with your team of 3 other deamons and bolster defense for the atack.

Level 2::

You arive on the planet and are imedtly asked to deploy 4 sentries in the main enterence. Once done head on to the back enterence. Install 2 shield stands which need to be picked up at the armoury.. And then off to the sewage entrence to install some flash mines.
//Once finished you will be given the choice of three defensive areas(the three you installed things at). Each repersanting a element again.//
Once chosen the enemy attack begins.
Your goal is to hold them back for a certain time period.

Of course theres more..but i'm getting tired of typeing hehe. but if your still intrested heres the summery of the half of the game

Summary:
Your group holds back the enemy and then fakes a comuncation stateing they conqured the base but and pillaged any usefull resourses but the mine was striped clean. Then they distroy chaos's war ships to stop any further attack. On the way back they encounter a ship in distress Its a transport ship. Your team infiltrates and distroys the chaos ship attached to it.
the following mission would be a space combat mission in which your attacking a baracade around a important planet. you distroy the barcade and then descend to the planet to infiltrate its base.

more and more ideas..all ending in a huge ground battle that makes starwars look like kiddy shit. hehe sorry about the spelling errors. and i hope that was understandable.

#16 That is an interesting idea, though it does sound like a mix between Unreal 2 and medal of honor. Weird comparison but i mean it in story/mission wise. It sounds like a fun game but limited, if thats what you want. There are other quests/objectives but it reminds me of the game "summoner" where there were things along the way, but you never really went off your current path. I think that in the game i'm doing, I'd have it very different from most games. Say your mercenary bunch was hired to attack a certain planet and capture or destroy at least 50% of their military strength. I'd have the planet in question, and the player would be able to choose which cities/landing sites/bases he felt like attacking. He could attack all of them but it might get to the point where the enemies simply surrender. If the player had enough men, and enough skill and was outfitted with enough weaponry and training, he could only have to attack 1 or 2 strong points, and still complete the objective. That would allow the player to replay all of it, and choose differently every time. If the player disliked a certain campaign, they could do the stronger approach as i said, and then complete it and move onto the next set. To keep the game in the story, the campaigns would go in order.

#17 OK i like your idea about the salvage and such for single player. But since you start out on the bottom then wouldn't it be a good idea too slowly allow the player more and more access to equipment the higher their rank. For example some starting out would only be able to take off the field what they could carry, guns, bombs(small), and other individual based devices. But instead of having a list too choose from after the battle why not allow the character bring the stuff they find back to their own personal space abord the mother ship, this way if they need to return to be resupplied or for medical attention then they could grab a couple of things along the way and drop them off while their there. Now as the player becomes a higher rank then they would be allowed to salvage larger items, such as vehicles, larger weapons and such.

Ok their were a lot more ideas i had about ten min ago while I was writing this post the first time and it was a lot more word flashy so I'm sorry you kinda got the summarized version, but I will continue to give you ideas so long as they help and your still looking for them.

#18 yeah that sounds more realistic, or you could order your men to carry stuff as well, or to drive a vehicle to the extraction zone and flag it for pickup or something. if you find something on a mission, you'd be able to keep that stuff that you scrounge up on the later missions of the campaign, then when you leave you might not be able to bring everything, or maybe on some worlds you can't use certain vehicles or weapons. Who knows! Always looking for suggestions to make the world's most perfect game :)

#19 Ok heres an idea, for the salvage portion of the game for when you get higher up. Instead of having your own personal storage it could be possible that you are given access to a garage of sorts with certain space requirements. Such as tonnage and space, something that could be one of those little touches that adds a little to it all could be that you can also arrange the vehicles as you see fit, I know it's not much but it would just be one of those little things. Also the idea of being able to order men to bring vehicles back would be kinda cool, and it could be used vise versa, they would then also be able to pick up vehicles too. And the idea of being able to have them pick up vehicles would be pretty cool too, kinda halo'ish, minus the script. Another idea could be that as you get better and progress through the ranks, instead of having a predetermand course having job openings open up, i.e. at some point depending on your stats and/or rank there might be openings in spec ops, recon, a tank battalion, pilot and so on and so on this would add a sort of a realistic rpg element with out it being rpg at all. For now this is about it hope you like the ideas.

#20 Ok I realise I was the last person too post anything but since I'm up anyways then I decided I might as well go ahead and voice a few of the other ideas that I had and in a little more detail then I was able too originally. Earlier you said something about being able too flip over vehicles and then use them for cover, this is a pretty good idea and has many possiblities, another idea I had is that if you could pull off a destructable environment then you could also use other items/objects for this, trees for instance.

I also noticed that you brought up the idea of being able to choose where you deploy and how, I like this idea a lot but wouldn't it make sense that at first since you are nobody too start out that you really don't have a whole lot of choice in what you do, I mean once your on the field then you could alter plans asa things happened, but you wouldn't have a say in what your main objective is until you gained a higher postion. Now for a little detail into the changing of objectives, they could be anywhere from having too attack an installation and having problems maybe implaced defenses and being able too take out a nearby generator that isn't actually talked about in the briefing due too poor intel. but I quick thinking player would maybe recognize a few clues to this and try for it. Or lets say that you start an attack against the installation and the commanding officer gets taken out, unscripted of course, and your second in command, so you take over, the only problem is that your not too great and you begin losing men, you can then decide to evac if need be, which wouldn't cause the total end of the campaign, only a set back. Just thoughts though and sorry if I'm rambling, I'm kinda typing as it comes to me.

What about for muti-player actually having it so people would have to join some faction and army and then have it so these army's war against eachother in ongoing battles across the planet and/or planets. The only thing I really noticed about this though is that too keep things from being out right chaos you would have to then allow a select group of people for the initial army's to play and set up command structures in game, then ounce things are settled and there's a command structure then it could be opened up to more people to fill the gaps and as things change and more jobs open up then they could move up and since they would of had a chance too see how things worked they wouldn't be totally lost if given a command position. I would also make moving up in rank the choice of the player.Ok I think I've done enough midnite rambling so I hope you like any of these, there all just brainstorms so go ahead and tear them apart if need be.