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Topic: Ideas for "Ur-quan masters 2" engine (Read 20855 times)
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Antoine
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"We are strong, but you are weak. We HATE weak!"
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I'd like to keep the top-down perspective, but with 3d-rendered models.
I like this idea. So much can be done with lighting effects, and all that other spiffy goodness. In addition, there wouldn't be much problem rendering the graphics, as there will typically be two models on screen, and each one will only be so complex.
Alternatively, you can keep it 2-dimensional sprites and scale the graphics down from 1600x1200 to whatever resolution you select. This way, higher resolution = better quality, NOT smaller viewable area.
On a related note, I wondered to myself earlier today how much work would be required to convert the graphics in Super Melee! to true 640x480, possibly in add-on form.
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guesst
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Ancient Shofixti Warrior
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I'd like to keep the top-down perspective, but with 3d-rendered models.
I agree with Antoine's comments, but happen to have 2 cents on my pocket on the subject.
I really want to see the "cartoony" style of ship graphics remain. This can be done in 3-d, however, there's a few things I'd mention to any graphics programmer who wanted to do this (hypothetically).
First, "cel" shading is an okay way to do the trick, but let's get some anti-aliasiang in there, it would help so much.
Second, let's do some shadow casting, whether it be volume shadows (intensive) or some bastardized version of stencil shadows (maybe faster), I don't care. However, if the body of the spathi ship does not cast a subtle shadow on the poles coming out of it's body, if the cockpit of the Arlou ship does not cast a shadow on it's body, if the body if the Syreen, Chmmr, and every other ship does not make a shadow on it's wings, the graphics will lack and many people will complain that they thought the 2-d were better because they looked more "real." I will be one of them.
[stepping down. Taking soapbox. Nodding. Walking off]
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Chrispy
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id like to c races having more than 1 ship. im not that big on that many new races. keep the dead races dead. no more thraddash, no more ilwrath or so on. they were excelent races, but they can stay excelent in uqm1.
the game needs something new. sc2 was great cus it was something new.
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Death 999
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We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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Well, one thing to do would be to have you go on a scouting mission backtracking along the paths of the two Ur-Quan races, freeing slaves and trying to find survivors of the Kohr-Ah (clever hiders, cloakers, people who sank *below*, etc.) On the kzer-za side, many of these might well have no spacefaring technology, so we can have additional races but fewer new ships.
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Archimedes Trajano
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Plot line
« Reply #20 on: December 23, 2003, 01:08:56 pm » |
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How about some plot ideas, these are just a few jotted from my head so it may not make perfect cohesion yet. I basically took some plot points from Babylon 5, Star Wars, MGS, FFX and a few other stuff. There will be a few gaps to fill as well.
The story is now that the Alliance has won, it becomes corrupt and tries to take over the races that have lost.
Seeing this, the Arilou have left the galaxy and closed off all entrances to Quasi Space.
The hero from SC2 is has basically become a figure head for the corrupted organization.
We would have were rebel groups that try to use "terrorism" against the alliance. Just like the rebels in Star Wars.
There would be a new set of androsynth created, only they are based on the sc2 hero mixed with other DNA to create a powerful race. However, they are programmed to obey the corrupted alliance and any deviation from that programming automatically causes them to self destruct. Of course this is not known to the SC2 hero.
The hero can be a young <whatever race> that just wants to have fun, oblivious to the life. Whatever race that has fun that is, so Shofixti, Thraddash, Human, Syreen, Suppox.
One day his/her friend (which is one of the races that was not selected) tells him/her that they better leave the planet. He has found out that the planet is going to be destroyed.
Eventually he convinces the hero and they leave the planet, unfortunately it was too late for his friend and he gets killed and the hero is left alone riding on a personal transport.
"How did he know?"
But not having any idea where to go nor how to pilot a personal transport, the hero tries to learn the controls through the manual (good thing things were quite user friendly... this will be a tutorial session integrated within the game)
Apparently the transport comes with a crew complement of 2 out of 10 robots which is used take hits from enemy ships which are starting to attack him.
After a fierce battle when there is only one crew left in the ship (the hero) the battle stops.
The main character who is the second in command of the vessel meets the hero who is captured and taken prisoner.
The hero escapes and tries to take the main character hostage the best he can. He tries to escape again to an vessel which is coincidentally the same class of ship his race is used to.
Once he has escaped the main character breaks free and commandeers the vessel. The main character was not as feeble as the hero thought.
The main character is a hybrid between human and Syreen, she is a spy for the alliance that has infiltrated the rebel group. And the hostage attempt was a good way for her to send intelligence back to the alliance without blowing her cover.
In the game, the player's hero does not really take the major role (like FFX), the role of the main character is a the daughter of the hero of SC2 though she finds that out during the game.
When she finds out her relationship to the hero of SC2, the hero of SC2 was stored in a cryo unit, for further experiments to generate people with inate Precursor skills, as the skill was not passed on who was abducted as a child, probed and left for dead when, while her parents thought they just had two miscarriages, which they thought were inter racial incompatabilities.
Her mom was assassinated by the rebels (or so the Alliance claimed, but it was another third party that actually killed the Syreen queen, the Alliance merely blamed the rebels because they were a convenient scapegoat.
There is a rescue mission to rescue the SC2 hero. (Exploration to find out where the hero is happens here)
We would have a blackhole bomb go off in the middle of the story that started eating up star systems.
The blackhole bomb was triggered by the main character's brother who apparently survived but was twisted and wanted the destruction of the alliance and the rebels. He headed up another faction. He didn't like the Alliance for experimenting on him. He went to look for and join the rebels. However on one mission he encountered the dynarri from SC2 and it took over control of his mind. However, his will was stronger than others, from the experiments done on him and he was able to regain control over most of his actions. Except the Dynarri's hatred of all other sentient life has sunk into him.
His detonation of the blackhole bomb was not part of the Dynarri's plan. In fact the Dynarri wanted to preserve himself, but he wanted to destroy the entire universe. The last Dynarri was killed when the bomb went out because of his proximity to it.
The Kor-Ah rebel faction was the one that tried to destroy him because of the Dynarri which they wanted to get rid of. They too were absorbed in the initial blast.
The "veil of space" which made people loop around in SC2 is broken as well. The Rainbow worlds have led a path that would break through and expand the galaxy even further.
Among the races beyond the veil is apparently melnorme who have traversed through the veil ages ago in their pursuit of knowledge.
The Orz is also from across the veil. Once the Orz had determined the Alliance was creating new Androsynth they had left the galaxy end entered the veil.
The Orz were actually the cause of the chaos in the alliance. They just didn't expect the creation of new Androsynth, they wanted natural growth of races not something artificial. They basically clean up artificial life.
The Arilou wanted to create and lead their own version of the Sentient Milleu to prepare for an on-coming war between them and the Orz. However, realizing that they have lost the Alliance to the Orz in the beginning of the game, they have left.
The Orz does not want anyone to fight in their battles, and wants the Arilou to do the same. Which of course the Arilou was not willing to do or take the risk as there are so few of them left.
Though the space is larger now, it is actually shrinking because of the blackhole bomb which caused an imbalance in the universe causing it to shrink.
Also during this time, the Orz and the Arilou decide to have their war. The Arilou is joined by the Utwig who have had contact with the Arilou though not said anything to anyone else about it, some of the new Androsynth and the Melnorme.
Apparently the Arilou was the one who concerted the effort to create the new androsynth in the Alliance.
Large Arilou ships also began star systems of places that were not loyal to them, meaning they would not side with them against the Orz or they deemed them useless.
They were stopped by the main character when they were able to enter Quasi space and blow up the Arilou home world and trap the Orz in Quasi-Space with them. With the destruction of the Arilou race no one knew how to enter or leave quasi space and the entire Orz fleet was trapped there.
The precursor device that is shown in the end of sc2 was actually a device which was used to balance out the universe. This is what was used to destroy the black hole. The only price was the player's life where someone had to use it and get pulled by the black hole.
But that's not really the end of the story for the player who apparently survived, but ended up some where, some time. The end.
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Chrispy
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how about:
after many years of happy alliance (the main character has died by now) the mycon turn agaisnt everyone (because juffa wup told them to) wiht a large armada of biological ships. The first thing they do is destroy the melnorm, and convince the druuge to help them. The also have called for 2 or 3 new races that we have not heard of before.
On your side you have the spathi, the yehat (how have kinda crossbreaded with the pkunk, yet they are still called the yehat), the utwig, the zoq fot pik, the slylandro (who ahve made ships which they can survive in) and the syreen.
The orz have destroyed the chmmr, and are threatening to destroy everyone else.
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Culture20
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UQM2 plots will always outnumber engine ideas for UQM2. Let's give them some threads of their own instead of using this one. 
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Chrispy
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what does engine mean?
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Culture20
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Gah, Novus! There should be a 5 minute lock on replying to a thread when someone already has started a reply. 
The way it's used in this thread means "how the game plays; what you can and can't do". In a more technical terminology: It's a way for a programmer to have a world at his disposal in which he only has to say when and where something happens instead of how it happens; it generally includes the game's physics... Many computer games today use the underlying mechinisms (engines) of other games, and just by changing the cosmetics, a new game is created which plays like the old one, but has new content.
The intent of this thread was to determine how a new game should play, irrespective of content like plot and images. Of course, plot sometimes decides how the engine will be if the plot is the focus of the game. If it's not, then the engine shapes the plot.
"The code doesn't support finger-removal, but it's the only way that Isildur can get the Ring! Time to re-write the engine..."
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« Last Edit: December 29, 2003, 11:01:33 pm by Culture20 »
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Chrispy
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i get it
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Death 999
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We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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This is the crusader from Timewarp, right?
In any case, where is this planet? Far south of the Gorno constellation? Any closer and we have fairly solid evidence that these folk don't exist, or they've also mastered cloaking technology.
Anyway, this isn't an engine issue. See the posts by Novus and Culture20. Try the plot thread.
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Deep Jiffa Owns j00!
