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Topic: Project 6014 – Ur-Quan Masters mod (Read 221260 times)
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Vindicator
Zebranky food
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Thanks Cedric. I've looked at the postings by you and Tim, and I just took some notes on working the two ideas together.
Major unresolved plot elements from SC2
-the instability of the Chmrr -the fate of the ancient races, e.g. the Taalo live -what are the Chejensu and the Taalo? -where are the Androsynth? -if there are Androsynth still around, not caught up by the Orz, how was this done? Were they caught in a dimensional rift? A stasis field? -what are the Orz going to do? -are the Arilou really benevolent? -what happened to the Precursors? -what about some of the concept art ships and races
-can the Alliance still find a use for the Mycon
New Alliance
Major supporters -humans (unofficial diplomatic leadership) -Yehat (fair and even-handed) (strong presence) -Chmrr (domineering) (strong presence) -Supox (eager)(medium presence) -ZFP (eager) (weak presence) -Shofixti (eager) (weak presence) -Syreen (medium presence, unless they are absorbed into humanity)
Minor supporters -Utwig? (withdrawn) -Arilou -Thraddash -Umgah? -Spathi/Black Spathi? -Sylandro -Orz (until they dissapear or do something evil)
Neutral -VUX -Melnorme -Druuge
Enemy -Ilwrath (hidden pirates) -Kohr-Ah (any survivors might be hidden pirates)
I like Cedric and Tim's ideas.
Let's look at the game in potential phases
Phase I
Introduction -immediately after SC2 -learn about what happened in the immediate past -Zelnick decides the fate of the Ur-Quan -conduct missions as either a regular human officer or as Zelnick on behalf on Star Control
-missions include escorting colony ships to new stars, protecting trade lanes, and searching for the base of the Ilwrath pirates
-you may be rewarded with a Mark II human cruiser during these missions, as new Precursor and Alliance technology is integrated into starbase systems
-experience the increasing domineering nature of the Chmrr
-you can learn about who the Melnorme are here, or in Phase II
-once everyone has their economies back together, a mission to liberate the slave-shielded races from the other quadrant
-construction of Chmrr Explorer [this could fast-forward into the future, where Zelnick is brought out of retirement to engage in diplomacy to bring this project together)
Phase II - Liberation
-you play this either as Zelnick, or, if it is further into the future, as the young captain -Explore the new stars and liberate races -find precursor artifacts -perhaps find things related to the Mark II -find clues about the Orz, maybe the Androsynth as well -Chmrr become evil
-ultimate evil in the form of the Orz puppetmasters emerge
Phase III -need to fix Chmrr by finding Mrnnhrmnn and the Mother Ark (perhaps while fighting the Chmrr) -perhaps the Taalo can help fix the Chmrr, since perhaps the Taalo and Chejensu were both Precursor creations -can the Androsynth be restored to help fight the Orz puppetmasters? -is the Precursor Cruiser going to be used?
That's all I've thought for now. I'll look over some other postings from the other board.
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Elerium
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I think things that are planned to be done by TFB as major plot points should be left to them, after all this is sort of like a SC2.5 so to speak? So stuff like ultimate Orz we wouldn't touch, instead we'd get Hayes to say something like "the majority of the Chmmr fleet is busy restoring peace to our galaxy, eliminating Kohr-Ah and Ur-Quan ships that have remained since the Ur-Quan tailed it past the Magellan stars. They're also busy "pacifying" the former Hierarchy races.." so we can do our own plot however we can give the Chmmr more depth for say, a future TFB sequel. Might be good to ask TFB what they think about some plot points then expand on that.
Gonna comment on the list tommorrow.
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Vindicator
Zebranky food
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oh, okay. Makes perfect sense, actually. I didn't know anyone had a line to TFB, but coordination with them is the best solution. Take care of the "interlude" between SC2 and SC3, helps develop some of the themes.
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Cedric6014
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Have completed a plot development document (2,900 words - phew). I look forward to contributions from folks to flesh it out.
I'll share relevent parts of it to people who want to write for certain races. But I won't share the whole thing with everyone. If everyone knows everything then noone will enjoy playing it.
It still needs a crap-load of work done...
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Vindicator
Zebranky food
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From that chat logs I read, it seemed that TFB weren't really interested in the reviving the "dead" Milieu races (except for the Taalo). I wonder, could you include some of these dead races (artifacts, survivors?) since they might continue to be treated as dead in any potential sequel?
Also, like Resh said, it might be ok to add "strays" - leftover Chenjesu, etc...
But this is secondary, perhaps.
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Draxas
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With everyone mentioning the "leftover" Chenjesu and Mmrnhrm, an interesting thought occurs to me. The Chmmr very pointedly say in SC2 that the process was incomplete, which leads to the dangling plotline of just how this will affect the new hybrids in the long run. What if some (or perhaps all) of these "loftovers" decided to continue to isolate themselves in order to complete the process for real? While the timeframe given in SC2 for this to occur is unrealistic, that could simply be because Procyon is ill-suited toward generating the energy required, especially through a slave shield; perhaps with Procyon freed or under the light of a different star, it would be more feasible to see results during the course of the game...
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Defender
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Just wanted to throw some things that were on my mind.
While under the slave shield on Earth, they discover a precursor base in Antarctica. This is one of the locations where the Ur-Quan had destroyed from orbit. Before the slave shield went up.
But the base has been almost totally destroyed however upon closer examination they find plans for the Mark II. Since the base on earth is destroyed the plans would need to be plugged into the factory where the Precursor tug was built. Maybe with some modification to accommodate that task.
Maybe some more back story of what the Precursors were doing on Earth? that is if someone uses this idea or builds on it.
I mean there has to be a reason why all man made locations older than 500 years were destroyed. Maybe some back plot here as well.
I always thought that during those 20 years under the slave shield, that we'd be building a fleet of cruisers underground. Ready to take flight the minute the slave shield was destroyed.
Just some random musings from me.
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sirving
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Just my thoughts on the slave shielded earth, Looking at the human race getting stuck inside a bubble would tear things apart, I'm thinking more along the lines that earth would fall apart breaking down into wars. It would be nice to think that we would keep the good fight going; But why? they have no hope for those twenty years. Ok, so maybe things don't fall apart but some how I doubt we'd be building ships. More likely development of ways to crack the shield or perhaps teleportation? Also were mass drivers every tried on the slave shield? for that matter what is the slave shield and what keeps it going?
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Son_of_Antares
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Arioch, I summon thee...
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I wonder, could you include some of these dead races (artifacts, survivors?)
Dead confirmed dead should stay dead, even in the fan projects. Because that's what they are - D.E.A.D. IMHO it kills the story if you always have reoccurring characters/villains that get killed yet survive tnx to some impossible twist of fate and do so like 5 times in a row...just kills that good story feel
As with the "dark elf syndrome" let me clarify: once upon a time in d20 universe all dark elves (drow) were evil. Piloting, spying, poisoning, stealing and assassination were their national sports. Then because some players thought it would be cool to play them as characters the Wizards of the Coast turned them into chaotic good because, gee, who wants to play an evil character? *blink blink* and now the whole race consist of chaotic good rebels/dark avengers. And that is a trend in many many games/comics/movies/etc. I think that such sort of conversion simply sux. Evil guyz stay evil. Good guys stay good, but can become evil. Evil NEVER becomes good. Amen.
-Chmrr become evil
I SO like this idea, this is so awesome! Peace loving scientist turning to borg-matrix-robots-combo crystalline omnienemies...SOOO good, I just adore when the good guyz fall to the dark side~.~ Cedric you should definitely go with this in mind for your story. I can already think of tons of great dialogs and ingame events concerning the "Chmmr Treason".
-if there are Androsynth still around, not caught up by the Orz, how was this done? Were they caught in a dimensional rift? A stasis field?
That's what I'm saying - It doesn't say anywhere that they were utterly annihilated, just that they are missing. What if the Orz when they "climbed up" from *below* to our truespace instantly recognized their intellectual potential and offered them a deal they couldn't refuse; the andros were forced to accept it (or they did it willingly?), and were transported to the "Orz high mind" dimension of origin and assimilated/addopted to further help the "Orz cause", whatever that may be...and their story can continue from that point on. It strengthens their "slave and oppressed" theme and explains why the Orz get pissed if you ask too much about andros; they learned about their fate on Earth and while they don't want to provoke humanity they are more then ready to protect the newest addition to their unified community.
On the new races and implementation of the same in the Cedrics project - what are the restrictions and guidelines? What we can do/design/write and what we should rule out at the start? I sincerely hope that you'll stay true to UQM when addopting new races, meaning aliens are extraterrestrial cool looking aliens, not humanoids with calcium sedimentation/malign disorders all over their skull/faces. I'm just asking cause I have a few race/ship design ideas...
As for the dialog - what's the start point for us "writers"? And how should we divide our work - by races/events/places... - and where can we compare ideas/concepts? And where can we get any (or all) info about the story? Hints would be enough if I'm told what course should we be heading.
I would also add here that I'm interested in the storyline as much as I am interested in the game dialog; want to contribute as much as I can, in the best way I can, because I want to see Cedrics project polished, done, warped, packed and ready for download ASAP! Hope this one gets done, it sure has the potential...
Also props to Vindicator, that's an awesome summary of the current storyline (is it the current storyline? I joined a bit late so I need to backtrack a bit )
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« Last Edit: February 23, 2009, 09:35:23 pm by Son_of_Antares »
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Megagun
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Moo
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Is there anyone programming on this project as of yet? I've been meaning to start my own mod project, but with a different project view (no new aliens, for one) and have been developing a few tools (currently have a rudimentary Starmap editor (placing stars only as of yet). w32 only (unless I get Mono to work with this)) to make things easier. I'm currently just exploring through the code (I haven't really found the "grande structure" in it yet, so exploring will probably continue for a while) and doing random mods here and there, with various success, so I'd like to get in touch with whoever is programming on this mod to share tools and information on how to mod properly, and ideas on what might not work here and there. Additionally, I could help out with this project as I get the feel of things, and then later on branch off into my own mod..
As for the mod's story, I strongly suggest whoever is developing the plot and alien designs to read up on some Known Space. SC2 steals from Known Space, so you might aswell do the same. I'm pretty sure that SC2 was so brilliant just because the creators are very sci-fi literate, and I'd say that if you'd want to craft your own alien designs, you'd have to be pretty sci-fi literate, too (perhaps that's also why I won't ever introduce new aliens to a mod of my own, since I'm not sci-fi literate at all... ).
As far as the 'dead races' go: can't you send the Thraddash off towards the Kohr-Ah, get the Aqua helix, and then send the Ilwrath off towards the Thraddash, and whilst they are travelling end the game? I'm not sure how the "Chmmr working on your ship" thing goes (2 weeks, right?) and if the Ilwrath would still be moving towards Thraddash space, but if it's possible to end the game whilst both races are still alive, you could use that scenario and keep both of them alive in your mod. This, in my opinion, is a far more elegant solution than the "few survivors" solution most people seem to think about...
As for leftover Chenjesu/Mmrnmhrm: I doubt that the Chmmr would consider not including them into their new hybrid race: they seem to really think that Chenjesu+Mmrnmhrm hybrid = 'worth' more than a Chenjesu and Mmrnmhrm not in a hybrid. Ofcourse, there's probably less Mmrnmhrm than Chenjesu, so you might see a few Chmmr around with 'less Mmrnmhrm in them', so to speak.. But still, I doubt any vanilla Chenjesu or Mmrnmhrm still exist. And besides, what would you actually want to do with them, plotwise, anyways? The Chmmr most likely contain both the Mmrnmhrm and Chenjesu information/thoughts/etc, so talking to a Chmmr means talking to a Mmrnmhrm, but with the added thoughts of the Chenjesu. I bet they can single out the Mmrnmhrm 'mind' if they need to, and thus you could probably 'talk' to a Mmrnmhrm but with a Chenjesu 'attached' to it......
As for the Chmmr process being incomplete: I very muchly like this to be the main focus of the entire plot. As for my possible mod, I'd have the Chmmr 'protect' everyone (Chmmr fleets/SOIs pretty much wherever there's a significant population) in the New Alliance of Free Stars, and eventually some logic goes wrong (process incomplete, so the Chmmr aren't very.. stable) and they become more 'evil', yet the same kind of 'evil' that made the Kzer-Za also the good guys, in a way. Someone mentioned in some other thread that perhaps the process being incomplete suggested that they were still developing factories, ships, etc. But I think myself that the process being incomplete means that the process of the Chenjesu/Mmrnmhrm culture integration/hybridization isn't fully complete yet, whereas all the techonological achievements/mergers have been finished already. Thus, there might be some internal struggle, perhaps in the same way that the Kzer-Za and Kohr-Ah struggle internally...
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Cedric6014
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Wow thanks for your input guys. I'll address some of your comments/questions
Dead confirmed dead should stay dead, even in the fan projects. I agree. No races will be resusitated from death. There are some races where it is plausible that they are still alive though.
-Chmrr become evil
I SO like this idea, this is so awesome! Peace loving scientist turning to borg-matrix-robots-combo crystalline omnienemies...SOOO good, I just adore when the good guyz fall to the dark side~.~ Cedric you should definitely go with this in mind for your story. I can already think of tons of great dialogs and ingame events concerning the "Chmmr Treason". Yep, there will be some broken Chmmr to fix. This was the very first thing I thought of when I decided to do a mod. Completing the incomplete process. They won;t be evil though, just more difficult.
-if there are Androsynth still around, not caught up by the Orz, how was this done? Were they caught in a dimensional rift? A stasis field?
That's what I'm saying - It doesen't say anywhere that they were utterly annihilated, just that they are missing. What if the Orz when they "climbed up" from *below* to our truespace instantly recognized their intellectual potential and offered them a deal they couldn't refuse; the andros were forced to accept it (or they did it willingly?), and were transported to the "Orz high mind" dimension of origin and assimilated/addopted to further help the "Orz cause", whatever that may be...and their story can continue from that point on. It strenghtens their "slave and oppresed" theme and explains why the Orz get pissed if you ask too much about andros; they learned about their fate on Earth and while they don't want to provoke humanity they are more then ready to protect the newest addition to their unified community. Haven't quite figured out how to treat Androsynth and Orz yet. I'm leaning away from making the Orz fingers the cornerstone of the plot, so as not to annoy people. They might just play minor roles, while keeping the intrigue going. You've got an interesting idea there.
As for the dialog - what's the start point for us "writers"? And how should we divide our work - by races/events/places... - and where can we compare ideas/concepts? And where can we get any (or all) info about the story? Hints would be enough if I'm told what course should we be heading. I would also add here that I'm interested in the storyline as much as I am interested in the game dialog; want to contribute as much as I can, in the best way I can, because I want to see Cedrics project pollished, done, wraped, packed and ready for download ASAP! Hope this one gets done, it sure has the potential... It might take a little while!
If you're keen to be involved in the story you should sign up at PoNaF SCDB. I've been hammering out the story with Eth and Zeracles over there. We've been PMing. Happy to add you or anyone else to the mix. I need to re-write my plot dev doc to incorporate some major changes so when I've finished it I can send it your way.
Is there anyone programming on this project as of yet? I've been meaning to start my own mod project, but with a different project view (no new aliens, for one) and have been developing a few tools (currently have a rudimentary Starmap editor (placing stars only as of yet). w32 only (unless I get Mono to work with this)) to make things easier. I'm currently just exploring through the code (I haven't really found the "grande structure" in it yet, so exploring will probably continue for a while) and doing random mods here and there, with various success, so I'd like to get in touch with whoever is programming on this mod to share tools and information on how to mod properly, and ideas on what might not work here and there. Additionally, I could help out with this project as I get the feel of things, and then later on branch off into my own mod. As for programing, the method seems to be this: 1) I do as much as I can (which is hardly anything). 2) I get stuck. 3) I ask edmund to rescue me. 4) He does 5) Repeat
It's not the most efficient but there isnt actually that much programming to be done right now. It's mostly story development, dialogue writing and art/graphics that needs attention. It will be a different story when we attempt to implement some of my more ambitious ideas - eep.
Edmund has a good grasp of the UQM code whereas I don't. I know how to make simple 'mod' changes like altering dialogue and the size of SOIs, but other than that I have no clue. You should PM edmund. He doesn't say much but he does lurk. He's also extremely helpful.
Another programmer would be very helpful down the line. Right now we have some file sharing system set up so we can maintain the project's integrity. Tortoise or something? It works a treat. We could explore adding you or others to this maybe.
As for the mod's story, I strongly suggest whoever is developing the plot and alien designs to read up on some Known Space. SC2 steals from Known Space, so you might aswell do the same. I'm pretty sure that SC2 was so brilliant just because the creators are very sci-fi literate, and I'd say that if you'd want to craft your own alien designs, you'd have to be pretty sci-fi literate, too (perhaps that's also why I won't ever introduce new aliens to a mod of my own, since I'm not sci-fi literate at all... ). You're right. There's an array of reasons why this wont be as good as SC2, and that I'm Sci-Fi illiterate is the main one. I'll have a look at that link though.
As for the Chmmr process being incomplete: I very muchly like this to be the main focus of the entire plot.
It will be very important - much like the quest for the Ultron and Utwig bomb are important in SC2
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