ideas, gameplay

Started by Micky C, 17 February 2012, 04:45:26

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High Treason

I'm not regretting it, I just can't help but wonder if I made everyone's job harder than it otherwise would have been - then again, that just gives them more reason to show off their skills. I'm kinda looking forward to seeing how it is made to connect up.
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Maarten

Quote from: Forge on  22 February 2012, 01:02:22
just depends on where you want to start and what you want to make (i.e. you can add some cool hi-tech stuff, beach caves, or whatever after the dam and loop it back to Mike's hub. Maarten can add his alien-esque area to the end of the sewer (which is a perfect place for it) and loop it back to Mike's hub.

Sounds cool, but I guess this time I'll take a step back from my usual alien stuff & stick more to the space/city theme which we have now :) Maybe I can't resist to add some alien stuf..but..we'll see :)

Oh, and the sewer should stay, it's nice.
Boo!

Micky C

The puzzle in my section should be to disable forcefields on the windows to allow the player to jump out into the pool below :D

And the good thing about HT's sewer is that it can be relocated to anywhere in the map if needed. The problem I see with it is that there are two keypads with key cards in the immediate vicinity which you need to progress. So if you make it a dead end with a third key card... well you get the picture.
Wall whore.

MikeNorvak

Well I think those keycards don't need to be into the acid containers, but somewhere in the map, and that has more sense since occording to the note no one knows what Norvak did with it. :D

I was thinking that it would be cool if we include several references from sci fi.

Micky C

I already poked fun at the logos for Tiberius Station and Polaris outpost, not to mention the AMC TC. It would be very hard to make references to things outside the Duke universe without making it look shoehorned-in.

Upon further thought about my part being first; when I was making it I always had it pictured that the player would have several decent weapons by the time he got there, so that there could be some intense fights in the apartment. Also, I'm not sure the downstairs 'bar' is detailed enough to has as a starting point; it's basically a square area with some posters and coloured lighting. It can be a starting point if necessary, but we should keep our options open.

And is it going to be the case that we're not going to have a full 10 mappers, so that we might get extra walls at the end?
Wall whore.

Maarten

Quote from: Micky C on  22 February 2012, 06:25:13
And is it going to be the case that we're not going to have a full 10 mappers, so that we might get extra walls at the end?

In that case, after everyone made their part, we can take the time to polish this map till we're satisfied with it :)
I'm planning to make more city+metro, and connect my part with Mike's...since in my eyes, it's the "center" of the map, and will be good to have "one map" feeling, instead of "a CBP with obviously different parts" :)
Boo!

Mister Sinister

Quote from: MikeNorvak on  22 February 2012, 03:02:23I was thinking that it would be cool if we include several references from sci fi.
Hey, what if I'll replace that giant sign with my "new album" with something referencing to some sci-fi movie?
Something like "3001: A Space Odyssey" or "The Day the Moon Stood Still".  :)
Gadji beri bimba clandridi
Lauli lonni cadori gadjam
A bim beri glassala glandride
E glassala tuffm

I zimbra!

Forge

Quote from: Maarten on  22 February 2012, 01:34:41
...I guess this time I'll take a step back from my usual alien stuff & stick more to the space/city theme which we have now :) ....

Noooooooooooo!  My brain is melting...   

;D
Take it down to the beach with a hammer and pound sand up your ass

Maarten

Quote from: Forge on  22 February 2012, 12:40:59
Quote from: Maarten on  22 February 2012, 01:34:41
...I guess this time I'll take a step back from my usual alien stuff & stick more to the space/city theme which we have now :) ....

Noooooooooooo!  My brain is melting...   

;D

Oh, in that case I'll create a small part with a sign, saying "special alien part for Forge" xD
Boo!

Micky C

Omg this map's going to be epic  8)

Now that the map is definitely getting some form to it, we need to settle on a start and end while we still have one or two mappers left to give us leeway.

I know it's been discussed that my section should be the start, the more I think about it the more I agree. Having the player dance around with enemies appearing from behind the rotating sections a few times then jumping out the window all the way into the pool with explosions coming out of the apartment is an epic set piece to get people's juices going for the rest of the map.

The way I see it there will probably be two arcs:
High Treason's sewer arc potentially with Captain Awesome, Forge and Quakis.
Mister Sinister's arc with Marteen and Merjlin's parts.

Both of these would probably loop back to Norvak's dome. This means that the player will need something from both sections in order to finish the map (any ideas?)

The best ending for the map I can think of is the player entering the spire in the middle of the dome, where a sign says something like "in case of city compromise by aliens, destruct city" or something along those lines, so the player will flick a switch making explosions occur repeatedly at the windows thickly enough to make it look like the entire city is experiencing explosions. Then idk a nuke button will appear or something.

Any comments?  The ending is a bit cheesy and could probably use some work. And I'm not a big fan of the player requiring key cards to get to the exit since we've already used so many key cards.
Wall whore.

Merlijn

That sound like a good idea.

Here's an idea for the arcs: first, the player has to go through Mister Sinister, Maarten and my arc to unlock the other one.
This could be as simple as getting some pipebombs to blow up the manhole to access the sewer (once the player enters the dam area, he can't go back to the HUB area thanks to the big waterfall, so he has to complete the arc anyway once he obtained explosive weaponry).

Inside the sewer + potential new parts, the player will get a jetpack. He can use this to fly back into the city and reach a doorway in the central spire only reachable with a jetpack.

If we do this, we will have to guide the player a bit with some helpful, well placed viewscreens, otherwise a lot of people will probably get stuck.


Micky C

That could work very nicely. I initially wanted the player to have the choice of which arc they want to play first, but I guess it's too much effort to make the map work well both ways. It's probably hard enough making the gameplay flow with one playable path.

The jetpack idea makes me want to put a big battlelord here (either from the start, which should make things interesting, or spawn in after both arcs) and make him guard a keycard which the player needs to get into the spire.



I wish we could have a more dynamic ending then just have explosions happen at the windows. This map deserves one of those endings where the player gets to fly away from the city in a ship or something. Perhaps we can still have the explosions but then have the player teleport to a ship that's flying away in some kind of scripted sequence.

Edit: another thing I wanted to point out is that in the classic renderer there's some texture glitches underneath where I'm pointing due to the large angle of some of the slopes.
Wall whore.

High Treason

If needed, I could probably remove the keycards from my section and replace them with some kind of switch puzzle.

I haven't had a cance to look at the latest version of the map so I don't know if it's already been done, but to link my section to everything else, some of my remaining walls could be used to shade the exit tunnel that blows up to black and silently teleport the player to somewhere else with a similar shaded-to-black tunnel.
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Merlijn

Hmm, I was mistaken, you can get back to the HUB area from Mister sinister part.. So if we want to prevent the player from going back, something must be done (increase the height of the wall, one sided invisible barrier.. etc)

Giving the player a choise of which arc they want to play first could also work though.. In that case they could obtain a jetpack in the sewer part and in the other one a... keycard? And both would be needed to enter the spire.

A scripted ending sequence would be very cool and definately doable.. Imperium had a similar scripted sequence at the end of Last change part 2 (I used the dukeplus sleeper effect for that sequence, but I guess it can also easily be done without it).

Micky C

#29
Well, after working with Paul B who was really pushing the non-linearity in Parkade.map, I'd rather just stick with something more linear as a break  :P

I just played through the map (after adding a touch of gameplay to my section) and it took me a bit over 13 minutes. So I predict that when this is finished, it should take 20, maybe 25 for a first-timer minutes to finish, which IMO is an ideal size for a map.

I used God mode, but I stuck with the weapons that were already in the map, and it's playable, which is good. However the weapon pickups will probably have to be reworked to better take into account the preceding and succeeding sections.

So this is a draft of the weapon pickup order I've come up with, but I'm open to criticism.
Pistol - starting
Shotgun, freeze thrower - Micky C's appartment.
Chaingun, Pipe bombs - Mister Sinister's section.
RPG - Maarten's section
Devestator, shrinker - somewhere after High Treason's section.

Edit @ High Treason: We'll see about your keycard/switch puzzle thing depending on how the final layout goes. Hopefully it'll just be Norvak's dome, my appartment, and the two arcs.

The second arc doesn't have to loop around back in an obvious way because it looks like that arc will contain the jetpack needed to get the final keycard being guarded by the high-up battlelord which grants access to the central spire.
Wall whore.