Unofficial 1st Question Post

[BZSubmaximal]

OK Boys...What have we got here?..  Lizard Inspired creation of BSerism?..or is it action strategy?..or conceptually contains both elements?..or is it a more traditional  4-16 player MP online game that keeps team sizes smaller to foster a feel of real commraderie and teamsmanship?..or not?

[BS-er]

Well, maybe .  I would call it an action game with some strategic command control built in (sometimes), but not much if any strategic management and building.  Control may be dumbed down compared to BZ1/BZ2.  We haven't nailed down how much unit control a player will have.  Initially I wasn't planning on much unit control, but I will flex on that issue as needed.  There will be wingman buddies, at least, and I hope to let the player excercise some sort of control over them.

Multiplayer will aim for some of the basic favorites, maybe capture the flag, deathmatch, death racing, teams with varying strategic aspects, but base building won't happen.
Posted on: May 17, 2007, 07:25:29 PMOh and 4 - 16 player sessions is about right I'd say.

[Avatar]

Just out of curiosity then, is 'base building not happening' a design decision or a code limitation?  Seems like an easy thing to do, as all games have 'drop something into the engine' code. 

Just wondering...

-Av-

[BS-er]

Its easy to make an object appear.  Its a lot of design work to come up with a justified base-building system, where those buildings have their roles and purposes.  There's the sophisticated interface.  You have the particle effects that go with building construction, or maybe you try to come up with a piecemeal system of construction instead of a *poof* there's a building.  It starts to snowball.

Plus I've overextended myself already with the current software design plan.  If you saw my TODO list you might be more sympathetic.   I may have to do some slashing of the plan as it is, although I'm determined not to do that.

Base building to me would suggest an outright action-strategy hybrid, and that's not where I wanted to go for our first title.  I'm going for action (with some strategic feel), but also I'm going for that feel that you're in a dynamic open world and not a long corridor of bad guys.  Its that open feel of the BZ games that I want to capture, but I'm trying to avoid the perception that we're making a BZ clone or BZ wannabe.

If I'm lucky enough to be in on a second title I think I would try to go down the action strategy hybrid path, even though that formula hasn't been the most successful.  It would be my goal to show the world how much fun that can be.  But for now we have to establish a business plan for success.  We'll have to sell out to some degree, but also try to come up with something a bit original.  I don't want to try and make another Half-Life, quake or Unreal, but I also don't want to try and make another BZ/BZ2.

I already plan on making this game heavily scriptable.  It may be possible to make it scriptable enough so that someone could extend it maybe even to the point of base building.  If it takes just a little extra effort on my part to build in the support, I'll do my best to try.

[Lizard]

personally I'd like to see at least for the multiplayer aspect a kind of hybrid of BZ2 and the Battlefield games - less complicated than BZ2 but more involved than Battlefield .


while bases obviously play a large part in BZ2 it's the capturing and holding of resources ( scrap pools) that provides the main challenge for those out in the field, the base is mainly the commander's domain and thugs only come back for reloads, weapons and new ships these items are infact more crucial to the gameplay than the actual base is. 


If each team starts with a set amount of resources and the idea is to starve the opposition of their resources - the first team to run out loses, and replacement units cost resources . Resources can be regained in the form of crates dropped at set dropzones around the map, capturing and holding these dropzones will be crucial to winning the game, you will also be able to produce deployable turrets and repair units to help hold these positions, throw in weapons upgrades etc and I think we'll have something that captures the best of both games .

I think small to medium sized teams with AI support units would probably be the best way to go, I think as teams get bigger ( 20 - 30 people per team) the indivdual's role in a game becomes too minimised .

[BZSubmaximal]

Not touching on the issue of our beloved action strategy hybrid genre..but I will say this..About team sizes...One of my biggest problems with big box shooter games is the teams sizes of 16-32 players..frankly its a giant cluster fu**...I feell no cammraderie to the players you are just one of the drones..you don't know your teammates or fellow players amongst the throungs of players..it is why I hope for mor ehte "feel" of team mates and fellow players, if teamsizes are in the 4-8 player per team size.

[JonathanS]

BS-er & Lizard,

Sooo this is what you've been up too.


My question, do you plan to put a single player type story in to your game? Or is it going to focus most on Multiplayer?

[Lizard]

there are definately plans for a single player campaign, our editor already has a built in mission scriptor although it's still a little short on functionality it's growing all the time.

[SaderBiscut]

If there are more types of helicopters, large piles of weapons, and huge landscapes, count me in!

Or, simply more helicopters will suffice. 

[Lizard]

well there will certainly be at least 3 helicopters - I've already built 2 and the 3rd only needs a skin, there will of course be lots of other stuff to play with besides helicopters I certainly expect there to be a wide range of weapons. The game will be fully moddable so players will be able to add their own cool stuff aswell - there will be an integrated map editor and mission scriptor and the 3d format we are using (ogre .mesh) is supported by nearly every 3d package available ( certainly all the major ones ) .

[SaderBiscut]

Three is good.

-Can you change weapons on units similar to BZII or Earth 2150?  Opposed to having vehicle types have hardcoded weapons. 

[Lizard]

we do plan on having upgradeable weapons on the units, I'm not sure what form they will take as yet whether they'll be in collectable crates like in BZ2 or what.

[JonathanS]

About Mission Scripting. You using something like Python or is it going to be a unique scripting language for the game itself?

[AcneVulgaris]

We're currently looking at Lua for scripting.

[JonathanS]

Ahhh. Lua.

Played with that in working with the Stratagus Engine.