So, I just had this cool idea: you have three campaigns, one for each race, and they all take place at the same time. You can play them in any order you like. Certain details that appear in one campaign might only make sense when you play another, and to get the full view, you'll need to play all of them.
I don't really have anything else at the moment, but I'll update this thread when I get ideas. As far as story goes: I might ressurect some good, but abandoned ideas from the Perfect Soldiers campaign, but other than that, I don't have much.
Hopefully it can be a cool project with lots of cool scenarios and units. I doubt I can do it all myself, so I might reach out for assistance (let one person do a campaign each, for example). However, I will do quality control, so I won't let just anyone join. At first I think I will reach out to people and ask them to join. Later I might open for others to take part in the project.
Sounds pretty awesome man. You could have some pretty epic battles with twists. I could see something like building a giant base against attacks as Terran and the then destroying it in the next campaign as Zerg etc.
I had a short lived idea for doing the other side of certain mission in Brood War. It would be along the lines of playing Fenix and Raynor defending the warp gate or just before True colors when they assault the outlying UED bases while Kerrigan takes on the main. Never got past the concept though.
But I like your idea of have the campaigns at the same time. Maybe surrounding the same event like a battle or something.
But I like your idea of have the campaigns at the same time. Maybe surrounding the same event like a battle or something.
Actually, one idea is to show a battle from two sides (zerg and terran). It will even use the same terrain, which will reduce the time it takes to make the two missions.
Obviously, there's a lot I need to plan out, but I've set up a document where I can write down ideas while I'm finishing Aureolin Eclipse.
Do you mean you'll play each side that's in a mission? Cuz then you'll be losing half the missions (or at least should be, unless the goal of one side is to do something then retreat). Or do you just simply mean they take place during the same timeline (like maybe your fellow computer controlled general friend is doing a horrible job while your general is doing great, lol.)
Some missions might take place at the same time; some even in the same place, but the main idea is to have three campaigns that happen simultaneously instead of chronologically. The campaigns will compliment each other, and details that may seem strange in one campaign might be explained in another.
For instance, the terrans might send away one of their commanders for a mission, which he'll do off-screen. You might get reports from him, maybe a transmission here and there, or maybe you don't hear nothing from him at all. Meanwhile, you play the zerg campaign and suddenly, you're fighting the guy.
Now, let's say he ends up dead. The zerg kills him. If you play the terran campaign first, you'll know who that guy is, but you won't what happened to him. Then you play the zerg campaign, and you learn his fate.
Or, you can play the zerg campaign first, defeating this guy that appears out of nowhere. To you, he seems insignificant. But then you play the terran campaign. You get to know him. You learn what his mission is. And while the terran characters don't know what happens to him, you do.
So that particular sub-plot zig-zags throughout the campaigns, and you'll have to play both zerg and terran to get the full pictulre.
Obviously, it's going to take a lot story-telling juggling to make this work, but I have time, patience and faith that it's possible.
Yea it'd definitely be a fun play. And it's cool that you'd be able to play them in any order, giving slightly different experiences to each player. I'd probably limit yourself on the missions for each side though because it could easily get overwhelming (maybe no more than 5 missions per faction to start).
I once had an idea for a free-for-all-map with 3 equally strong bases/races. Players could pick one base/race, the other bases would be controlled by the AI. They would always fight the same battle on the same map but objectives would be different an non-dependant for each race. I never really got into detail with this idea but it would be something like race 1 has to defend for X minutes, while race 2 has to get to an artifact that is behind race 3's base, and race 3 has to gather stuff scatterd across the map. Storywise all objectives would be completed at some point, but the player's just influence the gameplay.
More simple: Two forces allied against a common foe. Map1: Player controls force1. Map2: Player controls force2. Maybe different optional objectives.
Other idea: What is gameplay to for one side can be a cinematic for another (and vice versa). Map1: player wins a map with gameplay but the outro cinematic shows how his forces were defeated in the end. Map2 (different POV): intro cinematic shows a player losing bu when gameplay starts he gathers his forces and they win the map.
The command and conquer games and WC1/WC2 did it a bit like this but it led to alternate story arcs. I think most players wont switch between sides/campaigns, but I actually tried it for one of the later C&C games and it was awesome. All stories felt richer and more detailed; sadly the endings were different.
You mean kind of like Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, where all campaigns are canon and concurrent? That sounds pretty awesome, but also really hard to make. If properly executed, it would be a great, very detailed story, as you could play it from the perspective of all 3 races.
Also, I noticed you said "lots of cool scenarios and units", so, you're planning a custom techtree too, or?
I once had an idea for a free-for-all-map with 3 equally strong bases/races. Players could pick one base/race, the other bases would be controlled by the AI. They would always fight the same battle on the same map but objectives would be different an non-dependant for each race. I never really got into detail with this idea but it would be something like race 1 has to defend for X minutes, while race 2 has to get to an artifact that is behind race 3's base, and race 3 has to gather stuff scatterd across the map. Storywise all objectives would be completed at some point, but the player's just influence the gameplay.
More simple: Two forces allied against a common foe. Map1: Player controls force1. Map2: Player controls force2. Maybe different optional objectives.
Other idea: What is gameplay to for one side can be a cinematic for another (and vice versa). Map1: player wins a map with gameplay but the outro cinematic shows how his forces were defeated in the end. Map2 (different POV): intro cinematic shows a player losing bu when gameplay starts he gathers his forces and they win the map.
The command and conquer games and WC1/WC2 did it a bit like this but it led to alternate story arcs. I think most players wont switch between sides/campaigns, but I actually tried it for one of the later CC games and it was awesome. All stories felt richer and more detailed; sadly the endings were different.
You know, having them fight as allies at some point is a good idea. I had initially envisioned it as all races being hostile to each other, but I suppose you could make certain factions that are are friendly across the races, while others still are not (or maybe it's a one-shot thing). Good idea.
Yeah, the cinematic idea is cool. It could be used to reveal small details that change your perception of things.
I think your holdout with the enemy idea would work pretty well in this context. You play the same mission as both sides, but both sides have very different abilities/tech. One of the objectives is to not let your enemy/ally die lest you be overrun, but you're still hostile to each other. Hell, a third mission could take place slightly after it where you play as the 3rd invading enemy and your goal is to murder everyone after you've played as the other two holding out for the prior two missions. The three would take place one right after another as opposed to in parallel though I suppose
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That's a good point. However, I'm currently going to use it for AE07, I think. I do like the idea of survivors becoming the enemy of another race's future mission, tho.
Also remember what one team considers losing could mean winning to the other. Maybe all one faction wanted was to grab an artifact and get out of there, or to evacuate the civilians, while the other wanted to wipe out the military presence of their enemy. Both teams could think they won.
When you end the campaigns maybe one side thinks they wiped out the enemy entirely. Maybe in the other campaign you find out they just barely escaped to a mineral rich world where they will someday build back up their strength.
I'm playing Mass Recall atm, and the mission The Dark Templar from episode 2 uses an intriguing scenario that could fit this campaign well. I'll jog the memories of those who don't remember: Kerrigan attacks Tassadar's base, thinking him weak. However, Tassadar is merely action as a diversion for Zeratul, who slays Zasz. Something similar could be used for this campaign, where you think you have outwitted your foe, but instead you've merely opened yourself up for a critical hit. Playing as the other side, meanwhile, gives you the objective of carrying out said critical hit (which obviously shouldn't be too easy, even if the diversion has lowered the difficulty).
What if Player 1 got to select their objective from a bunch of objectives...for example: rescue civies, capture artifact, destroy antenna, etc? Or it could be randomly assigned? Player 2 would have to defend each area and try and figure out where Player 1 is going to go. Sort of like Mission Risk, the board game. It would be cool to watch Player 1 use feints and ruses to try and get Player 2 to commit to an action (entrench defenses, overcommit reinforces) and then send in the elite team to get the job done!! Ohhh....elite team!!! That would be a fun option to add in based on the objective you pick or are assigned!!!!
If you were able to create several missions this way, then it would be an excellent Arcade game with replay-ability and a campaign like feel.
I would like to give the player choices, sure. I've found that this is always fun, whether you're picking abilities, objectives, etc. Not sure I quite understand your proposition, tho. Are player 1 and 2 enemies or allies?
I'm doing PS, first, yes, tho I don't know if I'll be making any of the planned "extra missions" I've talked about. We'll see.
I've found that the hardest thing to do when creating a story is to get started. Once I have an initial idea, it's (relatively) easy to bounce new ideas off it, eventually resulting in a full story.
Well, now I have an initial idea. I don't have much more than that, but looking at the story so far makes me confident that this is going to be good. Very good. I can't share much at the moment, for reasons of spoiler, and because I obviously don't have that much yet, but I can do something...
What I can do is introduce the first Terran character: Major Reynia Mallevion.
A highly decorated officer in the Coalition of the Wolf, Reynia Mallevion is feared across the Quadrant. According to the myth, she strangled her husband on their wedding night (for reasons that vary, depending on whom you ask), earning her the moniker "the Blood Bride". Now she is married to violence, acting as the Coalition's frontal spear on sensitive missions. So feared is she, that it is said she has made opponents surrender by appearance alone. In addition, she is a brilliant tactician, capable of turning dire situations into opportunities for her superiors. She appears on the battlefield as a sniper with a variety of tactical abilities.
If you make a 3 side-campaign you'll probably want to have a couple of maps where all of the three races fight each other. My campaign has two of these maps and so far I've been unsuccessful in making the fights 3 sided. One is a MOBA style map, the other is a base building map.
The reason for that is the perspective of the player/his involvement (in terms of gameplay) on the two AI sides battlign each other. The player has no impact on their conflict and he can barely see what's going on there. This often led to a scenario where a player would weaken one of the enemies and the other enemy would swoop in for the kill, without the player really noticing. It's hard to explain but it never felt right.
To make it better I changed the level design/AI behaviour of my two maps. On the MOBA map the two seperate paths have become one long path. The first half features enemies of race 2, the second half features enemies of race 3. The player is race 1. Races 2 and 3 never really engage each other but instead serve as consecutive enemies. On the base building map I blocked the path for races 2 and 3. Practically it's as if they were allied, because they only fight race 1.
In theory it's sounds simple (hey let's just make a map where two AIs fight each other and the player, and the player has to weaken one or both of them simultenously). If you look at any professional RTS map in existence conflicts are always two sided. The player is always allied (again, only technically speaking) with one race, and he basically only has one enemy per map.
This reminds me of wrestling. When there are three opponents battling each other you'll always see one of them get tossed out of the ring very early on and only come back to knock out another opponent and take his place.
Just wanted to get this off my chest as it's been bothering me for some time :)
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So, I just had this cool idea: you have three campaigns, one for each race, and they all take place at the same time. You can play them in any order you like. Certain details that appear in one campaign might only make sense when you play another, and to get the full view, you'll need to play all of them.
I don't really have anything else at the moment, but I'll update this thread when I get ideas. As far as story goes: I might ressurect some good, but abandoned ideas from the Perfect Soldiers campaign, but other than that, I don't have much.
Hopefully it can be a cool project with lots of cool scenarios and units. I doubt I can do it all myself, so I might reach out for assistance (let one person do a campaign each, for example). However, I will do quality control, so I won't let just anyone join. At first I think I will reach out to people and ask them to join. Later I might open for others to take part in the project.
EDIT: Missions so far (will be updated):
Terran
Zerg
Protoss
Sounds pretty awesome man. You could have some pretty epic battles with twists. I could see something like building a giant base against attacks as Terran and the then destroying it in the next campaign as Zerg etc.
I had a short lived idea for doing the other side of certain mission in Brood War. It would be along the lines of playing Fenix and Raynor defending the warp gate or just before True colors when they assault the outlying UED bases while Kerrigan takes on the main. Never got past the concept though.
But I like your idea of have the campaigns at the same time. Maybe surrounding the same event like a battle or something.
Actually, one idea is to show a battle from two sides (zerg and terran). It will even use the same terrain, which will reduce the time it takes to make the two missions.
Obviously, there's a lot I need to plan out, but I've set up a document where I can write down ideas while I'm finishing Aureolin Eclipse.
Do you mean you'll play each side that's in a mission? Cuz then you'll be losing half the missions (or at least should be, unless the goal of one side is to do something then retreat). Or do you just simply mean they take place during the same timeline (like maybe your fellow computer controlled general friend is doing a horrible job while your general is doing great, lol.)
Some missions might take place at the same time; some even in the same place, but the main idea is to have three campaigns that happen simultaneously instead of chronologically. The campaigns will compliment each other, and details that may seem strange in one campaign might be explained in another.
For instance, the terrans might send away one of their commanders for a mission, which he'll do off-screen. You might get reports from him, maybe a transmission here and there, or maybe you don't hear nothing from him at all. Meanwhile, you play the zerg campaign and suddenly, you're fighting the guy.
Now, let's say he ends up dead. The zerg kills him. If you play the terran campaign first, you'll know who that guy is, but you won't what happened to him. Then you play the zerg campaign, and you learn his fate.
Or, you can play the zerg campaign first, defeating this guy that appears out of nowhere. To you, he seems insignificant. But then you play the terran campaign. You get to know him. You learn what his mission is. And while the terran characters don't know what happens to him, you do.
So that particular sub-plot zig-zags throughout the campaigns, and you'll have to play both zerg and terran to get the full pictulre.
Obviously, it's going to take a lot story-telling juggling to make this work, but I have time, patience and faith that it's possible.
Yea it'd definitely be a fun play. And it's cool that you'd be able to play them in any order, giving slightly different experiences to each player. I'd probably limit yourself on the missions for each side though because it could easily get overwhelming (maybe no more than 5 missions per faction to start).
Yeah, the number of missions can get pretty high, but doing 5 per race might be a good idea. It'll be like a short story.
I once had an idea for a free-for-all-map with 3 equally strong bases/races. Players could pick one base/race, the other bases would be controlled by the AI. They would always fight the same battle on the same map but objectives would be different an non-dependant for each race. I never really got into detail with this idea but it would be something like race 1 has to defend for X minutes, while race 2 has to get to an artifact that is behind race 3's base, and race 3 has to gather stuff scatterd across the map. Storywise all objectives would be completed at some point, but the player's just influence the gameplay.
More simple: Two forces allied against a common foe. Map1: Player controls force1. Map2: Player controls force2. Maybe different optional objectives.
Other idea: What is gameplay to for one side can be a cinematic for another (and vice versa). Map1: player wins a map with gameplay but the outro cinematic shows how his forces were defeated in the end. Map2 (different POV): intro cinematic shows a player losing bu when gameplay starts he gathers his forces and they win the map.
The command and conquer games and WC1/WC2 did it a bit like this but it led to alternate story arcs. I think most players wont switch between sides/campaigns, but I actually tried it for one of the later C&C games and it was awesome. All stories felt richer and more detailed; sadly the endings were different.
You mean kind of like Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, where all campaigns are canon and concurrent? That sounds pretty awesome, but also really hard to make. If properly executed, it would be a great, very detailed story, as you could play it from the perspective of all 3 races.
Also, I noticed you said "lots of cool scenarios and units", so, you're planning a custom techtree too, or?
I haven't played that game. Though you are right on one account: this will be hard to make, which is why I'm not gonna rush it.
I might consider a custom tech tree. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that custom things are popular, espeically if it's powerful.
You know, having them fight as allies at some point is a good idea. I had initially envisioned it as all races being hostile to each other, but I suppose you could make certain factions that are are friendly across the races, while others still are not (or maybe it's a one-shot thing). Good idea.
Yeah, the cinematic idea is cool. It could be used to reveal small details that change your perception of things.
Excellent idea! I'd love to see this come to fruitation.
I think your holdout with the enemy idea would work pretty well in this context. You play the same mission as both sides, but both sides have very different abilities/tech. One of the objectives is to not let your enemy/ally die lest you be overrun, but you're still hostile to each other. Hell, a third mission could take place slightly after it where you play as the 3rd invading enemy and your goal is to murder everyone after you've played as the other two holding out for the prior two missions. The three would take place one right after another as opposed to in parallel though I suppose
Visit my channel where I showcase custom content! Send me a PM or respond to my YouTube thread if you'd like to see your map/s on my channel (eventually!)
That's a good point. However, I'm currently going to use it for AE07, I think. I do like the idea of survivors becoming the enemy of another race's future mission, tho.
So, I've come up with some different scenarions on how I could end this (no spoilers):
Also remember what one team considers losing could mean winning to the other. Maybe all one faction wanted was to grab an artifact and get out of there, or to evacuate the civilians, while the other wanted to wipe out the military presence of their enemy. Both teams could think they won.
When you end the campaigns maybe one side thinks they wiped out the enemy entirely. Maybe in the other campaign you find out they just barely escaped to a mineral rich world where they will someday build back up their strength.
I'm playing Mass Recall atm, and the mission The Dark Templar from episode 2 uses an intriguing scenario that could fit this campaign well. I'll jog the memories of those who don't remember: Kerrigan attacks Tassadar's base, thinking him weak. However, Tassadar is merely action as a diversion for Zeratul, who slays Zasz. Something similar could be used for this campaign, where you think you have outwitted your foe, but instead you've merely opened yourself up for a critical hit. Playing as the other side, meanwhile, gives you the objective of carrying out said critical hit (which obviously shouldn't be too easy, even if the diversion has lowered the difficulty).
What if Player 1 got to select their objective from a bunch of objectives...for example: rescue civies, capture artifact, destroy antenna, etc? Or it could be randomly assigned? Player 2 would have to defend each area and try and figure out where Player 1 is going to go. Sort of like Mission Risk, the board game. It would be cool to watch Player 1 use feints and ruses to try and get Player 2 to commit to an action (entrench defenses, overcommit reinforces) and then send in the elite team to get the job done!! Ohhh....elite team!!! That would be a fun option to add in based on the objective you pick or are assigned!!!!
If you were able to create several missions this way, then it would be an excellent Arcade game with replay-ability and a campaign like feel.
Do you plan on making this post-Perfect Soldiers?
I would like to give the player choices, sure. I've found that this is always fun, whether you're picking abilities, objectives, etc. Not sure I quite understand your proposition, tho. Are player 1 and 2 enemies or allies?
I'm doing PS, first, yes, tho I don't know if I'll be making any of the planned "extra missions" I've talked about. We'll see.
I've found that the hardest thing to do when creating a story is to get started. Once I have an initial idea, it's (relatively) easy to bounce new ideas off it, eventually resulting in a full story.
Well, now I have an initial idea. I don't have much more than that, but looking at the story so far makes me confident that this is going to be good. Very good. I can't share much at the moment, for reasons of spoiler, and because I obviously don't have that much yet, but I can do something...
What I can do is introduce the first Terran character: Major Reynia Mallevion.
A highly decorated officer in the Coalition of the Wolf, Reynia Mallevion is feared across the Quadrant. According to the myth, she strangled her husband on their wedding night (for reasons that vary, depending on whom you ask), earning her the moniker "the Blood Bride". Now she is married to violence, acting as the Coalition's frontal spear on sensitive missions. So feared is she, that it is said she has made opponents surrender by appearance alone. In addition, she is a brilliant tactician, capable of turning dire situations into opportunities for her superiors. She appears on the battlefield as a sniper with a variety of tactical abilities.
If you make a 3 side-campaign you'll probably want to have a couple of maps where all of the three races fight each other. My campaign has two of these maps and so far I've been unsuccessful in making the fights 3 sided. One is a MOBA style map, the other is a base building map.
The reason for that is the perspective of the player/his involvement (in terms of gameplay) on the two AI sides battlign each other. The player has no impact on their conflict and he can barely see what's going on there. This often led to a scenario where a player would weaken one of the enemies and the other enemy would swoop in for the kill, without the player really noticing. It's hard to explain but it never felt right.
To make it better I changed the level design/AI behaviour of my two maps. On the MOBA map the two seperate paths have become one long path. The first half features enemies of race 2, the second half features enemies of race 3. The player is race 1. Races 2 and 3 never really engage each other but instead serve as consecutive enemies. On the base building map I blocked the path for races 2 and 3. Practically it's as if they were allied, because they only fight race 1.
In theory it's sounds simple (hey let's just make a map where two AIs fight each other and the player, and the player has to weaken one or both of them simultenously). If you look at any professional RTS map in existence conflicts are always two sided. The player is always allied (again, only technically speaking) with one race, and he basically only has one enemy per map.
This reminds me of wrestling. When there are three opponents battling each other you'll always see one of them get tossed out of the ring very early on and only come back to knock out another opponent and take his place.
Just wanted to get this off my chest as it's been bothering me for some time :)