Basic Story Overview
You're a loyal knight of the king and one of the most highly respected men in the kingdom
The King has recently become a bit of a tyrant and he's getting worse
You witness the king committing some unspeakable act (possibly killing his family)
you're framed for the kings actions and placed in jail
Many years later (5-15 years) you're broken out by a group of rebel peasants who are fed up with the king. They came for you because they know you were imprisoned for treason.
The game begins with you in the dungeon. After getting the backstory
You make it out and begin rallying forces.
You go from town to town liberating the people, while gathering intelligence as to what happened to the king.
You encounter demonic beasts at some point that see to serve the king.
Your final goal it to storm the castle overthrow the king and investigate the king's change of heart.
There will be optional quests along the way and possibly quest to obtain powerful ancient weapons.
So I have a question. In terms of how the story is going to be told through our main character's eyes, how much personality should our character have? Meaning, should we have a protagonist that has a set personality (think Snake from Metal Gear) or a silent protagonist whom which the player sort of "becomes?" (think Isaac Clarke from Dead Space)
ReplyDeleteI think we could work with either, but how the story is told and how the gameplay works depends on that, so we should make a decision. What do you guys think?
i kinda like silent protagonist. the more you play the character, the more it becomes personal to you because it doesn't already have a personality to begin with. YOU are the character! :D
ReplyDeletefunny how my favorite games start out in dungeons, lol. oblivion, baldurs gate . . . anyway, this is a cool story xD whatcha want me to start workin' on? this sounds like a very huge project. first dungeons, then towns, not just one, but multiple towns, and then the palace. plus props. and townspeople and monsters. hahaha, just let me know whatcha want first and i will get started :)
ReplyDeleteand are you guys learning programming, or what?
I'm up to try either perspective I kind like both equally haha :D
ReplyDeleteAs for what to get started on probably stuff in the dungeon would be the first point of interest.
I made a few simple props in 3DS-Max but they're not done and I probably won't get to finish them for a while cause of comp issues.
As for programming we have a 3 options.
1. Some of us learn a bit of programming and we do our best to work it out
2. We get my cousin on board who works as a programmer for the government and like to create game programs on the side
Or we work solely on art and getting the 3D stuff into a scene and then pitch what we've got at the next mash up.
Oh and btw my inspiration for the character starting in a dungeon came from the fact that I got my dad's old MS DOS games running through dos box and I was playing ARENA which is the original Elder Scrolls game :D and you start in a dungeon there too. it's incredibly pixelated but since I played when I was little I don't really care haha
ReplyDeleteSo I used that as a starting point and then came up with a back story to explain why you were in there and what you'd do when you got out.
Woo-Hoo for pixelated dungeons! :D
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I like the idea of the silent protagonist so that the player becomes the character.
Do you want me to start writing down my ideas for the story as well? I have a few that maybe you guys could pick through.
roxanne, i think you should be our designated story developer XD
ReplyDeletefor this project i think the most realistic plan is to create the art and have it ready for the next mashup. the amount of art required here seems to be quite a lot, and i dont think we will be able to pull off programming on top of that - programming is a huge task in itself.
i will get 3ds max soon. i had a crack version, but it was really horrible, so i think i will buy it this time. for now i could work on 2d concepts. what specifically would you like concepts for alex? which specific props, or do you want me to think of room design for the dungeons?
Really it's up to you guys. I wanna be involved in the story stuff for sure cause I've come up with some more tidbits we could use and I'll post those soon. But I have no problem with Roxanne helping out with story a bunch :D
ReplyDeleteAnd If we go with silent protagonist I think we should try and do like Dragon Age and give the player several phrase choices during conversations to choose the outcomes of situations, of course that'll be more of a programming thing.
As for concepts I guess you could do a little of both, if you think of specific objects, like torture racks, guard equipment, door designs etc that'd be great but room designs work too :D
I'm a little too vauge and I apologize but yeah rooms and objects etc. I'll try and post what little I've draw in a bit once I get my computer running at full potential again ^_^
i really like the dragon age phrase choice idea; games with that option are much more versatile.
ReplyDeleteso we are all pooling concepts for now. sounds good, i will post sketches as i get them done!
if you have an aim sn alex, could you email it to me?
If we are going with silent protagonist which is highly recommended and doing Dragon Age style dialogue also highly recommended.
ReplyDeleteI suggest maybe we can let the player customize the character a little. He will stay as a male knight but that doesn't mean he should stay a strictly fighter type.
Let the player explore the other two common classes rogue and mage but perhaps allow it so the player if they want have a bit of all 3 like in Oblivion.
I also have an idea for the beginning. We could explain why his there and who he is in 3 ways.
1)Have an awesome sounding narrator possibly the Rebel Leader narrate the events leading up to your imprisonment (like in Dragon Age)
2)Show flashback scenes either in the beginning or (like the origins for Spike and Angel) have the flashbacks be revealed as you progress through the game
3)Just have your character tell the essential NPCs he meets a brief summary of why his in that predicament (like in Red Dead Redemption)
Xelan101's cousin here, figured I'd say hello.
ReplyDeleteYou can check out some of my stuff here :
http://seilenos.ca/
Just recently reformatted the server, so not everything is up.
We should probably start talking about characters and locations. Heres one we have the Hero's guard taunt him a little in the beginning right before he gets impaled by one the freedom fighters that breaks our hero out. I also think the Rebel leader would be one the most important characters up there with the hero. The tutorial could be done at the rebel camp and the camp can serve as a base of operations for the player.
ReplyDeleteI do like the whole rebel leader killing the guard part. However I think the tutorial should be Aiden remembering how to fight as he makes his way through the dungeon. Cause I was thinking that the force sent to release him would be relatively small and thus Aiden would have to lead/protect them out. Possibly using makeshift weapons, like torches and guard weapons until he reached where his old equipment was located, at which time he would regain his armor and sword.
ReplyDeleteWhy not start a breakout in the dungeon?
ReplyDeleteThat is, their is a huge riot occurring where guards and prisoners are now fighting...in the fray your cell gets damaged, and you escape to freedom. So as a tutorial you learn basic movement controls, then aquire weaponry from corpses strewn about, and learn basic combat from a crazed prisoner...then more advanced combat from a prison guard.
Thoughts?
Just to make sure.
ReplyDeleteGameplay :
RPG-right?
Turnbased? Realtime?
If Realtime :
3rd Person ala Zelda?
1st Person ala Oblivion?
If Turnbased :
Timer Based ala FF6
"watch" combat ala FF13
Regular ala Dragon Quest
If hybrid :
Pausable ala Baulder's Gate/NWN
Fighter ala Tales of Series
Card Game ala Kingdom Hearts : Chain of Memories
That is a good question. I've been trying to figure out what would work best for the the story. I'm definitely a strong supporter of 3rd person camera view at least for walk around. And I was thinking of a couple kinds of fighting options
ReplyDelete1. You control just Aiden and fight against enemies in real time, possibly with AI allies in certain fights (ex the lord of the rings games, Kingdom hearts etc)
2. You have a turn based system of combat that is initiated either through random encounters, or by encountering an enemy in the field (ex Final fantasy)
3. Or we try and do something more tactics based similar to but not quite like Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics etc.
(if we went this route I'd prefer finding a way to make a bit more serious in the art style, size and detail of the character. As much as I love ff tactics it's a very chibi art style, and the fire emblem models in the 3D games are very simple)
So I guess everyone think over some of the options Iceviper and I have mentioned and think of what direction you'd prefer and we'll work from there.
Oh and if you've got any sketches, painting, models etc that you wanna post please do so I'll try and get mine up soon. Please feel free to make new posts to showcase what you've done, can do, or want to do to help make this game a reality :D
For combat I was thinking if you want to get fancy then probably Dragon Age style combat. You know for those normal size skirmishes between your small squad and a few enemies.
ReplyDeleteBut for those major hollywood battles I was thinking more of a control style similar to Brutal Legend's major battles or even gameplay of The Outfit.
But for the prison thing, the rebels would be planning something like that on the intent of breaking out Aiden and perhaps some other objectives. Perhaps have the riot start up by some rebels who intentionally got themselves in prison. They start a riot as a diversion. One or a few rebels break you out. From there you get your first squad and the story starts flowing from there.
But really I want your guys take on how you think his backstory should be introduce or do you prefer one of the three ways I posted.
In the case of backstory I kinda like a fusion of the two you mentioned. Like the character seeing most of what happened through a 1st or 3rd person view as Aiden and then have him mention other details that were omitted/forgotten in the initial story introduction told to NPCs and possibly used as flshbacks as the story progressed... Or we could go with another approach.
ReplyDeletehowdy guys!
ReplyDeleteSO i thought up some back story for the kings odd behavior. If yall like it, awesome, if not, thats cool too.
a wandering salesman (magician trader bum iunno someone) comes to town and offers the king a treasure(necklace ring candelabra again just something pretty but of no apparent malice)
to let him live longer( most likely the king is getting somewhat older in age, and you know, people didnt live nearly as long).
the king takes the artifact. you later find the traveler dead and looking almost drained of all life(not that he had much anyway) by the outskirts of town (this could just be a notice like a guard waltzes in and says hey king! that guy died, lol guess he should have kept the charm!)
this artifact, whatever it is, is of course magical and cursed to all hell, and at first it drained all the life out of its last host upon transferring to the king in order to make the king feel stronger and regain his vitality and all that jazz. the king is now hooked on the demon magic and most likely wont want to part with the object even if it started to kill him.
slowly corrupting the king and twisting his mind, the demon takes hold and begins ruling the kingdom through the king and enacting harsh punishments to feed his coffers with gold (OBVIOUSLY NEEDED FOR DEMON MAGIC) and blood(thirsty tyrants have to drink something, am i right!??!)
finally that fateful night of your treason is at hand, the demon makes one more deal with the king that if he can kill his first born (ridiculously heinous crime) and bathe the artifact in the blood if his child(double heinous!), the king will become truly powerful, gaining magic and becoming immortal in accordance to time space, not weapons or any of that jazz.
he does so, and pretty much goes insane, but of course all those powers are granted to him, but really they are granted to the demon who lives within him completely now, the king at this point is mostly gone, but the ritual itself was draining and the large population of villagers is still too much of a threat for the demon to handle with just magic and corrupt guards.
you're imprisoned.
the demon builds and army of...
a. corrupt villagers/guards.
b. lesser demons, zombies, ghouls, skeletons.
c. guards and villagers tricked or otherwise who agreed to give their "lives" to the king, at which point they become vessels for demons/magic to play through.
4? all of the above?
again, these are just ideas. thought id throw them out there, if you guys have said any of this already, my bad i kinda skimmed over the stuff yall posted just to get a general idea of what were doing, then got carried away with this.
if its too much like other games/stories and the connection is to strong for yall, say so, i definitely dont want to be repetitive, nor do i want to plagiarize..
speaking of which, alot of this is vaguely similar to "The Warlord of Blood" my bad.
anyway, ill start sketching stuff and reading through yalls posts more thoroughly.
:D
Also, remember when your sketching and stuff guys-
ReplyDelete70% real
30% imagined
and we need some style sheets >.>
and I'd rather not make it LOL
I'm going to comment on your stuff on the forums Joshua. I'll quote em. I like it tho.
ReplyDeletei dunno if you guys are still responding to this forum here, but i really like joshs story! i think the demon army should be made of the guards and corrupt villagers who have sold their souls in service. the reason why i don't think we should have any monsters is that this already sounds like a very lengthy and complex endeavor, and it will be enough to have to model several different looking archetypes for village people and guards.
ReplyDeleteon the same note, i support the first person pov because i think it will be easier to animate fighting for then main character then. but then we could also show off our modeling skills on the main character in some kind of game menu pause screen, where he is in idle.
yeah, for the opening dungeon scene, i agree that some group of rebels should break you out and you travel with them to escape. I like alexs idea of them using makeshift weapons at first (haha reminds me of your guys janitorial adventures 'spray bottle')
oh and realtime fighting i like that better
ReplyDelete