"Make game countdown longer and cooler"
Runteh
Join Date: 2010-06-26 Member: 72163Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2010-06-26 Member: 72163Members, Reinforced - Shadow
<div class="IPBDescription">Some possibilities?</div>I saw this pointer in the progress page, so thought I would start a thread. I think there are some really cool things that can be done with this.
Firstly when you spawn (aliens/marines) it would be great to have the sense that you are being 'born' into a fresh husk of a body. This could be some sort of visual effect, maybe some blur that then comes into focus. Maybe some double vision, almost drunk like.
At the start of the game the effects could last say 1-2 seconds (large visual impairment) with another 5 seconds or so moving from little blur to none. When you spawn in game, maybe lasting 1 second or so.
It would also be great to hear a musical introduction instead of the simple bleeps. They are not very threatening. It would be great to get the adrenalin flowing with a good bass line perhaps, with some solo drum work (not kit, but African style drums).
Firstly when you spawn (aliens/marines) it would be great to have the sense that you are being 'born' into a fresh husk of a body. This could be some sort of visual effect, maybe some blur that then comes into focus. Maybe some double vision, almost drunk like.
At the start of the game the effects could last say 1-2 seconds (large visual impairment) with another 5 seconds or so moving from little blur to none. When you spawn in game, maybe lasting 1 second or so.
It would also be great to hear a musical introduction instead of the simple bleeps. They are not very threatening. It would be great to get the adrenalin flowing with a good bass line perhaps, with some solo drum work (not kit, but African style drums).
Comments
You shouldn't have an actual countdown "5,4,3,2,1" but instead play a random (or map specific) sound kind of like in NS1 after the countdown was over like "cleanse the intruders"/"lets move out" but it could be like "xenobiotics detected... power systems compromised" and follow with a set of self-diagnostic messages from the station/ship ai like "power nodes intact" etc etc. especially cause you're always looking for things your sound guy can do!
The idea would be to make it less like a mario kart race and more like a cinematic. Maybe special effects similar to the power node environmental effects could be cycled during the countdown, to indicate the effect of the infestation on the ship's power system and allude to the significance of the power nodes / infestation in the game.
How awesome would that be? Creepy.
A female computervoice is speaking
"WARNING - Containment breach in Sect... *garbled static* ...ivilian personal is required to evacuate faz faz faci... *subwoofer boom on speaker* ...ing to plan alpha zero. Security personal is ordered to secure escaperou rou rou... *white noise* ...oo paragraph *speakers detonate all over the map*"
As there is no way i actually could design a map but want to experience that, I'm posting it here.
"Squad 1 report in"
*A couple of players form a squad*
"Squad 2 report in"
*A few more form another squad*
"Engineering team report in"
*A few basebuilders enlist*
That's of course assuming there isn't already some team preparation phase. Squad five would probably be overcrowded and nobody wants to be a baseguard, but maybe someone else can think it further.
okay, give it a 5 second preparation time for everybody to join and 5 seconds cooldown.
But a longer wait time than 10 seconds? I can't say that I'm a big fan of that.
And cooler? well, whats wrong with beeping?
Lights flickering on, would be pretty cool, but in my opinion it would annoy me after playing for a while. Same with same old voice intro repeating again every round start.
A short beeping counter is pretty neutral.
okay, give it a 5 second preparation time for everybody to join and 5 seconds cooldown.
But a longer wait time than 10 seconds? I can't say that I'm a big fan of that.
And cooler? well, whats wrong with beeping?
Lights flickering on, would be pretty cool, but in my opinion it would annoy me after playing for a while. Same with same old voice intro repeating again every round start.
A short beeping counter is pretty neutral.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Surely it would be cool if there was a more cinematic start to the game, so that when you spawn in it is still effecting you (such as vision) to a degree.
At the moment you just 'spawn' in at the start of the game, there is nothing smooth about how things start off.
Remember how cool it was in HL/HL2 when you kept waking up and things fading into view, that sort of thing condensed into a few seconds would be ace at the start and you got your bearings.
Also, lights flicking on throughout the level would be great, because marines (as I see it) have just arrived to neutralise the threat, so the station is being powered on as they arrive.
okay, give it a 5 second preparation time for everybody to join and 5 seconds cooldown.
But a longer wait time than 10 seconds? I can't say that I'm a big fan of that.
And cooler? well, whats wrong with beeping?
Lights flickering on, would be pretty cool, but in my opinion it would annoy me after playing for a while. Same with same old voice intro repeating again every round start.
A short beeping counter is pretty neutral.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I agree that it shouldn't be longer than a few seconds. However, what if all players gained control and could start moving within 5 seconds, but the atmospheric intro could continue playing? I'd have no problem with an announcer voice clip playing as everyone starts moving, as long as it's over before the first contact. (i.e. doesn't interfere with marines hearing the first skulks walking closeby)
It's also be cool to have the alien team watch their first skulks "hatching" from their eggs from a first person view. Have a special round-start-only version of the hatch where they bite their way out of the egg, maybe see other skulks at the hive shaking off the eggy goo like a dog. None of this would happen during the game, only at round start.
Would be a nice way of educating players on what their aim is, as long as it was done in a cool visual way and not made obvious. Rather as an atmospheric scene than a blatant tutorial.
I'm not a fan but some especially new players may find it atmospheric.
For me the cinematic is a nice smooth transition from the load screen to the feeling of immersion inside your virtual body.
As marines you are being replicated, your memory being loaded into a new husk or body. For the aliens you are being born in.
Some way of integrating this into marine replication and alien birth would be neato, which is why I like the idea a drunk/seeing double view as you spawn in, and still effecting you when you walk around.
Obviously at the initial start this should be more obvious (first 5-10 seconds) but shorter every time afterwards (2 seconds say).
Any other ideas?
<!--quoteo(post=1805904:date=Nov 17 2010, 01:56 AM:name=Deadzone)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Deadzone @ Nov 17 2010, 01:56 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1805904"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I agree that it shouldn't be longer than a few seconds. However, what if all players gained control and could start moving within 5 seconds, but the atmospheric intro could continue playing? I'd have no problem with an announcer voice clip playing as everyone starts moving, as long as it's over before the first contact. (i.e. doesn't interfere with marines hearing the first skulks walking closeby)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<i>Booming, male voice.</i>
Soldiers, as usual, you have order to establish a bridgehead and sterilize any subject of xenotic lifeform on contact. dismissed!
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It's also be cool to have the alien team watch their first skulks "hatching" from their eggs from a first person view. Have a special round-start-only version of the hatch where they bite their way out of the egg, maybe see other skulks at the hive shaking off the eggy goo like a dog. None of this would happen during the game, only at round start.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<i>a sweet female voice only a mother has</i> - after violent camera shaking and awful metal screaming
Wake up, little one. Danger is arriving.
---
I'd say that the first few seconds should be an in engine video but movements randomized, so one time the skulk shaking of the goo is standing in the corner left and runs off through the blastdoor to the right, while the next time its sitting under a vent and makes it exit through the same.
of course this requires some sort of bot routines, but we could need them later anyways.
well tf2 prep time is useful for actual preparation, and in l4d you got an individual intro for each map. In l4d it's actually quite good, since they are build to fit to that map, however that would require it to come with the map, instead of a generic predefined one. So you would have have to give the mappers the tools to create an intro, which again leads to the problem that a custom map could have one too, which could be on the one hand be done amazingly or on the other hand be pretty annoying (thinking of some intros in trackmania ugh). And then you also would require a fallback if someone does not create an intro.
So in the end it would again come down to a pretty generic countdown, e.g. light going on, or the hatching idea, maybe some random voice intro, while a real cinematic style intro could be the optional sugar on top.
When the match was starting in tournament mode, there was a countdown from 30 seconds but it then reached '5...4...3...match begins...now' and that was pretty cool to get everyone hyped up and ready.
When the game had 60 seconds left on the click you heard a voice say '60 seconds', then '30 seconds', then '10 seconds', then '5...4...3...2...1...' and it really added to the atmosphere in the last minute of the game when everyone was racing to either attack or defend against the clock.
Cool stuff... (apart from the whole 'jumping around firing' that took ages to kill people sometimes)