Development Blog Update - Unknown Worlds Videocast #2 - hivecast
Max
Technical Director, Unknown Worlds Entertainment Join Date: 2002-03-15 Member: 318Super Administrators, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts, Future Perfect Developer
Technical Director, Unknown Worlds Entertainment Join Date: 2002-03-15 Member: 318Super Administrators, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts, Future Perfect Developer
Comments
Alien commander idea seems kinda silly to me because gorges drop structures \: unless you guys are changing that. Anywho i trust you guys will make an awesome game <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />!
Also, with the glowies in the alien base, when the player respawns, he should be able to control one, and get to pilot it to the ground so that it will transform into an egg. This way, the player could choose where he gets to spawn to an extent.
i still dont like the alien comm, its destroy the "feeling" from aliens. when marines have one, aliens should not
the hive itself looks great. but by this front/back pic looks he to fett (only my opinion)
i love this firefly-egg concept, maybe you can fly by youreself, but you die when you go to far away from the hive (6 metres?)
great hivecast <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />
i hope you finish NS2 in the next jear (maybe in the next 2 jears
I do love the new concept for the alien hive. The old hive always felt sort of like it was rubber. There was nothing drippnig off of it, nothing eminating out, no lights inside, no... "LIFE." It didn't seem to be alive at all, just a static object. *shrug*Even when you shot it, there wa sno sounds, it just splattered a little yellow goo. Which I realize was done using the HL1 engine, but I would imagine maybe you guys can make it glow, "bleed" when shot, and move around like crazy when it is somehow interacted with.
The fog and "glowies" both look and sound great. Hive areas should have more life and a more habitat feel to them, definitely!
Very interesting ideas, sounds awesome.
Don't you think it will be a problem that marines now don't have to aim upwards to attack a hive? If marines can just shoot at hives in a streight line while still having full view of everything that's happening on the ground, aliens will have a much harder time fighting back marines.
But please no Khaara commander. The game alwys was balanced though the differences of the two teams, which really rocked. An alien comm would bring the two teams too close to each other. The alien idea is that they are connected by the hive, which is kinda passive. Don't let it become active.
Plz dont throw away such approved concepts.
Perhpas the alien comm can draw trails of pheromones (which could even slightly restore health, give a speed boost like those racing games when you drive over green triangles, restore a little adrenaline that kind of thing (or can choose, or depends onlifeform)) this would be like way points but without making feel like its just a human in a hive costume.
EDIT - I see the alien commander's role more of a dungeon/hive keeper, rather than an actual commander. Inticing and encouraging rather than barking orders.
GREAT CONCEPT BTW!!! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />
If the hive is connected to the ceiling and the tentacles need to touch the floor, doesn't that mean all hive rooms have to be the same height ceiling to floor? Might get a bit samey. Procedural models for the tentacles or ceiling tendons would get around that, but would seem to be tricky to do in Source.
The "glowies" remind me of the servitor insects in the Matrix machine city, which were also cool.
An alien commander that works like the marine commander would pretty much eliminate the need for a gorge class wouldn't it? Not sure if that's good or bad. It seems more in keeping for the aliens to have a hive mind commander than for the marines, any chance that marine command function could be incorporated into a marine engineer class?
I like the idea of NS2s hive being a visible evolution of the NS1 hive. Smoke'n!
As for the alien commander, I'm already 99% sure that charlie won't be silly enough to make a second marine commander, but then in a hive. I'm thinking more of indeed the dungeon siege style of commanding, where the alien commander would be telling the gorges what good places for structures would be. How? I'm not sure. Also, this might be a nice way to somewhat "control" the dynamic infestation, making it grow on it's own, but with an alien commander giving the possibility to have it grow into a certain direction faster.
And, <b>if</b> the alien comm comes through, would there be a form restriction? Per example only gorges can become alien commanders? I really don't see how those tentacles would absorb an entire onos. ^_^
- Garo
Also, perhaps these things could latch on to Marines and act as leeches? Perhaps when killed, they release spores? Maybe they could parasite Marines that are nearby when it 'explodes' upon it's death?
I don't know, just throwing ideas out there. All of these things could make it harder to attack a Hive.
Sure!
But one thing is scary, alien commander?
What will he do?
The same like marine commander?
Hmm sounds a little bit ...ya crazy but i hope you will made it.
@high
i think and i hope there will be a classic mode from community.
NOT because NS2 will not good, i think ns2 will be great but diffrent then ns1 classic.
So the people who like classic more, can play that, otherwise the new *g*
P.S. the idea with flying things, are awesome, huge atmo. point.
Other than that, good discussion.
If the hive is connected to the ceiling and the tentacles need to touch the floor, doesn't that mean all hive rooms have to be the same height ceiling to floor? Might get a bit samey. Procedural models for the tentacles or ceiling tendons would get around that, but would seem to be tricky to do in Source.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Right. I actually talked about that a bit, but I think it might have gotten edited out of the final vidcast. I was thinking that the "ceiling tendons" the hive hangs from would have varying lengths. This would either be done procedurally, or, more simply, there would be several versions of the hive model, with varying tendon lengths, that the mappers could choose from, allowing the mappers to have more flexibility in the height of their hive room ceilings.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->As for the alien commander, I'm already 99% sure that charlie won't be silly enough to make a second marine commander, but then in a hive. I'm thinking more of indeed the dungeon siege style of commanding, where the alien commander would be telling the gorges what good places for structures would be. How? I'm not sure. Also, this might be a nice way to somewhat "control" the dynamic infestation, making it grow on it's own, but with an alien commander giving the possibility to have it grow into a certain direction faster.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Agreed entirely. The alien commander shouldn't be issuing orders like the marine commander does, but should be in control of the more ambient aspects of the aliens. For example:
1) As already mentioned, DI growth and management. Directing the overall flow of DI across the map, and "prepping" new hive areas.
2) Adjusting the rate of "glowy" or egg respawn to better account for deaths on the team. You could add a dynamic of having to balance between faster respawns (for a team that's dying fast), and speedier DI growth to outpace the marines destruction of it, and prepping new hives areas faster.
3) Control of station systems that are covered with DI. This would enable to alien comm to turn lights on\off or control spotlights, open and close doors or lifts, and control the functions of certain alien structures built on the DI. This would also allow for tactics the rest of the alien team can use (flipping off lights at a specific time for ambushes). You would still have gorges building all the structures, but the alien comm would control the variables of each structure built on his DI.
A gorge could build a "nydus canal", but the alien comm could evolve speed upgrades for it so lifeforms could pass through faster, or allow it to grow bigger to accommodate an onos. You can come up with ideas all day, but you would still need to find a good balance between making the alien comm useful, and keeping gorges as the main builder class.
Structures could still be built off the DI by gorges, but if they're built on DI (or later DI covers them), the alien comm can enhance them in some way. The alien comm could be the coordinator of the teams gorges, while all the higher lifeforms would still do their own thing.
Id like it if the hive felt more dynamic and alive. the glowies and the tentical animations will help that alot. i had some other ideas that may also help.
Parts of the hive could be semi transparent so you could see parts inside the hive moving, maybe and cyclical animation of the glowies being produced from embryos or something. If there is an alien comm inside maybe you could see it moving. At the momment the hive has an animation to react to gun fire, i think it wud be cool if the hive reacted to other things. For example if some rines entered the hive chamber and the hive was aware of them, its glow could change colour, or the glow could expand. It could try and snare nearby rines with its tenticals, the glow could shrink a little and track the rines movements by moving across the hive kind of like an eye watching.
The reason I wonder is because if you force a marine to look in all directions, it becomes a lot harder to defend oneself from being flanked.
Also, if the goal is to help alleviate the frustration of being spawn camped, you could have it that cocoons / eggs do not contain the players waiting to spawn, in addition to that players could decide to spawn individually or as a group and decide which cocoon to spawn from as well.
On the topic of Kharaa Komander aka Hive Mind: from what we have discussed previously in other threads, The Hive Mind deserves a chance to prove itself and should not be out right dismissed. Good ideas have been offered on how the Hive Mind can be dramatically and play very different than the Marine Commander.
Someone else in this thread pointed out that a hive hanging relatively high does force players to keep their eyes off the ground, where skulks could be running around. I do believe that players a major role in hive defense.
The glowies were nice, and reminded me of Metroid Prime, but when you started explaining the game design effect you were planning I got really excited. This is the answer you're giving to spawncamping I assume, and it seems like it might work out well without making a spawncamp totally impossible to establish.
In the future, I don't think anyone minds being told the "dry" side of NS in a "fireside" podcast, but again, having the art assets and new designs is really nice no matter how hype-directed or gameplaycentric a person might be.
I'm curious, in all the concepts and in the general atmosphere of NS, hives appear in large epic rooms. <!--coloro:lime--><span style="color:lime"><!--/coloro-->(How) do you plan to enforce (or encourage) that hives remain placed within "climax" style architecture instead of just being hidden behind a corner in the back of double?<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Finally, I think that the alien absorption-into-hive idea <i>looks</i> very cool graphically, but like darktimes, jaboo, corpsman, Hollo, schkorpio, Angelusz, MAAAD, KFDM, BCSeph, high, Price, aeroripper, Revenge, and no doubt many others - I'm deeply concerned at the seeming tilt toward a <b><!--coloro:red--><span style="color:red"><!--/coloro-->symmetrical<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b> alien commander. Please, read the last few podcasts' replies if you haven't done so already, and maybe take a look in the I&S forums as there have been discussions pertaining to alternate systems whereby the alien commander could still be implemented but <!--coloro:lime--><span style="color:lime"><!--/coloro-->without the milktoastification that would invariably come about with symmetrical commandermode gameplay designs<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->.
Thanks again for the podcast, and good luck.
PS: One of my favorite concepts for an alien commander involved no "chair" entity, but more of a "hands-off" lifeform ala The Ghost of Christmas Past, that would direct the alien team from the first-person view with tremendous movement capability, almost like an ancestral spirit if you're looking for a theme.
The glowies look and sound pretty awesome. Very organic and I imagine they'd add a lot to the atmosphere. I'm not sure how alien spawning would work in a way that would prevent spawncamping being fifty times worse though. The marines would merely have to mop up any egg laying around to prevent any aliens spawning. Obviously killing an uninhabited egg wouldn't yield any points, but having a number of fixed, visible locations from which an alien could spawn would be a lot easier than having to deal with aliens popping out of invisible spawn points to chew on their goolies, as in NS1.
--Scythe--
P.S. Zomgwtf Chromeangel! /wave
It's the difference in the gameplay for each team that makes NS (and ought to make NS2) so great... If you add and alien commander, for whatever perpose, you are taking away from that uniquness, and, therefore, producing an inferior game...
Just my opinion...
III