Xenoswarm - a new mod from the NS2Combat team!
A lot of people have been wondering why there's been such slow progress on Combat lately. After months of work I'm proud to be able to unveil a teaser for our next mod!
Video by Jibrail
Music: Natural Selection 1 main menu music
Xenoswarm
Our vision for Xenoswarm is a cross between a "Left 4 Dead" style co-operative experience and the asymmetrical combat that you all know and love in NS2. Choose from one of three classes (Assault, Support and Scout), each with their own unique abilities and work together to escape from the clutches of the alien horde.
Planned features
Roadmap
There's still lots of work for us to do, and over the coming months we will be working hard to get the mod in a fit state to release. We've learned a lot since releasing Combat last year, which has directly informed our design of this new mod. Expect an initial release in the spring/summer with the main functionality and some maps, with incremental updates to follow as we add new features. More information here as timelines become clearer...
The future of Combat Mode
Don't worry! We've not given up work on our rewrite of Combat mode. Xenoswarm shares most of the same code base and the same upgrade system, so all the work we've put in so far will allow us to relaunch Combat mode as a new mod in the next few months. By rewriting most of the code from scratch we've been able to make the code much easier to change. So much so in fact, if you launch Xenoswarm on a regular Combat map you already currently get something close to how we imagine the new version of Combat will look.
The Team
Over the last few months we've assembled a crack modding team to get this game off the ground:
JimWest - Creator of the Extra Entities mod, working on mapper support and all the AI logic.
Jibrail - Creative genius, test co-ordinator and balance supervisor
Evil_Ice - Master modeller and mod mentor.
MCMLXXXIV - Technical lead, Gameplay programmer and Mod architecture guru.
TwoStroker - Experimental mapper.
Mr. P - Server-side support and balance advisor.
OAG Clan - Logistical support.
Help Wanted
We're currently looking for mappers (see this entry in the Mapping thread) and we could also get the game out the door more quickly if we had some more manpower for the gameplay programming. If you would like to help us out, send me or Jibrail a direct message on here or on Steam!
Video by Jibrail
Music: Natural Selection 1 main menu music
Xenoswarm
Our vision for Xenoswarm is a cross between a "Left 4 Dead" style co-operative experience and the asymmetrical combat that you all know and love in NS2. Choose from one of three classes (Assault, Support and Scout), each with their own unique abilities and work together to escape from the clutches of the alien horde.
Planned features
- A class system with three different classes.
- A completely rewritten XP and upgrade system.
- AI-controlled enemies and allies.
- A builder weapon for the marines to allow creation of outposts.
- New weapons: Submachine Gun, Knives, Portable scanner, Laser trip mines and more!
- New maps with story-based progression.
- Difficulty scaling with the number of players and friendly bots making the game suitable as a single player experience.
Roadmap
There's still lots of work for us to do, and over the coming months we will be working hard to get the mod in a fit state to release. We've learned a lot since releasing Combat last year, which has directly informed our design of this new mod. Expect an initial release in the spring/summer with the main functionality and some maps, with incremental updates to follow as we add new features. More information here as timelines become clearer...
The future of Combat Mode
Don't worry! We've not given up work on our rewrite of Combat mode. Xenoswarm shares most of the same code base and the same upgrade system, so all the work we've put in so far will allow us to relaunch Combat mode as a new mod in the next few months. By rewriting most of the code from scratch we've been able to make the code much easier to change. So much so in fact, if you launch Xenoswarm on a regular Combat map you already currently get something close to how we imagine the new version of Combat will look.
The Team
Over the last few months we've assembled a crack modding team to get this game off the ground:
JimWest - Creator of the Extra Entities mod, working on mapper support and all the AI logic.
Jibrail - Creative genius, test co-ordinator and balance supervisor
Evil_Ice - Master modeller and mod mentor.
MCMLXXXIV - Technical lead, Gameplay programmer and Mod architecture guru.
TwoStroker - Experimental mapper.
Mr. P - Server-side support and balance advisor.
OAG Clan - Logistical support.
Help Wanted
We're currently looking for mappers (see this entry in the Mapping thread) and we could also get the game out the door more quickly if we had some more manpower for the gameplay programming. If you would like to help us out, send me or Jibrail a direct message on here or on Steam!
Comments
Thing is, that I would like to show these off to you and your team, of course. But I don't know how to attach the JPEG file properly, and I'm not sure if the designs are good enough, or what you are looking for. They look more alien than NS2's aliens, but don't quite beat out Giger's classics. In my opinion at least. If you tell me how to get this picture on the forums, you could see for yourself
*edit - got a couple of servers we would be happy to test with also
Thanks btw.
Thanks, i didn't know that. Tell me about the lighting. Do you think it's too dark? I didn't scan it, i just took a photo of it.
Another design. Could be used as Fade replacement. I'm working on an egg and some alien structures like the Hive.
Please let us (me!!!!) know when you guys are planning on doing some test, I'd love to help with that
Also, I have never coded on LUA, but I'm an avid programmer, not sure I can help with the coding here :-/
on a different note here is a video of yesterday's playtest, as you can see there are still some bugs here and there, not all features are implemented yet and work on AI will continue to make them "smarter" but its still tons of fun in its current state and we are very happy with the resaults. Thanks to Mr.P and twostroker from the oldassgamers clan and everyone else who joined us for the playtest, provided a good server and maps to go with them.
Enjoy the video!
=D>
One team trying to get as far as possible, the other team trying to stop them by becoming "special aliens". The team that gets furthest wins. Crescendo events in arena-like parts of the map create tense moments, an AI director chooses spawn locations for enemies and the amount based on how well the team is doing and by estimating the stress of each player…
Special Aliens:
Gorge
- Increased energy cost of Bile Bomb. The Bomb now acts like Boomer Bile and attracts a whole bunch of Babbler that spawn nearby and swarm at the affected players.
- Gorge can block paths up ahead with Hydras, Clogs and perhaps Whips (based on a personal supply limit, structures take damage over time once their parent Gorge died).
Lerk
- Provides area denial and separates marines with Spores similar to Spitter in L4D2.
- Puts marines under suppressing fire and forces them to take cover.
Fade
- Pure offensive power. If Blink gets a little speed boost for more energy reduction, the Fade can close in before marines notice.
- Can take one player out of the game for a while by using Vortex, similar to how a Hunter in L4D renders a survivor useless (though with constant DoT).
Onos
- Takes the role of the Tank. Only available in specific spots in a map, determined by the mapper.
- Onos should get a massive HP boost to sustain constant fire of 4 marines for a longer time but a little slowdown unless it charges in, so marines have a chance to dodge it
- Control over the Onos is given to another player if the Onos is not doing any damage in a certain amount of time. If that player is not doing any damage either, the AI will take over the Onos.
- A hit with the horn will damage a marine, send him flying for quite a while in the direction and drops him immobile on the ground as if he got Stomped.
Skulks are just the AI-controlled cannon fodder like normal zombies.
You could use a lot of mineshaft textures for the rock forms etc..