Hello good sirs,
My name is detourne_me, and I'm an avid follower of computer games from both of your companies.
Now, I undersand it may be tricky to work together because of legal issues, publishers, etc. but hear me out.
PLEASE make a Freedom Force 3 based on the Dragon Age Origins engine!
Seriously, the engine would be perfect for an updated, current-gen, action/strategy, freedom force game.
It mixes the fast paced action nature of MMO's like Champions Online or City of Heroes with strategy elements familiar to Freedom Force gamers.
In some ways it might be an easier transition than you'd think. Superheroes don't carry an inventory, and rarely ever change equipment. So there goes a large portion of coding right there. However you would have to expand on the classes in order to encompass the whole range of superhero powers.
Honestly I think the biggest challenges would be in Character Creation and creating flight-based combat.
For Character Creation you could go the route of MMO's and offer up body types and selectable add-ons. Since this is primarily a single player campaign game it would be best to allow gamers to create their own content, such as meshes and skins that are available now. However it may be difficult to attract meshers to make high-poly meshes. It might be best to implement a system where users can create bolt-ons that are easily added into the character creators inventory. Examples would be different melee weapons, or headgear pieces that people would make.
Please consider this, please!
:D
:blink:
and your idea removes the complete customization that made FF so fun
Quote from: the_ultimate_evil on November 16, 2009, 05:44:33 PM
and your idea removes the complete customization that made FF so fun
My idea for complete customization is to rip off The Sims 3
In other words you have a base character (secret identity character, such as basic peter parker)
You next build a costume (these boots, these tights, this mask, etc)
You use user generated content to add the textures and parts you need (spidey texture, spidey logo, spidey accessories)
EDIT: Lugaru ninja'd me, so my post might be odd.
So I'm guessing neither of you have played the game.
I'm not talking about removing customization at all, in fact I'm talking about making it more user friendly.
Take a look at Oblivion or Fallout 3 mod communities. In some regards modding for FF is much easir (installing skins/meshes) but in others it's quite difficult (full campaigns, FFX).
Games like Oblivion are nearly the opposite.
Dragon Age is like this too, and there is a burgeoning mod community for it.
IT IS MODDABLE.
I'm talking about bringing the (in my opinion) much nicer interface and game design of Dragon Age into the Freedom Force mythos. Of course this would improve graphics and other aspects too.
I guess I shouldn't have posted in a tongue-in-cheek and hastily written letter format, but I was just so excited to see the similarities between the two games.
-random melee attack animations that play continuously until a new order is issued.
-camera movements to zoom in and out of the battle - executed very nicely in DA:O
-character select is F-keys while power select is number keys (opposite to FF)
-pausing the action with the space bar in order to issue new commands
However Dragon Age:Origins also added in the WASD movement control which i feel is lacking in FF
Anyway, I know it's a pipe dream, but in the off chance that someone at Irrational sees this....
EDIT 2:
Actually Lugaru, that's kind of how I enviosioned the character creation here too.
There is a base mesh, there are preset builds, or a "Load Custom" button that allows you to navigate to a special mesh object.
That would be available for all parts (like headgear, clothing, gloves, weapons etc.
You would also be able to select prebuilt textures or load a user created texture.
In my notion you would have one folder where the user created textures would be housed. They could be named "Spider-man_UE.DDS","Spider-man_C6.DDS" what have you. This way it is much easier to organize all of your custom skins and meshes.
detourne_me: As for crazy character creation (it is how I'm designing my tabletop and tactics superhero games) a character basically is a name, face and basic powers/skills that dont change. You could have a dozen suits linked to him that would give different abilities, or better yet you could mix and match.
For example you could have Peter Parker (civies), Spiderman, Spiderman Black (stat boosts, webs have no cost), Spider Armor (increased armor, moves slower), etc.
Crazier still: suits have powers, such as the iron man suit having flight, blasters, etc. So if you dragged and dropped an Iron Man suit on Bruce Wayne he would still have the basic wayne skills (stealth, detective, martial arts, etc) in Iron Man armor.
You know, drag and drop a yellow power ring on The Punisher and see what happens...
The idea is basically "power packs" aka clusters of powers tied to an origin (radioactive spider bite, kryptonian, supersoldier serum) or equipment (punisher armory, War Machine Armor, Utility Belt, Power Ring). That way you could instantly create new kryptonians or atlanteans or skrulls or kree by giving them basic powers and then add items (blasters, jet packs) that give them more powers.
Lastly all characters can learn skills that boost powers by percent, so no matter if your character is street level or godlike it is good to learn how to control your powers and equipment. So you could attach "damage" or "accuracy" to any power and spend experience on that, meaning the power remains identical but your characters use of it expands.
So just to test:
You have a new character (Betsy Braddock)
You could build her powers from scratch, or you could drop power packs on him such as Ninja (group of useful combat, movement and stealth skills), Mutant Telepath (mind powers) and a custom Psy Blade (psychic damage melee with killer stun).
Oh man, that's a great system!
and coincidentally follows the same RPG style that DA:O has too - attaching ability slots, and after enough leveling up, a specialization.
I believe this has been pursued in FFX with the clustered attributes (like classic superhuman - inv., weakness, flight, etc)
It works really well in keeping a shared universe (or shared game universe) where scales of power remain constant.
Currently in FF, people have the freedom to do what they want with hero files, meaning some people have a 20k prestige Batman while others might have a 10k prestige batman.
I know this gives people A LOT of freedom, however I think it kind of hinders some things. I'm reluctant o use other people's hero files as their ideas of scale are inconsistent with mine and other people's scales.
In your tabletop game you can have complete control over what the numbers mean, correct? Maybe a 10 strength is always Superman level, but what is Batman, a 2? a 4?
When we are modding a game I would like to keep the scales as close to the original game's power level as possible, so my hero files have probably much lower prestige costs than many other people.
I would quite like these plug and play power sets, as it improves cohesiveness (and saves time in my opinion)
I just wanted to comment on one point on Lugaru's post, one that really bugs me: Sims 3 customization is NOT what I'd want to see with a game like this. Sims 2 might be a bit more livable (and honestly, I dislike that one too), but I've tinkered with Sims 3 enough to know that
A. It is INCREDIBLY difficult to make new meshes/mesh pieces for. Beyond the simple fact that most regular users can't make models at a high enough quality to look right with it, importing and exporting is a colossal pain in the arse. We may have gripes about the nif exporters that Irrational gave us, but with them I don't have to export to a format, use another program to import that format into a simpack, then save that so I can open it in the game.
B.In the same manner, textures are also a pain in the tucus. Putting in a simple skin edit to make a standard hero (cyclops's graduation duds) took several hours of tinkering, and I didn't do anything except tell it to allow me to recolor certain sections. And don't even get me started on trying to get it to use custom logo patterns...
The fact is, the closest thing to what I think you're referring to is probably Champions, and even that would have to have a massive change to allow for simple user modification before I'd even think about accepting it over FF.
The simple fact is guys, you can get CLOSE to what you want with the massive engines, but it's never exactly right. The reason I love FF is because I can get EXACTLY what I want, I don't have to settle for what the engine allows. The fact that I have to work a bit harder to get there with FF then I do with Champions doesn't bug me, because it's work that I believe is well spent.
Quote from: Tomato on November 17, 2009, 01:25:19 PM
The simple fact is guys, you can get CLOSE to what you want with the massive engines, but it's never exactly right. The reason I love FF is because I can get EXACTLY what I want, I don't have to settle for what the engine allows. The fact that I have to work a bit harder to get there with FF then I do with Champions doesn't bug me, because it's work that I believe is well spent.
bingo and we have a winner, my point is still valid you go the route you guys are talking about and we lose what made the community great. the idea to take the game as a base and go any direction we wanted
UE, I don't know what your point is. Please elaborate on your vague comments.
Tomato brought up great points about the difficulty of creating high poly meshes and the exporting process, I recognize that.
I'm also trying to point out that in DA:O the game runs through certain animation loops and situations that would probably allow pre-existing meshes and animation sets.
I honestly find custom creation pretty clunky in the FF games, especially when you have 1000 plus meshes. What I'm suggesting is a way to clean that up with a new window that allows you to choose a custom mesh easily.
Also, I guess I never wrote about it before, but as modding gets more intense, people want unique things like head.nifs made. I'm sure those are extremely difficult to make, as only Volsung and Tommyboy have made custom head.nifs.
I'm trying to propose a system that would allow cutscenes to focus on he already existing faces on the meshes. Why not have base meshes that could be quite expressive, VX meshes that can follow the same animation loops, and static faces like most meshes?
my point is, that the way you are putting these character creation systems forward in your ideas, is that it leaves very little in terms of artistic freedom that the current games give.
from the way you have described these systems you have a standard set number of body shapes that which you can then add and subtract elements of the costume. basically unless you can add to this with completely new elements, which from experience with this type of customization system is hard to impossible. this puts skinners etc to the side unless it's simple re colours.
you may say even at the start FF only had basic models but we still had total control of how we wanted our characters to work.
maybe i'm wrong but honestly the way you described it sounds like the create a wrestler you see in games like smackdown
you guys have some cool ideas.really.ive always thought that the only limit to this game is each persons own imaginations.this game can be ANY game you can think of with all the skins,meshes,fx, and maps the choose from or create.the simplicity of this game is appealing to me also.its not complicated to play.to me FFVTTR is the ultimate hero game. and we have a super creative team here also.
Bah, you kids and your high tech expensive game engines...
I think we should go backwards. Make a freedom force MUD or nethack variation.
Imagine the creative freedom of representing heroes as one of like 50 different ASCII characters in like 16 colors.
That like a base palette of 800 different character options!!
And I bet it could fit on a floppy.... er thumbdrive!
It would be amazing!
Quote from: detourne_me on November 17, 2009, 11:21:37 AM
In your tabletop game you can have complete control over what the numbers mean, correct? Maybe a 10 strength is always Superman level, but what is Batman, a 2? a 4?
In my system both Superman and Batman have the exact same strenght, but Superman has an "Ultra Might" power that multiplies his strenght allowing him massive damage, incredible feats and so on. But if something gets in the way of his ultra might (like Kryptonite) well he is left with his human levels...
Somebody like Colosus on the other hand is stronger than superman but his strenght multiplying power is lower, so without his powers he is stronger but when you take powers into consideration supes has him beat any day of the week.
Still I really want to see the next freedom force style game sometime in the future! I've even searched flash games for a good hero game and have had no luck. Cant wait to try champions though...
Quote from: lugaru on November 18, 2009, 03:32:01 AM
Cant wait to try champions though...
While the Character Creator in Champions is cool and fairly comprehensive (but not completely open) the game is...lacking.
I admit I know zip about meshing and skinning but I not sure I understand why this wouldnt work. How about just give the option to either create a whole new standalone skin/mesh or create pieces for the character creator? Isnt that how Oblivion is?
As for the engine, how about something even more real time like MUA, with the option to pause and issue orders or something? Thats prob not the best example though but a mix of action and strategy.
Quote from: gengoro on December 18, 2009, 08:40:21 PM
As for the engine, how about something even more real time like MUA, with the option to pause and issue orders or something? Thats prob not the best example though but a mix of action and strategy.
meh...MUA is too much action oriented, and in the end i barely use the pause, i just choose my favorite character and mash up the attack button until everybody's dead. In Dragon Age i'm a micro-manager, i use every character equally (and not just the leader) and carefully choose target for everyone. It's much closer to freedom force than MUA is.
Haha, I work for BioWare and I'm a big FF fan but I gotta admit I never thought about this.
Very interesting ideas though.