Reaver's Thread

By R34V3R on October 22, 2008 5:59:36 PM from

ok, im not going on some damn power trip, or a rant or even gameplay feedback, its more along the lines of UI/Design/look of the game itself...

The title is so I can rememebr what thread this is and rez if needed (such as no game developers seeing it, or at least posting, I WANNA HEAR WHAT THEY SAY, TOO!)

My main points/suggestions will have something like this: ---title here---

Im gonna try and explain things as best I can in this thead to get my point across, so many things of other games may be present here, dont be afraid to have any ideas of your own, or to praise others as seen fit, remember, this is MOSTLY on how demigod looks/feels, very few ideas on gameplay here!

With that said, lets dive into the world ruled by Demigods, so join me for my ride of suggestions/ideas/and thoughts!

---Introduction---

It seems much of what people are doing are giving suggestions on Gameplay, or at least they will when BETA 2 is rolling into our laps wrecking our face and having fun doing it, thus the ways of the Demigods. I have a knack (spelling?) for looking at random things, and looking at how my looks as he owns someone (posing is everything, looking sweet as hell ftw) thus, I like to watch and imagine seeing this stuff go down in real life. (giant castle with hammer would be awesome). I notice that the background had switched from a large body of water, to clouds, I also notice the orbs glow on the portals, signifying when the next wave it to roll out. I notice the many cracks that the RooKs hammer makes when he uses it, or the camera shake as he walks, this is where I got the idea for this thread, from these few examples...

---Tale of Allies and Enemies---

Ok, this is one major thing that people seem to have a problem with. Now, we all know there are two sides in this game: Good and Evil (Nice and Bad...). Well, why not keep the people on the 'good' side the same, but darken the ones on the evil side. Heres an Example: the RooK looks like hes made of nice tanish Bricks, well, if hes evil, make him have a grey tint (like stone). others, make them look evil, give Regs armor a more sinister look, with that said, make RooK a bit more... angular? (right way to describe it?) make him more 'edgy'. Same goes for others. The minions look different, why not the Demigods...

Now then, Allies, well, if your on either team, the above will help out on which is on your team, but not whose this RooK or that RooK, this is where color is important, I think there needs to be a way to see whos color is whos in the selection screen, and to have color more promonent (hate spelling cant do it) so here, RooK could have is eyes the color of the play (not the area around his head, too goofy looking), maybe have some of the details on his hammer be player color, the flag just isnt enough, Regulus could have his goggles player color, and some of the details on his crossbow too. The many details on TB whole outfit could be player color. Vampire Lords armor could be player color (using the loading screen now). QoTa hair or Vines on her body could be player color and UB spikes could be player color.

---Towers---

The Towers seem to be just... there... they seem... like, um... the NPCs of Morrowind, stiff, just there, not due much... So I think the Towers should hurt more (gameplay, I know) and have a longer time between fires, and aim at the same guy till outta range, or dead. Heres where I got this from: along time ago (in a game universe far far away) I played C&C original, and I will never forget the first time I saw the Oblisk of Light. I was edging my way across the top portion of the map, below me was a Nod base, I turned to fallow it (try and get to the front door) and I saw this single small, black spire. I was imediatly (FREAKING SPELLING) drawn to it. then at the top of this 'spire' three small pixels gradually turned white. Then came a very red line that insta-killed my GDI medium tank, fallowed by a sound... that sound... the sound of, of... Bees, that seemed to receed into the distance... needless to say, I waited to attack that base... so heres my proposal, give the Towers (light and dark) a charge up visual and sound that is scary, that makes you think twice on attacking it (hence stronger tower)...

Towers also seem bland, I think they need something (as do the other buildings) that seperates them from their good/evil counterpart. Good Buildings should have a more heavenly apperance. Towers should have something that moves around, or floats about the towers. I got this idea from Heroes of Might and Magic 5, if youve ever seen the Inferno Castle, they have buildings that float about it. So having the Evil towers with Spires (more scary) and pieces of debris floating about it, gives it some attitude. The good Towers could have wisps of magic floating around them with something that compliments the spikes of the evil towers. Basically, make them visually different.

The beams of towers... I think the beam of the Light tower is perfect, but I think the beam of the Dark tower (for the instant you see it) should have the same effect like to drop ships in The Chronicles of Riddick, where the 'energy' is is sucked into the beam, not out of it... Also, if you do the Oblisk idea above, make the beams last longer

---BOOM HEADSHOT!---

Reguluses Headshot ability needs to have another visual effect, when then arrow he shoots travels, it should make dust fromt he ground part, as if it has some power to it. I got this idea from RooKs Hammer smash dust...

---Strategy FTW?---

Strategic Icons should be implemented, but able to turn off completely. Only see them if zoomed out all the way

---Game interface upgraded of awesomeness?---

Ok, one I reeeeally like, make the UI more like the Demigod you are, and make in animated (able to turn off)...What do I mean? see the UI with you character, HP/Mana bar, upgrades, abilites, and the such? see the Design of the menus for your ability tree? make em more like you Demigod. Look at Warcraft 3, when you the humans, you UI is blandish, when your, Undead... its got skulls and such... so, if your TB make the UI half Fame half Ice, when picking abilities, make the Fire abilites connected by flame, then Ice abilties connected by Ice... and make the UI animated (moving flames). Or when TB is ice mode, UI is Ice, when hes on fire, make the UI flame). Idea for RooK? make it more castle-ish with a brick appearance, make UBs ooze poison, QoTs? make it have vines... heres a stretch for ya, whenever a symbolic ability is used, have the UI react.. what do I mean? when the RooK uses Hammer Smash, have the screen shake slightly, and have dust roll/fall off your UI. When Regulus uses his Angelic Attack, have his UI glow intensly white. When QoT uses her spikes ability, have vines quickly wrap around the UI then disappear... when UB uses his ULT, have Green orbs get sucked into his UI, or when he uses an ability, have ooze quickly overtake the UI then disipate... Basically, have each UI cater to each Demigod.

---You Just Got Rook Rolled...---

I dont know, I dont like the boulder, doesnt seem like the RooK, I think the RooK should slam the ground with his hammer, and have chunks of Earth rise and fall in a row, seems more like hes using his strength then just tossing a boulder for thin air

---YOU CANT DIE ON ME ROOK!---

I think the RooKs death animation should have him dissmember brick by brick into a heap, just seems cooler...

---RooKs Tower Of Power---

RooKs tower needs to look visually different then the rest (not just smaller)

--Whats Gold Mine is MINE!---

I think the Gold Mines at the bases should be different then the ones in the field, I think they should be bigger. Ever played Heroes of Might anf Magic 5? seen the mines, they have a shaft that goes strait down, witha wood shoot next to it, thats what those gold mines should look like...

---Maps of Mayhem and Fun---

First off, I want the Water in the background of the Waterfall Map back, made it look more epic and big. anywho... I think each map should have some sort of different look thats random, or can be picked... heres an Example: On the Waterfall map, have another variant where its in need of repair and in disarray, like having a TON of vines hanging off the statue in the back, and off the lanes. On the Mine Level, have cracks with lava showing, and maybe coming off the sides a bit ( no need to have it damage the player) and other things...

Big thing here, BIG THING!, out door maps need to have a NIGHT variant, sooo cool...

---I CANT see clearly now, the weather sucks so bad...---

Weather effects, need them, want them, hump them... er forget the last one... Rain... Lightning... Ash... Snow... Dust... need them soooo awesome, please...

---WE GOT A FLOATER!---

Have dead minions float in the water ducts on the Waterfall map...

---End Game... Er... End Note---

Ok, so this is it, what I can remember off the top my head, I lost the list I had... So lets hear what you guys want done VISUALLY, what ideas are brewing in those brains? Im gonna REZ this thread at some point, seems the game designers dont really read this stuff right now, they are working to hard, so when they start listening, I will REZ this thread, I seriously wanna hear from the DEV team on the Visual ideas we have...

Add in you visual comments on me, and what you think and what you want!

+3 Karma | 13 Replies

OK, u are asking alot of huge things here, lots of which sound cool on paper but are either impractical or not so good when thought about.

The idea i like the most of yours is the good/evil counterparts, BUT only if that is what is meant by the good evil thing, from the lore i thought that they were just labels fort eh 2 sides, not actually about a 'good' side and a 'bad' side.

OK are u attacking morrowind?!?!?!? cause i love that game. The towers could do with some spicing up BUT i have a suspicion that this would be hard-to-impossible without ruining the feel of Demigod

Your UI ideas SOUND cool, but the UI would be so epicly congealed, you wouldnt be able to see anything, especially if you were new to the game. Also this will be at the very bottom of the list of important things for stardock to do.

The boulder IMO is cool and so is the rook animation at the moment.

The map ideas esentially require a remake of every map, this would be incredibly inpracticle and the art team should spend their time on more necessary things.

Your ideas sound cool but very few of them are practicle

um no, they are not that hard to do, and the UI thing wont take up the screen if animated, but that was a stretch, instead, just having them look and feel more like the Demigod your playing will suffice.

How can making the Towers look different ruin what Demigod looks like, they look stiff and bland, not much to em

Good and Evil thing is just to make out opponents and allies, not really a side thing

attacking Morrowind? sorta, I love the game to, but the people walked SO stiff, but thats really the only bad thing about it.

Pretty much all of your suggestions are in the direction of adding more "atmosphere" and "character" into the game.

While I would admit that gameplay is what really matters, IMHO, having those things like misty particle effects around tower, custom UI for each Demigod, models that really give each Demigod personality/ a good/evil flavor, etc. are really what makes a game magical and awesome.

I would definitely pay extra for a game that had excellent atmosphere and just FELT like everything fit together (if you know what I mean), so I fully support pretty much all your ideas Reaver.

btw, I'm probably pre-ordering this within the next couple days, so watch for me in Beta 2.

I pretty much agree with almost everything you wrote Reaver. Your ideas would change the atmosphere of the game for the better and some of them are rather easy to implement while others are might be a little tricky:

Good vs. evil: I think this is probably the most important point, the player has to be able to see if a Demigod is on his team or not in the blink of an eye! The changes to the 3D meshes (more spikes...) are probably rather time-consuming but giving the evil team a darker look should be easy enough (by making a different shader or reworking the textures a little bit). If the system didnt change much from SupCom, the player color is in the alpha channel of the specular map and should be easy to rework (Ill do it myself if I have to).

Strategic icons: I WANT!!! They work awesome in SupCom/FA and it would be great to have them in Demigod too. Maybe they can be disabled by default so new players arent scared away by them but they are extremely useful to get an idea whatts going on fast. Also very useful if you are zoomed out!!!

Towers: A sound that builds up just before a tower fires would be great and add a lot to the immersion in the game. I'd like to have a visually very different mesh for the dark towers too.

Rooks death animation (falling to pieces): Great idea, I hope this can be added!

Weather: This is a tricky one. Realistic looking rain and snow often take a significant toll on the frames per second and make it harder to see stuff. While this is great for shooter games, it might not work well with Demigod.

Maps: Day and night. A night version of the maps would be nice and its fast and easy to do that. Actually I already did that as a mod in the first beta. Took me like 30 minutes (including getting used to the Demigod map editor).

UI: A slightly different UI for each Demigod would be awesome. Animations however might be more difficult as the whole UI is texture based and implementing a good animation takes some time and manpower (read: money). The different UIs for the Demigods would be great for the release (makes for nice screenshots in ads... *wink* ) while the animation could be added in a patch later. But I'd prefer an additional Demigod over an animated UI!

Floating Minions: If it can be done with a reasonable amount of work I'm all for it!

Gold mines and buildings: It would be great to be able to see if your team still hold the flag or not with one glance. I'm proposing a 'tarmac' similar to SupCom only for good and evil. How about a patch of flowers and grass for the good team and dark, 'infected' earth for the evil team? Only takes a few lines of code and a few textures (in theory...).

And welcome Pelorn, about darn time...

My thoughts on your suggestions.

Good vs. evil: I think colors for sides would help a lot. Good side with lighter or brighter colors, dark side with dark or red colors.

Strategic icons:Mixed feelings, from 1 standpoint this is useful, but since the focus is on the demigod. You should be focused on the demigod with quick peaks at the map.

Towers: I love the idea of some towers deeper in the base have a charge up animation and sound. Right now, one of the biggest factors that need improvement is immersiveness. That will probably come in late beta additions. Hopefully.

Rooks death animation (falling to pieces): I had this same idea and figure they have too. They plan unique deaths for all demigods and I'd imagine more than just one. If this is done, roook crumbling need to be the first one.

Weather: Again, helps with the immersion. The problem as stated above is two fold, decreases fps and obscures view. An obscure view is fine for singleplayer but in multiplayer if my view is obscured and someone else has weather of and their view is not obscure, you now have things out of balance.

Maps: Day and night, Yes. Major overhauls to the map waste time of the art and map designers, when they could put the time of 3 revisions to 1 totally new map. I know what I would want.

UI: A slightly different UI for each Demigod would be cool, not necessary though. If there were fewer heroes, it would be a requirement, but with 8 heroes, it is less important.

Thanks to Col Jessup for my posting format.

Quoting Col_Jessep,

reply 4

Maps: Day and night. A night version of the maps would be nice and its fast and easy to do that. Actually I already did that as a mod in the first beta. Took me like 30 minutes (including getting used to the Demigod map editor).

Had a lot of trouble with the editor. I would love to see you or someone else begin to put together a map editor tutorial.

Quoting Pelorn,

reply 3

Pretty much all of your suggestions are in the direction of adding more "atmosphere" and "character" into the game.

btw, I'm probably pre-ordering this within the next couple days, so watch for me in Beta 2.

Look forward to seeing you and playing with and against you.

I will destroy you!

I'd absolutly weather effects. I know I zone out in the begining of most games just watching the dust roll across the ground while I fly to wherever I'm heading.

The Good/Evil would be amazing. I also think it'd be great to have an option when hosting a game that would restrict the teams. (IE: Rook/Reg can only be Good and TB/UB can only be evil.) Not for most games, but just for a fun game every now and then.

The Tower idea is great as well.

Ok, you know what? I'll just end up agreeing with most of what ya said. I'll just go and agree with what Pelorn, the atmosphere is extreamly important to me. BUT! Make it look too good and I'll be extreamly terrible at this game, spend too much. There's no way I'll be able to concentrate if it looks that much better then it already does.

Quoting Trigeminal,

reply 6

Had a lot of trouble with the editor. I would love to see you or someone else begin to put together a map editor tutorial.

A little to soon to start on tutorials yet and mapping in Demigod will be really more modding - but there are a lot more things that can be edited than in SupCom too. If you have SupCom you should give the SupCom mapeditor a look. I will make a Demigod mapping tutorial once we have a better idea what to expect in the final release. But this is going off topic...

If you have any questions you can find us on: SupComUniverse (Demigod Section), 2 screenshots I made during beta 1

OK, u guys are all taking a fantastical "what i would like to see" without thinking about it, weather effect are epicly draining on processor power and hard to do, they are kinda cool but they are the things that they shouldnt be working on or thinking about until the game is incredibly polished already, other things are more important.

The evil/good thing is good IF that is the intention of the two sides, which i dont think it is, i think it is just names for the two teams.

The idea of animated UI is draining, unnecessary and convaluted, although i dont necessarily disaggree with the individual demigod UI's though.

The dead minion idea will just drain processor power.

Some of the ideas are cool, but they are NOT important and shouldn't be thought about this early

let me guess, you have a crappy computer? Because it wont drain much processing power, and its not that hard to do. They need to put the same effort into 'llok' as they do gameplay.

No, i got an asomely new comp, it could probs run some of the things but gameplay is millions of times more important than graphics. Dead minions staying is EPICLY draining.

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Reaver's Thread