Terran Vampires REVIVED

[naomis8329]

I like the look of the screenshots, they look pretty cool.

 

Looking forward to the initial releases I've missed the mod and can't wait to see what you've managed to do :D

[WarRatsG]

if you guys still need help i can do play testing and a bit of interior building with the cs

 

Great ;)

Right now I actually have someone doing our render window work, seen as Im useless at it. Ive been using that time to enjoy the Scottish summer (or at least the closest thing we can get 8) ).

 

Ill need plenty of playtesters at some point though

[sheogorath2]

if you guys still need help i can do play testing and a bit of interior building with the cs

 

Great ;)

Right now I actually have someone doing our render window work, seen as Im useless at it. Ive been using that time to enjoy the Scottish summer (or at least the closest thing we can get 8) ).

 

Ill need plenty of playtesters at some point though

 

 

ok just let me know when i can help

[theuseless]

So just to keep the chat going, what would you say is the most "powerful" moment in a game for you? It could be something that - for just a moment - scared you right down to your core; it could be that feeling when you see that loveable ally you bonded with walking into a trap, and knowing you cant stop them; it could be that moment when you find yourself crouched right behind an enemy, and you can feel the satisfaction as you raise a knife to their throat...

It could be anything you like

 

Personally my most memorable game moment of recent history was seeing Moira after blowing up Megaton. That was crazy. She was my favorite person in Fallout 3. I had expected her to die a quick, painless death. But no, you turn the poor girl into a ghoul. Building up a character and then temptation to destroy everything you love for a price is wicked. It is cruel. It is everything a vampire would force out of a decision. Give us something to love, then make us sacrifice it. Mutilate it. Give us an Npc who is gentle and good and let us twist it into an unrecognizable monster. Power comes from forcing uncomfortable compromises. It comes from lies, and making everybody go along with it. If you want to make a good story, pull on the emotions of the player. This is the hardest thing to accomplish. I am trying to do such a thing for my mod, but my outline is only half done. I had a year without a computer which enabled me to get far on it, but it is difficult.

 

Back on topic, the most moving moment of video games when I was a child was finding hidden/concealed/secret content. Playing Shining Force II comes to mind. It was the first massive rpg environment I had ever seen. It has treasures which can turn your centaurs into pegasus knights. But the real treat of the game is the hidden battle. There is a secret battlefield hidden within one of the battle levels. It is very hard to beat at any level in the game. The combatants appear and disappear from the trees around you. One such enemy can bring a team member to their knees in one hit. The difficulty was insane. The hidden creatures were insane. But the experience and treasures you got were a just reward. You are in a position of leadership when making a quest line. This is a great responsibility. Sun Tzu said a good leader is knowledgeable about just reward and punishment. Pull on the great moments of video games in the past and you will find all have similar things in common. Emotions can be used like a reward and punishment system. You don't need objects, but they are nice too.

 

Please if other people have such memorable experiences, it would be fun to read them.

-theuseless

 

ps- I was once homeless and traveling. I used begging as a tool to survive. I learned that people don't give you money for "spare some change mister?" I had to learn to make people laugh or cry. I would borrow a dog from another road kid. I would buy 30 cans of alpo. Feed the dog, then rinse the can out. Fill it with Dinty Moore beef stew. The stuff is probably made in the same factory. When you sit and don't say a word but continue to take a bite every couple of minutes from the can, people give you money. You don't need to act like you hate the stuff, it really is the worst soup you can buy. But it is considered food grade for human consumption. The most I ever made off that line was $400 in one hour.

Edited July 30, 2012 by theuseless

[WarRatsG]

Personally my most memorable game moment of recent history was seeing Moira after blowing up Megaton. That was crazy. She was my favorite person in Fallout 3. I had expected her to die a quick, painless death. But no, you turn the poor girl into a ghoul. Building up a character and then temptation to destroy everything you love for a price is wicked. It is cruel. It is everything a vampire would force out of a decision. Give us something to love, then make us sacrifice it. Mutilate it. Give us an Npc who is gentle and good and let us twist it into an unrecognizable monster. Power comes from forcing uncomfortable compromises. It comes from lies, and making everybody go along with it. If you want to make a good story, pull on the emotions of the player. This is the hardest thing to accomplish. I am trying to do such a thing for my mod, but my outline is only half done. I had a year without a computer which enabled me to get far on it, but it is difficult.

 

Pretty deep mate ;) That was actually a concept we explored quite thoroughly. We decided not to leave it as some quick little side quest and give the concept the attention it deserves later on. Sounds like you're already capable of managing that, but you're completely right: the amount of thought needed to include that kind of emotion and characterisation is unreal.

 

 

Back on topic, the most moving moment of video games when I was a child was finding hidden/concealed/secret content. Playing Shining Force II comes to mind. It was the first massive rpg environment I had ever seen. It has treasures which can turn your centaurs into pegasus knights. But the real treat of the game is the hidden battle. There is a secret battlefield hidden within one of the battle levels. It is very hard to beat at any level in the game. The combatants appear and disappear from the trees around you. One such enemy can bring a team member to their knees in one hit. The difficulty was insane. The hidden creatures were insane. But the experience and treasures you got were a just reward. You are in a position of leadership when making a quest line. This is a great responsibility. Sun Tzu said a good leader is knowledgeable about just reward and punishment. Pull on the great moments of video games in the past and you will find all have similar things in common. Emotions can be used like a reward and punishment system. You don't need objects, but they are nice too.

 

Very true. There is a fine line between a sense of accomplishment and thinking "finally, that pointlessly hard bit is done". Optionality and a well deserved reward help with that ;)

Sun Tzu was right about a lot of things - most of the principles don't just apply to the military either. Risk vs reward is always part of my modding creed 8) I won't bore you with the details, but as an example of what I mean, I've made nothing "impossible" in this mod. Instead of simply saying "nice try" and making the player load their last save, I make sure that with the right preparations, a skilled execution and a bit of luck, you will always have a small chance at success.

The way I see it, it doesn't matter what you can do in a game - how you can do it is much more important. Like in the first assassins creed, "blending" into a crowd was just raising your hands to your face, then in later games it actually required a crowd, but the way I see it blending still has a lot of room for improvement. Hopefully we have already managed to do everything right the first time.

 

 

ps- I was once homeless and traveling. I used begging as a tool to survive. I learned that people don't give you money for "spare some change mister?" I had to learn to make people laugh or cry. I would borrow a dog from another road kid. I would buy 30 cans of alpo. Feed the dog, then rinse the can out. Fill it with Dinty Moore beef stew. The stuff is probably made in the same factory. When you sit and don't say a word but continue to take a bite every couple of minutes from the can, people give you money. You don't need to act like you hate the stuff, it really is the worst soup you can buy. But it is considered food grade for human consumption. The most I ever made off that line was $400 in one hour.

 

Former road kid? I respect that, I know a few myself. Not a lot of people actually have the balls to just do what makes them happy, even if the mainstream population don't agree with you.

I'm going to stop myself there before I start some kind of rant ;)

 

==============================

 

 

I'll be uploading images again a little later on. A friend of mine has taken over the mod for about a week, so I've neither been home nor sober for three days. It's how Scots enjoy summer 8)

 

 

 

 

EDIT:: 5 pictures of the Connoisseur havens are up. Sadly I'm not allowed to put any more images in that post :(

I'll still put them up and provide links to them here.

Edited July 31, 2012 by WarRatsG

[martin19121996]

I like theuseless' idea. It would be cool to destroy someone's life and make them into a monster and then be responsible for the persons action's and have to kill him/her or something like that. I hope you will add a quest like that. And in the quests will the any choices to make. Like maybe you get asked to go kill some rogue vampires or maybe rebel vampires, and then the enemy ask you to join them. Or that you have to execute a friend and you can choose to let him go. And the choices should have consequences. That would make it more interesting and fun to play. And if you need help with a quest I could maybe help with coming up with a story for it

 

You should maybe also add a bit of romance in. Like being able to get a boy/girlfriend. Both vampire and human alike.

Edited July 31, 2012 by martin19121996

[theuseless]

I like this mod more and more. I like the modders involved more and more. I invite y'all to pm me any time with questions or requests. If I can I will help in any way possible. I am still going to dedicate my mod as first priority. But if I can do something to help, I will. I have already got some outlined ideas for my mod which I could share with you. You could run with the concepts as long as you own them as your own. I have been reading summaries of Japanese Kabuki plays. I love the Kabuki theatre. It is exaggerated and bold. It has power, depth and tradition. I have been drawing off these plays as well as Japanimation. If it worked for Tarentino, it could work for me. I'm also looking into the elements of a story. I'm not doing the Hollywood version either. There are no pieces of paper in a hat that I'm randomizing. The first part of a plot is character development. So I have researched psychology a little deeper. Check out the enneagram, astrology and anything else that boils humans down to base emotional elements.

 

But seriously people, I laid my heart out earlier in this topic. Please post memorable video game moments. You could even post the last movie which moved you, and why. I just watched all the episodes of True Blood available. I personally was crushed when they made Tara a vampire. The poor girl had been tortured, raped and used like a wet rag. Her life was complete dung. If there was anybody who just deserved to die it was her. Put the poor girl out of her misery. But no. She is turned into the thing she hates most. It was heavily forshadowed throughout the plot, but it is another example of how twisted a plot can be.

 

You could make an avid vampire hunter. Vampires killed his family and fed them to him when he was 10. Then they tied him to a tree in the woods and left him for dead, covered in blood. A vampire hunter comes along and adopts the poor boy. Now you find him on your trail as his latest hunt. He is persistant, good and elusive. His heart is as twisted as yours now, but he is filled with a hate for our kind. You see him bleeding out after a random bandit got the jump on him. You have 3 options. First is to feed off him till he is dead, killing him the worst fashion he could imagine. You could kill him quickly, out of mercy (if you believe in such weak notions). Or you could turn him. Make him into what he hates most. This would create the worst enemy you have had yet.

 

I mean, we could go further on this one character, but you get the idea. His character outline would be enneagram of 2 (the perfectionist) and horoscope of Leo (selfish but just, a born leader). We have background on his youth. We can say that his mentor was killed on a raid, making him that much more bitter. He isn't selfish when humans are involved, but loves the sound of his own voice. Being a perfectionist means that he has devoted every aspect of his life to hunting and killing vamps. He is methodical and clean at it. His wickedness and cruelty are only seen when involving vampires, but that is now his life.

 

There we go. One story line to possibly consider. I used this same concept in my mod, but not specific to vampires. I am going to use my twisted crusader as a wild card. What you do with him will impact every other part of my story. But that is just my mod.

 

Please people, POST!

 

-edit-

What's the best malted scotch (I like highland but that is me) out in Scotland? We drink Craggenmore here, as it is less than 30 euro (translated) and tastes amazing.

Edited August 1, 2012 by theuseless

[WarRatsG]

I like theuseless' idea. It would be cool to destroy someone's life and make them into a monster and then be responsible for the persons action's and have to kill him/her or something like that. I hope you will add a quest like that. And in the quests will the any choices to make. Like maybe you get asked to go kill some rogue vampires or maybe rebel vampires, and then the enemy ask you to join them. Or that you have to execute a friend and you can choose to let him go. And the choices should have consequences. That would make it more interesting and fun to play. And if you need help with a quest I could maybe help with coming up with a story for it

 

I try to add in choices where possible, although it's hard to make it subtle. A lot of the time, the devs may as well ask "Are you feeling like a good guy or a bad guy today?"

Then again, it doesn't have to be subtle. Maybe you can talk the rebel vampires into surrendering, maybe you can go all Deus Ex and swap between pure stealth and fast-paced combat as you track down the leader inside (while we're on this kind of topic, DX:HR was pretty good at making the player ask themselves a few moral questions too)...

 

It's difficult to make a meaningful choice that has isn't just statistical and has consequences, but won't create too much of a long term impact on the plot. It would be great, but making 10 different plots is quite difficult and time consuming. Split storylines are definitely

 

You should maybe also add a bit of romance in. Like being able to get a boy/girlfriend. Both vampire and human alike.

 

I would prefer to leave romance as a plot element rather than create a gameplay mechanic for it. Simulating relationships is not the scope of this mod.

 

What's the best malted scotch (I like highland but that is me) out in Scotland? We drink Craggenmore here, as it is less than 30 euro (translated) and tastes amazing.

 

Difficult question. It depends on whether you're drinking for pleasure or to get wrecked ;)

The Famous Grouse has a few decent blends. I used to get given a bottle or two every month when I worked in their distillery, to make sure I didn't need to steal entire crates :ninja:

These days, it's quantity over quality. You can get 3 times as much vodka for the same price. 8)

 

I like this mod more and more. I like the modders involved more and more. I invite y'all to pm me any time with questions or requests. If I can I will help in any way possible. I am still going to dedicate my mod as first priority. But if I can do something to help, I will. I have already got some outlined ideas for my mod which I could share with you. You could run with the concepts as long as you own them as your own.

 

We're flattered. Thanks 8)

The least we can do is extend you the same courtesy. Don't worry, your ideas are safe ;)

 

You could make an avid vampire hunter. Vampires killed his family and fed them to him when he was 10. Then they tied him to a tree in the woods and left him for dead, covered in blood. A vampire hunter comes along and adopts the poor boy. Now you find him on your trail as his latest hunt. He is persistant, good and elusive. His heart is as twisted as yours now, but he is filled with a hate for our kind.

 

Great minds think alike it seems. That's now two ideas of ours that you've churned out verbatim. The only difference was that instead of being a typical Van Helsing, he blackmails the player into doing the dirty work for him.

Also, the player doesn't necessarily have a "twisted heart". I've been trying to explore the concept of vampirism possibly just being another malevolent force of nature - no more evil than, lets say fire. It all depends on your point of view. From a roleplaying perspective, the player is the "twisted crusader". Maybe they decided to fight fire with fire, maybe they hope to destroy vampire society from the inside, maybe they just didn't want to die.

 

I have been reading summaries of Japanese Kabuki plays. I love the Kabuki theatre. It is exaggerated and bold. It has power, depth and tradition. I have been drawing off these plays as well as Japanimation. If it worked for Tarentino, it could work for me. I'm also looking into the elements of a story. I'm not doing the Hollywood version either. There are no pieces of paper in a hat that I'm randomizing. The first part of a plot is character development. So I have researched psychology a little deeper. Check out the enneagram, astrology and anything else that boils humans down to base emotional elements.

 

That's the way to do it. Learn from the pros, get some inspiration from people who know the trade intimately. To get a idea of the kind of feel we needed to infuse into the mod, we took a look at a some vampire literature like "Carmilla" and "The Vampyre" (which was referenced in one of the most recent screenshots :biggrin: ), along with some "real" (I use the term loosely) vampire stories - a certain vampire in this mod has nasty memories of waking up with a brick in his mouth ;). We've been trying to work out an alternate history, complete with vampires pulling the strings behind certain famous events, for when we make the main quest. Plus, every good story needs a little bit of symbolism and a few nods to the legendary literature it's based on. ;)

[diablokiller14]

if you guys still need help i can do play testing and a bit of interior building with the cs

 

Great ;)

Right now I actually have someone doing our render window work, seen as Im useless at it. Ive been using that time to enjoy the Scottish summer (or at least the closest thing we can get 8) ).

 

Ill need plenty of playtesters at some point though

 

 

 

I'll love to play test for you if you wish.

[WarRatsG]

I'll love to play test for you if you wish.

 

Great :thumbsup:

 

We still can't confirm any release dates, but when the time comes for play testing we will create a new thread for recruiting play-testers ;)

Edited August 2, 2012 by WarRatsG