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[WIP] The Siege of Firebase Zulu


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Hey, Someguy2000! It's been so long and I am glad to here that you're going strong! May I say that I look forward to the day that I can finally say HURRAY for Firebase Zulu! (Oh wow. I did not intentionally mean for that to be in rhyme.) Have a wonderful day!

Thanks!

 

I've actually been replaying the old alpha build, taking notes and making plans to revise some of the quests. Some facets of the mod are sound right now (worldspaces, characters, primary quests), but others need work (sidequests), and others have yet to be implemented (main battle, post-battle content, slideshows, non-quest dialogue, unmarked quests, etc.). There is a lot of work left, but I'm starting to chip away at it.

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All,

 

To give everyone a rough idea of what remains, here are some broad metrics pertaining to specific areas (this is based on my recent playthroughs and scrutiny of the plugin's guts):

 

Design Doc/Outline: 95% (Not 100 because of room for revision in certain quests)

 

Worldspace Development: 90%

 

Internal Cell Development: 70%

 

Navmesh (Internal and External): 20%

 

NPC Setup (AI Packages, balancing, factions, etc. - excluding battle): 80%

 

Non-Quest Dialogue: 10%

 

Primary Quests (Excluding Battle): 60%

 

Battle: 5%

 

Side Quests: 25%

 

Unmarked Quests: 5%

 

Slideshows: 0%

 

Voice Acting: 0%

 

These were formulated after analyzing the actual (non-broken) progress of content currently in place. I'm probably being a touch conservative, but I cannot overstate how much work remains. Regardless, I am excited about the project, and I'm taking small, manageable steps towards release. One thing I can promise you is that unlike Russell and The Inheritance, there will not be a public beta for FBZ. It will be published in a finished state, or not at all. I may conduct several phases of focused testing (pre-battle quests, sidequests, battle only, etc.), due to the sheer scope of content involved.

 

After digesting just how much labor still remains, I did manage to correct some nagging bugs in several sidequests, particularly "Frag Out", which involves the player investigating the fragging of an officer. Tonight/Tomorrow I'll be working on new content in an unfinished quest, "All Along the Watchtower", in which the player inspects sentries and works to improve camp readiness.

 

After re-reading the doc and evaluating the plugin, I can say one thing - this could be something very, very special when it's finished, as long as I'm not consumed by alcoholism during production. I'm not entirely pleased with some of the sidequests (yo-yoing the player about, though this is standard fare in RPG's), but the primary questline feels good so far (with one exception that I'll probably revise). This isn't going to be a hasty production, or some papier-mâché hodgepodge of random content (*ahem* The Inheritance). Whatever its possible failings, it will be unique. Thanks for all the ongoing support and encouragement!

 

EDIT: The statistics only reflect the NCR-oriented questline; the hypothetical Legion quest (still haven't decided on it), while much smaller than the primary quest, would still require a significant time investment.

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Well, that's certainly a bit of work up ahead. Still, it sounds like it will be a blast to play, and much like all your mods a must-have.

 

Hopefully the quest Guns for San Salvador won't reach the chopping block, as I just really love that quest name. Perhaps due to my fondness for the name Guns of Avalon, (book 2 in a series by Roger Zelazny).

 

And I gotta say, for a scripting experiment, the Inheritance is a damn fine work. Hell, it's honestly my favorite of your mods so far.

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"Guns for San Salvador" has some troublesome sequences and some scripting that needs to be revised, but it's more or less sound. It was actually inspired by the Verneuil film, as well as the score (which I consider to be one of Morricone's finest works - I suppose FBZ does have some Western in there).

 

I'm hard on The Inheritance sometimes, as hindsight is 20/20. I still love "Repaid in Full", though - that really is just the tip of the iceberg compare to what's coming. ;)

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I think I've mentioned this before, but "Repaid in Full" was by far the best piece of combat I've experienced in New Vegas. It also made the NCR/Legion War come to the forefront, something the espionage and skirmishes in much of the vanilla game never really did, bar the final battle. Really makes me excited for Zulu.

 

Out of curiosity, what is it you don't like/wish you'd done differently on the Inheritance?

 

Oh, and thanks for the western suggestions. Started to watch my rather long list with some of the earlier films. Stagecoach, My Darling Clementine, etc.

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I think I've mentioned this before, but "Repaid in Full" was by far the best piece of combat I've experienced in New Vegas. It also made the NCR/Legion War come to the forefront, something the espionage and skirmishes in much of the vanilla game never really did, bar the final battle. Really makes me excited for Zulu.

Yeah, I tried to bring a hint of Zulu to it, with Beaumont's uncertain psychological state and defending a fixed position against a larger Legion force. Another experiment (that doesn't get noticed much) is the mini-nuke wall breach in the final wave. I wanted to see how NPC's would react to new navmesh (basically, opening a new avenue of attack), and it worked perfectly. This will be used to great effect in the siege. :)

 

Out of curiosity, what is it you don't like/wish you'd done differently on the Inheritance?

 

Bradley's death was clumsy, at least in my mind. I agonized over that (as he survives in the original script), but I decided to go with it.

There is also the tenuous link between some of the quest content.

 

 

Oh, and thanks for the western suggestions. Started to watch my rather long list with some of the earlier films. Stagecoach, My Darling Clementine, etc.

Glad I could help, though I've been on a war film tear lately. I just finished re-watching Apocalypse Now, and then it's on to Paths of Glory.

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... I've been on a war film tear lately. ..

 

 

I don't know if I should suggest this or not (the more time you spend watching movies the less time you spend coding your awesome mods :laugh: ), but may I suggest A Bridge Too Far - Just about everyone is besieged at one point or another...

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I don't know if I should suggest this or not (the more time you spend watching movies the less time you spend coding your awesome mods :laugh: ), but may I suggest A Bridge Too Far - Just about everyone is besieged at one point or another...

There's a quest with that same title, loosely inspired by both the film and the book. ;)

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