zacharias on 21/12/2017 at 05:40
Hello there
Just wondering if there are any people about who might be interested in a group project? Just kicking around ideas at this stage but one idea is to have 3 different play styles/characters on the same map to replace traditional difficulties, kind of what inverted manse did but with a different twist.
I am more of a compulsive builder and have a good idea of terrain i'd like to try to realise. A complementary skill set would be someone who thinks in terms of scripting possibilities and wants to showcase their work. I'd like to move away a little bit from the loot hunt type gameplay, i'm thinking more exploration and a survival horror vibe.
My personal situation these days is starting a new job in jan, will be getting a new rig soon after for games/zbrush/3ds max etc (yay), so don't have oodles of personal time due to family/work commitments, but a few hours per week for a personal project should be ok. Have a few weeks holidays now in which we could kick around ideas..
P.s. I do have 1 mission released which was quite well received, so not a complete noob.
Drop me a line if of any interest. No commitments expected at this stage, just exploring possibilities..
Cheers
z
SilverJackal on 21/12/2017 at 19:11
Okay. I know not if I can help, but I can guide in terms of "advice" when it comes to a large campaign: Expect at least a year to pass by until it's done. This includes if you want to release your campaign into parts (like many do). Before you gain a crew. Blueprint. I'm being serious here. It doesn't need to be perfect, but from there you can then gain a general idea of how big your mission is, how long it will take to craft it and so on so forth.
Second, finish smaller missions and release them before diving into a bigger campaign. That's great and all that you released your first mission and I too have yet to release the Thief Gold Mission I've been working on, but keep in mind: Others who get involved (or even yourself) will have lives. Sometimes forcing months where you can't work on your projects so that life or situations can be focused on. I know the feeling of ambition. It can often blind you.
Smaller Missions will not only gain more traction for people to work with you, but expectation of others and your own self esteem to see if you can finish the project. Take Thief 2X into account. It simply took them years and if you can; I recommend you listen to their full commentary on how the project developed. I have done this myself while forging my own path. They have wonderful advice.
Third. Sometimes you hang on to a 14 Mission Idea or a Smaller Campaign that you wrote. Again, rounding around to the blueprinting setup. Write down your ideas, scripts and organize with index card (optional) You'll find out that if you need to change the story to fit the plot or trying to make something work within means. Blueprints can be your friend. Examples are as shown what I have done both for "The Agency" and "Project Kasiem":
Inline Image:
https://i.imgur.com/09QpaB0.jpgInline Image:
https://i.imgur.com/Ne8IwRG.jpgReason being because finding a team and those who can commit can be a disappointment if someone leaves, doesn't mean your own expectations or perhaps other fallouts that may occur. I learned this in a harsh way when it came to designing my RPG that's been ongoing through several years. The main reasons can often categorize under people not wanting their artwork, effort or design being reflected simply for copyright reasons. Though FMs can be a little light seeing that FMs are more community based; you will need to be prepared for hardships that in-case something does happen you're not "drowning".
That's great you want to explore possibilities, but think of missions as a learning tool and representation of who you are. First impressions make everything, that is true. HOWEVER. This doesn't give others a full on impression what you're capable of! Taking on a big project can not only be a strain on others, but yourself as well. And as the Thief 2X Devs explained; you will need to treat your developing project as a sort of side project mistress that will see a lifetime. Because a majority of them can take a few years to complete.
I hope this helps. I myself haven't been "on" TTLG until I was confident enough I could grasp Thief. Expectations from the community (at least from my observation) is that they wish to see good foundation in your development. You don't really "need" to be an expert at Thief, but to at least have a good grasp of what Thief is, how to design and take notes from the TTLG Team themselves when they made official missions. Well over a decade now I've played missions, bettered myself with my Thief skills and JUST got myself to be confident enough to jump into design.
Because even the best of us need basics and the foundation of learning, understanding and confidence.
Good Luck!
~SilverJackal
zacharias on 22/12/2017 at 04:13
Ok, thanks for your reply.
But I never mentioned a campaign, for precisely the reason you mention - they can drag out into years. I am talking one mission, with 3 different play styles. I can build some cool architecture in a month or two. Architecture is relatively easy and fun for me but that is only 1 piece of the puzzle.
With all due respect, I have an ambitious mission already released which was well received gameplay wise and architecture wise, despite then largely sinking without trace (is that a contradiction? Probably so but we are talking about a very old game here). The vast majority of that mission was my own work so in my book that is proof of a certain level of competence on my part. Basically I can produce a very solid mission all by myself but a collaboration might branch off into more interesting pathways, and might also be more fun to work on.
There used to be here in TEG people who were mainly into the tech side of dromed: totality, thumper, yametha, dark arrow etc. and probably many others. Fair enough they have moved on but my question is has a new generation of tinkerers come up? It is my contention that some division of labour along the lines of people's talents/inclinations happens in industry and might be quite fruitful.
SilverJackal on 22/12/2017 at 06:02
So you're scoping out coders and those who would bring about the newer generation of Thief?
zacharias on 22/12/2017 at 06:57
Not coders as such, could be a scripters or ideas person but with some technical know-how to actually implement ideas. I also guess that it being 2017 I am somewhat bored by vanilla style ‘find 2000 loot' type quests. Not that there is anything wrong with these and I even made one. No offence intended to anyone, but at this point there is a sense of ‘been there, done that'. Something more primal excites me more these days, thus survival horror maybe?
I have a good idea and references for the type of terrain and would do the bulk of the grunt work. Nevertheless I think some other input and expertise could elevate whatever I did to the next level.
I understand completely if there are not people who take this up, tumbleweed rolls past. But in practical terms I would probably move onto zbrush or something like that for a creative outlet rather than do another solo mission, as zbrush is likely to open more doors in the future than dromed.
SilverJackal on 22/12/2017 at 07:03
I see where you're getting at then. You want a classic perspective with a new twist. Got it.
EDIT: I thought of something you could do: A Murder Mystery. Though Thief touches upon this, you could find it easier to dive into aspects of that if that what interests you.
PinkDot on 22/12/2017 at 09:13
Quote Posted by zacharias
(...) zbrush is likely to open more doors in the future than dromed.
Zbrush has no notion of doors, as far as I know. Dromed on the other hand does, as well as a concept of keys and master key. So, in that light, your statement is very incorrect....
;)
zacharias on 22/12/2017 at 09:42
Very good Pinkdot ;) Maybe I should have said the Unreal Engine or whatever..
SilverJackal: re. the murder mystery. Thanks, but no. That sounds like something that would be done best as a heavily scripted, adventure game type thing. Re-creating such would not really be my forte.
I have the basic idea of what I want to do already in place, but don't want to say too much here for the sake of spoilers. There may be fm's that have done something similar, but I'm not aware of any.
Daraan on 22/12/2017 at 20:07
Quote Posted by zacharias
I also guess that it being 2017 I am somewhat bored by vanilla style ‘find 2000 loot' type quests. Not that there is anything wrong with these and I even made one. No offence intended to anyone, but at this point there is a sense of ‘been there, done that'.
I don't want to say that I want I want to collaborate but I'm also not saying the opposite.
That stated I would count myself as a new DromEder and with my mission I'm working on I want to introduce some never seen stuff but I'm progressing sloooowly: I realized I'm not really good at interior architecture, I can built a nice room but fitting it into a greater picture, adding secret passages, walkways ehhm it's getting better. Not to mention that I (like to) get hung up on other side projects, models, building systems, scripting....
-----------------------------------
Well back to the quote I would like to tell you two new interesting ways of playing that can be implementable.
A) A second world layer - that has been done before true but lets continue.
With NewDarks RenderOrder you can create for example a lense for the player (attach it to his view..) and with it you can control the visibility of objects through the lense =>so you can make objects disappear and others appear then add some Blend and .mtl effects and it looks great.
Also this is more than some teleport/obejct hiding as more than one view at the same time is possible.
Needs to be tested but imagine the player can see up to four different worlds in each corner of the screen... well that's bit to much.
B) Much simpler but huge potential in creative hands.
I found a way (yah it's really working) to create over savegame/gamestart persistent data, simple true/false values. It might be possible to improve that to integer values but didn't test that yet - would be much better as you can store tons of data.
What's the point?
You can
TIMETRAVEL.
This only makes sense with savegames or newgames now image a simple scenario:
You need to steal an item from a vitrine, smash it, steal it => uhhh big problem alarm but now you can travel back to a savegame and take the stolen item with you and there's no alarm. Life is Strange says hello ;) (Or worse the Vitrine is always broken and the item is not stolen :P
More interesting:
•The advanced player opens a passage for a restricted path in the past there in an old save you can use that path which then again opens a path in the future. Not to mention continue the other path in the past. Which leads to
•A possible complex scenario is that you create three storylines and you have to swap between them and each story line could(should) be affected by the choices the player did in the other lines. GTA (never played it) says hello?
Honestly if not for the TG contest I would have suggested that as the next idea.
zacharias on 22/12/2017 at 23:33
See, that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. Already that's more interesting and technical than I would have come up with. I like part B the most; part A probably has some cool uses that I can't think of.
My thing also is: does this add to the experience or make things more interesting in a gameplay sense? I don't want things to be just a technical gimmick. I think what you've written in part B could add to the gameplay experience significantly.
So what are you working on now Daraan?
