Deckerwars TC - Looking for help.

[Tie-fighter]

Hi there.

I'm Tie-fighter, founder and programmer of Deckerwars, and would like to introduce you to our mod.

Deckerwars is a TC tactical action shooter set in the year 2036.

Story: In near future the world has become a corrupt dystopian place being ruled only by the richest, suppressing the population with strict laws and private armies.
In this setting a new kind of sport has evolved, the Deckerwars, matching the finest hackers, mercs and pros with the toughest criminals the prisons can provide.

Projected Features:

• Unique gameplay
• A sci-fi styled world
• Hack- and customizeable doors, turrets, cameras etc.
• Futuristic weapons, upgrades and gadgets
• Ballistic non-lethal weapon system
• Character, experience and money system
• High degree of realism without interfering with fun and gameplay
• Big arenas full of interactive high tech equipment
• Squad-based command structure
• Inventory and encumbrance system
• Each character has his own HUD with buyable upgrades
• A hazard course

Game types:

• Squadmatch: Teamdeathmatch based on squads. Can be more than two squads.
• Data Thief: The team that hacks the enemy mainframe and gets their hacker successfully back into their base wins.
• we will be adding a few more modes until the final release, depending on community feedback.

I hope you like the idea.
If so I want to invite you to join our team.
At this (early) stage of developement we need every helping hand we can get, so if you think that you can contribute your time and skills, please contact me.

Regards,
Tie-fighter

 

[egoncalo]

You should start out with simplisitic goals and complete them in several development sprints. Listing all that is alot of complicated features when it seems like you don't even have a team. How long have you been modding for? Where do your skills lie and what can you do? This also sounds sort of like Dystopia. Try not to promise so much with the features when you don't even know if you can complete them. And lastly, please correct your grammar and spelling errors.

 

[63]

Story: In near future the world has become a corrupt dystopian place being ruled only by the richest, suppressing the population with strict laws and private armies.

:| Wow.

 

[Tie-fighter]

I know that it sounds a lot, but that are the things we would like to have in it till the final release, not in the alpha. But actually it's not that much compared to mods like Empires, NS, etc. They have vehicles, aircrafts, aliens walking up the walls, a money system, a command structure, a charactersystem, etc.

Right at the moment we are a team of three. A concept artist, a programmer and me.
We started like 2-3 months ago, but there were recent reallife events that kept us from working at full speed.

I don't want to make a mod like Dystopia. Just because it's a scifi mod doesn't mean it's going to be a Dystopia clone. I'm not sure if it will be much better than Dystopia, but it will be good. Dystopia has a lot of head start. Dystopia has cool unique features, so will Deckerwars. I don't want to become rich and famous, or have every Dystopia player switch to Deckerwars. I want to make a mod.

 

[63]

I'm not sure if there are any Dystopia players left :|

 

[egoncalo]

Right at the moment we are a team of three. A concept artist, a programmer and me.
We started like 2-3 months ago, but there were recent reallife events that kept us from working at full speed.

Can we see some concept art? What do you do for the team? And what has your programmer finished so far? Just curious.

 

[Tie-fighter]

We only have WIP pictures which I'm averse to show around, but I'll post something.
Right at the moment I'm managing everything and drawing a little but hopefully I can, once there is a coleader/PR person, also get some serious work done. I have some fair C++/modeling/mapping experience.
Our programmer hasn't finished anything yet since he was relocating and started to study, but we should get things started really soon now.

 

[$kelet0r]

www.dystopia-game.com/

OK OK if you are seriously going to do this - make it unique
- keep all the action in cyberspace
or
- design maps that are made for non linear urban combat
Better advice would be to offer your abilities and talents to Dystopia but hey

 

[Tie-fighter]

Of course I'll make it unique
there will not be a cyberspace, but we are planning to make a few quality maps rather than many average ones. We already have a few ideas for a outdoor urban combat map.
I have considered joining Dystopia, but I chose this path.

 

[Hectic Glenn]

Now you must walk it, Neo...I mean Tie. We await this ground breaker with high anticipation, you have projected an epic mod.

 

[Tie-fighter]

"So what do you need? Besides a miracle."
"Guns. Lots of guns."

No, seriously, there won't be like 20 weapons, more like 8 +upgrades and around 10 gadgets.
But what we really need is the community's support. Tell your friends about Deckerwars, watch it on moddb, etc.
One of our top priorities is to make our own stylish website design, so we are looking for a talented webdesigner.

 

[$kelet0r]

forget about web design for a second and explain what your bait is - what is going to innovative or unique about your mod? Because if you don't have that you don't got nuthin'

Bit of advice - release release release
Start by using the HL2 resources and swap them out as you - what you need to nail first and foremost before you get your guns lots of guns is your gamplay and your maps. Dystopia to take an excellently relevant example did this assways - they made beautiful player models and weapons that had everyone drooling and had shittastic maps and frustrating gameplay. Don't make their mistake - in fact if your first media release is a weapon render then your mod is already most likely doomed.

 

[Tie-fighter]

Projected Features:
Unique gameplay (How unique is that?)
We'll find out.
A sci-fi styled world (Dystopia?)
Yes, it's a Dystopia.
Hack- and customizeable doors, turrets, cameras etc. (Interesting.)
now that will be a lot of fun.
Futuristic weapons, upgrades and gadgets (Expected.)
With upgrades and gadgets we not only mean body armor and medkits, but also attachable scopes, shields, scanners, hacking tool, etc.
Ballistic non-lethal weapon system (Er... Why? For 12 year olds?)
Because Deckerwars is in 2036 a game, not a battle to death, and because you can do some interesting stuff with non-lethal weaponry. Nearly every mod out there is like "Spawn -> Die -> Spawn -> Die"
I thought you wanted it to be unique
Character, experience and money system (CSS with exp?)
"Like CSS but much better"
No, we're planing something new, without giving to much away... let's call it "more persistent"
High degree of realism without interfering with fun and gameplay (Ok. Every mod claims this.)
I don't agree on that. But anyway, how many also accomplish that?
1. you only live once
2. Inventory and encumbrance system.
3. http://dslyecxi.com/bestoftactical.html that should give you the idea
Big arenas full of interactive high tech equipment (ah...)
With interactive we don't only mean the turrets, cams, etc. but lightswitches, etc. just name it.
Squad-based command structure (What? Radio commands?)
Yes, plus exp bonuses, etc.
Inventory and encumbrance system (Ok, that might be new.)
We hope that being able to carry stuff for other people will add even more teamplay to the game.
Each character has his own HUD with buyable upgrades (Who doesn't??)
How many mods have a different HUD for every character class?
Do they also have buyable HUD upgrades? not only e.g. nightvision but also more displays, a map etc.
A hazard course (Not appealing enough)
We'll try to make it as much appealing as possible since it will also act as an introduction to the story.
and much more...(Well, list then.)
We don't want to give everything away, plus there is also room for adding ideas during the developement.

 

[Nostradamus]

I take it that youre the leader?
How much do you know of game making?
can you code? model? draw?
Just asking cause a leader has to know at least the very basics of each required field in my honest opinion

 

[Tie-fighter]

Right at the moment I'm managing everything and drawing a little but hopefully I can, once there is a coleader/PR person, also get some serious work done. I have some fair C++/modeling/mapping experience.
Our programmer hasn't finished anything yet since he was relocating and started to study, but we should get things started really soon now.

...

 

[Nostradamus]

oh sorry must have missed that
from your description it seems like you havent made a design doc. if that is the case make one, and time schedule as well - describe everything down to the smallest detail, it will be needed

 

[Tie-fighter]

We have a design document, but it still needs some details.
Unfortunately my HDD broke last week and I'm still struggling to get my data back, so it will still take me a few more days to get steam running etc.

 

[Kyorisu]

What's the deal with giving info away? I'd rather see a mod that tells me how it's going to play and be rather than one full of mystery and secrets I won't know about until launch day.

 

[egoncalo]

It's the job of corporate retail games to keep things secret, not indie mod projects...

 

[Tie-fighter]

I think you're refering to that:
Character, experience and money system (CSS with exp?)
"Like CSS but much better"
No, we're planing something new, without giving to much away... let's call it "more persistent"

On other forums people are already laying in on us, because we're promising too much...
We also don't exactly know how we'll design it , if it is even going to work/be implemented.
Anyway, one of the ideas is to have your experience saved somewhere so you don't have to start at lvl.0 again after every map-/serverchange.
Maybe we'll do something similar with the money, giving it even more of a ladder/tournament feeling. We'll see.