Looking for help with new mod

[The_R]

Looking for help with High Times mod

I am attempting to create a mod that uses a custom set of weapons and tools. There are only two character classes, but each class has several upgrades that change the way the player interacts with the world.
If anyone might be interested in helping with modeling and/or mapping that would be great. I can take care of coding, but any help there would be appreciated too.

BTW, this mod is based on drug culture, so if that bothers you...well, now you know.

*edit* I just read a few threads about other people starting mods, so I figured I'd give a little bit more information so I don't get set on fire.

The object of the "grower" is to grow a "crop" to full maturity, harvest it, and get it distributed on the street without getting caught by the cops. The object of the "cop" is to try to bust the growers.
I have already been working on coding the classes and some of the weapons such as a bong, and a watering can. I am fairly proficient in hammer, but it would be nice if someone else would be willing to do the mapping. I'll need an urban environment and a rural environment. Both will need to be fairly large. What I really need help with is modeling. I just haven't spent much time messing with custom models yet.
This mod will actually be educational too, as it will teach the proper way to grow, uh, plants, as well as economics and good distribution techniques.

BTW, this is a freebie. I'm just doing this in my spare time, so all you will get paid is the credit for making it. This is a great place to start if you are looking to get into serious development.

 

[Yorick]

So... it's like counterstrike with drugs instead of hostages?

 

[Asknoone]

Originality all the way man.

 

[The_R]

Well, actually, it's not really a deathmatch sort of mod. It's more like a role playing game. You can kill people, but if you do, you instantly become a murderer and the cops can come kill you without becoming a murderer themselves. Even if a cop kills someone in cold blood, they will become a murderer and can be easily killed by other cops. The only way a cop can kill someone without becoming a murderer is if someone tries to kill them first.
It's a very different style of gameplay. The explanation of how everything works is kind of complicated, but basically, it is just like the real world only on a more overt level. The growers are doing their thing, and the cops are trying to find out where they are. The cops have to have a search warrant to search a house or a person unless they actually saw the weed. I'm even working on having a dog as a cop upgrade that can smell weed if he gets close enough to it.
I have the whole mod planned out and it seems to be pretty well balanced. I'm just plodding away at the code and models. I was just hoping someone else on here might be interested and want to help out where they can. If not, that's cool. I'll get it finished, eventually.

 

[Icewolf717]

Mods take a tremendous amount of time and effort to create, and a lot of people to contribute (Mappers, Modelers, Coders, Texture Artists ect.)

Before you begin, you will want to make sure you have extensive knowledge in one of these categories before you even think about making a game. Especially knowledge of the limitations of the source engine. RPG's require lots of coding.

And if you do know this much it would be wise to show your experience, someone coming in here wanting to start a mod with no experience is a sure fail for a mod.

Wish you the best

- Icewolf

 

[Crispy]

Sounds interesting and quirky enough, but I can't visualise what scale it will be on. Will it be like a small 'borough in GTA with buildings that can all be entered, or will it more Pizza Tycoonish?

 

[The_R]

Well, I've never played Pizza Tycoon, but the GTA analogy works. A map needs to have about 100-150 places (rooms/buildings) that a person can set up an operation in. The bigger the better. I'm trying to get an fgd finished so that a mapper can use my custom entities such as stash hiding places and unique door locks.

As for my experience, I got my bachelor's in CIS a couple of years ago. I mainly studied C++ and VB. I also studied network security and web programming, but that's not important here.
OOP comes naturally to me. I find Valve's "Source" code to be very easy to understand. I just take it one step at a time, and as I read, I understand more how a particular entity works.
I also have a pretty clear understanding of Hammer. I have made some small maps for SourceForts. You can dl a couple of them here if you like: sf_shoebox_beta.zip(this one has some custom textures I made) sf_fallout.vmf (this one is just the vmf. I didn't bother to upload the .bsp because it was my first Sourceforts map and I never got around to finishing the lights.)
I really enjoy mapping, but I'm more into the customization and seeing what I can do with the code. That's the main reason I started working on this mod. Even if it takes me another year to finish, I know I can do it. However, if I could get someone to make some of the custom models, that would make it infinitely easier. That is the only part of this that I am really dreading. I want to make custom people models too, but I know what a pain that can be. I made a model for Unreal 2004 and it took me forever.

I would like to put together a team of 3-5 people who can spend a couple of hours per week working on it. As I said before, this is a volunteer thing. All we would get paid is the recognition that we created it...and maybe a job offer at EA or something.

Most of all, I am doing this for the experience. If I can get a mod out there with my name on it and have at least one person say it rocks, it will be worth it to me. Even better would be if some angry parent emails me that their 14 year old kid learned how to grow pot by playing my game.
You know the saying, "The more you know, the more you grow." lol

 

[kineaesth]

Spiel

I have got to say, I am very impressed. You sound like you know what you want to do, and are committed. Unfortunately, I have no skill, so instead I'll just wish you luck.

 

[Crispy]

100-150 places!?!?!? How are you going to populate the world so it doesn't look like a ghost town of 140 empty houses and 10 occupied ones? How do you travel between these places? How detailed is your player avatar? Is it a top-down view or fully 3D? Is it turn-based or real-time?

 

[The_R]

Some places will be actual houses. Others will be like a room in an abandoned building or a small lot outside that is hidden from view.
I'm trying to work out the best way to have as many NPCs at possible since they are the customers. Does anyone know how many NPCs can be active at one time, on average? I'm experimenting with having them come and go with kill and spawn commands so there aren't more than 20-30 NPCs alive at any given time. This will make it much harder on mappers, but seeing as how I'm removing most of the usual entities to streamline the code, it should make up for it. If I could get someone to make a few lower LOD player models, I could probably have more NPCs on the field.
So far, I'm still keeping it fully 3D with real-time gameplay.

I'm also working on a design document that can provide all the pertinent information. I got the idea for that off your sig Crispy. Thanks.

 

[Crispy]

It sounds like the emphasis will not be on physics or combat, so perhaps the first-person perspective isn't a big necessity. In which case imo it would probably be a lot easier with a fixed viewpoint and maybe an angled, isometric-style or top-down perspective (a la GTA/GTA II).

This means you would have far more control over how many enemies the player can fit onto their screen at any one time, e.g. by setting general AI rules that NPCs would not spawn or move into the area at a distance of X units from the player, a fixed viewpoint would mean the player cannot shift the angle of the view. Additionally, the mappers/modelers would also be able to cull a lot of the lower faces to further optimise it, yet have the game still retain a 3D feel. Also, if you made it a fixed viewpoint in an overhead view (instead of having a zoom function), you wouldn't even need different LOD models.

Lastly, this could be benefitial to the gameplay itself, depending on what you're aiming for. A top-down perspective would mean neither the cops nor the dealers could see into the distance. By having both perspectives restricted to the immediate surroundings of the player, this would make it harder for the Police to randomly happen uponm the dealers, but when they did discover them, it would be more sudden and therefore more frantic, which could be quite fun.

An associated problem with this is that it could make general navigation and dealer-hunting too difficult. For the first issue, a simple overview map would solve this. And for the second, you could even incorporate an interesting game mechanic that would allow the cops to discover the exact locations of the dealers, but this would only happen if the dealers were doing good business. You could make it so that, the better a dealer's crop/product, the more customers and the greater chance of being caught. This would occur in 2 stages. First, as the dealer gets more popular, NPC customers would come with more and more frequency to his base of operations. This would be detectable by cops on patrol, as they would see lots of NPCs converging in certain areas. However, if the dealer got even more successful, not only would there be obvious crowds outside his place, but an 'auto-snitch' function could relay the co-ordinates of his hideout to the cops. You could even incorporate a player snitch feature, where if a player discovered the location of a rival dealer, they could snitch on their competition.

---

Ah, nevermind. I re-read your concept and you mention already having 'weapons', which I'm guessing are 1st-person weapon-slot items. You could always make a GTA mod? I bet it's a lot easier than Source, plus you could use the existing cities. I think I'm a bit too fixated on it working like Pizza Tycoon.

 

[-Psy-]

Sorry but you will not be able to build a full-scale city in the Source engine.

 

[Crispy]

Sorry but you will not be able to build a full-scale city in the Source engine.

Even if in 1st-person perspective, it's still possible. You'd just have to use a smaller scale, lower-detail textures and less-complex brushwork (plus lots of optimisation). It would look more like Half-Life mapping than Source mapping, but it would be the Source engine.

 

[-Psy-]

Yes but it wouldn't really look very nice and we all know that good-looking mods get a lot of attention regardless of how good all the other components in the game are.

 

[The_R]

Well, this is basically going to be a stoner mod. I mean, how many games have you played where you can hit the bong and have it help you? All players will have a stress level that they have to manage. A bong hit will lower your stress level a lot, but it will affect your abilities too, so you have to take it easy.
I just want the graphics to look decent. Not too blocky, but I will definitely have to keep model use to a minimum.I think with creative use of alleys and a good skybox, I should be able to make it look like a full-scale city even though it's only a few blocks. I have tried a few techniques but I haven't actually put together a full size map yet. Maybe I should do that so I can have a better idea as to how big I can make it without killing the fps.

BTW, Crispy, I like your idea about having NPCs gather near a dealer's base of operation. I'll add that to the list.

 

[Yorick]

This thread is oh so rofl.

 

[Zunni]

Even if in 1st-person perspective, it's still possible. You'd just have to use a smaller scale, lower-detail textures and less-complex brushwork (plus lots of optimisation). It would look more like Half-Life mapping than Source mapping, but it would be the Source engine.

Which is something made slightly easier if you do a top-down/ three-quarter view. You don't need as much in terms of visual wall/model details and focus more on the floor objects.

 

[Zunni]

Yes but it wouldn't really look very nice and we all know that good-looking mods get a lot of attention regardless of how good all the other components in the game are.

I really and truly hope this is only 20% true

If that was the case, games like Starcraft would have been killed ages ago. Same with games like NS. Source has been out for ages, and yet NS is still popular.

 

[Yorick]

I really and truly hope this is only 20% true

If that was the case, games like Starcraft would have been killed ages ago. Same with games like NS. Source has been out for ages, and yet NS is still popular.

He's talking about how mods with good looking graphics often get more attention than other mods. Look at how much popularity Black Mesa Source has. And, honestly, it's just a lousy remake.

Once mods come out they are valued more by their gameplay, absolutely. Zombie Master has little custom content and is one of the most popular Source mods ever.

But when it comes to looking for people to work on said mods, they want eye candy.