Ravaged Earth

DnvnQuinn

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Team name:
To be Decided

Project name:
Ravaged Earth

Brief description:
A fps/strategy hybrid set in the near future. Earth is an irradiated barren landscape filled with massive mining and resource gathering plants. Only a dozen green zones exist, places where the population is safe and has access to clean water and air. Green zones are controlled by the G.E.C a corporation that for all intents runs the free world. Mistreated miners and third world countries have banded together to fight the oppressive G.E.C and have halted resource production, the G.E.C declares them terrorists and moves to wipe the rebel forces out. The rebels call themselves the Alliance and take shelter in the radiation heavy red zones.



Target aim:
Shareware

Compensation:
The mod is a step towards a stand alone game. No compensation is offered for this project.

Technology:
Utilizes the existing tools and engine provided by the Valve corporation.

Talent needed:
Concept artist - Taking written ideas and creating mock up's to be utilized by the modelers at a later time

Modelers - Creating in game models

Programmer - Altering and adapting the Source engine to suit our needs

Idea men and women - People to help develop the game and world

Also, we will need team leaders for each section. Leaders will be chosen based on quality of past work and experience.

Team structure:
Ren - Idea man, history buff, writer

Aaron - Award winning T.V and Game composer

Patrick - Team lead, organizer, award winning writer focused on running team and conceptualizing

Glor - Concept artist


Website:
No website yet

Contacts:
AIM: Finalizeddrip
MSN: Toxic Revival
Email: [email protected]

Previous Work by Team:
Four years previous work on large stand alone game, halted due to lack of funding.

Additional Info:
2029 – Scientists provide concrete evidence of the irreversible decline of earth’s resources.
2032 - Terrorist activities against oil lines, mines and water purification plants rise.
2035 - Corporations given legal rights to own standing armies to defend their properties.
2042 - American and European mega corporations meld forming the G.E.C, Global Economic Coalition
2049 - Corporations given governmental standing, now able to run for offices.
2068 - G.E.C declared president of the United States, with acting C.E.O Takahashi Enwan as the human representative.
2069 - G.E.C takes control of the European parliament and offices.
2069 - 2075 Major Powers in world fall in under the control of the G.E.C
2080 - WWIII Russia and nearby allies refuse to be controlled by G.E.C. Declares war.
2083 - Though unpopular the G.E.C launches a barrage of nukes against Russia, China and North Kore a all retaliate with their own nuclear armament.
2090 - Unable to continue the war due to a lack of resources the last of the major powers surrender to the G.E.C, Nuclear fallout and damage is severe, only sixty percent of world habitable.
2100 - Miners forced to work in irradiated areas begin to fall sick, G.E.C refuses proper care, citing contract stipulations.
2118 - Miners form Alliance, deep space asteroid miners first to revolt. Shut down precious metal mining in the asteroid belt. First mutants begin to appear, product of genetic manipulation and exposure to radiation.
2120 - G.E.C hurt financially by three years of terrorist activities, revolts and refusal of miners to work. G.E.C retaliates against the cities of the miners sending in armed forces who brutally massacre whole populations. Third and second world countries pledge support of Alliance. World war four begins.

Feedback:
All feedback welcomed
 
Decent pitch, shame you have no concept work or websites to get people interested.

Would be good to see a proper design document as well rather then some ideas and a call for a hole team.
 
No website, due to no web designer. I could toss up a fairly basic HTML only site or use like WIX.com. But I think that quality of site would hinder rather than help us.

It's not usually common practice to throw your design document public is it? Least not in developing large stand alone games. Figured it was the same for mods.

What you see here is not ideas, but a summary of the game.

A "Whole" team is not required. As you can see there are some positions filled and with top notch PROFESSIONAL talent.
 
It's a decent pitch, better than you usually see for a mod, but things like this kind of concern me.

Idea men and women - People to help develop the game and world

This sort of speaks for itself. The "award winning" writer who is leading the team should be doing the actual writing and conceptualising. While it wouldn't be out of the question for him to have a sidekick to help flesh things out, he shouldn't need idea monkeys. It feels very amateur. The project leader has the responsibility of making sure that everyone on the mod shares their vision of what the mod is going to be. When you throw in a lot of people with conflicting ideas, it can get messy.

Aaron - Award winning T.V and Game composer

As years of game design should tell you, music is one of the very last things to be added to a mod/game. The composer comes up with ideas by seeing the world, and walking around the levels. Otherwise things don't flow and mesh properly.

It's not usually common practice to throw your design document public is it? Least not in developing large stand alone games. Figured it was the same for mods.

It isn't for games, but it can be for mods depending on what the lead wants to do. I've never worked on a project that made the Design Document public. I don't think releasing it really adds anything other than saying "We can follow a template". Actually making one can be a good thing because it can open your eyes to things you may have otherwise missed. In general, though, it's just another way to keep things organised, because, especially when it comes to these online projects, organisation and communication are the most important things.
 
Hello Yorick,

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

While the idea men and women thing is questionable, we all start out with ideas. I figured I'd open it to those that may want to get into game design or modding by allowing people to help with ideas. Allowing people to have some input does not guarantee their ideas will make it in the game. It also has the added benefit of being a sounding board before notifying the public.

I.E I have a idea for a mech, lets see what my assistant or the team thinks first.

I'm not saying I'm going to have five or six people just sitting around for ideas, but a couple sounding boards or co-writers seems helpful.

Aaron is not just the composer, he is also helping me with the design document, ideas, writing, history, recruiting. In all he is my direct assistant. I put him in the list to show that there are professional talented people on the team.


On design documents, they are invaluable for sure. However I don't feel comfortable putting such an idea online for everyone to see for various purposes.
 
No website, due to no web designer. I could toss up a fairly basic HTML only site or use like WIX.com. But I think that quality of site would hinder rather than help us.

I can design you a web template but you'd need to find someone to code it.
 
Too generic/cliche, think different please!
 
OP doesn't tell me zip about the mod.

All I see is a backstory (and a needlessly detailed timeline that does not belong here at all), which tells me nothing about what the mod will be like besides maybe the setting (but I don't even have concept art to be sure if what I imagine is correct) and 99% of people who download the mod won't give a shit about it and I don't think many people will be interested in joining a mod team where they have no idea what is going to make this mod have good, unique, or interesting gameplay. You say "fps/strategy hybrid" and then do not elaborate at all about what this means, as if people are going to have any idea.

In sum, TALK ABOUT YOUR IDEAS FOR GAMEPLAY PLEASE. WHAT'S IT LIKE?
 
(Names of units and specifics subject to change) This is all just the basic concepts, anything is subject to change upon discussions with team and writer.

Gameplay:

Two teams compete against each other in multiple game-types, Game-types being capture and control of points on a map, sabotage enemy base (capture the flag variant), Horde mode (where one team has heavily defended area but limited resources and spawn, while the other team has unlimited spawns (within time limit) and access only to basic units (teams switch at end of round). All game-types other than Horde have to juggle resources, upgrades, defense of base and offensive strikes.

Detailed maps including multiple paths through city blocks, ravaged wastelands, junk pits, mines, space-stations. Multiple paths include air vents and sewers for smaller ambush units, fortified buildings, rooftops, streets, tunnels...
Maps follow a three way split, a area for each team and a center area.

Commanders of each team in control of large Mechanized unit, can zoom out to isometric view to issue way-points and build orders. Commander units limited to team area. If destroyed can be repaired by engineer. Commanders can be voted out if not performing adequately.

Unit types:
Basic -
Starts with Light machine gun, armor and flares (flares to help commander co-ordinate and to get his/her attention in commander view), can upgrade to Armor piercing rounds, medium armor, health packs and grenades.

Defender -
Starts with heavy mountable machine gun, heavy armor and sand bags. Can create temporary barricades/ machine gun nests.

Can upgrade to laser machine gun, personal force field and nests to bunker.

Engineer - Can build automated turrets, resource drills, minefields and basic buildings
Carries basic rifle, no armor.
Can upgrade rifle to laser rifle and basic armor. Upgrades to the point he can access artillery strikes.

Mutant - (mutant varies depending on team) G.E.C mutant is fast, silent and has the ability to activate a cloak rendering him nearly invisible. Used for ambushes and scouting.
Alliance Mutant is a heavy tank carrying a minigun and heavy armor. Extremely slow moving.

Vehicles:
Buggy - Fast mounted machine gun

Light tank - Cannon medium armor

Mech - Mounted machine guns, rockets

Commander mech - pulse cannon, heavy armor, limited range, repair droid
 
j291P.jpg


Never going to pull all that off, way too much work.
 
Never say never, Natural Selection pulled off a similar style game, as did the ISOTX team.
 
Hi all,

I'm Aaron Edwards, the Composer & Assistant Director for this Mod.

I think the level of apparent constructive critism here seems a touch high. Ideas need to be generated, having multiple people does NOT muddy up the mix, IF you know how operate in group.

@ 6Three - Please, don't bother with your bashing here. If you think the game and all its team members are going to fail, fine. Keep it to yourself, we are not interested.

@ Yorrick - You also should really do research into the people you are beating down on. You know nothing of my work, nor my methods, therefore I don't believe your in a position to be criticising me & my role in the game design process.

Please people, we have an idea, we need team members as per the Game Outline post.

If you have any further questions regarding the game concept, please don't hesitate to ask.

If you have any further questions regarding the role requirements, please don't hesitate to ask.

IF you feel the need to beat down on this project for the sake of 'you don't like the idea' then take your comments elsewhere.
 
@ Yorrick - You also should really do research into the people you are beating down on. You know nothing of my work, nor my methods, therefore I don't believe your in a position to be critising me & my role in the game design process.

You can't even pay attention enough to spell my name right. :upstare:

I'm not criticising your work, nor was I criticisng you personally, but there is a way that things are done. There is established methodology from people who I'm sure have been doing it much, much longer than you.
 
Right, so the way to progress is to the exact same thing over and over? Nice.

By the way, I'm so stuck up about spelling, so you know... deal with it.
 
Sound design is very important even right from the start. It not going to be final work by any means but a decent piece of music is great for setting moods and works well along side a piece concept art to level designers especily when you get to the lighting stages.

Also I didn't mean a full game design document more just some more information on game play/concept. You bascily just posted an idea and said "we have a couple of people working it" wile not going into to much depth as to what the concept was and how you played the game.
 
I added more.

Honestly I'm getting a little frustrated with the lack of constructive comments here.

I spent four years on a stand alone game (two in active development) and the only thing keeping me back was lack of funds.

The team and I figured we should work on a mod to get something out there to show we have the dedication and drive, add it to the portfolio for potential investors while making it a quality project that could stand on it's own.

But the mod community is a bit rude and lackluster compared to the feed back and help I received on the stand alone.

A few bad eggs and all I suppose.

Thanks for the feedback Stormy.
 
Right, so the way to progress is to the exact same thing over and over? Nice.

So in your opinion it's better to ignore the established paradigm (which works perfectly) and just do whatever you want whenever you want? I'm sure this project will go super far.
 
Step 1. Website. Make a website. This makes you look more professional and gives you the ability to present your ideas in a suitable way.

Step 2. Don't come looking for help and then start moaning to people that are not being malicious, but are trying to suggest ways in which you could get more interest and improve your organisation. Yorick has made some decent points, and the fact is, he is part of a successful mod team already (and he has the website and a released mod to prove it).

So don't come out here thinking you know better when you have nothing to show that you know better! :-

Step 3. Show some of your previous work, rather than saying 'award winning' (also say what you've won these awards for!) What were your previous projects?

It's a pity, as it's seems you've put a lot of thought into this mod, and despite the tone of my post, I think the idea is there and I wish you the best with it :)
 
I'll do up some models for you. I don't have any work to show you. I can however take a concept piece, model it up and then show you the results and you can make a decision on accepting me then. I've got access to 3DS Studio Max 2009 and Zbrush if needed for high poly modeling, which I doubt since this is Source which is essentially old raggedy ass Quake code.

I also work in music production. You can check out some samples here: http://soundcloud.com/pkenton and http://www.myspace.com/aliencraftstudios
 
Yeah.. I think they're long gone, bud.
 
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