Terror Sites

[Kreis]

I think it's a great idea! Besides, each country have its own places of interest. Basing on

them terror will look intriguing! What about an a mission in Kremlin or in the White House?

[j'ordos]

Those could serve for the post v1 new mission type, regaining control of countries that signed a pact with the aliens. Or, preventing those nations to sign a pact at all

 

There is one problem I see with those 'shops with adjusted names'. I've never heard of half the shops you're talking about here

edit: and I guess I'm not the only one, so the average non-US player wouldn't get much out of it. We could do that with shops in every part of the world, but only native people would get it all, except for really famous/notorious (scrap whatever you don't find fitting) multinationals.

Edited November 19, 2003 by j'ordos

[Cpl. Facehugger]

McDonalds is universal, right?

[demich]

jordos: yep you're right. I 'dont know half of these shops names too:)

I like idea of new terror mission .

 

About cities... we can put one city per country for each 10 000 000 of people who live in it or. Of course it's impossible to make 100 cities for China

Edited November 20, 2003 by demich

[Puasonen]

There is one problem I see with those 'shops with adjusted names'. I've never heard of half the shops you're talking about here

edit: and I guess I'm not the only one, so the average non-US player wouldn't get much out of it. We could do that with shops in every part of the world, but only native people would get it all, except for really famous/notorious (scrap whatever you don't find fitting) multinationals.

Agree.. I've heard about Kmart but never seen it, (heard about it in the movie called "rainman")

 

About those terrorsites basing on real cities, I don't want to be a pain in the *** but isn't New York a little bit too big to fit in terrorsite? :wink:

Even one big skyscraper would be too much with 100+ floors to check out. I see this VERY hard to implement. Famous buildings would be possible though? Buckingham Palace, White House, Big Ben, Statue Of liberty :o , Eiffel Tower..

And, the other fact is I like randomly generated maps most of the times, just sometimes you would have these special places which are allways the same (not generated randomly) If you have 100 different maps, you can have the same map many times with bad luck. And it would start to suck and get boring I think. Like shippingroutes on tftd.

[Guest drewid]

McDonalds is universal, right?

Hey we can shoot up MacDs. jus like "Falling Down".

 

Most game seem to get away with not being able to go in certain buildings, or we could have street + access to the first couple of floors of a particular building or group of buildings.

 

Like in Hitman, you accept that certain streets and buildings are locked.

[Breunor]

Falling Down was a good one. I agree that we could increase the size of large city maps by limiting access to the first floor or two of tall buildings. We can also say skyscrapers can't be shot apart due to reinforced concrete footings, so we can reduce the poly count a lot that way. I think we can have about 50% of the models for a custom city be recycled for most sites, and just have several unique buildings that make the city stand out. The amount of HDD space wouldn't be that much then as we increase the number of sites. For things like a mall, wee can make 3-4 layouts, and then plug the random shop names in. We can make spoof names for each continent and have the game choose the appropriate set. That way people in Europe get names they know, the US gets theirs, etc.

 

I doubt you'd get bored with terror sites when you consider how many types of sites, variations on each type, and then texture variations from there that we can have. Considering you might encounter 5 terror sites in a game, it could take 3-4 games before you see the same terror site, and even then the texturing will probably be different. And once v1 is out, we can make Terror Packs, people can download additional sites as we make them or upgrade existing ones. I think our terror sites will rock! :happybanana:

[demich]

first of all there should be capital cities acting as terror sites. Hmm i was always wondering why there is no alien terror ship in terror site. I know the answer is

that ship floats somewhere above the city. This can explain to gamers why there is a limited area of mission - aliens always act "under" their ship. This explenation(sp?

) can be avaible after a "terror mission" reserch or sth like that.

So this is my idea how to solve this "border problem":

 

blue line - If your soldier cross it the message will apear : "Unit is aproaching to mission area border". If your soldier cross the red line the following message will apear: "Do you want this unit to leave the mission area?". The soldier who will leave the area won't die from fatal wounds - he will find a shelter or even hospital. Of course you won't be able to call him back . And of course aliens can't cross the red line.

Edited November 20, 2003 by demich

[CptJackSparrow]

Nice ideas demich!

But soldiers with fatal wounds shouldn't be

able to retreat from combat. This would

make medi-kits quite useless.

[mikker]

first of all there should be capital cities acting as terror sites. Hmm i was always wondering why there is no alien terror ship in terror site. I know the answer is

that ship floats somewhere above the city. This can explain to gamers why there is a limited area of mission - aliens always act "under" their ship. This explenation(sp?

) can be avaible after a "terror mission" reserch or sth like that.

So this is my idea how to solve this "border problem":

 

blue line - If your soldier cross it the message will apear : "Unit is aproaching to mission area border". If your soldier cross the red line the following message will apear: "Do you want this unit to leave the mission area?". The soldier who will leave the area won't die from fatal wounds - he will find a shelter or even hospital. Of course you won't be able to call him back . And of course aliens can't cross the red line.

this exact system was used in the "armored core" games. though that was a 3rd person shooter.

[mikker]

This would

make medi-kits quite useless.

not if the wounded guys is in the middle of the map. it would take like 7 turns for a rokiee to make it out to the red line (or about that). He'll proberly die before that.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

That is what Apoc did.

 

I like the idea of a ufo floating above the city, but would we be able to attack it? That would be really fun. Maby it could have a gravity-lift beam or something between it and the ground, so it can release aliens as needed? It goes without saying that your men can get up there too.

[j'ordos]

You can shoot down the UFO and have an easier time, at a cost of course: half the city reduced to piles of rubble with the occasional body part in them

[Cpl. Facehugger]

I don't think the countries will like that...

 

But being able to attack terrorships at t-sites would make going to terror sites more of a reward. Currently, terrorsites can ususally be ignored unless you are doing poorly. But if we made it so you got equipment (elerium) for going there, that would be incentive for responding.

[j'ordos]

If you're doing well enough to skip a terror site I doubt you're in such dire need for Elerium you suddenly would go to that terror site

[mikker]

what about a city is destroyed if a terror site is ignored, or all civs die? that would be really fun

 

aliens doing their job, eh?

[demich]

There can be an option of attacking the ufo after sucessful wiping of ground aliens but the attack on ufo won't be nessesary There can be message "Do you want to attack ufo?" and timer showing how many second's left before aliens turn of their teleport-beam and fly away. If player hits okay he will see as his soldiers "climb" on light beam and the second phase will begin. Because the ufo should be piloted somehow : Our heroes can use either their piloting skills to touch down UFO( avaible after reserching Power Source and Navigation), force Alien (it will looks like in Dark Colony intro ) however there will be a BIIG chance that alien won't listen and the ship will crash - bye bye elerium... or they can PSI alien to touch craft down.

 

And it's a graphic thingie but it's obvious that there should be shadow on the ground below UFO(this will be the only thing that will be showing that there is something above). Hmmm even more darker night terror sites?

[j'ordos]

The UFO's can disrupt all electrical power, so no lighting at all

 

But, if a UFO is hovering over the city I doubt it would let your Skyranger touch down so the human soldiers can beat the crap out of the alien terrorists :wink:

[Deimos]

The nice thing about Breunor's Y Design is that not only could we have the shop fronts and the isles of the various shops but also the back storage rooms. Maybe even leading into the rear delivery areas where aliens and players can get back into the shops and even go from one to another.

 

The idea about changing the names of the sotres is a good one too, again Breu's pic there with the brand changing is a solid idea. I remember doing something similar back in my college days, only difference being that we used sweet wrappers and smaller stuff instead.

 

Some Uk and european store names would be nice

 

How about:

 

Asda = Divida

Tesco = Musgo

Miss Selfridge= Miss Otherplateau

Game = Play

and the list goes on.

 

Maybe someone on the team can pull up references and make up like Breunor has with other stores.

[j'ordos]

I think those are UK only, apparently I know more US stores

If there's going to be a Terror site in Brussels or Antwerp (or any other Belgian city, but these are the most important ones, still only a few 100.000 inhabitants each) I can give some shop spoofs, though many international shops/companies will do just fine (mcdonalds, h&m, matinique/inwear, body shop, fuels and cars, electronics and appliances,...)

Edited November 20, 2003 by j'ordos

[Breunor]

Why don't we have each member who wants to bring us 5 store names, some alternate names, and the spoofed logo. Zip them up and post here. We'll toss them all in the texture bin to be randomly picked depending on the continent. While we could do it per country, that becomes a lot of textures. We can go back to that option when other areas are covered. I like the rear access hall idea, probably all malls have those, especially the food court. A variation on that floorplan has a foodcourt in the upper center section, and the 2 entrances are the opposite corners where the main halls meet. Then you have tables and chairs in the center eating area. And perhaps some spiral stairs for fun!

 

I'll start working on a model draft for the mall, will eventually have to pass parts to a 3d Max user, as Milkshape's grouping limits will quickly be hit. Or perhaps I'll install Blender now to import chunks into...

[Cpl. Facehugger]

How excactly do you make a texture? I'm curious, and I might be able to use photoshop to do up some spoof logos.

[Breunor]

A texture is just a graphic file, for our use it needs to be saved in png format, and a multiple of 2 squared. 64x64, 128x128, 256x256, 512x512 pixels is the max for larger objects. So just make your logo as small as you can, and we'll work from there.

[SupSuper]

if i was good at editing logos i'd help, but i rather just come up with ideas

[Breunor]

Practice makes better SupSuper, just look around for some simple logos like the Gap one above, and make your own version.

 

I've started working on the mall shop template, once I've got a few things together we'll see what it looks like. To save a ton of polys, we're going to say the floors are reinforced concrete, and can't be shot through. This lets us make the floor from 2 polys instead of (8m by 16m by 2) 256. With an estimated 60 shops, that's over 15,000 polys right there.

[X-Clu-Zif]

Mixes up a big bowl of concrete... I'm with you on that one... I'll have this ready as soon as you need it...

 

I don't know if this has been mentioned before, but I would like to go on a snakemen rampage in a sewer, of course v 1+, but how I would just so love to kill does things where they belong...

[Breunor]

A call to arms!

 

This weekend I should get some good work done on the mall scene, but it would REALLY help if anyone who can could pitch in on the filler models. This would include potted plants, benches, vendor carts, information desk, atm machines, indoor fountains, elevator(with some glass walls in it), cashier counter, stand-along shelving units, tables and chairs for the eating area, outdoor shrubs and bushes etc. Anything you see in the mall that stands on its own counts towards this. If you're not comfortable texturing, no problem. If you can texture but not model that's cool too. Together we'll make some complete models.

 

If you have a chance this weekend stop by your local mall and take a look, even better take some digital pics of items, particularly the front of stores. We can use them for making our spoof store logos. I really think if everybody can toss in just an item or two we could quickly get a complete terror site up and ready to play in short order.

:happybanana:

Thanks for any help in advance!

 

ps, due to the file sizes involved, if we do get some digital reference pics, we'll start a new thread just for them, so our discussions can stay here and not slow down the load time of the thread.

[mikker]

we could also make original ones.

 

like

 

"Tommys toys" a gun shop

[Breunor]

Absolutely, just come up with a name and preferably a logo to go with it, we're not stuck with just spoof names.

 

Oh, and if anybody goes to take pics, make sure you ask permission first, store owners might think you're the competition, even after you explain what you're doing.

[SupSuper]

i'm gonna model an elevator, but it will be textureless.

 

Oh, and if anybody goes to take pics, make sure you ask permission first, store owners might think you're the competition, even after you explain what you're doing.

i have fun asking permission, since when i tell them it's for http://www.projectxenocide.com and they check it out i find out some of the employees are x-com fans Edited November 23, 2003 by SupSuper

[Puasonen]

i'm gonna model an elevator, but it will be textureless.

Sounds good but has it been discussed how we are making the elevators? In original, elevators didn't move at all but there was this stupid animation of x-com soldier moving up and down through floors

This is a good way to minimize the work though, because if you make a moving elevator, you have to "order" it from the floor where it's left by previous user. How the heck can we make that!

[Breunor]

Well, making the elevator animate and all that is probably a v1+ item, unless we get done with other mandatory things. Feel free to animate it though, we can still have it there with an "out of order" sign on it... You'd have to have a new action to call the elevator if it's not on your floor. Considering that a turn is 4 seconds, it could take 2 turns for it to come to your floor, and 2 more to get to get back. Tactically I don't think you'd ever use an elevator, as most that I've seen in malls are mostly glass, so you'd be a sitting duck. But again, we can make one and have it be a non-interactive model.

[mikker]

i don't think i can make signs that LOOK GOOD. i don't have any expirience with photo shop.

 

i made this crappy looking sign for ya.

Edited November 24, 2003 by mikker

[mikker]

i could figure op some other names.

 

like

 

Grandmas 'ol marmalade shop

The book cavern

Bumped and brused reparation bay

Spy Gear

Big B's Drugs

[j'ordos]

Well, making the elevator animate and all that is probably a v1+ item, unless we get done with other mandatory things. Feel free to animate it though, we can still have it there with an "out of order" sign on it... You'd have to have a new action to call the elevator if it's not on your floor. Considering that a turn is 4 seconds, it could take 2 turns for it to come to your floor, and 2 more to get to get back. Tactically I don't think you'd ever use an elevator, as most that I've seen in malls are mostly glass, so you'd be a sitting duck. But again, we can make one and have it be a non-interactive model.

Besides, if the building was being attacked, I doubt anyone would use the elevator. You don't want to get stuck there

[Breunor]

Hmmm, Mikker, I think we need to make the textures without using copyrighted graphics from the original game. But you could create something similar with original artwork for sure. I've seen malls that had knife shops before, but nothing that sold projectile weapons. Has anybody else?

[j'ordos]

::

Definitely not here

[mikker]

I've seen malls that had knife shops before, but nothing that sold projectile weapons. Has anybody else?

does "water" count as a projectile?

 

or paintballs?

[Breunor]

Here's a question for those familiar with alpha maps. Could we make a very low poly model of this shelf that consists of the basic frame and shelves, and then have a 2 poly "pane" in the middle that has the bottles as an alpha texture? So it would look like this, but the poly count would be really low? If so, I expect the texture would be skewed so that it didn't look stretched or strange from the isometric view.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

In America, some wal-marts sell weapons. And since some wal-marts are part of malls, it goes to reason that some stores in malls sell weapons!

[MomawNadon78]

Well, I am new to the project, but have been taking the time to read up on a mess of these threads and want to put in my two cents.

 

I don't think making site specific terror missions is a good idea. It just adds more and more models to the game. Using the random map generator and combining it with a model pack for a terror mission is the way to go I think. But I say for the model pack, its different for each region. So with these ideas to take photos of our places we live in, we use that for ideas, influences, not as textures. For example, a terror site in Germany would have typical German architecture. Or attacking China would have some typical Chinese architecture. Make different model packs for different regions. Not too detailed, but at least it would make for a bit more realisitic feel. And its also easy to find images of regional architecture. I didn't ever really mind the fact that there were only 5 or 6 different buildings for each terror map in the original. But I think there could be plenty more for the random map generator idea. But again, I think it should be region specific. Not interiors so much as exteriors.

 

And for other terror missions I got some ideas. I like the previous ideas of a mall or a truck stop. I also like the idea of seeing the alien ship. It would be a good way to recieve a great bonus at the end of a terror mission to capture the alien ship. Maybe we have the aliens "retreat" to the alien ship and take off after losing 75% of their troops? So it isn't always a win-win situation. You could win, but still lose as the aliens took off and snatched 10 civilians. Also, terror missions should be taking place at a site where there is a large gathering of humans, therefore spreading terror among civilians. Places like malls, truck stops, parks(just grass parks or amusement parks), movie theaters(although I guess it would be hard to have movies playing, but think about how cool it would be to have to try to find all the aliens in the dark, ), concert or sports stadiums, any place that will have a crowd. I think we need to throw in a few of those types of maps(later on in the development of the game of course).

 

Also, the skyscraper/office building idea. I like this, but throw a little incentive into it. My idea is that the building that is under attack would be a MAJOR contributor to the X-COM project. Like the building that is under attack is the headquarters of the company that is supplying you with your weapons. Aliens could find this info out, since they are also trying to steal away your governments. Aliens land on top of the building, going in to capture the head exec or just kill everyone. Marines land at the front door and have to fight to the top. But to make the models easier, only have it no more than 5 stories. Plus, who wants to fight his way up 10 floors, checking each one as he goes? Trying to make sure no alien is sneaking down the elevator while you take the stairs.

 

Modeling a typical terror site after a certain location sounds like a good idea, but I don't think we should do it. Then people would get too wrapped up in, "Oh look, its downtown Savannah(where I live). I know that spot. Thats where The Rail Pub is(my bar). Did they put it in?" and not really be playing the game. Besides, mapping and modeling a certain location and making it true would create a "fixed" map that would get old after playing it 3 times, as you would use the same strategy each time you played the map.

 

OOOOH! New idea! You could use certain locations for some terror sites. We could model a specific location, like downtown Savannah, and use it for a terror site that is specific to something. For example, through X-COM's contacts, its discovered that the aliens are going to meet an influential government official in Savannah so you fly there to kill or capture the aliens and to expose the government agent, granting you a money bonus on the next month. Or you find out that a high government official will be in Savannah and the aliens are sending a raid to kill/capture the official, and you fly in to protect him, granting a money bonus the next month. Or if you fail either of those, you lose money from that govt the next month. But these kinds of missions only happen after reseaching a certain thing, or after you have started to kick some alien donkey and they are stepping up their activity and trying to find you. That way, we still have these site specific maps, but they are randomly generated each game, to avoid playing those missions over and over again.

 

Thats all I got for now. I'm gonna start tackling the modeling of some things, X-COM base, alien base, and buildings for missions.

Edited December 7, 2003 by MomawNadon78

[coolp]

There was a terror site in Disney Land? We would do it just like in the book Rainbow Six where the terrorists take over a themepark... you could position snipers on top of Dumbo, and the aliens could be hiding in any of the rides...

This would probably be version 1.0+ though, since it would be a pain to model, and it would probably be scripted in... what do you think?

[Breunor]

We look forward to seeing the models, let me know when you have some items ready to be added to the asset list!

 

It is an option, but like you said it might be complicated based on the layout. Around here we have local festivals that include a few rides, a terror site needs to have lots of people together in one spot at a predictable time, so an annual festival would be good.

[mikker]

i have a problem with that...

 

when i was mapping for counter-strike (still is, but less), it was a rule that a school map is a very bad idea. For shooting (CS), plus chieldren (school) equals shooting chieldren. This might give some problems, and IMO, that would give the same problems with a fairground.

[j'ordos]

It could be an abandoned fair, or at night (like in 'Pierrot le Fou', Cowboy Bebop episode )

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Or we could say that the kids were evacuated before, or that the kids are hiding in a "secure" area, aka not on the map.

 

So we aren't going to have civilian children in the game? That is too bad.

[mikker]

dunno...But i think that for it being a kids game, no. But thats only my opinion.

[Gutter Monkey]

Or we could not be cowards and put children in. A civilian child could have a higher penalty rating if they are accidnetaly killed by X-Com, but if there is a theme park level, there should definately be kids.

 

In the example of Ranbow Six brought up by coolp, there was a chapter where a theme park was attacked by terrorists, and a kid (in a wheelchair no less!) did die. When Red Storm created the Ranbow Six computer game, they did not shy away from this and they included a level set in a theme park where the hostages were children. They didn't get sued, and that game was first person, not stragtigic perspective.

 

Having children who can die in a game is nothing new, they made regular apearances in the Ultima series, and showed up in other games as well. As long as the objective is to NOT kill the kids, and if there is a very definate penalty for letting them die, I don't think people- or at least the people who would be playing the game- would have a problem.

 

In fact, the only problem with a Disnyland level I can see would be that if we actually called it Disnyland, Disny would come down on us like a ton of bricks. So I prepose Rizzyland, with it's world famous mascot Rizzy the Rodent!

[Breunor]

Actually the fairgrounds that I'm used to are mostly adults, it's more of a craft fair I guess. But there tends to be a small ride or two as well.

 

But all we do is not have child models in the game and we're fine. Although I don't really see how killing adults indescriminately is any better than having children as well. Having a school terror site would definitely be a BAD idea, as you'd have a definite focus on kids. But a fairground might have 1 kid in 20 civs IMO.

[mikker]

hmmm, that way it seems better.