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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Developing In-game Interactivity.


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During my daily browse of the forums, a few ideas came to me after reading through a few topics. I'm not entirely sure if these are completely original or if they were mentioned before, but if they were forgive me, and perhaps you may see previously mentioned ideas in a new facet here.

 

Scripted Missions:

 

Generally what this would entail are missions encircling the completion of a set goal, or ultimatum to complete for it's success. Some examples would be; the rescue of an important head-scientist from alien clutches to complete the research you are engaged in. The rescue of top-brass UN officials, or World leader types to ensure some semblance of safety or stability in a particular region, ie., that nation which is decreasing it's funding for your effort. If you think about it, it seems more wholesome that the alien threat would attempt to subjugate all pillars of human stability they possibly can, instead of just terrorizing the entire planet. In light of that, another example of a scripted mission could be to seek out and eliminate 'alien clones' which have infiltrated our society, in the guise of human beings. This could also pave the way for the inclusion of various conspiracy theories which plague our modern era. A device of some sort could be developed similar to the motion-scanner that would enable field operatives to tell the difference between humans, and alien clones. Or even on a terror mission, some civilians aren't actually civilians, but aliens in the guise of humans. A score bonus could be issued each mission for taking them out. Capturing a live one could also enable research into that area.

 

Scripted missions could definitely open the doors for further interactivity into the game, making it seem that much more engaging to the player. A few more examples would be the capture of various alien leaders, much like the previous X-COM games to enable certain areas of research. Or, perhaps to complete the research on that alien power source you in some cases would need to capture an alien pilot, or engineer. Conversely, you wouldn't have to need that requirement, but in the event of capturing one it would make your research go by much faster. The chances of this happening would be slim, but it adds a whole new realm of strategy to the game, I believe.

 

Inclusion of modern mysteries and conspiracy:

 

This is strictly intellectual development, and could be included into 'Alien Research' developments, much like the 'Alien Origins' and 'The Martian Solution' aspects of the first game. It, in effect would attempt to explain multiple facets of the alien invasion, and at the same provide our own intellectual solutions to possible realities that exist in our own time period. What did happen at the Roswell 'crash' of 47'? Why do various Governments of the World attempt to coverup, or ignore public scrutiny into 'UFO' matters? What secret 'black projects' has the US Government been developing for the past 40 years? Who are these secret societies that claim to have had contact with 'external forces' for hundreds of years? What really are the crop-circles? Why are there pyramids on Mars, and in Egypt? Those are just some of the questions we could attempt to answer with the growth of in-game research. You catch a glimpse of it in X-COM 1, and I remember personally that it was that aspect of the game which originally won me over. The game in itself was all based on theoretical information, creatively presented, so why not take that further into our own theories with an absolution? I know I would surely have a change of attitude while I'm on a terror mission after I figured out why the aliens are here, and what they have been doing even before the large-scale invasion. Things of this sort of intellectual nature reinforce the gameplay experience.

 

.. Actually, I had a few more ideas besides these ones, but having went into such detail with them the rest of the creative matter has left me. I apologize. When they come back to me, I shall in effect come back to this topic. -_-

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Ah dammit, my apologies. I wrote this out rather early in the morning, so I may have missed the forum description. Corny excuses aside, my sincerest apologies. These were just random ideas I had about the physics of the game, nothing focused on any certain writing project that are in the works.

 

EDIT:

 

.. Er, did a mod move this? This surely wasn't in this forum, because I've never even been here. I took a gander at the rest of the topics here, and I've never seen them before. If I didn't originally put this in the lab, then it was somewhere else, but surely not here. Hmm ..

Edited by Albino Crow
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Spamstick as well as myself have the ability to move it from General into whereever we deem appropiate.

 

In this case, it was dipstick who moved it to the labs.

FYI the labs are for anything that would change the original Xcom Formula. New weapons would fall under this category.

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