neuberlin°: Spiritual Successor to NEOTOKYO° Thread

Neuberlin (neuberlin°, henceforth NB) is a spiritual successor to the Half-Life² standalone mod, NEOTOKYO°, originally developed by Studio Radi-8. Much like its predecessor, the mod will be set in a futuristic dystopian city having two class-based teams battle it out in tactical objective based situations. And like NEOTOKYO°. the mod will run on Valve's famous Source Engine.

Story: Set in 2095, Berlin, Germany, the German Government is seeking to gain back its former glory days of two decades past; having complete control over Germany. Slowly becoming suspicious of surrounding corporations, the Government sets up special undercover operations to uncover the truth behind the corporations rapid growth, more specifically, Falke Corp. The Government soon discovers a startling truth to Falke Corporation's rapid growth, the corporation's in-house military force. Backed with the latest in weaponry developments and ridiculous amounts of money, Falke's highly-advanced AI produced army is its reason to its rise in Germany as the highest-grossing company ever. Simply taking out competition by extreme brute force. The Government, shortly after hearing about the news, launches an operation to destroy Falke Corporation and take back Germany under its complete control. Yet, Falke Corp., too, discovers of the Government's plan to stop their reign in not only the economy, but its foreshadowing control of Germany, and soon, Europe. The battle of the control of Germany starts.

Characters (Teams):

Government: Wanting to regain their reign over Germany again, the Government will stop at nothing to do so. Formerly having complete control over Germany from 2035 - 2080, it was soon brought down by the the ever-expanding rise in corporations. Armed to the teeth in weapons, equipment, and men willing to fight to their very last cyber-lung supported breath, they might just have everyone on their knees again, bowing to their every whim.

Falke Corporation: Having a rapid rise to success (through dishonest means), the Falke Corporation seeks out to be the dominant corporation in Germany. Being backed with not only money a man could dream of, but the most advanced in weaponry development, and mass production of highly-advanced AI for their android army, their vision of ruling over Europe with their ever-expanding empire corporation might be within arms reach.

Gameplay: Much like its predecessor, the mod will rely heavily upon class-based tactical teamwork. ***Much like the original, the game will be in first-person perspective. The classes from the original mod, Recon, Assault and Support, return with some minor tweaks.

Recon: The Recon return and retain their ability to have a fairly long cloaking time, rapid movement, reaching exclusive areas, and vision to clearly see other cloaked forces. They also make a comeback with their drawbacks as well, having low armour and health count, close-to-mid range weaponry and being a difficult class to master. Yet, unlike Neotokyo°, the class will not retain its former remote C4 bomb, but instead be replaced with an EMP grenade. Doing damage to an opposing player's HUD (screen becoming blurry, shaky, and shifting digitally), special visions, reveal cloaked enemes, as well as even slowing them down a bit, this gives the Recon the advantage of confronting small groups, bypassing stronger enemies, or stunning them in order your teammates to gun them down. But with it's perks, it drawbacks are also deadly if you happen to throw one near your teammate(s), same side effects apply. As a result, the EMP count per Recon is one, as well as having a somewhat small blast radius. Precision is key, as well as planning when using the EMP.

Assault: Much like its NEOTOKYO° counterpart, the Assault class is an all-around class. Having moderate speed, health and armour, decent cloak time, and the best in weaponry selection, the class is recommended to newcomers. The class will retain its frag grenade and its vision of being able to see moving characters. It will also retain it's drawbacks, vision doesn't say if it's an opposing force or ally, not as quick or agile as the Recon and still susceptible to the Support class' mighty firepower and higher armour and health state.

Support: Lock and load, because the Support is making its return as well, retaining its infamous slow walking, and high health and armour specifications, as well as having the beefiest arsenal of the previously said classes. Like other two classes, its drawbacks are within this one too, slow movement, easy target, not being able to maneuver quickly and completely not being able to roll, makes him and easy target for frags and sneaky Recons. Yet, if used correctly, one or two of these fellas could knock out a small squad of enemies. Being the most tweaked class, the class will have the option of two loadouts. Once a loadout is picked, the loadout will be in effect until death. The first loadout will be the Support's Original settings, meaning having smoke grenades and infrared vision mode. The other loadout that Support class may choose has a nail grenade, which shoots flechettes in multiple directions for a short period of time. His/Her vision mode is now an x-ray mode, which works to a certain radius and can see enemies through walls, but it limits his/her vision outside the radius. This can be upgraded through credits. In certain maps, the Support can and is the only class to be able to carry an item in order to block a path in order for the opposing team to slow down. This, of course, can be brought down.

*NOTE: Recon and Assault are the only classes which can roll left, right and back in order to dodge in coming grenades/bullets.

To show you what the interface/HUD view may look like, here's a (horribly made) mock up.

Now down to a new system for maps. Dubbed Dynamic Territorial Control or Campaign, is a way for the players to decide the story's outcome.

Team Deathmatch: Pretty self-explanatory. You eliminate their team before they do on to you. No respawning.

Very Important Businessman (VIB): *This mode only applies to Tier 2 & 3. If Falke Corporation has won the previous territory (map), then now it is your objective to escort your businessman out of the facility. In VIB, a random player is chosen to become the VIB, the rest of your teammates must, as all costs, protect you until you get to your destination (helicopter/armoured vehicle). The VIB is fitted with the armour of an Assault class and a mid-range submachine-gun.To avoid camping by opposing force, teammates and your VIB can call in the transport whenever needed. Just know, that once you do, you have exactly forty-five seconds to reach said destination. To avoid spamming or early call, it's up to the VIB to either veto the call or accept the transport. To further more abolish camping at LZ, transport will shoot enemies if located nearby. As the Government, it's your job to eliminate the VIB at any cost. As stated above with the Support class, it can carry certain objects (sofa, table, etc.) in order to block a door/pathway for the opposing side to slow down. Objects can be destroyed, but choosing another path is much more efficient. If the Government wins, you will suffer the Loss of Expansion (LOE), causing you to flee and have to regain a territory. This is done by eliminating the opposing team. If the Corporation is victorious, then they simply move a territory up. (See example 1 & 2)

Search & Destroy (S&D): *This mode only applies to Tier 2 & 3. If the Government has won the previous territory (map), then now it is your team's objective to invade a corporate building and search and destroy important documents/weapon prototypes/ghosts/servers/etc. Another option is to the eliminate the opposing team. Much like in VIB, the opposing team can use a Support class to block certain paths. At the Corporation, your objective is to eliminate the opposing force, or make sure they don't destroy the important artifacts. If the Corporation wins, you will suffer the Loss of Expansion (LOE), causing you to flee and have to regain a territory. This is done by eliminating the opposing team. If the Government is victorious, then they simply move a territory up. (See example 1 & 2)

Takeover (TO): *This mode only applies to Final Tier. Playing out much like Team Fortress 2's Capture Points gametype, the objective is to invade the opposing forces HQ and capture certain points in their HQ. Once all points are captured, you must then destroy an important structure (reactor/ android factory line) which will then end you in total victory for your party. Support class can also block paths in this mode as well. Reinforcements (respawning) is allowed, but is delayed five - ten seconds. Capture points will act as check points and cannot be captured back. If the opposing team wins, you will suffer the Loss of Expansion (LOE), causing you to flee and have to regain a territory. This is done by eliminating the opposing team. If the your team is victorious, you now regained control over Germany. If you are tied, it heads on over to Sudden Death. (See Example 1 for more details) *This mode is roundless, meaning a team will have five minutes to accomplish a said objective, once that objective is complete (i.e. destroy a generator), another five minutes are added. If said objective is not done, team loses.

Sudden Death (SD): This is ONLY used if there needs to be a tie breaker. (See Example 1) One round. Eliminate the opposing force. Winner reigns over Germany.

In total there are *45 rounds. *9 rounds each territory, three minutes each round. Team with the most wins at the end of the match, wins.
*Excluding Sudden Death *Excluding the Takeover round

Credits: In the original game, you got points if you killed an enemy and even more for completing an objective. In this game, the weapon ranking system is in-store; but so are credits. Credits are the currency in-game, which are given once a player (or team) completes an objective. Credits can be used to unlock weapons earlier ( unless "selling" used) or be used to buy blockade items (unless "selling" is used).

In NB, there are four tiers of weapons (as pictured above on the mock screen). Sub-Machine Guns, Rifles, Shotguns and Heavy Weaponry (LMGs, Sniper Rifles). For example, let's take the red circle example. Unlike in NEOTOKYO°, if you pick up a deceased teammate/enemy's weapon and survive the round, you keep it for the following round(s). This is unless you don't want the weapon/picked it up for "sale." The "selling" of a weapon enables you to open up another locked weapon or several weapons based on the power of the weapon being sold (stats-wise). For example, the red circled SMG is the "best" out of the SMG in-terms of stats. Since it's a "level 3" SMG, I could only "sell" the SMG for opening the two first levels of the Rifle tier or open up the Shotgun tier and get a "level 1" Shotgun. Once sold, you don't keep the "level 3" SMG, you lose it and have to re-obtain it through regular means (i.e. ranking). Another example would be the yellow circle example. Since it's a "level 2" SMG, If sold, I could only obtain a "level 1" Rifle. (Please don't mind the black square, it was a mistake on my part). Otherwise, if you prefer not to use this method, you could obtain credits by successfully achieving objectives and buying the desired weapon (price varies on weapons stats). Or, if the gamemode allows blockade items, you could also sell your obtained weapon in exchange for a blockade item. The item's strength depends on the stats of the weapon being exchanged.

Level/Environment Design: This will be crucial to the game. Both teams, artistically, have different views and origins. The Government is trying to imply purity and simpleness. Thus having a more minimalistic design. Sleek, modern, simple. Much like in 2001: A Space Odyssey or THX-1138. On the other hand, the Corporation, while carrying along with minimalistic tendencies, is a corporation after all, and corporations LOVE to advertise. This will reflect in ads, vending machines, stores, boards, machinery. Example could include the opening scenes in Blade Runner and Wip3out (Wipeout 3). Each mode will respectively have their own map and according to which mode your playing, will respectively showcase the environment. For example, on VIB, a scenario would be escaping a corporate office. It must convey that you're in a corporate office, with ads, posters, meeting rooms, etc. There will also be many routes in which you can take in order to complete an objective. A great team could use the map and figure out a plan of attack/counter-attack.

Art Design: As stated above, along with environment design, art will play a major part. Especially minimalism. (Examples include Wip3out (Art Design by the now defunct Designers Republic): website: Wip3out.com) But will also pay homage to the original art design of NEOTOKYO°, designed mostly by PushBAK. Much like in TF2, you must be able to tell teammates as well as enemies part, as well as what weapon that person is carrying and what class that person is. Identification is key.

Sound Design & Music: Much like in the original, you felt in place because of not only the environment design, but also because of the ambient sounds. Cars rushing by, trains, people, etc. As stated above as well, identification is key. When a weapon is fired, you will be able to estimate its distance, direction as well as even identifying the weapon itself. On the other note, music will be reminiscent of Ed Harrison, the original NEOTOKYO° composer, as well as Vangelis, BT, Hybrid, among many. I've already started on the OST, and here's a track that expresses the atmosphere of the current situation in 2095, Germany. (If it doesn't show up, click here)

Controls: The controls will be much similar to the original's, with fixes to the peaking system to make it much smoother and easier to use. As well as with Recon for easier access and use, but still have a hard mastering. Unlike the original, this will have iron-sights.

Feedback and ideas are clearly welcome!

** 5/28/12 NOTE: The perspective change may change to back FPS depending on community feedback.
*** 5/31/12 NOTE: Perspective change from over-the-top to back to first-person due to design concerns with multi-level maps and vision modes. Changes made to design document to reflect stated change.
****6/6/12 NOTE: revisions made on rounds and times as well as revision and additions to "Credits."
*****6/11/12 NOTE: Revisions made on rounds.

Edited by: Aguila.

Really nice design document, its a pretty solid concept that's already been proven. Did you have any involvement with the original? and hopefully people that did work on the original may be interested in joining your project.

But yeah, this is the sort of design documents that we like to see on Moddb/Indiedb. (Unlike the usual "Make my cool idea guys" threads)

formerlyknownasMrCP wrote: Really nice design document, its a pretty solid concept that's already been proven. Did you have any involvement with the original? and hopefully people that did work on the original may be interested in joining your project.

But yeah, this is the sort of design documents that we like to see on Moddb/Indiedb. (Unlike the usual "Make my cool idea guys" threads)

Why thank you, but no, I wish I could've taken part of the original. I did and still do play the original. I've contacted the original team to see if they would like to support it in anyway, but seeing as most of them have their own projects, this might start from scratch. The only one that has responded was Ed, the original's composer, whom is busy, but said if this gets rolling, he'd be happy to contribute at least one track to the soundtrack.

Wow, color me interested! Having landed in airports in both China and Germany today, I was reminded of the art of NEOTOKYO and GITS, and really felt like starting a project in the style of it. Imagine my surprise when I see this the same day. As soon as I have time to spare I will send you my portfolio. This is definitely something I want to be a part of.

Also, fantastic work, both with the track and the design document.

John

Edited by: ultimate

Interesting.

ultimate wrote: Wow, color me interested! Having landed in airports in both China and Germany today, I was reminded of the art of NEOTOKYO and GITS, and really felt like starting a project in the style of it. Imagine my surprise when I see this the same day. As soon as I have time to spare I will send you my portfolio. This is definitely something I want to be a part of.

Also, fantastic work, both with the track and the design document.

John

Haha, thanks mate! Can't wait to see what you can bring to the project!

Loved NT to pieces, so much so I ended up making a couple of custom Maps for it. Would love to get in on the ground floor to do some source mapping for a project like this

To future proof this game, it's better to do it in UDK or Cryengine 3. Source is heavily outdated by comparison

I have to agree with kaneda. I'm not saying I wouldn't make a source mod, but NT was one and a very popular one at that. I think NT came out too late in the Source lifespan, and would have an even harder time now (or in 2-3 years, especially). Maybe source players in don't like tactical shooters, maybe it was the gamemode which some of us loved and others hated. It could be that the reason was that people were waiting for it to be released on steam, but I guess that never happened because of GITS copyright issues. That or the fact that every match there would be one guy running around with tits in his face.

I just think this deserves to be more than a mod. Besides, if it were built in UDK I could see it having more of a Deus Ex: HR feel to it, which would be pretty effing awesome.

I think it's best to take the engine you have experience with. If you know Source, make it a Source Mod, if you know UDK better, use UDK. Otherwise it can slow you down more than you like, during development.

It really depends - are u making a prototype to showcase, like NMRIH. Lowpoly grafics and 1 hour texture jobs, but overall a nice game. Or do you really want to make it short and shiny, as a sort of proof of concept? If that is the case, I'd work on CrySDK or UDK, just to use the advanced features. Personally I think a true GITS style, e.g. stylized/cartoony would work much better than total realism/awesomeness; saves some time in the making and looks good.

Make sure you find an art director for the game, who you can trust. Don't let anyone else take control over the visuals/ look of the game. Your Logo (font) is already an indication that you are gonna need some help, since it takes the direction of noir/art deco, which is quite a stretch from the original Neo Tokyo. Their first and foremost features was brilliant design. Yours seems to be gameplay. Why not make a prototype with the orginal models first and build up an original (looking) game from there through iteration?

Edited by: SinKing

SinKing wrote: Their first and foremost features was brilliant design. Yours seems to be gameplay. Why not make a prototype with the orginal models first and build up an original (looking) game from there through iteration?

As a matter of fact I was thinking of doing this.

Also to answer the Source question. Most of the people on the team/people that are interested have the most experience in Source, plus it would also be open to people who may not have super powerful computers. Another upside is that Source [SDK Base 2007] already comes with Steam. We want to push the Source engine to it's limits. Nonetheless we will take it into consideration as we're only on the art development/concept stages.

Also, on terms of the art direction, as much as I love GITS and Akira, and have influenced my design choices and concepts in neuberlin°, we're trying to slightly move away from the more "anime" type designs and go more forth into a more modern-futuristic approach, more stylized like in the flims Blade Runner, Alien, Aliens, 2001: A Space Odyssey and THX-1138 or games like Wip3out, Deux Ex, Syndicate and Mirror's Edge, yet still pay homage to the design styles of PushBAK. In simple terms, a tad more serious (not to say NEOTOKYO° wasn't) art approach, but still keep it colourful and approachable for people; A Team Fortress 2 mentality that I can pick it up and play while having a Counter-Strike tactical approach of gameplay.

Edited by: Aguila.

All in all I find this to be a very charming and definitely a very well thought out good idea.
I do however have two concerns:

The Aethetics
Much of the designs of NeoTokyo showcased the mentality of Japanese engineering; High Quality technology, that is often over engineered in terms of its purpose (e.g A cassette player with a battery life of 20 hours when tapes only last like 2 hours) with an intended operational lifetime of about 5 years while being relatively complicated, fragile and delicate. Of course having a humanoid android objective in NeoTokyo might suit our ideal of a Japanese futuristic battleground but that won't fly in Deutchland. German engineering is best described as: High Quality, extremely long operation lifetime (20 years min), extremely utilitarian, simple to use, durable, tough but never overly complicated or difficult to maintain. All those fancy headsets would probably just look like standard goggles in Europe, you know stuff like that.
Basically what I'm getting at is your guns and level designs will have to reflect your central European setting, so you can't just redo NeoTokyo. But you've already thought of that by starting with Wipeout as a reference for you art design. I should also add that adding in 19th and 20th century architecture to the mix will also be a great move since there is still a good number of these buildings around in good shape as well as new ones that go up from time to time in these 'classical styles'. Don't forget like 90% of your guns should feature recycled design features/shapes. Germans have a habit of recycling and renovating old designs into new ones instead of coming up with completely new ones for a few good reasons. As such your SMG and Assault rifles will likely look much like long/short versions of each other. Good examples of this in real life are how the mp5 shares internal and external features with the G3, where as in NeoTykyo this really only extended to the sniper/assault rifles
Upload.wikimedia.org
Upload.wikimedia.org

Advancing game play
NeoTokyo was great, if a little brutal. But you can't just recycle all the gameplay mechanics from that game into this one. And I'm not just talking about game modes, you already have some great ideas. I really suggest on making some changes to the game design, change the way health works, try giving flamethrowers as an alternative to shotguns, give the option for incendiary shells instead of slugs for shotguns, add sneak melee attacks to recon that 1 hit kill, add grenades that cover people in glue that stop them from moving. I don't know just add stuff. You don't wanna be the guy remembered for making a mod sequal to a mod and didn't innovate the game play at all.

Hopefully this mod won't go inactive and just die. I was always interested in NeoTokyo, but was too late since I heard it was inactive. This mod will revive the Neotokyo community and the people who were hyped the first time. Can't wait

It's a shame it won't have that beautiful OST :/

xalener wrote: It's a shame it won't have that beautiful OST :/

The original composer and I are going to work on it;)

Wow! Looks and sounds fantastic!

I would have really liked to get into Neotokyo, but from all accounts it seems pretty dead.

Good luck with this project, I will definitely be following it closely.

Captain_Ahab wrote: Wow! Looks and sounds fantastic!

I would have really liked to get into Neotokyo, but from all accounts it seems pretty dead.

Good luck with this project, I will definitely be following it closely.

*cough* NEOTOKYO° update coming on Tuesday *cough*

Tons of people still play

anything to update on this project?

Faucon wrote:

Tons of people still play

REALLY? That's interesting, maybe I should revisit.

Hey I'd like to help out if this is still on. Contact me at aleph [AT] lat3ncy.com

I'm extremely well-versed in the cyberpunk genre, and have been playing NT off and on since it came out. Based on what I've seen so far in the music you've provided and the logo, I've got a pretty good feel of where you want to take it. Maybe a sort of Monochrome gradient palette, slightly postcyberpunk feel? Spartan/Minimalist design, sterile, nihilistic?

Let me know.

LAT3NCY.COM

Edited by: pill-guy

Major, major time bump.

Extremely sorry for the bump, but seeing as I now have some freetime I can finally squeeze this project in. Are there still any people of interest around?

Maybe...
I'm always sceptical with projects here on moddb/indiedb, because the vast majority of projects die and what gets released, often isn't worth my time.
If it gets released and has proven interesting during development, you can bet I'll check it out.
Projects have to earn my interest by proving that the developers are determined to finish the game during development.

So what?
I'm neutral towards this project. Neither does this project hype me, nor do I think it's a waste of your time.

Major, major time bump.

Extremely sorry for the bump, but seeing as I now have some freetime I can finally squeeze this project in. Are there still any people of interest around?

If you need any concept art done; I'd be more than happy to help.