An idea for a great Source Mod I'm planning Thread

hello moddb community!
So first let me introduce myself. My name is Sam, but I'm known on here as RevolutionarySam.
Anyways, I am working on a Source Mod.
The game has the following concept
"It was but 10 years ago Earth was invaded by a species from a different planet we call the Supra (Latin for more, or above). The Supra are from a different planet, and are like a far evolved species of us humans). The earth has already been dominated by them. They are far superior in strength and intelligence to us humans. The world has already been taken over by them, most humans were enslaved by them, but those who resisted were killed by them. Different humans have taken refuge in the most unexpected place: the sky.
Different mechanical islands have been formed in the sky by us remaining and unenslaved humans. You, the main character, is named Jason Ellington. It was 10 years ago, when you were 12 years ago, when the Supra invaded your hometown, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Supra first invaded America. They knew that taking down America, it would be like taking candy from a baby to take over the rest of the world.
They first started with the southern parts of America. The Governent didn't know what to do. And with a great risk decided to bomb the area where the SUpra were using as their base. However, it turned out that the Supra's Technology they use in most of their weapons, buildings, vehicles, and even in themselves, absorbs nuclear energy as well as nuclear bombs, and use it to power themselves up. They prepared for this.
After that, America didn't even stand a chance. They eventually moved up to the east coast, west coast and the midwest. When they came to Milwaukee, they met the disaster the rest of America was facing. Your father Friedrich Ellington recently finished working on a new invention. Codename: Sky CIvilization. Sky Civilization is a humongous ship that goes to a very high altitude and then forms into a mechanical island in the sky. This was a project being worked on in multiple countries (it was top secret). Your father was the director.
Japan, Russia, Germany, China, & South Korea had also finished developing theirs. There was one more that was being developed. It was in a very very Ironic place. THis one was not Being devloped by any government. But it was being developed by the most brilliant minds, in Africa.
Specifically it was being developed in Somalia, the pirates from there were using a lot of their money to help invest in this. Their plan was to use it so they could have a secure base of operations.
Anyways, when the time came that the SUpra started to invade Milwaukee, your father's model of Sky Civilization was ready. His named, Milton. Tons of people had already travelled over to milwaukee so that they could board it. About 10,000 people boarded Milton. The Remaining Military also tried to board it once evryone got on, but the Supra anihilated them. Only one soldier managed to make it on. Private Minglana.
Your father made the preparations for Milton to depart. He anitiated the cloaking devide, prepared the engine etc. You saw your father walk towards the teloprter leading to outside, he came out with a prototype weapon he had invented, the Sunset. The sunset shoots out a beam at whatever it is aimed at, then immediately after creates a huge explosion where it was aimed. Why did your father do this, to hinder the Supra from going after Milton.
You said to your father over the radio as he teleported outside "Dad! What are you doing?! You need to get away from here with us!" your father responded "Not me. I'm allowing You, your mother, everyone to get out of here alive!" You responded "No Dad! WHat am I supposed to do without you?! What's mom going to do?!" YOur mother is fully aware of my actions at this moment. She'll miss me, I will miss her. But if I have to sacrifice myself, so that you, your mother, and the rest of these innocent people can get on, then so be it."
Your father then launches the Sunset at the Supra's ship as well as their other vehicles, and a huge explosion occurred. The ship slowly started taking off. You looked out the window at your father, with tears flowing out of your eyes. Then a Supra walked towards your father, and struck him right through his heart. "FATHER!!!!!!" you exclaimed. Then both you and your mother fell unconscious.
When you woke up, you looked out the window, and saw nothing but open skies, and could not even see the ground. You walked outside the ship, and saw a huge island made out of metal attached to the ship.
Private Minglana then approached you. "Your father did a very very brave thing." You paused and stared into his eyes. "Now, let's get ready. Someday we will avenge your father, and everyone else who was enslaved by and killed by the supra." You continued to stare into his eyes. "Now Let's continue what your brave father started."
10 years later... You are now 22 years old. You walk over to visit your mother. She is delighted to see you as always. SHe asks you how your day was at the Rebel's station. You as always told her how the Rebel's are progressing every day. And you, whom has ironically made alliance with all of the other Sky Civilizations, are now ready to launch your attack on the Supra. The only force that is not allied with you is the ship that launched from Somalia.
But who klnows, maybe even someday they will give in. So you and the rest of your friends from the rebels, head over to the Sky Civilization originally from Russia, and then set out with all the other Sky Civilization rebels and launch your attack. And thus, the battle for the Superior race started.

So yeah, I have experience with projects, and I am good at putting in effort, and being al eader, so I believ I am cut for Director. I don't have much experience with 3d Modeling, animations, or programming much at all, but I can definitely lead the project. A friend of mine has some experience with 3D modeling, but that's all I have for people committed to the project.

If you are by any chance interested in my concept, and would like to help, at this point, any help is appreciated.

OK you guys all requested to know stuff about actual gameplay, so here is what I am planning. It will be a RPS (Role Playing First-Person Shooter) first of all. Throughout the game, like in other First Person shooters, you aquire more weapons as you go through the game. Before you leave Milton, Minglana gives you the Sunset, but lets you know it is a prototype, and to save it for a situation where it is absolutely needed, because it can only be used twice. Another interesting thing in this game is like Crysis, you can equip different attatchments to your guns. Such as different sights, grenade launcher, Laser pointer, silencer etc. Throughout a lot of the game you are working co-op, but at some points you will have to go solo. THere will also be parts where you have to drive an aircraft, or a land vehicle, or any vehicle for that matter. ACtually that'll be a big part of the game.

The Supra can take quite a beating. It is important to go for weak spots like the head, or the chest. Otherwise you could be burning through your ammo. Throughout lots of points in the game, you will reach different buildings. At the end of those buildings, after facing lots of obstacles and opponents, you will face a boss.

Now onto multiplayer. For multiplayer, I was planning on a number of ideas of game modes. One would of course be a team deathmatch. Then of course there's regular deathmatch. The way it'll work is there is the Supra team, and the Rebel team. I was thinking of doing something similar to team fortress for gameplay. DIfferent classes will all have different abilities. For instance, there will be a person, whom like engineer, can build stuff, such as a sentry gun, or a portal gate. There will also be a class that specializes in healing, a class that can go faster and can use a powerful assault rifle, a sniper of course, and more classes to come.

So as for game modes, there will be a number of them. I already mentioned DM and TDM. But there will also be capture the flag, a mode where you plant a bomb in the enemy's base, a mode where you must destroy the base little by little by bombing it with an aircraft, and probably the most unique of my ideas for multiplayer modes, is a mode where your team has to be the first one to reach the underwater base, collect all the money, then carry it back to your base. If the enemy destroys your sub on the way, the money will respawn in the underwater base. AN interesting thing they can do though, is infiltrate your sub, and try and take the money.

Now you may be thinking, if the Supra are so much more superior to humans in strength and intelligence, how can you even fight them well. Well don't worry, in this mod, you will have really nice armor.

I think you shouyld play my mod, one because it will have a really good story, two the single player and especially multiplayer gameplay will be extremely fun, and three, I think in a lot of ways, it will revolutionize what HL2 Mods have been like.

Thank you.

P.S. I think if there is anything else I can do to help with the project, that would be designing the maps, as well as some BASIC scripting.

UPDATE 01-18-2011 8:38 PM
I thought I'd mention some more stuff on gameplay, since I don't think I have told you guys enough.

So, let's start off with an Easter Egg you can find throughout the game: Mr. Shagnermann. Mr. Shagnermann is a grumpy middle-aged man, who is very easy to anger. He is hidden in various locations throughout the game. The first place you'll find him in is an apartment in Milton, messing with various things in his apartment or saying various things to him will get him pissed off. Once you reach the ground, you'll find him in lots of various places.

Onto the more important parts. The type of game this will be, is an RPS, Role-Playing Shooter. First-person to be exact. Various things have to be done to level up, get better weapons and armor, upgrade stuff, etc.

There are also different classes of Supra, and humans. All Supra have different powers within them, which the Supra use to power their own technology. But humans have come up with a way to harness it for themselves. Taking advantage of the powers the different supra have will upgrade your stuff, increase certain stats, give you special moves etc.

There will also be a special boss at the end of each level.
Anything else you guys want to know about the game, feel free to let me know, and I will put it here in the main post.
Also, I really need a concept artist before my friend can start working on models.

Thanks!

Edited by: RevolutionarySam

Hi Sam,
if you want people to read about your idea, you should think about giving the text a structure to make it as easy to read as possible. Simply pressing 'Enter' for a couple of times isn't enough, if the text has so many words.

cheers.

Yea give the text some air will you?
Also, I've said this before to others: A story is only half an idea - the other half is the game -mechanics/play/design.
What type of mod is it? FPS? RTS? TPS? What weapons/units will there be? Camera perspective? Texel density and so on... And most important of all: why will people play your mod?

A content list is also very good to have - even at this early stage it's great to show just exactly how much work is needed to finish the mod.

Edited by: Nightshade

I have seen so many of these threads and there are just as many replies that are similar to this: Unless you have a design document and/or some work done and unless you are going to do something besides 'leading the project' people probably won't be joining you.

OK, i edited it so that it is easier to read.
ANd also put down what I can do to help with the project besides just directing/leading.

I updated the thread if you guys wanna check it out!

Edited by: RevolutionarySam

RevolutionarySam wrote: Throughout a lot of the game you are working co-op, but at some points you will have to go solo.

How is this going to be implemented? Is it a single-player campaign where some of the missions/quests are done with other players or are we talking about a design similiar to the Diablo game series?

Also, combining both single player, co-op AND versus multiplayer game modes will most likely break your team/mod appart due to the workload.
My suggestion is that you either focus on single-player - which requires a lot of content - or you focus multiplayer - which requires a lot of code. And if you want co-op elements you could make the mod/game kinda like the mod Sven-Co-Op (spelling). I know from experience that game designers always have grandiose ideas - ideas that will kill them if they try and get everything through. Implementing too many features, game modes and so on is problematic no matter how you look at it. For example: There is a reason why most - if not all - single-player mods have a short amount of gameplay hours. Just look at Black Mesa: Source which has been in development for like forever. If you've played the first Half-Life game then you know that the story and actual gameplay -time is HUGE. Even big studios have a problems combining SP and MP. I'm not saying it's impossible but the amount of work is just twice as much.

But don't get demoralized here because you should know that every game designer - even the most "pro" ones at Blizzard, EA, Sony and so on - has to cut down on their content lists and game design ideas. That is the very nature of that role. A great game designer is someone who can cut down on his ideas, story and content list and STILL make the game work and be exciting and fun to play. They are good at adapting, and knowing what takes too much time to do.

I would strongly advice that you first and foremost focus on the multiplayer variant (deathmatch). And once you have a good prototype there you can move on to creating Co-Op scenarios and implement your game story. Or if you really, really wanna do the single player then you scrap multiplayer all-together and just focus on that. But please, pick one and work from that instead of trying to do everything at once - because that will not work.

A thought about bosses and your story: A boss is a feature that requires a lot of work compared to how much enjoyment/excitement the player get from it. Once again I advice you to start small-scale, and work from that. If you are going Co-Op then start with one or two boss encounters and make those good before you do any more of them. Also, there are many ways to implement the story without using long NPC speeches, cutscenes and introductions. Think about that a bit... how can you implement your story into the game, if the game only had a multiplayer?

EDIT: You should buy the game developer -books written by Steve Rabin. I haven't read them myself but they got great reviews at Amazon.

Edited by: Nightshade

Niteshade wrote:

RevolutionarySam wrote: Throughout a lot of the game you are working co-op, but at some points you will have to go solo.

How is this going to be implemented? Is it a single-player campaign where some of the missions/quests are done with other players or are we talking about a design similiar to the Diablo game series?

Also, combining both single player, co-op AND versus multiplayer game modes will most likely break your team/mod appart due to the workload.
My suggestion is that you either focus on single-player - which requires a lot of content - or you focus multiplayer - which requires a lot of code. And if you want co-op elements you could make the mod/game kinda like the mod Sven-Co-Op (spelling). I know from experience that game designers always have grandiose ideas - ideas that will kill them if they try and get everything through. Implementing too many features, game modes and so on is problematic no matter how you look at it. For example: There is a reason why most - if not all - single-player mods have a short amount of gameplay hours. Just look at Black Mesa: Source which has been in development for like forever. If you've played the first Half-Life game then you know that the story and actual gameplay -time is HUGE. Even big studios have a problems combining SP and MP. I'm not saying it's impossible but the amount of work is just twice as much.

But don't get demoralized here because you should know that every game designer - even the most "pro" ones at Blizzard, EA, Sony and so on - has to cut down on their content lists and game design ideas. That is the very nature of that role. A great game designer is someone who can cut down on his ideas, story and content list and STILL make the game work and be exciting and fun to play. They are good at adapting, and knowing what takes too much time to do.

I would strongly advice that you first and foremost focus on the multiplayer variant (deathmatch). And once you have a good prototype there you can move on to creating Co-Op scenarios and implement your game story. Or if you really, really wanna do the single player then you scrap multiplayer all-together and just focus on that. But please, pick one and work from that instead of trying to do everything at once - because that will not work.

A thought about bosses and your story: A boss is a feature that requires a lot of work compared to how much enjoyment/excitement the player get from it. Once again I advice you to start small-scale, and work from that. If you are going Co-Op then start with one or two boss encounters and make those good before you do any more of them. Also, there are many ways to implement the story without using long NPC speeches, cutscenes and introductions. Think about that a bit... how can you implement your story into the game, if the game only had a multiplayer?

EDIT: You should buy the game developer -books written by Steve Rabin. I haven't read them myself but they got great reviews at Amazon.

Thanks a lot for your input Nightshade. And yes, I have played Half-Life 1 through, know about Black Mesa and am very excited about it! Good thing you let me know about how much work it'll be, so I think I'll spare multiplayer. What I meant by co-op is working with ai teammates. Though we could put in the multiplayer co-op in somewhere along the line. The bosses, I guess we can work on sometime way later in the project. And I will look into those books, thanks!

So this is the backstory of "The Jetsons"?

macacos2 wrote: So this is the backstory of "The Jetsons"?

HAHA! Not exactly, but nice way to put it.