Lots more details in latest news post, looking for more team members too - if you feel you have something you could add to the mod send me a pm for a chat.
I don't want to give too much info about the mod too early too fast as it's going to be alot of work and will take a long time to finish however I can still talk about what I want to achieve in the future - I really want to focus on the idea that everyone within the team of players should feel like they have an important roll to do within the team and should allways have a task they should be doing, Each of the 6 classes will have a very different feel to them and each has been designed with a certain roll to fill within the team.
As stated the game will be a top-down shooter like alien swarm however the in game camera will be the only thing recognisable at launch, Some people did complain about the camera of alien swarm however from a design perspective it does its job well and I don't see myself changing it much in the future, The maps have been designed with the players camera angle in mind and the set angle camera also allows for the creation of blind spots, This is not going to be a run and gun shooter where the players just run off and do there own thing. I'm going to be spending alot of time building the atmosphere and I actually want the players to feel like they are within a giant military complex overrun by aliens - they wont be able to just wonder of and the players will need to stick together and work as a team to survive.
I have lots of strange, yet fun (which is the most important thing) ideas I would like to try out for this mod and I would also like to directly involve the community with game development. Ive taken alot of inspiration from wc3 style custom maps which im sure some poeple here will have played - This mod will almost be my own take on "Notd Aftermath" within source, a very very fun wc3 mod.
I'm going to create a large open expansive world for players to explore while deciding where to go, what to do and what missions to complete. Typically a map will be broken up into a number zones and within each zone there will be "encounters" which will require the team to work together to finish and will be designed to be hard, players will die thus the re-spawn system comes into effect as non veteran players will need to have multiple attempts. When players die I don't want the game to simply end as all this would do is frustrate players, If players get bored or stuck with an encounter they can simply go and finish a different part of the map.
The encounters will also change depending on when the players decide to do them so each game experience will be unique allowing for lots of re-playability. Relating back to the above point, if players did get stuck on a certain zone and then choose to move on to a completely different section the encounter will have completely changed when they come back to it thus showing just how re-playable this game will be, I don't want to spoil any of the plot however the game world will completely change depending on how the players to go about the missions they have been set.
The game world will be absolutely gigantic, All the maps I create will be connected together and will link together to form a functioning world.
(also on a side note when development really starts to takeoff there will be a big focus of adding some kind of clan system into the game)
Unlocks will include weapons,items, vehicles and more. Unlocks can be earned in many ways - can rarely drop from bosses/mobs, earned from finishing very hard missions, random encounters or even found inmap. Unlocked items will be added to the players inventory of unlocked weapons and will then be able it use inmap by obtaining the required points from killing aliens and doing missions.
Thats all for now, more info coming soon. Enjoy :)
I'm being very experimental with this game but I think I have alot of good ideas which have not really been tried within industry, This game will have the level of detail of a single player experience while being a 6 player coop, nearly everything as a concept has been finished I just need to get people in to start helping are programmer with the coding side of the mod.
If you think you have something to add to this mod or even any questions send me a PM and I will get back to you.
Sorry for the lack of info atm, I will be making a big post including most of my planned ideas and features soon however I still need to type them up...
The sheer size of the map tells me that the mod extends it beyond the usual level lengths. Also the other features thats are listed should also make it better ingame. One thing I suggested was to have P.vs.NPC, in the Seggestion section of the forums. Since its a scifi-theme, could be Raiders, Military given orders to eliminate everyone(Not the same commander as the Marines players play as), people gone mad, or a PMC. Map is large enough fo something along those lines. But either way, its extreme large in comparison to the other maps of Alien Swarm. Hope you guys can work out the features you had listed that will be in the game. Looking forward to playing it.
I added some new in-game and hammer screenshots of a few parts of the first map I have been working on over the last few days. Also big news post is processing with lots more info about game mechanics so checkout that once it is up!
Thanks for the interest!
Sounds too good to be true, with so many features it is going to take a load of work...
Good luck, but I'm not getting my hopes up that this is even going to happen :p
I know there is lots to do but im not at all worried that this mod will eventualy be released and will be of very high quality. Im going to be working on it as a student project for the next 2.5 years, (im currently at uni studying game design, And I allready have the entire game planned out in detail, Also I allready have a basic unlock system which is working and have a good portion of the UI designed.)
Once some programmers become interested in this project it will really start to tske off.
Looking good, can't wait till this is out.
Video of the general layout of the first map is up and feedback is welcome :) - Think of the video as a guide to the layout of the map as it is still very much a work in progress - I'm going to be creating all my own custom textures and models once the layout has been finished.