Page 1 of 1

New idea for a story expansion... MULTIPLAYER!

Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2012 8:22 pm
by Meatsack
Hear me out... I'm just thinking out loud here and make no claim to exclusivity of execution.
Read: If you can make it before I get to it, then good job! I won't be mad.

So I've been mulling over a way to make a multiplayer story mod.
Yes, it will have to be a mod since to make it a story, one would need to edit the cres.dll of course.

Some considerations:
I figure I'd start with a short 2-player story since that has the best potential of replay-ability.
(Due to having to scrape up another live person to play with!)
The best game mode would be team de-rez since you can set the respawn points to each specific player.
Screen messages and events would be written into the cres.dll.
Friendly fire would be "always on" and have to be factored into the difficulty of the design.
Since levels are timed, I'd recommend setting the timer to its maximum limit.
* I yet have to come up with a suitable level ending method.
* Frag count is not feasible since friendly fire might end the match prematurely.
As in all multiplayer arenas, moving objects are to be avoided at all costs.
AI should be fine in single-digit numbers. See: moving objects.
Perhaps a Kill-All field can be activated level wide if a player derezzes to kill the other player
thus simulating a level-reset. That way, both players must survive to complete the objective.
Levels can be 1-round with multiple levels queued in an intentional order to simulate level progression.

I'm still thinking on this, but I just wanted to get something written down before I forget my musings.
I guess my next step is a good storyline. I'll be posting here again when I get on another roll.
Thanks for listening.

Re: New idea for a story expansion... MULTIPLAYER!

Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2012 7:46 pm
by deeahchur
Some moving objects can be implemented, but it depends on the complexity and purpose.

For a Co-op that would discourage friendly fire accidents, my suggestions include the following:
  • Single-use triggers that require the other same-team player to activate to allow the other same-team player to advance
    Same-team players start in different areas that are actually geometrically separated from each other and are difficult to target the same-team player or are separated by force fields
Competitive co-op could have more than one team but play off the advance of each other, even requiring such, thus encouraging strategic derezzing, instead of blatant for-the-thrill derezzing.

If you want, we could use some of my YCP maps as testing grounds for these.