OSMT Map Ideas

[SuperApe]

This is a good place to talk about ideas for implementing the Old Skool Monsta Toolz in any gametype, OSM Adventure or otherwise. I have updated this first post with some of my basic guidelines for implementing this toolset in various gametypes.

(OSM Level Design issues belong on another thread)

Using OSMT in any gametype

The Old Skool Monsta Toolz can be used in any gametype. However, it is up to the mapper / level designer to implement them in a way that offers more interest and challenge to players, rather than serving to frustrate and distract from player's enjoyment of the gametype. Be aware that monsters will attack all players equally, regardless of team. (NOTE: Unless they are explicitly assigned to a player team via ACTION_AssignMonsterToTeam) In general, the monsters should be used to guard powerful alternative items or routes to game objectives, rather than to guard the game objectives themselves. Be aware that gametypes that allow vehicles are inheritently more dangerous for players and monsters alike. Most monsters are no match for vehicle weaponry and should be appropriately supported against players with vehicles.

[SuperApe]

A simple tool that's only briefly mentioned in a few places in the documentation is the monster's realtionship with Triggers and Events.

A monster who is Triggered will make the trigger's Instigator (a Pawn who activated the Trigger) their Enemy. This is useful in cases such as an Alarm system that the player will trip and you'd like monsters that aren't in a line-of-sight to converge on the player and attack. Just match the Trigger's Event to the monster's Tag.

A monster who dies will trigger the Event set in their properties. This is used with CreatureFactories to cause the next monster to be spawned when one creature dies. This can also be used to allow the player to progress or achieve an objective by killing a monster. I use this method in the test map, OSM-PeakPerformance, to trigger the OSMEndGameTrigger when the player kills the Warlord. Just match the monster's Event to something you'd like triggered.

[King Mango]

Ape I've been working on some 'tiling' sMesh sets. Dungeone halls in sections that can be plopped down one after the other. I've got straights, 90's, T's, +'s slants etc...
Once I get some more work done on them (I'm practicing skinning them to make them look a bit bettter and have better shadowing) I'll make them available if anyone wants. I was thinking this might be really cool in a sort of oblivion type employment. We could have some sort of small outer environment with 'use' triggered teleporters to enter dungeons or tombs or caves.

[Lord_Simeon]

I've been thinking up how to use the monster tools and i've decided i'm going to try and make a multi level SP experience from it.

Using the teleporter > map name doo daa(teleports you to the next map).

Anyway, the ideas are still floating around but i have the main bits sorted out.

Australia 3000 years ago.
The main character will be a lone Aboriginal male (or female).
The story will be lone in the bush, all of a sudden alien spacecraft start appearing in the sky and beaming up Kangaroos (also Superapes creation).
The main character will investigate and start massing weapons along the way.
The starting weps will be a spear and boomerang, then in the same vein as Turok, work his / her way up to a Nuclear arsenal

Areas will include -
Australia - Bush area
- Salt flat
- Windy canyon type setting
- caves
- Uluru, which is also the Aliens secret underground base

Alien Base - Hangar
- Testing / autopsy / science labs
- main control rooms

Alien mothership - Corridoors / rooms / walkways etc

Alien homeworld - All sorts of wierd and wonderful places.

Hopefully i can pull this off, i'm pretty excited about it.
I can also use SuperApes matinee mut to blend scenes / level loads / interesting events to really give it some SP class.
I'm not sure about MOD loading and having saves but i can find out about that on the WIKI
Most weps will be custom, haven't really thought about that yet.

Anyway, it's still drawing board stage so i'm open to ideas

[King Mango]

[Lord_Simeon]

Thanks

Maybe something like this for a rough character?
I'd like to do female though for the sexy factor, but most Aboriginal women had their boobs hanging out........
I want to keep it PG rated.....lol, they'd have to be coveredup.

[Blitz]

I've had an idea for a long time that I thought might work well for an assault map, but it would probably work even better in SP. Basically, it's a level where the player is the primary mover in a giant Rube Goldberg machine. Monsters could be obstacles, or they could be penalties for operating the stages out of sequence, etc. The challenge would essentially be to solve the puzzle of operating the machine while under fire.

Like Lord_Simeon's idea, this could be expanded into several maps in sequence, as either pieces of one big machine, or just a series of machines.

My main problem with this idea is my need for lots of custom meshes that I don't have the time or skill to create. If someone with the mesh-making skills wants to team up on this one, I could probably find the time for doing the rest.

[Blitz]

Originally Posted by Lord_Simeon

I'm not sure about MOD loading and having saves but i can find out about that on the WIKI

This is actually pretty tricky, but I've worked on it in the past. I believe I have some code I can snarf to add the save feature. Maybe that should go right into the SP package, Ape? I can send you some example code.

[Sjosz]

The 'ideal' map/level idea for implementing a mod like this is of course some form of singleplayer adventure that brings the player in a world full of locales that would be the habitat of monsters (for popular reference see Unreal :P )

[SuperApe]

Originally Posted by Blitz

This is actually pretty tricky, but I've worked on it in the past. I believe I have some code I can snarf to add the save feature. Maybe that should go right into the SP package, Ape? I can send you some example code.

I've moved that discussion to OSMT Discussion & Ideas. It's a welcome addition to this project design.

I love that these ideas have been floating in your heads. I've got a few too that I can detail a bit later.

King Mango: I think that's awesome. Prefab dungeon-crawling goodness. This is surely an aspect of SP adventures that most will gravitate too. Making it easier to map for is a great idea. I do want to encourage all kinds of different scenarios and environments (indoor, outdoor, lo-tech, hi-tech, terrestrial, space, etc.) But, a dungeon crawling map is an obvious choice when you talk about traps and puzzles.

Lord_Simeon: This is truely awesome. It should be a blast to work on. I encourage all good story and cutscene goodness. Special Effects are definately encouraged. Weapons are made with both 1st person and 3rd person animations, I can probably help with a few of these. The player model would have to be made along with a series of animations to match the list of available player animations, in name if not matching the animation. I think replacing the player model is pretty easy to do once that's available. I definately encourage an increasing level of AI difficulty and sophistication as the story progresses. I want to highlight what these monsters can do.

Blitz: What a great idea. Very fun. Simple static meshes shouldn't be too hard, especially if they are more on the order of "garden variety", like "a bucket with a handle" or "a claw hammer", not "a thing that looks like a feather, but has scales and a chain-like tail hanging off it". I suggest you start a thread here just for model creation for your map. Give a list of descriptions of the most needed items and ask for help. This gives a good place to post progress pics and discuss it. I'm sure I can help with modeling.

[SuperApe]

Originally Posted by Sjosz

The 'ideal' map/level idea for implementing a mod like this is of course some form of singleplayer adventure that brings the player in a world full of locales that would be the habitat of monsters (for popular reference see Unreal :P )

Definately. I think we should try and find an environmet, situation and locale that hasn't been thought of yet and tackle it. I'd like to see a wide variety. Invasion pretty much covers the idea that the monsters come and get "us". So, I think the whole realm of going and getting the monters "where they live" is ripe for the picking.

[n3m35i5]

an excellent place to use all those traps would be a haunted house/labyrinth style map. you're stuck in there for one reason or another... and you have to get out. puzzles, riddles, mazes, and if you screw up, monsters. pull a wrong lever and the floor drops out from under you, leaving you sliding down several floor's worth of progress. a door needs a gear, which is in a completely diffrent room... guarded by an angry hive of razorflies. for that devious touch, it can include a room with a damaged floor, which fortunately separates you from a powerful brute. unfortunately you have to dodge his rockets to get out. it's just difficult enough to get out alive, but hard enough that you might be tempted to kill him. only in this case if you do, his buddies get P.O.'d and now you have several to contend with, ruining your chances of an easy escape.

[SuperApe]

Originally Posted by SuperApe

I think the idea of having a set of maps ready to go with this mod upon it's release is a good one. Since this is a new gametype, there is an opportunity here to shape the tone of this type of map and that opportinity won't come again after it's release.

I'd like this gametype to serve as the premiere storytelling gametype. I'd like it to be even handed in it's proportions of Monsters, Puzzles and Traps. I'd like to see a lot of variety and creativity in those elemets, in the cutscenes and in the stories players find themselves in.

In short, I'd like to set the bar high in an initial map pack: strong gameplay, strong visuals and strong story.

Originally Posted by King Mango

Well instead of a map pack how about a mini SP?

Originally Posted by Sjosz

I very much like the idea of a mini-SP in the sense that various mappers take one level (or part of the mini-SP) and work it out, after which everything's linked together. I'd imagine that the general gameplay-outline for a mini SP would be that it's really 1 huge-ass 3 ONS map sizes kind of level, which we can accordingly break up into 'chapters', or levels, each of course in an own style.... like at the end of each level there's a warp gate (like Stargate, or Serious Sam, or TimeSplitters) that warps you to the next section. Something Indiana-Jones-y anyone?

I really like the idea of joining a series of OSM maps together into a larger campaign, via teleporter, warp zone or the like. UDN has an excellent reference for level transitions which I will post on the OSM Level Design.

This is another standard SP aspect that should be shown off with this toolset. It should be workable right now.

[SuperApe]

Originally Posted by n3m35i5

an excellent place to use all those traps would be a haunted house/labyrinth style map.

This is a great idea. I like the combonations of puzzles, traps and monsters. I strongly believe that alone, they are boring, but just combine one with another and it's far, far more interesting. I encourage that whole-heartedly.

[Lord_Simeon]

This is actually pretty tricky, but I've worked on it in the past. I believe I have some code I can snarf to add the save feature. Maybe that should go right into the SP package, Ape? I can send you some example code.

Awesome, yeah this would be very good in the package.

Lord_Simeon: This is truely awesome. It should be a blast to work on. I encourage all good story and cutscene goodness. Special Effects are definately encouraged. Weapons are made with both 1st person and 3rd person animations, I can probably help with a few of these. The player model would have to be made along with a series of animations to match the list of available player animations, in name if not matching the animation. I think replacing the player model is pretty easy to do once that's available. I definately encourage an increasing level of AI difficulty and sophistication as the story progresses. I want to highlight what these monsters can do.

I did a search on Skin City last night and found a great model to use for the main player. I'm going with an Aboriginal Female
She looks pretty hot too, but covered up in the right areas. I can also use my default female 3DS MAX files to make some new animations for the cutscenes.
I'm OK with the weps, i was thinking of just making the 1st person views and having them all set to the boomerang for 3rd person. That way, when there's a cutsecene she'll have an authentic wep
And yes with the AI, an easy load of monsters to start with ever increasing in AI until the end.
I want to have a few sections similar to Serious Sam where your trapped in a courtyard / area and the monsters keep on coming......
Those sections are fun.

Blitz, i LOVE your idea too mate. Reminds me of the puzzle thing on the net, the one in Space where you have to divert the asteroid.
I'm up for making meshes for you if you need me too